The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Today, the House would like to welcome a former Member of the House of Assembly who is with us in the gallery today, Mr. Sam Winsor.

Welcome to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The following members' statements will be heard: the hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave; the hon. the Member for the District of Grand Bank; the hon. the Member for the District of Humber Valley; the hon. the Member for the District of Kilbride; the hon. the Member for the District of The Isles of Notre Dame; and, the hon. the Member for the District of Mount Pearl North.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, on Friday, May 2, I had the pleasure of attending a prom night for the class of 2008 at Ascension Collegiate in Bay Roberts.

The celebration began with a church service at the Pentecostal Tabernacle in Port de Grave, followed by a dinner which was held at the Bay Arena with 900 people in attendance.

The theme for the event was: Tonight's Dream – Tomorrow's Memory. It was an evening to remember, celebrating with 240 graduates that made up the forty-third graduating class at Ascension Collegiate.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Philip Wood, the principal, encouraged the students to continue with the same commitment and hard work as they had experienced at Ascension Collegiate and they would certainly achieve their dreams.

The valedictorian speech was presented by Kayla Bishop. Travis Simms and Samantha March were crowned Prom King and Queen.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join me in saying thank you to the staff of Ascension Collegiate for a job well done, and extending sincere congratulations to the graduating class of 2008.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Grand Bank.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recently, I took part in the Annual Sea Cadet Inspection for RCSCC 237 Truxton in Lawn. This annual inspection, Mr. Speaker, is an opportunity for the cadets to demonstrate what they have been learning for the past year, to invited guests and to members of the general public.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, I was provided the opportunity to serve as the Reviewing Office for this inspection, and I have to congratulate the cadets, and their leaders, for the wonderful display of skill and ability.

Things went extremely well through the annual inspection, and this was followed by the awards banquet.

Mr. Speaker, there were a number of awards presented at the banquet, and I want to congratulate all of those who were selected as recipients; however, there were eleven cadets who were highlighted for having maintained perfect attendance at all cadet functions and gatherings, and I would like to congratulate them for this, Mr. Speaker.

This recognizes the tremendous commitment these cadets have given to their organization, and demonstrates their maturity and dedication. As I said at the banquet, this is a trait that is admirable and sought after, and I encourage them to build upon this dedication in all they may become involved in, or in whatever direction their life takes them.

The cadets worked hard, Mr. Speaker, to prepare for this event, and I ask all members of the House to join me in congratulating the cadets of RCSCC 237 Truxton in Lawn.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Humber Valley.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand in this hon. House today to acknowledge the work of the Deer Lake Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber held its fourth Annual Business Showcase at the Hodder Memorial Recreation Centre in Deer Lake on May 2-3, 2008. This two-day event was packed with exhibits, demonstrations and information sessions. The event is growing, and this was the first year that the showcase used the entire stadium. In fact, nearly fifty booths were booked, which was pretty much the capacity of the event.

Mr. Speaker, compliments should definitely go to the local business community. It was clear they bought into the concept and made a real effort to put together interesting and exceptional displays, but the lion's share of the credit has to go to the Deer Lake Chamber of Commerce. In just four years they have gone from sparse participation to filling the floor of the stadium. They have also found ways to attract more people to the event.

This year, the Chamber put together a huge array of door prizes and demonstrations from all sorts of groups and businesses, to keep the event entertaining. It is a real feather in the cap of the Deer Lake Chamber and, judging by the buy-in from the local business community, it is a boost to the economy as well.

This event was open and free of charge, but the public were encouraged to make a donation of a non-perishable food item or monetary donation to the Deer Lake food bank.

I would like to congratulate Susan Goulding, Chamber Executive Director, and the Chamber for hosting this very successful event.

I respectfully ask all members of this hon. House to join me in congratulating the organizers and supporters of this event.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Kilbride.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DINN: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a young man from my district who has faced significant challenges but has nevertheless encountered great success. Stephen Wilkins is a Grade 12 student at St. Kevin's High School in the Goulds who was diagnosed with a mild form of cerebral palsy at the age of one and had corrective surgeries on both legs at the ages of two and eight to enable him to walk.

Stephen has always strived to be independent and does not allow small obstacles to interfere with him achieving his goals. He maintains an 85 per cent average in school and has recently applied to MUN for the fall semester with the hope of being accepted into the Faculty of Engineering.

Stephen is an avid chess player and began playing chess in Grade 2 when a school chess club was started at Goulds Elementary. He has played competitive chess at numerous school tournaments since then, advancing to the provincial and national level. He has won the Provincial Chess Championship each year since Grade 4, which qualified him to represent his grade level at the annual National Chess Championships.

He recently played his final school level provincial tournament at Hatcher House, MUN, and won, qualifying him to travel to Edmonton, Alberta in May of this year to represent Newfoundland and Labrador at the national tournament. Stephen and his family are extremely proud that they will be carrying the Newfoundland and Labrador flag while introducing the team to the rest of the country.

The Newfoundland and Labrador School Chess Association has played a major role in Stephen's success with chess.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members of this House to join with me in congratulating Stephen on his many successes with chess and wish him all the best at the national championship in May.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Isles of Notre Dame.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DALLEY: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to recognize the success of the Fogo Island 50+ Club. The Club was formed in 2005 with forty-two members and it has since grown to over 100 members, ranging from fifty to over ninety years of age. The group gathers once a month to share in a social evening of conversing with friends, enjoying a meal and engaging in fun activities.

Mr. Speaker, the Fogo Island 50+ Club has become a very active group on the Island. Catering to special events, supporting fund raisers, and supporting youth groups are a few of the contributions this wonderful group is making to the Island. Most recently, the Club has been engaged in a very commendable effort to visit all seniors on the Island and videotape their visit to help preserve the history of these valued citizens.

Mr. Speaker, the spirit and enthusiasm of this group is lead by Mr. Edward Combden. Mr. Combden is passionate about the 50+ Club and, along with many others, he is to complimented for his leadership and commitment to providing such a great opportunity for the people of Fogo Island.

The Fogo Island 50+ Club has helped to connect communities and they are indeed a respected voice for the past, the present and the future of Fogo Island.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in congratulating the Fogo Island 50+ Club and wishing them all the best in the future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Mount Pearl North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to recognize the work of Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador; more specifically, the launch of the new Learners' Network Initiative held in St. John's about a month ago.

Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador is helping our people by ensuring that every person has access to the services they provide. This organization believes that every person has the right to the literacy and learning programs they require to succeed.

Awareness is key in terms of literacy and lifelong learning. The statistics are staggering with respect to literacy in our Province. It is vital that our government continue to support literacy initiatives such as those undertaken by Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador.

The new Learners' Network Initiative that was recently announced provides those who work directly in the adult learning field, the instructors, practitioners and learners, as consultants to Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador. These learners have much to offer in developing this network. They will enhance the efforts of Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador so that they can continue to provide the best services to the people of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join me in recognizing Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador for the positive work they do on a daily basis by offering support to those in need.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by ministers.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to acknowledge May 4 to May 10 as Compost Awareness Week. Composting is an efficient and effective way to reduce the amount of organic waste we send to our landfills.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, 300 tons of organic waste goes into our landfills on a daily basis. It accounts for approximately 30 per cent of all waste generated in the Province. When buried in our landfills, this organic waste produces harmful greenhouse gases as well as a toxic liquid, commonly known as leachate, which can pollute our soil and water.

Composting is a quick, simple way, Mr. Speaker, for us to take ownership of this waste stream and manage it in a more environmentally responsible manner. With little effort, we can help reduce the amount of organic waste going to waste disposal sites, help reduce pollution, lower waste collection and disposal costs at the local level, and create healthy and beautiful lawns and gardens just by composting in our own backyards.

In the fall of 2005, Mr. Speaker, the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board launched a two-year backyard composting program with a substantial investment from its Waste Management Trust Fund. Through the sale of subsidized compost bins and a major public education and awareness initiative, MMSB set out to increase participation in backyard composting by 50 per cent. I am pleased to report, Mr. Speaker, that the program received an overwhelming response throughout the Province and, in fact, Mr. Speaker, the MMSB sold out of its 10,000 inventory of compost bins in the first six months of the program. They acquired an additional 10,000 bins which were also quickly taken up by residents throughout the Province.

Together, through actions such as backyard composting, Mr. Speaker, we can all make valuable contributions towards protecting our environment. We need to take action by composting at home, at work and at school.

The environment belongs to all of us, Mr. Speaker, and it is therefore up to all of us as individuals, groups and businesses to lead by example and do our utmost to protect and enhance it.

I was pleased as part of Budget 2008 to announce $620,000 for year one of a three-year, $2 million Newfoundland and Labrador Green Fund, which will help support projects and feasibility studies that contribute to energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: We invite environmental groups, businesses and the public, Mr. Speaker, to submit innovative proposals that have broad applications for achieving these reductions.

I encourage everyone to focus on sustaining our environment and participate in activities that promote composting this week. The national launch of Compost Awareness Week took place at MUN Botanical Gardens on Sunday, and they will host a variety of lectures and demonstrations throughout the week. For additional information on composting, please visit the MMSB's Web site or call their office.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advanced copy of her statement, and to say I have to agree that this being Compost Week, I know full well how well those bins work and so many people have them. I did not realize there were 20,000 of them out there but in the meantime, they do work. I have one of my own.

Mr. Speaker, one thing I want to say to the minister, is that when we talk about the environment - and I know there is money for it, the minister mentions that there is $620,000 this year and $2 million over the next three years. I hope that we are soon going to hear something on the recycling of tires. There are major problems in the New Harbour landfill. I have to be careful how I say that - the landfill - but if you saw the pictures you would have to call it a dump.

The other one: hopefully, some funding will go into the cardboard recycling here in the city, when Ever Green had to close down.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, we agree with the statement, but hopefully the funding that is mentioned at the end of her statement, we will see what is going to happen with those three issues that I brought forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for her advance copy.

I, too, am quite pleased with the strides that have been made by the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board, but I would like to remind the minister that other jurisdictions have shown that backyard composting in and of itself is not sufficient with regard to diverting organic waste, especially in high-density areas.

I would really encourage the government to look at investment into municipalities, especially where there is high density, to work with them with regard to having door pickups with regard to organic waste, not just depending on backyards, because in high-density areas they do not have the space to have organic waste being composted.

I am delighted to see that in the municipality of St. John's it looks like they are going to have the sidewalk pickup by the year 2010, which is only nineteen months away, with regard to compost. I would like to see that happen elsewhere. Not all municipalities have the capability that St. John's has, so I would encourage the government to look at its role in investing for sidewalk pickup as well with regard to compost.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, today I participated in an important event which raises awareness on the need to make our workplaces injury and illness free. This afternoon, I was proud to raise the flag declaring this week as North American Occupational Safety and Health Week or NAOSH Week. I was joined by my hon. colleague, the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, and the local chapter of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineers, along with a number of companies who are leaders in occupational health and safety.

NAOSH Week occurs every year during the first week of May. Employees and employers across Canada, the United States and Mexico participate in events to promote a greater awareness of the importance of having safe workplaces. The Occupational Health and Safety Branch of the Department of Government Services is a proud participant of this week. We are here to work with employers and employees, and are committed to doing our part to ensure safe workplaces.

This year's theme is Safety and Health, A Commitment for Life. Start Today… Live it Every Day! This excellent theme reminds all of us that good health and safety practices need to become a way of life. We all need to make a commitment today to do our part in making our workplaces injury and illness free and incorporate safety at home or at play. Safety, Mr. Speaker, is not just for workplaces.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the local chapter of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineers who put a tremendous amount of work every year into promoting NAOSH Week. I am proud that this group was the pioneer of NAOSH Week. Their recognition of the benefits of improving attitudes towards safety quickly turned into a need to recognize this important issue across the rest of North America. Our safety professionals have shown that they are leaders in spreading the message about injury and illness prevention in our workplaces.

Mr. Speaker, workplaces all over the Province are celebrating and recognizing NAOSH Week through many activities which promote safe work practices. I encourage everyone to do something in their workplaces this week which recognizes the importance of this issue.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the minister providing me with an advance copy of his statement.

It is indeed not only a celebration and recognition of it, by doing that. That, in and of itself, of course, becomes an education because we cannot do enough to make health and safety issues in the forefront in our Province. Unfortunately, health and safety often only become an issue when there is an accident and when there is an injury, and then it is too late. So, the more we can celebrate it and recognize it the better.

In the past, even the recent past, we have had some terrible incidents in this Province with explosions on tankers. We have had refinery explosions. We have had work site issues where safety just was not abided by.

I don't know if it is built into Newfoundlanders and Labradorians over the years, but we just did not always take the necessary precautions that we ought to. Now, of course, the more something happens, unfortunately, we are at least becoming cognizant of it and getting into health and safety.

I notice, too, the concentration on the health piece - not only safety in the occupation but also health. It is nice to see that a lot of companies in the Province now are actually providing healthy activities and time outs for their employees, which, of course, is part of being healthy and being safe as well.

I would say hats off to I believe it is the Workplace Safety Commission who have the ads on TV, because a picture is worth a thousand words. Some of those ads that I have seen are very, very telling, and they just strike you, particularly the one about a gentleman talking about going to his daughter's wedding. As the camera retracts you see that he is actually a victim of a workplace hazard, an occupational hazard and safety issue.

That educates people, and it is good to see, and congratulations to anyone who promotes health and safety in our workplace.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for his advance copy of the statement.

It is so important that we do take time to recognize what is going on in our workplaces and the need for occupational safety and health awareness, and everything that we can do to make people become alerted to the dangers in the workplace and their role and what they need to do themselves, is absolutely essential; even things like the raising of a flag becomes important. People look at the flag, they ask questions. I would like to point out that we do have a serious situation in the Province. Here in this Province, we had almost 8,000 occupational injuries in 2007, and we do need to have a prevention focus.

When the Statutory Review Committee released its report - and we waited two years for the government to respond to it - one of the things they recommended was the Department of Education needed to have health and safety programs in every high school and post-secondary institution. Having read the government's response, I actually found it running short of what was recommended. I really would ask government to review the recommendation, review its response to it and to work with the Minister of Education, because we have too high a rate of accidents among our young people. Young people are starting to work as teenagers, while they are still in school, and we need a much more aggressive program of education in our schools.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to take this opportunity to inform the members of the House about a new social marketing campaign that the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission is implementing to raise awareness about the importance of workplace safety. The need is clear when each year thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians suffer job-related injuries and illnesses at work. It is also fitting, given that this is North American Occupational Safety and Health Week.

For the past four years, the Commission has increased public awareness about workplace health and safety, and the prevention of injuries. Building upon this work, the new SAFE Work campaign strengthens the focus on injury prevention through a series of new television commercials that began last week.

SAFE, Mr. Speaker, is an acronym for Spot the hazard, Assess the risk, Find a safer way, Everyday.

SAFE Work will enable the Commission to better engage the public and move from raising awareness, to putting forth a call for action. The fundamental message being conveyed is that simple everyday actions undertaken in the workplace can prevent an injury.

The campaign will complement existing Commission prevention initiatives including, the employer incentive PRIME program, the CEO Leadership Charter and the injury prevention workshop series. The new social marketing campaign was developed in partnership with the provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island workers' compensation boards.

Mr. Speaker, the Commission has found that the previous awareness campaign had a positive and successful impact in getting injury prevention messages into the workplace, as was referenced a bit earlier. The research shows that over 70 per cent of people in our Province recall seeing the campaign and agreed it made them think about workplace safety. We are also seeing positive improvements in the lost-time incidence rate, which between the years 2000 and 2007 has fallen by 38 per cent. The new SAFE Work campaign goes a step further. It demonstrates how to eliminate injuries at work and at home by placing an active focus on spotting the hazard and then removing it.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Commission is providing the necessary leadership to promote workplace health and safety and prevent and reduce workplace injuries. The goal is to create safe environments and greater awareness resulting in zero injuries and zero fatalities on the job.

Mr. Speaker, when we focus on creating a safety culture in Newfoundland and Labrador, we help reduce the human and financial toll of workplace injuries. After all, workplace injuries impact our families, our colleagues and the community at large. Workplace safety must be a top priority for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advanced copy, and to say that the Opposition agrees with this new initiative that is being put in place so that safety issues can be first and foremost with all workers in this Province.

Only recently, Mr. Speaker, we had a ceremony here in this very building where we remembered those who lost their lives while on the jobs. Anything that can be done should be done to make our workplaces all that much safer. It is good to see the figures that the minister had mentioned, that 70 per cent of the people in this Province are paying attention to the literature and the advertisements that are out there and to know that the lost time rates have been reduced by a whopping 38 per cent.

Mr. Speaker, I guess no odds how safety minded we are accidents will take place from time to time. Hopefully, the Commission will continue, not only to go with the programs for safety but to work along with the injured workers the best way possible because, as the minister stated, no doubt it affects them financially and their families in the long term.

Once again, thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for his advanced copy.

I thank both this minister and the previous minister who spoke for giving us two opportunities to speak to this important issue today. I mean that seriously. It is good that you both focused on it, because it gives me a chance to point out that in 2007 we had 4,353 reported lost-time accidents here in this Province, and then there were also 3,601 claims that had to do with health care, resulting in a total of 7,954 workplace injuries. That is a high number, and anything that we can do to bring down those numbers is going to be essential.

The reality is, injuries do happen, and I want to point out to government as well that we have to make sure that, when they do happen, the injured worker is taken care of very quickly. One of the keys to reducing claim duration times, is early and appropriate treatment of injuries. We want people to get healed quickly so that they can go back to work quickly, but we are going to need more occupational health clinics - we need them around the Province - to deal with injured workers, so that we can reduce claim duration times and we can get people back to work quickly.

We understand today that claim duration is approximately 40 per cent higher than the national average here in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I encourage the minister to look at the reasons for the claim duration time being so high in our Province and to start finding ways in which to bring that percentage down.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

Before the Chair calls Oral Questions, the Chair would like to rule on comments made earlier, on April 24, by the hon. the Minister of Justice.

On April 24, the hon. the Minister of Justice raised a point of order with respect to some comments made by the hon. the Opposition House Leader. In making his point of order, the Minister used language which the Opposition House Leader described as improper.

The Chair had not heard the comments, and undertook to review Hansard. The transcript showed that the hon. the minister said, and I quote, "What happens, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to you, is whether intentionally or inadvertently, it was an attempt to mislead this hon. House by putting this kind of documents - by referring to them and then not having them to back it up."

All members are aware, I am sure, that it has been held consistently in this House that it is not acceptable to say that a member has deliberately misled the House. In a ruling made on May 16, 2002, on a similar expression, in that case it was said: Why did he try to mislead the people into thinking…. - the Speaker ruled the expression "try to mislead" is unparliamentary, as there is a suggestion of deliberation or intent.

In the opinion of the Chair, the same principle applies in this case and I ask the hon. the Minister of Justice to withdraw the comment "it was an attempt to mislead."

The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I withdraw the comment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Oral Questions.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, over the past couple of weeks the Minister of Education continuously stated that there were no fire and safety hazards in schools.

In last week's The Compass newspaper, the fire chief of Bay Roberts noted his frustration in conducting fire inspections. He noted problems such as overcrowding at concerts, improper storage of flammable materials, storage in improper spaces, and even a lawn mower and gas being stored in a closet.

As these problems still exist at schools and are being raised by the fire chiefs at a local level, I ask the minister: Is she still certain today that all fire regulations are being followed in every school across the Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as I have said, certainly fire safety is very important in our schools. If a fire chief from any particular area has been dealing with a school which has not been co-operative with following orders, I would certainly like to see those reports forwarded; and, in discussing with the school board, it would absolutely be a priority that if any fire department or any fire chief has any outstanding orders against the school that I will make sure they are followed.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is my understanding, from talking to these fire chiefs and the fire inspector's office, that these people do the inspections on the schools but there is no process or protocols in place in which they must follow up on those inspections or ensure that there is compliance, so I ask the minister: How are they supposed to know if the changes are actually made and corrections are made?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, if a fire department or a fire chief out there has a report on a school and has orders that they want followed, I will ensure that the school board follows those orders and I will also follow up and make sure the school board confirms back with that fire department or with that fire chief to let them know that work has been completed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr Speaker, I understand now that in the event, and because there is a gap in the process that is followed for these inspections, that on a go-forward basis the minister, herself, is now going to take it upon herself to ensure that work is done and compliances met?

I am asking that a process be put in place. Do you think that is an acceptable process?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that if the Leader of the Opposition does not want me to follow up or to take action when she is asking me a question in this House, she need not bother ask.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, we are talking about serious life safety issues in our schools, and I don't appreciate the minister's attitude here.

What I am asking the minister, Mr. Speaker, is what the process is.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: Once the fire chief in a community goes into a school and conducts an inspection and writes up an inspection report, Minister, that says this, this, this and this has to be done, there is no process in this Province whereby that inspector can follow up or ensure there is compliancy.

Am I hearing right, that on a go-forward basis, that will now be your job?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I expect that the school boards in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador do take fire safety very seriously. We have our daily reports done, monthly they go into the boards, annually we have companies go in and inspect the schools as well.

Mr. Speaker, in the case where we have a fire chief or a fire department that puts a request into the school board to ensure that work is done, I will ensure and make sure that the school boards do take those orders seriously and follow up.

If we do have a situation that needs follow-up, and the Leader of the Opposition is asking me here in the House if that work will be done and the department will be notified that the work is done, yes, they will be notified.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, the only process that we are aware of that is in place is a checklist that is conducted in schools either by a janitorial staff or signed off by the principal at the end of the day, whatever the case.

I ask the minister: Does she feel that this current checklist process is detailed enough to, first, not only identify the problems that exist but to also ensure that the corrections are made and that the compliancy is met?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, there is a process in place to bring issues to the school board so that they can address the issues as they are made aware of the issues.

Mr. Speaker, we have invested significantly in the infrastructure of our schools. We have the biggest budget. We have $88.8 million. We take the conditions of our school very seriously. We want to make sure that we have safe, healthy environments for our students. We certainly make sure that life safety issues, including fire safety, are part of that process.

Mr. Speaker, we have taken other initiatives, as well, to make sure that our schools are safe places for our students, and we will continue to do so.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, fire departments across the Province are currently responsible for conducting fire inspections at schools, and, as we know, many of these departments are volunteer.

I ask the minister: With the current process that is in place, who does the liability rest with should an inspection report be completed and then a fire happens in that school?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, if there is an inspection done on any particular school by the fire department or by a fire chief and it is submitted to the school board for them to act upon, it would be incumbent upon them, as they are responsible for the operations of that school and for the maintenance, that they would follow up on such activity.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is about liability issues. This is a case when a local fire chief goes into a school, does an inspection, and presents it to the school board and the fire commissioner's office. In the event there is a fire or some other unsafe practice that happens in that school, I ask the minister again, who is liable in that particular situation, knowing there is no follow-up process?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, it would be incumbent upon the school board, as I said, who is responsible for the operations of the school, whether they receive a report from the fire commissioner's office or a fire department or an individual in the community who outlines a life and safety issue, whether it is a fire safety issue or a hazardous situation in a school, that any time information comes forward that could jeopardize the safety of the students it would incumbent upon the school board to act on that information.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, fire alarm companies say that they often go to schools to inspect alarms and they are equipped to fix most malfunctions on the spot. However, in schools they usually have to wait between five to six months in some cases for the schools to receive financial authorization from their boards before they can actually go back and do those repairs.

I ask the minister, to ensure the safety of teachers and students, will you allow schools to immediately authorize these expenses and have these alarm systems fixed at the same time that inspections are being done?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated – certainly, this government takes the maintenance and the operations of our schools quite seriously - we have probably had the largest allocation for school construction and maintenance at $88.8 million.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, last year we increased the allocation to school boards for maintenance of their schools so that it went from fifty-five cents a square foot up to ninety-two cents. So, Mr. Speaker, we are very serious about that. We certainly increased the budgets for our school boards to do that. I would also expect that the school boards, when they are dealing with life safety issues, that they make that a priority and ensure that that work is done on a priority basis.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister: Will she give authorization or certainly give guidance to the school boards at this stage to ensure, in the future, when fire alarm companies are going in to inspect alarms in schools, if they find malfunctions, that they will have the authority to correct it right there, right on the spot?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I will make sure that the chairs of the school boards and the Directors of Education understand that life safety issues that need to be rectified and fixed in an immediate or short-term basis should receive that attention.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, there are a number of schools out there in the Province, it is our understanding now, that are not being inspected by fire chiefs or fire departments simply because the volunteer fire departments in those areas are not active for some reason or another. In cases like this, we are coming to understand that the only kind of inspection at all being done is a checklist being performed at the school by individuals that have not been properly trained in what the fire and safety codes are.

I ask the minister, is she concerned about this and what she will do to change it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as I have said a number of times during this particular Question Period, is that the school boards are tasked with the responsibility for the operations of the school. I would think that the people who do the daily inspections are people who understand what they are looking for, who know how to complete the checklist. It is co-signed by the principal who would be available to answer questions if the particular person who is responsible for that did not understand what they were asked to do. In addition to that, those reports are submitted to the school board, to an operations manager as well.

Other than the reports that go to the school board, the operations manager would have the ability to act on any issues that need to be corrected. There is also an annual inspection done by independent companies in our schools. So, Mr. Speaker, there is a process in place. In addition to that, a fire department or a fire chief as well has the ability to do an inspection of the school. That is another safeguard that we have in our schools. So, Mr. Speaker, the process that is -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude her answer.

MS BURKE: The process that is set up by the school board does encompass more than a daily checklist. There is also checks and balances in place.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know the minister has said repeatedly in this House that they would not send the fire commissioner in to do the inspection on the schools or his office, but, Mr. Speaker, we heard the same response when we talked about hospitals in this Province. After the hospitals were inspected, we found a very different situation; actually, a whole list of facilities that need work.

Mr. Speaker, we have been contacted by a number of people. We do not know if the information we have been given is factual or if it is not but we will be passing on a list of schools to the fire commissioner's office to have checked in the Province.

I ask the minister: Is she prepared to grant the fire commissioner the permission to be able to go out and do the checks on those schools at least?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, the fire commissioner's office has the right to inspect any public building in Newfoundland and Labrador, including schools.

Mr. Speaker, if the fire commissioner's office decides they are going to inspect any school, I would think that as the Minister of Education I do not have the right to stop the fire commissioner from doing any type of inspection. Mr. Speaker, nor have I ever said, as the Minister of Education, that we would be in any way blocking the fire commissioner's office from inspecting any school.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Last week the government unveiled more details related to the $1,000 baby bonus plan. The cut-off date for qualifying is one issue that has been a major concern to women and families that have contacted us.

I ask the minister: Why was the baby bonus not retroactive to October, to the date the Premier announced the program, which was at the height of an election campaign?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is interesting to note that the member opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, would have thought that an election platform was a government announcement. That is how confident they were that we were going to actually form government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind members of the House and the members of Newfoundland and Labrador, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, that during election time it is common practice for political parties to lay out a platform: here are the kinds of things that we plan to do over the next four years or eight years, depending on the mandate that the people would give us.

Last year, in 2007, our party laid out a very extensive platform of things that we would do as a government if we were to be re-elected and what we planned to do over the course of four years and lay out a blueprint for Newfoundland and Labrador for many years into the future. One of those items, I say, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One of those items we announced last week.

I remind the member opposite not to confuse a political party's election platform with a (inaudible) announcement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister needs to realize that when the announcement was made, at the end of September, it was taken as a commitment by a lot of people in this Province. I think he is getting the e-mails, just as I am getting the e-mails, that this was going to be a program retroactive to the date in which government was actually out talking about it.

Mr. Speaker, last week, when questioned in the House of Assembly, the Minister of Health and Community Services stated that women who had their babies before January 1, but were still on maternity leave, would receive the $100 monthly supplement. He later corrected the information and said that women or families would not receive any funding.

I ask the minister: Why would a woman currently on maternity not be eligible for this $100 a month supplement?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, every program that has ever been announced in this House by this government, or any government prior to us, always had an effective date. One of the issues with effective dates is there is obviously a date before the effective date that many people might say: Had I been there or had it been effective much earlier, I would have benefited.

This program is no different, Mr. Speaker. We introduced this program effective January 1, so on a go-forward basis here are the benefits that you are entitled to. If something happened prior to that date, if you had a child maybe in 2007, 2006 or 2005, this program will not apply to you because it comes into effect January 1, 2008.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

Mr. Speaker, it has come to light as a result of a court case currently being covered in the media that some historical documents in the Province are being sent to a private company for shredding. I want to make it clear, I am not concerned about the court case; I am concerned about the issue of the shredding.

I ask the minister: Why are documents which potentially have historic significance being sent to be shredded, and who makes the decisions as to what documents will, in fact, be destroyed?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We, in the Province, and certainly as a government, value the historical records here. There is a three step process that takes place. The archivists make the first decision. Then it goes to the director. Then it goes to a specialized committee that is set up, made up of various departments and expertise in that particular area. So it goes through a very rigorous process and that is where it is, Sir.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious, I guess, from the details that are coming out, that the process failed somewhere. As I understand, the documents were originally in The Rooms, or part of The Rooms storage facilities, and yet they are being valued by experts at Memorial University to the tune of possibly a quarter of a million dollars.

What happened here so that the process did not work? These documents, boxes of them, were sitting in this private company to be shredded. Can you tell us what went wrong so that this happened?

If this case had not happened, and the box had not been stolen or whatever, they would have been destroyed.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I met with the staff last week and again this morning on this exact issue.

Mr. Speaker, this goes through a process, as I have said. It is unfortunate that in this case these records have shown up. I guess it is fortunate that we have arrived at - and these records will be protected; but, as I have said, articles are routinely dispersed of. In this particular case, they arrived at The Rooms collection and there were issues around mould, fungus, and so on and so forth. It went through a process and it was decided upon that these records would be indeed disposed of.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, to the minister, that is not sufficient. We know there is a process, as you say. We know the process failed. Somebody was going to destroy documents that we know the people at Memorial University were prepared to pay $122,000 for, possibly up to a quarter of a million.

What is the minister going to do to make sure that the process does not fail us again?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, that situation has been rectified.

As of 2005, there is a new system that has been put in place under The Rooms Act. Prior to that, these records were stored in numerous places, many of them where damp and mould could collect.

First off, those records in question have been put on microfilm. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that, as of now, records are much more efficiently taken care of. They are kept in a good state of repair. There are people now within the system, because of the increased capacity and financial support for that, conservatists who get out, take a look at these particular records, and keep them in mint condition, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister: Have you made any overtures, since this case became public knowledge, to have the twenty or so boxes that are the subject matter of that particular trial actually returned to The Rooms, now that they realize there is a mistake been made? Will they, in fact, be returned? Have you done anything to see that these documents - which are significant, according to many experts now, apparently - will they be returned?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I will not speak on particulars about it because it is before the courts, but we did have a discussion about that particular issue this morning and we will continue that discussion.

It is important to recognize that, as a government and as a department, we do not look at the monetary value of these. We look at the historical importance of those, and in light of that comment, Mr. Speaker, we will continue that discussion. Pending the court case, we will decide where we go from there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My final question to the minister in that regard is: Given the process that you have outlined - and that is the first time I was aware that there actually is a process to decide if there shall be destruction of documents - is it part of the process, or would you be prepared to have it be part of the process, that even if the so-called experts at The Rooms or wherever decide that it is not to be retained within the Province's mandates, these documents, is there anything in the process to see that some other body might have access to them rather than destruction - for example, public libraries around the Province? Because there are other agencies who may have an interest if government does not have the storage room. Is that part of the current process, or would you be prepared to have that included as part of the process?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is. Indeed, part of the conversation that we had last week and again this morning was in respect to the exact point that has been made. It is certainly something that we will be taking a look at.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

Mr. Speaker, the government recently announced long overdue changes to the teacher allocation, and the minister stated that the allocation would be on a needs basis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, she stated that the focus would be on a needs basis, and that the teacher ratio would remain as is or possibly some schools would get additional units; however, we are receiving many phone calls from schools throughout the Province saying that their numbers will be reduced this year.

I just ask the minister: Can she make a commitment that there will be no drop in teaching staff in any of the schools this year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, we announced a new method, a new means of allocating teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador because the other method that was in place was based on numbers only, but that did not work. I have some really interesting statistics as to indicate why that did not work.

What we have decided, Mr. Speaker, is that we have a cap size on our classes. Kindergartens at twenty; from Grades 1-3, it has now been twenty-five. It is being rolled out into the elementary grades at twenty-five, and twenty-seven starting in Grades 7-9 in this September coming. We also brought in an allocation for specialist teachers in the K-6, which has never been in place before.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the member to conclude her answer.

MS BURKE: So, Mr. Speaker, based on the new method of allocating we have right now, we have put more money in the Budget this year for teachers' salaries, but the allocation this year will be based on need.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Health and Community Services.

In February, the minister stated that the current home care financial assessment tool was not working and needed to be changed. If this government can afford to put over $1 billion towards the debt, it can afford the extra cost of using a fair assessment tool for home care.

I ask the minister: Will this government completely replace the home care financial assessment tool to allow seniors to qualify without restrictions for the home care support they need?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I do not like repeating myself, but let me repeat something I said last week in the House.

Last week in the House, in response to a very similar question from the Leader of the Official Opposition, I had indicated that our government is doing a complete evaluation of our long-term care and community support system. There are many aspects to that, Mr. Speaker, home support services, long-term care homes, personal care homes, alternate family living arrangements and an array of issues we are looking at. One of the things that is a piece of that is the whole financial assessment process. That mechanism determines how much a client contribution should be for an array of services, including the home support piece.

As I said last week, it is very difficult for us, as a government, or anybody who is being responsible, to cherry-pick one particular aspect of a major strategy and decide that you are going to respond to an issue today and try to plug a hole.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We would rather do it in a much, more comprehensive fashion. As I said last week, we are in the middle of that. It is an extensive piece of work. Some time during 2008, I suspect that we will have something to roll forward with.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is obvious this government is refusing to address a current crisis in home care until the long-term and continuing care strategy is completed.

Today the media reported that the change in the assessment tool, as the minister is indicating, will not happen before September, if then. Meanwhile, seniors like Patrick Connors must endanger his health because of providing full-time home care to his wife because the co-pay is too high. Government cannot force seniors to wait for a strategy.

What practical plans is this minister willing to put in place right now to deal with the short-term emergency that is happening right now for seniors needing home care? Don't we deal with the emergencies, Mr. Minister?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I was not sure what the question was. Great speech!

I just want to say to the members of this House, our government has only been in power for a little over four years, I say, Mr. Speaker, and we have taken our home support budget to just a little over $80 million a year, now close to $115 million a year we will pay in home support.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, that is a reflection of this government's commitment to home support services. We have had five increases in the wages paid to home support workers since we have been in government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, you plot that rate of increase in a dollar investment and rate of increase for the salaries being paid and compare that to any jurisdiction in this country and I say, Mr. Speaker, that will compare very favourably. Add that to the commitment we have made -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Add that to the commitment we have made to the redevelopment of our long-term care and community support services. I would say, Mr. Speaker, that reflects that government is truly committed to seniors in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will ask the question again, as clearly as I can make it: Does this government care about emergencies? We have situations which are emergencies that actually deal with people's health worsening because of the government not listening. Will you please consider putting something in place to deal with emergencies, Mr. Minister?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Every single day in Newfoundland and Labrador one of our four health authorities, or all four of them at any given day, and I suspect every single hour of every single day, our health authorities are responding to emergencies in this Province. It is the very nature of what we do in Health and Community Services, Mr. Speaker. We deal with people sometimes who are at the most vulnerable times in their lives. That is why we as a government, in the last four-and-a-half years, have increased our investment in health and community services by over one-half billion dollars, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: The Minister of Finance stood in this House earlier this week and delivered another Budget this year with, again, record increases in health and community services and we, as a government, will continue to make that kind of investment on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers have expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

MR. SPEAKER: As Chair of the Management Commission, I hereby table the documents and the minutes of the Management Commission meetings for April 11 and April 18.

Further tabling of documents?

Notices of motion.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Pursuant to the Standing Orders, this Wednesday being Private Members' Day for the Opposition, I give notice that a Private Member's Motion to be heard this Wednesday, moved by the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, seconded by the Member for Port de Grave.

WHEREAS home care is a special care that allows people facing health challenges to stay in their home and receive care; and

WHEREAS there is an immediate need for improved, affordable access to home care in the Province; and

WHEREAS government has acknowledged that the current system is flawed.

BE IT RESOLVED that this House urges government to immediately implement emergency measures to lessen the financial burden facing those requiring home care services in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Orders of the Day.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I call Motion 1, which will be resuming the Budget Debate. Motion one. I believe the debate was adjourned by our friend, the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

According to the clock, I have forty-six minutes and fifty seconds to finish my response to the Speech from the Throne, or excuse me the Budget Speech.

I do not think I will require the full forty-six, forty-seven minutes. I said most things on Thursday and I doubt if I am going to need the full time, but there were a few things that I did not finish saying on Thursday. I think it is necessary, of course, to revisit some of those things. I will just get my notes in order here.

Of course, we had the Budget last Tuesday. I guess the overview approach is what I took, because the government said: Here is the money we have going in; here is what we have going out. We have $1.4 billion left over from last year, as a surplus, and we are going to do certain things with it.

I put to the Minister of Finance at the time, and I am looking forward - he will get an opportunity to speak, and we will certainly get an opportunity to question him in the Estimates for Finance as well. I think the question put forward was a very reasonable one, and it requires an explanation, and that was: Exactly how was the $1.4 billion used?

Now, some people may be accountants and have a good idea, when you talk about budgets and financial statements and so one, but the average person, including myself – I don't understand, totally, the details, from looking at these budget documents, where the $1.4 billion went.

Now, I am sure it is probably in there somewhere, and I am sure if the deputy minister or the ADMs in Finance were to be here on the floor of the House they might be able to tell us, but we did not get it clearly explained by the minister, because he gave a Budget Speech. He did not get into the nitty-gritty details. He touched upon the policies – we will call it a treetop explanation, shall we say – as opposed to drilling down into the details. So there were some things that still, I would think, need to be answered so people have an understanding of what happened.

We know, of course, very well, from looking at the budget documents, where the money came from. We are currently very dependent upon our income from our mining and our oil resources; there is no question about it. A barrel of oil has gone from $35 a barrel four years ago, in 2004, to, I think it was trading yesterday at $116. It has been up even higher than that, but certainly for the past couple of months we have been above $100 a barrel. That, of course, puts a substantial amount of money, and far more money, into the economy than anybody expected when they did the Budget last year.

So, that surplus, that extra money that came in, the government had to make a decision what to do with it. That is the nature of my question, and I do not see it in here, exactly where the money went. The reason I say that is, we have – and the term used was, we had to pay down the debt.

If anyone remembers, when the Minister of Finance did his pre-Budget consultations, he had this fancy debt clock, he called it, saying that we have a certain amount of debt in the Province, and every second, virtually, every minute, every hour, there is a certain amount of interest that we have to pay on our debt. Then he went on to say that when we get a surplus – and we know that we are going to get one – we are going to take a certain portion of those monies and pay on that debt; because, the more debt we pay, the less interest we are going to have to pay. So, my question, looking at the Budget, was: Where did the $1.4 billion go?

I started to scour through the documents, and I read a few things, and what I have come up with so far is that we are going to take about $200 million of it and put into public sector wage increases. We know that the Premier and the government has offered to CUPE – which is one of the public sector unions, an 8 per cent raise in this year, 2008-2009, with further raises in three years of 4 per cent, 4 per cent, and 4 per cent.

The Minister of Finance is on record as saying that each percentage point that you increase the public sector, it adds about $25 million to the wage bill for the Province. So, I simply multiplied the 8 per cent increase in next year, this year, times that $25 million, and I come up with $200 million. So that gives me $200 million of the $1.4 billion; that is where it went.

So, I said, what did they do with the remaining one point two? I kept looking, and it looks like, from the documents, they are spending about $480 million on capital infrastructure. Now, that is not debt payment. Capital infrastructure, from what I understand, what that means is the government said: We need to build certain schools. We need to build certain hospitals. We need to invest money in water-sewer systems in municipalities. We have a certain amount of road work that we have to do. So, they put about $480 million into the infrastructure piece. If you take that off the one point two that is remaining, $480 million, I think we are down somewhere around $720 million left, roughly.

I said: Where did the rest of it go? - Because so far these two items are not payment on the debt. That is $200 million for the wage increase, and $480 million for capital infrastructure.

Then I looked at it, and it says there was $450 million paid to debt payoff. Now, that is not reducing your debt. For example, the Province, as I understand, and the minister has confirmed in his document, we owe over $11 billion – $11.8 billion – and that has been borrowed over the years. You go into a bank, or some lending agency somewhere. I believe all of our loans now are in Canadian or U.S. loans. I don't believe any more on the books there is any foreign debt owed. What that is, they have a number of loans – they might have taken them out over thirty years - and we are still paying a loan that we might have taken out in 1978, for example, from some bank in New York, and there is an interest rate.

As I understand how it works is we do not pay off like you do on a mortgage. We do not pay off so much for your principal and so much for your interest. My understanding of the way that it works is you just pay the interest. So, if you borrowed $100 million and you are going to pay it off over thirty years, you just pay the percentage interest every year; but, when you come to the final year, that is when you pay the $100 million back, the principal that you borrowed. That is my understanding of how it works in finance. I put the question to the minister earlier, and I would like to get an answer.

What we have here is this $450 million that I am talking about, that was on our standard; that was on our required debt payments. That is nothing new. The minister didn't go out to these companies and say: Oh, by the way, we have some extra cash kicking around so we are going to pay down $450 million on our debt.

That was money that was due anyway in that year, so there is no debt reduction there. That was a standard, principal payment that was expected and had to be paid. That is $450 million that comes off of your, I believe, $780 million, I said, so we are down around $300-and-some-odd million left out of that surplus of $1.4 billion.

I kept looking and, sure enough, there is an expenditure in here of $329 million that is going to go towards - it is broken out in two groups. I believe $100 million of it is going to go into Hydro, to fix their equity-debt ratio. That is not debt reduction, again. Also, $229 million is going to go into the energy corp. In fact, my figures of all of those, the $200 million for public sector increases, the $480 million for capital infrastructure, the $450 million for the normal debt payoffs, and the $329 million for energy corp., gives us over $1.4 billion. That left me with the question of, where in this Budget is the Province paying down its debt? I cannot see the answer here, and I am looking forward to the minister showing us the answer.

We kept talking about this famous clock, and all the interest being paid on it, and I was under the impression - I guess mistakenly - that we were going to take some of this $1.4 billion and we were going to say: Look, instead of eleven point eight, we are going to chunk it over there and pay off these debts now. The faster we get the credit card paid off, the better.

When I looked, and went through it like this, I cannot see where we paid anything extra on debt, other than what we already were expected and supposed to pay for that year. So, I am looking forward to the minister giving an explanation of what happened there.

There are also a number of things - I misplaced one piece of paper here I was looking for. I had done a little summary up from last week. Yes, I gave the overview of the Budget and my big question was on where the debt money went. I touched upon economic development because, obviously, we have all of our eggs in one basket right now based upon the current situation in terms of where our revenue is coming from, pretty well. We are bringing in money from oil. It looks like we are going to bring in money from oil in the foreseeable future. We are bringing in quite a bit of money from mining; I think $330 million last year. The bulk of which would have come from Voisey's, and other mining interests around. We have up in Wabush, of course, the Iron Ore Company of Canada. So we have some other mines on the go.

Basically, our revenue source - and taxation, of course, is another big one. In terms of resources, it is non-renewable resources that are putting the money in the pot right now. When you go forward you think about, where are we going to be two years out, or five years out? Of course, you have to get in some long-term planning. Where are we going to be twenty years out? Because a lot of times you hear politicians going around, when they are going for elections they will say, it is not us we are concerned about. It is your children we are concerned about and your grandchildren. That implies, of course, that you have to have some long-term plan. You have to look after things today but you also have to plan for the future.

There are two things, as I understand it - there are two ways to look at a plan. You either have to know where your revenue sources are now and you have to come up with some alternative revenue sources in the future or some diverse revenue streams that you do not currently have in order to keep the money in the pot, because eventually the oil is gone out of the ground, eventually the minerals are gone out of the ground, so you have to come up with some alternative or diverse revenue streams in order to keep the money going into the pot on a long-term basis.

The other thing is you have to very cautious and careful that you do not build into your budget permanent spending and make permanent spending commitments that are based upon temporary revenues. For example, we know in this Province, since 2004 going out to 2010, we will have increased the programming cost in this Province by 45 per cent. Now, that is a big chunk. You talk about where the money goes - anybody can check the records, it is right in the Finance Minister's own documents. We will, by 2010, have added to the cost of this Province, on every year fixed programming cost, 45 per cent increase since 2004. That is a pretty substantial increase. If you go back and compare it to your own household and size it up and say, I have increased the spending in my household in six years by 45 per cent. Now something must have happened. You have revenues coming in, that is fine but then you have to size it up: Well, I have that 45 per cent increase built in, am I going to be able to handle this in 2011, 2012 or 2020? You have to be careful when you build these things in.

We know right now, for example, based on public sector spending and based on what has been offered to CUPE, that it is eight, four and four. That is in the next three years. That is 16 per cent going to be added to the wage bill. Sixteen times $25 million a pop works out to be a substantial sum as well. So you are looking at about $500 million just in the wage package in the next three years, at a minimum. That is forgetting about the fact that some union bodies might be successful to negotiate something other than the pattern, or they might be able to negotiate some perks for themselves because they are special circumstances. I do not mean perks in the sense that it is unnecessary. I mean they might be able to negotiate some special deals for themselves or arrangements for themselves because they are special circumstances.

I will give you an example, the pathologists. We have had the Minister of Health met, as recently as Friday past, with the pathologists in the Province. They had to give them a package last year to supplement them, and that is a big issue. Dr. Danek has said again - and I believe Mr. Ritter, who is the executive director for the medical association, said this is not something you can deal with next year. This is not something you can even deal with six months out. This is something you have to deal with now because, quite frankly, whether people want to believe it or this government wants to believe it or not, the pathologists in this Province and who we have and who we retain and the technologists are reaching a crisis situation.

We do not know what yet the Minister of Health has to put into the package to put into the pot to make sure that we retain the pathologists. That is just one group. Add to that, of course, the nurses. I believe what Ms Forward said, according to what she saw in the Budget at least, she is the head of the nurses' union, there was not much in there to ensure that we recruit and retain nurses. I get the impression from that bold statement, and I think she used the words: Absolutely nothing in it for us. Now, if that is the case you have a pretty substantial group and a pretty important group in this Province who are out there saying, their head is saying, their representative is saying, that is not good enough for us. So, how much more are we going to have to put into the nurses pot, other than the 8 per cent, 4 per cent and 4 per cent in terms of benefits? We do not know. So that is going to be a substantial issue as well.

That is what I mean, you have to do one of two things if you have a long-term plan. You have to find some alternate revenues and you have to be careful and cautious about building up your long-term debt. Quite frankly, you can call this criticism, you can call it being critical but when a province increases its program spending by 45 per cent in six years that is a pretty huge increase. I think extreme caution needs to be used there, not to say that you cannot justify it or these wage increases are not justified, not to say that we should not put more money into health care, but I point them out just to show that it is ever more important that you must look for the alternate revenue sources because these things are indeed needs that we have and needs that you have to deal with. So you better have your homework done on the resource side and the revenue side if you are going to keep making the commitment, else wise we will find some government five or ten years out, the same as this government said in 2003: Oh, that crowd spent themselves into oblivion. They were spending like drunken sailors.

God forbid, if the price of a barrel of oil goes down to $35 a barrel again and we do not have any more resources found and we do not have the Lower Churchill on stream and we have cranked up our public service sector debt by 45 per cent. It is not going to be so fine and dandy then when somebody has to say: Oh, well, we are sorry. We did not know the barrel of oil was going to drop down to $35 a barrel. Then we find ourselves in it again where the next government says: Whoa, we have to scrap all of that because that bunch was like drunken sailors. So that is where the planning comes in.

Now there are lots of things on the horizon and I hope, for one, that they all come to fruition. We have the Hebron-Ben Nevis thing being talked about. Another non-renewable resource but it is an identification of we know the resources are there. We have known the Ben Nevis resources have been there for twenty-odd years. That is not a new discovery. That has been out there identified under the ground. We know where it is, we just never, ever got around to making a deal. In fact, the deal is still not made. There is a Memorandum of Understanding but the deal is not actually made. So, we have Hebron-Ben Nevis. There is going to be an expansion to Hibernia South, which will no doubt provide some extra funding. We have the White Rose expansion which is going to provide some.

I noticed a comment that the Premier was making, I think I read today in The Globe and Mail, that the Premier was going to be encouraging the exploration. There is no doubt about it, anybody who understands the offshore business knows that we have Hibernia, we have White Rose, we have Terra Nova, on the go right now, but if we do not do Hebron – and, more importantly probably, if we do not do the expansion, but more importantly if we do not do exploration, we are doomed to have a very limited and short-term oil industry in this Province, and that would be absolutely catastrophic, I would suggest, for many, many reasons. Not only does it impact your revenue flow and your revenue streams, but all of the other expertise and technology that you built up is out the window as well; because those people, of course, who have become trained to work in your industry, right from the exploration to the development, to the production phases, they are going to go somewhere else; they have no choice. That would be the downside: a very highly skilled workforce that you would have built up, you will lose. So, we definitely need the offshore.

The Lower Churchill: now, no doubt, that would be a very positive one if that could be brought to fruition. I don't think anybody looks at that situation and thinks it is an easy task. There are all kinds of issues. Besides the funding of it, you have certain Aboriginal groups that you have to deal with. Everybody has to be part of the solution, whether the Lower Churchill is going to happen or not. What route you are going to take it out, is it going to be overland? Are there transmission issues? Are there going to be underwater routes, marine cables? Is it going to come down to the Island? What is the cost of doing it? What is the cost of electricity going to be when we do it?

There is a whole complex piece there, and hopefully it will work, because if the Lower Churchill does get done – I mean, it is something. It is not a non-renewable resource. It is a renewable resource and, besides being clean, and greenhouse gases and all those things, we are producing a clean source of energy, the thing about it is that it is renewable. As long as the water flows, we will have a revenue source stream coming from the Lower Churchill.

Some of those big things seem to be in the works, and seem to be working, and may hopefully come to fruition, if certainly we have a successful exploration. It is my understanding that, out of all the potential sites for offshore oil and gas in our Province – and gas is only in its infancy at this time – but all of the territory, shall we say, or land, or offshore underwater seabeds that can be searched, we have only so far drilled and explored about 3 per cent. That is my understanding.

If that figure is accurate, that is a pretty good chance that out of the other remaining 97 per cent we might be lucky enough to strike something, because we certainly struck with Hibernia and White Rose, Terra Nova and Hebron, and there are others out there that we are aware of. Hopefully, if we have as much luck with the 97 per cent as we had with the 3 per cent, we should find ourselves in a good position on a go-forward basis, but it has to be done.

Finally, we are seeing now - there was a falling out there between the Premier and the oil companies for awhile. I think everything froze up for about a year, but they seem to be getting back on track, and hopefully that will come to be, because you have to remember the time lag between when you go to explore, the time when you get your exploration permit, to the time when you actually pump oil, can be a long time.

You take Hebron, for example, were, I think, twenty-five-plus years from the time they discovered it until now. No doubt, there has to be exploration and it has to be done in a timely basis so the exploration leads to the development of the fields, which leads to the production that comes out of the fields. With that, hopefully, we should be in pretty stead on a go-forward basis.

Then, of course, in addition to those things, we need economic development. I see in the Budget there are all kinds of little pots. The Minister of Business, I think, has $28 million over in his pot called a Business Attraction Fund. The purpose of all of this economic development, of course, is not only for the Northeast Avalon; it is not only for the oil and gas industry. I think the dream of everybody in this Province, not only today but anybody who ever lived here, is that we would have all kinds of other supportive industries out around the Province so that if a person did not want to fish you might be able to do something else.

God knows, we have had attempts at economic development going back to Joey Smallwood's day and before. Even back in the old Commission of Government days we had attempts at economic development. It came right through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and we are here now. This government is trying to try a few other little things, but they did not invent the wheel. They might be trying to put new spokes in the wheel, but the economic development wheel was created a long time ago.

We all remember, I think, the rubber boots factory that Mr. Smallwood was going to start. We all hoped we would manufacture enough rubber boots in various outports in the Province and sell them all around the world, and that everybody would be wearing rubber boots instead of sneakers, and everybody in rural Newfoundland would be rich because you would have a job.

That didn't work; not everybody wanted to wear rubber boots. Nike's came on, and everything else, so we never ended up with the rubber boots being as successful as we thought.

We do have one very successful footwear company, Terra, that operates in this Province, and produces the Kodiak brand and so on, as well, very successful, but that is the kind of stuff that we need if we can hook those. Governments are not always successful but they have to show that they try.

I notice the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development has a number of little pots over in his department for different incentives to groups that want to come in. We might give you a tax break. We might give you some incentive for the marketing of your product and so on. We might give you some money to help with your wages in the initial stages and your inventory, your development costs and so on, but it is a tough sell. It is a tough job, because you can have all the money you want, if you do not have the ideas to put the money into, you are bankrupt. You could be bankrupt financially or you could bankrupt in terms of your creativity and your ideas. That seems to be, notwithstanding some of the successes we have had, particularly with some technology companies here in this Province and an engineering technology and so on, and marine technologies and cold ocean research and so on. We have been pretty on the ball with some things but we are still lagging. Not saying it is anybody's fault, but we are still lagging when it comes to having industries that can run and operate successfully in a lot of our rural communities where we would like to have them. So if you have people who were displaced in the fisheries, for example, there might be a niche for them where they could be trained, be employed and make a living for themselves and not have to go to Fort McMurray, or not have to go to Alberta working as a seismic worker, or picking berries and picking apples over in PEI and Nova Scotia, as a lot of my constituents do. That was the hope.

I ask myself the question, what is the expectation of where the ideas are supposed to come from? Because the government has all of these pots - I have described the Minister of Business; I have described the Minister of Innovation. Finance will give you some tax breaks and so on. The Minister of Tourism even gets involved. He has a number of little things he tries to encourage you to do. He does advertising. We pumped money into the provincial advertising in the last four or five years, I think double the budget, to $12 million I think in the last three or four years; the advertising budget for tourism to try to bring people in and drop their dollars here. Plus little things to encourage and help out people who want to get involved in the tourism industry to make it easier for them to market their products and so on, but it is not easy.

I think the problem is the public expectation is that the government of the day has the ideas. That is why they vote for governments, because governments tell them - and I am not signalling out any particular government, but governments tell people: You elect me and I will do this for you. You elect me and I am there for you. So the expectation in the public mind is that we put this crowd in power because they have all the ideas. Now, I do think that is the expectation of the governments. The government is saying: No, no, just a minute. We are not necessarily the creators. We are not expected to be the creative people. We are the administrators, we are the managers. We got money to pass out to certain ventures, through the Department of Business, ITRD, and Tourism but the ideas have to come from the grassroots. That is where we have been for the last, it seems, twenty years at least, that we are waiting for those ideas to come forward from the grassroots. Rather than having creativity coming from the top down, from the government down, the government is putting the mechanisms in place to help out if you bring forward an idea and it passes the smell test or due diligence test, but there is not a lot of creativity coming down.

I think that is one of the weaknesses we have here with this particular government. Not that you have not managed what you have, not that you are not looking forward to the future. Maybe there is no answer to it, I do not know, but I certainly do not see any emphasis from a rural development point of view. God knows, every Administration has made mistakes. You talked about one Administration - I believe the Liberal Administration went off and bought a boat and then the Opposition of the day called her: the old rust bucket. I think they are still pumping money into the rust bucket. Not every government makes the right choices and decisions.

Sprung Greenhouse, how could we ever forget? I believe that was a Conservative Administration back when. We were going to have more cucumbers here in Newfoundland, we would all have to be vegetarians and eat them three times a day if we were ever going to devour and consume the Sprungs that we had. I believe even the former Minister of Fisheries in this government, the Member for Port de Grave, I believe he even had a recipe book he used to flash around the Chamber all the time. The pickle book he used to call it, with all the recipes you could possibly make from cucumbers. He used to have the pickle book.

All administrations have tried and to this day neither has fully succeeded; a lot of tries. There have been some successes but we still got a long ways to go.

I alluded the last time to the cell phone industry - or excuse me, the call centre industry that we thought we would be well off if we could establish these call centres around the Province. Although that was a bright spot a few years ago, it is not so bright now. We have had the incident, I believe, where Carbonear said they are going to close. I hope there is no downside at that particular point.

There are a lot of other issues, too, of course, besides the money that has been given out. Just on that economic front, I mean, we talk about putting money out. We had a case where I talked last week about the $1 million-plus that is gone out the door and we cannot even find out from the government who it was that got it. Anyway, I am sure the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, before the day is over or before the term is over, I hope he is going to come forward and fess up and tell us who it was that took the money; who got the money. I think the people of the Province deserve to know when $1 million of theirs goes walking where it walked to.

There are some other issues, I guess the heart of a government - because a lot of people talk about, you may be a good banker, but do you have a heart in your body? That is the nature and the tenure of the questions that I have seen in this House in the last couple of weeks, for example.

The questions of, I believe it is, the gentleman who was the subject of a CBC story. I forget his last name right now, but the Leader of the NDP raised a question about him today. Patrick is his first name - Connors I do believe, and the Connors family. That is the kind of thing where people would judge your moral fibres, not your bankbook, but your moral fibres. Now if that was ever true what I heard on CBC Radio this morning - I believe it was Mr. Cochrane reporting about this gentleman. He is in, not only dire financial circumstances, but dire physical circumstances as a result of numerous, significant, health challenges.

The response of the Minister of Health when they asked was: We are not going to do anything until later. We cannot touch that until the fall. Now I do not care how much money you have as a government, and you can have your $1.4 billion surpluses. The minister was asked here again today by the Leader of the NDP: what, if anything, he was going to do about it. The same answer came back. He got up in bravado, rather arrogant I thought he was, talking about what he has put into the home care system and how we have caught up with the rest of Canada. I am sorry, Mr. Health Minister, comparing us to the rest of Canada does not cut it for Mr. Connors. Mr. Connors still needs care. Mr. Connors still needs care today. Mr. Connors said himself on the CBC Radio this morning he might not be here in the fall of 2008. He might not be here. That is the kind of stuff that despite all the money you have or how people might think you are spending your money, if they perceive you to be heartless and cold, that gives them a shiver, because there is something wrong with that. People like to see that.

It is fine to say all the nice things you are doing, but when you don't do something that cries out for relief and cries out for help, and you refuse to do it, that says something. That is what I understand is happening to Mr. Connors. In fact, I understand this is not a dead issue yet. I don't know why government would make such a big fuss about saying no to someone who has proven that he is in dire need, because it only impacts the government when they shouldn't be impacted. They should deal with it.

If the man is on the up and up and the man has serious health challenges and he can't pay - he is facing death, folks. This man is not facing a case of he can't get a hair cut, this gentleman is facing death. The Minister of Health will look up and say, we will talk about it in the fall! That is not acceptable.

I had two good friends of mine, of course – I always talk about the people who listen at home – who said they heard me last Thursday, Mr. Horace Meade in Port aux Basques and Mr. Nelson Ingram. They are two elderly gentlemen. They have the same kinds of concerns. One is eighty-five and I believe the other is eighty-seven. They have the same kinds of concerns that they tell you about. When they heard about the Connors type circumstance they said: What is going on? How can we have all those millions of dollars - we can put $3 million into a fur industry that is suffering problems but we can't put x dollars into a gentleman who has health challenges and his life is threatened. They don't understand that. People can't understand that.

The oxygen situation: We had the minister get up, and the government, and say, we did great, we put oxygen in to make people more mobile. A great story! A fantastic story! But the problem is it only serves a certain sector. There are 4,400 people in this Province who need oxygen and not a tenth of them got it. You can't smack yourself on the back too much and too hard if you have left the vast majority of them out. That is not to say you are not trying, but it is the balance that people look for.

It is like the Fire Commissioner's Office. I don't understand why this government is causing such la-di-da about not wanting the Fire Commissioner to go in and inspect the schools. There can only be one reason. They must fear that if he goes in he is going to find something wrong with the schools and they are going to have a bunch of requests to get stuff repaired. Now, we had it here and it was a very legitimate question. The Leader of the Official Opposition asked a question here a couple of weeks ago, because the Minister of Municipal Affairs had said a while ago, last May I think: No, problem in our hospitals. We are all right. Everything is okay. Sure enough, the Fire Commissioner goes in and he comes back with a report and says: Yeah, it is all okay, except for this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and something else. Now that was in the hospitals, and that is where we keep people who are sick, who are getting treatments, whose health and safety we are concerned about. The Fire Commissioner, the most experienced professional individual in this Province, found those faults in our health care system. Well I tell you, he had the muzzle put on him pretty fast: Whoa, Mr. Hollett, whoa, just a minute. You might have gotten into the health care system and found some mistakes and cost us millions of dollars, but I tell you what, in future you will not be the out front voice and the head of government, the talking head, because we are not going to put you in there.

Ever since that the question was asked: Well, don't you think now we should send him to other public buildings? We have thousands of children in this Province who go to school. As a safety precaution, just because it is probably the safe and wise and prudent thing to do, shouldn't we have that professional person, the Fire Commissioner, go to all the schools? Never mind what your protocols are that you have in your schools and that you get a janitor to go around and check off a list and he gives it to the teacher and the teacher reports it to someone in the school board office. Common sense question: Why, if we found it in the hospitals which had a bunch of protocols and systems, wouldn't we just for safety's sake and caution's sake do the same in our schools? No, sir. Instead of having the Fire Commissioner go in, they put the muzzle on him.

The Minister of Education stands up three and four days in a row saying, no, no, it is all okay we have our own system. Now, she did say today, I noticed she said today, that we cannot legally keep the Fire Commissioner out of the schools. So, that begs the question: If you cannot keep him out, how does he get to go in? We are not allowed to talk to him. Nobody is allowed to talk to him, I take it. We have already been told. The minister said today that we cannot keep the Fire Commissioner out of the schools and yet what about the parent, for example, in wherever, Tickle Bight, who has a school and wants to find out? Mr. Fire Commissioner, would you go in and check out that school? What kind of answer I wonder is he going to get? We will know, because there is a list. I saw a list floating around here today, I think, of ten or twelve schools that have already requested or are on the verge of requesting that. We will see what happens then, if there are any roadblocks put in front of the Fire Commissioner when he is asked to go into these schools.

Of course, once that ball starts to roll and he goes into ten or twelve schools and does an inspection, I would think every school in the Province, just as a safety precaution then, is going to say, that is the prudent thing to do, send him in. If we are up to scratch, we are up to scratch and if we are not fix it. That is the right thing to do. Yet, instead of facing it on the up and up the government: Nope, not going to be done, cut him off. Put the muzzle on him and do not let him do it.

That gives people the perception that you are in the midst of a Budget that admittedly has a lot of good things in it, but at the same time you detract from the goodness of it by letting these issues create a bad feeling and a bad taste in people's mouths when they look at the government. Some of these things need to be dealt with.

It is like the question the Leader of the Opposition asked again today about the program. You are going to award $1,000 to anybody who has a baby and $100 a month during the first twelve months. The question was asked: What about the people who had a baby from the day you announced you were going to do that in October up to January 1? We know what is happening January 1. After that you are okay, you are on the program, you are eligible, no problem. I would like to know, I do not know the facts, but I wonder can Vital Statistics tell us how many babies were born in this Province from September 30 when the announcement was made to December 31? I am sure somebody in government has calculated that. Now, surely that cannot be such a significant number that is going to have such a significant dollar value attached to it that government could not keep its commitment. By the way, whether you believe it was a commitment or not, everybody who heard that announcement back on September 30 of $1,000 for a baby, they think that applied the day they heard it. I heard it today on a go-forward basis, do not tell it is only going to apply January 1.

I wonder, why would a government that has a $1.4 billion surplus cause itself such aggravation and headaches about probably – what? - fifty babies maybe, tops? In that two, three-month period, October, November, December of 2007, how many kids were born in this Province? I would not think you would need to cause yourself a big headache over that, but yet the perception is out here that: Nope. Cold! Callous! Starts January 1 and that is the end of it.

They will not go retroactive on that for a couple of months for the sake of the moms and the babies, but we just passed a bill in this House two weeks ago that made it retroactive. They went back and collected $13 million on a retroactive piece of legislation that went through this House under the liquor corp three weeks ago. People see those things and the inconsistencies. How can you pass a bill that is retroactive to get back $13 million that you had no right to have, but yet you cannot let this retroactive piece go back to the mothers so that they can get $1,000 for having a baby? Not because they came up with the scheme, it is because you told them on September 30 that you were going to do this.

I notice I am getting down to the end of my timelines there. There were a few other things I just needed to comment on. I guess, in conclusion it is nice to have a Budget where a government had money to play with. It is very nice to have, but, as I say, it is grounded on very volatile dollars because it is grounded on something that this government has no control over. They have no more control over this than they have over the weather, and God knows you can have four seasons in a day in this Province in some places, but they have no control over the value of a barrel of oil. That right now is where we are.

The diversity that we are going to need - we need to diversify, yes, to get away. How long it takes - for example, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture saw a couple of positive things here in terms of aquaculture developments particularly down in the Grand Bank area, down in that South Coast by Cooke Aquaculture, but the timelines on how long it is going to take to establish a bona fide aquaculture industry in this Province, where are we with that?

I guess the other part is - and this was put to me - not only do we have to put money into ventures that might help us out from an economic development point of view in rural Newfoundland, but it is the cautionary piece about where we do not put money. For example, there are some people who have told me in conversations I have had with them - being a bit nosey, I was saying, what do you think of this or what do you think of that - several people have told me that there are certain places you should not put your money. One they identified was the forest industry. They said, no, as far as they are concerned it is a lost leader. They are of the view that it does not bode well for the next twenty or thirty years in the forest industry and that it is not wise for governments to be propping up the forest industry. I am sure anybody who represents a district where the forest industry is pretty big would not agree with that. I am sure the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans would not be too pleased to hear that, or go along with that suggestion. I am sure for the Member for Stephenville East it is not an issue, because theirs is gone. I am sure the Members for Corner Brook would be concerned if the government took that approach and said, no, we are not going to put any money into the forest industry. It is a lost leader, it is on the downslide, it is not going to rebound, so why should we be pumping good money after bad? Some people have said that. Well, I disagree with that. I agree, you have got to be cautious in how you put it in, but you cannot turn your back on any industry.

In conclusion, with the minute I have left, my comment would be: I like some of things that are in the Budget, but I don't think it addresses enough the economic development needs of the Province. I don't think there is enough creativity in the government's Budget. It is fine to say all the things we are going to throw money at, but I think there is a lot of thought and ideas that need to be generated, that have not been generated by this government. I do not even see them being solicited from the grass roots in the Province.

This thing called a Rural Secretariat, I believe, which was supposed to be the bulwark for that, I do not even know if that is functioning these days. I certainly have not heard much about it in the last three or four years, other than it was created, so the creativity piece is missing.

God hope that we get some movement on renewable resource industries, such as the Lower Churchill. God hope that we can make it out to 2042, and that we get to renegotiate the Upper Churchill on more favourable terms and conditions, so that we indeed do have a future.

Right now, I see some indications of planning but I do not think the planning is - it is a treetop planning. I see the big picture stuff, and I think the government is probably seeing the big picture stuff, but there is a lot of drill down details and certain trees in that forest that I do not see a lot of details on.

As the debate goes on, of course, in the next two or three weeks, we would like to propose some very specific questions to specific ministers, and in the Estimates, so that we can get some details as to: You have told us this is a program, you have told us that is the money, but hopefully you will tell us how it works.

Mr. Speaker, I see that I am out of time. I thank you for the three hours and eight minutes that I was allowed to discuss this issue.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: (T. Osborne) The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is certainly an honour to get up and speak on behalf of the Budget, and follow the Minister of Finance and, of course, my colleague, the Opposition House Leader, who just finished up his three hours and eight minutes.

Mr. Speaker, for those out there watching, I would just like to give a little explanation as to how that all happens.

The speech from the Finance Minister was an hour-and-a-half, or an hour and thirty-two minutes, so the critic for the Opposition, the Finance critic, gets to speak twice that. The rest of us in the House get to speak for twenty minutes, with the exception of the Premier of the Province as well as the Opposition House Leader. So, although the hon. member spoke for three hours and four minutes, or three hours and eight minutes, I am certainly only going to use up twenty minutes of air time. Certainly, that is enough for anyone's mug to be on TV, I am sure, Mr. Speaker. Like myself, he is no model, so I am sure the general public had a job to put up with him for three hours and eight minutes, but he did a pretty good job, Mr. Speaker.

I was listening to him intently. I listened to him on Thursday, and again today, and I like to say to people that I am what I would consider a red Tory. Mr. Speaker, what I believe to be a red Tory is someone who is fiscally responsible but yet has a very big social conscience.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member, like I said, very intently, and there were a number of initiatives that he talked about that he praised us on. He talked about our investment in aquaculture. His only problem was that it could not happen quickly enough, and his only problem was that we do not have enough planning in place.

I say, Mr. Speaker, the investments that we are making today are all about planning in aquaculture - the investment that the Minister of Fisheries announced, as a matter of fact, a $10 million investment just a couple of weeks ago, here in this House.

Mr. Speaker, an aquaculture industry does not happen overnight. So, it is the investments we are making today that are going to sustain that industry in the coming years, Mr. Speaker, and that is what it is all about.

Mr. Speaker, there is a humongous amount of information within the Budget, and I am certainly going to speak to some of it, and my colleagues, I am sure, will speak to other items as well. Mr. Speaker, I could stand here for the full twenty minutes and just talk about what the hon. member said, but I am going to try not to do that. I am going to try to talk about a number of different issues, including health care, of course, which we have spent a considerable amount of money in.

Mr. Speaker, like I said, I believe the Opposition House Leader is a red Tory. I believe he has much the same political philosophy as I do. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the NDP, our social voice here, I believe she is a Liberal. I believe she should be sitting in the Liberal caucus; because, unlike the NDP Party, when they were in this House before, the NDP Party in this House marched to their own drum, if you will. Sometimes they voted with the government; sometimes they voted with the Opposition. They made up their own minds; they made up their own decisions.

Mr. Speaker, since I have been in this House, and since in this House, in 2003 – actually, before 2003 - I have not seen the NDP Party vote anything else than with the Liberal Party. I believe, Mr. Speaker, they all go to the same caucus meetings. I am not sure of that, and I cannot swear to it, but because their political philosophy is so constant, I believe that they all hang out together. I believe they are pretty close. I really and truly do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, with the social announcements this year I was shocked, actually. We announced the other day $100 million in this House for poverty reduction - $100 million – and I expected the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi to come to her feet, a round of applause. I figured she would be jumping on top of the desk, clapping.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: Mr. Speaker, she did not make a murmur. She did not make a squeak.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you of one thing. I thought I read somewhere on the weekend that they had their convention this weekend. Obviously, there were a number of NDP people at that convention and I can assure you that many of them had a lot of respect for the things that we have announced so far, including the $100 million for poverty reduction.

MS MICHAEL: (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: You can rest assured, Mr. Speaker - I hear a Liberal voice coming from the right of me, Mr. Speaker, but I can assure you right now that there was not one person in that room who was against that $100 million for poverty reduction.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: Mr. Speaker, I recently - and I have it here somewhere in front of me, if I happen to find it any time in the next few minutes, a number of social activists in this Province who praised this Budget, who have a very social - and I applaud the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. She comes from a very unique, distinct, social background, and I applaud her for that, so she should certainly be applauding a government that makes those kinds of initiatives.

I heard Lana Payne, known around this Province as a social activist; she applauded this government's Budget for our commitment to social issues. I heard Penny Rowe, head of the Community Services Council, applaud this government on their initiatives in poverty reduction. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I see my friend from Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, not as much as a grin or a clap when the good news was announced in this Budget. It is for that reason that I believe she is part of the Liberal caucus. That is the reason I have that comparison made.

Mr. Speaker, if I could go on and talk just a little bit about the Budget, this was a record year for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We saw a surplus of $1.4 billion. We saw our debt going to be reduced from $11.6 billion to $10.3 billion, and hopefully by the end of the next fiscal year down to as low as $10 billion, Mr. Speaker.

The other day I was watching a news clip and there was a lady on, and her words were: I have never been prouder to be a Newfoundlander and Labradorian. She has never been prouder to be a Newfoundlander and Labradorian. We are $18 million away from coming off equalization and, as Canadians, as part of the Canadian federation all of a sudden - if you listened to Question Period yesterday, as a matter of fact, it seemed like every gun in Canada was lined up against Newfoundland. All of a sudden we have made it the have-Province, Mr. Speaker, and all of a sudden that is seen as some kind of a bad thing.

Mr. Speaker, we are proud to be leading the country, coming off the have-not status and becoming a have Province. As the Premier referenced yesterday at his interview, we have no problem with helping out the rest of this country, doing whatever we can with them and supporting them in their time of need, Mr. Speaker. We certainly look forward to doing that. It is an honour, actually, as a Newfoundlander and Labradorian – we have been supporting the workforce across this country for years. We have been making contributions in many, many ways. Next year, Mr. Speaker, I can honestly say - we are only $18 million away from being a true contributor financially to this country and it is certainly an honour to be there.

Mr. Speaker, with that, of course, come significant things happening here in this Province. All of a sudden, in the first half of last year we saw a net increase of 2,000 people moving to this Province, people coming home, tradespeople, Mr. Speaker. The reality of it is that we are only on the cusp of this. This is just the beginning. We are just starting to build this.

Last year we had record employment, the highest is has been in twenty-six years, Mr. Speaker. Still I hate to talk about it. It is not something I would brag about. I mean, our unemployment rate is still at 13.6 per cent. However, it is the lowest it has been in twenty-six years. Mr. Speaker, we are headed in the right direction.

We had income growth of 4.3 per cent. Disposable income increased by 5 per cent. Our retail sales tax increased by 9.5 per cent, which means people are making more money, they are spending more money. That makes the wheels go around. It certainly makes the wheels of the economy go around, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, our housing starts as well for last year were 2,625. That is almost a 10 per cent increase in residential construction in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, like I said and like the Finance Minister referred to in his speech, we are certainly as the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador going to be the economic driver in this country in the next few years.

Mr. Speaker, I am half way through my time and there is so much to talk about, but first of all I would like to speak to my district just a little bit, just to have a quick recap for my district. People say: Oh, what does the Budget mean to me? It is important, Mr. Speaker, that I just touch on a couple of things of what the Budget will mean to the people of Conception Bay South.

The 15 per cent cut in taxes on our insurance announced just before the Budget but certainly part of the Budget: an investment of $94 million this year and I think it is $75 million a year annualized after this current year. Mr. Speaker, everybody pays insurance. God knows, I pay it. I have a car, my wife has a car to go to work and we have a house, Mr. Speaker. That is going to be a significant savings for us as our family. Everybody, regardless of how old you are, once you are old enough to purchase insurance it will be a save.

We heard a little bit of talk about seniors recently. Mr. Speaker, that is one of the items that will certainly - seniors who like to live in their own homes, who like to drive their own cars, this 15 per cent a year is going to have a significant impact on the disposable income that these people will have, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, of course the reduction in our license registration fees from $180 back to $140, as you know that was a commitment made and we heard a little talk earlier about announcements made. Mr. Speaker, that was part of our Blue Book, that was part of a promise that we made when we ran in government, as was what the member talked about, the baby initiative, to increase our population, for mothers and children. That was an initiative that we talked about and committed to in our Blue Book. Mr. Speaker, as everybody out there in the Province knows, this stuff does not happen the minute you announce it. The Liberals had a load of stuff in their Red Book or whatever you want to call it, but Mr. Speaker, that cannot happen. They did not form the government, so it is not going to happen.

We made a commitment to a number of initiatives that we would do over the term of office that we were here, and, Mr. Speaker, we are living up to our commitments, living up to our promises. That is what we committed to and that is what we will carry out.

Mr. Speaker, I had someone who talked about the baby initiative, who said: Well, how come you don't go back to the year before, and how come you don't go back before that year? The next thing you are going to go back to when you were thinking about having youngsters, Mr. Speaker. A woman the other day said to me: I have a 33-year-old, do they qualify?

Mr. Speaker, I think we have to be realistic about this. I think the cost of that initiative is about $12 million, a $12 or $14 million-a-year initiative. To be fiscally responsible, like my colleague for Burgeo & LaPoile talked about earlier, we have to realise that this is coming off the bottom line every year out. Mr. Speaker, when we do fiscal planning we have to consider that. Although our revenues are increasing, we also have to realize that over time this is going to stay on the bottom line of our budget, so the income has to be there to sustain these extra increases year after year after year.

Mr. Speaker, just to quickly touch on my district: This year we just announced the CBS bypass, a commitment of $3 million to $4 million dollars for my area that will come out of the funds of this Province, that will come out of our new found wealth, if you will. It is a job to call it wealth when you have a $10 billion dollar deficit, but certainly we are getting there when we have a $1.4 million surplus this year.

Of course we have work done on the Trans-Canada, as most people drive the Trans-Canada. The Trans-Canada is part of my district – a significant amount of work there. As well, road work is being done in Foxtrap in my district, on the Foxtrap access road. We have had some recent subdivisions, some development. Thank God! We are in an area of the Province that is in a growth area, so we are going to do some recapping of the Foxtrap access road and we are doing some ditching to improve that area.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot more work to be done. There is more work to be done in Kelligrews. We are doing some widening of the roads in Kelligrews as well, just to make sure that the area residents have safe walking conditions along that highway.

Mr. Speaker, our infrastructure announcement recently by the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs - the Town of CBS, like I said, is somewhat unique in that in CBS we have a growing population. I guess over the years there have been significant commitments made to water and sewer and recreation and so on, but we have not been able to maintain it because of the growth in our area. I am glad to say, some of my other colleagues in this House may not have that same issue but in my area we are a growth population. It is good to see, but in order to maintain the infrastructure for a growth population certainly talks about a lot of money.

Previous to this, we were getting a fifty-fifty split under multi-year capital works. Obviously, over the years the town's borrowing power certainly has ratcheted up quite a bit because of the significant investments that we have made. The town, in its wisdom, decided, well, maybe we could do this on thirty-three cent dollars, so instead of it being a fifty-fifty split we could do it on thirty-three cent dollars. This Province, government, Cabinet and the Minister of Municipal Affair listened and now our town qualifies for seventy-thirty funding. Hopefully, in the coming days we are going to put some real figures to that announcement, but I can assure the people of Conception Bay South I honestly believe they will be impressed when they hear it. Like I said, the key to it is that it is on seventy-thirty dollars and that is certainly significant.

Let me just say that some of my priorities for the area - and most people who know me know that I certainly do not mind laying out some of the areas where I think it should be spent. Obviously, we have a significant issue in Topsail right now with the topsail sewage treatment facility. I do not know how old it is. I am thinking twenty-five or thirty years old, so you can imagine the attention that was paid to the sewage treatment thirty years ago compared to today. So much so, Mr. Speaker, that there are actually no new developments, no new subdivisions, allowed in the east end of Conception Bay South. That is because that sewage treatment plant simply cannot handle the volume that would be going through it.

I am hoping, and with conversations with the Town of CBS, that that is going to be one of our priorities. Of course, then as well we have water and sewer, we have roads and so on, the basic work we would call it, stuff that we do every year. Of course, recreation is a big thing in CBS. Our CBS stadium in Kelligrews is really a regional facility. We have people from Paradise to Georgetown using it. It is busy day and night. You cannot get ice time basically. We have minor hockey teams now who travel to other arenas to practice. I think in the coming years, in the coming months, we certainly have to look at a second ice surface as well.

Mr. Speaker, these are just a few of the things happening in CBS. As well, of course, medical control is another cost that government absorbs, and that allows our local ambulance operator to pick up people, administer IVs or whatever the case may be, whatever they need, on their way to hospital. It was hard to believe actually first when I got elected, but that was something that we did not provide to the residents of Conception Bay South. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to say that the provincial government has committed the necessary resources to now provide that service, and I want to acknowledge the work of Hickey's Ambulance Service for their commitment to this project as well, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my main point today was to get up, to be totally honest with you, and talk about the healthcare investment in this Province. Mr. Speaker, we saw this year an increase of almost 10 per cent to the healthcare budget of this Province. I think our total budget this year is $5.7 billion or thereabouts. The commitment to healthcare this year is $2.3 billion. Mr. Speaker, if you took the money we spend on health, the money we spend on education and the money we spend on other social issues in this Province it equates to 70 per cent of the budget of Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, although we are called Progressive Conservatives we are very much a social government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: When we see 70 per cent of $5.7 million – and I am sure the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi will get up shortly and talk like maybe we do not have a social conscience, but I challenge that because when I see initiatives like $2.3 billion spent on the healthcare of this Province that is a significant commitment, Mr. Speaker.

In the operations alone there has been a $266 million increase and $133 million for capital spending this year, a total this year, Mr. Speaker, of a $399 million increase into the healthcare of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, there is a list of equipment that I could go into, new equipment. I talked a little while ago about how fast technology has advanced. I guess, like I said, just before I came to the House of Assembly they were using phones that were strapped to the floor in a vehicle. That was the closest thing to a cellphone. When I first got elected they gave me a cell phone. Now, Mr. Speaker, we can answer our e-mails on a phone, on a BlackBerry. I am sure, like I said before, there is someone in the world making fun of the fact that we are all here today using BlackBerrys. Technology is advancing and certainly in the healthcare system it is no different.

I recently had an opportunity to meet with a breast cancer group who came to the Department of Health, had planned to meet the minister, and I was fortunate enough to have that meeting with them, Mr. Speaker. At that meeting, one of the things that was discussed - and it was a very serious concern to all of us. I have family members, close family members who are affected by breast cancer, as do everybody, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if there is anybody in this House or in this Province who does not have a neighbour or a friend or a family member who has not been touched by it.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we talked about in that meeting, at great length actually, was the new digital mammography units. This government committed to twelve, basically replacing all old mammography units in this Province by buying twelve mammography units at a cost of $10.9 million. I was proud to say that is the initiatives that this government takes when it comes to health care in this Province.

As well, Mr. Speaker, there are CAT scanners for Clarenville and St. Anthony at a cost of $3.4 million. There has been a new MRI machine for the central region at a cost of $3 million; an X-ray unit for St. Anthony at $1.1 million; a new positron emission tomography, which we all know as a PET scanner, for this Province. Mr. Speaker, the new health equipment for this Province totalled $128 million this year.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time for speaking has expired.

MR. FRENCH: Just a couple of minutes to clue up, please, if you do not mind.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The member has leave.

MR. FRENCH: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of initiatives. Like I said, I just touched on a few from my own district and just barely touched the cusp of a $2.3 billion investment in health care. There is an awful lot you can talk about and announce. I am sure - like I said, we have the poverty reduction strategy, which shows our commitment to people who are less fortunate than we are in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I will clue up on this. When you have a surplus, or when you have a deficit for that matter, it is all about choices. Some of the things that we have to choose sometimes are not very easy. Believe me, since I have been Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health I have met with numerous groups, I would think dozens since I have been there, and I am sure he has met with hundreds; all people with legitimate concerns, with legitimate asks. Mr. Speaker, there is a reality here that you cannot be everything to everybody. Even my colleague from Burgeo & LaPoile said the same thing, you cannot do everything. It is about choices, and I am proud of the choices we have made. I am proud of the fact that I believe - philosophically, I am a red Tory. I can stand up and defend that, Mr. Speaker, and I hope the rest of my colleagues on this side of the House can stand up for their actual political beliefs as well.

Like I said, I know that a number of my colleagues will get up and talk about numerous initiatives in this debate, and I certainly look forward to it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the Budget. I had planned how I was going to start today but because of the input from the hon. Member for Conception Bay South I am going to change how I start what I am going to say. I am not going to change what I was going to say but I am adding to it and changing the beginning point because my hon. colleague seems to have a fixation on me recently.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS MICHAEL: I have noticed him a few times now, when he gets up he must be the person designated to attack me I guess, that is the way it goes. I notice every time he gets on his feet my position comes out and he talks about me. So, that is fine. He has now given me an opportunity to do something I had not even thought about doing. One of the things he has done is sort of challenged me and probably also members of the Official Opposition, if we are not jumping up and down and saying we agree with everything in the Budget and we are so happy with what is in the Budget. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that the government has forty-three members who can do the patting on the back and who can make them feel good about the Budget. That is not my role. My role is to stand here as a voice in Opposition to point out if there are weaknesses, if there are gaps, to make sure that that is pointed out. To make sure that I deal with concerns that people have.

Now, I did not think of doing this but when the hon. Member for Conception Bay South decided to talk about the convention of my party that happened on this weekend and decided to challenge that I did not have the support of my party for the position that I take in this House, when he said he was sure that people who were at that convention did not support what I would be saying about the Budget, I decided, I think what I will do is read one of the resolutions from my party. The title of the resolution is Sharing the Wealth. Anybody could have come to our convention and if the hon. member had come he would have seen people from my party and what it is that they believe and what it is that we stand for. So, I am going to read this resolution.

WHEREAS the 2008-2009 income from off-shore oil revenues is estimated by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador at almost $1.8 billion;

WHEREAS according to the government, Newfoundland and Labrador is headed towards becoming a "have" Province by fiscal year 2009-2010;

WHEREAS the current across the board tax cuts of the Williams' government are benefiting the highest earners rather than those at the lower end of the economic scale;

WHEREAS the current minimum wage and income assistance rates continue to maintain workers and others in a state of poverty; and

WHEREAS the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is far behind others when it comes to childcare, homecare, a prescription drug program, education and healthcare infrastructure, waste management and many other public services;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party of Newfoundland and Labrador support a taxation system that is focused on elimination of income tax payments by individuals and families in the lower income tax brackets and not on cuts for those in the upper;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party of Newfoundland and Labrador call upon the Williams' government to put in place a plan for social programs that will build towards the future and will include a needs-based home care system, universal child care and a universal prescription drug program; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party of Newfoundland and Labrador continue to pressure the Williams' government to slow down debt payments and pay down the real debt of what is owed to the people of this Province.

A resolution passed unanimously by those who attended the Convention of the Newfoundland and Labrador New Democratic Party.

When I stand in this House and I say what I have to say about the Budget and when I talk about the poverty reduction strategy I am doing what my party wants me to do as their leader and I am doing what my party believes in.

Mr. Speaker, I say a big thank you to the Member for Conception Bay South for inspiring me to have this resolution sent down to me from my office so that I could read it, so that he can understand what it is that we really stand for as the New Democratic Party, because he doesn't seem to understand that.

The other thing that he has put in my mouth is the poverty reduction strategy, and again I didn't plan on doing this the way I am going to do it now, but once again I was inspired by the member, so I will move with that inspiration.

I am looking at the Budget Highlights. Under the Budget Highlights there is a whole list, thirteen actually, thirteen bullets under a title that says Lifting from Poverty. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out why so many of these are not lifting from poverty, and that the government is hoodwinking people by saying that there are things that are part of poverty reduction strategy that aren't part of poverty reduction strategy, that are essential services that they need to be giving to people. Let me name some of them.

There are thirteen bullets. I have identified, I think, ten of those thirteen that I don't think are reduction of poverty.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind hon. members that the Speaker is having some difficulty in hearing the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

I would ask hon. members for their co-operation.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Now maybe I can stop shouting. I appreciate that.

With the thirteen bullets under Lifting from Poverty, let's look at some of them. We have one that says $605,000 for a Youth Addiction Prevention and Early Intervention Program. That is not reduction from poverty; that is a program to deal with people who have an addiction. All kinds of people in this Province have addictions. All kinds of young people have addictions, and it is not necessarily people who come from poverty situations.

Having an addiction program for young people is exactly that - it is an addiction program for young people - and we need a lot of it here in this Province because we have no services. People are having to go outside of the Province to get services that are essential. This is not a poverty reduction. This is a social service that we need to have in our society.

Let's read the next one, $401,600 to support residential and transition services for youth through a supportive board and lodgings model. That is not a Poverty Reduction Strategy. It is dealing with housing for youth, but that is not poverty reduction. That is supplying a need that is required by these young people who are experiencing homelessness, but it is not reducing poverty.

Before I go on, that is what I need to speak to, how this government has defined poverty. It is taking the effects of poverty - and I have said this before in the House, but I think I need to say it again - it is taking things that in some cases - not in all cases, in some cases - are an effect of poverty, are an effect of people being poor and dealing with that effect, but it is not moving them out of poverty. That is why I can say that $605,000 for an addiction program is not lifting from poverty. It is dealing with a specific issue: addictions.

Let's take a third one, $530,000 for the expansion of the Community Youth Network to four additional sites. That is not a poverty reduction program. That is helping the Community Youth Network do its work, and to have temporary housing for youth who are in need, but it is not reducing poverty. The government just does not seem to get this; that is not poverty reduction. It is dealing with a housing need. That is not poverty reduction.

I will not take them all, but I will take another one: addressing the wait list and enhancing the food supplements for Healthy Baby Clubs through an investment of $300,000. What I would like to see is that families would have enough income that they do not have to have these clubs, that they would be able to afford the food themselves for their children. Then we would be seeing poverty reduction. If that is what was happening, then we would have poverty reduction.

The same way with the Kids Eat Smart initiative, the $500,000, I believe, as long as the situation is the way it is in Newfoundland and Labrador, we do have to have breakfast and lunch programs, and, as long as things are the way they are in this Province, I believe they should be in place and they should be Province-wide, but I would like to see the day when all families have enough money that they can feed their children and we do not have to worry about having them fed in school. That is the dream I have. Then we would be talking about poverty reduction, you see. That is real poverty reduction.

Let's look at another one - I will not take them all - $279,000 to establish a Family Violence Treatment Court pilot project. That is under Lifting from Poverty. That is not lifting from poverty. That is making sure, assuring, that families who are caught in violence - women and children in particular, because they are the majority who are caught in the violence - that they have access to legal representation, that they can access legal rights. That is not lifting from poverty.

I get rather confused when the government talks about things like anti-violence, talks about things like access to legal aid, talks about things like being able to have a pillow under your head at night to sleep, as poverty reduction. No, it is not. It is dealing with, in some cases - not all cases - the effects of poverty.

I have been doing this now for what? - well over a year - standing in the House and trying to explain to government the difference between reducing poverty and taking care of the effects of poverty. When it came to some of the things that would have helped with reducing poverty, the government did not listen.

I sat in on the hearings around the minimum wage, and I heard group after group after group telling the minister that they needed to speed up, that government needed to speed up, getting workers to $10 an hour. I heard group after group after group - at least here in St. John's – beg the minister to speed up.

I also heard groups who, at one point, maybe a year-and-a-half ago, were saying $10 an hour by 2010 was all right. I heard even groups like that say to the minister, during the hearings, we really think you need to speed it up – and here we are, as the Minister of Finance likes to say, with an historic Budget, with money that we have never had before, and this government could not find it to be able to do the real things that need to be done for poverty reduction.

This government chose not to speed up the minimum wage change. They chose not to do that. This government chose not to increase the base for income support. I know the indexation is in there but, as I said with last year's Budget and I will repeat it again, if you are indexing on a base that is already too low then you are not going to help move people up from where they are.

What this government needed to do in this Budget, and which it did not do, was not only put in indexation but to say, we recognize this year that the base for income support is too low, so let's raise it and then next year index on that raise.

No, this government did not do that. I am sorry. Therefore, this government did not do something absolutely essential for the reduction of poverty.

There were some things that are helpful, there is no doubt, and I will recognize that. The changes in the Seniors' Benefit are good. That is going to help seniors, and I am glad about that, and I am not going to say something that is, isn't, but the indexation, $2.4 million to index basic income support benefits, $2.4 million is paltry. Last year we put $1.3 billion down on the debt, and we are putting $2.4 million in to index income support that, at the base, keeps people in poverty. Therefore, no, I am sorry, I have to say to the Member from Conception Bay South, and I have to say to all of my colleagues, you have to do better if you are really serious about reducing poverty.

I would hope that your reduction of poverty would mean that nobody is going to be living in poverty, unless for some really strange reason, in this Province. So, even if somebody is on income support they should not be living in poverty. You see, this is what I am trying to get across. Being on income support means that for some reason in your life, at some time, you are not able to work and you do not qualify for unemployment insurance, and the only thing that you can basically qualify for is income support from your provincial government. There are people who fall into that, and through no fault of their own and for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes single mothers are in that situation. They cannot work and take care of their children, they need Income Support. Sometimes somebody with a temporary disability falls into that crack and needs Income Support.

Well, when they are getting Income Support they should not be living in poverty. They should have enough money to feed themselves and their families, if they have families, to clothe themselves, to have a roof over their heads. They should have enough money to do that. If we do not do that, if we let them live in poverty when they are on Income Support or we let people live in poverty when they are working because the minimum wage is so low, then I do not know how we can justify that. I do not know how we can think that that is logical. That as they live, whether it is on Income Support or on a minimum wage, they should not be in poverty. I find it absolutely -I find it immoral.

The amount of money that we have and we are saying we can only give $2.4 million to increase the basic Income Support Benefit, and that is just the indexing. The $2.4 million, it is so low because the amount of money they get is so low anyway that the indexing is not going to cost very much and that is why it is only $2.4 million. The people getting the paltry increase that they are going to get are going to be even poorer next year. They are going to be poorer because of the cost of home heating fuel. The cost of home heating fuel is going through the roof. We all know it. I am talking about middle and upper-middle class people who were speaking to me on the weekend. Not poor people talking about how they are on fixed monthly payment plans and they cannot get over it. Right now they are changing and upping the amount of money per month to pay because they do not want to have too big a bill at the end of the summer with their fixed monthly plan. Well, people who are on Income Support and people who are working for minimum wage cannot even afford the monthly plan, and we think this indexing is going to help them, especially these people on Income Support. It is not going to help them.

As I said, the cost of the fuel going up and the tax on the fuel - as the cost of the fuel goes up, the tax goes up as well. I mean it is very interesting to note that. It is interesting to note in the Budget that one of the areas of revenue that is going up is the amount of money that the government is getting on consumer taxation. That is a regressive tax. The money that government is making on consumer taxation is increasing. I guess it is. If the cost of home heating fuel is going up, as it is going up then the tax on that is going up, and that is going up for everybody. Now, some people who are living in poverty, how are they dealing with that? They are dealing with it by living in parts of their houses.

I was talking to somebody last night who told me about his friend's mother. His friend went to visit his mother - she lives outside of St. John's. He went to visit her and she had reduced the house down to her bathroom, her living room and her kitchen. She was sleeping in the living room because she could not afford to heat her house. So her bedroom was shut down. All the rest of the house, the other bedrooms - because there is more than one bedroom in the house - everything shut down to her living room, her kitchen and her bathroom. That is poverty. That is poverty, and that person is paying a tax on the home heating fuel that she is using for the little bit of the house she is living in.

This is the issue. No, this government is not taking seriously what real poverty is about. This government is not taking seriously how we help the people at the low end of the scale.

With last year's budget - and it is not going to be much better this year - people at the lowest end of the taxable income saved $15.86. That is how much they made because of the cut to the income tax, whereas people at the upper end made over $12,000. Those people, the people at the upper end who have a taxable income of a quarter of a million or more, over the two years of the tax breaks, last year and this year, they are going to save $16,600. While at the lower end, people would be lucky over the two years to get a couple of hundred dollars. There is something wrong with this picture, I say to my colleagues. Surely, you have to admit there is something wrong with this picture.

How dare you - how dare the Member for Conception Bay South claim that he - almost, he did not say it. He did not say he was socialist but he said he is socially concerned, he is socially responsible, and he is a red Tory. Well, I am sorry. I have known some people who were red Tories that were very aware of the fact that what you are doing is not right. That giving tax breaks to people who do not need it, people for whom $16,000 sometimes is a new watch. They have so much money that they are wearing watches that are $16,000. How can you give tax breaks to those people and hear the stories of people who are living in poverty and say because you are deigning to make sure that perhaps they have a roof over their head you are helping decrease poverty. You are not. You are not helping decrease poverty at all. These people are the people who are going to the food banks - that still exist in this Province. My colleagues seem to forget. We come here, we sit in this House. When is the last time you went into one of the food banks? When is the last time you saw what is going on in this Province? If you do see it, then I -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that her time for speaking has expired.

MS MICHAEL: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The member has leave.

MS MICHAEL: I will just clue up. I will take a couple of minutes. Thank you very much.

I have become appalled at my colleagues on the government side when they can think and they can say and they can promote themselves as being concerned about people living in poverty and this Budget will take care of them.

Mr. Speaker, I am not opposed to putting some money down on the debt, not at all. I am not opposed to putting some money down on the debt, but it is absolutely unacceptable and immoral for us to take $1.3 billion -

AN HON. MEMBER: Immoral?

MS MICHAEL: Yes, immoral, and I have no problem in saying that. To take $1.3 billion and put down on the debt while we give $2.4 million to index the basic income support of people who are living in poverty. That is immorality; it is I am sorry. It is a social immorality. I have no problem in saying it. That is my job to say that, and I will say it.

Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that I am going to get another opportunity to speak to this Budget. I suspect I am going to and I have much more that I want to say. I say once again to my colleagues, no, I am not going to be jumping up and down and say this is a fine Budget. There are some good things in it for sure, but I am sorry, this Budget has a lot of weaknesses in it and I will continue to speak to that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Topsail.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS E. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased to be able to stand in the House today and participate in the Budget Debate. I have been listening very closely to all of the speakers, and to the speaker that just preceded me, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, I must say now, I did not agree with very much that she said. I say not very much because there was one thing that she did say that I agree with and that is her reference initially to the fact that this was an historic Budget.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS E. MARSHALL: Because it was, Mr. Speaker. It was a big story last week. Of course, it had a lot of historical significance.

First of all, program spending; there was a 10 per cent increase in program spending. Most of that spending went into social programs, like education, like health and poverty reduction. So I do disagree with the member opposite on that who spoke just before me, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

The Budget also contained tax cuts, Mr. Speaker, and also a reduction in fees. Equalization decreased, and this will be our last year for equalization, so that is history in the making, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS E. MARSHALL: The surplus that is projected, Mr. Speaker, is probably the biggest surplus this Province has ever projected, over half a billion dollars, a $544 million surplus projected, but I think, Mr. Speaker, that was even put on the back burner when we looked at the surplus from last year, $1.4 billion, a whopping $1.4 billion.

Mr. Speaker, inherent in that, all of the performance indicators for this Province – like, the net debt is being reduced; it is going down from $11.6 billion down to $10.3 billion and now it is projected to go down to $10 billion. I know our employment is going up. All the performance indicators, Mr. Speaker, are indicating that this is a positive Budget and that this Province is on its way to greater and bigger things.

Mr. Speaker, inasmuch as the Budget last week was a big story and an historical document, I think that we have to stand back. I think an even bigger story is to look back and see where this government has come from since it took over in 2003. That is the really big story, Mr. Speaker.

When we took over the government in 2003, this Province had a whopping deficit of $913 million, almost a billion dollars, Mr. Speaker. In 2003 - you know, how soon we forget what the situation was like five years ago. Actually, Mr. Speaker, it was less than five years ago, but back in 2003 when we did our Blue Book, when we were on the eve of an election, we put in, as our objective, to eliminate our deficit by 2008. Now, we said eliminate the deficit. In other words, we were thinking if we could come in with a balanced Budget by 2008, we would be doing great things. What do we have, Mr. Speaker? We have a surplus of $1.4 billion for last year and a projected surplus of $544 million for this year, so that is really good news, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS E. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk a little bit about the deficits over the past five years, so we can see exactly where our turning point was.

When we came to power in 2003, the deficit for that year was $913 million. The next year we had a deficit of $489 million. Then, the next year, we really made a turning point; we had a surplus of $199 million. I can remember when that happened, Mr. Speaker. The next year it was a surplus of $154 million. The year after that, the $1.4 billion I just spoke about, and what is projected for this year is a $544 million dollar surplus.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to having surplus, we have increased program spending but we have also managed to do tax reductions. We started out actually in 2003-2004 - I can remember - we actually did some tax reductions the first year this government was in power. People who were at the low income end of the scale, we took them off the income tax rolls. The low income earners, we looked after them; and, of course, we continued on into 2005-2006, 2006-2007. In 2007-2008, last year, we had major, major, major income tax reductions. In fact, it was the largest tax cut in the history of the Province, Mr. Speaker. We became the Province in Atlantic Canada that had the lowest level of taxation, and that cost the government $155 million.

Mr. Speaker, I really did not anticipate that last year, when we had the big tax cut, that we would come back with another tax cut this year, but again this year we saw a reduction in our personal income taxes. We had a decrease by 1 per cent in each of the three tax brackets, and that is excellent news.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I find, in talking to people who move out to Alberta, a lot of people say: Why would I come back to Newfoundland? The taxes there are so high.

Mr. Speaker, I find that we are on the road now to tax reductions. We are becoming competitive with other provinces in Canada, and we are on the right track.

Mr. Speaker, one of the other areas with regard to tax reductions that I would like to speak to is the RST on insurance premiums. This issue, the 15 per cent RST on insurance premiums, Mr. Speaker, I would say that is probably the area where I have had most representation from constituents. People wanted tax relief in that area.

We were one of two provinces that had this tax on insurance premiums. I think Quebec was the other province, and we were the highest. Mr. Speaker, initially I was hopeful that we would have a reduction but instead we have eliminated that tax, and that is really a monumental achievement. The elimination of that tax is going to cost the government $94 million this year, because it is a fifteen-month tax reduction, and it is going to be $75 million annually. Mr. Speaker, I have had more response to that tax reduction than I have had with regard to any other matter in the Budget this year.

As I say, Mr. Speaker, we need to have a competitive tax structure in Newfoundland in order to attract employees to come back to the Province, and to encourage businesses to come here also and bring their employees back to the Province.

In addition to the tax reductions, the tax cuts, there has also been a reduction in some fees. For example, motor vehicle registration fees for light trucks, passenger vehicles, vans, things of that nature, has been reduced from $180 to $140. For the members who were in this House back in 2003-2004, when we went through that first difficult Budget, that was the time when we increased that fee. It went from $140 to $180. We now have the finances whereby we can roll that fee back, and that has been reduced back to the $140.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, last year it was announced in the Budget that anybody who was renewing on-line would have a reduction of 10 per cent. So, on top of the $140, the reduction that brought us back to $140, the 10 per cent discount will go on, on top of that. Mr. Speaker, I have had many seniors mention that they really appreciate the reduction in those fees.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to just move away now from reduction in the tax cuts; because, in addition to a reduction in tax cuts, there have also been some program expenditures that are really worthy of note.

The first one I would like to mention is the establishment of a Division of Disabilities. This was first discussed in the Speech from the Throne. I know that there is $150,000 in the Budget for the Division of Disabilities, and the intent is to bring more focus and improve services and supports to people who have disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I represent the District of Topsail and I can tell you that a large portion of my time is spent talking to people with disabilities, who are looking for supports, who are looking for ways that they can improve their life even though they have disabilities. I was very interested in this issue.

When it was announced in the Throne Speech, of course, I looked it up and I did a little bit of research on it. Of course, Mr. Speaker, when you are on the government side and there are new program expenditures, we tend to view them in a very positive light, but I find that it is very interesting if you can talk to some of the advocacy groups and hear what they have to say.

I was reading an article yesterday. It was a publication either put out by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association for Community Living or the Canadian Association for Community Living, and they are an advocacy group for people with disabilities. It was a brochure, but it was multi-page, and there was a lot of interesting information in there. They provided information on other provinces, but there was also a lot of information there on the Province of Newfoundland. There were articles by some of our program specialists. I noticed there was an article there which spoke about the division of disabilities which is being established by this government, and I was very pleased to read, Mr. Speaker, that the Association for Community Living gave the government positive reviews for this step.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to say that, in addition to this division of disabilities, this government has made a number of new initiatives in social spending, and in fact there is unprecedented social spending in a number of areas, including health and education. Of course, I would like to also reference the poverty reduction strategy, which I have spoken on in this House on a couple of occasions.

Mr. Speaker, one of the areas I would like to get into is to talk a little bit about infrastructure, not necessarily talk about one department starting off, but I would just like to talk about how important it is that the government put money into infrastructure. We all know that government puts money into infrastructure, but you do not just put the money in and walk away. You have to expand your infrastructure and you have to maintain your infrastructure, and this is a very costly endeavour. For example, Mr. Speaker, you cannot have healthcare without hospitals. You have to have your hospitals. You cannot educate your students unless you have your schools and your colleges and your universities. You cannot provide transportation services, Mr. Speaker, unless you have roads. You have to have to have ferries for people who live in remote communities, and of course that goes down into other areas, Mr. Speaker. For example, our forest resource is a very important resource to this Province and it has to be protected, especially in the summer time, from forest fires. Mr. Speaker, that in itself is a very costly endeavour.

Mr. Speaker, in the area of schools, and I would like to talk about that first, because I represent Topsail District which is a growing district and there are a lot of young children and young families in my district. This government is putting $89 million into schools this year, and Topsail District is going to be one of the beneficiaries of that program expenditure. There will be two new schools built out in my area, as well as an extension to a third school. Of course, that money will go primarily into construction of the new schools, but also some money will be going into maintenance and repairs of existing schools.

In the area of post-secondary education, Mr. Speaker, there are quite a few students out in my district that attend the College of the North Atlantic and also Memorial University. Now, there are a few students attending Sir Wilfred Grenfell College over in Corner Brook, but again, in the case of infrastructure needs, in order to attend these institutions the government has to continue to upgrade the facilities. They have to construct new buildings for lecture purposes. They have to construct new residences, things of that nature. In the area of post-secondary there is $25 million that has been budgeted for the College of the North Atlantic, Memorial University and Sir Wilfred Grenfell College.

In the area of municipal infrastructure, again in my area it is primarily roads and water and sewer, but of course it would include things like recreation facilities. This year the government has implemented a new cost sharing ratio. Prior to this year cost sharing with the municipalities for infrastructure needs was always on a fifty-fifty basis. I represent the communities of Paradise, Conception Bay South and the City of Mount Pearl. So prior to the infrastructure announcement, of course, most people in municipal government were on pins and needles, Mr. Speaker, wondering what was the cost sharing going to be and how much money were they going to be able to borrow, things of that nature. Mr. Speaker, I can say that for the three communities that I represent their cost sharing ratio has changed. It was fifty-fifty with the provincial government, now it is seventy-thirty. The Province will pick up 70 per cent and the municipalities will pick up 30 per cent.

Mr. Speaker, this was an absolutely tremendous announcement and we have received nothing but positive, I would almost say rave reviews. I have received some rave reviews but some very positive reviews from the three communities that I represent.

I can see from some of the other members in the House that they have gotten the same response from their communities, because in some of the smaller communities the cost sharing is eighty- twenty, eighty picked up by the Province and twenty by the municipalities. In others there is a ninety-ten split, ninety for the Province and ten for the municipalities. Really we are into a new era of cost sharing with the municipalities, and, Mr. Speaker, this is really tremendous good news.

Mr. Speaker, when I speak in this House - a number of colleagues have commented to me that they are tired of hearing me comment about the ferries. Mr. Speaker, I do have a background with the provincial Department of Transportation and I was always interested in the marine services in the Department of Transportation, so of course I follow very closely what is happening over in that area. I was very pleased to see that there is $34 million budgeted in the Budget for the marine services program.

When I talked about infrastructure a few minutes ago I did mention that infrastructure is not just roads and buildings and hospitals and schools and things of that nature. In the area of forestry we do have to have an infrastructure in place to protect our forest resources. There is $30 million approved in this Budget, Mr. Speaker, to begin replacement of the Province's six water bombers. I think CL-215s is what they are called. If my memory serves me right, Mr. Speaker, I think that the old water bombers that preceded the CL-215s were called the Canso water bombers. I think they were replaced at the time of the last Conservative government under Brian Peckford. Of course, now this government has seen fit to begin replacement of the six CL-215 water bombers. I think, Mr. Speaker, those aircraft would probably be in the vicinity of fifteen to twenty years of age, if my memory serves me right.

For some of the people who – I was going to say some of the older people, but I can remember people talking about the big forest fires that we had back in 1961, out around Gander Bay in Central Newfoundland where people had to be evacuated from their homes because the forest fires were so devastating at that time. Again, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s we had some terrible forest fire seasons. I think because of our history that the Province, back in those days, started to pay more attention to protecting our forests.

Mr. Speaker, I find that even though we are spending a significant amount of money on protecting our forests - I know in natural resources in addition to having the water bombers, the capital infrastructure, that there are operational costs, I think around $4 or $5 million a year to maintain those aircraft. Little publicity is given to them but it is a very important part of our infrastructure and also a very expensive part of our infrastructure, but it is very necessary.

Mr. Speaker, I would consider it a short forest fire season because the people who work in that program are not there all year round. There is an agreement in place, that if we do not have problems with forest fires in Newfoundland at the time and there are forest fires, for example, up in New Brunswick, that there is a sharing of resources and that some of our aircraft, and I think maybe even some of our men or women, would probably go up into other provinces, and they would reciprocate if we have problems with forest fires here. As I say, Mr. Speaker, there is a resource sharing agreement.

Mr. Speaker, probably the most expensive area of infrastructure that we have would be our health infrastructure. There is a significant amount of money put into health infrastructure this year, almost $80 million, and it is to replace and upgrade. Of course, the infrastructure, the buildings, things of that nature that are being upgraded, are located all over the Province - Grand Falls, I notice Gander, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, I think Carbonear – so there is money going into various parts of the Province. I think there is money there for Gander, but there are a couple of areas there that caught my eye, that I would just like to mention.

There is $2 million to continue the design and site preparation for the new twenty-eight bed facility in Labrador West. The reason why I wanted to mention that particular facility, Mr. Speaker, is that I have done a fair bit of travelling around the Province and have seen a lot of the hospitals, and I know that the hospital in Labrador West does need to be upgraded.

The other area of infrastructure that I wanted to mention is the $1 million that has been designated to continue the planning and redevelopment of the forensic in-patient and developmentally delayed unit down at the Waterford.

Mr. Speaker, I have had occasion to visit that unit on at least two occasions. I think there was a bit of news coverage regarding that unit probably within the past year. I think that is a good idea, to upgrade that facility.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that her time for speaking has expired.

MS E. MARSHALL: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The member has leave.

MS E. MARSHALL: I would just like to mention a couple of other areas of health, Mr. Speaker. One is that there is a significant amount of money going into upgrading equipment in the area of health. There is $52 million budgeted for that. That includes a variety of equipment, but I would like to mention the twelve new digital mammography units and also the two new CT scanners.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, with all infrastructures, as time passes, you have to improve on your infrastructure. There is new and better equipment coming on the market, and we have to continue to replace our equipment and improve.

The last point I would like to raise, Mr. Speaker, because I know my time is up and I have to sit down, I would like mention that there is $8 million budgeted for a new air ambulance, and this is something like the water bombers; we don't hear much about it, but when you need it you appreciate the fact that it is there. The air ambulance is used for emergencies and also if people need to get from point A to point B in a hurry or if there is no road transportation.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will sit down and give somebody else an opportunity to speak, but I have appreciated being able to comment on the Budget.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It is a pleasure to be able to stand today and have a few words with regard to Motion 1, the Budget Speech.

First, I want to make a couple of comments, I guess, about two previous - not the two previous speakers but the two speakers from the government side. I could not help but listen with interest to the Member for Conception Bay South when he felt that the Member for Signal Hill-Quid Vidi was in our caucus. I want to report for the record that we only have three of us. We are lonely at times, but we are going to leave it that way until the next by-election or the next general election.

AN HON. MEMBER: In other words, you have no intention of taking her.

MR. BUTLER: I wouldn't go that far; but, as of right now, we just have the three of us and we are pretty satisfied.

The other thing, Mr. Speaker, he made comments about how we are finding ourselves in such a financial position that, like the Premier even mentioned, we can help other provinces. That is all fine, but hopefully as I go on with my comments I want to outline a few items that I think we can take care of in this Province first. Not to be critical, because I do not want to be that way, and I will explain that as I go along. During the Budget debate I am sure we will hear of many issues that we can make additions to, to make it better for the residents of this Province.

It was interesting to listen to my hon. colleague, the Member for Topsail, having worked at the same department when she was deputy minister. I am sure she knew at that time, when she talked about the ferries, or whether it was increases for social assistance recipients, times were difficult back then and she just did not have the funds. Thank God, today we find ourselves in a better financial position to be able to do some of the things that we have placed before us.

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the Opposition House Leader, when he had his three-some hours in reply to the Budget debate, how he mentioned that the Budget for this year would be in the vicinity of $6.8 billion – a large number, Mr. Speaker - and to know that by March 31, 2009, we will even have a surplus of $544 million, we cannot help but expect good things for our Province, and I think that is all fine and dandy.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to Budgets, I guess some Budgets are better than others but I have to really hear a bad Budget yet. There is always some good that comes out a Budget for somebody in this Province and for each and every constituent that we represent.

This year alone - I just want to touch on the tax on the insurance - it is a tremendous thing to know that our people have a great reduction of 15 per cent on the insurance tax, and to know the millions of dollars additional funding that will be going into health and education. It vies great for the people of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I also noted that my hon. colleague from Burgeo & La Poile mentioned, when he was outlining the figures, that 27 per cent of the funding that we enjoy in our Budget comes from the federal government. You take it; that is one-quarter of our total Budget this year. Then again, we hear members talk about the wonderful turnaround in the economy and so on.

Mr. Speaker, we have to think back to the early 1970s – and my hon. colleague from Topsail mentioned it a few minutes ago - about Premier Peckford of the day. We all remember what his comments were. He had a wonderful time in office, but he made it very clear that he could not do what had to be done. This Province, no doubt about it, was in a financial situation that we do not want to see any more, Mr. Speaker.

If you go back to the 1970s, the riches that we enjoy today, we have to honest with ourselves and we have to say that the former Premiers, Moores, Peckford, Rideout, Wells, and Grimes, they all played a part. Then you have Mr. Crosbie, a minister in the federal government, our Lieutenant-Governor, and the tremendous impact that he had on what is happening today.

Mr. Speaker, we have to recognize that, and I am sure the people out there do, but from time to time when we get in debate – I have been on the government side, I have been on the Opposition side, and that is what we do. We were elected to do a job, just the same as the former Opposition members were.

When we think about the former Administration, we have to think about those wonderful projects, White Rose, Terra Nova, Hibernia, and when government members get up to speak I think they have to recognize that this started back under the watch of Premier Peckford, and it was worked on and dealt with all the way up through those many years.

I am sure there are projects today that this present Administration is working on: Hebron, the Lower Churchill, various windmill projects, a new oil refinery for Placentia Bay, and the list goes on. As my former colleague said, we hope that each and every one of those will become a reality, and when they become a reality is where we will become a have-Province, Mr. Speaker.

We have to recognize, I am sure, whoever is in office at that time, if it is a different Administration of a different political stripe, they will be able to stand here and acknowledge the work that is being doing by this Administration to bring about the changes.

We wonder why our economy is so good today. Back in 1997-1998 we were talking about how in order for Hibernia to be viable we had to get $18 a barrel. I do not know what it is exactly today, but we have seen figures recently in excess of $120 a barrel, Mr. Speaker. We cannot help but see a tremendous growth in our economy.

Then we think about the Voisey's Bay deal. I know my hon. friend talked about the deal when it was debated here in the House and many of the members who are here today, each and every person stood and made their comments with regards to that deal.

I was reading some information the other day with regards to the construction and the operation of the Hydromet Plant when it is in operation. It will create 12,000 direct person years of employment, $1.4 billion direct employment income. Mr. Speaker, that cannot help but make quite a difference to our economy.

I know the district that I represent of Port de Grave, when the Bull Arm Site was in production and the refinery in Come by Chance all we have to do is just think about the difference that made to our local economy. People living in close proximity, they were coming home with the money, building new houses and what have you.

My understanding is that this Voisey's Bay contract, 85 per cent to 95 per cent of the employees will be hired as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That is a tremendous impact on any district

Mr. Speaker, not only in my district but we see the benefits to the surrounding areas. My hon. colleagues from Harbour Main-Whitbourne and Carbonear-Harbour Grace, they enjoyed the benefits from those projects of the past.

I can honestly speak from in my own district, the Town of Bay Roberts, the tremendous growth that is happening there. Each and every year there is a tremendous growth of new houses being constructed. Mr. Speaker, I know that will continue with the new refinery and the other major projects coming on-stream.

The other advantage we have, I guess, is that our districts are in close proximity to St. John's. Many of our people commute back and forth to the City and work here. It was only a few weeks ago I spoke with the Minister of Transportation about one little project and the department is looking at it. It is where many people park so that they can car pool back and forth to the City and take part in their daily work here in town. They are looking at that and hopefully in the near future that will become a reality.

The infrastructure: the way I look at it, you give credit where credit is due. With regards to this year's budget, a tremendous amount of road work will be done in my district. I think the figure was somewhere in the vicinity of $2.5 million. Only this week we heard from the minister of Municipal Affairs, $4.3 million for infrastructure with the municipality of Bay Roberts. I do not mind saying that, Mr. Speaker. As I continue on with my few comments, there are other issues that will come forward, not in a critical way, not going to do it, but in a way that the concerns of the people in my district and in other districts in Newfoundland and Labrador - they will be able to say that the work that has to be done is being done.

Mr. Speaker, the only thing discouraging in the area where I come from, even though it is a very vibrant area, believe it or not is out-migration. Even though a lot of people travel back and forth here to work, it is unbelievable the number of people who are leaving our Province to go out West. Some people who are even retired at an early age, they have to get their bags packed and head out West. It is almost like it is a thing that everybody has to be a part of.

Only this past couple of weeks I spoke to one young gentleman in Shearstown. He and his brother came back and fifteen other individuals left and went with them. When you can get individuals – I spoke to one young gentleman only just last week who, when he finished Grade 12, he just left and went out West. He showed me his T-4s for this year: he made $86,000.

I know we are trying to get our young people to come back to the Province and hopefully they will. I mean, it was only this week we had the graduation at the Ascension Collegiate in Bay Roberts. Two hundred and forty young people graduated. I hope every individual will find employment here in this Province, but we have to realize the big dollars that are being offered out West. It was only last week, there was a lady here in St. John's who mentioned that her husband was a welder in here getting $18 or $19 an hour, accepted a job out West three times the wages he was being paid here. We have a job to hang onto our people.

Hopefully, with the major projects that are coming on-stream, the various strategies that are being done - I know the minister of Education mentioned several times about how they are working with our young people now, getting them more or less involved with the various construction trades and so on. I think this coming Saturday they are having what they call a Youth Works at Ascension Collegiate in Bay Roberts, where people from different trades and businesses will come in and speak to those young people. This event is being sponsored by Enron and they are just trying to put it across to the young people that there are various trades, good paying trades, here in our own Province that we can take part in.

Many times, I guess, when we get on our feet we are being accused for being in the Opposition and only saying things to be critical. I do not look at it that way. I think all three of us, when we bring something forward, yes we oppose for the sake of getting a message across from the people that we represent; not only represent in our own districts. Believe it or not being a critic in six departments you get a lot of messages, a lot of phone calls from people all over this island. Each and every one of them is important to them and you have to take it seriously and see that whatever the issue is with them - it may be small in my mind but it is very important to those people.

The other thing I want to touch on in our area - as we have heard said before, times are changing. My area is fairly wealthy when it comes to the fishing industry. We have communities like Upper Island Cove, Spaniard's Bay and Bay Roberts that are heavy into the fishery. I guess, Port de Grave is at the top of the list when it comes to the fishing industry. It is a fairly wealthy community. When the moratorium came they did not just sit back and say it is all over with. They went out and they increased the size of their boats, they diversified their industry, and today, Mr. Speaker, I must say they are doing fairly well there.

What is happening - it is very interesting when you turn on your television to local channels and you see people, the business owners, advertising for people to come to work in the plants. I mean down through the years we never saw that, but what is happening is that many people, the people who worked in the plants, people who worked in the stores in that area, the food establishments, they are leaving and going away; many of them. Hopefully that trend will turn around and we will see some major changes.

Mr. Speaker, I guess I said I did not want to be critical, and not being critical I have to bring this topic up. I have brought it forward on many occasions when it comes to the long-term care facility for Conception Bay North. I want to note, on an issue when it comes to working together back when the former Administration was in office there was an assessment done that Carbonear deserved a dialysis unit. The former Minister of Health back at that time - there was an assessment done and they thought the need was there. When the government changed, I have to say that the then Minister of Health, the Member for Topsail now, saw the need. She saw how the assessment was done and proceeded, and the dialysis unit went ahead in Carbonear. Many people, thirty to forty of them, now get dialysis rather than having to travel to St. John's.

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping the same thing would happen with the long-term care facility.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BUTLER: Oh, yes, you carried it out at the end, but there was another one. There was another one there called the long-term care facility.

Back in the former Administration it was decided, I guess after all of the assessment was done, that Conception Bay North was top priority on the list to have a long-term care facility. I was hoping I was going to at least see something in this Budget that would say that we are going to have a reassessment done because back when all of that was done, back in 2002, Conception Bay North area was top priority. Lo and behold, in 2006 I was told during Estimate meetings by the now Member for St. John's South, he was Minister of Health at that time, and said that the number one on the priority list was Carbonear - I am sorry, Corner Brook. Number two was Clarenville and number three, Happy Valley-Goose Bay. No problem. Those people need a facility just as well as we do.

Then, after that - and he said that Conception Bay North was a strong priority but St. John's was also having their problems. The following year we found out that Lewisporte was in need of a long-term care facility. I have no problem with that, sir. I hope it is up and running. All I am saying is I cannot understand for the life of me, and I cannot get the answers from the officials of any department I have been to - and I am going to ask the same question when the health issues come up in Estimates this year, that will be four ministers, trying to find out why if someone was on the top of the list, top priority - not done politically, it was not done politically. We listened to people say that it was top priority and here, lo and behold, we are number seven on the list.

I am getting a bit concerned now because in this year's Budget it said that they were looking after long-term care facilities for St. John's. That means to me – and I hope St. John's get theirs, but I hope it is not going to fall by the wayside to say that the one for Carbonear or in that vicinity, will not go ahead. Back at that time it was to be a 240-bed facility. It was to the point where the Towns of Bay Roberts, Harbour Grace and Carbonear were all putting proposals into the government of the time to more or less, I guess, give them tax breaks or whatever they wanted to do to try to have them come to their area. I do not care where it goes. It does not bother me which district that it is in, but I think it has to be considered. I spoke with the minister of the day, only recently after the Budget, and he said it is still in the plans. Well, if it is still in the plans I would like to see some money come forward to at least have a say into Conception Bay North being considered once again.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to bring forward an amendment. It reads: moved by the Member for Port de Grave, seconded by the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, that the motion be amended by striking everything after the word that and substituting the following: this House regrets the failure of this government to present a budget that reflects the possibilities which exist in terms of addressing the needs of the people of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

The Chair has not seen a copy of the amendment as put forward by the hon. Member for the District of Port de Grave. The House will now take a brief recess and the Speaker will confer with the Table Officers and report back within a very short time.

This House now stands in recess.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has had an opportunity to review the amendment as put forward by the hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave, and while I will not read the amendment, it is a traditional non-confidence amendment that we usually see at Budget time, and the Chair deems the amendment to be in order.

The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had a feeling that would be your ruling because there was a lot of thought put into this, Sir, I want to say to you.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, to continue on, I was referencing the long-term care facility in Carbonear. It is a thing that is very close to me, and I know it is close to my colleagues from out that way, too: the Member for Harbour Main, the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace, the Member for Trinity-Bay de Verde, and the Member for Bellevue. People from all of that area have to go to Carbonear now. There are two facilities there and, God bless them, they have served their day, the Harbour Lodge and the Interfaith Citizens Home.

It was only last week I was out there talking to the workers there, and they are doing a wonderful job, but the facility is not up to a standard of what it should be in this day and age. I had hoped, with three wonderful Cabinet ministers in that area, that we would have seen something in this Budget, but I understand everything cannot happen overnight. I understand that. I understand that totally, but I am very confused over why six other centres could jump ahead when the proper documentation was done, the assessments were done.

Having said that, I guess we will move along and hopefully the minister, in his wisdom, will at least - all I am asking for in this year is that they would do an assessment and see if it was proper and true what was done back in 2002.

Mr. Speaker, some of the other issues I want to touch on with regard to issues relating to the people of this Province, one of them is the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission. I want to make a few notes on that one because in the time frame that I have been involved with politics, being elected and being an executive assistant, I have had the opportunity to represent an awful lot of people through the appeal process. The appeal process is where the commission sees, in their wisdom, to reject a claim of an individual after a certain period of time when they believe that they are able and fit to return to work.

I was so pleased when I saw the Statutory Review Committee Report come in the other day, where government and workers' compensation will work together to deal with some of the main issues. The top ones that they mentioned are: claim duration, early and safe return to work, client services, injury prevention, and occupational disease.

Only today we saw a couple of minister statements put forward when it relates to workers' compensation, safety in the workplace and what have you, Mr. Speaker.

The client services is the one that really has to be dealt with, because all too often - and I have some statistics here. This year the Annual Report for 2006, The Review Division, was tabled in this hon. House, and again for 2007. In 2006 there 327 objections; in other words, 327 people had to go to the Chief Review Commissioner to have their case heard, after being rejected at the workers' compensation level. The outcome of those 327 was, Mr. Speaker, 161 or 49 per cent of them, were allowed; 127 or 39 per cent of them were denied, and thirty-nine or 12 per cent was referred back to the commission. In other words, out of the 327 cases that went to an appeal, 61 per cent were overturned in favour of the injured worker. That was in 2006.

In 2007 there were 308 cases, which showed 65 per cent were either allowed or referred back to the commission to be dealt with again; 147 cases or 48 per cent were allowed; 35 per cent for 109 cases were denied; and fifty-two or 17 per cent were referred back to the commission – a whopping 65 per cent - and many times injured workers in this Province, when they get rejected at the commission level, they do not go to somebody to go to an appeal with them. They just throw it by the wayside and find out that they are unable to work as they did in the past, and they are just at home trying to do something but not doing justice to their families.

I have to say that, with this review, hopefully government will step in to see that this is corrected; because, to me, that is a terrible injustice to the people of this Province, the injured workers, when you get 61 per cent and 65 per cent respectfully in 2006-2007 who were told that you are not going to receive any more benefits; you are finished.

I will tell you what the problem is, because I go to a lot of those appeals. The problem is, Mr. Speaker, when people go there, the medical consultants at the workers' compensation level - and no doubt they are qualified individuals, not arguing that point at all - but what happens, the case managers will rely on the information received from the doctors at the commission level and they will not look at the reports from the general practitioner or the specialists who are dealing on a daily basis with those injured workers. Mr. Speaker, all too often, that is what is happening in those cases.

I know one case – and I will relate to just one at this time – I had an individual who lived in Bay Roberts, a truck driver, who was injured, unable to work. He asked me to come to his house and attend a meeting when the worker, the case manager, came to visit him in his own residence. Here he was; he had two wheelchairs, one electric wheelchair and the other one an ordinary chair. He had three different kinds of canes. He had all kinds of heating apparatus to help kill the pain, and this worker who came and met him in his house, looked at him and told him that he should go and see a physiatrist because there was nothing wrong with him.

I left his residence and I said to him: Look, take her up on the challenge - because he was devastated. I said: You go and see a physiatrist. As a matter of fact, he did and got a clean bill of health. Lo and behold, within a month the commission was back to that gentleman, saying: We have to get a second opinion.

That man is totally disabled for life. Those are the types of cases, Mr. Speaker, that are being overturned. Once they go to appeal them, then, through the Chief Review Commissioner's office, there are several people who hear the cases there and each and every one of them, I have to say, they take each individual case and deal with it in a proper manner.

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate when medical consultants, as good as they may be, the case manager overrules what has been said by the general practitioner and the specialist.

Mr. Speaker, seeing the hour of the day I would move adjournment of debate at this time.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, considering the time on the clock now, I would like to move that the House on its rising do adjourn until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1:30, and that this House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

The motion is that this House do now adjourn.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

This House now stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow, being Tuesday.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1:30 p.m.