The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

The House of Assembly today is very happy to welcome to the Speaker's gallery some special visitors. Joining us is Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Alexander, a World War II and Korean Conflict war veteran. Colonel Alexander is accompanied by Major Garfield Green.

Thank you, and welcome to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Speaker is also happy to welcome fifteen Level I, II, and III students from Holy Trinity High School in the District of Cape St. Francis. The students are accompanied by their teachers Maureen Clements, Karen Canning and Carol Roberts.

Welcome to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Speaker also welcomes the Mayor of Labrador City.

Welcome to the House of Assembly, Mayor Graham Letto.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The following members' statements will be heard: the hon. the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis; the hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & LaPoile; the hon. the Member for the District of Baie Verte-Springdale; the hon. the Member for the District of Port au Port; the hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune; and, the hon. the Member for the District of Mount Pearl South.

The hon. the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KEVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It gives me great pleasure today to stand in this hon. House to recognize Chief Petty Officer First Class Colin Furlong, a resident of Torbay.

Colin graduated from Holy Trinity High in Torbay, and he is the son of Shawn and Cathy Furlong. His proud grandparents are Tom and Alma Furlong of Shoe Cove, and Rose Walsh of Torbay.

Mr. Speaker, Colin has been involved in the cadet movement for the past eight years. During that time he has progressed through the ranks to receive numerous awards and eventually obtaining the highest rank as Chief Petty Officer First Class.

Mr. Speaker, in May Colin received three impressive awards: first, the Navy League Medal of Excellence; second, the Navy League of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador Division, Cadet of the Year; and, third, he received the Navy League of Canada's National President's Award as National Cadet of the Year 2008.

I ask all hon. members in this House to join with me in congratulating Colin on his achievements and his dedication to the Cadet Corps.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & LaPoile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to recognize and congratulate the Dr. Charles L. LeGrow Health Centre Foundation on raising $58,276 during its fall radiothon. Chairperson Wayne Green says this is likely the largest annual total to date.

As a former chairperson of the Dr. Charles L. LeGrow Health Centre, and having participated as a guest speaker on their radiothons, I am proud of the tremendous support the foundation receives each year from area residents and businesses. The annual radiothon continues to grow.

The foundation is currently raising money toward three pieces of equipment, including a portable X-ray machine, an intensive care unit bed, and a patient Maxi Lift.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in extending congratulations to the Dr. Charles L. LeGrow Health Centre Foundation on another successful radiothon. The foundation should be very proud of all their hard work and accomplishments.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Baie Verte-Springdale.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. POLLARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to extend my congratulations to the Town of Springdale for capturing three prestigious awards at the Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador convention that was held in Corner Brook this past October:

First, the Municipal Awareness Award, which highlights efforts to shine a positive light on the hard work of dedicated municipal leaders; Springdale was recognized for its wide-ranging efforts to build public awareness. They held several successful events such as a heritage display, breakfast with the mayor, an open house at the town hall, a community cleanup day, and visits to local schools. Springdale also has a regular spot on the local community TV channel to keep citizens informed.

Second, the town won the Environmental Sustainability Award, which recognizes those municipal governments that have taken steps to resolve environmental issues in an environmentally responsible manner. The Town of Springdale was a leader in that area by proactively supporting the Green Bay Waste Management Authority and its curbside cardboard recycling program. It also made significant investments in energy efficiency and water and sewer upgrades.

Third, at the same convention, the town also received the Tidy Towns Award of Excellence.

Honourable colleagues, Springdale is another prime example of a community, a council, and a staff that is proactive in its governance, proud of its heritage and committed to hard work.

I respectfully ask all hon. members of this House to join me in applauding the Town of Springdale for capturing three of these prestigious municipal awards.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CORNECT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely happy to stand in this hon. House of Assembly today to pay a special tribute to Richard Alexander, who resides in the community of Aguathuna in the District of Port au Port. Colonel Dick, as he is affectionately known, joins us in the Speaker's gallery today.

War Veterans like Colonel Dick have made a significant contribution to the global freedoms we enjoy today. His military contributions are quite impressive, having served in both World War II with the 166^th Field Artillery and with the Canadian Forces in Korea.

Mr. Speaker, Colonel Dick is in St. John's this week to be recognized for an act of heroism prior to going overseas when he was only seventeen years of age. On December 12, 1942, fire broke out at the Knights of Columbus Hostel which resulted in the loss of many lives. Private Alexander and seven other servicemen were singled out for their efforts beyond the call of duty and for their part in saving lives. Tonight, sixty-six years later, Colonel Dick and Mr. Fred Johnson; form your district, Mr. Speaker, two surviving rescuers, will be honoured at a ceremony and reception with His Honour, Lieutenant-Governor Crosbie.

In 1972, Mr. Speaker, Lieutenant Alexander was instrumental in forming the 2904 Port au Port Army Cadet Corps. In 1975, Captain Alexander was recruited to form the "C" Company of the Second Battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in Stephenville. In 1979, he assisted with the formation and training of the 2957 Cape St. George Army Cadet Corps and he is the Honourary Corps Commandant of the 3012 Lynx Army Cadet Corps in Lourdes.

Mr. Speaker, in 2003, he was appointed Honourary Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and serves on its Advisory Council.

As an aside to Colonel Dick's illustrious career, he was also a light heavyweight boxer and holds a fourth degree Black Belt in Karate. He was married to the late Dorothy Knowles and the couple had eleven children.

So, Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members of this hon. House of Assembly to join me in saluting Honourary Lieutenant Colonel Richard Alexander, an extraordinary Newfoundlander and Labradorian.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS PERRY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to congratulate Conrad Fitzgerald Academy in English Harbour West, who received a gold banner from the Canadian Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance for its exceptional physical education program under the leadership of teacher Nish Hynes.

The academy was among 1,100 schools across Canada and one of only twenty-six schools in Newfoundland and Labrador to win this prestigious award.

The teachers, parents and students at Conrad Fitzgerald have done an excellent job with raising awareness of, and implementing, physical fitness for our kids, that will lead them into healthy physically active lifestyles.

A minimum of 100 minutes of quality physical educational activity is offered each week to students in this school, which also received a Silver Star level from School Sports Newfoundland and Labrador in recognition of its exceptional phys ed program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all members of this hon. House join me today in delivering accolades to Conrad Fitzgerald Academy, yet another wonderful educational institution in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Since this time is allotted for private members' statements, the hon. the Member for the District of Mount Pearl South, who is a member of the executive, has asked to provide a member's statement.

Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl South, by leave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DENINE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank members from the opposite side for the leave today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to pay tribute to the late Ms Janet Maher. Janet was an extraordinary individual whom I have had the privilege of knowing for many years.

Mr. Speaker, Janet was selected from a group of nominees across this country as Female Athlete of the Year for Special Olympics 2008.

On December 2, 2008, this award was presented to her family at an awards banquet in Toronto. This prestigious honour was bestowed upon her for her dedication and commitment to the Special Olympics organization.

Mr. Speaker, Janet had been actively involved with Special Olympics for over ten years. This February, she was a member of the national Gold Medal Floor Hockey team, held in Quebec City.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Janet was not able to be present to receive her award. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was forced to take time off from both her job and Special Olympics in order to receive treatment and surgery. Upon her return, she immediately began training for floor hockey in order to participate in the National Winter Games, where she was instrumental in leading her team to the gold medal finish.

Mr. Speaker, Janet exemplified the true spirit of Special Olympics. Their oath "Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt" is a testament of how Janet looked at both her sport and life itself. Her incredible motivation, dedication and love for life, made her an inspiration and a role model for all who met her.

Mr. Speaker, on October 20 of this year, Janet succumbed to her illness. She passed away peacefully in the presence of her loving family. Her award was presented in her memory to her family just recently in Toronto. The recognition of her accomplishment at the national level now takes on a new meaning. The obstacles that Janet had to overcome in order to complete this level showed her dedication and commitment to the sport.

Mr. Speaker, anyone who knew Janet certainly knew one of her greatest attributes was her sense of humour. There was rarely a time when she did not have a smile on her face. She will certainly be missed by all who knew her.

Mr. Speaker, I now ask all members of this House to join with me in welcoming Janet's family and members of the Special Olympics organization here to the House of Assembly. We send along our condolences as well as our congratulations in honour of Janet's life and of this award.

Mr. Speaker, Janet truly was a champion.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to acknowledge the efforts of Holy Trinity High School in Torbay regarding climate change education and my department's commitment to help them bring this valuable message to students and teachers across this Province.

This past September, Mr. Speaker, a student and teacher from the school embarked upon an innovative expedition to gain a better awareness of climate change in a unique setting, namely the High Arctic. Julia Penney was chosen as the representative of the school's student environmental group, Friends of the Gully - FOG, quite an interesting acronym - to represent the school and the Province on the 2008 Cape Farewell Arctic Youth Expedition which travelled to Iceland, Greenland and Baffin Island. She was accompanied by Karen Channing, art specialist at Holy Trinity and the only Canadian art teacher invited to join the expedition.

Sponsored by the British Council Canada, the United Kingdom's international organization to promote education and cultural relations, Cape Farewell is an arts and science education program designed to raise awareness of climate change and to help engage young people to become actively involved in mitigating its effects. The voyage across the Arctic seas, with students from Britain, India, Brazil, Mexico, Germany and Ireland, helped these young Canadians to become climate change ambassadors at home and abroad. The youth expedition brought together high school students aged fifteen to seventeen with top scientists, artists and educators from around the world.

One of the goals of the voyage, Mr. Speaker, was to teach the participating students various methods of incorporating the topics of climate change into their core curriculum. They learned strategies to help their peers develop science projects in areas such as climatology, oceanography, biodiversity and biogeography. They also focused on ways to build the climate change message into genres such as film, photography, fine arts, performing arts and literature. That is why, Mr. Speaker, we are very pleased to provide them with funding which will assist them in their efforts to communicate the valuable knowledge that was acquired about climate change through their Cape Farewell experience.

Mr. Speaker, climate change is an extremely serious long-term issue facing our planet and it presents environmental challenges. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and introducing sustainable development principles into all aspects of society is our focus, and we all need to do our part if we are to make significant changes to positively impact our environment. Through programs such as the Cape Farewell expedition, our youth are given an opportunity to learn about climate change and its effect on our lives and our livelihoods. This message is then articulated to their friends, families and communities.

Mr. Speaker, you have already recognized that we are very pleased to have the students from Holy Trinity High School in Torbay with us today. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the students on their initiative, and everyone that was involved in this project, and I look forward to continuing efforts to help educate our youth on climate change and to inspire them to take action.

Thank you, 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.

All of us in the Official Opposition want to welcome today the students and staff from Holy Trinity High School, and to congratulate them on this very important initiative. Special congratulations to Julia Penney and Karen Channing.

It must have been a tremendous experience, Mr. Speaker, to know that they came together with students from other countries in our wonderful world, and to go on this expedition to the Arctic.

Mr. Speaker, it is good to know, because if we are going to make changes I think this is where it has to begin, with the young people in the age groups that we are referencing here, between fifteen and seventeen years of age, and to know that they are ambassadors. Hopefully, the experience that they have learned, they will pass it along to students in other schools in this immediate area.

Mr. Speaker, we all know from time to time the tremendous impact climate change is having on our planet and environmental challenges.

Mr. Speaker, one thing I want to say to the minister, I understand that recently he received a report, I think it was called Scenario 2020, a very important report, and we hope that we will be able to see this because it has to do with greenhouse emissions. It was sponsored by his department, and hopefully we will be able to get to see that report.

Mr. Speaker, today we are here to congratulate Ms Penney, Ms Channing, and the students of Holy Trinity School on a wonderful initiate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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 the advance copy of his statement.

I too welcome the students from Holy Trinity and congratulate Julia Penney and the teacher, Karen Channing.

This was a tremendous opportunity for both of them. We know that the Cape Farewell expedition is a fabulous program. I think this was its sixth voyage, and the first one originating from Canada with students from every Province and Territory, I understand, along with international students and teachers.

Yes, climate change is a serious issue and it is wonderful that our young people and those who work with them are getting the opportunity to learn and to become ambassadors. I, in no way, want to undermine that with what I am going to say next.

They also need government as a role model working with them, because while they are learning about climate change they need to see the systemic changes in our Province that will help consumers, changes like subsidization of florescent lights, for example, and subsidies for people retrofitting their homes so that they will be more energy efficient. The government should be leading the way with energy efficient vehicles.

I encourage the minister, especially with the report that we hope to see some day, to look at what government needs to start immediately to help what these young students are doing so that their work won't be a wasted effort.

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, I would like to provide an update on a service which has had a positive impact on our service to the public. Since July, many motor registration customers have noticed that, instead of receiving an automated call service when they call one of our offices, they get a real person answering their calls. Needless to say, we hear comments, such as, "I never expected such a quick response, or a live person," which proves that this has been a success story.

This new telephone system for motor registration brings things back to basics. Our number one complaint used to be the difficulty people had in navigating our automated call system or not being able to get through to anyone.

Mr. Speaker, this decision has made a world of difference for not only our customers but also our staff. Our regional staff are able to concentrate more on the customer they have at the counter rather than divide their attention between the counter and the phone. We pride ourselves on providing quality customer service and this telephone service has certainly helped improve the motor registration experience.

Since July, the teleservice has answered over 53,000 calls, with 87 per cent of requests being completed by the phone agent directly. There are some calls which still need to be transferred to specific program areas but we are seeking ways to improve this and other issues associated with the service.

On average, the Motor Registration Division processes nearly 1.5 million transactions a year, including servicing approximately 300,000 customers directly over the counter at offices throughout the Province. Many people call first before coming to one of our offices. So the teleservice is of a great benefit in determining how we can provide the right service to best meet their needs.

We also have a new toll-free number for our citizens, which is 1-877-636-6867, or they can continue to call their local regional Motor Registration numbers listed in the phone book, as these have been automatically rerouted to the teleservice system.

Mr. Speaker, the teleservice system has proven to be a tremendous initiative and it demonstrates that we are willing to buck the trend in order to put our customers first.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I thank the minister for an advanced copy of his statement. It was only this morning we heard the Premier on Open Line talking about how he has been baffled by technology, and I want to say to the minister, the Premier is not the only one who is baffled by technology because people love to hear someone on the other end of that telephone. I guess we have all heard the complaints throughout the Province.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to say that no doubt this is a good initiative, and I want to thank the minister for that. Hopefully, the teleservice – you know, there are many things that can happen, many flaws, and I know what happened when HRLE a few years ago turned over to the telesystem. It took some time and still problems for people who have to use that service.

The main thing, Mr. Speaker, is providing a quality service for the residents of our Province. No doubt, we are pleased and they will be as well to know that there is a toll-free number. It is good to know because we still get calls from time to time about how there are still line-ups at the registration office. So it is good to know that government has decided, as the minister just stated, to buck the trend and put our customers first.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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 the advanced copy of his statement. This is wonderful news, actually, and I congratulate the minister and his department on doing this.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS MICHAEL: Rather than concentrate on that, because I am so pleased, I am going to role model again and say that I would like to think that the Minister of Government Services and his department could role model for HRLE because of the number of calls that we get in our office about the waiting times on the phone when they are trying to get service. Sometimes they wait up to an hour and more, and we have tested this in our own office with my constituency assistant.

I would really encourage the minister to share with the Minister of HRLE how they have been able to get such an efficient service, because I think he should not only be bucking the trend, you should be leading the way in government services, minister.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: Further Statements by Ministers?

Oral Questions.

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Premier and the Minister of Natural Resources. I understand they are at a photo op, so I will address my questions -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - to the government and we will see who answers.

Mr. Speaker, back in March of this year, AbitibiBowater sold almost $500 million in bonds in an attempt to restructure a $1.4 billion corporate debt. At that time there was some speculation as to whether the corporation would be able to repay its creditors or if they would be forced into a bankruptcy position. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have seen the stock in this company fall from $26.13 down to, I think on Tuesday, it was forty-one cents.

So I ask the government today, international media reports are telling us and indicating that there could be a possible bankruptcy position. I ask the minister today to inform the House as to what the status of that is, and if AbitibiBowater is looking to file bankruptcy?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

As well all know in this House, we are indeed in challenging times. We are experiencing difficulties, not just in this Province but right across the global economy.

We are aware of the challenges that AbitibiBowater as a company are facing. We are looking at the options and the alternatives that may come from the situation they find themselves in. They may be in a situation of bankruptcy or receivership, they may bounce back and maybe become a very profitable and productive company, but as it is right now, Mr. Speaker, they are a company that is open. It is operating. It has many operations throughout the world. They are still operating and we will monitor the situation as we have done to ensure that our rights as a government and the rights of the people who work with Abitibi, who are residents of this Province, are protected.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You may not know about whether the company is in a position to file bankruptcy today or not, but the international media is certainly speculating about it.

The minister can tell me this. If the company declares bankruptcy, what will be the impact on the severance packages for the workers and the pension plan for the workers at AbitibiBowater in Grand Falls-Windsor?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, speculation can be a dangerous thing. So, I am not going to propose to enter into a debate about what other people are speculating is going to happen or is not going to happen to Abitibi. What I will say is that this government is very much engaged in the process. We are very much engaged with the people of Grand Falls-Windsor and region. We are engaged with the union locals who are involved with the people out there, the employees out there, not only with the mill but in the service industries that supported the mill operations and we are very much aware of what is happening. We will look at the options as they present themselves to us. We have alternatives that we are looking at and as we need to play our cards, we will play them.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Far too often in the last two to three weeks we have seen nothing only reaction from the government opposite every time an industry in this Province collapses.

Minister, I am not talking about speculation, talking about facts. If AbitibiBowater claims bankruptcy, what will be the impact on the workers' severance pay, on their pension plans, and are there safeguards in the contract to protect those people?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I will not enter into trying to debate the speculation that is being tossed about in terms of what is happening, what may not happen over there.

As I indicated, we are engaged, Mr. Speaker, with the individuals who are employed in that company through their unions. We are engaged with the municipal leaders out there. We have a number of options that we are looking at to ensure that our position as a government regarding our rights and the positions of the employees, regarding their rights are all being looked at to make sure that we have everybody covered. That is all I will say at this point.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, this is ridiculous! This is a company that has been shopping around New York City since March of this year trying to raise capital to cover the debts in the company. This is a company that in the last two days have been in the national media, possibly going to claim bankruptcy.

I ask the minister: Have you and your government even looked at the contract agreement that exists between the union workers and this company to ensure that there is protection there for these workers if this is to happen?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that Abitibi is out doing what it can to ensure the stability of its operations, and I hope they continue to do that. That is exactly what we want to see them doing.

In terms of us ensuring as a government the kinds of things that are being done to protect our rights as a Province and the rights of the employees, as I have said already, we have had many discussions with the union leadership out there. We have identified things that are of importance to the union leadership and important to their employees. We jointly are looking at the impact of those kinds of things. That is the kind of work that the people of Grand Falls-Windsor and region, the kind of work that the people involved with the unions want us to be involved with, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, every day this week we have raised issues in the House around the economy, and getting updates on the economy. Yesterday we asked the minister questions about the mining sector; yet, there was no indication of layoffs that were coming in Duck Pond Mine. Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister again did not know about it until her phone rang, but we know there were layoffs yesterday at Duck Pond.

I ask the minister today to give us an indication as to whether there will be more layoffs at Duck Pond and what the long-term plan is for that operation in Central Newfoundland.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, there were seventeen full-time positions, as I understand, people who were laid off yesterday, six part-time. We have had discussions with the manger of Duck Pond Mine. That is all that they expect to happen right now.

As I have indicated earlier, there are challenges in the global economy, there are challenges in terms of the market prices for some of the minerals and some of the natural resources that are being produced in some of these mines, and there have to be adjustments made by the management of the companies to compensate for that. We have still 240-250 people working in Duck Pond, a very healthy workforce, a very healthy mine, and we expect that to continue.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday we asked about IOC and if there were any additional layoffs or any additional downscaling or downsizing plan for that particular company. The minister said she would talk to the officials in IOC yesterday afternoon.

I would like to ask for an update on what the plan is for Labrador City's operations.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the minister did, in fact, speak to Mr. Terry Bowles at the company. He indicated that what was said by the minister yesterday basically is what he reiterated to her. He also indicated that there is a board meeting happening today in Montreal.

When asked whether or not he felt there would be any further changes to the company's plans, whether it be any further disruptions, he indicated that no, he did not think there would be. So we are expecting that the information that was presented by the minister yesterday is still the current information.

Thank you.

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We all know that in Labrador West right now there is a very serious situation with the closure of Wabush Mines being forecasted, and the downsizing and the suspension of expansion plans at IOC.

Yesterday, I asked the minister if she was prepared to look at a task force to work with that region of the Province, to look at future alternative in industry. She said she was not asked, which I thought was a very lame excuse, but I will ask again today: Have you reconsidered? Is there an opportunity that will see some interest taken in Western Labrador and some action on behalf of the government?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to report that, as of the last two days, we have been in contact with the union representatives in those areas. We have offered them the support of Human Resources, Labour and Employment. We have laid down some strategies for them already in terms of a suite of labour market opportunities that we hope to be able to work out. We have also addressed some issues with them in terms of financial pieces, in terms of how they might be able to understand their options in the next coming weeks, and how they can best prepare for what will happen in their case.

We are very excited about being able to reach out and, in fact, what we heard back from the union representatives in both of those areas was that they were extremely happy with the fact that we had made contact with them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Training or retraining is not going to be the entire answer, I say to you, Minister, for all of the problems that are existing in Western Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: When we got the news on AbititiBowater –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, when the news came on AbititiBowater there was no less than five or six Cabinet ministers on the way to Central Newfoundland, and so it should be.

I ask: When is the same attention going to paid to Western Labrador? In the last two weeks, I am not aware that there was even a minister who went in there to meet with the groups, to meet with the organizations, to meet with the leadership, and to start putting in place plans to deal with the problems that exist in that area. When is that going to happen?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, the response in Grand Falls-Windsor was in response to AbititiBowater indicating that they were closing down an operation. The response in Labrador West is an adjustment that is being made; a temporary adjustment is what we expect it to be. Should we feel that we need to make a move to go up and support the people there, we will certainly engage in that process. Right now, as been indicated by my colleague, we have reached out to them, to involve ourselves with them. If we feel, and if they feel, that we need to have more engagement with them, we would be certainly happy to do that; but, as I understand it, the response that we have had as a government to date has been deemed appropriate and we are happy with that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Closing down a mine and laying off 160 workers is not a temporary interruption, I don't think, Minister.

Let me ask you this. There has been a proposed new hospital on the table for a number of years in Labrador West, and an infrastructure project for the college. We have seen very little or nothing happening around those infrastructure projects.

I ask the government today: Are you prepared to fast-track those projects, get that infrastructure going, so that we can at least see some employment being created in that area?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, and I think as most people in Newfoundland and Labrador know, we laid out, back about three years ago, a very ambitious infrastructure strategy for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

As the member just indicated, two components of that were a new College of the North Atlantic facility in Labrador West, and a new hospital. Both of those initiatives are proceeding, Mr. Speaker. The design work is essentially completed on the college. We will be preparing tender documents shortly. We will be going to tender late this winter or early spring on the College of the North Atlantic.

The member knows, and the people in Labrador West know, there were some delays as a result of the planned expansion by IOC, and concerns about vibration due to blasting operations in Labrador West, and the effect that might have on these facilities. That caused us some delay in the planning, because if you do not know where your building is going it is a little bit difficult to plan the foundations, Mr. Speaker, as you know.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. TAYLOR: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will conclude by saying that the design work, the conceptual work, conceptual design work, should be completed by late January on the hospital, and we will be moving forward with site work and laying in sewer and water pipes come (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

They might have had a three-year plan, but in three years all they have in Labrador West is a $1 million hole in the ground where there is supposed to be a hospital, I say to you, Minister.

Now, is there a way to fast-track the infrastructure projects for Western Labrador so that we can see some activity taking place up there as soon as possible when spring breaks?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, I can say this: there might only be a $1 million hole in the ground in Labrador West, but that is a long ways ahead of where it was under the Liberal Administration, with a hospital that was falling down, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: I can guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, the people of Labrador West have had a lot stronger commitment on the infrastructure side from this government than they had from the previous government that was sitting here five years ago.

If the people on that side of the House, who were here five years ago, were that committed to Labrador West and thought there was such a need to have something done over there, then why didn't they have the plans put in place for a new college and a new hospital while they were here, Mr. Speaker?

We understood there was a problem in Labrador West. We are moving aggressively forward on our infrastructure strategy. We have the design work being done on the hospital and the college. I have said we are moving forward with tender documents right now on the college, and as soon as we can move forward with the hospital and as fast as we can move forward with the tendering on the hospital, Mr. Speaker, we will do that and it will be this coming (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Three years we have seen now and they cannot get a contract tendered and get a job started in Labrador West, but this is the same government that is going to overheat the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador and will not put more money into infrastructure.

Well, minister, let me ask you this question. A few days ago in the House of Assembly I asked your government to give us a breakdown of what infrastructure projects were actually completed in the Province last year, based on your budget. I was not given the information. So I ask you again today: Give us a breakdown of the infrastructure projects and the funding that was announced in the budget last year that did not go forward in Newfoundland and Labrador?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will endeavour to get the information that the member has requested. I certainly did not hear her ask for that information before. Obviously, I had her tuned out right at about that point, I guess, Mr. Speaker, but I just heard her then. I will endeavour to get that information provided to the House at the earliest possible opportunity.

I will say this, Mr. Speaker, the Premier and the Minister of Finance met two days ago, I believe it was, with some of the leading business people in Newfoundland and Labrador, people like Mr. Ches Penney, people like Albert Williams, Mr. Speaker, people who are involved in heavy construction and not only in Newfoundland and Labrador but across this country, Mr. Speaker. They clearly told the Premier and the Minister of Finance and this government that the infrastructure strategy that we laid out three years ago is working, to stay the course, to proceed as we had planned, not to increase our infrastructure spending over and above what we have already identified, Mr. Speaker, because the capacity does not exist in this Province to handle any more –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: I say to the minister, that is little comfort for the 2,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in this Province today who are going into the New Year without a job, I say to you, minister. That is a great deal of comfort for them.

Let me ask the minister this. They are on top of all the files, they know everything that is going on in the industry sector, or at least they do after the phone rings in the minister's office and someone tells her. Maybe they can give me an update with regard to two other iron ore projects in Labrador, the Labrador Iron Mines Holdings and LabMag Iron Ore Project and give me an update of what is going on with those projects?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I will endeavour to find out that information for the hon. member and I will report back to the House.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, weather conditions have once again resurrected the debate of mandatory winter tires in this Province. I know the minister has difficulty accepting it but experts say that snow tires are made of a special rubber compound and they are far much better than all-season tires and do indeed help prevent deadly accidents. The minister promised an analysis on this issue.

I ask the minister: Has your department completed its analysis of the mandatory tire use in this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I was wondering when the hon. member across the House would get to the rubber question, because I have been waiting since the House went in session.

As the minister responsible for highway safety, government in general, people in general always have the utmost in their minds, the safety of the travelling public. We have been following the issue in regards to winter driving in Quebec. They have just introduced mandatory tires there. They have some issues, as I understand it from my officials, and certainly I have been following different studies and different trends across the Province, and I say that it is not conclusive.

Each and every time that I stand, or if I am in the media or I am on Open Line or whatever the talk show that I might be in, is that – and I heard over the course of the last two weeks in regards to driving conditions in Newfoundland and Labrador, the police officers, be it the RNC or the RCMP, say quite categorically that if you do not adjust your driving habits to the conditions of the roads you will be in the woods, and that is the way it is, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, it was only this week the minister was on his feet here and he said during his first election there was so much money being thrown around he got struck in the side of the head with a bundle of money. I say, Mr. Speaker, he has not gotten over the effects of that yet, to be able to stay here in this hon. House and say that there is no difference in all-season tires and snow tires.

I ask the minister, and he just mentioned the Province of Quebec are the first ones to bring it in. The minister stated earlier this year on CBC that there was no proof. I ask the minister: What information did he use to make this judgment?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say before I get into the answer to his question that he should have been hit by one of the bags of money that came out of the (inaudible), it might have woke him up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: And that is a fact, because he has been asleep at the wheel now for a while I would say, and rubber will not do him any good at that, I can tell you that right now.

I will tell you one thing, in regard to the inconclusive information and studies thereof in regard to tires and the mandatory use of tires, some seasonal tires are much, much better in our driving conditions, which is under slush and rain conditions during our winter. We don't drive entirely on snow, where the winter tires are entirely for snow. When you understand that, you can take off your tires one day and put them on the next to drive to the conditions of roads. I say to the travelling public, drive to the conditions of the road and you will be safe.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, what a joke! What a joke! Taking the lives of Newfoundlanders and saying to them, that an all season tire used in this Province is better than a winter tire.

Mr. Speaker, this year at the Municipalities Convention in Corner Brook, the Town of Marystown put forth a resolution of mandatory winter tires and it was passed.

I ask the minister: What consultations has he had with MNL on this issue and are you taking their representation seriously?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, even though I take everybody's comments into consideration, even the people who might be on the talk shows or wherever they may be and have an issue or some type of opinion in regards to use of snow tires in winter conditions, MNL have made no representation to me and have made no request for a meeting.

I must also reference that that resolution passed by a very, very narrow, narrow margin, because most of the mayors understood that they didn't have a whole lot of information or expertise in that market as well.

What we are relying on, in regard to my department, is studies that have been happening all across North America and in European markets. We look at those, we look at the Quebec market, we look at everything out there in every jurisdiction, and make an informed decision. That is the way we will do it.

I have no intention right now, I tell this House, to bring forward legislation with regard to mandatory tires.

Again, I advise the travelling public –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think the minister said it all, when they have very little information, because I don't think he has done any research into it.

Recently, Mr. Speaker, a Reid survey which was done from March 27 to April 8 stated, and stated very seriously, and gave a percentage of what snow tires are used in the various provinces throughout this country. It stated that in Atlantic Canada 72 per cent of people use snow tires.

I ask the minister: What percentage of that 72 per cent is being used by residents of this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I travel this Province, across the Trans-Canada Highway, back and forth to Gander, and everywhere else, and I tell you I see a lot of people driving with winter tires in Newfoundland and Labrador. I can't give you a percentage but I tell you it is high. People in this Province know the conditions that we find ourselves in, winter conditions, and they adjust themselves accordingly.

As well, there are many things that you have to take into consideration in regard to bringing in mandatory legislation that would give people and certain sectors of our society problems in regard to their finances, so I have to take everything into consideration when we are making informed decision with regard to the use of mandatory tires.

Mr. Speaker, I am open, and if I see studies that show mandatory tires and winter tires, and the use of winter tires, would keep our travelling public safe, then (inaudible).

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

Yesterday, the Premier talked about signed on to a housing program with the federal government as one of the cornerstones of their new agreement. Well, the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs administers a housing program for Aboriginal people in this Province that was signed by the federal government with the Province nearly three years ago; yet, families in Labrador are not able to access that money.

My question to you, Minister, is: When are you going to get your act together, work with the Aboriginal groups, and get the money laid out for the families in Labrador who need this housing money to do their houses this year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS POTTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just to correct the Opposition, it is actually Newfoundland and Labrador Housing that administers that program, not Aboriginal Affairs, but I am pleased to say that we have worked with the Aboriginal groups, we have sat in on the meetings with them, and they are very happy how this is progressing.

From what I understand, and I asked for an update to come forward tomorrow as to the status of the documentation, they are preparing to finalize this. As we mentioned in the press release earlier this fall, they are hoping to have that rolled out in the new year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

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

Mr. Speaker, in the financial update this week, the Finance Minister announced that he will be using all of the $1.27 billion expected surplus –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members for their co-operation.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know if the Finance Minister heard me, but when he announced this week that –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

For the final time, I ask members for their co-operation.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am now going to shorten my question thanks to the colleagues in the room.

I am asking the Finance Minister: Will you take some of the money that you are paying down on the debt and use that money that you are planning to use totally on the debt, by helping citizens like disabled persons, people who are sick, chronically ill, elderly, and remove the provincial part of the HST from home care so that they can be better off and better afford the home care that they require?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is obvious that the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi does not understand the way the budgeting process works. We will not know the surplus until the end of the year, and then the year is over. At that point, if we have a surplus, it goes towards the debt. By paying off the debt it opens up monies that we can then utilize, and we can borrow for the programs as outlined in our fiscal update and in our programmings that are ongoing.

Last year, we spent $2.3 billion on health care and $1.7 billion on education so that approximately 56 per cent of our Budget went towards health and education.

I can say to the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi that she is not the only one who cares about the poor and the disabled. She can stand up there and preach to us, but we care and we are doing what we have to do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, a point of order.

I asked a question. I did not preach, or anything else. I asked a question, and I want my questions recognized.

I understand budgets, too, and I understand that surpluses do not dance over from one side to the other.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS MICHAEL: I have another question: Are you going to plan your Budget for 2009-2010 so that people who are paying for home care do not have to pay taxation on the home care that they require? Answer that one.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is my understanding that the HST, the primary responsibility for that, rests with the federal government. What we are doing, by brining in – can I answer your question?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. KENNEDY: Can I answer your question? Do you want the question answered?

It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that primarily the issue on the HST rests with the federal government. However, what we are doing, we have a $100 million Poverty Reduction Strategy which was referred to the other day. We have our monies going into health and education. We just announced a home heating rebate. We are acutely aware of the difficulty that people have in this Province, and we spend our money and our time addressing these issues.

What we are trying to do is better this Province and ensure sustainability in the future, not like some governments have done in the past.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

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

The Province does have control of the provincial portion; they could make the changes.

Another group that requires help is students who are carrying heavy debts. The Canadian Federation of Students has been asking for zero interest payment by students, no interest on student loans, so I am asking the Speaker: Can the students in this Province look forward to a Budget in 2009-2010 that will eliminate the provincial interest portion on student loans?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared here today to be making any pre-Budget announcements to say what is going to be in the Budget, but what I can say is this government has looked at the problem of student debt. We see it as a very serious problem and we have taken some real concrete action over the years to ensure that we acknowledge that issue.

Mr. Speaker, since we have been in government, and for this mandate, we have indicated that tuition will be frozen at both the College of the North Atlantic and Memorial University, and that requires a significant increase in our funding to post-secondary to allow us to do that.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing that we have done is, we have brought back up-front, needs-based grants to students who apply for student loans. The other thing we have done, Mr. Speaker, is we have rolled back the interest rates on student loans from prime plus two-and-a-half back to prime. We are the only province to have done that, Mr. Speaker.

I would love to be able to finish (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Before I move into further proceedings, I would like to inform hon. members - and I think everybody here knows - that it is certainly inappropriate and certainly unparliamentary to refer to a member's absence or their presence in the House of Assembly.

I ask members to be guided accordingly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) should apologize.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, on a point of order.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: I appreciate your comment, Mr. Speaker, and I -

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order?

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS JONES: The Member for Lake Melville referred to me leaving the House the other night when he was up talking.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: I was just going to comment, Mr. Speaker, in reference to your commentary, some members opposite were shouting about an apology being required. I did discuss it with the Leader of the Opposition. She was not aware of the rule about referring to members being absent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motion.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that under Standing Order 11, I shall move that the House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, December 15, 2008.

Further, I give notice that under Standing Order 11, I shall move that the House not adjourn at 10:00 p.m. on Monday, December 15, 2008.

MR. SPEAKER: Further Notices of Motions?

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Consolidate The Law Respecting Revenue Administration. (Bill 74)

MR. SPEAKER: Further Notices of Motions?

The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Respecting The Practice Of Engineering And Geoscience. (Bill 73).

MR. SPEAKER: Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

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

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

I was not going to get up today but one of my hon. colleagues said yesterday that I was over there chirping away, so I will get up and chirp another little bit today, Mr. Speaker

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to what the Premier had to say after he met with the business community. He said this government would proceed - he would listen to their advice and he would proceed with sensible plans, costed projects. I stand here today, Mr. Speaker, to say to all hon. colleagues, that the long-term care facility for Conception Bay North is just that.

Mr. Speaker, we all know the situation in the Conception Bay North area, the proposal that went forward for a 210 bed facility, and the people of that area are concerned about this. The Mayor of Carbonear has spoken out in favour of it, and to professionals in the field. We know that the Department of Health and Community Services last year put forth a recommendation for $1 million to have that project proceed, but it was rejected, Mr. Speaker.

I am calling on the Premier. We know that the budget will be coming down fairly soon, and consultations with the budget. I know my hon. colleague, the Minister of Health and Community Services is only too glad to put that same proposal forward again this year, and I am asking government and through the Premier, that they would reconsider the decision that they made last year for whatever reasons that that project would not proceed.

So Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the residents of all the districts in the Conception Bay North area, I ask that government would reconsider a long-term care facility for the Conception Bay North area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Transportation and Works, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Mineral Act. (Bill 62)

I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of Natural Resources shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Mineral Act, Bill 62, and that the said bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the minister shall have leave to introduce Bill 62 and that this bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Natural Resources to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Mineral Act," carried. (Bill 62)

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Mineral Act. (Bill 62)

MR. SPEAKER: This bill has now been read a first time.

When shall this bill be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow?

On motion, Bill 62 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Transportation and Works, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Establish The Newfoundland And Labrador Research And Development Council, Bill 70, and I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Establish The Newfoundland And Labrador Research And Development Council, Bill 70, and that the said bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the said minister shall have leave to introduce Bill 70 and that this bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works to introduce a bill, "An Act To Establish The Newfoundland And Labrador Research And Development Council," carried. (Bill 70)

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Establish The Newfoundland And Labrador Research And Development Council. (Bill 70)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 70 has now been read a first time.

When shall this bill be referred for second reading? Now? Tomorrow?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 70 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, No. 2, Bill 71, and I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, No. 2, Bill 71, and that this bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 71 be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, No. 2," carried. (Bill 71)

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, No. 2. (Bill 71)

MR. SPEAKER: An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, No. 2, Bill 71, has now been read a first time. When shall this bill be referred for second reading?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow?

On motion, Bill 71 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act Respecting Certified General Accountants, Bill 72, and I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved by the hon. the Government House Leader to have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act Respecting Certified General Accountants (Bill 72), and that this bill be now read a first time.

Shall the hon. minister have leave to introduce Bill 72, and that the said bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Government House Leader to introduce a bill, "An Act Respecting Certified General Accountants," carried. (Bill 72)

MR. SPEAKER: When shall this bill be referred for second reading?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

CLERK: A bill, An Act Respecting Certified General Accountants. (Bill 72)

MR. SPEAKER: The Speaker is getting too eager.

On motion, Bill 72 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, from the Order Paper, 26, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act. (Bill 64)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It is moved and seconded that Bill 64, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, be now read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Rooms Act." (Bill 64)

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce amendments to the Rooms Act, Bill 64. In essence, Mr. Speaker, this is the next step following the amendments to Bill 63.

Really, Mr. Speaker, what this is speaking about is just as I have said. As my colleague, Minister Kennedy, spoke in Bill 63 with respect to the Management of Information Act, it involves moving the mandate for the public records committee, which is to renamed the government record committee, from the Rooms Act to the Management of Information Act.

Really, Mr. Speaker, this just makes sense. What is happening is that government is attempting to co-ordinate the consolidation of information under one body, that being the Office of the Chief Information Officer. As such, what we will be doing is moving records that are currently in The Rooms, and under the Rooms Act, we will moving them now under the Management of Information Act.

Mr. Speaker, there is not much more than that, that I can say, so I look forward to debate on Bill 64.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate an opportunity just to have a few brief comments with respect to Bill 64. As indicated the other day, there are two bills there, actually, the management bill which was Bill 63 and this one which was Bill 64, and they are companion pieces because definitions are being changed in one which necessitate the change of definitions of another in order to make the two pieces of legislation properly mesh.

The major concern, I noticed the news media carried stories on it not only today but the televised media carried stories on it, I believe, in both newscasts yesterday and the day before, particularly Tuesday evening when we debated Bill 63 here. That concerns the issue of the definition being given to Cabinet documents, a very expansive definition here, and it comes down, I guess, to the spirit in which government, once they pass this, intends to view that definition.

Now, it is pretty obvious that this is a pretty cloak-and-dagger government. What is not under the blanket gets hauled under the blanket as quickly as you can and, with very little assistance from the government in terms of openness and accountability, there is very little chance of getting it back out. That is pretty obvious. The Leader of the NDP has also spoken about this issue at length, about the definition of Cabinet documents.

If you just look at the definition, again, there are two pieces to this. One is to make the definition. The issue then becomes how the government administers and implements and looks at the application of that definition in the future.

You might easily come in here today and say: Oh, this is only a small piece of legislation. This is no big deal. This is housekeeping stuff. We just changed the definition a little bit.

Unfortunately, it is the application or the spirit in which government operates within that definition that later determines its impact. For example, if government wants to be secret and you want to keep stuff from the public view, you do not want to have to disclose it, you simply expand the definition. If you look at this one here - and I said the other day to the Minister of Finance, I cannot think of very much, after this goes through - I can't think of hardly anything - that is not going to be arguably a Cabinet document, a Cabinet confidence.

I will give you an example. The definition has about eight or ten different parts to it – eight. A Cabinet record is going to include a memorandum, the purpose of which is to present proposals or recommendations to Cabinet. Okay, that seems fairly straightforward. That would obviously be a Cabinet record. A discussion paper, policy analysis, proposal, advice or briefing material, including all factual background material prepared for Cabinet. Now, where does that end? For example, if someone at the university initiates a discussion paper that finds its way into the government, who considers it as part of a proposal eight or ten months out, does that mean nobody can ever access that piece of information because now we are going to put it under this all-encompassing umbrella called a Cabinet record?

Part (iii), "…an agenda, minute or other record of Cabinet recording deliberations..."- I have no problem with that one. That has been very straightforward. Anything that happens in the Cabinet room is deemed to be a Cabinet record. I have no problem with that.

"…is used for or reflects communications or discussions among ministers on matters relating to the making of government decisions or the formulation of government policy." Now, that is a pretty tricky one. We need only go back to the Cameron inquiry of this year to see how that would have impacted all the e-mails that got released, or I should say, didn't get released. You can use this here. Basically, Cabinets on a go-forward basis are going to be able to say: we don't have to release any of those things. Can you imagine if the Cameron inquiry could have done a thorough, proper, effective job, if they hadn't gotten their hands on some of those e-mails? Obviously, it wouldn't have been able to do an effective job at all.

Now, by passing this piece of legislation, government is going to be able to cloak and dagger all of this. There is not going to be one future e-mail, I would suggest, that people are going to try to get out of this government – if the government doesn't want it out they will say: that is a Cabinet record, because it was used for or reflects communications. Pretty broad and pretty expansive.

I don't know if we even need to have an ATIPP Act anymore when it comes to certainly communications in the Executive Council Office, because under that section or subsection you can pretty well hide anything away.

"…is created for or by a minister for the purpose of briefing that minister…" That might be fair ball. If you prepare it to brief a minister in going to Cabinet I can see where that one would make sense. You know, it hasn't become policy and it was probably just put out for the purposes of discussion or whatever. You might be able to justify that one, that, no, ministers shouldn't have to disclose that one later on. Because no decision was made, it was prepared for a briefing purpose, therefore you could probably justify that one.

"…is created during the process of developing or preparing a submission for Cabinet"- again, pretty broad. Somebody in the Health Care Authority or the School Board Authority or wherever, sends an e-mail to someone that might be a piece of information that subsequently ends up being a new policy on water sewer or a new policy on health care. All of the sudden, when you go back and say, well, we want to know the background on this, who said what to whom and when, you cannot get it, because the big veil of secrecy comes down again and they say, no, no, no, no, under the provisions regarding Cabinet records, we cannot give you that. So do not go making any ATIPP requests or whatever because you are not going to get it. Then they say the other one is draft legislation or a draft regulation. I do not have any problem with that one, either. Government is drafting something. In other words, it is not the law and it only reflects what you believe that law or regulation should be at a given point, and they are subject to making changes to it. So that is not really unreasonable, I would not think.

Contains information about the contents of a record, within a class of information referred to in subparagraphs (i) to (vii). So that is pretty broad. In other words, if we have not captured it in the first seven, anything we forgot to include in the first seven we are going to capture it now by this subclause (viii).

So it is pretty clear that, albeit, the intent here is to talk about the management of government information, who does it, i.e.: should it be The Rooms, or should it be the information office? It also will, as a result of these two bills, 63 and 64, it has expanded the definition of Cabinet records. Therein lies the issue, because these two pieces of legislation become law, we think it had to do about information management generally. We think it had to do about The Rooms. I alluded the other day to the situation where a bunch of documents that were going to be shredded had been shipped off to a company from The Rooms, and they went to shred them.

It is pretty clear that – and I wanted to be on the record for this, because we will not know today, we will not know tomorrow, probably even next month, what the impact of this change is going to be but history will reshow and history will reflect how, not only this government, but governments of the future interpret that particular definition of a Cabinet record. So, I think it is only time will show where it goes, and that will depend upon the spirit and the intent of how this and future governments decide to use that particular definition.

I do not have anything further to say with regards to 64, Mr. Speaker, other than that particular reference to Cabinet records.

Thank you.

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

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

I am glad to be able to speak to Bill 64 because it does connect to Bill 63, under which I had a number of concerns to express, and they come up again here.

Now my colleague from the Official Opposition has probably made reference to most of the things I was going to make reference to but I want to put my comments on record because I think it is important to do so.

As I expressed with regard to Bill 63, and I am now saying the same thing with regard to Bill 64, we see government using the opportunity of amending these two bills to do something which I do not think was called for, and that is to introduce a definition of Cabinet record which is not going to stand alone in the bill in which it finds itself, because both of these bills, Bill 63 and Bill 64, are going to become part of acts that will have to interact with the Access to Information Act. There is no doubt about it, that there is an interrelationship.

So one has to ask: What was the government's motive? I cannot attribute motives and I cannot say what it was but I can ask the question, and I would hope the minister will give some clarification. What was the government's motive and what was its thinking, and what was its purpose, motive, thinking and purpose, in coming up with a definition for Cabinet records that goes way beyond the definition that we find in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act?

I, once again - in case people who are watching us were not watching when we discussed Bill 63, I read this then but I am going to do it again. The definition in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act defines Cabinet confidences. Now here it is called Cabinet records in the bill we are dealing with today, Bill 64. In the ATIPP Act it is called Cabinet confidences. It says: "The head of a public body shall refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation or regulations submitted or prepared for submission to the Cabinet."

Now that definition in the ATIPP Act relates directly to material that is the substance of discussion in Cabinet. It does not refer to material that is six and seven degrees away from Cabinet. It does not refer to discussions inside of our health authorities or inside of school boards where they are talking about issues that are eventually going to get to Cabinet but it is their discussions around them. It does not refer to communications, maybe e-mail communications of potential discussions that may lead to something that is going to Cabinet. I really see this definition with these eight sections that I am not going to go over again because the Opposition House Leader went over them, and went over them well, and said, actually, what I would have said. So I will not go over them again, but to point out that the details that are in the definition in this act, to me, smack of a government trying to control information. I find that very objectionable and I am very, very concerned. You have to look at, how will - what is in this bill - it be interpreted, not just in the present but also in the future. This is leading the way for an interpretation that would mean that some of the most innocuous, what would appear to be innocuous pieces of communication would be covered.

I have said publicly outside of this House, and I will say it again, that I think it will stand in the way of potential investigations down the road when we might have a major adverse event happen in our Province again and it is important, like we had with the ER-PR testing, and a commission may have to be set up again. It is important for a commissioner to be able to figure out how in the whole system that is relating to the adverse event, how things were dealt with. I will tell you, this new definition of Cabinet records is going to keep an awful lot of information out of the hands of a commissioner, and I have a real problem with that. I do not know where it fits in this government's agenda, or its stated agenda, of being a government that is accountable and transparent. I find it very, very problematic.

I will not be voting for this bill because of the definition on Cabinet records. Other things in the bill, I absolutely agree with. Things that are in the bill, they are logical, they are sensible and they are part of things that are going on now across the country with regard to management of information and management of government records.

I particularly like, for example, section 25.1 of the bill which talks about destruction prohibition. "A person shall not, except with the written consent of the director and the approval of the chief executive officer, the board of directors and the minister, remove, dispose of or destroy archival records." A very, very important point because the destruction of archival records is serious when it comes to historical documentation. So while there are things in the bill that I think are absolutely essential, and I like the way in which Bill 63 and Bill 64 separate out from the Rooms Act currently, stuff that should be in the Management Of Information Act, and I am positive about that, I cannot agree with the definition of Cabinet records as in this bill.

Like I said, I asked the minister two days ago, with regard to the definition as it was found in Bill 63, so I will ask it again: Why did the government choose to do this and not just use the definition that is already in a prior act, in the ATIPP Act?

That is my question for the minister. I hope I get an answer. If the answer is not satisfactory, or even if it is, I still cannot agree with the definition and I will be voting against the bill.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the hon. members for their comments, but I would like to distinguish the difference between this act, the Management of Information Act, and the ATIPP Act, or the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

What we have, Mr. Speaker, is an act here, as I outlined the other day, that deals with, as its title says, the management of information. It is an attempt to take information that is out there in government in two separate sources and to streamline it so that is looked after and stored by the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Essentially, Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here, we are looking at the definitions of some records: public record, government record, et cetera. Section 18 of the ATIPP Act is a more vague definition, Mr. Speaker, and that deals with, if we go back to the reason for the ATIPP Act, or the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, is to allow for individuals to access information that affects themselves but that can affect the workings of government, to put it another way.

Essentially, Mr. Speaker, you have to look at the two acts, what they do, and juxtapose the definitions of Cabinet records in the same, and you can see that there is really much ado about nothing. What we have here, the Management of Information Act defines Cabinet records as that term is used in Cabinet Secretariat and as it is used in government.

Mr. Speaker, at least two of the members of the Official Opposition and the third party have been in Cabinet, so they are aware of the process that takes place. The process of creating a Cabinet document just does not start one day where you get down and you write your Cabinet paper or your cabinet document. It starts, Mr. Speaker, with an idea. Like so many other things in law, it begins with a process where a minister, or someone in the department, says we should look at – or Cabinet says we should look at - this. How would this work? Then there is research conducted.

When you look at, Mr. Speaker, for example, what takes place in Justice, we have a situation where you could be dealing with a piece of legislation, for example, affecting – the Provincial Court Act the other day. Someone looks at that and says we have to make a change to this act. This act is not consistent with other acts. It does not read the way that we want it to read. There is ambiguity or vagueness. In other words, Mr. Speaker, the principles of statutory interpretation have to be looked at.

It goes from there, where there can be a note of some sort prepared. Obviously the advice given to a minister has to be documented, because oftentimes the minister will then take that document – whatever form that document may take – and form his or her own opinion. Then the process will continue, Mr. Speaker, through various committees, through various discussions, until it reaches the Cabinet table. It is not a matter, then, that that particular paper essentially just appeared by magic. A lot of work went into it. A lot of work from various people went into that, Mr. Speaker.

What this document does, or what this act does with this amendment, would be to allow for the types of documents that we are looking at in Cabinet records. I see nothing nefarious about this. I do not see any conspiracies here, Mr. Speaker. I simply see an act that deals with the storage and maintaining of information that may be important in subsequent days.

What we have is: memorandums; discussion papers, policy analysis, proposal, advice or briefing material; agenda, minute or other record of Cabinet; is used for or reflects communications or discussions among ministers or matters relating to the making of government decisions; is created for or by a minister for the purpose of briefing that minister on a matter for Cabinet; is created during the process of developing or preparing a submission for Cabinet; is draft legislation or a draft regulation.

What we have, Mr. Speaker, is simply a situation here where this kind of documentation will now be looked after by the Office of the Chief Information Officer. How, Mr. Speaker, that becomes a government conspiracy, as some journalists would think, to protect information, is somewhat beyond me, I have to say.

We have a government to run, Mr. Speaker. The Supreme Court of Canada, in a number of different decisions over the years, and other courts, have recognized the importance of Cabinet privilege, Cabinet secrecy. It is one of the principles upon which our system works. Deliberations have to be able to take place in an environment that allows for us to make the decisions needed without making them public.

So, personally, although some of my - I am not saying that the Access to Information Act needs to be changed, but I would suggest that section 18 of the Access to Information Act is too vague. "The head of a public body shall refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet, including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation or regulations…".

Now, the only lawyer on the other side that I am aware of is the Opposition House Leader, and what I found with the Opposition House Leader is that he interprets things as he wants to interpret them; but, when you are looking at a piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, there are rules that you apply. You apply one rule that is called the mischief rule. What is the intent of this legislation? What is it meant to protect? You apply an interpretation, Mr. Speaker, that in some instances is a large or liberal interpretation. There are books written, Driedger, on the interpretation of statutes.

When you are drafting a piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, the courts have said one of the things you should look at is circumscribing as best as possible, or outlining as best as possible, the criteria that apply. Ambiguity in a statute causes difficulty, because ambiguity allows for interpretation. So, again, what is the intent of the Legislature? What is the intent of the Legislature as we deal with this piece of legislation? To store Cabinet records.

Where is the conspiracy? Where do the front-page stories come? Where does the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, I say, get off making front-page stories out of something that is as innocuous as a paper like this?

What it is, Mr. Speaker, is a lack and, I would suggest, a fatal lack, of understanding how government works – but how would she know how government works? She sits there by herself. She has no one to consult with. I haven't heard her complain about resources. Apparently, she must have enough. So, she sees shadows; she sees ghosts where ghosts don't exist. This is very straightforward.

The Opposition House Leader, however, I would take issue with his comments because he should know better, Mr. Speaker. Being legally trained, I am assuming he practiced law. Well, he did practice law. I should say I don't know how well he practiced law. In any event, Mr. Speaker, when you look at the interpretation of a statute, how that Opposition House Leader can stand in this Legislature today, how he can stand here today and make these kinds of comments is beyond me, but I guess what it is, is politics. I guess what it is, is feeding into the media with their front-page stories on Saturday. I guess what it is, Mr. Speaker, is feeding into their political agenda, that we are not open and accountable.

We have nothing to hide. In this particular government, Mr. Speaker, I remind the public: Who called the Cameron inquiry? This government. It is strange, Mr. Speaker, if you have things to hide, that you go and call the very inquiry that you are using to discover the truth; because that is the purpose of an inquiry, to discover the truth. Mr. Speaker, I can give you an example.

I, the other day, had to get my assistant in to look at my e-mail. I had 10,564 e-mails on my computer since I came into government. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? Because I am afraid to delete any. Even something from my wife saying, what are we doing for supper? I said, that could be important to the Opposition; that could be the subject of an inquiry. Where was the minister when he should have been doing his work? He was e-mailing his wife about supper.

What it is, Mr. Speaker, there is a heightened sensitivity in this government to the importance of maintaining information. We want the truth to come out there. So, if you are going to attack us, if the Opposition is going to attack us, do not attack us on everything. Do not make spurious allegations. Do not see nefarious conspiracies where they do not exist. This is simply a housekeeping matter. It is very simple; we are going to manage information. What information are we going to manage? Cabinet records. What are Cabinet records? It starts, and this is the process.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to talk about ATIPP for a second, to show or to distinguish between the importance of ATIPP as it relates to protection of private information. I read this, Mr. Speaker, "The head of a public body shall…" – mandatory shall – "refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet…". Now, the deliberations of Cabinet do not take place in a vacuum, as I have indicated, Mr. Speaker. There is a process. It may start with the germ of an idea. It may start with a question that is raised in this House. It may start as we are – I was going to say arguing among each other, but that is not a way to put it – as we are having discussions, very mature discussions among Cabinet colleagues, as to how we are going to approach the governing of this Province.

The substance of deliberations, we could take a very wide definition of that, and as a lawyer I tend to look at this and say the substance of deliberations begin with that germ of an idea, with that first piece of paper, whether it be written on a napkin in a hotel in Ottawa or a note to the minister himself. So I keep my napkins, too, when I go away now, when I go to Ottawa. If I write something down, I have to keep them also. It is hard to get them scanned into the computer but the point, while being somewhat facetious, the point I am trying to make is that we are acutely aware of the importance of maintaining all information because we have nothing to hide.

Now, the substance of deliberations, "…including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation…". Now, if we applied this definition of ATIPP, as some lawyers could argue it should be applied, the Opposition would not get anything, and the media would not get anything, when it comes to Cabinet deliberations.

The intent of the Legislature is that there should be access to some of this information. The difficulty is, when you use the mandatory shall in a piece of legislation, "The head of a public body shall refuse…", there should be very little leeway there for the head of the public body to disclose this information. Now, in order to disclose that information, you have to take a more relaxed approach; because when you are looking at a statute you have to look at the wording. What should be in the statute, I would suggest, to ensure consistency, would be, under the definition of the substance of deliberations, what are they?

I can remember, Mr. Speaker, when we were bringing ATIPP in this House and I looked at some case law on that issue in trying to determine what the substance of deliberations mean. To me, when you deliberate you make a decision. That is what Cabinet does, as you are aware, Mr. Speaker. We make decisions. While these decisions may not always be agreed with, I can assure you that the fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen people around that table are making those decisions in the best interest of the people of this Province, because that is what we do as a government.

A prime example today, the Speaker raised the issue of someone said, where are certain people today? Now, Mr. Speaker, what happened today, as a government, to show you how we think as a government, the Energy Corporation was unveiled, the Brand was unveiled. That Energy Corporation, thirty years down the road, will be one of our crowning achievements. That Energy Corporation will be what will ensure sustainability as we outlined in Budget 2008. We are not looking for votes tomorrow. We are not doing things that are popular today for the sake of being popular. We are looking thirty years down the road because we want to turn that Lower Churchill over to our children and grandchildren and say you own it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: So, the substance of those deliberations is quite simple. They are in what we determine to be the best interests of this Province, unlike the Churchill Falls deal in 1967, I can tell you. I have been looking at some of that. You want to talk about a process, Mr. Speaker, where politicians had very little involvement.

I digress somewhat, because I can't find the substance in deliberations there. I have the Premier of the day, Premier Smallwood, standing up in the House of Assembly and saying: I never saw the contract. Well, we will never be accused of that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: The substance of our deliberations is there and it can be looked at.

The question is though, Mr. Speaker – as we went through the Energy Corporation we had to deal with the issue, for example, of confidential information. We have to be able to ensure that sensitive information is not disclosed. We have to make decisions that at first glance may appear to be counter to our basic premise of being open and accountable. We have to do these things to make sure that what we are doing, Mr. Speaker, is we are living in a real commercial world.

"…substance of deliberations of Cabinet, including advice, recommendations, policy considerations or draft legislation…" – nothing would ever be disclosed if this definition were applied to its fullest. I, personally, as a lawyer – I say personally, as a lawyer – look at Bill 63. Bill 63 adds clarity. It defines a Cabinet record from the time you have that germ of an idea, whether it comes in the form of a memorandum, a note or a paper napkin, it takes that discussion paper and it brings it forward. Now, the intent of the Legislature, Mr. Speaker, in not utilizing that definition which existed at the time of Cabinet Secretariat, was to allow for some information to be provided. However, when I look at the wording of the Act, "The head of a public body shall refuse..." He shall refuse. Not that he may grant, he or she; that he shall refuse.

Now, to go on: Subsection (2) says, "Subsection (1) does not apply to (a) information in a record that has been in existence for 20 years or more." Well, that makes sense. Twenty years from now, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that the members of the Cabinet and the members of this House will not mind one bit our Cabinet papers, our deliberations, being shown to the public. Because, do you know what is going to happen, Mr. Speaker? It is like the Energy Corporation. People are going to look and say, boy, these guys and girls, women – excuse me, whatever. Be careful! My Cabinet colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have made decisions in the best interests of this Province and I have the utmost confidence that those Cabinet confidences will show that what we did was right, especially when it comes to something like the Energy Corporation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Then, Mr. Speaker, "Subsection (1) does not apply to information in a record of a decision made by the Cabinet on an appeal under an act." Now, I am not quite certain, Mr. Speaker, about a record of a decision made by the Cabinet on an appeal under an act. I do know - and one of the cases I remember, Mr. Speaker, from reading case law, was a case called Operation Dismantle. Now, my learned friend - and it is not often I get to use that term any more - the Minister of Justice, may remember that case a little bit more than me, but it dealt with disclosure of Cabinet secrecy documents in relation to, I think, some nuclear issues in Ontario in the 1980s or 1990s. The Supreme Court of Canada, if I remember correctly, Mr. Speaker, recognized the importance of Cabinets being able to make these decisions. Secrecy and privacy, Mr. Speaker, there are times when they come into conflict. There is a tension between the two.

Now, how can a government exist if we do not keep certain things secret? We have been elected by the public, and there is no obligation on us to consult with the Opposition before we make decisions. There is no obligation on us to consult with business people or other people before we make decisions, because, Mr. Speaker, we have to be able to. We have to be confident in our decisions. One of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, that we can be confident in our decisions is that there is a very basic principle. I can say to the people of this House and the people of this Province that Cabinet secrecy is very important. The quickest way out of Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, would be a breach of Cabinet secrecy and that is why it is so important to all of us. However, we recognize that that tension that exists between the protection of the information utilized in deliberating in Cabinet must also be balanced against the public's right to know.

Mr. Speaker, that is a very sensitive area and one that we are very in tune with, one that we look at and weigh and make certain decisions on. I have to say, with all due respect to the members opposite, I do not know how they can impugn the actions we are taking or impute improper motives to us, in simply bringing in a definition of Cabinet record that appears to me - and some of my Cabinet colleagues can tell me if I am wrong - but it appears to me to encompass what a Cabinet record is. I do not see anything in there that would not amount to a Cabinet record that does not appear in front of us at some point as we make our decisions, Mr. Speaker. So, it is not factually inaccurate. It is one that is used by Cabinet Secretariat on an ongoing basis and it is one that is not as restrictive as the definition used right now.

Perhaps, if the Opposition were arguing that we are somehow or other affecting ATIPP, if there was any validity to that argument, I might consider it, but right now, Mr. Speaker, I see the argument put forward as just being simply frivolous and spurious and one that either lacks understanding in the process and the legal principles involved in interpreting the legislation or one that simply is an attempt to deliberately confuse and obfuscate the issues.

I see my time is up, Mr. Speaker, and those will be my comments in relation to the necessity of this amendment to the Management of Information Act.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation. If he speaks now he shall close debate.

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Certainly, I thank people for their input into Bill 64.

As has been said by my colleague, the Minister of Justice, I thought from the outset of bringing forward this bill and Bill 63, that it was a matter of procedural, nothing more than that. When I hear members opposite suggesting that there is something sinister here, I do not know how to respond to it really, Mr. Speaker. We as a government are as open as we possibly can be. I think everyone, or not everyone, the majority of people within the Province and the majority of people within government, I would suggest, would know that there are decisions made and there are pieces of information shared that have to be kept confidential from time to time. If you are about laying out every piece of information, every piece of negotiation that you are into, I would suggest to you that at the end of the day you are not going to be all that successful. As such, as a government you are elected to lead and you do that in an honest and transparent manner knowing that there are times when you will have to protect privileged information. This is certainly nothing to do with hiding things.

As I have said from the outset, Mr. Speaker, Bill 64 is really about taking information that is now contained under The Rooms Act and putting it under the Office of the Chief Information Officer. We are at a different time and place in the management of records now, Mr. Speaker, than we were five or ten years ago. I would suggest also that if you have records that are kept here, there or everywhere, most people would say to you that it is best that you manage all that information under one body. As such, that is why the Office of the Chief Information Officer has been established.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I close debate in Second Reading.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that the said bill be now read a second time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act. (Bill 64)

MR. SPEAKER: This bill has now been read a second time, when shall the bill be referred to a committee of the Whole House?

Now, tomorrow?

MS BURKE: Now.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, Bill 64, "An Act To Amend The Rooms Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House, presently, by leave. (Bill 64)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bills 38, 53, 59, 63, and 64.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that I do now leave the Chair for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider the said bills.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Carried.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

CHAIR (Collins): The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, in Committee of the Whole we will call Bill 38.

CHAIR: We are now debating Bill 38.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, 2000 And To Repeal The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act." (Bill 38)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 5 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 5 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 5 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, 2000 And To Repeal The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, Bill 53.

CHAIR: We are now prepared to debate Bill 53.

A bill, "An Act To Remove Anomalies And Errors In The Statute Law." (Bill 53)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 20 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 20 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 20 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Remove Anomalies And Errors In the Statue Law.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, Bill 59.

CHAIR: We are now debating Bill 59.

A bill, "An Act To Provide For The Organization And Administration Of Emergency Services In The Province." (Bill 59)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 31 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 31 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 31 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Provide For The Organization And Administration Of Emergency Services In The Province.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, Bill 63.

CHAIR: We are now prepared to debate Bill 63.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Management Of Information Act." (Bill 63)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 8 inclusive.

CHAIR: Clauses 2 to 8 inclusive.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate an opportunity to have a few comments here in Committee. Specifically, I noticed you called clauses 2 through 8, I do believe. My comments are restricted to clause 2, particularly 2(a.2) dealing with Cabinet records.

Again, I am not certain if I got all of the comments. I notice the Minister of Finance had a few comments this afternoon again with regards to our – being Opposition, in this case – not understanding, or not properly interpreting the law or the legislation as it pertains to Cabinet documents. I guess the words that come to mind, first of all, was Shakespeare's words: He doth protest too much.

He originally started out by saying there is no connection between what we are doing here and ATIPP, the Information and Privacy Act, and then he turns around and proceeds to take fifteen or twenty minutes to talk about ATIPP. So, for something that does not apply, he certainly spent a lot of time talking about it. He talked about some rules of interpretation. He mentioned the mischief rule. I say that is a good choice of words in that particular case because depending upon how mischievous a government might want to be, we could, as a people, have a problem when it comes to disclosure or non-disclosure of information. That is exactly what the whole point is. It is very important, so do not claim to know everything.

We have not been aggressive on this. We have not been condescending to anyone in this House when we talked about it. We put forward our complaints and our concerns about how broad this might be as a piece of legislation. You do not need to be condescending to anybody because they raise an opinion here and happen to have an opinion that is different. In fact, I think of all the places in this Province this is the place where you should be, the ultimate place to be when you voice your differences of opinion. It does not have anything to do with your gender. It does not have anything to do with your necessary level of intelligence or what your opinions might be, but we are allowed to have them, folks, and you do not deserve to be personally attacked because you do. Some people here do not understand that yet.

The question is, again, about the definition of Cabinet records. I believe one of the phrases that the minister used was, he talked about notes on a napkin. I know he used it as giving an analogy as to what might or might not be included and become a Cabinet record, but that is the whole point. I use his words to demonstrate that. How far do we go when we talk about Cabinet records? Should notes on a napkin be considered a Cabinet record? If we are going to take it to that very extreme, that notes on a napkin can be considered a Cabinet document, God forbid if we ever tries to get at anything else that might be written down or recorded. That is the whole point we are trying to make here. That it is so comprehensive, it is so all inclusive, that depending upon how mischievous a government might want to be people, will or will not have access to information when it comes to, quote, Cabinet records. That is the whole point.

To get up and say it does not make any sense and you got to trust us. It is not about trust, folks. We put legislation in place - in fact, I alluded to earlier, the very ATIPP that we are talking about this minister brought it in back in 2002. After twenty years we recognized that we did not have a good access to information piece. We had no legislation dealing with privacy. So, we decided - and by the way, the Opposition of the day played a major role. Talk about giving credit. The Opposition of the day - I remember the Member for Ferryland was very active, the former Speaker, who was the Member for Mount Pearl was very active. Indeed, the person who is the Premier of this Province today responded in second reading when I delivered it and raised what he thought were certain concerns about ATIPP and the fact that he did not think that it went far enough. It was acknowledged by everybody at the time that it would only be over the course of time that we would find out whether ATIPP, that we brought in in 2002, was going to work, not work, had deficiencies, needed to be improved upon, and so on. That is where we have come from over the last five, six years. We have had the experience of the Privacy Commissioner. We have had the experience of people who want to do appeals and people who say: But we disagree with government, we do not think you are releasing enough information.

Anybody who has lived in this Province, it did not take The Telegram story of last Saturday to recognize that there is a problem. Now the government can argue all they want that The Telegram is fear mongering. That The Telegram is being specious in their arguments, that they should not be writing such stories. But, folks, it was very, very factual. This member, in fact, took twenty minutes of a Question Period in the spring sitting to ask eight or ten ministers of this government - before we adjourned for the spring, I made a deliberate point of asking eight different ministers: When are we going to get certain information that has been requested, that you undertook to release, and has not been released? This is not a figment of anybody's imagination about the release of documentation. Nobody dreamed it up. We only need to go back to Hansard to check and see that that took place. We only need to read The Telegram story to know that there are concerns. So, let's not kid ourselves. Somebody is going to look back on this government, like every other government, and make a determination that you either were or were not open.

So far the verdict that has come in on this government is that you are pretty secretive, that you hide information, folks. That is the record. It is not the Opposition speculating that is what it is; those are the facts. We also know, for example, that we have a backup of appeals in the information office. For example, the Official Opposition here, we spent over $6000 so far, virtually all of the budget, just to pay the fees to try to get the information. Now, we have found out – yes, we, the former Administration, brought in the act and brought in the fee structure, but - folks, it is not working. There is a cost factor that impedes the getting at the information, and the government, I would submit, are improperly now using that excuse to say, we cannot give you the information.

That is one of the things and one of the reasons we found out that the former ATIPP is not working: the existing fee structure makes it too expensive for people to get at it, including Cabinet confidences. In fact, when you try to get any information from the Executive Council, which includes all the Cabinet documentation, that is where the major stumbling block is, the major impediment. We have gotten pages back, for example, that had the reference on the top of it saying such-and-such a committee meeting, and every single piece on the page blacked out. Now, who do you think you are fooling? The public sees that, when you see the page number and every single line on a thirty-page document is blacked out. You are not kidding anybody. The Telegram did not fabricate that story, fabricate that page. That was released by some government agency.

The tenor of The Telegram story was, not only is the act not working to the best that it could and should, but that Executive Council, in fact, are interfering in the process. That was not their comment. That was not their suggestion. That was their outright allegation, and they gave examples of where the Executive of this government have interfered with the processing and release of documentation.

Now, I have not seen any minister in this House up this week explaining factually why The Telegram story is wrong. Government has access to the information. Government has all kinds of ways to stand up and go out in the media and say: That is a bad story; you didn't have that right.

In fact, if it is not right, I would think the government had an action for defamation. If it is not right, then government should be out there saying that, if you are being condemned and it is not correct.

The Minister of Finance alluded again today, he said: I am going to direct my comments specifically towards the privacy provisions of ATIPP. I thought it was a good step in 2002 that we embarked upon protection for privacy, for people's information that was within the confines of government. Obviously, there is lots of stuff that is not right about it; it is obvious that we are going to fix it. We know so many things now that need to be fixed, and I can pretty well guarantee that on a go-forward basis there is going to be a lot more than needs to be fixed as time and experience and incidents prove that to be the case. I don't know them all now but we are going to be back here in the future making further amendments to ATIPP because we are going to find out about a situation that is not properly covered off or should be covered off and isn't, and we are going to be back here dealing with it, but because something is imperfect sometimes does not mean that you do not have to deal with it.

When the minister talked about privacy, we had an incident of privacy this week from the very Minister of Justice who controls, for all of government, the security and privacy of information belonging to this government. We had a document that was put on the Web site of the Department of Finance about the correction facilities, posted on the Web. Now, anybody in the world who knows how to access the Web or had a computer could access it, and it dealt with private information. Some pieces of it were private. Not only was there private information but there was, I would suggest, sensitive security information referred to in that document. It was not the speculation of the Opposition that led to that being revealed. It was not anybody with nefarious motivations, as the Minister of Finance says, that put that information out in the public.

The first time I noticed it, I went home for the supper break on Monday and here was the CBC reporter doing a story and actually reading the blacked-out parts. Now, folks, that is a very important issue, so let's not talk about how you interpret something. We have examples, living examples, of where it goes beyond interpretation.

By the way, I do not think anybody condemned the Minister of Justice because that happened. The Opposition certainly did not. It is not a matter of blaming anybody. It is not a matter of saying that you are irresponsible. I think it was, as the minister said, inadvertent, and I agree with that. I do not think for a minute the Minister of Justice intended for that blacked-out information to get into the public domain. I am certain he did not, but that does not take away from the fact that it got there. Then we have to turn our minds and our attention to not who did it or was it right or wrong or accidental or inadvertent, the question is - look, get past that, it happened.

Now what to we do to, shall we say, remedy anything that is out there that should not be out there, to make sure that nobody makes any bad uses of it, or compromises anybody's security, or compromises anybody's rights of privacy as a result of a it? How do we fix that piece, number one, the immediate problem, and then, what do we do to make sure that we do not have a similar type breach in the future?

I do not think it is being irresponsible to ask those kinds of questions: What happened? How did it happen? How can we be certain that it will not happen again? And, do we have assurances that nobody is going to have any negative consequences as a result of it happening?

That is pretty straight-forward stuff. I do not see anybody condemning anything about that. It is an issue. We cannot put our heads in the sand and say, oh, it happened, it was inadvertent, but just leave it at that folks. Forget that, that happened, that was inadvertent. We might have a lot of inadvertent acts if we do not deal with it in the future. How many do we have to get hit with before we finally decide we have to take a look at the security. That is all this is about.

I say to the minister, this is not about condemning, this is about asking questions when you have concerns. There are legitimate concerns and we are doing it, in the context, number one, of God only knows what the future is going to bring – it depends upon the motivations of a future government – but we are also doing it in the context of what we know today to be the actions of a very secretive government. Not as proposed only by us, but by other people in the public. Otherwise we would not have this raft of appeals we have in there. We would not have these stories in the Telegram if everything was perfect.

The government, instead of taking the approach and saying, thank you very much for your comments, some of them are legit, we disagree with others and here is why we disagree, instead of that, what do we get back from the ministers of the Crown? Personal attacks.

Talk about deflection. We have to get past the issue where you are going to attack somebody personally in here, and hopefully we are going to debate the merits of the legislation that is on the floor of the House. Let us not kid ourselves, folks, we all know, and John and Clara Chesterfield out there, as I always say, they know full well that at the end of the day the government is going to get its way. You have forty-four votes, and we have four. Nobody is fooling themselves. We know what is going to happen at the end of the day. Whether it is reasonable or unreasonable, you have the ability and the right, not only the ability, you have the right, to use your vote whichever way you want. That is the system. But, for God's sake, do not condemn the four that are here simply because they raise questions and suggest that you are not even allowed to have an open and free debate.

Well, folks, maybe you might hide stuff under the act, maybe you might be secretive, maybe you might use whatever you can to prevent people from getting information, but it is not going to shut up any member in the Opposition here and take away their right to debate these issues, put forward suggestions, ask questions and hopefully get some answers back in a responsive and constructive way. Folks, that is where this member comes from. I hope I am providing some suggestions and comments here constructively, and I certainly do not appreciate being personally attached when you do.

Thank you.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am happy to be able to speak a little bit further to Bill 63.

When I spoke to the bill in second reading there were some points I alluded to but could not expand on and I would like to do that now.

I have expressed my concerns in speaking both to this bill and Bill 64 with regard to the definition of Cabinet record and I am not going to go over that again as I think I have made it pretty clear. However, what I am concerned about, and it is related to Cabinet records, is the whole management issue.

I would like to speak first to Section 5.1 of the bill because Section 5.1 speaks to the government records committee and this is the committee that used to be in The Rooms Act and now is being moved into the Management of Information Act. Section 5.1 lays out what the committee is called. It is the Government Records Committee.

Then it talks about the makeup of the committee, and I would say that the makeup of the committee is excellent, because you have the Director of The Rooms Provincial Archives and that person will fully understand the importance of provincial archives, the historical importance of maintaining provincial archives, certainly the security issues, et cetera. The Director is excellent to have on that committee. Then you have the Deputy Minister of Justice, and obviously the Deputy Minister of Justice will have all the information needed with regard to the security issues around archives and keeping archives. Then you have the Deputy Minister of Finance, and there is no doubt – well, first of all, the Management of Information Act is accountable to the Minister of Finance so it makes all the sense in the world that the Deputy Minister of Finance be on this committee and will certainly be able to represent the concerns of the minister and make sure that the goals of that department are maintained. Then you have the Chief Information Officer and obviously that person is essential to have on this committee; and then other persons whom the minister may appoint. I would imagine the minister may want to look at: is there any particular expertise that maybe needs to be strengthened on the committee, especially around archives themselves.

We have an excellent committee and this committee will be accountable to the minister. This committee will be the committee that will determine how the government records are managed. This committee will be the committee that will establish and revive schedules for the retention, disposal, destruction or transfer of records. They will make recommendations to the minister respecting government records to be forwarded to the Archives, will establish disposal and destruction standards and guidelines for the lawful disposal and destruction of government records and make recommendations to the minister regarding the removal, disposal and destruction of records.

I would like to point out, that probably for the first time those records include electronic records. I think up to now it has been paper records, but with this bill we now have electronic information included. So, subsection (3) under section 4 points out that, "Nothing in this section prevents the disposal of electronic records according to a process or schedule approved under this Act." When section 5 talks about the powers of the committee and the recommendations for removal, disposal and destruction of records, it is all records including electronic records.

It would seem to me, one thing the minister is going to want to look at, actually, is who on this committee has expertise around electronic records. We cannot take that for granted, that expertise around electronic records is going to be absolutely important for this committee. I think if the Director of the Provincial Archives, him or herself, does not have that expertise then that is one gap that the minister may want to fill.

One of the reasons for that – again, this is not to be negative, but the example that was used by the Opposition House Leader with regard to the document last week, the report on the penitentiary, that shows that there is a new sophistication around using electronic documents that is eluding us and we need to have as much up-to-date information as possible with regard to how to use electronic files, for example. Because, it was certainly the understanding of people inside the Ministry of Justice, that when an electronic document that had redactions done, when that was posted electronically they did not have an expectation that that would lose its power to keep private certain pieces of information.

Having somebody on this committee with regard to having particular expertise about electronic information will be extremely important, especially since the committee will be making recommendations about everything to do with records, in terms of how they are managed, their disposal, the destruction, et cetera. I think that it is extremely important that this committee have the power that it has and can make the recommendations to the minister. One would imagine that there would hardly be a recommendation they would make, I would imagine, that the minister would not follow.

Then you come down to section 5.4, and you get exceptions to what this committee can do, or exceptions to the records that this committee has power over. Subsection (1) says: "Cabinet records shall be managed in the manner determined by Cabinet Secretariat." I find that really problematic because when you relate that back to the definition of Cabinet records, here you have Cabinet records, a definition that is so broad, that has been already probably written by Cabinet Secretariat, the input from Cabinet Secretariat, I am sure - not positive, but I am fairly sure that they would have had input into it. They will be managing in the manner they determine all the records that fit under their definition, because they have said publicly in the press that this is their definition. It was quoted in the daily paper, in The Telegram, that a spokesperson from the Cabinet Secretariat said that the definition that is in this act of Cabinet records is the definition that the Cabinet Secretariat already uses and will continue to use.

So, Cabinet Secretariat has defined Cabinet records, and Cabinet Secretariat has complete control over the management of the records. What happens if Cabinet Secretariat defines a document and destroys it, and it turns out down the road that the Privacy Commissioner has determined that this document, in actual fact, is something that really should be released? Well, the Commissioner no longer has any power, and the act under which he acts has no power because Cabinet Secretariat has deemed that this document was a Cabinet record and they have gotten rid of it.

I find it hard to understand that the government members do not see why we are concerned about this. They may feel that they are in control or they know exactly how they want to use this. I will not say they are not being honest. I would never say that. They are saying that they know how to use this definition and they would never do anything that would go against the good of the people. Let's say that is true. Well, then, how can they ensure that that will always be how this document is going to be used?

So, there are so many things in this document. They are all sort of part of the same dynamic that fit together that cause me problems. As I have said before, a document whereby the Cabinet Secretariat has defined what are Cabinet records and the Cabinet Secretariat will determine all the management, no input from anybody outside, all the total management system for Cabinet records – we have a problem. We have a big problem.

Once again, Mr. Chair, I repeat that I will not be able to vote for this bill or for the sister bill that we will be discussing in a minute.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a pleasure for me to have an opportunity to have a few comments on the legislation that is going through the House and the discussion that is taking place amongst hon. members concerning Cabinet records and information and access to that information and protection of privacy.

I very well recall, Mr. Chair, when I first entered this House in 2003 and was honoured to be appointed as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of that day. One of the first briefings that I was given was in relation to something that the deputy minister of the time referred to as ATIPP. Of course, I did not know what the heck he was talking about and I said: Well, what is that? He said: it is new access to information; it is new legislation that deals with access to information and protection of privacy, which was repealing a previous law, called the Freedom of Information law. I said: Well, it's strange, I have been practicing law for a long time and I have never heard of this legislation. Of course, the reason I had not heard of the legislation was that it had not been proclaimed. It had not been proclaimed as yet; it was not in effect.

I know that hon. members opposite, and I know the Opposition House Leader from time to time is very proud to say that he and his associates, they brought that law in. That they brought it in, and therefore they are open and transparent and accountable, but the reality of it is, Mr. Speaker, is that when you pass a law in this House, that law does not come into effect until it is proclaimed, until its date of proclamation. That can either be done – the act can say that the act will come into effect on the day it is passed in the House or signed by the Lieutenant-Governor on behalf of the Queen, or the act may say that the legislation will become effective on a date to be proclaimed and then later on, when the government is ready, it proclaims the legislation.

So, of course, hon. members opposite, while they did bring in the legislation and pass the legislation, they never did proclaim it. It never became effective. It never applied to them. This government, after we came in office and saw the legislation, because of our desire to be open and accountable and transparent with the people of this Province, we proclaimed the legislation.

I very well remember the Opposition House Leader kept on me back in those days and kept asking me questions in the House: When are you going to proclaim the legislation? I remember one day I thought the legislation was going to be proclaimed the following day, so I said: Stay tuned. Then, of course, we found out the legislation was not going to be proclaimed that day and the words: Stay tuned, were repeated back to me on many, many, many occasions. Finally, a day came in this House when we could sing from a different tune and the access to information part of the act was, in fact, proclaimed.

The other part of the act is protection of privacy and that is where the name comes from, ATIPP, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. That had to be proclaimed at a later date, as you gathered the necessary resources to do it. I was recently advised that the present Minister of Finance, the previous Minister of Justice, that he proclaimed this legislation earlier this year. So the protection of privacy part of the act just recently came in.

The Opposition House Leader talked about the fact that information was disclosed when it went up on the Web. I am advised by my officials that this was the first piece of information that was redacted and it was sent up on the Web after the privacy provisions came in and, regrettably, an error was, in fact, made.

Before I talk about that, I would just like to refer generally to the legislation. The ATIPP legislation gives the citizens of this Province a general right of access to information that the government has. Now when you have a right it is similar to - under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we have rights but they are not absolute rights. They are rights subject to a limitation.

For example, freedom of expression; I know most people think it is freedom of speech, but the freedom to express one's self. We all know that we have the right to say and speak whatever is on our mind, but it is subject to limitations. For example, laws of liable and slander place a limit on freedom of speech or freedom of expression. Another example would be, while I have the right to freely express what I think, I cannot go into a theatre, for example, and yell: Fire, when there is no fire. There are limitations, reasonable limitations, placed on rights.

This legislation, this Access to Information legislation, also does the same thing. It says that while the purpose of the act is to give the public a right of access to records, the act also specifies limited exceptions to the right of access. So there is a general right to the information but there are exceptions contained in the legislation, and some of the exceptions are mandatory. Some of the exceptions contained in the act are mandatory in that the government cannot or shall not release that information, and the classic example is the one that the Minister of Finance talked about earlier today when he talked about section 18 which dealt with information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet.

So the government, this government, is mandated by the law not to release any information that would reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet, and that includes advice and recommendations and policy considerations, draft legislation. That is a basic principle of the English Canadian parliamentary system that what goes on in Cabinet is secret, and that is because it is necessary for government to strike a balance to, on the one hand, be open and to provide people with information, but on the other hand Cabinet ministers have to be frank with each other. There cannot be any limit on what they can say. So they have to be very frank and discuss options and policy options without worrying about whether what that said appears on the front page of a newspaper the following day. That is why that particular section is there, that Cabinet deliberations or any information that can reveal the substance of deliberations of Cabinet not be there.

I agree with the Minister of Finance. I agree when he says the wording of the legislation is pretty broad - it is pretty broad - and that the definition of records, which I believe is set out in the Management of Information Act and the Rooms Act, will now provide a clear definition of what a Cabinet record is; but, in addition to sections of the act that say that information shall not be given out by government, there are other sections in the act which say that the head of a public body, which means the minister of a department, may refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal - and I am looking at section 20 here - where the head of a public body is given discretion to refuse information, where the information would reveal under section 20 advice or recommendations developed for a public body or developed for a minister. So, advice being given to the minister, the government can refuse to disclose that information. That is the difference.

I read the stories in The Telegram on Saturday which appear, in my view, to be criticizing government in certain circumstances, and members of the Opposition, I have seen on occasion, criticize government for what they allege is being secret and refusing to give out information, when in reality the law says that the government cannot give out that information. The classic example, of course, the Opposition House Leader raised today, is a section of the act – I think it is section 30 - which says that the head of a public body may not, or shall not, give out information which involves personal information about someone.

So when the report, the recent corrections report, was given to government to be released, that report contained information – personal information - about people, and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act mandates that government shall not give out that information.

Also contained in that report was security information, and obviously one of our main concerns is to ensure that those who work in the corrections system, those who work in our jails and prisons, are kept safe, and those who have to live in those institutions are kept safe, so there are security concerns. Obviously, we did not want to release any information that would undermine or compromise in any way the safety of our correction officers and the inmates of those institutions, or the security of the information itself.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, through inadvertence, when the document was placed on the Web site the document was redacted but, as everyone now knows – I am certainly no expert on computers, and the workings of different software packages, but - through a software package, through the conversion of what I am told is a PDF file, which I certainly thought could not be changed, but through the copying and pasting of a PDF file over into a Word file, the redaction was eliminated and the words appeared underneath. Unfortunately, when this happened, without password protection, this document went up on the Web. It was not done deliberately. It certainly was not done intentionally.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. T. MARSHALL: Mr. Chairman, by leave to wrap up?

CHAIR: By leave to wrap up?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

CHAIR: By leave.

MR. T. MARSHALL: Mr. Chairman, after we discovered what had happened, officials in the Department of Justice acted very quickly and very appropriately to take the documentation down, the work was corrected, and a redacted copy is now back on the Web and cannot be seen.

Unfortunately, it was out there. One of the media organizations, CBC, has the information and placed it on their Web site, and we did write to CBC asking if they would remove it. We recognize that they are within their rights not to do so. We appealed to them on the basis of the fact that personal information was disclosed, the fact that security information is compromised. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately it is the way it is, but we have now taken steps to ensure it will not happen again. I have had consultations with the Chief Information Officer, who will be working with officials from the department. We can also assure hon. members and all the people of this House that the security concerns, there are contingency plans in place to deal with any security disclosures that should not have been disclosed. Obviously I am not going to discuss those in this House because we want to make sure that security is protected, so I can assure the people of this Province that the problem has been fixed. We have acted appropriately, and when it comes to computers I cannot be 100 per cent certain but hopefully we have taken the steps to ensure that this will not happen again.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 8 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 8 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

On motion, clauses 2 to 8 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened, as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Amend The Management Of Information Act.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to call Bill 64, An Act To Amend The Rooms Act.

CHAIR: We are now debating Bill 64.

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Rooms Act." (Bill 64)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 7 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 7 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 to 7 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in legislative session convened, as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Amend The Rooms Act.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee rise and report Bills 39, 53, 59, 63 and 64.

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise and report certain bills.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, Mr. Speaker returned to the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): The hon. Deputy Chair of Committees and the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report Bills 38, 53, 59, 63 and 64 carried without amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bills 38, 53, 59, 63 and 64 carried without amendment.

When shall the report be received?

MS BURKE: Now.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the said bills be referred to a Committee or be read a third time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, report received and adopted, bills ordered read a third time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, order 28, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2. (Bill 68)

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

Bill 68, An Act To Amend The House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2.

The motion is that this bill be now read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2" (Bill 68)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, the particular bill, the amendment that we are speaking to today, relates to the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act, Bill 68. This was an act that was brought in in 2007, in response to some of the issues that were experienced in the House of Assembly. We all know that there were issues regarding matters in the House of Assembly that led to the Green report, to Chief Justice Green being commissioned to look at the affairs and the matters at the House of Assembly and to be able to report back to the House of Assembly so that we were able to introduce legislation that would certainly focus on restoring public confidence into the House of Assembly and the operations of the House of Assembly.

That particular legislation is known as the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act. One thing that was certainly important as we looked at this particular act and introduced it in the House of Assembly was the fact that we were very concerned that the public of Newfoundland and Labrador, that the people of this Province, understood the operations of the House of Assembly. It was extremely important, as we proceeded, that we set up a system that was accountable to the public and transparent in the operations.

One of the aspects of this new Act sets up what is known as the Management Commission. For anybody who does not understand what the Management Commission is, it is committee that is struck through the legislation that has a commission of members of this particular House who oversee matters of the House of Assembly. The people who sit on that particular committee include the Government House Leader - so as of last May, when I became Government House Leader, I sat on that committee. The other people who sit on that committee from government members include the Member for The Straits & White Bay North, which is also the hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works. We also have the Member for Topsail on the Management Commission.

The legislation also sets out the membership on that Commission that represents the Opposition, and from the Opposition we have the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and we also have the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile. Representing the Third Party, we have the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. The Speaker of the House of Assembly acts as the chair of this particular Commission.

Matters that need to be discussed are done at the Commission. What is important, as well, is that it is done in a televised way and it is also minuted and it is in Hansard. That is to get away from the previous process of what was known as the Internal Economy Commission or the IEC, which was somewhat cloaked in secrecy and certainly was not a transparent process, particularly to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

One of the things inherent in the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act is the fact that if there are any amendments to this Act, that they come here, as any legislation would, to the floor of the House of Assembly. One thing that we can do - and I need to explain this so people at home understand this process and they will follow as we move through - on any given day we can go through one particular stage of a bill. We usually give the notice of motion, which we have in this case, on one day and on another day we do first reading which to some people would be basically a formality where we introduce the legislation. Then we go into the stage of second reading, which is what we are doing today, where the legislation is introduced in a more comprehensive way. It is discussed and the minister - and in this case I am introducing this particular legislation as the Government House Leader - speaks to the content of the changes or the amendment or the new Act or why we are repealing a certain act. We do it at this stage.

At this stage there is also a time for other members to get up and respond. In a typical fashion in any given legislation the Opposition would follow the minister who speaks to introduce a particular bill. Then at this particular stage, as well, further debate can happen and anyone can speak. When the minister who introduced it speaks again, they then close the debate at the second reading.

At that point the bill goes into the committee stage. At the committee stage there is further discussion and further debate that can happen between any members of the House, but typically it would be members of the Opposition versus government members to discuss and lay out their case as to why they agree or disagree with certain information before us in the House of Assembly.

When we come out of the Committee of the Whole, the bill is then referred to third reading, and the stage of third reading will typically happen at another day.

Why I outlined this particular process is, it is conceivable in the House sometimes based on the nature of the legislation or timeframes that we may be under that we can do more than one stage of the legislation at any given time. We can do probably first and second reading on a given day or second and third. In order for us to do that we have to have what is known as leave or permission of the House to go from one stage to the other.

What was criticized in the past was that changes that affected the House of Assembly were done very quickly in one day, so it would not have been uncommon to go from first, second to third reading, to be able to slip through legislation that affected the House of Assembly or Members of the House of Assembly.

What has been recommended, and we are certainly following it in this process, by Chief Justice Green is that we should only do one stage of legislation that deals with this Act on any given parliamentary day. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, we have given notice of motion. We have done first reading. Today we will do second reading which will include Committee of the Whole, and on another day we will do the third reading of this particular bill. When we finish second reading today we will go directly into committee to further debate or discuss this particular piece of legislation.

Sometimes we let legislation build where we do not necessarily go in a concise order, and we will go into Committee and discuss more than one bill, but so the public, who see that this is a very transparent process as we do amendments to this legislation, will see the full process follow without interruption this afternoon.

I would like to speak to the particular amendments that we are addressing here today to ensure that members here today listening understand, although we have all had a chance to review and have been briefed on this information, and people who are watching as well, have the understanding that they feel comfortable with this information, they understand where we are going and why we are going there.

The amendments that we are dealing with today came to the Management Commission. They were proposed to us by staff at the House of Assembly. We had the opportunity to go through each of them. Then we decided that we agreed with the amendments and it would go to the House of Assembly for legislative reasons.

In order to bring it into the House of Assembly it also had to go through Cabinet, which is the legislative process, but this is not a Cabinet paper. This is not a paper that was generated by Cabinet to reflect government policy. This is a paper that came from the Management Commission that reflects the work of the Members of the House of Assembly. Therefore, this is our act, our legislation, and people should certainly feel comfortable to speak to it, or express opinions, because we also want to make sure that any opinions regarding this are expressed because, in past, as I said, sometimes information of this nature was often going through the House at a very rapid pace.

There are many amendments that we are proposing here today that would be considered minor errors in the act, and these errors have been noted over the last eighteen months since we have been following the act. There are some that would be considered more substantive problems that we have also been able to ascertain over the last eighteen months. They required a review by the staff at the House of Assembly and led to some of these amendments.

Many of these corrections probably could have been made before we passed the original act, but certainly they were not picked up at that time so we are in the process of doing it now.

In saying that, Mr. Speaker, not all changes are necessarily considered minor, and I am going to go through each and every one of them so that we understand exactly what is happening here. On November 18, for anybody who watched the proceedings, we went through point by point of the changes in the legislation, discussed them, and decided to move forward with it. Some of the very minor amendments that we are speaking about today would include – and I am going to go through each of them as an explanation – clause 1 corrects a citation error in the definition of financial audit in paragraph 2(1). The reference to subsection 43(5) should read as subsection 43(6).

Several clauses, several amendments, changes again of a minor nature, would indicate the spelling of a particular word, and the word is "citizen's", which is spelled with an apostrophe s but it should be spelled with an s apostrophe, because it should be in the plural possessive form as opposed to the singular possessive form. Again, housekeeping, but if we were making the amendments we certainly needed to address that particular issue.

Clause 13 would remove the word "by" from the text of subsection 35(1) because the presence of the word "by" in that clause is grammatically incorrect.

Subclause 11(1) would delete any unnecessary comma from subsection 24(1) of the act, and clause 17 would add a comma to the text at paragraph 51(e).

Mr. Speaker, they are what I would consider very minor grammatical errors that we needed to fix, that were certainly noted by the House of Assembly staff. Like I said, as we are making the amendments we will certainly make those changes.

There are a few other amendments that seem to have more substance and relate to some incorrect wording or being able to bring the act more into agreement with the report that we received from Chief Justice Green. I will go through some of the examples that we feel have more substance than some of the grammatical issues that I just mentioned.

Subclause 6(1) would amend subsection 13 of the act respecting the requirement to attend at the House of Assembly to provide for an allowable absence for adoption, pregnancy or parental leave reasons.

What that means, Mr. Speaker, is the act outlines certain reasons why a member may be absent from the House of Assembly, and they are listed, but what was missing from that list was an absence if a member felt they were unable to attend because they had just adopted a child, for pregnancy reasons, or for parental leave reasons.

Mr. Speaker, I would assume that, in the past, reasons of this nature were probably never considered in the House of Assembly because at one time very few women sat in the House of Assembly, and very few young women who were probably at the point of starting families were in the House of Assembly. It was not in the legislation that we passed, that was written by Chief Justice Green, and I seriously think it was an omission. I think we need to recognize that we do have women in the House of Assembly and, in all likeliness, in the not-too-distant future, I would assume, that we will have members who may not be able to attend because of issues related to recently giving birth to a child, so I think it is very important.

I will also add to that, there is no policy around this and that the Management Commission has decided that a policy needs to be written around what that actually means, but this would just legitimize the fact that is a real reason why somebody may not be in the House of Assembly.

The other change in subsection 13(3.1) would allow an absence of a member from the House of Assembly, with approval of the Speaker, for carrying out constituency duty within his or her constituency. This particular reason for not being in the House is recognized in the act at this time, but it says that a member could be absent, with permission from the Speaker, if they are attending to constituency business but remain in the precincts of the House.

Mr. Speaker, we know that most members make every effort to be in the House of Assembly, and to be here while the House is open, but there are times when members may have to conduct constituency business somewhere outside the precincts of the House. That could relate to an emergency in some district, some matters that had to be attend to; it could be prior commitments to work on behalf of a constituent, to attend a hearing that could not be rescheduled, or responding to an emergency in the district.

Again, this would just clarify that it is acknowledged that there may be constituency business that may bring a member out of the House for legitimate reasons, as approved by the Speaker, without necessarily having to remain in the precincts of the House.

Another amendment that we have here is clause 7 and that would amend subsection 14(1) of the act respecting entitlements to expenses, salary and severance, so that those benefits cease on the day before a general election, allowing new or a re-elected member to commence his or her right to those benefits on the day of the election.

Mr. Speaker, the original wording would have an outgoing member entitled to benefits on the day of the election as well. So clause 7 also changes subsection 14(2) respecting expense claims during an election writ. It was agreed upon by all parties during the last election that claims would not be allowed during the time of the election, and this amendment will actually put that in law.

To clarify that, what it means is that we are members of the House of Assembly and our mandate from our election is from the day of the election up until the day before the election. So, that the day of the election there is no need to clarify any further who is the member on the day of the election. Your mandate will be from the day of the election until the day before the vote is held at the next election, and this will clarify that.

Again, it will also put into law - what we practised during the last election was that once the election writ is dropped, we will no longer be claiming expenses as members through the House of Assembly, through our constituency allowances or the budgets that we are allowed to conduct constituency business. This will clarify that for us, Mr. Speaker, as opposed to being an area of mutual agreement.

Further changes; sub clause 8.(1) amends subsection 18(2), respecting the Chair of the Management Commission and voting at Commission meetings. Chief Justice Green's report recommended that the Speaker, as the Chair of the Commission, would vote in the event of a tie. This was not reflected in the act and is now being added to subsection 18(2).

Subclause 8(4) of the bill adds a new subsection, 18(11) to the act, which would have the Management Commission continue in office after an election call until the time of their replacement. This is similar to what we have in federal law respecting Canada's Parliament and it will allow for the day-to-day operations of the House of Assembly to continue during the writ period. Traditionally, only administrative decisions would be made during that time. So, in essence, what we are saying here, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that when we are in Management Commission, as reflected in Chief Justice Green's report, that the Chair will vote in the case of a tie, and we have seen that. Further, it says that the members of the Management Commission will continue in their position throughout the writ period of the election, to be able to manage the day-to-day or administrative actions of the House of Assembly.

Now there are a few more amendments as well that seem to need to have a bit more detail. They are more substantive changes that we have here. One affects the third party and the leader of the third party. Although it could be perceived as a minor change, it is taking out a word that we feel is unnecessary, but removing this word, it certainly reflects, I think, the intent of Chief Justice Green in his report and, as well, the wishes of the Management Commission and the members of this particular House.

Subclause 5(1) of the bill would remove the word recognized from paragraph 12(1)(g) of the act. This paragraph presently provides for an additional salary for the leader of a recognized third party. The same section provides for additional salaries for other positions, such as the Leader of the Official Opposition and the Speaker. The word recognized is undefined leading to a requirement for determining under parliamentary law exactly how the leader of the third party is to be qualified as to his or her receipt of this allowance. Then, Mr. Speaker, after much discussion and research it was determined that it would be appropriate to remove the word recognized; leaving a clear indication that a third party leader would receive the added salary.

Clause 11.(2) would amend section 24 of the act by adding a new subsection (9) allowing a member who has been denied an expense claim by the House Administration to appeal that denial to the Management Commission where the expense is an allowable expense under the rules and failure to pay it would be unjust, therefore the Commission could now approve the payment. This is intended to remedy denials of payment caused by minor failure to comply with the rules, and this often occurs when a claim is submitted outside the required time limits.

So this would allow a member who was denied payment of a particular claim because they were outside the time limits, that they could appeal it to the Management Commission and receive payment for that particular claim. The fact that we are addressing this here is that sometimes to withhold payment would be unjust. For whatever reason the member was unable to get their expense claim in on time, it could be as simple as they forgot about the deadline, they did not have the necessary paperwork completed, for many reasons, but it does not take away from the fact that they had incurred a legitimate expense that was allowable under the act and that they should be reimbursed for it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the next clause that I am going to speak to, I understand that there is not necessarily unanimous consent that this will go ahead in the House, and I am sure there will be debate as we move into the committee stage for this particular bill.

Clause 19 would amend section 62 of the act that would require the Citizens' Representative to be a party to a proceeding before the Labour Relations Board arising out of a reprisal against an employee who makes a disclosure under part six of the act. As the investigator of the disclosed incident, the Citizens' Representative is in a position to be of great assistance in such proceedings.

What that means, Mr. Speaker, is that if an employee of the House of Assembly feels there is wrongdoing, and they make a complaint regarding the wrongdoing, that it would be investigated by the Citizens' Representative. If the employee, based on that allegation of wrongdoing, feels there is an appraisal against them - him or her - for their actions, they can take the matter to the Labour Relations Board and this amendment would allow the Citizens' Representative who conducted the investigation to be party to the Labour Relations Board to be there and to bring that case forward.

Clause 20 would make these amendments to the act retroactive to the date of the commencement of the original act. The one exception to this relates to the amendment to subsection 18(2), which would require the Chair of the Management Commission to vote in the event of a tie. This subclause comes into force on the date of Royal Assent so that the votes of the Chair of the Commission made in the past eighteen months will not be invalidated in any way.

Mr. Speaker, there was a fair amount of detail as I went through these particular amendments. As I said, some were quite minor and some were more substantive, but I think it is very important because of the issues that brought us to this point in our history, because of the issues that brought us to commissioning Chief Justice Green to do his review and to bring in that legislation, and the fact that the Management Commission and the matters of the House of Assembly need to be more open and debated freely, that I think this is a good example of how we bring the legislation forward. We do it in a televised way; it is going to be recorded in Hansard. We are going to have the opportunity to debate it, to explain it here on the floor.

The other thing that I think is very important is I am bringing it forward as the Government House Leader, because that is my role as Government House Leader and as a member of the Management Commission. What is extremely important as well is that this is legislation that affects all members of the House of Assembly, and all members need to be able to feel free to discuss these issues, no matter how minor they are, to be able to discuss an opinion and to be able to vote on the changes that we have here today.

I say that, Mr. Speaker, because there are going to be some dissenting opinions as we move into the committee stage regarding clause 19. We have to make sure that people feel free to be able to have those discussions in a very open, transparent manner, and that this is not to be perceived as legislation that government – because it did not come from government, it did not come from Cabinet, although it had to be vetted through that process. This is legislation that came forward by the Management Commission. I explained the composition of that committee already as I started my remarks here today. We had a presentation from staff at the House of Assembly, and we want to thank them for that in bringing these matters here. Some of the minor details certainly shows that there was significant work gone into this review. We reviewed them and we are here today to be able to discuss them openly, freely and in a public way so that we can move forward with the amendments of this act.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will conclude my remarks.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of 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 comments with regard to Bill 68 put forward by the hon. Government House Leader.

I was honoured Tuesday of this week when we were presented with a brief by the Law Clerk for the House of Assembly. We went through this piece of legislation and I found that to be very informative to us. I am just going to touch on some of the issues that were brought forward at that time. It is like the Government House Leader stated, a lot of the clauses in this required some minor changes, there were some incorrect citations, and some of the words should be in the possessive plural and not singular and so on.

We know this is the first piece of major legislation since the Green report, and this legislation is what governs us all as MHAs in this hon. House of Assembly. So, no doubt, from time to time there will be other amendments to this piece of legislation as we go forward.

Like I said, when we had our briefing session on Tuesday there were some points that came up, not that there was anyone really in total disagreement with it, but there were some concerns expressed and some questions asked. I am just going to touch on a couple of those, and hopefully the minister will be able to explain them, or someone, as we proceed either through second reading or in Committee stage.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I was pleased with in this piece of the legislation is in 12(1) where the Leader of a Third Party is recognized and it was explained to us what that means. For instance, if there are four parties that are running in this Province and the third and fourth place parties come in with only just the one member both of them are considered, I believe, as the Leader of the Third Party. I think that is noted in this piece of legislation.

The other one that the Government House Leader mentioned was the time at duties. I know that was one of the issues that came up during our briefing. I think you will find that on page 6, and the minister mentioned under section 6 with regard to the addition when it comes to adoption, pregnancy and parental leave; that is being added to this piece of legislation.

I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that probably males as well as females - no doubt we hear in many industries these days, in many businesses, male individuals also put forward for parental leave - not that I am going to be doing it – but no doubt probably from time to time, and I guess that is probably covered off here.

Mr. Speaker, the other one we looked at, and I think the minister touched on this, is with regard to the Speaker having a vote in the case of a tie. This was noted, I think, in the Green report but it just was not in this piece of legislation, and that has been corrected.

Another one I noticed with keen interest was the Audit Committee. It was explained to us very clearly that this is not just an audit for review. This financial statement will be forwarded to all Members of the hon. House of Assembly. I think that is very important as well.

With regard to page 8 and 9, with the expense claims, that was one of the issues that was brought forward. Hopefully, other members who attended that briefing with stand, either now or in Committee, and explain the concerns that were put forward. I guess it is very easy from time to time, when you have an invoice, whether you have it and just place it by the wayside, or if you are waiting for something to come back to prove that you paid a particular invoice or what have you, and a deadline goes by. I think that was one of the issues that came up, whether there would be an extension or not, but they felt that if you are outside that timeline it is quite a bit of difficulty for a member to go through where they have to go, whether it is to the Speaker, and then possibly it is back to the Commission again for another ruling on it. That was one of the issues that was brought forward.

Mr. Speaker, the other issue that came up with regard to – I think it comes under section 6 as well, (3.1) "…approve the absence of a member to attend to constituency duties…". I know there were some questions during our briefing session on that issue. I know it is fine, we can come to the Speaker and find out what those duties are that we can go back to our constituencies on, but there were some questions asked if we could get some explanation as to what they may be. I know it is probably difficult to draw up a list and say this is a final list, but some of those issues were brought forward on that particular briefing.

I was also going to reference section 19, but I know the Government House Leader noted that this is going to be brought forward in Committee stage and probably some other members of this hon. House will have a few comments on that.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, those were the comments I had to make. On behalf of all hon. members I want to thank those who serve on our Management Committee, from the Speaker who is Chair to my two hon. colleagues whom I serve with, the Third Party, the Leader of the NDP, and the members on the government side. No doubt, as they review - because we all know that when we received the Green report it was two substantial pieces of information, two fairly thick files, and to know that the Law Clerk and officials here in the House, working in conjunction with the management committee, we are beginning to see that there are some little minor instances that have to be corrected, and probably some major ones as we go into Committee stage.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank them for the work they are putting into it. No doubt it is not an easy task. It is a new avenue that we are all going down, and we want to do what is correct and proper and to be governed in the right procedures as was outlined in the Green report. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I will take my place and look forward to hearing other members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill–Quidi Vidi.

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

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill 68. I thank the House Leader for the excellent job that she did of going through each of the sections and explaining them. I also thank my colleague from the Official Opposition for his comments. There are a few points I would like to make as a member of the Management Commission who did sort of the first round of this bill. For myself, I do want to thank the House of Assembly officials for the great work that they did in putting this document together for us. They went through the act with a fine-tooth comb and found where a comma should be a period and where an apostrophe s should be an s apostrophe and those things, along with anomalies that happened. It is good to have all those things corrected.

One of the things I would like to say first, as a member of the Management Commission, I think that all of us recognize on the Commission the seriousness of our position and the responsibility that we carry as members of the Commission. We went through quite a process in this House because of the things that came to light in 2006, and we went through a process that resulted in Chief Justice Derek Green's report and the draft legislation that he and his team put together as the Commissioner and Commissioner's staff. We have a tremendous responsibility to make sure that the spirit of this act as well as the letter of this act is always followed, because quite a number of people had input into what we now have in our hands, because of the process of the Royal Commission that Chief Justice Green headed up.

The change, if there are any changes in here that look substantive, is simply a change to totally clarify the meaning of something that is in the act that may not have been clear. We have not been cavalier as a commission about changes to the act, and I would like to point out something that shows that. All of this is public, because, of course, all our meetings are held in public, so it is all on the public record. Not everybody gets to watch commission meetings all the time, and may be watching these proceedings today and not know all the details.

We have had, for example, requests that have come to us from individual members on items that, as a commission, we have determined we are not the ones who should be dealing with it, that the requests that are coming are requests that might change rather radically a rule or regulation attached to the act. What we have chosen to do in a number of cases – and if people are interested they can go online and find them, I cannot remember all of them now – is that, where we feel this is not our responsibility initially, we have given it to the body that we believe has the responsibility, and this body is actually not in place yet. It has to be appointed by Cabinet. It is called the Members' Compensation and Review Commission. Any requests that have come to us that have to do with compensation to members – and there have been some over the past eighteen months – we have decided that because the request may require a change in a regulation that this needs to be looked at in depth, and that there is actually a body that is to be set up, and that was recommended by Chief Justice Green, a body that is set up for ongoing review of compensation to members.

What we have decided is that that body is the one that should review some of these requests. Then that body will probably send a recommendation to the Management Commission, and then, of course, the Management Commission would have to come back here to the House.

There are a lot of checks and balances in place to make sure that we do not make changes that would be against the spirit of the act, and that if there needs to be a substantive change, that an open process is gone through, and a process that has more than one step to it is gone through, to make sure that everybody clearly understands why the change that we are making is legitimate. I thought it was important for us actually to point that out today.

There is one other point that was raised by the Member for Port de Grave and it was also mentioned by the House Leader when she went through every one of the clauses. The Member for Port de Grave mentioned this one in particular as one of the ones that they talked about when members were briefed earlier this week. It was the one that had to do with a salary for the Leader of the third party. Obviously this is something that I had a particular interest in and it was something that was discussed in the Management Commission as people might remember.

I would like to point out that the House Leader did point out that the change that was made reflected the meaning and the spirit of what Chief Justice Green had in his report but it also reflects how the act defines the third party, and the act defines the third party - and I am looking for the definition now. The third party in this act means the second largest party sitting in the House of Assembly in Opposition to the government. Then, the understanding is that even if the second largest party has only one seat it is still the second largest next to the Official Opposition. That meaning and understanding from discussion with Chief Justice Green - and this was a public thing that was said in the Management Commission - after discussions with Chief Justice Green understanding that that is what he meant by recognized not the parliamentary meaning. In order to clear up confusion it was decided it was better to take recognized out so that it is the third party as defined in this act.

I think that is extremely important. It is not just important because I am currently the Leader of the third party but I think it is important for our parliamentary process and for full democracy that we have that clarified now and taken care of, whoever is a third party down the road. It could happen that we have two third parties, each one with an equal number of seats, but the language we now have in the act would allow for both of them to have a salary because they are both fulfilling a role.

I think that we have made an honest attempt to make some changes to the act to make it clearer, to remove anomalies, to make sure that, grammatically, there are no errors - there is nothing as bad as having an official document that has grammatical errors in it - and to assure that we all are perfectly clear on what the act is saying. It does not mean that down the road we may not sometime have to review the act. It is a living document, every act is, actually, and there may be times we will make changes. I think what the public should be assured of is that, as the minister pointed out, this is such an open and transparent process that it will always be clear why a change is being made. As I pointed out again, any change that has to do with a major change with regard to compensation to members does not come first, or it may come to us first in the Management Commission, but I think we are becoming very clear that there are items that we do not really have the first responsibility for. They should go to the Members' Compensation and Review Commission which, as I pointed out, is not yet set up, but that is in the hands of Cabinet.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I think I have made my points. I will want, in Committee of the Whole, to speak to the number 19 that the minister has referred to as well as the Member for Port de Grave.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

If the hon. the Minister of Education and Government House Leader speaks now, she will close the debate on Bill 68.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, at this point I think we have certainly tried to inform the hon. members of the House of Assembly through our comments in this debate.

I want to thank the Member for Port de Grave and the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi for their input at this point.

I also feel that because we were able to have an information session for all members, that all members are well briefed on the information contained in these amendments, and I do not feel that we are going ahead in any way that cloaks any type of secrecy or trying to hide anything or do anything that would not be open and transparent to the members and certainly to the general public.

We will continue our debate, certainly, in the Committee of the Whole, but at this point and this stage of the bill, Mr. Speaker, I would like to close debate.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 68, An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2 be now read a second time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2. (Bill 68)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 68 has now been read a second time. When shall this bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House?

MS BURKE: Now.

MR. SPEAKER: Presently.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2" read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently, by leave.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 68.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that this House do now resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole and that I do now leave the Chair.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

CHAIR (T. Osborne): Order, please!

We are now debating Bill 68, An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly, Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2.

A bill "An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly, Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2." (Bill 68)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 18, inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 18 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 18 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Clause 19.

CHAIR: Shall clause 19 carry?

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, as I had indicated in the earlier stage of debate, there were some concerns for clause 19. So I certainly would expect if any members of the House of Assembly have any issues with clause 19 as brought forward by the Management Commission, that at this point in committee would be the time to debate those issues.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Yes, Mr. Chair.

I would very much like to have a few words with regards to clause 19 because I see it actually as an infringement on a person's right to have a counsel other than the Citizens' Representative. If you look at clause 19, no disrespect to the Citizens' Representative because I think they were the person or the office that suggested this proposal in clause 19 to be included in the amending of the act, but I do not think it was the intention of the Citizens' Representative to have it so binding. I think they requested to the management committee to follow the proceedings of the management committee as a member of this hon. House of Assembly.

I think the Citizens' Representative made the request that they would be able to represent the complainants, but as the legislation is written in regards to clause 19, it is binding that the Citizens' Representative would be the only person that would solely be the person who would represent the complainant at the Labour Relations Board. I think that is wrong, for the simple reason, a person has a right under democracy to choose their own counsel or either to represent his or herself in regards to proceeding.

Then I will also speak in regards to the - and no disrespect again to the Citizens' Representative. I want to throw out a couple of scenarios in regards to what could happen here. The Citizens' Representative investigates complaints of any nature, at any given time and the Citizens' Representative formulates an opinion thus thereof.

The Citizens' Representative, prior to representing the complainant at the Labour Relations Board, would certainly, if they had formed an opinion that was contrary to the opinion and the request by the complainant, than the Citizens' Representative would be a poor counsel for the actual complainant because if they, in their mind, made up their opinion, their opinion was formed that the nature of the complaint was not warranted and it was of whatever nature and the complainant wanted to go forward within, which is their right as well to have a hearing with the Labour Relations Board, well then they have no right under this current clause but have the Citizens' Representative, that has already formed an opinion, to represent them, which could be contrary to the actual person's request. So I think that is an infringement on a person's right, in my mind.

The Citizens' Representative may very well deem that the request by the complainant is of a frivolous nature, or of bad faith, or whatever that would be, as another example. They form an opinion as thus and again, the complainant has no choice but to engage in the Citizens' Representative as counsel and then go forward with their complaint to the Labour of Relations Board and have the Citizens' Representative represent them on that case. I think that is certainly an infringement, again, in regards to the complainant's rights.

For any valid reason, I guess, or any other valid reason, the Citizens' Representative may very well dismiss the complaint as a reason to go forward in regard to their job and their office. Again, the complainant may very well want to go to the Labour Relations Board. Again, the Citizens' Representative would have informed an opinion, or made a decision and then the complainant would have no recourse but use the Citizens' Representative if they wanted to - or, not that they wanted to, they have to in regard to clause 19 - to go forward and to have that person represent them in the proceedings of the Labour Relations Board.

I think the actual amendment is well intended, but, in my opinion, I think it is flawed. I think that it is outside of what Chief Justice Green intended. It was suggested by the Citizens' Representative. It was certainly taken into account, but I think that it needs further review by the management committee, which I certainly commend them for their work in regards to the management committee as well. No disrespect to the management committee because sometimes these kind of things happen when you do a lot of work , and good work in regards to what they do in regards to the House of Assembly. The same applies to the people here who work in the House of Assembly and provide good, solid advice to our management committee and us as MHAs as well.

In this case here, I see it as a problem that needs further review. I think it is a good idea to sit back from clause 19 because it - as I said, I do not think anybody intended to have just one person signify that the only person that you could have represent you, in regards to a complaint to the Labour Relations Board. I do not think that was the intent, but in the drafting of the bill itself that is exactly what would happen if clause 19 goes forward.

At this particular time, I am sure - and maybe some other members of the House of Assembly have a few things to say to it as well because I think each and every one of us reviews our legislation as good members of the House of Assembly. Certainly, in regards to the House of Assembly and in light of the Green report there was emphasis there by MHAs to make sure that they know exactly what we are dealing with.

With that, Mr. Chair, my suggestion: I would like for all hon. members of the House of Assembly to support me in regards to having Clause 19 at this particular time just totally removed. Leave it as it is, as Chief Justice Green suggested, then at any given time the Management Commission can review this once again, take time to really digest it and make sure that you do not infringe on a complainant's rights. I do see that the complainant should have every right to have whatever counsel they may deem that would have, be it a lawyer or be it his or her own representation.

With that, Mr. Chair, I would hope that all hon. members will support me in regards to removal of Clause 19 and we will move forward on the legislation, and then the Management Commission in regards to the good work that they do can review it another time.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I thank the hon. member for his excellent explanation.

We became aware - and when I say we, I mean the Opposition House Leader and myself - were made aware by the House Leader this morning at our sort of regular meeting, of the fact that there were some concerns about this clause. I spent a fair bit of time this morning in looking at it, talking to the Citizen's Representative, communicating with the House Leader, et cetera. I am not going to give the Citizen's Representative's explanation because I think part of the process will be, if this goes back to the Management Commission, for the Citizen's Representative to come in and to have a discussion with us.

I will say this much, that part of the Citizen's Representative's concern is the wording of Section 62 which would become 62(1) if this amendment were to go ahead. His concern is that - and I will read it because not everybody might have the section open - "Where a supervisor, the speaker, the clerk or the investigator is of the opinion that it is necessary to further the purposes of this Part, he or she may, in accordance with the rules, arrange for legal advice to be provided to employees and members involved in a process or proceeding under this Part." In actual fact the Citizen's Rep is concerned that this is an optional thing that is decided. I think one of his goals is total protection for the worker. That is what he is really concerned about and I think it was his opinion that this does that.

Now, I totally agree with the hon. member, that we need to have further discussion on this and rather than voting for or against this, I would suggest - and I think this is what the member was meaning - that we mutually agree that we remove this from the bill so that the Management Commission can have further discussion. It is not that we are voting for or against this, because we do not really know what this means and what the implications are, so remove it from the bill so that we are not worried about whether or not we are voting for that.

If the Management Commission, after discussion and looking at Bill 62 as it stands and the other concerns the Citizens' Representative has, then says, okay, we now have a proposal to bring forward, then we try another proposal.

I think that is what the hon. member meant and that is what I would certainly agree to, is just let us take it out and not vote on this at all, mutually agree that it is not part of the bill.

CHAIR: Shall Clause 19 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

CHAIR: I note that Clause 19 did not carry.

CLERK: Clause 20.

CHAIR: Shall Clause 20 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Clause 20 carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in legislative session convened as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Those against?

Carried.

On motion, the enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No. 2.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, the title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried, with the exception of Clause 19, without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment with the exception of Clause 19.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: I move, Mr. Chair, that the Committee rise and report Bill 68.

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise and report Bill 68 and ask leave to sit again.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again. The Speaker returned to the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

The hon. the Deputy Speaker and Member for the District of St. John's South.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report Bill 68 carried, with the exception of clause 19, without amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of the Committee of the Whole reports that the committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bill 68, excluding clause 19, carried without amendment.

When shall this report be received?

Now?

MS BURKE: Now.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the said report be read a third time?

Now? Tomorrow?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, report received and adopted, bill ordered read a third time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like call from the Order Paper number 24, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The Student Financial Assistance Act No. 2. (Bill 52)

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that Bill 52, An Act To Amend The Student Financial Assistance Act No. 2, be now read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Student Financial Assistance Act No. 2." (Bill 52)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to stand in this hon. House today to speak to the amendments to the Student Financial Assistance Act. These amendments reflect this government's interest in the commitment of women and men who bravely serve our country in the capacity of a military reservist, and they are certainly honoured by this amendment that we are making today.

Reservists, Mr. Speaker, as defined under the National Defence Act of Canada, are officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for other than continuing, full-time military service when not on active service.

Mr. Speaker, basically, as the name kind of indicates, there are reservists for the military who are people who lead otherwise civilian lives, either they are students or they work and they raise their family, but yet they train and they are certainly available for military duty when called upon to do that.

Many reservists, Mr. Speaker, provide an invaluable service to our Province, and indeed our nation. They are called upon to serve and support this country's interest overseas, as well as here at home.

I am sure my hon. colleagues will agree that anyone serving our country in this manner should be provided with every assistance to alleviate any financial hardships or stress that may arise during their period of service.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, we are introducing amendments to the Student Financial Assistance Act, to ensure that those called away to serve our country will be exempt from having to make payments on their student loans and will not be charged interest on their loans during the period which they are deployed.

The amendments to the Student Financial Assistance Act involve adding a definition of reservist in section 2 to refer to the definition of reservist used in the National Defence Act, which was the definition that I read just moments ago.

We are also adding the authority to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in section 16 to have regulatory powers to establish circumstance where no interest, principal or fees can be charged on student loans to reservists while they are in deployment.

As the act stands now, government has no legal authority to provide enhanced benefits to reservists. So, because the way the act is written, we do not have the authority to do this acknowledge without doing the amendment and without changing the way we do the regulations.

This amendment to section 16 will allow us to make this important change for the reservists. We will then be able to make the exemptions from them having to pay on their students loans, and from having interest charged on their loan. It will allow future changes to benefit reservists to be done through a simple change to the regulations.

These changes build on our government's Blue Book commitment to reservists in the area of job protection, a change made to the Labour Standards Act by my hon. colleague Minister Skinner, in his role as the former Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment. Alleviating the requirement to pay interest and to make payments during the period of a reservist's deployment further demonstrates our recognition of the valuable service that these men and women provide to us.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, these changes are consistent with federal legislation, Bill C-40, which received Royal Assent on April 17, 2008, and is another step to ensure consistency between the provincial and federal student loan programs.

Prior to this change, Mr. Speaker, reservists who left their studies and had student loans were charged interest and were required to start paying back their student loans if they were away from their studies for longer than six months. So basically they followed the same guidelines, the same rules and regulations, as any other student. There was no recognition for their circumstances, that they were away from their studies because they were a reservist and called to duty. So they had to be treated like other students at that time, and the payback requirements for other students.

With the amendments, Mr. Speaker, retroactive to January 1, 2008, reservists will not be charged interest; nor will they have to pay the principal on their student loans while serving in a designated operation.

Individuals are eligible for this benefit if they are in the Canadian Reserves, if they are a full-time student, if they have a provincial student loan but have not started repayment, and if they intend to return to school after their designated operations.

If a reservist is in repayment and has no plans to return to school, this benefit will not apply. This change is in recognition of the challenge that reservists face when they are called away from their studies to serve. The benefit will apply for the duration of their service on the designated operation. It will be extended up to six months from the time of their return from service to allow them an adjustment period to return to school. The benefit can also be extended for a maximum of two years if they are injured.

Mr. Speaker, the number of reservists affected by these changes is small, approximately 300 individuals across the country, and at this point that would be the equivalent, statistically, of about six individuals here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Although, just based strictly on projections, I would think that we do have a higher proportion of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who do serve in any form of military exercise, or Armed Forces, than probably any other Province in Canada. However, in the meantime, looking at the number of reservists, this will affect only a small number of individuals in our Province. Despite it only affecting a small number, I think it is a very big step in recognition for these individuals and certainly the work that they do.

Reservists are making a sacrifice for our Province and, in fact, our whole nation. They are often called away on relatively short notice and place themselves in danger to provide a critical service to every man, woman and child in this country. This change recognizes the sacrifice they make by ensuring that they do not have to incur interest on their student loans or repay their loans while they are in service.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the input and advice from the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Forces Liaison Council. The council is made up of a group of civilian business leaders who volunteer their time to promote the Reserve Force, Canada's part-time military, by highlighting the benefits of the Reserve Force training and experience to the civilian workplace. I would like to thank the Provincial Chair, Bill Mahoney, and Provincial Liaison Officer, Margaret Morris, who are supportive of these changes.

Over the years, Mr. Speaker, significant improvements have been made to the Student Aid Program. We have maintained a freeze on tuition rates; we have reduced the interest on student loans from prime plus two-and-half per cent to just prime; and we have introduced up-front, needs-based grants.

These changes we are introducing today to the Student Financial Assistance Act will make a real difference to the men and women who will take themselves away from their post-secondary studies to serve our country. I look forward to the debate in this hon. House and to the implementation of these important changes for military reservists.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate an opportunity to have a few words regarding Bill 52. In second reading, of course, it is an opportunity to discuss the generalities of the bill. We have had an opportunity to look at it, and I appreciate the minister's comments; they were certainly informative. There are things that she mentioned today besides the issue of why it came about and why we are here dealing with this, but some of the details as to whom it would apply to, maximum periods, what the consequences are to the individuals, what the consequences are to the provincial purse and so on.

We will have some questions that we will pose to the minister and hopefully, either in closing second debate or in Committee stage, she will be able to provide us with that information. I would like to make it quite clear, by the way, that because we are raising the question does not, in any way, shape or form, imply that we are not in favour of the bill. We, in fact, are in favour of the bill and will be voting in favour of the bill. It is a case of we would like to be fully informed if we might be, and it seems, even based upon some of the minister's comments, that there is some information that, even for the purpose of educating us, would be beneficial, and not only us, as members who vote, but the general public, of course, would like to be aware of this, and certainly anyone who might avail of this once it becomes law would certainly be avidly interested in knowing what the regulations might be.

This is not, of course, the first incidence where the government has come forward to help, first of all, with respect to reservists and secondly with respect to students. I refer, of course, to Bill 1, the very first bill that was introduced into the House of Assembly after the election of 2007. When the House first met in the spring of 2008, its first sitting, the very first bill dealt with reservists. The issue at that time, of course, was reservists who went to serve their country but yet ran into labour relations problems, and there was an amendment, An Act To Amend the Labour Standards Act to Provide for Leave for Reservists.

In that particular case, it was an incident where a gentleman, I do believe from the West Coast, was in the Reserves and he had gone off to serve his country, only to find out that he had some issues when it came to his employment. Who protects your job once you go? It was obvious conflict that you are trying to serve your country, which is a distinction and an honour, only to find out that when you come back your job might be gone to someone else.

The purpose of Bill 1 at that time, of course, was to protect those individuals who found themselves in that situation. It was moved and brought forward. It was under the name of the then Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment but I remember distinctly the Government House Leader of the day, who was the former Member for Baie Verte, was very passionate about it, and spoke very passionately about why that was necessary and should be done. We, of course, in the Opposition voted for it as well and supported it, as we will support this particular bill here.

It is one thing, when someone is courageous enough and dedicated enough and committed enough to support your country, if you were to find out that by doing so I have hamstrung myself in some way or I have additional burdens that I never should have. It is burdensome enough, particularly if the individual in question has gone off to do their duty somewhere that is a life-safety issue place.

For example, if you go to Afghanistan or somewhere, you know this is not a peacekeeping effort anymore when some of our reservists go to these areas. It is life-threatening situations. So, that has to be considered. I think the phrase that the minister used was a designated operation, was the terminology. I will come back to that because I do have some questions about what exactly is a designated operation.

So, we certainly think that this is a wise move. If you are going to go and become involved in a designated operation and you are a student, the last thing you need to know and worry about is: Do I have to pay my student loans? What is the interest rate on the student loans? A lot of these people, just because we use the word student does not mean they are not married. They might have family commitments and family obligations in addition. So you try to minimize as best you can, the concerns that these people have, and this is certainly a step in the right direction. I am pleased to see, quite frankly, that government has agreed to do this.

A couple of questions in regards to what the minister raised. She gave some information, and I am assuming under Bill 52 - maybe it already exists, I am not aware, but just some basic information. When the minister talks about - and the explanatory note number two in Bill 52 talks about the regulatory authority. That makes quite a lot of sense, because we cannot anticipate probably all of the circumstances right now as to what you might like to do as a government vis-à-vis trying to assist a reservist.

So, you have given yourself now the basic authority to make regulatory changes or regulations that could deal with that. I am just curious as to: Have, in fact, some of these regulations already been done? Is that what the minister is referring to when she made her comments with regards to, first of all, the designated operation piece? I assume that already exists somewhere else, under another piece of legislation, as to what that is. The comment about, it is of a two-year duration. The information concerning: Are there any limits on the amount? I am assuming that the interest will in fact be suspended – would probably be the right word – once this becomes law. It is the full amount of the interest that is being suspended. There are no limitations here of one half being suspended or whatever. The full amount of the interest payment and the full amount of the principal payment would be suspended if this happened.

Also, I would appreciate some further information concerning student. Is this only for someone who is a student at the present time? If so, how far have we taken that definition of a student? Who would fall under that designation of student? I am just wondering, why would we limit it to student, i.e. being currently enrolled as a student? I am just wondering why – and I am sure, maybe there is a cost element to this. Maybe that is where the minister might explain to us: What is the price tag, or is there any price tag associated with this suspension?

For example, if a person goes off to a designated operation, and you are gone for nine months, according to this act you will not have to make any principal payment and you will not have to make any interest payment on your student debt for that period of, say, the eight months that you are gone. So the question is: What cost factor is there in that type of initiative for the government? Is there any information that might be provided in that regard, like what the government anticipate the cost or the price tag is going to be on such an initiative?

It raises the question, and I am trying to think this through. It is my understanding under the Student Aid system, and I fully admit I do not know all the details and implications of the Student Financial Assistance Act. My understanding was that - at least in my own case when I finished - you finish and within six months, I do believe, after you have graduated you had to start making your principal payments and there was an interest rate of course that you paid, and then you paid that until you got it paid off. I am just curious about the interaction here between, if it only applies to students and the person goes away, how does that roll over? If I am a student today and I have built up, say, a $10,000 student loan, and I leave as a reservist to go to a designated operation, if I am only gone six months I take it that it is not an issue anyway because the implications of repayment have not locked in. The question then becomes if I go for a twelve-month operation. Obviously, if that six-month rule applies then I am looking at a six-month piece. If the minister could give some explanations around that type of implementation, and the cost factor, I think it would be very helpful as well.

The other thing is, why would it be specifically confined, shall we say, to just students? What happens to the individual who has a $10,000 student loan, has indeed graduated - say you are a member of the reserves, you have graduated as a teacher from Memorial University, you have your $10,000, you are teaching wherever in this Province - yet you go to this designated operation?

You still have your student loan, so what happens in that case? Why wouldn't anyone who has a student loan, who is a reservist, be able to avail of this? I am wondering what the logic would be as to why it is only for students. There is probably a very good explanation. If we are doing it in honour of the person who is going, because of what they are doing, why would we make it specific only to persons who are students? Some explanation piece around that would be of great assistance, I say to the minister.

The other thing is, I notice as well, in talking about reservists and also talking about students, it is fully acknowledged that this government has continued a policy which was first brought in by the former Administration prior to 2003 about freezing student tuitions. Of course, everybody recognizes the significance of doing that for our students. I do believe since 2001-2002 there was a freeze put on, both at Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic. Albeit the governments prior to this Administration were cash-strapped, they felt it was important enough to students to have implemented that program and, in fact, did begin that program of tuition freezes back then which this government, I am very pleased to see, has continued.

In addition to that, the minister referred to a couple of other things that the government has done, such as reduce the interest rates and so on. That is very beneficial, because anything we can do to be of benefit to a student to encourage them to hopefully stay here when they graduate is only for the best interest of this Province ultimately.

In that regard I notice the minister, in her capacity as Minister of Education, has met recently with representatives of the Canadian Federation of Students and with the MUN Students' Union. I do believe the minister was in attendance at a function when they reopened Barnes House

in the complex down at Memorial and there were discussions that took place about: Could there be zero interest rate on your loan? That has been advocated now by both of these student union groups, the Canadian Federation and the MUN student body.

I understand, from reading The Muse article, that the minister has committed, in fact, to look at that in this year's Budget. That is good to see, that not only for students who would be reservists are we doing something, and the government is trying to do something under Bill 52, but we also see that there are other pieces that government is prepared to take a look at. Hopefully, maybe, we can look forward when the spring Budget comes, because we do know now from the Minister of Finance's report this week, and the update, that we are going to have something to tune of $1.2 billion-plus in surplus. I believe the indications are that the bulk of that would get paid down on the provincial debt, and by the end of March 2009 I think it is anticipated we will have a public debt of about $9.2 billion at that time.

I guess it raises the question again of priorities. Would all of it be put down on the debt, or will such worthy, notable causes such as trying to bring the interest rate for student loans down to zero, would that be a good initiative? I guess that is where government, of course, has to consider all the factors and decide what would be in everybody's best interest at that time.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have anything else to say, other than, based upon what we see here, we will be voting, no question about it, in favour of this bill, but I think it requires and it would certainly be helpful to the general public and also to the Opposition and to, I am sure, government members probably, to have a more detailed explanation as to how this would work. What does it cost? What is the benefit? Who can apply? Why the two-year limit on the thing, and so on? That would make it much easier to at least understand the generalities of it, shall we say. It is a motherhood issue. Who does not want to vote for and support something that is going to help our reservists? I do not think there is anybody who does not want to do that. We would just like to understand, and think it is our obligation to understand, why in fact we are doing and what the implications are, and has there been any even educational piece already to this with the student unions and so on, and with the reservists? Because I guess there are two people involved in here. There are the reservists who have an interest, a vested interest, to want this to go through, but we also have a vested interest of anyone who is a student in this Province.

If so, who has been consulted in regard to this? Was it just the MUN union, the Canadian Federation, or were the CONA student bodies contacted and so on? It would be nice to know just exactly how inclusive and how informative the information was, from an educational perspective, to these groups.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I take my leave, and I will have some further questions based upon the minister's comments in closing or in committee stage.

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

MS MICHAEL: I guess you want me to start, Mr. Speaker. I will take, I imagine, five minutes or more, so I will get in whatever I can before 5:30. Thank you.

I am happy to speak to Bill 52 on amending the Student Financial Assistance Act No. 2.

Of course, as was suggested by my colleague, who could vote against it? Obviously I will be voting for it, but the instance of the bill brings a lot of things to mind with regard to the interest on student loans.

There is no doubt that reservists play a special role in our country, and they do a special piece of work which is very important, and the minister presented this bill as sort of like a recognition of that, an award to the reservists for the special role that they play in our country and for our country. That is fine, and that is good, and that is admirable, and I definitely will vote for the bill.

However - and this is no disrespect to reservists for me to go off and spend more time talking about students in general and the role that our young adults play in our society when they come out of either university or other post-secondary institutions, colleges and universities. No matter what their education is, whether it is education as teachers or lawyers or engineers or technicians or technologists or tradespersons, no matter what their role is when they come out of post-secondary institutions, they play an extremely important part in our society. For that reason, I wonder why the government would not look at removing interest permanently, and not just for reservists, but for all of our students of this Province who carry a debt load because of their education.

I notice, in the Student Financial Assistance Act, section 16, that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may make regulations, and of course, one of the regulations, which is numbered (e. 2) says, "setting lower interest rates for debts owed to the Crown or the corporation as a result of the Crown or the corporation fulfilling the obligations of a borrower under a student loan agreement, et cetera. I will not read the whole thing.

I will continue tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, that the House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do now adjourn.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

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

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