May 31, 2010                        HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS                  Vol. XLVI  No. 29


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Today the Chair welcomes the following members' statements: the hon. the Member for the District of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair; the hon. the Member for the District of Kilbride; the hon. the Member for the District of Topsail.

The hon. the Member for the District of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in the House of Assembly today to pay tribute to three young men from Labrador whose lives were suddenly cut short when the boat they were in capsized at Muskrat Falls on May 18, 2010.

Ryan Russell of Charlottetown was born on June 26, 1991. He is the son of Gary and Elsie Russell. Ryan is a graduate of William Gillett Academy and had just finished the Millwright program at the College of the North Atlantic in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. He was to start his work term with IOC in Labrador West today. Ryan was an only child.

Mr. Roy Sainsbury of Cartwright was born on October 5, 1991. He is the son of Junior Sainsbury and Faith Dyson. Roy is a graduate of Henry Gordon Academy and had just finished the Millwright program at the College of the North Atlantic in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. He was to start his work term with Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation today. Roy was very close to his brother, Brandon, and his sisters, Alisa and Claire.

Randy Scott Rose of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, was born on March 26, 1991. He is the son of Randy Sr. and Angela Rose. Randy is a graduate of Mealy Mountain High School and had just completed the Millwright program at the College of the North Atlantic in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. He was to start his work term with IOC in Labrador West today. Randy was very close to his only sister, Jamie.

These three young men came together as friends with ambitions of great success, they loved the land in which they had such a privilege to live, they embraced the challenges of the North and stood proud as sons of Labrador.

Today, the people of Labrador remember them as strong, courageous and adventurous young men, who had achieved that success in their college education and in the many friends and family that surrounded them. As Labradorians mourn the loss of these young men I ask my colleagues in the House of Assembly to join with me in asking you, Mr. Speaker, to send our sincere and heartfelt sympathy to each of these families.

I ask my colleagues to pray for their families as the recovery efforts continue.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DINN: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad today to stand in this House to congratulate Goulds Elementary Grade VI Boys Basketball Team which recently won the Under 12 Boys Basketball Provincial Championships held at St. Bernard's School in Witless Bay. After posting a regular season record of thirteen wins and zero losses in its house league, Goulds Elementary travelled to Baltimore School in Ferryland where they defeated the host team eighty-six to fourteen. In their next two tournament games, they played Mary Queen of Peace and Stella Maris of Trepassey. They beat Mary Queen of Peace by just ten points and earned a berth in the championship game with an eighty-eight to twenty win over Stella Maris.

In the championship game, they played St. John Bosco of St. John's and defeated this team eighty to fifty to capture the tournament gold medal and the provincial banner.

Members of the winning team are: Joshua Chidley, Sheldon Ryan, Joshua Kean, Aiden Curran, Chris Mayo, Cody Williams, Aaron Williams, Andre Williams, Nick Williams, Matt McCrowe, Zachary Gatherall, Julian Vaughan-Jackson, Mark Raymond and Joseph Whelan. The coaches were Darryl Chidley and Dave Ryan. Ms Laura Kean was the manager.

I ask all members of this House to join me in extending sincere congratulations to Gould Elementary Grade 6 Boys Basketball Team.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, May 16, 2010, the Conception Bay South Junior Squash Club celebrated its fifteenth consecutive, successful year of operation.

The Conception Bay South Junior Squash Club was formed in 1995 by Conception Bay South resident, Mr. Eric Hart. Prior to the formation of this club, players from the town had not competed as part of the Newfoundland and Labrador's Squash Team in the Canada Winter Games. Since the club's inception, and under the leadership of Mr. Hart, there have been players from Conception Bay South on every Newfoundland and Labrador Squash Team attending the Canadian Winter Games.

Over the past fifteen years, it is estimated that more than 260 players have participated in this club and, of those, 240 have competed provincially and sixteen have competed nationally. Mr. Hart's determination and dedication have ensured the continued success of the club and his efforts remain a positive impact on the lives of youth who participate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating the Conception Bay South Junior Squash Club and Mr. Eric Hart for his years of service to youth and the community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House to recognize Environment Week, which is being celebrated May 30 to June 5. This year's theme is Embracing Life on Earth and provides an opportunity to reflect on the benefits of our Province's natural wealth which is a source of pride, prosperity and security for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It is also a reminder that we must work together and take an active role to ensure Newfoundland and Labrador's environment is clean and healthy for all of us to enjoy.

I had the pleasure earlier today, Mr. Speaker, of recognizing the accomplishments of a number of environmental leaders for their dedication and efforts. The Environmental Awards program is an annual celebration of environmental achievements in our Province and raises awareness of the individuals, groups and businesses that are taking action to protect and sustain our environment. It is a joint initiative sponsored by the Department of Environment and Conservation, the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board and the Newfoundland and Labrador Women's Institutes.

Mr. Speaker, the winners of the Environmental Awards for 2010 in each category are as follows: Individual: Ms Julie Huntington; Community Group or Organization: Newfoundland and Labrador Lung Association; Youth, Youth Group or School: St. Catherine's Academy, Grade 8 class; Municipality or Regional Waste Management Committee: City of Mount Pearl; Business or Industry Leader: Portugal Cove-St. Phillips Organic Farm; and Lifetime Achievement award went to Mr. Leonard Vassallo.

In addition to being celebrated at the awards ceremony, Mr. Speaker, each of the winners also received a $1,000 honorarium from the MMSB to go towards furthering their own environmental projects or to donate to an environmental cause of their choice.

These men and women are environmental ambassadors for our Province and they have demonstrated tremendous ingenuity and determination, along with an impressive passion for our environment. We are all responsible for the environment in our Province and that is why it is so important to recognize their great accomplishments and encourage others to follow their example.

Mr. Speaker, I also encourage everyone in our Province to participate in the many activities that are ongoing during this Environment Week. Through a number of initiatives sponsored by the MMSB, we will continue to raise awareness about sustaining our Province for generations to come not only during Environment Week, but every week of the year.

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 want to thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement today, and to say that we, in the Official Opposition, want to commend all those who get involved in Environment Week through not only this particular week but throughout the year.

Mr. Speaker, we know that many Newfoundlanders has made it known that the environment is a top priority to them throughout the year. It is not only to protect it for ourselves, but for our children and our grandchildren for many years to come. I want to congratulate the government, the MMSB and the Newfoundland Women's Institute for getting involved and continuing with this program.

However, Mr. Speaker, there are still many challenges each and every day, that we have to continue and make sure that we keep in our minds first and foremost. It is a time for each and every one of us to look at our own districts and what is happening in them when it comes to environmental issues. It is also a good time for government to place more emphasis on the many environmental issues that we debate here in this hon. House from time to time.

Mr. Speaker, I have to close by saying that not very often the former Administration gets much credit. This is a program that was brought in twenty-one years ago, Mr. Speaker. This is the twenty-first year for it and we want to say to government, congratulations for keeping up this wonderful initiative.

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

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

I, too, thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement. I am very pleased to join with her in congratulating the winners of the various awards this year. I would especially want to recognize Ms Julie Huntington who has given so much leadership in environment issues; involved in whale research and rescue; the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society; an active executive director of ACAP. She is currently working on co-ordinating a meeting on oil pollution prevention in our Province in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill and the need to protect our own offshore. It is wonderful to see her being awarded for all of her work.

This year's theme for Environment Week is Get to Half and focuses on waste reduction activities. These are great activities, Mr. Speaker, but they really do lay a responsibility mainly on the shoulders of the individuals for the environment. We know government has a major role to play as well.

I am glad to see, and I saw just before I came into the House, that government has at long last put out a discussion paper – a new one – on climate change. The last plan was released in 2005, so I look forward to the consultations that are to take place with regard to this latest discussion paper, Mr. Speaker. Hopefully, it will not be another five years before we see some major action from this government.

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, it was my pleasure over the weekend to participate in an event during the Fire and Emergency Services Spring Training School being held in Grand Falls-Windsor. During that event, I presented a cheque totalling $2,500 to the President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Fire Services, Fire Chief Vince Mackenzie. This cheque was made possible by an option included under the Occupational Health and Safety Act termed creative sentencing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. O'BRIEN: I will never be accused of mumbling in the House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker.

In November 2008, a case stemming from an incident involving an excavator concluded and resulted in a creative sentencing fine being provided to the Minister of Government Services. After careful consideration, officials in my department advised me that this fine would be given to the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Fire Services to provide improved respiratory protection for volunteer firefighters.

Mr. Speaker, the funds provided will go towards purchasing fit testing gear. On Saturday, I helped demonstrate the fit testing equipment which makes sure that the respiratory protection equipment performs properly when needed. Mr. Speaker, I would also advise the fire persons across the Province not to rely on that demonstration, but I am sure the actual equipment works.

Creative sentencing funds have benefited many different groups, organizations, children and the general public since it was first permitted under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Funding under this initiative has purchased learning tools for high school students in a number of different municipalities across Newfoundland and Labrador, advertising to raise awareness of workplace health and safety and now fit testing equipment may be included in that list. Sometimes, creative sentencing is not a fine at all but a requirement to give a speech to a peer group about safety issues. It is another tool in addition to fines or imprisonment, but it is not meant to embarrass the guilty party. It is a means for the offender to give back to our communities and residents and raise awareness about injury prevention and the importance of workplace safety.

Our volunteer firefighters give so much to their communities and their efforts, dedication, and commitment must be commended as they play such an important role in our rural communities ensuring the safety of residents. These men and women have jobs and lives but yet feel such a connection to their communities that they volunteer their time in this much needed way.

Mr. Speaker, it was my pleasure to provide this funding through creative sentencing to the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Fire Services.

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.

I want to thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement as well. I am sure that the event that was held in Gander this weekend, with regard to the training school, was a tremendous success. We all remember, as the minister stated here, the incident that happened on the TCH back in November 2008, the unfortunate incident. I have to say that the some 6,000 firefighters throughout the Province, there are many issues that they try to resolve throughout the year with fundraising ventures and so on. They do, Mr. Speaker, require protective clothing and breathing apparatus.

My hon. colleague, the Member for The Straits & White Bay North, responded to the statement from the Minister of Municipal Affairs just last week. We know that each and every one of those individuals, as they go out to protect our property and our lives, they place themselves in danger.

I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that the initiative that was put forward here by providing this funding, through the creative sentencing to the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Firefighters, is truly acceptable.

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. It is certainly an interesting example of creative sentencing and what can be done with creative sentencing. It is an imaginative way of applying fines. I am glad to see this money going to volunteer firefighters because they give so much to our community, and anything that can be added to their work that can help them do their work efficiently and in a very safe way, making things safe for other people, is certainly acceptable and applauded. It is an excellent use of the funds.

With regard to creative sentencing, I do have some concerns, not so much about the process, about not relying too much on it. It is not the best solution to countering dangerous workplaces and promoting workplace safety. They are levied after a company or person has been convicted of violating occupational health and safety regulations. So I think it is even more important that the government use preventative measures to make sure that our workplaces are as safe as possible and we do not have to levy too many fines.

I really encourage the government to make sure that we have enough inspectors and other officials to ensure that workplaces are safe. Preventative action is much more beneficial than levying of fines; however, creative sentencing is a good way to go, when we have to do so.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

After the Régie decision out of Quebec was delivered related to transmission capacity for Lower Churchill power, the Premier stated that he did not want to go through Quebec anyway, and the Maritime route was always his preference.

I ask the Premier: How far along are you in discussions on the Maritime route and what time frames are you looking at for its development?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, my preference was always the Maritime route but that was because it was a personal preference. I think it was more to get away from Quebec than anything, but it also has to be a rational decision and an economic decision and based on good financial consideration. So as a result, all the way through what we have done is we have done parallel plans. We have looked at the Quebec route and moving all or most of the power into Ontario but we have also, on a parallel basis, simultaneously looked at the Maritime route, and the Atlantic route.

As we all know, that is more expensive because it involves underwater transmission. It is well along. A lot of studies have been done. We have left that work primarily to Nalcor. Of course, they work with the minister's department, the Department of Natural Resources, but a lot of studies have been done. A lot of work has been done over the years basically on the underwater development as well. It goes right back to the Lower Churchill Development Corporation twenty or thirty years ago. Timelines are not finite on this. This is an evolving circumstance because everything is still tied into environmental approval, finalization of the Aboriginal piece, but from an economic perspective we are in a situation where we have enough information to really sit down and talk with any industrial developer at any point in time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Any potential Maritime route would have to go through New Brunswick. The Premier of New Brunswick and his energy minister are both quoted in this weekend's telegram that they have not been approached by the Province to discuss any options related to the route.

I ask the Premier: If the Maritime route was his preference, and he indicates that it still is, why haven't you started discussions with the Province of New Brunswick who would definitely be a potential partner, if not a customer in this project?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear exactly what the minister said nor have I read exactly what either the Premier or the minister have said but I can tell you quite clearly, we have been talking to New Brunswick for some considerable period of time. At what level, whether - the Premier and I have had discussions at just a general level. However, Nalcor Energy and New Brunswick Hydro were into fairly detailed discussions, quite frankly, prior to them pulling the plug and going to Quebec and looking at the Quebec alternative. When that happened and they were doing their deal with Quebec we obviously pulled back and just let that evolve. Of course, we know what the outcome of that was, that was finally dissolved and that was the end of that.

So, we are now, even as recently - if I remember correctly, it was last week, had a conference call with the Atlantic Premiers to discuss Atlantic co-operation with regard to a full Atlantic energy corridor. That would involve the premiers working together, their departments of energy and or natural resources working together, their deputy ministers, as well as the federal government being involved in putting up money for studies which has already been allocated.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is certainly not the impression that was left by the Premier of New Brunswick.

In the same article, however, the Premier of New Brunswick did state that it is estimated that the price per kilowatt hour of electricity could be in the range of sixteen cents. This certainly does not seem like cheap power. This is the first time, however, that we have seen a cost attached to the purchasing of Lower Churchill power.

I ask the Premier: If this costing by the New Brunswick Premier is accurate, and if not, what are the estimates currently being used by Nalcor to determine whether this route is feasible?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the Government of New Brunswick has already indicated to us that it appears that – I do not know if I use the right term – the Premier was misquoted with regard to his article, or whatever release he did there last week. He had talked, I think, about the economic feasibility of the project. He talked about the technical feasibility of the project because of voltage leak.

However, let me assure this House and all hon. members and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, that this certainly is a feasible project. It is certainly technically feasible, it is economically feasible. From a perspective of the cost, I can tell you that this particular project is the lowest cost, the cheapest hydro-electric project in all of North America.

With regard to disclosing confidential information that would be very, very important in any negotiation, I would not be prepared to do that. As a matter of fact, I cannot even give you the exact number because I do not know it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It would seem that if the Premier of New Brunswick is putting out numbers on the cost of per kilowatt power of the Lower Churchill and those numbers are wrong, I would think that it is incumbent upon the Premier and Nalcor to make those corrections. So I think it is time to start talking what the cost will be to generate that electricity. Mr. Speaker, we know that the US market is highly competitive for energy purchases and one of our direct competitors will be Hydro-Quebec.

So I ask the Premier: How competitive will we be in the marketplace, and have you secured any long-term customers that are willing to sign on to this power agreement for the Lower Churchill?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I just said it before and I will say it again. This is the lowest cost hydro-electric project in all of North America. That is equivalent to – could deal head on with La Romaine or any other projects that come on stream from Quebec.

So from our perspective - this one really slays me to be quite honest with you. Here we are with the best projects, with the cheapest project. We have a situation where we have the Province of Quebec, who have already skinned us alive on the Upper Churchill and are not prepared to just sort of, stand aside and work with us - and we will pay. We will pay for upgrades; we will pay for transmission costs. We could provide the Government of Quebec, the people of Quebec with probably $200 million a year, basically, in rental fees, but yet they are prepared to try and block us every step of the way.

I can guarantee this House and the hon. members opposite and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that we will not allow them to stand in our way. We will keep pushing forward. We will keep fighting the regulatory process and we will make sure that our project, which is the best in North America, will eventually come to fruition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have one province out there saying it is going to be costly power, we have the Premier saying it is going to be the lowest cost power, but nobody is showing us the numbers. I think it is time to start showing the numbers. It is one thing to continuously say it is feasible, it is another thing to start proving that it is.

Mr. Speaker, Premier Graham also indicated that the project has significant obstacles such as technical issues, as the Premier just alluded to. The New Brunswick Minister of Energy has even stated that the Lower Churchill project could be at least ten to fifteen years out.

I ask the Premier today: How significant are these technical issues and what impact will they have on the feasibility of the Lower Churchill project?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I have already stated, I have indicated that even the Government of New Brunswick, officials from the department in New Brunswick have contacted my office to indicate that perhaps the – and I cannot give you the exact terms because I was not privy to the conversation, but perhaps the Premier was quoted out of context. That is probably the fairest I can be to the Premier of New Brunswick in these particular circumstances.

We know the cost, we know the facts, we know the technical feasibility; we have done the studies. We have hired the best that money can buy. We have engaged and we have on our own staff the best that money can buy within government, within Nalcor Energy. We are doing this right. We are not doing it the way it was being done with the last government when it was all basically being given away in the Grimes government, of which the Leader of the Opposition was part of. We are prepared to give them the marketing and the construction, and ultimately turn the project over to them; then we would have lost it all. We would have given it all away again.

That is not going to happen. We know exactly what we are doing, and we are not going to give our competitive advantage away by disclosing numbers in this House that would be of benefit to the people who we are going to be selling the power to.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is the same government who knew what they were doing on Abitibi as well, Mr. Speaker. They also said that they had the best legal minds in the world, Mr. Speaker, when they did that deal.

I ask the Premier: Is he saying today, and to confirm for me that there are no technical issues that will impact on the feasibility of the Maritime transmission route?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, we certainly did know what we were doing with Abitibi. There is absolutely no doubt about it whatsoever.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: We are now seeing today that the company that has been losing half a billion dollars a quarter is now going to go through a restructuring. It is going to be slimmer, it is going to be leaner, and it is going to be fitter. We know how it has done that. We know how it has done it. It has dumped off its environmental liabilities. It has sold off assets. It has closed down mills all over the country. So basically what it is has done is taken all of its financial obligations and dumped them on somebody else, but by doing by what we did, which the hon. member opposite agreed with and has stated so publicly, we have saved the Province from the embarrassment of having being left with all of that liability.

From our own perspective, as far as the Upper Churchill goes and the Lower Churchill goes, that is a great project. It is a good project. It is a project that we can be very proud of, but we will not give that away either, and we will continue to stay the course.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the Premier again if he will confirm to the people of the Province today that there are no technical issues that will impact upon the feasibility of the Maritime transmission option under the Lower Churchill project.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: There absolutely will be technical issues that will impact upon the project. Anybody with a clue at all would know that there is going to be some technical issues when you do a $6 billion to $12 billion project.

I can tell the hon. member opposite that there will be no technical difficulties that will be a complete obstacle that would ever prevent that project from happening. All she has to do is read the journals.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: The problem is what the hon. member opposite is doing is reading the nonsense that is being put out by Hydro-Quebec, that is being put out through journalists that write articles in The Globe and Mail that say this technology is not available anywhere else in the world when there are all kinds of examples. Whether they happen to be in Europe, whether they happen to be in Tasmania, they are everywhere. So she should stop reading Quebec propaganda and believing in it, and believe in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a very typical show that you see in Question Period. Whenever the government has the heat put on them, when there are questions they do not want to answer, the first thing they do, Mr. Speaker, is they stand up and attack the person who is asking the questions – question their patronage.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier cannot have it both ways. It is either the Premier of New Brunswick is right that there is some technical impact or there is not, so he cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Speaker, before any Lower Churchill power project can be transmitted between Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, an environmental assessment study will have to be completed. We know that the environmental assessments have not been filed for the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

I ask the Premier: When will these environmental assessments be filed, what are the projected costs of these studies and when will they be completed?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the environmental assessment for the generation has been filed now for a long time. In fact, it will be going through the public hearings come the fall. The environmental assessment for the transmission has been filed as well, Mr. Speaker, and it was certainly open to public comment for the member opposite or anybody in the public to comment on.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On Wednesday, we were briefed by Nalcor, and I put the question to Ed Martin. He informed me at that time that there was no environmental assessment on the Maritime route, and I ask the minister to clarify her comments.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, we deal with the environmental assessments that are submitted by the proponents, and those are certainly up for review. So, Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the member is going, but those are certainly filed on the Web site. It is open for public comment. It is open for the public to comment on. The transmission route has been filed. Perhaps if you want to clarify it further, I can help you out some more.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

For the minister's information, he informed us that the EIS on the generation of power was filed, the EIS on bringing the route to the Island was filed, but not the Maritime route, I say to the minister.

I ask you, when government intends, through Nalcor, to file the environmental assessment on crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence as part of the Maritime route for the transmission of power?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition is getting ahead of herself again, as usual.

Mr. Speaker, we have not filed the environmental assessment across the Gulf of St. Lawrence at this point in time because we have not decided which route. We have not yet sanctioned the project, Mr. Speaker. Until we decide where we have the transmission capacity, only then will it become necessary, if we decide to go the Maritime route, to submit an environmental proposal. That will be done at Nalcor at the appropriate time, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Finally, Mr. Speaker, it goes to show once again that the Minister of Environment has no idea what is going on with environmental files in this Province, not even a project as big as the Lower Churchill, I say. Mr. Speaker, finally, we get the right response.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me ask the minister this, now that we have established and you have admitted that there has been no EIS filed on crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and we know there is not too many ways to cross the Gulf of St. Lawrence, I ask the minister if she can tell us when the EIS will be filed and when we can expect to see it completed? Will it take two years, three years, five years or ten years, Minister?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we will file the EIS when it is appropriate to do so. It will be appropriate to do so once we get transmission rights through New Brunswick and decide that that is the most appropriate route to wheel our power. Mr. Speaker, we have not ruled out, at this point in time, wheeling power through Quebec and if we wheel the bulk of our power through Quebec, an environmental assessment will not be required of the Gulf.

Mr. Speaker, the issues we are working on at the moment are transmission of power through Quebec, transmission of power through the Maritimes. We are using the OATT process in both of those circumstances, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Nevertheless, Minister, you know the EIS would have to be completed before there is any Maritime transmission route of Lower Churchill power.

Mr. Speaker, last year the Premier stated that he planned to put power lines through Gros Morne Park but backed off when public pressure was mounting against the plan. Since then, the government has stated that they plan to put transmission lines through the Long Range Mountains.

I ask the Premier today: Has Nalcor evaluated the technical ramifications of that plan, and how much will this route add to the cost of developing the Maritime route for access?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, before I answer the question, I just want to point out to the Leader of the Opposition that we would not take on millions of dollars of liability doing environmental assessments that are not required, that is why we need to decide which way we are going to wheel our power before we engage in full environmental assessments of certain routes.

Now, Mr. Speaker, on the second issue there are a range of transmission routes undertaken and studied when Nalcor did the financials around this project. There are at least four to five routes that are considered to be - that we could work with in terms of bringing that power out of Labrador and down through the Island. All of them have been assessed internally, Mr. Speaker, and all of them have been costed internally.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What we do know is that government is still looking at the Maritime route as a preference; however, they will not tell us how much it is going to cost to generate power through that route, whether it is going to be feasible in terms of giving us numbers. They are not filing any environmental assessment to make it happen through that access. They are not talking to New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker, and last week in a technical briefing with the officials from Nalcor, we asked for the timelines for developing a Lower Churchill project. They said they would have to check with the Premier before that information could be released. In the article this weekend the Premier stated that he would have to check with Nalcor.

I ask the Premier: Now that you have had an opportunity to check, or one of your talks back and forth, how many years are we talking here before we see the Lower Churchill developed in a manner that is feasible both from a cost and technical perspective?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Obviously, it is something that the Leader of the Opposition is not used to. There is obviously a mutual respect between the Premier's office, the government, and the Department of Natural Resources, and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and or Nalcor. We check with each other. We do not, on the eighth floor, decide that for political reasons we are going to do a deal with Quebec, and we are going to give it all away to Quebec, and we are going to let them build it, and we are going to let them finance it, and we are going to let them sell it, and then finally when we do not have enough money to complete it, we are going to let them take it over. Then not only would a Liberal government have given them the Upper Churchill and taken all of that away and costing us billions and billions of dollars every year - we could have been a have Province probably twenty years ago if it had not been for the Liberal government, but no, what was going to happen with the next Liberal government, the Grimes government? They were going to give it all away again, because do you know what? They were not going to check with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. They were just going to go up and tell the officials at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, this is the way it is because we know what we are doing. Well, that is not the way this government operates. We work collectively with them. We work together with them. We share information. We co-operate and when the time is right that project…

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to remind the Premier that the only thing given away in recent years is a free tab to AbitibiBowater when they pulled out of Grand Falls-Windsor, Mr. Speaker.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, the Premier and the government opposite likes to talk about their preceding governments but they do not like to tell us what the plan and the scope of the plan is that they have themselves. It is just all rhetoric, Mr. Speaker.

On Friday, the Premier issued a press release encouraging both sides in the Vale strike to find a resolution. Well, it was nice to finally hear some word from government, I say to the members opposite, but three years ago this government stated that they were considering bringing forward anti-replacement worker legislation.

I ask the Premier today: Keep it simple, and tell these workers enough time has passed, whether your government will bring forward the legislation or whether it is something that you are not entertaining?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, over a year - nearly a year ago I actually went to the picket line. So I met with these workers on the picket line in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The minister has met with the company on at least one occasion, maybe other occasions, has met with the union, has met with the President of the Federation of Labour, has spoken with her in telephone conversations. I have spoken with her personally, face to face on this. I have spoken to her in telephone conversations about this issue.

We have been constantly on top of this issue. I can say it has been discussed at Cabinet on several occasions. It is something that is very, very important to government. What I decided to do last week was to call the Premier of Ontario because quite frankly, I think, as we all know; the problem in this strike is in Ontario. It is not going to be resolved until it is resolved in Ontario. If I remember correctly, I think there are like 3,000 workers that are affected in Ontario. Even if this government brought in anti-scab legislation, it is quite possible that our actions would not even end the strike.

So I phoned the Premier of Ontario, who happened to be in Israel at the time, and suggested to him, and he agreed, that we work together. That we monitor this very closely and that we encourage both sides to get to the table and get this resolved as soon as possible. So we are very concerned.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the Premier, it might not have ended the strike immediately but it certainly would have put a lot of pressure on this company to the point that they probably would have ended up in shutdown mode.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the government today, because the commitment was made to these workers several years ago that there would be some consideration given to anti-replacement worker legislation. I have been on those picket lines many times in the last year, I say to the government, Mr. Speaker, and I have met with the company as well. These people deserve to have an answer. We know that the Board of Trade, the Federation of Business and the Manufacturers Association do not want to see anti-replacement worker legislation in the Province. However, we do know that the unions are supportive of it.

I ask the government today, to let the people know what your response is: Is this doable in Newfoundland and Labrador or is it not, so that these workers can get on with trying to settle what needs to be settled on the ground in this strike?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as the Premier answered in the previous question, I have had the opportunity to speak with the Nunatsiavut government, with Vale Inco, with the union and with the Federation of Labour. At all of these meetings, Mr. Speaker, replacement worker legislation has been discussed. They understand very clearly the difficulties in doing it. We continue to examine the issue, Mr. Speaker, and try to work through the complications.

Mr. Speaker, they also acknowledge at all levels that this will not end the strike. Worker replacement legislation would certainly put more pressure on the company, but, Mr. Speaker, at the same time, the problem certainly seems to be in Ontario with the nickel bonus.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, another day and another ferry out of service. The residents of Bell Island are now experiencing three to five hour delays since the Flanders is in for repairs and the Nonia is the only vessel left servicing the area. There are obvious problems when two vessels that service Bell Island have to go in for significant repairs within a month of each other.

I ask the minister: What types of repairs are being conducted on the Flanders and when can the residents of Bell Island expect a dependable and reliable service?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just in response to the member's question from across the way. Certainly, the Flanders was put out of commission over the weekend. She had some damage done to her bow thruster and we hope to have it repaired in the next number of days. In the meantime, we are doing everything we can to keep some level of service to the people of Bell Island.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When communities such as Bell Island experience delays in their ferry service many concerns arise. Residents of Bell Island rely on the ferry to get to work in St. John's and the surrounding area and they rely on it for social reasons, but most importantly medical emergencies and appointments.

I ask the minister: What other solutions has your department been considering to ensure that these residents have full and reliable access when necessary for travelling from Bell Island to St. John's?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are fully aware as a government of our responsibilities, not only to the people of Bell Island but the people of the Province. In these cases we do everything we possibly can to make sure there is a level of service that will meet their basic needs.

In this particular case, in emergency situations we will deal with through air or other means in order to take care of that particular situation.

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.

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday the Minister of Finance said that government was coming to the end of its five year video lottery terminal action plan and that government will now decide which way to go. The minister did not support the idea of holding public consultations. Mr. Speaker, a sensible way to proceed would be to hold broad consultations that would aid government in developing its next steps in dealing with the addictive nature of video lottery terminals.

Mr. Speaker, I ask it the Minister of Finance: Since 72 per cent of problem gamblers are VLT addicts, why won't the minister commit to holding consultations around the Province to get input?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, the one thing this government has done since it came into office in 2003 with respect to VLTs is reduce the number. We have reduced the number of VLTs in this Province by 25 per cent. We have reduced hours of access. We have reduced the pace of play. We eliminated the stop button from the machines.

We hear from the general public on this issue. People have very strong views on all sides on this particular issue. The options are clear. It will be necessary for government, when the current policy ends on March 31, 2011, it will be appropriate then for government to get together and consider the options that are before it and make the necessary decision to move forward.

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.

This government holds consultations on all kinds of issues. Right now we have got a whole set that are going to happen with regard to environmental issues. So I ask them minister to look at what is happening in other departments.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance said last week during Question Period on Thursday that the Atlantic Lottery Corporation had provided government with some information regarding VLTs and on-line poker.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of Finance: What kind of information did ALC provide, and will he release this information to the House?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I think it is in the public domain that the ALC has contacted this government, along with the other governments of the Atlantic Provinces, to allow it to move forward into new areas, including on-line poker.

The Government of Prince Edward Island has, in fact, passed legislation to allow that to happen. The Atlantic Finance Ministers intend to meet at the FPT meeting in Prince Edward Island next month to discuss this particular issue. I will be bringing the matter to my colleagues in order for them to be informed and to make a decision on this issue. At that point, government will make its decision.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the spirit of openness and transparency, I would ask this minister to release documents so everybody else can have the information to give feedback to him.

Mr. Speaker, last week we heard, during Question Period and debate on the NDP private member's motion, that the Ministers of Finance, Health and Community Services, and Business are all very concerned about problem gambling. However, Mr. Speaker, when asking the Minister of Finance if his government would nominate a representative from the Department of Health and Community Services to sit on the board of ALC, the minister just listed who sits there now – basically refusing to answer the question.

So I ask the minister: Why is he against nominating a representative to the ALC board whose responsibility would be the health and well-being of the people in our Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Very simple, there is no vacancy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Tabling of Documents

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

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to table the 2009-2010 annual report for Professional Engineers and Geoscientists Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further tabling of documents?

Notices of Motion.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: 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 Act To Amend The Securities Act, Bill 23.

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

MR. F. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act Respecting Court Security, Bill 24.

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

The hon. the Member for Bonavista North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARDING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice today to move the following private member's resolution, seconded by the Member for Labrador West:

WHEREAS Newfoundland and Labrador is home to one of the best undeveloped, clean, green, renewable energy projects in North America at the Lower Churchill River in Labrador; and

WHEREAS Ontario, the Maritime Provinces and the North Eastern United States are in need of affordable, clean energy sources; and

WHEREAS last weeks ruling of the Régie de l'énergie in Quebec on a transmission service request by Nalcor Energy once again demonstrates that province's arrogance and discriminatory business practices, in particular their determination to see the Lower Churchill proceed only on their terms; and

WHEREAS this ruling is deemed by this Province to be completely contrary to the rules of fair, open and competitive access; and

WHEREAS this government is determined to proceed with this project in the best interests and for the benefit of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly affirms its full support for the approach of Nalcor Energy and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to continue plans to develop this extraordinary clean, renewable energy project, including two alternative routes to market, including the Labrador-Island link, the Maritime route as well as the pursuit of a separate 724 megawatt transmission service request into the Maritimes and New England.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and Opposition Leader.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of people in the area from Labrador Straits to Happy Valley-Goose Bay with regard to the Trans-Labrador Highway. I will read it into the Order Paper.

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament Assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS the residents of Red Bay to Goose Bay use a section of the Trans-Labrador Highway that is unpaved and in poor condition; and

WHEREAS this road is no longer suitable for the traffic volumes that travel this route; and

WHEREAS government will not commit to provide funding to even begin paving for Phase II and Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway; and

WHEREAS the residents of this region deserve a similar standard of road as the Island portion of the Province;

WHEREUPON the petitioners ask the House of Assembly to call upon government to provide funding to pave the road from Red Bay to Goose Bay;

As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of petitions from communities all over Labrador. I will be presenting those every day in the House of Assembly. The reason for that is, Mr. Speaker, not only is there an extreme need to pave that section of road and for government to start putting together an actual strategy to lobby for the funding to do that, but today there are sections of that road that is in very deplorable condition.

In fact, for the last number of weekends, as most members, I go to my district and most of it I am spending on the road travelling from community to community. I can tell you that I have never seen the road in as bad a condition in all the years that I have been driving it, as I did in the last couple of weeks.

Mr. Speaker, the whole section between about thirty, forty kilometres outside of Red Bay right up to Mary's Harbour is absolutely disgraceful. It is so bad that I even had people calling me from Mount Pearl this weekend who were up in Labrador on business and called because they could not believe, Mr. Speaker, that the road was just so bad in that area. They said they wanted to call because they did not know if anyone in the Province actually realized how bad this section of road is right now. There is nothing only potholes that stretches for about eighty kilometres.

I talked to the operators who actually do the grading on the road and they themselves told me that they are doing themselves physical harm because they are operating these graders, and the blades are actually digging into the bedrock and they are getting these jolts on the equipment. There is no crushed stone left on a lot of sections of this road. In fact, most of the section I am talking about is ten, twelve years old, Mr. Speaker, and it has not been resurfaced since the time it has been in operation. Right now, we have probably three times more tractor-trailer traffic even now than we have ever had on those sections of road, and it is having a toll. I know that government is spending money there. I am not saying that. I know that they are spending money on completing the section of road that is there and doing other upgrades, but you have to realize –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - that there is a section right now that desperately needs to have some work done on it and you just cannot ignore that when you have 20,000 people in Labrador –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

MS BURKE: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move Motion 7, pursuant to Standing Order 11, that the House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. today, Monday, May 31, 2010.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do not adjourn at 5:30 of the clock today, being Monday.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move Motion 8, pursuant to Standing Order 11, that the House not adjourn at 10:00 p.m. today, Monday, May 31, 2010.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do not adjourn at 10:00 p.m. today being Monday, a parliamentary day.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of Government Services, for leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act, Bill 21, and I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Government House Leader if she can repeat the bill number again, please?

MS BURKE: Number 21, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Member –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Government Services to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act, Bill 21, and that Bill 21 be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the said minister shall have leave to –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is having difficulty –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that the minister shall have leave to introduce Bill 21 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 Minister of Government Services to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act", carried. (Bill 21)

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act. (Bill 21)

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is having difficulty hearing the directions given by the hon. the Government House Leader and hearing the Clerk read the bills. It is an important procedure here in this House that Parliament be allowed to operate uninterrupted. So I ask the hon. people on both sides of the House to kindly take their conversations or their fights to the outside.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

When shall the said bill be read a second time?

Now? Tomorrow?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 21 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, for leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Portability Of Pensions Act, Bill 22, 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 Finance and President of Treasury Board shall ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Portability Of Pensions Act, Bill 22, and that Bill 22 be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the said minister shall have leave to introduce Bill 22 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.

On motion, the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Portability Of Pensions Act", carried. (Bill 22)

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Portability Of Pensions Act. (Bill 22)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 22 has now been read a first time.

When shall Bill 22 be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 22 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, from the Order Paper we will call Motion 1.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1 reads: That this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government, otherwise known as the Budget Speech.

If the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board speaks now he will conclude the Budget Debate.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is hard to believe that the Budget was brought down on March 29, and that is only, what – a couple of months ago. It has been a long few months that we have been in this House, apart from the Easter break.

AN HON. MEMBER: Which was two weeks.

MR. MARSHALL: Which was two weeks.

The Budget that we released, Mr. Speaker, on March 29 was the seventh Budget of the Williams government, continuing our substantial investments in economic stimulus in health care and in education. You recall that the Budget 2010 was called: The Right Investments For Our Children and Our Future, and that it presented a very sound and a very progressive fiscal framework with investments targeted for the benefit of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians now but also in the future.

The Premier was quoted at that time as saying, we will continue our aggressive infrastructure strategy and we will keep the momentum going. He said that as the world emerged from a very uncertain global economic downturn, the Premier said that now is not the time to pull back on stimulus spending. Now is not the time to slam on the brakes. Now is not the time to stop providing jobs and opportunities for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

At that time, Mr. Speaker, I said that the economic outlook for our Province was positive. That our objective was to provide investments that would further stimulate and would support the projected growth. I said that we had weathered the recent economic challenges better than most other provinces and jurisdictions in the world but that the economic recovery which was taking place was very fragile. In spite of there being very good economic indicators, there was still a lot of uncertainty. I said at that time that until we see traction in the world economy, especially in those countries which buy our products - which buy our products that particularly affect rural Newfoundland, our fish and our newsprint and our forestry and our manufacturing goods - that until that took place we had to maintain the momentum here and we had to do it ourselves. We had to do it here at home and we would continue to invest to provide jobs and opportunities for the people of our Province.

Mr. Speaker, this would be a good time for us to go back and look at the situation we found ourselves in when the Williams government first came into office. We had many, many years of deficits; many, many years of deficit after deficit after deficit. As a result of that, the government has had to go into debt. They had to borrow in order to finance those deficits. As a result of that, we were spending an awful lot of money on interest on our debt; money that was going outside of the country in some cases, money that was going to our money lenders, money that we all looked at and said: Wouldn't it be great if, instead of that money going in interest on our debt, that we had that money and we could put it into things like health care, put it into education, put it into important social programs that would benefit our people?

The first thing we had to do in taking office, we had to make some tough decisions. We had to make some prudent financial decisions, which we did. They were not popular at the time, but people knew that they were the right things to do.

In addition, our Premier negotiated with Prime Minister Martin the Atlantic Accord 2005 and returned to our Province with a cheque for $2 billion. That agreement was supposed to be an eight-year agreement – there was an eight-year agreement - and the $2 billion was a minimum payment. He was smart enough to get the cheque and bring it back. That cheque went into our bank account. We put it in the public sector pension funds, the teachers' pension fund in particular, because of the respect we have for our pensioners.

Then, Mr. Speaker, we made prudent financial decisions and ran surpluses, for the first time in a long-time. I asked, in the Department of Finance, when in the past government did not have a deficit; when did the government of this Province not represent a deficit? I was told there was one time when the Liberals were in office, when they received some money from the federal government in order to take over the ferries, I think, on the South Coast.

That money was to last a long time. That money was to cover a number of years. What the government of the day did: they took it and they included in the revenues for that one year and then said: Look, we have now run a surplus.

Of course, that was not good accounting practice; that was not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. That money should have been put in an account and so much of it brought into revenue each year over a period of time, like we did with the $2 billion. When the $2 billion was brought back by the Premier we had the cash, and the cash showed up on our books as a liability. We had not earned it yet; it was an unearned liability.

Then each year, as it was earned, it was brought into revenue. We did not take it all into revenue in one year to distort the financial position of the Province. We did it properly, we did it in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, we did it in accordance with public sector accounting standards, and we did it in accordance with what the Auditor General would require.

Running those surpluses enabled us to do something that the government of this Province had not done; it enabled us to start paying down our net debt; because, by definition, if you run a surplus, your net debt starts to come down. We did that. We had four years of consecutive surpluses after, I do not know, thirty, thirty-five, or forty years of continuous deficits.

In addition to paying down our debt, paying down our funded debt – we pay our debt as it comes due - we also put money into the Public Service pension funds in order to reduce the unfunded pension liabilities. In addition, we had the opportunity to reduce taxes. In addition to that, we made the decision to make strategic investments - strategic investments - to diversify the economy so that we would be in a position for future economic growth when the oil and gas, the non-renewable resources, are gone, as they certainly will be one day.

We had the benefit of expanding world economy. We had the benefit of high oil and gas prices. We had the benefit of the $2 billion, and we had the benefit of putting our fiscal house in order by making prudent financial decisions.

Then we got hit in 2009 by the recession, an economic hurricane. The Opposition House Leader called it an economic tsunami. There is no doubt about it, the year 2009 was a rough year financially, not only here but around the whole world. The effects of the worst recession since the Depression continue to resonate. Now financial leaders are paying close attention to another crisis. We had a crisis in the United States, starting with the housing sector, that transferred to the banking sector and led to a lack of confidence, led to higher interest rates, led to people not investing, and led to job losses and a recession. Now we have a similar situation in Europe. We see financial leaders are paying close attention to the spiralling debt crisis that is happening in Europe – in particular, Greece - and (inaudible) countries contributed to a $1 trillion bailout package for Greece.

Our concern is what this will mean to us. If Europe slows down because of austerity measures - Europe is our second-largest market - that will affect our economy here, although other economists are not so concerned because they feel the effect will be indirect, because they feel that the transfer of trade, or trade between our country and Europe, is not as high as our trade with the United States; although, indirectly, if Asian companies are affected, that could reduce their demand for our product, because a lot of our economic growth - most of our economic growth - is based on the export sector which, of course, depends on demand for our commodities, and China and India, and places like that, have been generating that.

The world economy, as we know, is not out of the woods as yet. The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, had said Canadians should not be fooled by a quick recovery; it is not business as usual. It will take time to recover from what occurred in 2009.

Here in this Province we certainly knew the sting of the recession. Employment fell by 2.5 per cent; the unemployment rate went up last year. Gross Domestic Product declined by 10.2 per cent, mainly due to declines in natural oil production. The oil coming out of the ground is not as much as what it was when I gave the Budget two or three years ago, when it was up around 132 million barrels; now that is down to ninety-two this year.

There is a famous Texas oil man named Boone Pickens. He said oil is very hard to find, but he said what is even worse, once you find it and you start taking it out of the ground, it comes out of the ground very quickly.

We are certainly seeing that, and that is why there is a need for more exploration in this Province. I am delighted in particular that this government and the Minister of Natural Resources have brought in a program to encourage Nalcor to drill and to invest in rural Newfoundland, on the Great Northern Peninsula, at Parson's Pond.

In particular during the recession certain industries, particularly the resource industry sector, were very negatively impacted in an adverse way: our mining, our forestry and our fishery, and these impacts were particularly hard felt in the rural parts of this Province.

We, in Newfoundland and Labrador, faced challenges and we have made it through better than most other provinces, and there are many positive indicators in our economy. Because we increased the minimum wage, and because we gave our employees a raise of 20 per cent over four years, labour income was up 4.2 per cent, personal income was up 3.9 per cent. Because we brought in the biggest personal income tax cut in the history of the Province and then increased it again the next year, especially for those at the lower end, disposable income in this Province increased as well. People had more money in their pockets to pay their bills.

In addition to paying their bills, retail sales tax went up 2.6 per cent; the housing sector went up; the car sales went up; and it is because people had more money in their pockets. That generated consumer spending, which is a very important part of growth in Gross Domestic Product. Especially in the United States consumer spending is extremely important. That sector, the consumer sector, is not as large in our Province. Our export sector has the biggest impact on the GDP in this Province.

Due primarily to strength in oil prices, we revised the deficit which we thought would be $750 million; that fell to $295 million, 61 per cent less than we forecast. We thought we would get revenues of $6 billion. Expenses, we thought, would be about $6.7 billion. We were therefore looking at a deficit of $750 million. Our revenues were $600 million more than we had budgeted because of strength in oil prices and our expenses went up to $6.9 billion, for a deficit of $295 million.

The global economic outlook for this year, for 2010, is improving. There is no question about that. There is lots of good news coming out as we can see in certain economic indicators.

Not all countries are progressing at the same rate, Mr. Speaker. The recovery of the world economy is picking up steam but it remains fragile. It remains uncertain and there are concerns that economic growth will be restrained because factors such as the high Canadian dollar, potentially higher interest rates, sluggish employment figures in the United States of America - which is the biggest market for our products - and potential slowdown as well in other parts of the world, in particular, Europe, which is our second largest market.

The United States is a major customer for Newfoundland and Labrador products. Their economy has not gained traction, there is positive news but the housing sector there continues to underperform. If Americans are not working, Mr. Speaker, then they do not have the income to buy our fish, to buy our newsprint, to buy our forest products and our manufactured products.

I heard recently, one of the economic advisors to President Obama said that the American economy is starting to wake up. He said: When it does wake up, when it gets out of bed, when it goes downstairs, has its breakfast and it goes to work, then we can adjust our plan accordingly.

The International Monetary Fund said the world economy would grow by 4 per cent. We are optimistic, in spite of the uncertainty that exists coming out of Europe, in spite of lower employment numbers in the United States, we are optimistic that this year, 2010, will be positive for Newfoundland and Labrador.

There was an interesting article in Maclean's magazine recently talking about what is happening here. Smart investment, strategic planning and the resolve of Premier Williams to fight for the people of this Province is paying off for you and me today, but it will pay off more importantly for our children tomorrow.

We have a lot to look forward to. Most economic indicators are forecast to be positive, but we still face challenges in the fishing, the forestry and the newsprint industries as a result of weak markets and the high Canadian dollar.

The start of 2010 looks promising. Housing starts are up about 60 per cent relative to the same period in 2009; urban housing starts were up 26 per cent; employment increased in each of the first four months of this year and is up 2.3 per cent on average – people are getting jobs in this Province; the unemployment rate is predicted to fall; average weekly earnings were up by 6 per cent in January and February. This is certainly a sign of good news. Consumer confidence remains very high and total retail sales continue to increase. So that is the consumer sector.

In addition, in the business investment sector, that part of the GDP, capital investment will lead the country based on investments that the Vale Inco site – I guess it is the Vale site now – at Long Harbour, and in the oil projects – the investments that are taking place in the oil projects.

This year, we are predicting that our revenues will increase from $6.6 billion last year to $6.8 billion - we think it will go up about $200 million – and our expenses will go up about $100 million to $7 billion, leading to a deficit of about $194 million. That is based on the price of oil, which we estimated would average over the year of $83.48 – a very aggressive number. It is based on the dollar being at about ninety-six-and-a-half cents. We know that every cent the dollar goes down, our revenues go up about $26 million to $27 million. For every dollar oil will be less than $83.48, our revenues and other things being equal will go down about $30 million.

Of course, how we do will also depend on the price of oil in world markets. It will depend very much on the production numbers and, as I said earlier, the production numbers are declining. The oil is coming out of the ground, but there is still some good news. There has been a discovery in, I think, the Orphan Basin. There is drilling taking place in the Laurentian Basin and the Flemish Cap. There has recently been some encouraging news coming out of Parson's Pond on the Great Northern Peninsula, which we all hope will lead some day to an onshore oil and gas industry.

The objective of government was to provide investments that would further stimulate and support this projected growth, so while the world economy is uncertain, while it is fragile, then the necessary thing is to continue to stimulate – a mild stimulant. Even though we are running a deficit, the deficit is very mild. In this country, every government, every provincial government, the federal government, are running deficits.

Ours, on a per capita basis, is the second lowest in the country. Saskatchewan is lower than ours. Ours is $383 a person, but let's look at some of the others: Manitoba is $446 million; New Brunswick is $833 per person; Alberta is $1,288 per person; Ontario is $1,507 per person; the federal government is $1,450 per person. Ours is mild. We can handle it because we had four years of surpluses. We had four years of accumulating cash which will enable us to pay down our debt as it comes due, to finance our deficit, to finance a $1 billion infrastructure strategy and enable us to pay our debts when they come through.

The investments have been outlined by other members in this House and we have a $1 billion infrastructure program. I remember when I was here two years ago it was $400 million; I thought that was a lot of money, now it is $1 billion. It is going to be $5 billion over the next few years. We are putting $2.7 billion into health; $1.4 billion into education.

I would like to say there was an article of APEC that I read which talked about the future and talked about how Newfoundland and Labrador, that when the oil and gas is gone, Premier Williams' vision is a vision of self-reliance for this Province. It is a vision of becoming an energy warehouse with the power coming from the Lower Churchill over to the Island and down through the Maritime Provinces into the United States and into Ontario. It is a vision of using our wind so that down the road when the renewable energy - I am sorry, when the non-renewable resources are gone, we will be able to offset the advantage that the low cost producers have like China and Asia. We will be able to offset with an advantage on the energy side and that will attract business investment to this Province.

So, Mr. Speaker, the Premier's vision is the right one. It is a vision of self-reliance and we are going to continue on that path. As soon as we get through this economic uncertainty, we will get back to our original plan where we will get back to surplus, pay down our debt and continue to lower taxes and diversify the economy for those days when the oil and gas is gone.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I can see that my time is up. I thank you all very much and I urge passage of Budget 2010, the right investments for the future of our children.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the House ready for the question?

The motion is that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We call from the Order Paper, Order 1, Committee of Supply.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do now resolve itself into a Committee of Supply, 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 Supply, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of the Whole

CHAIR (T. Osborne): Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Thank you.

The Committee are now considering the Legislature, the Consolidated Fund Services, and the Executive Council.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Committee are now considering the Legislature, the Consolidated Fund Services, and the Executive Council.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall subhead 1.1.01 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subhead 1.1.01 carried.

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

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, what we are going through is a budgetary process and an Estimates process and a Supply bill. Back on March 29, I stood here and delivered the Budget on behalf of the government. Of course, while the Minister of Finance delivers the Budget, the Budget represents the vision of the Premier and the entire Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

There is a process that is involved in that, that is taking place here today. The principle behind everything is that the people's money can only be spent with the authorization of the elected representatives of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Government cannot arbitrarily spend the people's money. The government does its Budget but then also prepares Estimates of how each department is going to spend the money. That money is examined. Those Estimates are examined by the representatives and they must approve it through the passing of the Supply bill. Only then does the government have authorization to spend the people's money.

We go through a budgetary process of where the various – well, the Minister of Finance goes on what is called pre-Budget consultations and travels around the Province and talks to the people as to how they would like to see the money spent. Others will write various government members. Throughout the year people will make suggestion to Cabinet ministers and to government as to how they should spend their money. People in the House, members of the House, of course, have lots of very worthwhile suggestions to government as how it should spend the people's money. There is a process which – I just want to say that the pre-Budget consultations, after they are completed, what we have heard is summarized and it is provided to each of the Cabinet ministers. They all get a copy of everything the Finance Minister heard when he or she travels around the Province.

There is a procedure then, when the ministers go forward and they meet with the Premier and the Minister of Finance and his staff. They argue as to why money should be spent on certain things. They are subject to challenge. It is known as Budget defence by some people because they are actually challenged as to how they are going to spend the money. They are asked: Do you need all that money? You are asked if you had money last year for the same program, why was it not all spent? We really drill down and if you want to spend money it has to be justified because there are so many needs out there, so many things we want to spend money on, we have to ensure that we spend it on the most important things. We have to make sure that our priorities are in tune with the wants and the hopes and the dreams of the people of the Province. Then the Budget is finalized, the government agrees to it, and then it is delivered by the Minister of Finance.

We then go through this Estimates Committee where the House resolves itself into a number of committees. The proposed expenditures of each department are presented to the committees. The Opposition members of the committee, and the government members of the committee have a chance to ask not only the minister but also the minister's senior officials who are there as well, because they are the permanent civil servants, the permanent employees of the department who know the intimate details of what is happening in government.

There is a give and take; it is not asking a question and then answer. It is not done before the cameras; it is done outside the House of Assembly. I think it is a great process because there is give and take, questions are asked; answers are given. It is not done before the cameras. I think most of us would like it to be. I wonder if it was done before the cameras, if we then get people playing to the cameras and getting too political rather than doing what we are doing now, which is a very serious examination of the Estimates.

There are three committees that do this. Most government departments go to those committees. As I said, they do not take place in the House of Assembly, although some of them do but the cameras are not on. There are certain parts of government that, from tradition, are still debated in this House of Assembly. That is what we are doing here today. We are doing Estimates for certain departments, but other departments were done in committee.

What we are going to do in this House today is we are going to do Executive Council, and that consists of Government House, the Office of the Lieutenant-Governor, the Premier's Office, Cabinet Secretariat, the Communications and Consultation Branch, Financial Administration and strategic human resource management, the Public Service Secretariat, Climate Change and Program evaluation. Now the other parts of Executive Council have already been completed in committee. The Intergovernmental Affairs Secretariat, the Voluntary and Non-Profit Secretariat, the Rural Secretariat I think was done with INTRD. The Women's Policy Office was completed with Natural Resources when their Estimates were done. The Research and Development Office was also done with INTRD's Estimates, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer was done with the Department of Finance.

Mr. Chair, what we are going to do, as I say, there is the Estimates of the Government House. There are the Estimates of the Premier's Office. Under Cabinet Secretariat there is executive support, there is planning and co-ordination. That is a transparency and accountability office. There is the provincial government programs office, and that is an office of Ms Madonna Brewer who is examining government programs to ensure that we are spending the people's money wisely. To ensure that we are getting value, we are getting value for money. It is not program renewal or anything like that. It is merely to ensure that we are using best practices as we spend the people's money, and the people's money is very important. It is not government's money.

People constantly say government should spend money on this and government should spend money on that, but it is not government's money. It is the people's money which government has gotten through taxes and fees and borrowings, but it is not - I would like to say, government does not have a machine in the basement of the Confederation Building or the Sir Richard Squires building which prints money. Money that government has to spend comes from the people and therefore it has to be spent as wisely as possible, and that office, that particular office is there to ensure that that is happening. That is the provincial government programs office.

In addition, there is the economic and social policy analyst. That is people who provide support to some committees of Cabinet. Cabinet has a Social Policy Committee, it has an Economic Policy Committee, it has a committee called Treasury Board, and it has a routine Committee on Routine Matters and Appointments. People may not realize that – and this may explain why people sometimes think that government does not move quickly enough. That if government is to do something, if a minister wishes to do something, the minister must prepare a paper to be considered by his colleagues or her colleagues and the department will prepare an analysis and a position will be prepared. Then the paper will go to Cabinet Secretariat, it will be dealt with by officials there, and it will be referred to one of the committees of Cabinet.

In the case of an issue, an initiative that will involve the payment of money, that will go to Treasury Board. If there is a policy issue it will go to one of the other two committees and eventually it will end up in Cabinet and a decision will be made by the entire government. Then it will become government policy or the expenditure will be announced, but it may be the passing or the filing in this House or the introduction in this House of a new piece of legislation to be debated here in the House of Assembly and, if passed, it will become the law of this Province.

There is also the Protocol Office. The Protocol Office deals with our relations with other governments, with foreign governments. When the Royals visit, they are involved there; when ambassadors from other countries come here, or consul generals might come here.

I know when I served as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, from time to time you would have to meet with an ambassador from some foreign country who is down here on a visit, or it might be the consul general from that country. It was very interesting to meet with these people, and the staff of that office would prepare briefing papers that would tell you about our trade with that country and our relations with that particular country. It was certainly interesting.

Also, there will be the Communications and Consultations Branch of Executive Council. Their Estimates will be considered. Also, there is some financial administration and human resources in the Executive Council which deal with human resource issues and financial issues for - I think it is five different departments. As you know, certain departments have those units and they look after the human resource needs and the financial needs of a few other departments.

In addition, Mr. Chair, there is the Public Service Secretariat, which used to be known as Treasury Board as well. The Public Service Secretariat provides human resource advice to the government. You might say the Deputy Minister is the VP Human Resources for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Also, with respect to the Treasury Board committee of Cabinet, when the matters involve finances, then obviously the Department of Finance provides analysis and assistance to the committee, and when there are human resource issues, it is the Public Service Secretariat that supports the Treasury Board committee of Cabinet in dealing with those issues.

Another thing that is constantly in the news, another division, is the employee relations division, and that is Collective Bargaining. This is a division that has a group of experts who negotiate the collective agreements of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. They are quite busy, I can tell you. They go through a process, through a cycle of negotiating these contracts; lately, every four years. Right now, I think we are down to three. They have been called upon to assist in developing a fee schedule for the medical profession, the doctors. That is presently being negotiated, and both sides have agreed not to say anything while negotiations go on. We also have the interns and residents, their contract is outstanding. We also have the, one more, and that is the women in Burin who work for – the women and men in Burin, I should say, who are employees of the Burin-Marystown employment corporation.

There is a policy planning division. There is a Centre for Learning and Development, which provides training. New training is very important for our public service employees. The Public Service Secretariat provides core training which crosses departmental lines. Of course, departments also receive funds to provide training specific for their department, for their particular employees. There is also Strategic Initiatives. There is also the Opening Doors program, which is headed by Jim McDonald, under ADM Marilyn Field. This is a wonderful program which provides jobs and opportunities for persons with disabilities in government. Recently, that was extended by this government to provide further jobs and opportunities for persons with disabilities in government boards and agencies outside government. So that provides more opportunities.

I believe that sums it up. I think everything else – the Office of the Chief Information Officer, we have dealt with that. So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the discussion that will take place today. I think the members of the general public who are watching will find it interesting. You will see a bit of give and take. We have our officials standing by, because obviously - I read some comments by the Opposition House Leader last year who said that ministers cannot be expected to know all the intimate details of the departments, so we rely on our officials. If we do not know the answers, we will certainly undertake to get them and provide them to members of the government.

With that, Mr. Chair, I look forward to the discussion that will take place today.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

I appreciate an opportunity to have a few words at this point in the debate. As indicated by the minister, we have been several weeks now since the Budget Speech was given back in late March, I do believe. The second part of the process was examining the Estimates. That is where every single department of government - and I believe there are eighteen of them right now - members opposite and the Opposition get to appear at a hearing and discuss with any given minister all the details concerning that minister's budget for that particular year, and ask whatever questions you would like to ask.

It is a very different process, but it is a very valuable process. Now it is not functioning as efficiently as it can and ought to. When I say functioning, I mean because it is not totally transparent. We come in here, for example, it is recorded and it is typed up, but the public does not get to see it. The most that the public get to see here in terms of direct questioning of ministers is during Question Period. That lasts thirty minutes each day that the House is open. As people who watch this program regularly are well aware, it is called Question Period probably for a very good reason. That is because we ask the questions in the Opposition but you do not get any answers. So it is not called an answer period, it is just called Question Period.

Sometimes you do ask a question, in fairness to some government members, and some members shoot straight. You ask a question; they have an answer, they give it to you. Like the Minister of Finance, for example, he is not known for being evasive usually. He was a bit evasive with the Leader of the NDP last week and again today when it came to membership on the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. He seemed to be very evasive last Thursday, but I guess he has his reasons for that. She asked a very pointed question: Could you put somebody from the public on there instead of your own hand designated people? Anyway, he seemed to be a bit unequivocal, or equivocal I should say, about it last Thursday and today he was a bit coy as well, but that is the process.

Of course, in Estimates like this, we get to ask a pointed question and the public can judge for themselves whether the minister knew his stuff and whether he was prepared to answer or was he fudging on his answer. It is quite true as well that you cannot expect any human being to have every single answer to every single question, particularly here. We are doing the Estimates today in the House of Assembly, for Executive Council, the Legislature and the Consolidated Revenue Fund, three particular parts of government. Of course, the Minister of Finance is not sitting over there today with all of his officials seated around him like they would be in a normal Estimates hearing. Now, he has them, as he says, lined up. They are probably outside the door, outside the Chamber here or on the Blackberries or whatever listening to us and they are prepared to get the information to him as soon as they can.

Again, the process is a bit different than your normal speeches that you would hear in the House of Assembly in the sense that the minister has made his introductory remarks, I will have an opportunity to make some introductory remarks and I will ask some very specific pointed questions. Of course, the minister is listening and he and his staff have an opportunity to answer back. It is sort of a give and take. We can speak after the initial fifteen minute each. It is usually a ten minute-ten minute thing. I will ask a bunch of questions, the minister has some time to think about it and then he will respond to them accordingly. Of course there are always questions.

Government is a pretty big machine. It is a very big machine. Some people might think - it is not like running your own household, for example, it is a big, big house. There are a lot of bedrooms in it. There are a lot of different rooms in it and somebody has to keep track of all of those rooms and who is paying the bills. Pretty - use that analogy, but that is what it is like. It is like a home, government is, but it is a much bigger home. How is the money coming in? Who is spending it? Is it being spent wisely and at the end of the day do you have either dollar left or is your credit card maxed out? That is pretty well how it works. You pray that at the end of the month or at the end of the year you have some money left in the bank. Well we know right now, today, based upon this government's Budget that there is not going to be any money left in the till at the end of this year. I believe the figure the government has told us right upfront is something like $194 million that we are going to be short. That is even based on all of their estimates. That is what a budget is by they way, a budget cannot be an exact science, but they are estimating that come the end of the year this home that we live in called Newfoundland and Labrador, our bank account is going to be short about $194 million this year. Now, that is not the total amount we owe. We have a pretty big mortgage on this house too, massive, in the billions of dollars.

So some might ask you: Well, why are we not able to pay our bills at least on an annual basis? This was a government that took over in 2003 and told us that they were fiscally responsible, they were going to run a great shop, and we are going to pay the bills and so on. So you might ask yourself: Well, that seems contrary, how can you tell me on the one hand that at the end of the year I am going to hold just on this year's Budget $194 million? Somebody might say: My God, where is the money coming from and who is managing it?

We see one of the big things that the Minister of Finance had to do this year because much of our revenue comes from the offshore – and, by the way, this government, for those out there, you might be fooled by the polls or whatever, but this government had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the money that comes into this Province today. Not a bit. The money that is coming into this Province today from the offshore was developed years ago. Now, they might make some money in the future when Hibernia South gets up and running, when Hebron gets up and running. No question about it. We may well have some money coming in from the offshore, that you can look at it and say: We put this money in the coffers.

Of course, any of the ministers over there can get up and shout and scream about the Atlantic Accord. We probably know that is where they are going to go – two favourite words on their lips these days for quite a while. Anyway, we are sitting here – the minister had to make a big decision: How much do we think we are going to get for a barrel of oil? So he went off and he spoke to a bunch of people who are supposed to have some pretty good information on the markets, actuarial people in the markets who said: Well, we predict – I think it is $82.48 is the figure. Somewhere in that ballpark: $83, $84, $85. We will take a round figure; we will say $84 and call it square. Based on us getting that for a price of a barrel of oil, our minister says we are still at the end of the day going to hold $194 million.

Some people would say that is not bad out of a, what, $8 billion bank book. That is not too bad at all, especially when you are putting it in the right places, by the way. Government members think that Opposition members are always critical and never agree with anything government does. That is the usual words that we hear. In fact, we hear more than that. I heard again today the Premier slam the Leader of the Opposition because she did not have her flag on her back – unpatriotic today. She never came wrapped in her flag again today, so she got a few punches from the Premier.

Anyway, I digress. Let's go back to the Budget. We know that we are into tomorrow, I believe the first part of June. So this fiscal year, we have April month gone, we have May month gone. Two months out of our twelve-month cycle in this fiscal year, which ends next March 31, is gone.

I do not know if we have had a day since the first of April when the price of a barrel of oil has been over $85. Not many, there has not been many. The price of a barrel of oil has usually been down. Of course, there is more than the price of a barrel of oil. It is also based upon the value of our Canadian dollar because we get our oil paid for in American dollars, not in Canadian dollars. I believe, as the minister said, for each $1 difference in the currency, if it is up or down, we are somewhere in the vicinity of $26 million difference. That is how much the value of the Canadian dollar can make to us in terms of our Treasury. So as you see, it is a pretty nebulous science to try to decide what we are going to get.

Now, we all hope - you hope that the price of a barrel of oil stays up so you get your money in. Then on the other end, that causes some problems because if the price of a barrel of oil goes up, of course, we cause a lot of people in this Province some anguish; people who have to buy gas, people who have to heat their homes, for example. That leads to increased prices in those areas. So it is not all good. An increase in the price of a barrel of oil is great for the Provincial Treasury but it impacts a lot of people's pocketbooks when it comes to buying your utilities and paying for your utilities in the Province.

We are going to see, hopefully at the end of the year where it all pans out. The minister usually gives us a mid-year review, some time around December month. Hopefully the price of a barrel of oil will have stayed somewhat reasonable, so that $194 million deficit does not go beyond what is expected. For example, there are people out there in the market - some are predicting a $50 barrel again before long. If that happens we are going to have a big, big deficit come the end of this year. God forbid, if that does happen.

Included in the discussions here today, of course, is more than just Executive Council. People want to know, who is Executive Council? What does that mean? Well, of course, as part of the Executive Council we have the Premier's Office. The total cost that we are talking about here today to run Executive Council – and the minister alluded to some of the pieces of Executive Council already. The total cost this year, 2010-2011 Estimates, about $143 million to run the whole show. Now, what are we getting for $143 million, you might ask? A pretty logical question.

Well, let's start by saying some of the things that are inside of that Executive Council framework. One thing inside of it is Government House. Yes, that is the Lieutenant-Governor's place downtown. We are part of the British Parliamentary system. We pay the shot. I am not sure, I think maybe the Lieutenant-Governor's wages are actually paid by the federal government, I do believe, but the actual maintenance and upkeep of the Government House facilities are paid for and supported by the Province. There is a cost to that. This year it is going to cost about $704,000 to run the Lieutenant-Governor's place.

Now, over the years, of course, we have had some heated discussions in this Chamber as to whether we in the Province should be paying that kind of money for a Lieutenant-Governor. Personally, I happen to be in favour of it. I think it is a great set up. I am an historical type person. I did my honours degree in history, and love the set up. I think we should have it, and sometimes to be a great country you have to pay for some of these things that are an essential part of it. So, no problems here from this member as to what we are paying out to sustain the Lieutenant Governor's residence in this Province.

The next piece of Executive Council would be the Premier's Office. It costs $2 million a year to run the Premier's Office. Now, you might ask yourself: My God, how many people does he have working up there? It is not a small job, by the way. Big job. Lots of people want a piece of your time. You have to be involved in overseeing, as we already said, eighteen departments. Even though you have ministers who run the departments, of course, the Premier is ultimately responsible. The buck stops there. So, that is just from the governmental point of view, he has eighteen departments that he has to oversee. That says nothing about the other things he has to be involved in. Discussions with other premiers and governors, discussions with the federal government, it is public stuff that he has to do. For example, out in the District for the Member for Lewisporte on Friday past, I believe, opening a medical facility clinic. That type of thing. So there is a whole pile of stuff that he has to do, and obviously one person cannot do it. One person needs help to do it. The question always becomes, what is a reasonable amount to give to a person to do it, and what functions do they perform?

We have had Premiers in the past known to be pretty thrifty - watched the dollars very, very carefully. I remember back in the early 1990s when former Premier Wells took over. You want to talk about the knives out. The Minister of Finance knows him. He worked with him as well. He knows what kind of character he was. I articled with him, I know what kind of character he was. When he came in here he took a pretty sharp knife to some of the departments and his own particular office.

The Premier, of course, is involved in some major files. The Lower Churchill file, for example, obviously the Minister of Natural Resources plays a big role in that, as she should, and the Minister of Environment, but ultimately those types of files, and people recognize - those types of files are so big that the Premier's hands are all over them. No question about it. Like no decision is ever going to get made by Nalcor and Mr. Martin, or by the Minister of Natural Resources or the Minister of Environment, that concerns the Lower Churchill file that the Premier is not going to know about and consent to. Absolutely not!

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

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

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

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

I am very pleased to be able to stand today and to have input into the discussion that we are having with regard to the expenditures of government.

Today, of course, we are particularly looking at the Executive Council of government and the Consolidated Funds. It is an important task that we have here in the House of Assembly because the amount of money that we are talking about is quite substantial, and as was pointed out by the Minister of Finance, it is the money of the people of the Province. It is not the money of government, of any one party, it is the money of the people of the Province and we all have a responsibility to make sure that this money is spent carefully and spent well.

A large part of the money that is spent in this Province, of course, is provincial money; money that comes from provincial taxation and provincial revenue. As a matter of fact, in our Budget 74.8 per cent is from provincial sources; 25.2 per cent are from federal sources, but federal money also is public money and is money of the people. So the Budget is the people's money, as the minister has pointed out, and we have a responsibility to look at it very carefully.

When the general public hears about the Budget they receive these days, they even get it in the mail, Highlights of the Budget and highlights of the government spending and highlights of the revenues that come in. Through the media they do hear the Budget being presented and they get the analysis of various interest groups with regard to the Budget. Then, of course, here in the House of Assembly, both in the House itself in general sitting as well as in Estimates, the public gets further analysis of the Budget, but there is an awful lot of detail in the Budget documents that, of course, the public does not get at. They could; they are public documents. Anybody can go online, for example, and they can bring up the Estimates document for 2010.

This is an extremely important document, because it is in this Estimates document that we find all the details of spending. Whether it is the spending of a department, whether it is the spending of the Premier's office, whether it is the spending of the Cabinet Secretariat, no matter what the expenditure is, all the detail is there.

I have to admit, though, Mr. Chair, that it is not easy to read these documents, and I think for the general public it certainly would not be easy for them to just take the documents and read them and understand them. Especially when you go through the Consolidated Funds section in the beginning of the Estimates book, it is a lot of economic language, a lot of economic detail. Even in our office, for example, we have to hire somebody with the knowledge of an economist to work with us as we analyze. Just as the government has its own economists who put these documents together, we all have to sit and analyze these documents, and that is our responsibility.

Whether it is government being accountable for how it is spending the money, or whether it is the Opposition here in the House, it is our responsibility to speak to what we find in these documents and to ask questions of these documents.

For example, this year - and this is a straightforward piece of information that anybody can find – when one looks at this year's Budget, the Budget for 2010-2011, what stands out in a major way is the fact that 34 per cent of all of our revenue now comes from offshore revenues. Of our Budget of over $6 billion, $2,128,400,000 comes from offshore revenues, or 34 per cent of all of our revenue.

This has to stand out for us because the total revenue from the offshore is even more than what our Budget use to be, say, ten years ago. I remember when we even reached a billion dollar Budget here in the Province, as a lot of us would remember. Now we are talking about a Budget that is well over $6 billion and it is because of the offshore revenue. We are in a different age in this Province, Mr. Chairman, when we have something like offshore revenue being such a major part of the provincial revenue. So, when we talk about the provincial revenue – of our revenue being almost 75 per cent coming from the Province, a large part of that is the royalties and the taxation that government gets from the offshore.

Something else that stands out when one reads our documents – and this is information that you really have to look for and find; it is not information that just has a flag on it - is the assets. Not that it is not public, it is. One can find what the assets of our government are. Right now, this year, our assets are $2.9 billion. Those assets: some of it is cash assets, some of it is investments, some if it is capital assets, but our total assets are $2.9 billion. Of that $2.9 billion, $1.8 billion is in cash. Some of it, the majority of it, is cash, $1.79 billion, and some of it is temporary assets, $0.61 billion, but we have $1.8 billion in assets that are accessible to government. We have –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

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

So, what this government now has in hand this year is $1,798.4 billion in cash on hand. That is from our Public Accounts document from March 2009. Now, we need cash in hand, there is no doubt about that. Government says that this money is being used to cover off – or some of this money is being used to cover off - both this year's and last year's deficits, and that is good.

So, while the balance, when you look at what our income this year is and what our expenditure this year is, we do have a deficit forecast of $194.3 million. We also have quite a bit of money available to take care of that deficit, if the deficit remains at $194.3 million. Last year, for example, our deficit was forecast – what we ended up having to pay was less, but we had the cash assets to pay.

So, in total, over last year and this year, in paying out the deficit, at the moment it looks like $489.2 million would have to come out of our cash assets. If that were to happen, it still means that at the end of this fiscal year we would have $1,300.2 million in cash – or billion, rather; the figures are getting to me, Mr. Chair, they are so large - $1,300.2 billion in cash, even after we take care of last year's deficit and this year's deficit, so we are in a very good situation. We have never had this much money held in cash assets before.

While it is good to have this much money in cash assets if one has to run deficits - and I agree with the deficit that was run this year and last year. I have not disagreed with that; I agree with it. From an economic perspective it is a good thing to do, and we have the money to take care of those deficits out there invested, and money that is available, readily available, to take care of our deficit. At the same time, I do have a question for the Minister of Finance, Mr. Chair, and that is with regard to the thinking of government of maintaining such a large cash asset. Why? We have never had it this large before. In the past it was usually around half a billion dollars, so what is the thinking of the Minister of Finance in maintaining such a tremendous amount of money in cash assets, especially when there are needs that could be taken care of? There are programs that could be stronger programs. We have places where some of that money could be used.

When the minister does respond to questions that is one of the things I would like to know: the rationale of the Department of Finance around maintaining such a huge cash asset, Mr. Chair.

I see that I have only nine seconds left, so I will not go into any more at this moment.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the Opposition House Leader and the Leader of the NDP for their comments and their questions.

The Opposition House Leader said that I was being coy with the Leader of the NDP in responding to her question, which was a recommendation to appoint someone to the board of the Atlantic Lottery Corporation that had experience in addictions and was an expert in addictions. To answer that question in more detail: the Atlantic Lottery Corporation is s separate corporation that is owned by the four Atlantic Provinces: P.E.I, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are allowed to appoint two members to the board of directors. We have recently appointed two. Mr. Terry Paddon, the Deputy Minister of Finance – and the Deputy Minister of Finance is always on the board representing the interests of the Province – and the second person appointed is Mr. Kevin Breen who, I understand, is a former councillor for the City of St. John's. Mr. Breen is appointed for a term. So, we could not appoint anyone else until the term is expired, and that there would be a vacancy on the board. The Leader of the NDP has made a suggestion, a recommendation, which government will certainly take under advisement, in terms of when the time comes to appoint a member to represent the government on the board, as to whether it should be someone with skills in, or a background in addiction, and it is a good suggestion.

The Opposition House Leader talked about debt. He talked about all the debt we had, and it is important to note that when the present government came into office, under the present Premier, the debt we were facing was just under $12 billion. That is our net debt, $12 billion, and that net debt, under this government, after four consecutive surpluses, was reduced to just under $8 billion. That is quite a drop. It is a $4 billion drop approximately. That is outstanding. That is good news for the people of this Province because we are spending less money now in interest on the debt and we going to spend that money on more important things.

The House Leader also talked about we are running a deficit. We are running a $194 million deficit, and he seemed to have some concern with that. As I indicated in my earlier remarks today on the Budget motion, that our deficit – a deficit is being run by all major countries in the world, and they did it for a certain reason. They did it to fight this economic recession. That is what you do when the world economy slows down. That is what you do when your economy slows down. You stimulate the economy, because private demand is falling, and as a result of that, people are not working, government steps in, all levels of government step in, and on the monetary side, under monetary policy, they lower interest rates. That is what the Bank of Canada did and that is what the Federal Reserve did in the U.S. They reduced interest rates so it would be easier for people to borrow money. They increased the amount of liquidity in the banking system. On the fiscal side, they spent more than they were taking in, and that is called a deficit. The Opposition House Leader has a problem with that.

I know in his opening remarks after I delivered the Budget Speech, he had concern with it. He had concern with the numbers, he had concern with the forecast in our Budget, and as I said at the time, we cannot guarantee, and I certainly cannot guarantee what the future is going to bring. I always use, I think, an old Hebrew saying that man plans and God laughs because we cannot predict the future. So, we rely on the experts and we do an estimate of what our revenue is going to be and what our expenses are going to be. We have not done too badly. We had four surpluses. In terms of the price of oil, there was one year I think we were out by thirty cents, and that was a fluke.

The other thing is, what surprises me about the Opposition House Leader's comments was that his concern was: Why are we running a deficit? Well, you run a deficit in these times. It is good economic policy to run a deficit in these times, as the Leader of the NDP said.

If we are not to run a deficit when there is a recession - that is what they did back in the 1930s when there was a depression on and they said we have to balance our books. That was the wrong thing to do. It drove the economy back in the 1930s from what was a recession to a major worldwide depression. To not run a deficit when the world economy is suffering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression that could lead to a catastrophe and it would be an anachronistic policy to balance the books under that situation, in my view. That is what John Maynard Keynes taught us, and I think that most people accept that.

Over the life of the business cycle, there is no question. Over the life of the business cycle, you want to get back to balance. As I have said in this House on many occasions, in normal years the money that comes in, we will spend it; the government does not want to make a profit that is not our objective. When times are bad, then we will run a deficit.

When times are bad and the jobs are scarce, we want to provide opportunities for the people of the Province. We do not want to slam on the brakes. We do not want to raise taxes when there is a recession going or economic uncertainty going on. We do not want to cut spending when there is economic hardship and uncertainty going on. We want to do the opposite. We want to lower taxes when there is a recession. We want to spend more. We want to do the spending because the private sector is not doing it.

We cannot do it forever and we know that. So, when the good times come back, and they will come back at some point, but when the good times do come back, then what we will do is we will run surpluses as we did for four years and use that cash, which the Leader of the NDP spoke about, we will use that cash to pay down the debt we took out when we were financing the deficit. That is the right economic policy in my view.

The Opposition House Leader also indicated that he did not know of a day – he was talking about $85 oil and what he said was actually correct. The number that we have used in the Budget is $83.48. During the month of April, from April to April 31, I believe that during that month the price of oil was above that benchmark – or April 30 I am sorry. During the month of May, it went the opposite. Oil plummeted because of the uncertainty arising out of the debt crisis in Europe and, in particular, Greece. So, we are monitoring that situation very carefully. We are going to see whether that is a permanent thing. We noticed that the price of oil started to come back, started to rise again, but we are not going to panic. We are only two months in. Our estimates and budgets are based on an average for the whole year, $83.48 for the whole year. If there is an indication, if our advisers tell us that they think the price of oil may go in the other direction, then we will take, at the appropriate time, the appropriate measures.

The Leader of the NDP talked about cash, the amount of cash we had on hand. What we do is we use that cash. We spend that cash. We have a deficit and we use the cash to finance our deficit. You cannot spend more than you are taking in. When you need more money than you are taking in, you have to borrow. We do not have to borrow because we have the cash. We have used the cash to finance our deficit. We have used the cash to pay for our infrastructure: $400 million two years ago; $800 million last year; $1 billion this year. We will pay cash for that. We are not going into debt. We do not have to borrow to pay for the infrastructure. As our debt comes due, we will pay it down, that is what the cash will be used for. It will be used for good purposes for the people of this Province. We have that cash because we ran surpluses for four years. When we get through this uncertainty, we get through the present uncertainty, hopefully, the good economic indicators will indicate that the economy will come back and the GDP will come back worldwide. China and India are firing on all cylinders. There are very good indications coming out of the US and Canada. There is still some uncertainty, still some fragility and we will monitor it very closely. When things come back to normal and we get back to the good times, then we can put our spending more in line with the revenue that is coming in.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

I have just a few comments here. Before I forget the thought, the minister just mentioned about having cash and using the cash to pay down debt as it becomes due. Maybe throughout the course of the afternoon - I had another topic I wanted to speak about during this session, but having him point out to the public, of course, exactly how much cash we do have available at this time as noted in the consolidated revenue.

I have gone through those documents. I just want the minister to point out and make sure I did not miss anything. I have a figure that I have read in there. I just want to be certain that that is accurate, as to what cash we, as a Province, have available, from where it came, and exactly where we keep that invested right now and what interest rates we make on it until such time as those debts he referenced become available so he can haul it out and pay them off. So some detail around that piece would be most helpful as well when the minister gets an opportunity throughout the afternoon, because we are sort of comparing, or I at least have been comparing running a government to running a household, your money in, money out, what can you afford and what can you not afford.

Now, Mr. Chair, I would like to reference as well - the Premier's office, as I said, is a piece of Executive Council. Just to go back a little while, I think it is six years, seven years, to when the current Premier was the Leader of the Opposition. There were not many members over there now, who are government members, who were around here at the time. The Member for Trinity North was here, the current day Speaker, the Member for Bonavista South was there, the Member for St. John's South was there, I believe the Member for Bonavista North was there. He got elected in a by-election was there, but there are only about half-dozen people sitting in the House of Assembly today who were here back when the current Premier was the Leader of the Opposition.

That is one beautiful thing about television, transcripts and records, because you can always go back and check what somebody said at the time and just give them little gentle reminders over time about how things have changed. I am going to reference one, being the Premier's office. The very person who was the Leader of the Opposition, now the Premier for the last six, seven years, at the time he used the word bloated. The Premier's office was bloated. What a waste of money up in Premier Grimes' office with all those staffers. What a waste of money. Guess what, folks? I am going to give you the figures now of what existed at that time.

I am looking here at a document, all public documents. It is called: Supplement to the 2003-2004 Estimates. This was the last year that the Grimes' Administration would have prepared a Budget for the Premier's office of that day. At that time, it cost $899,000 to run the Premier's office and there were fifteen employees in that office. Today it costs $1,563,000 to run the Premier's office. Now, I do believe that is approximately $663,000 more and there are twenty-one employees. So here we were back in 2003, and this is only 2010, and it is said fifteen people, it was bloated, bloated! You did not need that many people up running the Premier's office. Nowadays we have twenty-one.

Now I realize there is a thing called the Consumer Price Index as well. That is where your bills automatically increase over time, but the Consumer Price Index does not explain, of course, where $600,000 was spent up in the Premier's office. We know where it is gone. It is gone in the six additional bodies that are up there. You might ask: Who are they? What do they do?

For example, back in 2003 there was a Chief of Staff; today there is a Chief of Staff. The Chief of Staff back then was paid $115,000 a year; the Chief of Staff today gets paid $151,000 a year. That is quite a substantial increase. In fact, I do believe it was reported in the media when the Premier did that a few years ago, when he bumped the salaries for the Chief of Staff and for the Press Secretary or the Director of Communications and so on. So as you can see, we have gone a long ways.

I do not know, maybe the Minister of Finance can tell us today. We look at the positions that are there today that did not exist back then. We have a Deputy Chief of Staff now; we did not have a deputy back then. There is a Special Advisor to the Premier, which there was not back then. There is a Director of Operations which did not exist back then. Manager Community Outreach, maybe the minister can explain to us what that means. A personal assistant to the Premier, a Special Assistant to the Premier, and a press secretary, six different positions that we have today in the Premier's office that we never had.

Now, some people might stand up and say: Oh, no, no, we need all of those people. It is all justified; it is all justified. That is all in addition to eighteen departments that all have press secretaries and executive assistants and everything else. That is just twenty-one people up in the Premier's office. The same person who said that it was bloated back in 2003 has six more people on staff. I guess there has been a change of mind. He got there and he realized that maybe I need the bodies now.

So maybe the minister can give us some explanation as to what has changed in the operations of the Premier's office that we have had to go from that bloated stage back in 2003 to - I do not know what we would call it right now. If it was bloated back then, I have no idea as to what we would call it right now. I certainly did not see any sharp knives out there.

Also, maybe the minister can answer for me, when I look at the actual section of Premier's office, it says under 2.1.01(03) Transportation and Communications, $296,700. I am wondering if the minister can give us some idea of how much of that approximately $300,000 was used for the Premier's travel. Because there are a bunch of people in his office – there are twenty-one people in his office, I would not think the Premier used $300,000 himself. Maybe he did. Anyway, if the minister can give me a break out as to how much of that $300,000 was actually used by the Premier for his travel.

Also, maybe the minister can tell us: Are there other places where the Premier might charge off travel? For example, if the Premier goes to Ottawa to meet with someone concerning the Department of Natural Resources on the Lower Churchill file, would that get charged off to the Premier's office or would that get charged off to the Department of Natural Resources?

If the Premier goes to New Brunswick to meet with his good friend Premier Graham to discuss an issue on the Lower Churchill, where does that get charged off? I am assuming it would not get charged off to Nalcor. Anyway, maybe the minister can give us some information on that. How much of the $300,000 was the Premier's actual travel? If there are other pots of money that the Premier's travel comes out of or other departments, maybe he could give us some indication of that as well so that we can get an idea of what his total travel costs were.

By the way, no problem if the travel is necessary, none whatsoever, but the public like to know these things. Where is our Premier? Who is he seeing? What is he involved with? How many times has he been to Ottawa to meet with ministers, or been to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia? We hear him – he goes off to the Governors' conferences, as he should, but people like to equate that with a number. We know he is busy, but what is the cost of doing business?

By the way, the Premier of this Province does not take a salary. So, it is obviously not a personal thing as to how much he gets paid. He does not take any money, he says. Well, it gets paid out, as I understand. It does not go in his pocket; he puts it into a foundation. That is fine; that is the man's choice. It is up to him or anybody else what they do with their money. It is not for anybody else to question it. It is a private interest. That does not take away from the fact that if there are other public funds being expended, people have a right to know where they were spent.

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you.

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

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is interesting, when the Opposition House Leader, the Member for Burgeo & La Poile, talks about having facts written down or having things on tape because, obviously, as the price of a dollar gets higher and higher, as inflation continues, the dollar today is not worth as much as dollar a number of years ago. So, we obviously have to do a comparison, and we have to match apples with apples and oranges with oranges.

It is my advice that when Premier Grimes was last in office, before the Williams government came into office, that there were in fact twenty-five people working in his office at that time, at a price of $1.3 million. In today's dollars, that would be approximately $1.8 million. So that is a little different from what the Opposition House Leader had. In the Premier's office today, there are actually twenty employees, inclusive of two vacant positions, at a cost of $1.5 million, as the Opposition House Leader said. So, it appears the situation we have is that there are less people working in the Premier's office today, and that it is costing the taxpayers of this Province, in today's dollars, less than the cost was when Premier Grimes was in office.

Also, with respect to the chief of staff, I understand that the chief of staff's salary is currently $151,000, and under Premier Grimes, his chief of staff, in today's dollars, would be about $157,000 which would be even more expensive.

Now in terms of travel, obviously, our Premier has to travel. We all travel. Our travel expenses in our departments are actually on the Web. Someone could go today and click on my name and click on the name of all of the ministers here and that information is available to the members of the general public. It is what an open and transparent and accountable government does. Hopefully, the Government of Canada, members of the House of Commons in Ottawa, will follow the example of this Province and the example of Nova Scotia and the example of England and allow the Auditor General to go in to that House and see how the people's money is being spent.

Now the Premier's travel - the Premier, obviously, it is a very difficult position. I know as a Cabinet minister, as the Finance Minister with responsibilities for the Public Service Commission, with responsibilities for the Office of the CIO as President of Treasury Board, I have lots of duties but they are duties in a particular area whereas the Premier has the whole government to look after. In fact, when we have an election, it is the Premier who is called upon to form the government and it is the Premier who appoints from those elected to the House of Assembly who support him and support his policies to form the government and is the Cabinet that is, in fact, the government.

I will certainly inquire to find additional information as to the Premier's travel. We know the Premier has to travel. We know he has gone to Europe and attempted to get military there to take advantage of 5 Wing Goose. We know he goes to the meeting of Premiers every year. We know he goes to the Atlantic Premiers' every year. We know he goes to meet with governors in the Northeastern United States in order to promote the interests of the Province. We know that he has dedicated his life to the service of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I can tell you things that will not be in these books. I can tell you things that the Premier has travelled to places and what he has paid for out of his own pocket to do business on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I know on one occasion he was invited to have dinner with the Prime Minister of Ireland in Ottawa and with Prime Minister Martin. There was other Premiers invited and they chose not to go. Our Premier went because he knew it would give him the chance to negotiate and speak to Prime Minister Martin and he paid for those travel arrangements out of his own pocket because that is the type of person he is.

His travel expenses, I will undertake to get that information, but the travel expenses, I am sure, are very, very reasonable.

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

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

I am glad to be able to stand and speak a bit more to the issues that we are dealing with here in the committee. I did ask a question of the minister with regard to the amount of money that we have in cash assets. I pointed out, when I last spoke, that we have more held in cash assets now than we have ever had held before in the Province. Now, we have more money, but nevertheless it is a huge amount in cash assets. As I pointed out, at the end of this fiscal year, based on the figures that we have now and based on what the plan is at the moment, we will still, at the end of this fiscal year, have over $1.3 billion in cash assets.

The minister did say that part of the cash assets will be used to pay for the deficit, which I had indicated that would happen. He talked about debt being paid down and paying for infrastructure, but the reality is that even after all of that happens we still have a major block of money, cash assets, left. I guess my question still stands to the minister why we are maintaining such a large amount of cash assets in our coffers, and once again pointing out that at the end of this year it will be over $1.3 billion.

It is a large amount of money and we have more money than we have ever had before in this Province. We have talked about that in this House. I have talked about it and we call it our new-found wealth. It is the new-found wealth of Newfoundland. One of the realities is, and we all know it, the oil revenue is non-renewable. At the moment we have about a thirty-year supply that we are aware of, and we all hope that supply will increase. We all hope that it will go on longer than that, and we do not know. The reality is that the generation being born today in a Province that has such large revenue from the offshore may, by the time they reach the age of forty, not have that same revenue unless we do something about planning for the future and planning for how the revenue we have now can pay into the future.

I have spoken here in this House about how that will happen with regard to where we put money in terms of the resources that we have, the renewable resources. Putting money into the fishery, for example, the natural fishery, the wild fishery, what we call our traditional fishery. Making sure that increases, that improves, and that continues to be an ongoing source of major revenue for this Province. Right now it is worth about a billion dollars, it can be worth more than that.

I have talked in this House about how we can put money into agriculture and into Agrifoods. How we can get more involved in organic farming, how we can make this Province self-sufficient when it comes to certain foods. That, again, takes planning. It takes real looking at: Where do we put our money? How do we invest our money into the future?

The government likes to talk about how it is investing money when it is putting money into infrastructure but putting money into infrastructure that is required, our buildings, maintaining our roads, and I have said this many times in the House, that is ongoing expense that we always have to expand. Just like in our personal economies when we have homes that we own, we have to put money into that infrastructure and we have to put money into the infrastructure of maintaining a family. That is expected. We are going to have to do it.

When it comes to putting investment into the resources that we have, the renewable resources so that they will improve and grow and be a larger source of income in the future, that is what I would like to hear more about from the minister, more about from the government. We have examples of how this has happened in places like Norway and even in provinces like Alberta, where money was put into funds that are there for the future. I know that we are just beginning, and I realize that we are just beginning to make money from the production of oil in this Province and we have many more years of production ahead of us.

I would like to know what this government is thinking in terms of putting the money into an investment fund that can grow that will be there for the future. While we have to put money into the present, we also have to put money into the future. When we look at Norway, for example, they have an investment fund called a Government Pension Fund. It is almost twenty years since they launched that fund. Since it was launched it has become one of the four largest investment funds in the world. That is money that is there for the future of the people from Norway.

The goal of the Norwegian government is to make sure that the money they are making from the offshore is used in the present to deal with the consumption in the present, but also building a fund to help with the needs down the road in the future. The other thing that they do is they invest their money in foreign assets in a way to remove themselves from liability. It is also a major issue. Their investment fund right now in Norway is worth more than $443 billion. If we have that kind of a goal, if we have that kind of a vision, we could be in the same position thirty years down the road. We have to do both things. We have to spend in the present and we have to save for the future.

This fund in Norway, for example, is projected in a very short period of time to hold almost $500 billion, or $117,000 for each citizen. Now that will be extremely important for Norway as they go down the road. The whole design of how they are running the industry, their whole design of how they are benefitting from the revenues that are coming in now is to ensure that the country's petroleum wealth will benefit future generations. This is something I would like to see from this government. Their objective is to achieve the maximum possible yield with a moderate level of risk, and in that way making sure that the current generation will have the best possible benefit in the future. The portfolio that they hold with these billions of dollars is invested in some 8,000 companies around the world; 8,000 companies outside of Norway. They do not invest in Norway, they invest outside of Norway. So this is the kind of thinking that we need here.

Now I know, as I said, we are at the beginning and funds do not get set up immediately. Does this government have a plan for setting up investment funds of this nature that is looking to the future? This is what I would like to know: the vision of this government with regard to our future generations. As I said earlier, also by putting investment as well, money into our industry as it is needed now in this moment, that also is an investment of a different kind. We have to get at the industries that are here now, our industries that are based on our renewable resources. We have to make sure that we help, especially the fishery. We have to make sure that that is not only viable but that it grows. We have the potential for so much with regard to our fishery in this Province that it just blows my mind that we are being so slow in getting at where we could be going with our industry. It is not acceptable. It does not make sense to me and we have to be able to do something about that.

I will leave my comments for the moment, Mr. Chair, at that point since I only have a few seconds left.

CHAIR (Kelly): The Chair recognizes the hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is my pleasure to participate in this discussion on the floor here today regarding the final piece of our budgetary process. We are getting to the end of that process now, Mr. Chair, and there has been lively and vigorous debate over the last several weeks with regard to the 2010-2011 Budget.

Mr. Chair, some comments with regard to my hon. colleague, the Leader of the NDP. She talks about the importance that oil plays in the economic development of this Province and how it forms a significant portion of our revenues that we have here, revenues that we use to not only pay down debt, Mr. Chair, that is very important, but revenues we use to improve the lives of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

We see a constant litany of requests. It is never ending, coming from members opposite. All of those things are important, Mr. Chair, but again, as the Opposition House Leader remarked, the Budget for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is very much like a household budget. Mr. Chair, the same principles apply.

I come from a very large family. I have ten siblings, Mr. Chair. I had three brothers and seven sisters and there were lots of things, like most families, that we would have really liked to have, and there were lots of things that we wanted that people - experts on raising children - would say that we ought to have had; however, my parents were charged with, on a daily basis, like so many other parents in this place, deciding what we could do with the money and what the best way to spend it was and what were the primary needs. While we would like to spend money fulfilling the needs of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian, unfortunately, that is not possible. So, we have to make choices all the time. That is what this whole Budget process is about, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, the Leader of the NDP talks about what we do when oil runs out. Well, there is a plan in our Province for that, and it is called our Energy Plan. In that Energy Plan, we talk about the twenty, twenty-five or thirty years we have of non-renewable resources in this Province. Not only in oil, Mr. Chair but in minerals as well. We lay out a plan for taking the revenue from those resources and building a future that is built on green energy. That is why we talk about the Lower Churchill. That is why it is so important because it gives revenue, not only for us, but for our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. Revenue for 100 years, and significant revenue, that it will grow to such an extent in 2041, when we have the Upper Churchill back, significantly back with us as well, Mr. Chair, and our minerals and so on, and what we can do with wind. What we can do with tidal power, Mr. Chair. What we can do with hydrogen. Because we are blessed with revenues from oil, and in the future, hopefully, gas, as well as our minerals, we are able to make those critical investments and build that renewable future.

Mr. Chair, I hear the House Leader for the Opposition talk about how they are responsible for the all of the three projects that are currently producing here in the Province. They like to talk a whole lot about transparency and accountability, and of course he gives warning that we are going to bring up the Atlantic Accord, because that is where the truth lies. The Atlantic Accord was introduced in this Province through former Premier Brian Peckford. It was crafted, to a large degree, with the help of his ministers, particularly people such as the former Minister William Marshall. It is a wonderful document, Mr. Chair, that has brought great benefit, especially when our Premier was able to go and negotiate the $2 billion offset. That means significant revenue.

Mr. Chair, those negotiations were done under a Tory Administration, in the same way that the Inuit Land Claims was negotiated by the former Liberal Administration, although it was signed in 2004 when we were the government. In that, you have the essence of the difference between this side of the House and the other.

Mr. Chair, we do not take credit for work we did not do. We applaud it, we support it and we keep the commitments made under that process. That is what we did in the Inuit Land Claims. We gave credit where credit was due. That is not something you can expect from members opposite with regard to this government.

The Opposition House Leader raised questions around the Premier's office and made a comparison to former Premier Grimes' office compared to the current office, and the criticisms that were made at that time by our Premier who, at that time, was the Leader of the Opposition. He says Premier Grimes had fifteen people working for him during his tenure as premier. That is not quite correct, Mr. Chair. He is ten people off the mark. In fact, Premier Grimes had twenty-five people working for him in the Premier's office.

He says across the House we are asking you to be transparent and accountable. We are happy to do it. We do it every day here in this House of Assembly, but we would like the same rule to apply. It did not apply when they were in government, Mr. Chair, and it does not apply over there today.

It is hard to imagine that somebody who played a significant role in a former Administration would not know what people worked for the Premier's office. Mr. Chair, not all of them were charged directly off to the Premier's office, a significant number of them were, the rest of them were charged off either to Executive Council or the government members' office. That is what you call transparency and accountability. Disguise the number of people that you have working for them by placing them somewhere else. We do not do that, Mr. Chair. Everyone who works in the Premier's office is situated up on the eighth floor, they are accounted for in the budget of that office and that information is made available in the Estimates.

Mr. Chairman, Premier Grimes had a staff of twenty-five, with total salaries of $1.3 million, in today's dollars that would be $1.7 million. Mr. Chairman, Premier Williams has a staff of twenty people with a payroll of $1.4 million. There is the difference. We have five less people than the former Administration had with significant less cost to the people of the Province. On top of that, the Premier does not draw down his salary. Now, there is the difference between the two Administrations.

We have nothing to hide, Mr. Chair. We are quite open about what we do and accountable to the people. The work of the Premier's office is enormous as pointed out by the Opposition House Leader - enormous responsibilities in here in running what is essentially a $6 billion corporation with eighteen different departments. Plus, he has national and, in some cases, international responsibilities that he performs on behalf of the people of the Province. These are all extremely important functions of the Premier's office.

I am sure that my hon. colleague, the Minister of Finance, has more details with regard to the travel fund that have been asked by members opposite and will provide as much information with regard to that as is available as well. We have nothing to hide on this side of the House, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

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

I just want to take a few minutes with regard to the debate that we are involved in here today. I am going to place my emphasis on the component of the Legislature and just go through it for a while with regard to some of the figures that are listed as well as the duties of each division that falls under the Legislature.

Mr. Chair, we know that under the Legislature that falls for the House of Assembly, the Office of the Auditor General, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, the Office of the Citizens' Rep, Child and Youth Advocate and the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Mr. Chair, when you look under the Estimates under the Legislature, it states very clearly the activities that are to take place here is, it is an opportunity to debate, to pass legislation, to approve the Budgets, overseeing the actions of government, and providing a forum for the debate of matters of public importance.

I guess from time to time when we do that, we hear members opposite saying when you bring up something, if it is controversial, that you are only fear mongering or bringing something forward that is not correct or proper. Mr. Chair, I think each and every member of this hon. House, when they stand in their place - we all know that we go back and forth at times, but we bring forward issues that are very important to the people that we represent, not only in our districts but throughout the Province.

Mr. Chair, the total budget under the Legislature is $24,275,100. Under the component of the House of Assembly, some of the figures that are there - we have our Legislative Library, and the amount that is estimated for 2010-2011 for the Legislative Library is $967,000. We all know the importance of the Legislative Library. It is a place where we as individual members can go. It is place where researchers, whether it is from the government side or the Opposition side can go and obtain information with regard to what we can track down and so on.

Also, under the Legislature we know there is $1,124,300 for Hansard and the Broadcast Centre. Hansard is I guess one of the most important components. When we come to the House of Assembly it is a means where - regardless of what anyone says. Whether we are 100 per cent correct or sometimes we might be leaning one way or the other, not intentionally misleading anybody, but from time to time regardless of what we say or how we say it – and I guess some of us use different words and different terminologies which sometimes are noted to us that it is incorrect, but, Mr. Chair, it is all recorded in Hansard. It is a place where we get a copy each and every day of the proceedings of the previous day, and here in more recent times we get a copy of Question Period which is put forward on a fairly quickly basis. We receive that early in the afternoon on the day that the Question Period took place.

Mr. Chair, we also have the various components under the House of Assembly, like members' resources, House operations and so on. Like I said, the Estimates are all listed for this year. Also falling under the House of Assembly is the Auditor General. The total budget for the Auditor General for 2010-2011 is $3,513,000.

Mr. Chair, we know - I guess from time to time, I know we encounter it sometimes during Question Period, sometimes during the Estimates when you bring up an issue that was brought forward by the Auditor General. Usually we hear the comments back: well, that has been taken care of, or we are working on that, or the Auditor General was not 100 per cent correct in the way he had worded it or the way he had brought forward the issues.

Mr. Chair, we do know that from time to time there are many serious issues that are dealt with by the Auditor General, and I guess from his dealings in the past is where we saw the formation and the great work that was done known as the Green Report. Many of us in this hon. House had the opportunity, members on the Public Accounts Committee when we travelled to Whitehorse a couple of years ago - Chief Justice Green went to that seminar, that conference, and gave a presentation on his full report to the legislatures across this country, each and every province and territory. I have to say, even though we heard it here firsthand, we had copies of it, but when we heard him put it forward it was very enlightening. I can assure you, I think from that report we see changes and events unfolding now in legislatures in other provinces throughout this country. Only recently there were issues that came to the media's attention and to the public in Nova Scotia.

On that note, we hear Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General for Canada, speaking out with regard to the members in the House of Commons. I think that is something that should go forward. If people have not learned a lesson from what happened here in our own Legislature and probably what is unfolding in other areas - I think they should be jumping with joy, they should open up their books. I do not care who they are, whether they are members from this Province or what political party they are, to see them stand and try to defend not letting the Auditor General in to do their books, I do not think it is showing what the general public would like to see or even hear talk of.

Mr. Chair, another component under the Legislature is the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, a very important office, a budget of $1.2 million. Where they come into there, they are leading up to doing the work, leading up from one election to the next election. When that time comes, this $1.2 million is just for the operation of the office to put plans in place leading to the next election. Then there are additional funds put forward for them to carry out the work that would be carried on in each of the forty-eight districts. No doubt, that is another area where the shop has tightened up. We also, each and every one of us through that office, have to complete the members' interests statement. I think it is April 1 each year we have to have them in. That is all carried out at the Chief Electoral Office.

There are several other components that we deal with. Very important is the Citizens' Rep which deals with complaints for the departments, agencies, officers and employees. Many times we hear issues get brought forward by the public, where they complain about the response that they receive, but they do have that opportunity. They can bring their issues forward if they have a problem with any agency or department of government.

The other one we hear quite a bit about, and it is a very important one, is the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate. I guess we have had many debates in this hon. House when it comes to the issues dealing with the rights and interests of children and youth, to make sure that they are protected in this Province. This year we see a Department now for Child, Youth and Family Services – I do not know if I have that right or not – being put in place. It is a very important department, and I am sure there is much work that has to be done to make sure that the interests of our youth and children are protected.

The last one that is under the Legislature is the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, a budget of $1.168 million. It looks after the information and protection of privacy act; openness. We often talk about we do not think government is open and accountable enough to us. I guess there are many times we are probably off track, but I can tell you there are many times when we request information and you receive it, you look at a page, and you see the odd word there but everything else is blacked out. That is why we come forward many times and say to government, we do not think you are open and accountable. At least that opportunity is there where it can be put forward. Sometimes getting this information is, like somebody says, it is like pulling teeth. Anyway, through the Legislature there are quite a few dollars. I think the total budget I mentioned, for this year in the Estimates was $24,275,100.

So, Mr. Chair, having said that, I will just take my place and I will let someone else carry on the debate with regard to the Budget.

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have some questions with regard to the Estimates for Executive Council. I will probably pose these questions that I have in the next ten minutes. Maybe then the minister could respond to all of them at the one time, is maybe the best approach.

First of all, Mr. Chair, under Executive Council, as you know, the expenses for the Premier's office are included in that. Under section 09 it talks about Allowances and Assistance of $20,000 that is budgeted for the Premier's office. I would ask the minister, Mr. Chair, just to give us a breakdown of what those allowances or assistance is that are included in that amount of money.

As well, Mr. Chair, there are some questions around the Provincial Government Programs Office. Now, I am not sure if this is a relatively new office or not. I notice that there has been a budget for it for the last couple of years, but I do not know if it has been around for the last five, six, seven, ten years, or whatever the case may be.

Mr. Chair, this particular office, it does cost the government about $434,000 to run the programs office of which $200,000 of that, half of the budget or almost half of the budget, is basically used for Professional Services. The description here says that it provides "…for the operations of an Office to develop a Corporate Policy for Program Evaluation for Government departments and to provide co-ordination and focus in support of departments' assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of programs."

I am taking that to mean that the Provincial Government Programs Office is an office that is set up within Executive Council that looks at every department across government to see how money is being spent, what it is being spent on, and if there are efficiencies being achieved in those particular programs that they are investing money in. If that is the case, Mr. Chair, I would ask the minister to confirm how that department works, and if he can tell us who is in charge of this department, how often they report to government, if any of those reports are made available to the public, and how often they would actually go in and review a department from the perspective of determining if the investments there are effective or not.

The other thing I was wondering is on the professional services for that department, which is basically half of the budget, about $200,000, who provides those professional services? Are they contracted out to a legal firm or a financial firm of some sort? Is it done through a public tendering process? Is there a Standing Offer Agreement with a particular firm? In reading this, I am not sure if there are people hired by the government through Executive Council that does the review or if it is being done by an outside agency that government would bring in.

The other section I have questions on here, Mr. Chair, is on page 16 which deals with the Office of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Emissions Trading. Under this particular section, "Appropriations provide for the operating costs of an Office to provide policy development and analysis on climate change, energy efficiency and emissions trading." This office costs $1 million to operate in the Province. Last year it cost $720,000. This year it is going to cost a little over $1 million to operate. The salaries in this office are over $750,000 in salaries being paid out. I would ask the minister to give me a break down of the people who would work in this office. Are we talking about scientists, geologists, researchers? I am not sure, Mr. Chair, what the background of these people would be or what their positions would be.

The other thing I would ask is again there is $200,000 budgeted for Professional Services, I would like to know what professional services they are purchasing with this and who is being hired? Again, what firm are they using? Is it through a Standing Offer Agreement or is it through a tendering process? Mr. Chair, it is $1 million being spent in this particular office this year of the Executive Council.

The other thing I would like to know, Mr. Chair, is what it is they are doing around climate change. Are they out looking at the effects of communities around the Province? Are they studying the water levels? Are they studying any other particular changes that might be occurring? Are they basing it on historical interviews? Are they basing it on historical data? Are they collecting new data to establish their case? So, Mr. Chair, we are not really sure what kind of analysis this is on climate change. The other thing it talks about is energy efficiency and emissions trading. Is government doing an inventory of emissions that we might be able to trade of for cleaner energy? Has there been any assessments done to that degree and is any of that information being released to the public? Last year, this office spent, as I said, $720,000. I am not sure if there have been any reports produced or anything that has been available to the public. I am not sure what the assessment is of our emissions trading and if there is a strategy or a plan on a go-forward basis to do something along that area.

We know that if there ever is a Lower Churchill project that government does have intentions of bringing a transmission line to the Province that would replace Holyrood, which we would know then there would be some emissions trading on clean energy, but outside of that, Mr. Chair, we are not really sure what the strategy would be. So I would ask the minister if he can give us some details around that particular office. Since we are going to spend over a million dollars there again this year, we would certainly like to know what that money is going for and what results people will have access to.

Mr. Chair, those were mainly my questions on those three particular sections. That would be section 2.1.01 and section 2.2.03 as well as section 2.2.05. I will just await the minister's response on that now.

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Deputy Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, again it is a privilege to further participate in the ongoing debate here this afternoon. I want to take up a little bit where I left off last time when the Leader of the NDP talked about Norway and what is happening in Norway.

We pay considerable attention to Norway. It is one of the areas that we study extensively because they were certainly pioneers, and pioneers as a government in terms of how they approach their oil and gas industry, in terms of the positions they took as a developer, not only taking equity, but taking practically if not all of the equity taking control of their offshore.

Mr. Chair, when we have examined that model and found examples of it that we wanted to apply here in Newfoundland and Labrador, we were sharply criticized by members opposite, particularly the Leader of the NDP. Basically again, chastising us last week for making an investment in Parson's Pond out on our West Coast, Mr. Chair, through Nalcor in trying to firm up our reserves of oil and gas here in the Province and kick-starting the industry out in that area. She felt that was not appropriate at all for government to be participating at that level.

It is a bit surprising today to hear her reference Norway and tell us in this circumstance that we ought to be following their example. Norway is a very rich country, Mr. Chairman, and they are rich because they had the foresight to take control of their oil and gas industry, make strategic investments, and ensure that the return on those investments came to the people of Norway. So, not only are they able to develop legacy funds and heritage funds within Norway itself because of the state-owned companies, but they are, in fact, able to invest outside of Norway, where it makes sense to do so, to ensure that they have a diversified portfolio and are able to take care of the needs of their people for a very long time.

We watch very closely what they do in Norway, Mr. Chairman, and we see if there are things that they are doing there that we can do successfully here, as well, and reap some of those same benefits for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Chairman, the Leader of the Opposition referenced the Office of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Emissions Trading. This is a very, very important issue in the world today, Mr. Chairman, that has repercussions for Newfoundland and Labrador; although in terms of our own energy production here in the Province, the bulk of our electricity that we use here, or energy that we use here, comes from renewable power. With the exception of what we do in Holyrood and some of our isolated communities, the bulk of our energy comes from green sources.

Mr. Chairman, what is happening not only in this jurisdiction but in other jurisdictions in the country has an impact here. Mr. Chairman, I refer you to the great ethanol debate that took place in the country over the last several years. We had a lot of people, particularly in the large farming provinces, really boost this idea. There was a great deal of support for ethanol to be added to our gasoline, to make it more environmentally friendly. Well, Mr. Chairman, that would have had a terrible effect here in Newfoundland and Labrador because we do not have a large corn-growing sector of agriculture here - one of the first places that you would go for ethanol - so we would have to bring in ethanol from other parts of the country because we do not have the capacity here now to make ethanol. On top of that, Mr. Chairman, gas that has been modified by ethanol cannot travel very safely, so it means that we would have had to have a blending facility here on the Island; we would have had to have a blending facility in Labrador. Mr. Chairman, this would have driven, for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, the price of gasoline through the roof.

So, Mr. Chairman, we need to be really involved in those kinds of discussions. We need to be really involved in that kind of policy development. Those kinds of decisions require eyes-on every day of the year, Mr. Chairman, and that is one of the things that happen in the climate change, in the energy efficiency and emissions trading.

There is a great debate worldwide on emissions trading and carbon credits and so on, Mr. Chairman, very complicated issues. We have emitters here in the Province. Some of our large industrial industries have emissions. There are emissions that also come from flaring in the offshore, Mr. Chairman. So, decisions that are made around penalties or caps and so on are extremely important.

It is also extremely important, Mr. Chairman, that we understand exactly what is going on with regard to emissions trading, especially when you are trying to develop a project like the Lower Churchill. Because, Mr. Chairman, if we ever get to a point that you are given credit for reducing emissions - we do not get any of the credit for the Upper Churchill; all of that has been traded away to Quebec. So, Mr. Chairman, we have to ensure that those kinds of things do not happen here in the Province.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of our own efficiency, we want to make sure that our industries are clean and are not fouling our environment. Mr. Chairman, we want to develop the Lower Churchill because we can then do away with Holyrood and fossil fuel generation of energy.

Mr. Chairman, we want to see the successful completion of our pilot project in Ramea which uses wind, hydrogen and diesel as a way to eliminating fossil fuel consumption in our isolated communities which are not able to be connected to the grid, even when we get something like the Lower Churchill. These are extremely important issues for us, Mr. Chairman, ensuring that we are doing everything in our homes and in the way that we live our lives, and that we are doing everything to be as energy efficient as we can possibly be.

I am happy to say, Mr. Chairman, that we have really innovative companies here in Newfoundland and Labrador who are doing some really interesting work around those pieces, supported by particularly the Department of INTRD and the Department of Business, and getting good results.

So, Mr. Chairman, that office is extremely important to the work of this government in terms of our energy files, and it is extremely important to the people of the Province who want a clean environment, and who want to ensure that we are getting the full benefit of living our lives cleanly, producing renewable power and reducing the carbon footprint of not only people but industry here in the Province, and putting ourselves in the position that we are not only able to do that for ourselves but we are able to do that for other places in the country as well, and in the U.S., through such projects as the Lower Churchill.

So all of these things - this is one more of the responsibilities that come through Executive Council, Mr. Chairman, the funding of this office, and we will be more than happy to provide the detail that the Leader of the Opposition is looking for.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, what the minister did not tell me is the $200,000 for Professional Services that are being spent in that office. We asked the details around that, if that is being contracted out to a firm in the Province, or somewhere else to do that work, and the type of work they would be carrying out. We asked if that was done through a Standing Offer Agreement, or if it was done through a tender.

The other thing, Mr. Chairman, in the Office of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Emissions Trading, we asked as well if there were any reports submitted, or any public reports that have been made available, Mr. Chairman, because in two years now we have seen nearly $1.8 million being spent in this office and we have not yet received any information in the public as to the work that they have been doing.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, the salaries in that office, which totalled nearly $760,000, from what I understand here, none of those positions are permanent; all of them are temporary or other employees. I am not sure why that is, Mr. Chairman. Maybe it is because this office is going to close this year, or there is no other work to be carried on there, or whatever the case may be, but I would like to have an explanation for that.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, I did raise questions around the Provincial Government Programs Office. Actually, I went back and looked at the Estimates for last year, 2009-2010, and in the Estimates book for last year there was no Budget at all that I can see for Provincial Government Programs Office unless it was under another department, but I do not see it under the Office of the Executive Council. However, the Estimates this year is telling us that we did spend money last year in that office of $135,500 and it is telling us that there was $450,000 budgeted. So maybe the minister could tell me where that was originally budgeted in the Executive Council Estimates last year because I cannot find it there.

The other thing, Mr. Chair, is that this year there is a Budget of nearly $435,000. Again, half of that money is going to professional services to a firm to do some work and we would like to know who that firm is and what work it is that they are doing.

We would also like to know how the Programs Office works, how the review of government departments work, how often it is done to determine if the programs are effective or if they are efficient, and how those reports are tabled or responded to by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council? So, Mr. Chair, those are my questions and hopefully someone will answer them before we finish.

Mr. Chair, under Executive Council, of course, there are a number of initiatives that get done that are very valuable and important. Of course, one of those programs that I have noticed in there, I do not know if it is covered under another department, but the Estimates were in here and I did pull it out, and that is the Opening Doors Program. That is a program that is there to support people with disabilities to find employment in the Province. They have supports through that office like career development specialists and program co-ordinators that actually help people with disabilities to be able to choose proper careers to get the training that they need.

Mr. Chair, they have people who do any number of jobs across government under that program and it is one of the programs that I feel that certainly lends itself to helping people with disabilities break into the workforce in this Province. It has provided them with valuable positions within the public service. I know many of them, Mr. Chair, who started out under this particular program who today has achieved full-time employment within the public service because of the remarkable skills they have achieved through this particular program and through their education and training, and I would certainly encourage the government to continue with that program. According to my list here, there is something like eighty-eight jobs right now across government for people with disabilities under the Opening Doors Program. I would certainly encourage them to keep investing in that particular program because it is one that is worthwhile.

Now, Mr. Chair, while I have a few more minutes, I also want to talk a little bit about the Estimates in general because if you go back a couple of years ago it was the current Minister of Finance who, when going around the Province doing his Budget consultations, obviously went in with a chart. The chart was basically to tell people in the Province how much money we were spending every day as we were growing a deficit, as we were accumulating debt in the Province and what the interest on that debt was. Every session he would go into he had a debt clock and he would put the clock up and talk about the amount of money that we are racking up on a regular basis.

Well, Mr. Chair, it was an interesting lesson I am sure for many people, and it was an interesting approach to it, not to undermine the fact that we do have debt in this Province and everyday there is an interest accumulated on that debt and every minute of every day that is the case. So, the illustration I am sure was a good one in terms of showing people exactly how the process works.

However, Mr. Chair, what has been interesting is that in the last two Budgets we have continued to run deficits in this Province, adding to that debt. Again, this year the government is forecasting a deficit. The deficit is being forecasted even based on the fact that they have a Budget that is estimating oil at $83 a barrel, I think for this year, maybe it is even $84, but I think it is $83 for this year. We know that the price of oil per barrel has been down since the Budget has been forecasted. So, the debt that the government projects could even be far greater at the end of the year than it was when they started in April, and I hope that is not the case. I hope that the price of oil per barrel will continue to rise and, in fact, that we will see it go higher than the $83 a barrel that was forecasted, but if that does not happen, Mr. Chair, we are going to run a deficit much larger than was even forecasted in this Budget.

So, even though the exercise in the debt clock was a good exercise in educating people on how it works, Mr. Chair, the reality is that the government has not gotten the fiscal spending under control. They are continuing to run deficits in light of the fact that we have twice as much money generated in the Province today. We have almost twice the Budget today that we had going back seven, eight years ago when they came into office. Yet, we are continuing to forecast debts, not just for this year, deficits for this year but for the next three to four years as well.

Mr. Chair, what I found interesting was what someone gave me over the weekend. It was an Abitibi debt clock. I do not know exactly where it came from or who sat down and took the time to do all of this but, Mr. Chair, this is what it talks about, because not only did the government go out and put their own debt clock up but the people of the Province, somewhere in this Province has put up an Abitibi debt clock that speaks to the government's expenditure of money around this particular debt.

In fact, Mr. Chair, on this debt clock you have the expropriation securities and monitoring costs; you have the cost of the data room cases, the legal cases; you have the environmental clean up cost; you have the environmental assessment cost; you have the payments to ENL and also to Fortis; you have the Abitibi brick and mortar assets cost; you have the CCAA court cost, which was another legal cost they launched. Then it is the Quebec Court of Appeal cost. Then it is the WeirFoulds cost, which was the consulting firm that they hired and paid out an amount of nearly $4 million to; then there was the Department of Justice lawyers' cost, the severance cost for the workers and the NAFTA cost.

So this is the Abitibi debt clock that someone in the Province took the time to do up and actually sent to me over the weekend. According to their debt clock, minister - and I am sure the Minister of Finance is really interested in hearing this - their costs are reaching a little over $750 million at the end of the day that the Province will have to spend. So, Mr. Chair, that would certainly add to the cost no doubt.

Mr. Chair, I remember other deals that were done in this Province that were less than favourable and palpable for people, and one of them of course was the Sprung Greenhouse deal. That particular deal at the time cost taxpayers something like $20 million.

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

MS JONES: When you look at the scope of this debt clock it was a very small amount in comparison.

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

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

I am glad to be able to have an opportunity to contribute further to our discussion here in the House on the Consolidated Fund and the Executive Council.

Some of the concerns I raised when I spoke the last time - not concerns so much - some of the points I raised had to do with the way in which Norway has been dealing with its involvement in oil development of its coast, which has been happening for a much longer time than ours has of course. I just wanted to clarify some points because of comments made by the Minister of Natural Resources. I am glad to know that the minister and the government do study Norway carefully to look at what is happening there and I am not surprised. I think that it is a very logical thing to do and I am very glad that government is doing it.

I think I would like to speak a little bit more about Norway to point out how forward thinking that country is with regard to both the present use of their resources as well as the future use of the resources. As I mentioned when I stood the last time, Norway right now has in their investment fund, which is a fund for the future, an investment of $443 billion. This is an amazing amount of money that they have been able to build over twenty years by investing in companies outside of Norway, and right now, their portfolio, as I mentioned earlier, includes 8,000 companies.

Now the minister indicated that it was very strange to hear me talking about Norway and pointing out all of these positive things about Norway that I was saying considering the fact that the government did something on the Northern Peninsula that was certainly inspired by the kind of creative and forward thinking of Norway when they began drilling for oil on the Northern Peninsula, and it did not make sense that I was promoting Norway on the one hand and speaking out against the drilling on the other hand. Well, in my books, Mr Chair, the drilling that is going on, on the Northern Peninsula, has not proven itself to me to be drilling after good because we know that major oil companies have drilled on the Northern Peninsula and if they had any sense that there was going to be a major oil find on that peninsula, just like they invest money in the offshore if they know there is a real chance of them coming up with a big find, they would still be over on the Northern Peninsula. The major companies that were over there gave up on drilling on the Northern Peninsula. Yet, here we are, our government, through Nalcor, our public company, our public energy company over there drilling when other major companies have given up. I am not against the actions. I am not against Nalcor being involved. I just want to make sure that when they are going to spend money they are going to spend it in a place where it makes sense to spend it. That is what I am looking for, Mr. Chair.

One of the things that I would like to see and one of the things that I would hope we are going to see this government move towards is putting more money into looking at alternative energy sources to build on so that when oil is no longer available we have already put in place a whole system using alternative sources. I would like to see money, for example, through Nalcor, really going into research with regard to how wind and tide can work together along with the hydro electricity that we have and put a full plan in place.

The minister, I heard her say, Mr. Chair, that we have our Energy Plan. Well, I do not see any big plan in the Energy Plan with regard to the future. I do not see any big plan in the Energy Plan with regard to using the money of the present for the future. This is something that, I think, is what I would be asking for and asking the minister to be putting in place and asking the government to be putting in place. We need to look at a sustainable energy, wind energy through turbine manufacturer and ownership of wind farms. What that could do in terms of our economy in the future is something to be tested. If we were to get into manufacture that is based on our own natural resources, manufacturing of turbines for a growing market in North America. In the United States alone, the market for wind energy is growing at an enormous pace, everywhere from California the whole way to the Eastern Seaboard. If we were to get into the manufacture of turbines that would benefit both us, but mainly, this tremendous market out there, it would be a long-term investment by Nalcor into a form of energy that will always exist. This is just one thing that could be done. One, to build economy in the present, to build another skilled workforce here in Newfoundland and Labrador, new skills, new ways in which to use people's knowledge and new ways to earn money while at the same time building up an alternative energy source.

This is the kind of plan I am asking for, Mr. Chair. These are the kinds of things that I am asking government to think about and to start putting on paper. If they really want to look at Norway, then look at those issues. Look at the bigger picture, just do not cherry-pick and say: Oh, drilling on the Northern Peninsula is like what Norway is doing. I do not think it is.

One of the amazing things that Norway has done which is not our reality – it is their reality - but it gives an idea of how wide their thinking is. They have decided to build a whole system of tunnels that connect, that deals with the fjords and deals with the mountains, et cetera, in Norway; tunnels that can last 1,000 years. That is the technology that they have developed. These tunnels are going to make sure that products and people are going to be able to move everywhere in Norway without having to continue building bridges and repairing them, without having to continue to building ferries and repairing them and replacing them. Well, these are the two things that the tunnels are replacing. Trains, of course – they have a big train system in Norway, but those trains would also go through the tunnels. This is one of their major legacies that they want to leave for the people of Norway.

Now, we have to define our own legacy. I do know that the Premier thinks highly of a tunnel between Labrador and the Island, and I have to say there are a lot of people out there with this idea, and I am more and more myself warming up to the notion of a tunnel from Labrador to the Island. As I said to somebody yesterday, you stand on the tip of the Island and you look over at Labrador. Well, you cannot do that across the English Channel. You do not stand in Dover and see France, yet they have a tunnel there. I am not saying tunnels are the answer. I am just saying because of what they are doing in Norway makes me think about that tunnel is probably one of the things that we could be looking at.

The thing I am trying to get at is, let's have that vision that Norway has. What is something that would be so concrete that it would really be the thing that would be a legacy for the people of this Province, just as they have defined that doing this tunnel structure is a legacy that would be really something, that would mean something to Norway for years and years and generations down the road? What is it here? Is it alternative energy? Is it really making sure that our natural fishing industry grows and grows and grows? Let us find out what is the thing that would be a major legacy to the people of this Province, coming from the development of oil and gas.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have posed questions under two sections in the Executive Council; so, if the minister is prepared to answer those now, I would like to get the answers before I go on to the other questions that I have.

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Minister of Finance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is an interesting debate, interesting to have questions that are asked for which answers are actually being sought. Maybe we should do this in Question Period, too.

There are a number of questions here; I will try to deal with them all. One of the questions from, I think, the Opposition House Leader, was about the Premier's travel: How much in travel is the Premier's travel, and are there any other pots of money?

As I indicated earlier, the Premier's travel is posted on the Web site and is available to every citizen of this Province with a click of the mouse. For the period of April 1, 2009 to March of this year the number that is in the Estimates is $231,000; it is 03. Transportation and Communications; it is telephone and travel. One hundred and forty-six thousand dollars of this amount represents travel only for all employees of the Premier's Office, and of that amount $40,461 is attributed to the Premier for travel, as reported on the Web.

The other question, this time asked by the Leader of the Opposition, was with respect to item 2.1.01.09, Allowances in the Premier's Office. There is a $20,000 allowance there for assistance in the Premier's Office in lieu of a residence for the Premier. I understand that previously a residence was provided by the Premier, and at some point that rule was changed. A $20,000 allowance was given to previous Premiers as well as this particular Premier.

How much cash? The Leader of the NDP wanted to know how much is in the cash account. The cash in temporary investments in the Consolidated Revenue Fund and entities was about $1.8 billion at the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year. At the end of this year, 2010-2011, we expect that amount to be $800 million.

As I indicated earlier in my remarks, because of the fiscal prudence of this government, because we ran four years of surpluses, we accumulated a lot of cash, and that money will be used this year to finance our deficit. Yes, we are running a deficit, but we are running a deficit deliberately. We ran a deficit last year deliberately because it is good economic policy; it is good governance to do so. When things are not going well government should stimulate the economy, and that is what we are doing. We are not slamming on the breaks; we are not stopping. We are keeping the momentum going, because to run a balanced Budget now, to raise taxes now to get a balanced Budget, or to cut spending to get a balanced Budget, that would not help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians; that would not the ordinary people right now. They need your help right now. They need government's help, to help create jobs and opportunities, especially in rural Newfoundland, and that is what the whole Budget is all about.

We will also not have to borrow for our capital infrastructure. We are going to spend money on infrastructure and we have the cash to pay for that, so we did not have borrow last year and we do not have to borrow this year. So that answers that one.

Next, Mr. Chairman, the Leader of the Opposition asked some questions about the Programs Office, and I have some information here. You asked some question about – last year it was budgeted under 2.2.02, under Planning and Coordination. A deputy minister was appointed on April 20 to lead this initiative, so a separate budget head has been created for 2010-2011.

In that department we are developing a policy that will require departments to establish an evaluation function. We will provide a standardized approach to assist departments to build capacity to conduct effective evaluations of what they are doing. Professional services will be used if required, and these will be guided by external consultation guidelines in determining if a public proposal call will be made, and there may be a requirement to obtain specialized expertise to provide resources to assist departments to complete an evaluation.

The office is provided to advise departments on establishing an accountability framework. They are involved in specific reviews, if directed to do so by Cabinet or if requested by a government department. A public release of reports will be, of course, in accordance with the ATIPPA legislation. Because it is advice to Cabinet, it may not necessarily be released.

It is not a department; it is an office under the Cabinet Secretariat. It is headed up by the Deputy Minister, Donna Brewer. It has a staff of two program officers, as well as one student. Again, I would emphasize that it is researching best practices and program evaluation, nationally and internationally. It is not about any cutbacks. It is not an expenditure review exercise. It is not about downsizing. It is about ensuring that we are putting money in the right place, and it is ensuring that we are getting value for the money that we are spending.

With the respect to the Office of Climate Change, I have been advised by the Minister of Natural Resources that government is releasing a public discussion document today and conducting targeted consultation to support the development of strategies on climate change and on energy efficiency. A lot of the information that the hon. Leader of the Opposition talked about will be available in that discussion document.

In terms of the staff, there is the equivalent of an ADM; there are two directors; there are two senior staff, one for energy efficiency and one for technology development; there is an analyst and a secretary. There are plans to hire three more this year. The skill sets will vary but will including engineering skill sets and policy expertise in areas of adaptation and economics.

I think that covers everything, with the exception of the question by the Leader of the NDP about: Will we set up a fund, and what will we do when the oil runs out, which will happen some day? She used the example of Norway and that is something I have looked at, as well, but I think Norway did not set up its fund - I stand to be corrected on this – that Norway did not set up an investment fund until such time as it had paid off its debt. So that was our first goal; that was the vision of the Premier, first of all, to get our debt down, to get our net debt down, and we got it down from just under $12 billion; we got it down to just under $8 billion. This great recession has thrown us for a bit of a loop, so we have had to continue to stimulate the economy. We had to run a deficit last year and this year because it is good public policy to do so. When times are good, we spend the money that comes in; when times are bad, we will spend more than is coming in; and when times are good, like they were for four years, we ran surpluses and used those surpluses to pay down the debt we took when times were bad. That is good public policy, and it is a policy we intend to follow, and we certainly look forward to the day when we can get back on plan, so we can continue to pay down our debt, we can continue to run surpluses, pay down our debt, lower taxes, and continue to diversify the economy in new investments in aquaculture, in new investments in agriculture, so we are ready for the day when the oil and gas is no longer there.

I mentioned this afternoon a report from APEC, the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, which talked about how the various Atlantic Provinces were coming out of this recession, and it talked very favourably about Newfoundland and Labrador because we were leading the recovery, because of the energy assets we have, because of the oil and gas we have, and because of the minerals that we have. You have seen the expansion that is going to take place up at IOC as an example.

The question is: What happens when those non-renewable resources do run out? It was a good question put by the Leader of the NDP. Of course, the Premier has had a vision for that from the day he got here and it is set out in our Energy Plan. While we cannot compete with low cost producers in China and Asian places like that, where we will be able to compete is when we become this energy warehouse, when we can get that electricity from Labrador down to the Island, and when we take advantage of the wind. When we can do that, we will be able to offer an advantage to anybody coming here on the energy side, which the low cost producers in other parts of the world are giving on the labour side.

So the future looks very good for this Province, it looks very good for the people of Newfoundland. The non-renewables, the oil and the gas, and the minerals are going to give us wealth in the interim period, but the Premier's vision under the Energy Plan, on the Lower Churchill project, when the oil runs from the Upper Churchill project, this Province has a wonderful future in front of it because of the vision of this Premier and this government.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I say to the Minister of Finance, if you are going to have that energy warehouse, you are going to have to find a transmission line to start putting that power on some time soon.

Anyway, Mr. Chair, in addressing the questions he did very well. There were two questions, minister, that I did not get a response to. One was under section 2.2.03 and it was under Professional Services. Half the budget for this particular secretariat, I think you called it, is used for professional services. I asked: What company is being solicited here and how are they being solicited? Is it through a public tender call or is it just from a list that you would use in Executive Council? I did not get an answer to that question.

The other question I did not get an answer to, again, is under section 2.2.05 and again it has to do with Professional Services in the Climate Change office. Now, you did indicate the staffing in this office that made up the $750,000 in payroll. However, the Professional Services, I did ask again: What companies are being used? What services would be solicited in this office and how are they solicited, whether it is through a public tender call or if it is through some other process? So I would ask the minister if he could respond to those two questions, if not, if he could undertake to get me the response?

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Chair, in Professional Services, I think in 2009-2010, there were four contracts. The carbon pricing contract was about $95,000. The report has been received. It is available for release and it will be put up on the Web site. The carbon offset contract is about $80,000. This process was more complicated than initially thought and no report is available as of yet. Both of these went through Requests for Proposals, there were three calls.

Another report on the government GHG footprint was $15,000, and this work was done under the Department of Finance and the draft results are available. For the MUN Adaptation Literature Review was $25,000. These are not put up on tender.

For the current year, the office anticipates having three contracts, the follow up on carbon pricing, energy efficiency research, adaptation. These will each go by the Requests for Proposals process. Again, as I noted earlier, there was a press release issued today with a discussion document. There will be consultations in June, and the office intends to submit strategies into the system by year end.

If there is anything else you would like to know, I would be happy to undertake to provide that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MARSHALL: I will undertake to get that information and provide it.

So I think this brings us to the end of this process.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, no, wait (inaudible).

MR. MARSHALL: Oh, sorry.

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

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

I want to thank the minister for the information with regard to the question that I put about the cash assets but I just need a clarification, because as the minister said we know that there is $1.8 billion in the cash assets and when we take out the deficit for last year and for the projected deficit for this year, that leaves about $1.3 billion. The minister has indicated that what he is looking at is cash at the end of this fiscal year of $800 million. So, I see a difference there of about $500 million. The minister mentioned money going into infrastructure, but wouldn't that infrastructure money be money that is in the Budget? I would like some clarification about money from the cash assets that is going into infrastructure, and does that make up for the $500 million?

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The infrastructure money is an asset, it is not an expense. So it is not part of the expenses that show up as expenses incurred to earn revenue. If we acquire infrastructure, if we acquire, for example, a building, the building will show up as an asset but the building will be advertised over its life and there will be expenses each year.

Mr. Chair, the cash we will use, we will not have to borrow this year. The cash we have - and the cash flows in and out throughout the year, but we will have enough cash to finance a deficit. We will have enough cash to pay for our infrastructure and to pay down the debt as they come due. We expect, at the end of the year - because remember, this year we are also earning new cash. There is cash coming in as well this year. At the beginning of the year there was about $1.8 billion and at the end of the year there will be $800,557,000.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

I will ask for this information, but not needing it today. I would like if the minister could make available the breakdown that he is anticipating with regard to the $1.8 billion cash assets and how that gets down to $800 million at the end of this year. I do not need it for this afternoon but I would like to have that information.

CHAIR: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. MARSHALL: I will be very happy to provide that information to the hon. member.

So, I believe - is that the end? We now wrap up this wonderful debate. We started on March 29. It has been extremely interesting again.

Again, I would like to thank all the hon. members for taking part. I listened carefully to what was said after the hour I spoke on Budget Day, or hour-and-a-half on Budget Day. We have come a long way. We have reduced our debt substantially. We improved the infrastructure in this Province substantially which is a pre-condition to economic growth and prosperity. As I said, given the vision set out in the Energy Plan that is where we want to be.

I would certainly hope that out of the wealth that comes from the oil, gas and wind that we will be able to create one of these sustainability funds like Norway did, but I think we have to pay down our debt first. We came a long way in doing that. Over four years I think we have the net debt down by about $4 billion. We got sidetracked by this recession which hit hard. There is concern right now; there is uncertainty coming out of Europe given what is going on with Greece and with Spain, but the assets we have here and the people we have here, I think, augurs well for a very prosperous future for this Province in the future.

So with that, I thank everyone for taking part in this debate and I certainly look forward to the vote.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subhead 1.1.01 carried.

CLERK: Subheads 1.1.02 to 2.2.07 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall subheads 1.1.02 to 2.2.07 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.02 through 2.2.07 carried.

CLERK: Subheads 2.4.01 to 2.5.02 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall subheads 2.4.01 to 2.5.02 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 2.4.01 through 2.5.02 carried.

CLERK: Subheads 3.1.01 to 3.1.07 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall subheads 3.1.01 to 3.1.07 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 3.1.01 through 3.1.07 carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates of the Executive Council carried without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Estimates of the Executive Council carried without amendment.

CHAIR: The Committee is now considering Consolidated Fund Services.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall subhead 1.1.01 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, subhead 1.1.01 carried.

CLERK: Subheads 1.1.02 to 2.1.03 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall subheads 1.1.02 to 2.1.03 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.02 through 2.1.03 carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates of Consolidated Fund Services carried without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Estimates of the Consolidated Fund Services carried without amendment.

CHAIR: The Committee is now considering Legislature.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall subhead 1.1.01 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subhead 1.1.01 carried.

CLERK: Subheads 1.1.02 to 6.1.01 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.02 to 6.1.01 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.02 through 6.1.01 carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates of the Legislature carried without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Estimates of the Legislature carried without amendment.

MS BURKE: I move that the Committee rise and report having passed, without amendment, the Estimates for the Legislature, the Consolidated Revenue Fund and Executive Council.

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

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for the District of Humber Valley and Assistant Deputy Speaker.

MR. KELLY: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report that they have passed, without amendment, the Estimates of the Executive Council, Consolidated Fund Services and Legislature.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of Committee of Supply reports that they have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report that they have passed, without amendment, the Estimates of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, the Legislature and the Executive Council.

When shall the report be received?

MS BURKE: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, report received and adopted.

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

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I received a message from His Honour the Lieutenant Governor.

MR. SPEAKER: All rise.

The letter reads: As Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, I transmit Estimates of sums required for the Public Service of the Province for the year ending 31 March 2011, by way of further supply, and in accordance with the provisions of sections 54 and 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend these Estimates to the House of Assembly.

Sgd: ________________________

John C. Crosbie, Lieutenant Governor.

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

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Health and Community Services that the message together with the resolution and a bill be referred to a Committee of Supply.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that the House resolve itself into a Committee of Supply 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 Supply, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of Supply

CHAIR (T. Osborne): Order, please!

We are now dealing in committee with Resolution and Supply.

Resolution

That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain expenses of the Public Service for the financial year ending March 31, 2011, the sum of $4,512,522,100.

CHAIR: Shall the resolution carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, resolution carried.

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 4 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 4 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion clauses 2 through 4 carried.

CLERK: The schedule.

CHAIR: Shall the schedule carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, schedule 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'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: Whereas it appears that the sums mentioned are required to defray certain expenses of the Public Service of Newfoundland and Labrador for the financial year ending March 31, 2011 and for other purposes relating to the Public Service.

CHAIR: Shall the preamble carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, preamble carried.

CLERK: An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service.

CHAIR: Shall the long 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 resolution and Bill 6 carried without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

Motion carried.

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

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Chair, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Health that the total contained in the Estimates in the amount of $6,911,004,000 for the 2010-2011 fiscal year be carried, and I further move that the Committee report that they have adopted a resolution and a bill consequent thereto and ask leave to sit again.

CHAIR: The motion is that the total contained in the Estimates in the amount of 6,911,004,000, for the 2010-2011 fiscal year be carried and that the Committee report that they have adopted a resolution and a bill consequent to thereof 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 report having passed the resolution and a bill consequent thereto, carried. Mr. Speaker returned to the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): The hon. the Member for St. John's South and Deputy Speaker.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report that they have passed the amount of $6,911,004,000 contained in the Estimates of Supply for the 2010-2011 fiscal year and further that they have adopted a certain resolution and recommend that a bill be introduced to give effect to the same.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of Committee of Supply reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report that they have passed the amount of $6,911,004,000 contained in the Estimates of Supply and that they have adopted a certain resolution, and recommend that a bill be introduced to give effect to the same.

When shall this report be received?

MS BURKE: Now.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, report received and adopted

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of Finance, that the resolution be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that this resolution be now read a first time.

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

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

CLERK: That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain expenses of the public service for the financial year ending March 31, 2011 the sum of $4,512,522,100.

On motion, resolution read a first time.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of Finance, that the resolution be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that this resolution be now read a second time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that this resolution is 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: That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain expenses of the public service for the financial year ending March 31, 2011 the sum of $4,512,522,100.

On motion, resolution read a second time.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Finance, for leave to introduce the Supply Bill, Bill 6, 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 Finance shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service, Bill 6, the Supply Bill, and that the said bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. the Minister of Finance shall have leave to introduce Bill 6, the Supply Bill 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 Minister of Finance to introduce a bill, "An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service", carried. (Bill 6)

CLERK: A bill, An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service.

On motion, Bill 6 read a first time.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of Finance, that the Supply Bill be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that the Supply Bill, Bill 6, be now read a second time?

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

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of Finance, that the Supply Bill be now read a third time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the Supply Bill, Bill 6, be now read a third time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that Bill 6 be now read a third 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 For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service.

MR. SPEAKER: This bill, Bill 6, has now been read a third time and it is ordered that the bill do pass and its title be as on the Order Paper.

On motion, a bill, "An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 2011 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service", read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill 6)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Natural Resources, that this House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that this House do now adjourn.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those in favour, ‘aye'.

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

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