May 14, 2001 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIV No. 25
The House met at 1:30 p.m.
MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!
Before we begin our routine proceedings, the Chair would like to welcome to the House of Assembly today, forty-six Grade 5 students from Larkhall Academy in the District of St. John's North. They are accompanied by teachers: Ralph Cann and Jackie Pottle, and parent chaperones: Nellie Bentum, Keith Ireland, Janis King and Bridget Miller.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
Statements by Members
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. MERCER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to recognize a Corner Brook teacher who was recently honoured in Ottawa for the contribution that he is making to the education of Corner Brook's youth.
Mr. Speaker, while all teachers play a pivotal role in the lives of our young people, some excel. Mr. Fred Carberry, a physical education teacher at Herdman Collegiate, is one such teacher.
This past Thursday at a special ceremony on Parliament Hill, Mr. Carberry was awarded a Prime Ministerial Certificate of Achievement in recognition of his efforts in providing his students with the tools to become good citizens, to develop and grow as individuals, and to contribute to Canada's growth, prosperity and well-being.
Mr. Carberry was one of seven educators from across Newfoundland and Labrador who were so recognized this year. In my dealings with parents, there is absolutely no doubt that Mr. Carberry's innovative teaching methods and philosophies are having a tremendous impact on the students of Herdman Collegiate.
Mr. Speaker, I, and the Member for the Bay of Islands, personally thank Mr. Carberry for the job that he is doing for our youth and we ask this hon. House to join with us in congratulating him on being recognized by his peers for this outstanding award.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.
MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Mr. Charles Taylor and the members of the Kiwanis Club of Kelligrews for raising in excess of $15,000 to go towards the purchase of a St. John Ambulance for the Conception Bay South area.
The members of the Kiwanis Club have been very busy raising these funds through various fundraising efforts, such as giving up their weekends and Friday nights to sell tickets at places like Sobeys and Dominion stores, and they are still proceeding with flipper dinners and this type of thing.
I would like to offer them and, of course, Mr. Dan Lewis, the president of the Kiwanis Club of Kelligrews, my sincere congratulations on raising this money to help, as I said, buy a new St. John Ambulance for our community.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this hon. House today to congratulate the Carbonear Salvation Army Corps on their 115th Anniversary serving the Carbonear region.
Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to be part of the Corps anniversary supper over the weekend, along with special guests Major and Mrs. Hicks, who served in Carbonear in the early 1970's.
I want to thank the Carbonear Corps Officers, Captains Clarence and Karen Ingram for their hospitality to me over the weekend, and congratulate the Carbonear Salvation Army Corps for their service to the area over the past 115 years. I look forward to the local Salvation Army serving many more years in the community and urge all citizens to support the Salvation Army's Red Shield Appeal this year.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.
MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to congratulate Jamie Lawrence, a Grade 5 student from my district, who was one of two overall winners at the Avalon Regional Heritage Fair which was held at Amalgamated Academy, Bay Roberts, on Friday and Saturday, May 11 and May 12. He was one of 160 students in Grade 4 to Grade 9 from twenty-eight schools in the Avalon East and West school districts presenting something like ninety-three heritage projects. Three communication awards were presented to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Marconi reception of the wireless message from England at Cabot Tower in 1901. Eight honorable mentions were awarded and twelve projects were selected for public display during the summer months at the Newfoundland Museum.
Two projects were selected to participate in the National Heritage Fair in Kamloops, British Columbia, from July 9-16. At this fair, some 165 students from ten provinces and three territories of Canada will present a National Heritage Showcase and students will participate in a week of heritage-related field trips and workshops.
Fifteen students will represent Newfoundland and Labrador at the National Fair, having been selected from eight regional fairs which took place this past weekend around the Province. Two students will be representing the Avalon Region: one is Jamie Lawrence, a Grade 5 student at All Hallows Elementary in North River, whose project founded on The Ocean Ranger; the other is Katie Gale, a Grade 6 student from Cowan Heights Elementary, St. John's, whose project -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
- Katie Gale, a Grade 6 student from Cowan Heights Elementary, St. John's, whose project founded on the history of the Salvation Army in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Congratulations are expressed on their efforts, and certainly on the efforts of all the students, to conduct research on a heritage topic and to share that information with others. Congratulations are also extended to all the volunteers, the teachers and parents, whose efforts made this fair the great success that it was.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
Statements by Ministers
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker I rise in the House today to advise members of the projects that have been approved under the Municipal Capital Works Program and provide a status report on projects that have been proposed for funding under the Canada-Newfoundland Infrastructure Program pending sanction under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
On May 7, 2001, $51.5 million was announced to be spent this year on 172 infrastructure projects. This includes 100 projects to be funded through the Canada-Newfoundland Infrastructure Agreement at a total cost of $34 million and about seventy-two projects under the Municipal Capital Works Program at an additional cost of $17 million.
Mr. Speaker, this year, the Province is providing $27 million of the $51.5 million total for municipal infrastructure, $16 million under the Canada-Newfoundland Infrastructure Agreement and a further $11 million under Municipal Capital Works. This is an increase of $7 million over last year and clearly demonstrates our commitment to strengthening rural communities. The municipal share of project costs in some rural communities will be less than 10 per cent. As a result, municipalities which could not undertake projects at traditional 50/50 cost-sharing ratios, can now afford to complete important water and sewer system improvements.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. LANGDON: I spoke last week of the $2.1 million which will be spent this year to install or upgrade municipal water disinfection systems. Municipalities are being provided 100 per cent funding, up to a maximum of $100,000 to help those currently on boil water advisories. This is part of government's $11 million multi-year commitment to water disinfection. I also spoke about the additional $15.6 million we will spend on other water quality issues, including seven water treatment systems. We fully expect to improve the supply and quality of water for ninety-eight communities with a population of 147,000.
This year's $17.7 million commitment to water quality is part of a total investment toward water and sewer projects of $32 million. This represents over 62 per cent of the $51.5 million expenditure on municipal infrastructure.
Mr. Speaker, the federal, provincial and municipal governments are all placing a high priority on water quality and sewage treatment. In recognition of the fact that in previous years, smaller communities often could not afford to participate in infrastructure programs, we have introduced new variable cost-sharing guidelines which will see the Province pay a larger share of the costs for water and sewer projects. These new guidelines take into consideration such factors as community size, tax base and ability to raise revenue, thus making it more affordable for rural municipalities.
Other significant infrastructure investments include $6.5 million for road reconstruction and paving, and $5.5 million for municipal buildings, fire trucks and recreation.
The Infrastructure Agreement also provides $3.5 million for waste management. This funding will be used to promote regional waste management and a reduction in the number of waste disposal sites in the Province.
Over the next day or so, I will be releasing details on most of the seventy-two projects to be funded this year under the Municipal Capital Works Program at a total cost of approximately $17 million. This program should be fully rolled out by month's end. Details of the 100 projects to be funded under the Canada-Newfoundland Infrastructure Program will be announced in accordance with the agreement over the next 2-3 weeks.
Mr. Speaker, I am very encouraged by the cooperative direction that the three levels of government have taken toward achieving our infrastructure goals this year. With governments increased commitment of $7 million over last year's expenditures, we are progressive in developing the infrastructure needs of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for providing me with a copy of his statement in advance. I will say minister, we are always glad to see money which is going into infrastructure in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador because goodness only knows exactly how bad this is needed. I can only trust, minister, that these allocations, when they are finally announced, will be allocations based on need, and I mean need.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. FRENCH: When I spoke in the House the other day, I trust it is not need of Liberal members but the need of all Members of this hon. House of Assembly.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs talks about money being spent on boil water orders and problems, he reminds me of a former leader of his party who used to tell you what he was going to say, then he would say it, and then he would tell you what he said.
Aside from that, Mr. Speaker, the expenditures for municipal capital works around Newfoundland and Labrador are very important and positive. I think the flexibility and funding for those municipalities, who cannot afford even the 50 per cent, is very important to ensuring that we do have an equality of services in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I, too, hope that when we see the actual list of expenditures that we ensure that it is done on a proper basis of priority and need, and not for political expediency.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to inform my hon. colleagues that the forest fire season is once again upon us. The 2001 forest fire season has been officially declared for the Island portion of the Province. Having taken effect as of midnight May 11, the season will continue until midnight September 16. The forest fire season for Labrador will commence midnight May 18 and end on midnight October 7.
I would like to remind the public that in accordance with forest fire regulations, burning permits are required for lighting outdoor fires for the purpose of clearing land or burning brush within 300 metres of a forest land. Permits are available at forestry offices throughout the Province.
Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that we were confronted with the most snowfall witnessed in recent memory this past winter, it is important to remember that snow cover in some wooded areas of the Province can change quickly with warm dry weather, and this was demonstrated last week with eleven forest fires starting off our season - ten of which were in the Avalon/Eastern region and one in Central Newfoundland. These fires have been extinguished and no others were recorded over the weekend.
Our forest fire suppression staff are ready to serve the public in protecting our forest when and were required Mr. Speaker. Staff in my department were busy throughout the winter servicing and performing tests on fire suppression equipment, such as pumps, hoses and back tanks. In addition, test runs of the Province's fleet of six water bombers have taken place to ensure that they are ready for the forest fire season. Four of these aircraft will be stationed on the Island, while two will be stationed in Labrador. My department sent one water bomber to New Brunswick on May 9 to assist that province with their forest fire suppression operations. We have also acquired the services of one extra support aircraft for operation for the 2001 season providing the Island and Labrador with one each. Four long ranger helicopters are on full-time standby and will be strategically stationed at St. John's, Gander, Pasadena and Goose Bay.
Mr. Speaker, improving the knowledge and capability of staff also remains a priority of my department. During the winter, twenty-nine staff members received specialized training in Intermediate Forest Fire Behaviour. Increasing knowledge of forest fires improves our forest fire suppression efforts, which leads to the better protection of our forest resource and personal property.
Mr. Speaker, with the May 24 holiday weekend upon us, I urge everyone to be extra careful this coming weekend and ask them to please ensure that all fires are properly extinguished. We should never forget the damage fires can do to our forest, wildlife and the environment.
I want to assure the public we are ready for the 2001 forest fire season and remain committed to protecting our valuable forest resources for all of its users. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I ask everyone to be `fire smart' when in or near the woods during the 2001 summer season.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Windsor-Springdale.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for forwarding a copy of his statement.
I, too, Mr. Speaker, realize the importance of our forest resources, the importance of being ready and protecting the resource. Most of my district depends on and primarily exists because of the forest industry. Mr. Speaker, without the great forest industry that we have a lot of the jobs in rural Newfoundland would not be there.
I think it is very important that we educate our youth and educate our public in the importance of it, and how we can do things to protect personal property too, Mr. Speaker, because we do lose a lot of things other than trees when it comes to forest fires.
I would just like to stress to the public, as well, the importance of protecting our forests, Mr. Speaker, and urge the public to be extra careful this weekend and all summer. Hopefully we will not have a really bad forest fire season this year.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to join with the minister and the Opposition critic to encourage the public to be very fire smart, I think, is the phrase, and to be wise in the use of our forests.
I recognize that fire suppression and forest fire safety is an important part of the minister's and government's obligation with respect to forestry. I would say also, Mr. Speaker, that a proper management of our forest land and recognition of the various values that are there, including the very important forest industry, as well as recreation and other uses, is also very important, and an area which requires some leadership, I would say, Mr. Speaker, from the minister and from government in dealing with the competing interests in the salvation of and use of our forest resources in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Oral Questions
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My questions today are for the Minister of Environment.
Over a year ago, this government started with a policy to ban bulk exports. They went as far as to introduce legislation in this House which each and every last one of them voted for. Shortly after the current Premier became Premier they took an about face and said they were in favour of bulk exports. After the public outcry, they then said: No, all we are trying to do is open up a public discussion on it. Yet, today we see clearly that the current Premier on his trade mission to Atlanta opened up the door again and said they were in favour of shipping out bulk water from this Province.
My question to the minister is this: You have gone through about four shifts of policy on this issue in the last three months, can you tell me and anyone else what your policy truly is today, and will it be the same tomorrow?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Actually, what the Premier did say was that he was going to undertake to explore all the information that was possible, and at the fall sitting of the House put it before the people of this House for proper discussion. What the Premier has done is appointed a committee of ministers, chaired by the hon. the Minister of Justice, to collect this information, and at the appropriate time we will begin that discussion.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, this must be the minister reporting slightly out of the loop. Here is what the Premier said yesterday, quoted in The Globe and Mail, he can read it. I am not allowed to quote directly from it, so I will not. He said that the bulk export of water is something we should probably do. That is what he said. He did not say he was going to examine it yesterday. He said: It is something we should probably do.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. E. BYRNE: I would like to ask the minister again: What is your policy? Will you stand up and state it for the people of the Province? If you cannot, can you tell us why this schizophrenic policy on bulk water is going on by you and your government?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
Again, the Chair does not want to interrupt Question Period but I want to remind the hon. member that questions ought to be directed through the Chair to government and ought to be put in third person. So again, I ask members to keep that in mind.
The hon. the Minister of Environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I guess to use the Premier's own words: Words are important. What you have just read to me: He said that probably we should have shipments of bulk water. Again, what the Premier has said is that he has appointed a committee of ministers to look at all of the information, to gather all of the information that is available, and present that information a few months down the road so that everybody in the Province can have a clear understanding of what all the information is about.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that is not what the Premier said. There are many great Newfoundland sayings; one of them my grandmother used often. It talked about a birch broom in the fits that had no direction. That is what this government is like, Mr. Speaker, with respect to this public policy issue -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his question.
MR. E. BYRNE: - just like a birch broom in the fits.
I would like to ask him this question. The Premier has indicated that he is not just talking about Gisborne Lake, that he is talking about shipping water from every pond, river or stream where you can hook up a pipe and put it to a tanker. Is that the new policy, Mr. Speaker? I ask the minister: Is that the new policy the Premier is talking about?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: The same answer, Mr. Speaker. I am only hearing what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has read, that the Premier says probably. We all know what the legislation says in this Province and we all know that the information will be gathered. I say to the member opposite: Just sit tight, we will have the information. We have quite a bit of information accumulated already. We will present it at an appropriate time to the people of the House.
Thank you very much.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to ask the minister this question: What is the return to the Province, and to the people of the Province, for bulk water exports? Bulk exports do not produce very many jobs, benefits or spin-offs. I would like to ask the minister this question: Is the minister counting on royalties from this resource in terms of the Premier's now public commitment to exporting bulk water? Is he counting on royalties? If so, what kind of royalties does this government expect to get from the bulk water shipment?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Minister of Finance, on a point of order.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I know this is unusual but I think that the member opposite used a term in a very derogatory way. He used the term schizophrenic in a way that was not complimentary, associated with mental health. I think, in all fairness, there are many ways to describe a policy. I think it is misuse of the word and those in the mental health community would be as offended as I was in the use of that term. I ask him to change it and withdraw it.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will review Hansard to see exactly what the hon. member has said.
Again, I ask hon. members - points of order during Question Period should be kept to the end of the Question Period.
The hon. the Minister of Environment.
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I just want to advise the Leader of the Opposition on the issue of the bottling industry here in Newfoundland. We have some five bottling plants which employee some twenty-eight people full-time. We did some checking across the Province. In the Province of British Columbia they have a total of forty bottling plants. The total amount of royalties to the Province of British Columbia is $28,000.
Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time we will do all the homework that needs to be done and certainly present it to the House.
Thank you, very much.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer the question.
I asked him, and I will ask it again: What -
MR. REID: (Inaudible) how much we are going to make on it.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. E. BYRNE: I say to the Minister of Fisheries, if he wants to (inaudible). The Premier talked about getting enough money to pay for tuition so he must have done some research on it. Some research must have been done, I say to the Minister of Fisheries.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. E. BYRNE: If your Premier can get up and start quoting numbers (inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member is on a supplementary, I ask him to get to his question now.
MR. E. BYRNE: Let me address, in the question, the Minister of Fisheries' concerns. In view of the fact that the Premier speculated about the amount of royalties and what it could do, I ask the minister this question: What about the royalties? Have you calculated, potentially, how much royalties you will get? If so, can you report that to the House today?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has heard the Premier say time and time again that this is not a done deal. This is something that we are exploring. We will do everything we have to do to make sure we get at the bottom of this, to get the accurate information, and then we will bring it before the public. This is not a path we are going down without doing substantial research, Mr. Speaker. At the end of the day we will have the answers and we will put them before the public of this Province before we make a decision on this very important issue.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Again, the questions were asked but, for the record, they were not answered. Let me ask this question: How have discussions been going between the Province and the federal government, vis-à-vis the clawback on potential royalties, on water export? Can you update us on those, if any have occurred? If any have not occurred, can you tell us when they will occur?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, there are always discussions ongoing with the federal government, no matter what the issue is, of which this Province is involved with.
On this particular issue; yes, the Premier is on a trade mission and yes, the Prime Minister is there. I would expect that our Premier - who is very competent, very forthright - will take advantage of every opportunity to bring up the issue of bulk water, clawbacks and whatever else needs to be discussed as we go forward in trying to determine whether or not this is a policy we will be following.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, this Premier and this government are so confident that they have to spend hundreds of thousands of public dollars to convince people of something that they know not to be true.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his question.
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to ask the minister this question. So there have been no discussions with the federal government on equalization. I would like to ask - whatever minister, the Minister of Environment, who is supposed to be in charge of the file or whoever wants to answer it: Can they tell me if the federal government has put a category under the equalization formula dealing with the bulk export of water?
AN HON. MEMBER: The answer is no.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, to the hon. members's preamble, with respect to what this government is doing.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MS FOOTE: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are doing a good job and we want everyone to know. Just as the members opposite will get out there and talk about what we are doing, the public has a right to know and we want them to have confidence and know exactly the good things this government is doing, and they know it.
Mr. Speaker, let me assure the member opposite that when discussions need to take place, they will take place. This government will work very closely with the federal government in all aspects of clawback so, at the end of the day, ensure that what we can get, in terms of additional benefit to this Province, will be forthcoming to this Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My questions are for the Minister of Environment.
Isn't it a fact that the federal government has no category for bulk water on the equalization formula? In other words, this government is pursuing down a path, Mr. Speaker, to ship bulk export of water in an attempt to get royalties when they know the federal government may, in fact, introduce 100 per cent clawback on royalties. What assurance can the minister give the people of the Province that the bulk export of water from our soil will not be in vain, and will actually produce some kind of benefit at some point in the future?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, the federal government has put in place a committee to look at this. We have no assurances whatsoever that they will not introduce something that will require 100 per cent clawback. The member opposite knows that. This is still an area that is being looked at by all governments, especially this government, and certainly the federal government as well.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are drinking bottled water more and more everyday. All you have to do is look at -
MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible).
MR. E. BYRNE: Yes, they have to, I say to the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. All you have to do is talk to retailers and they will tell you how much of an increase - an enormous increase.
I would like to ask the Minister of Environment this question: What policy or strategic plan does this government have in place, or about to put in place, that will displace bottled water from other provinces and see more bottled water from this Province on the shelves of stores in this Province, Mr. Speaker?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I guess members opposite finally realized that the Minister of Education is Deputy Premier today.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, members opposite should know by now that the Department of Environment has allotted some 185 million litres of water to be bottled in this Province. Of that 185 million litres that has been approved for bottling, the bottling industry in Newfoundland bottles 5.25 million litres. In fact, I think it is somewhere of about 2.89 per cent. Of all the bottled water that they have approved we have bottled about 2.8 per cent.
MR. J. BYRNE: You're doing a poor job.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, what the minister has done now is compliment the private sector for doing on their own what this government has failed to do in assisting in a strategic marketing plan for our fresh water resources.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. E. BYRNE: So, I will ask him again: Will he stand today and tell us what plans this government has to ignite an industry, to market an industry, and to produce bottled water in Newfoundland and Labrador so that we may be in a position to sell it to the world, Mr. Speaker?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
We have the same policies in place that apply to all private industry in the Province, whatever business they choose to go into. There are incentives in government to help them to start up those businesses and to do advertising and so on and so forth. So, Mr. Speaker, nothing has changed in that regard.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: There is no policy; there is no plan. This government are flying by the seat of their pants and playing footloose and fancy-free with the hopes and aspirations of the people of this Province, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I ask the hon. member now to get to his question.
MR. E. BYRNE: Let me ask the minister this question: Why is it that this government is so opposed to job creation, to creating secondary industries? Why are they so determined to ship out all of our resources in bulk to create jobs elsewhere in Canada and throughout the world? Why, Minister, is this government so opposed to processing and manufacturing industries in this Province - Newfoundland and Labrador?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, clearly there is no question there because the member opposite is making a statement of fact on a premise that is not accurate. We are not opposed. In fact, we work very hard to ensure that there are all kinds of programs in place to work with the private sector to ensure that we can maximize on every opportunity in this Province, including bottled water.
Through the Department of Industry, Trade and Rural Development, the minister responsible and all of his officials, they work very diligently in working with all the private sector, including those who are involved in the bottled water business, to make sure that we have programs in place and incentives in place to grow industries in this Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Last week, the Minister of Environment led us to believe that this Province's water supply is safe, that the people of this Province have nothing to worry about, that he was doing an adequate job of testing to ensure that the quality and safety of the water in this Province was adequate for the people to drink. We now learn that there are communities in this Province that do not have their water tested. I will ask the minister this: How many of the nearly 600 communities in this Province do not have regular water testing at source?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Every community in this Province, Mr. Speaker, undergoes microbiological testing on an average of once a month.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker
The Department of Environment's Web site shows that there are only 304 communities that are tested at source for chemical content. That is disgraceful, I say, Mr. Speaker. It is unbelievable.
Furthermore, I will ask the minister this: How can you justify saying to the people of this Province that their water is safe when not all water supplies are tested for chemical content? Minister, will you confirm that this number is accurate? And, I ask you, what percentage of the population in this Province do not have their water tested for chemical -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
Again, I just want to remind hon. members that questions ought to be directed to the Chair - to members and ministers through the Chair - and answers likewise. Again, I ask members to keep that in mind when they are constructing questions.
The hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I ask if the minister will answer the following question: Will he confirm that there are only 304 communities tested for chemical content? And, what percentage of the population do not have regular water testing of their drinking water supplies?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
As I said, every community in this Province undergoes microbiological testing on an average of once a month. What the member opposite is talking about, chemical testing, Mr. Speaker, the microbiological testing is done on the bacteria and the E.coli, which is the most acute effect that bacteria would have, I guess, on consumers of water. So, Mr. Speaker, he is talking about two different tests there. One is the microbiological test; the other is the chemical test. The chemical test is associated with much longer-term effects on water that people consume.
Thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, I will ask the minister this: How can the minister justify making a broad statement that this Province's water supply is safe when there are so many communities, so many people throughout the Province, that do not have chemical testing of their water supplies? I will ask the minister again to confirm if there are only 304 communities in this Province that have chemical testing of their water supplies?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I want to say that I am confident in the measures that government is taking to ensure that the residents of the Province have access to safe drinking water, Mr. Speaker. I think that is a pretty fair statement. As I said before, every community in the Province undergoes microbiological testing on an average of once a month.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My questions today are to the Minister of Finance. The Deputy Premier indicated last week that the cost of relocating major parts of government departments would cost close to $10 million. Others have put that cost more in the range of $20 million to $25 million. I want to ask the minister, Mr. Speaker, if she will table a full analysis of those costs?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am aware that when my colleague made the comments that all of the work is not totally complete yet, and I understand the end of May is the time when most of the affected employees will make their final decisions and we will have the exact numbers and figures, I would commit, on behalf of my colleague, when all of the accurate numbers and information is available, that it would be tabled.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr .Speaker.
The former Wells' Administration did a study showing that it would cost about $7 million to move the air services. If the cost of moving the forestry labs is estimated at $4 million to $5 million, these two items alone are between $11 million and $12 million.
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the minister why she is trying to hide the cost, the true cost, of those figures here on relocation in the Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, his voice is high and I would ask him to listen carefully with respect to the answer, because what I said was: I am not hiding anything, my colleague is not hiding anything; we, as government, are not hiding anything. When all of the information is available, we will table it, with pleasure, with bells on, Mr. Speaker. Not a problem. When the information is complete, we will table it, no difficulty.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
On a supplementary, if you take the government's figure, the Deputy Premier's figure, of $10 million on forty-four people moving, that is a cost of about $225,000 per person. If you took a more realistic or true cost, we would find it is more like over $500,000 per person. Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: How can this government justify spending over $10 million and even possibly $25 million - from a quarter to half a million dollars per person - when they have not created one new job in this Province?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Minister of Finance.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
First, I would like to acknowledge and appreciate the accurate number is down around forty-four as opposed to two eighty seven, which is what the original number was.
Mr. Speaker, this policy is about making a statement to the people of this Province that you can do business outside of St. John's, Newfoundland.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, this is an important statement -
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: - for the people of the Province to hear, to hear the Leader of the Opposition, or the House Leader - sorry, I get confused.
AN HON. MEMBER: You would, there are so many of them over there.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: This is an important statement because the people of the Province need to hear that this is about acknowledging that what is good for St. John's is good for rural Newfoundland, but what is good for rural Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker, is equally as good for the city and the rest of the Province.
Mr. Speaker, the total amount -
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I ask the hon. minister now to conclude her answer.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: I would say that this will be my third time, and I will say it again, Mr. Speaker. The government, on behalf of my colleague, will be happy to table the information when it is complete. The members opposite know the deadline is around the end of May, and, Mr. Speaker, it will be there for them to see as well as anybody else.
Mr. Speaker, this is a statement that supports rural Newfoundland, and everybody knows that there will be jobs created, there will be new industries available, because we are recognizing the value and the ability of people in this Province to do work outside major centres.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My question is for the Minister of Finance, and it concerns video lottery terminals in the Province.
In New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker, the VLT industry has agreed, during a referendum, to outlaw VLTs, to contribute $2 million to the problem of gambling addicts.
What effort is this minister making to insist, without the threat of a referendum, that the VLT industry contribute and support programs for problem gamblers in this Province?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, we have been very clear on our position on VLTs and our commitment to putting the money that we have back into health care, all components of health care.
Mr. Speaker, our health care system as it relates to mental health issues, as it relates to provision of services for addictions, is all encompassed in the programs we offer through Health and Community Services. There are dedicated services as well.
Mr. Speaker, I will be very honest, the money that is gotten and received from VLTs is put back to help us offset the cost of delivering health care services in this Province. It is a huge amount of money, one that, in some ways, Mr. Speaker, I wish we were not making, but I also have to acknowledge we need it, we need it desperately. We continue to say that we need to put the money, as much as we can - and in fact we have grown our health care budget to $1.4 billion this year. If you can single out individual pieces, like the member opposite is trying to do, it is not accurate. Because our whole system, Mr. Speaker, is an integrated one and one where we provide the services at many different levels, for addictions as well as other services.
Mr. Speaker, it is a significant amount of money that we get, however it is an amount of money that we put into our health care system to provide all kinds of services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The amount is $99 million this year on lottery revenues, most of which comes from video gambling. The minister knows that 5 per cent, at least, of people who engage in VLT playing are addicted.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member is on a supplementary, and I would ask him to get to his question.
MR. HARRIS: Would the minister tell us what she is prepared to do, in addition to the $150,000 that is allocated towards problem gamblers in this Province, to solve the problem that this government sponsors and creates through the VLT program?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, as I have pointed out - and I think it is not just for me to say; it was in the report that the health critic spoke to last week - we spend the highest per capita amount on health care in this Province than any other province in this country.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the services that we provide through addiction services, we have a very integrated, comprehensive, psychiatric and physiological program that is available to people in this Province, through our EAP programs that we offer as a government, through the health care corporations and other forums; we offer counseling services on that basis. So, you cannot isolate a single amount. We are providing comprehensive services. Would we like to provide more? Yes. Would we like to put more money in health care? Yes, even though we have $1.4 billion there this year. Are we growing our health care budget faster than almost any other province? Yes, and we will continue to do that.
Mr. Speaker, we would like to provide more services and we will continue to grow our health care budget -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I ask the hon. the hon. minister now to conclude her answer.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: - so that we are able to provide those kinds of comprehensive services to the people of the Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.
Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity North.
MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the report of the Select Committee respecting Bill 9, An Act To Provide For The Recovery Of Tobacco Related Health Care Costs.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a couple of comments. I commend the Committee for having made a commitment of such a dedicated period of time where, in a ten day period, we heard some twenty oral presentations and we reviewed some nine written presentations.
We are tabling this report today and recommending to the House that we would, in this sitting of the House, move unanimously this bill, moving forward and recommending its tabling to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to take a moment to respond to the point of order raised by the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board during Question Period. First of all, points of order normally, under the rules of our House, should be raised after Question Period. Having said that, I want to say to the Minister of Finance that the commentary made by myself in debate in this House in no way was meant to offend anybody. Schizophrenia is a very, very critical disease in this Province, affecting many families, including my own, I say to the minister. If you took offence, or if anyone else did, there was none meant.
I want to be very clear. My record in this House on matters of personality and those sorts of things speaks very clearly for itself. I want to clear up the matter raised by the President of Treasury Board, the Minister of Finance, right here, on the record, in the House, Mr. Speaker.
Petitions
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am pleased today to stand and present a petition to the House on behalf of over 700 people in the St. Mary's Bay area of my District of Placentia & St. Mary's. The prayer of the petition is as follows:
To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland, in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador ask for the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer.
We, the undersigned citizens of St. Mary's Bay Center area, hereby draw your attention to the unsatisfactory and unsafe conditions as they now exist on Route 90 of St. Mary's Bay.
WHEREAS it is the duty of government, through the enactment and enforcement of the Highways Safety Act, to protect its citizens not only from commuters but also from unsafe highways; and
WHEREAS the safety of the traveling public must be the number one priority of any government;
THEREFORE your petitioners ask that government provide the necessary funding to carry out the much needed repairs to Route 90;
As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, over 700 people signed this petition because they are very concerned about the highway on Route 90, which leads down into St. Mary's Bay.
Over the past winter the highway, in a lot of cases, has heaved and caused some major holes, and not just your ordinary hole in the pavement. Some of them have caused some major problems for commuters back and forth through that area, with a lot of damage being done to vehicles.
I talked recently to people who drive the ambulance in the St. Mary's Bay area. They are very, very concerned about the transporting of patients, people who are sick, over the highway. It is just incredible how rough it is. The petitioners feel that the government needs to address this situation in St. Mary's Bay. It is an issue that has been ongoing for quite some time and the people felt it necessary to present this petition to me to have brought forward to the House. Hopefully the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation is listening.
Last week we had an announcement of some funds that were going to be spent out of the budget for Works, Services and Transportation, going to be spent in Placentia & St. Mary's, to the tune of $575,000, but it did not address the concerns that were raised. It does not address the concerns that are raised in this petition. I say to the minister today that hopefully he will find, in his wisdom, that these people need some repairs and maintenance done to the roads in that area, and that the prayer of the petition would be answered, Mr. Speaker.
I put forward as one of my priorities to the department earlier the year, this Route 90 that leads down through St. Mary's Bay, because of the fact that each time I travel over that road myself, I know the condition of the road and know the concern the people have there. Certainly this is a concern that the people want addressed, if at all possible.
Therefore, I am very pleased today to present this petition. Hopefully, the 700 residents here will receive some type of answer from the minister in regard to funding to address this concern. We have many people who travel this road on a daily basis, Mr. Speaker, and from a safety point of view, if nothing else, these issues need to be of concern.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. MANNING: By leave, Mr. Speaker, just to finish up?
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
MR. MANNING: I understand the concerns that the government has in addressing all the issues that are out there in relation to road safety, Mr. Speaker, but this is a concern that the people of this area would like to have addressed. I am pleased to present the petition on their behalf today.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for The Straits & White Bay North.
MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to present a petition today on behalf of the people of Savage Cove in The Straits area. I will just read the prayer of the petition:
To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Savage Cove and supporters;
WHEREAS the road in Savage Cove is in deplorable condition;
WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to pave the Savage Cove road;
And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Transportation knows, earlier this spring I sent him a letter on the condition of roads in The Straits & White Bay North area. In this area we have roughly 100 kilometres of gravel road. Certainly, as he has heard me say from time to time earlier this year in the House, we have seasonal pavement in quite a number of areas. While the snow is on the ground, certainly the road is in great shape; but, as everybody knows, this time of the year the snow is gone, the pavement has melted, and we have a terrible mess on many of the roads in our district. Certainly, the Savage Cove road is no exception, and, as a matter of fact, is one of the worst roads in the whole of the area.
We have a fish plant out on the end of this road. The area is basically so bad now that the Department of Transportation can do nothing with it when it comes to grading. They grade it one day and the next day it is just as bad or worse than it was before. There is very little left to the road, and in this area here in the Strait of Belle Isle there has been nothing done, I say to the minister and to the House, with the roads in this area since the late 1970s, early 1980s when Route 430 was upgraded and paved; and the side roads in this area have never had anything more done with them than a grader shoved over them from time to time.
As I said, there is 100 kilometres of road in this area without pavement and in desperate need of upgrading. We saw last week, the minister put out a release and announced some $300,000 approximately in funding for road work in the area. Primarily that is to do culvert work, as I see it, on Route 430. No doubt some of that is needed, I guess, but really, if you look at the letter that was sent to him and you look at the really pressing concerns in the district, the real problem that we have is the 100 kilometres of gravel road and people having to beat over it daily; buses being torn up; transport trucks that are really running into exorbitant costs in trying to maintain them. Without some action on this, I am sure it is going to be very difficult to carry on industry in the area. It is hard to promote this area in tourism when, as we all know, motor homes certainly hide away from gravel roads, and this is one of the growing industries in our area.
I would urge the minister to look seriously at this area, the Savage Cove road and the other roads in The Straits & White Bay North District when he gets around to allocating the rest of his funds, and in future years -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. TAYLOR: - to look seriously at all roads in this area, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
Orders of the Day
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Motion 3, Mr. Speaker. I move first reading of a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No. 2. (Bill 20)
Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No 2," carried. (Bill 20)
On motion, Bill 20 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Order 19, Mr. Speaker, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The Shops' Closing Act. Bill 19.
Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Shops' Closing Act." (Bill 19)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Maybe the minister might want to say a few words to this piece of legislation. I would certainly sit down - I have a couple of comments - as long as I can get back up.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: By leave, yes.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Labour.
MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am pleased to stand today to introduce Bill 19, An Act To Amend The Shops' Closing Act. I would like to give you a slight bit of background on this particular bill. In January, 1998, when the Shops' Closing Act was passed, and it was amended to permit Sunday shopping, we were not looking ahead at the fact that July 1, which is Canada Day, every seven years, falls on a Sunday. This is an amendment to correct that issue. July 1, this year, is Canada Day, which is on a Sunday, and we want to be able to permit shops to close on that particular day rather than closing on the next day, which would be the second. This is really an amendment, a housekeeping issue.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I just want to say a few words on this piece of legislation, Bill 19, An Act To Amend The Shops' Closing Act. The minister makes her statement with respect to the background to this piece of legislation, and the background with respect to this piece of legislation is so similar to the background on lots of other legislation that comes before this House of Assembly, in that the government tries to push legislation through the House so very often. We make points on this side of the House and we made this very point here, from my memory. Now we are here, some three years later, correcting this piece of legislation, making an amendment to it, that could have easily been handled at that time.
I believe at the time we said: every seven years, July 1 is going to fall on a Sunday. We needed to make an amendment at that time to account for that, to allow for that.
MR. SULLIVAN: While they are amending that, every single session they are back (inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Yes, they will be back... There have been other occasions, too, according to the Member for Ferryland, saying that we have amended this, this past few years, on many occasions, and most of the times on points that we made previously.
Again, as I said earlier, we brought this up before and, of course, it is referred to as housekeeping legislation now. It is always the word that was used or would be used by the government when they want to change legislation that they should have had the foresight to see the problems arising in the future, and they did not on this piece of legislation.
On July 1, naturally, people want to be off. That is going to fall on Sunday this year and, rightfully so, they should be off. It is a very important day in Canada. Oftentimes we, as politicians, go to various communities within our districts, to flag-raising ceremonies, on July 1, to honor the war dead, actually; I suppose you would refer to it as that.
Again, there is not much more we can say on that. Hopefully the minister and other ministers on that side of the House will take more heed in what we say on this side of the House of Assembly.
Last week, we had the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs presenting a piece of legislation in this House, amendments to the Municipalities Act and the Municipal Elections Act, that probably should have been included in the changes back a couple of years ago to the Municipalities Act, when there were wholesale changes throughout the whole Municipalities Act, to which we again saw amendments before the House.
As I said last week when I was on my feet speaking to the piece of legislation that the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs was putting forth, it looked like this time he was doing it right with respect to that particular bill, in that he had consultation with the people who were involved, who would be impacted. We, as the Opposition, had a presentation by the people from Municipal Affairs, and a good presentation it was, Mr. Speaker, and hopefully there will be no major changes to that piece of legislation.
In the meantime, this Bill 19, An Act to Amend The Shops' Closing Act, I would have to agree with the minister: it is something that we need to do, to get it though in this sitting of the House, no doubt about that. I think we will have no problem on this side supporting it.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's West.
MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I, too, would like to say a few words on this bill. I agree with the bill and I also agree with my hon. colleague from Cape St. Francis. July1 is an important day in Canada and, as well, in Newfoundland, when we honour our war dead. I would like to take this opportunity to speak to the fact that there are other important days during the year, especially during the summer - they are: Mother's Day, Father's Day, the May 24th weekend, Labour Day, et cetera - that always fall on Sunday. I think that, rather than in a couple of years or next year to be making more amendments, we should also take a long, hard look at the quality of life that we have eroded in our Newfoundlanders by preventing many of them from their traditional going to the country for the weekend or going camping for the weekend because either the mom or the dad is working on Sunday; such as Mother's Day, Father's Day, Labour Day and other long weekends during the summer.
I do agree with this bill, but I would also like to ask the government if they would have a look at closing the stores on those days as well because we have eroded a way of life that was so dear to many of our Newfoundlanders.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Labour, if she speaks now she will close the debate.
MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to thank my hon. colleagues opposite for their contribution to this debate.
Mr. Speaker, I now move second reading of Bill 19.
Thank you.
On motion, a bill, "An Act to Amend The Shops' Closing Act" read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 19)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Order 17, Mr. Speaker, second reading of a bill, An Act to Amend The Schools Act,1997. (Bill 8)
Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Schools Act, 1997." (Bill 8)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of amendments that are being put forward for this particular bill.
AN HON. MEMBER: Already? (Inaudible).
MS FOOTE: No, these are the amendments to the act as listed on the bill.
Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here in subsection 65(3) of the act, we are asking to have that repealed and the following substituted. There is actually only one part of this to be added, Mr. Speaker.
It says, "A board shall not, in a fiscal year, incur, contract for or become liable for an expenditure or debt....." Mr. Speaker, the (b) part of that already exists, and what we are being advised to add is "unless the annual fiscal budget for that fiscal year has first been approved, in writing, by the minister". That is the amendment to subsection 65(3).
Mr. Speaker, subsection 79(2) of the act is being amended by adding immediately after the word "for" the words "not more than".
Mr. Speaker, what this means in terms of contracts of employment for directors of education is, it simply means that the boards would have the flexibility to hire for anywhere up to five years instead of the standard five years. We have had a request from a board to, in fact, go down this path, with the agreement, of course, with the director of education to be hired, and the board. So, this is just giving the board that flexibility, nothing more. Of course, they can continue to hire for five years. It just says for the words "not more than".
Section (2), "Section 79 of the Act is amended by adding immediately after subsection (3) the following: (4) Notwithstanding that a board may employ a director or an assistant director under this section, a contract of employment between a board and a director or an assistant director shall not be entered into without the prior written approval of that contract by the minister and a contract of employment entered into without that approval shall be void."
Mr. Speaker, I think most of us will recall the Ministerial Panel Report on Education Delivery in the Classroom, which was written by two very eminent education people in the Province, Dr. Len Williams and Dr. Ron Sparkes. Recommendation 65, in fact, suggested or recommended that the directors of education report to the minister. Mr. Speaker, I think in talking with the stakeholders in education, particularly with the school boards and with the education directors, there was a difficulty with that, and one that I appreciated, and hope to find a compromise that would, in fact, ensure that would never be the case, where the directors of education would in fact be hired by the minister and reporting to the minister. That certainly is not the case and it was never intended to be the case, certainly not by this government.
The compromise, Mr. Speaker, that is being proposed would essentially see the contract of employment that is entered into between the board and the employee being signed off by the minister. That is in keeping with the idea of ensuring that the compensation and the benefit package is in keeping with the pay plan as presently exists.
Mr. Speaker, those are the amendments that are being sought to the education act. The idea here is nothing more than to respond - as the members opposite will understand - to criticisms from the Auditor General, who, every report for the last four years, has talked about the lack of accountability; and also on the advice of our solicitor. This is the basis on which we are moving forward with these. Clearly, it is not meant and it certainly will not put any kind of control on the board. Mr. Speaker, it is not meant to be controlling. It is meant to be working together to again show the public at large that we are all accountable. Certainly, government is accountable to the people we serve. We put about half of a billion dollars into the K-12 education system, so we need to speak to the accountability for those dollars just as the boards, of course, are accountable to the people they serve, and just as the schools are accountable to the school boards.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.
MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I, too, rise to speak on Bill 8, An Act To Amend The Schools Act, 1997. I am surprised by what I hear across this House as I stand here now. I cannot believe that this minister would get up and simply slough this off as a little bit of housekeeping; because, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, this is a lot more than housekeeping.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON: What I say to the minister is: She is trying to do something through the back door that she could not do through the front door. That is the housekeeping that she is doing.
Mr. Speaker, this particular amendment to a bill is not housekeeping. In order for us to understand why it is not housekeeping, I, too, will go back to the reports of Mr. Williams, but I go back to the original report of 1992. In this original report of 1992, there was a recommendation or recommendations that clearly indicated that boards were moving in a direction of autonomy, where they would be trusted, whether it is with one dollar or the millions of dollars that the minister just referred to; that they were supposed to be moving along in a direction whereby they would be taking responsibility for the delivery of education in the Province. I reference, when I talk about it, and I go back to the original report in 1992, Recommendation 203, I say to the minister. It is under Financing Education. It says, "that government increase its commitment to education and reallocate within the education system any savings realized through restructuring." Any savings, I say to them, Mr. Speaker, any savings. That commitment was made, and I ask about that commitment. Any savings, it says.
It goes on to say, minister, in Recommendation 204 from that report, "that the Department of Education replace the present system of allocating resources with a block funding formula." Now block funding, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, gives the boards the autonomy. Now, here we had a recommendation for the department to give the boards the responsibility to, I guess, take care of their finances. That was in 1992, and this recommendation stood, I say, Minister, until the latest report of last year.
So, when we look at amendments coming in, we see these amendments to the bill moving further away from the original design of this particular report. What is happening here?
MR. E. BYRNE: It was the intent of the legislation (inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: Exactly. This is not anyone else's responsibility or legislation, Minister, this is this government's promise prior to the referendum. This was the promise that this government made to make sure that we were following a path that was true reform.
MR. SULLIVAN: It was circulated to every household in the Province.
MR. HEDDERSON: It was a guide that went out. It started in 1992 and it went on up until 1996, and of course in 1997 came the restructuring, I say, Mr. Speaker.
That is only one part of these amendments, and that deals with finance. I will get back to the present, but I still, Mr. Speaker, have to go back into the past. I reference again the 1992 report with regard to personnel. Again, if you follow along with me you will see that the direction in the early 1990s was to give the responsibilities of running the school system not entirely - we expect accountability, but we expect that the boards were going to get closer and closer to the elected, democratic, autonomous boards which they should be.
I reference again with regard to personnel - and this goes back to 1992, I say, Mr. Speaker, and it is recommendation 29. This is important because less than ten years later we have a whole different direction. Recommendation 29, says, "that school boards be resourced in a manner which allows both flexibility and discretion in employing and deploying personnel at the school board level." Now, Mr. Speaker, to me that says, once again, that it is the elected trustees of the school boards - they are elected, they are democratically elected - and these people were going to be given responsibility for the financing and they were going to be given responsibility for the personnel. Yet we find the minister bringing forth today an amendment to that act that takes that away altogether.
A second recommendation on the organization and administration of schools is recommendation 49, Mr. Speaker. It says, "that, in order to achieve a high level of autonomy and flexibility, school boards determine who should be employed, for what purposes, where, and for what periods of time for all personnel at the school board level." Mr. Speaker, I can't put it any clearer than that. That was the promise that was made in Dr. Williams' report of 1992 that was in place right up until last year.
Mr. Speaker, where then are these amendments coming from? I ask you, Mr. Speaker, where are these recommendations coming from? Because, again there must have been a great deal of consultation, there had to be, to bring about changes of this nature which means - and the changes would be, that the budgets of a school board - and I say because I have been party to listening to, looking at, been part of the process of putting together a budget with regard to a school board. First up, I say, Mr. Speaker, they are looking at - and by law they cannot operate on a deficit, so it is priorities. They have to go with priorities. These trustees -
MR. ANDERSEN: (Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: I can't hear what the Member for Torngat Mountains is saying but I don't think I need to hear it.
Mr. Speaker, just to get back to the work that goes into a school board putting together a budget. It is not an easy thing because in some cases they have maybe ten, twenty, thirty, forty schools or more that they have to look at the priorities of. They have to determine and have to turn around and say to some principals, say to some teachers, say to parents: We cannot afford to do this. We are stretching our budget as much as we possibly can. They plod on and put their budgets in place, but they put them in place because they go to a lot of consultation. They have good, solid personnel at the board office. There is, in all boards, an assistant director of finance. The job of that particular assistant director is to make sure that all the budgetary restraints, or whatever, are looked at and that it is presented to the elected trustees. They grapple back and forth, and they do hours and hours of preparation. Can you imagine the insult - when they have gone through this process - for the minister then to ask them to submit that budget, which they have gone through - for sometimes weeks, sometimes months - for her approval? I say to you, Mr. Speaker - and this is out of the blue.
I had looked in both reports of recommendations and I have not found a single reference that asks that the submission of budget, or anything to do with budget, with regard to submitting it to the minister for approval, I say to you, Mr. Speaker. So here is the budget. Let's say it is done, because one of the things about pre-budget that the school boards have to go through is that they have to submit a list of priorities and anything associated with the budget to the minister prior to it, and it goes into the Department of Education. That might go in in April. It might go in February, or whenever it goes in, and then the minister's officials will look at it and then send it back to the board; but that is pre-budget stuff. After looking at that, can you imagine then putting the budget together for the board, these elected trustees, to be asked to submit the budget back into the minister so it can be slashed and cut.
Again, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, it is very, very important that this bill be withdrawn because the nature of this bill is not what it appears to be. It is not what the minister has indicated. This bill will bring our educational reform back more steps than it will advance us, I can guarantee you that.
The question again arises with regard to the minister, the Department of Education putting serious restrictions, as is indicated, on these amendments, on the trustees, and on the school boards. What is going on, I ask? Mr. Speaker, I ask: What is the intent of these amendments? What is the intent of them?
MR. HARRIS:: Tell us.
MR. HEDDERSON: I am getting to it.
I am telling you, I say to the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, that originally when these amendments were put forth they looked like housekeeping, but it is not housekeeping, let me tell you.
The point of it - and just to digress a little bit, you wonder when the Schools Act has been changed. Mr. Speaker, I say to you, how important - and the minister often reminds me how the consultation process is the most important part of, I guess, any change that might come about; that it is so important to get to the stakeholders. The stakeholders are the ones who are going to feel the benefits or the ill-effects of any change that comes about. So I say, Mr. Speaker, where is the consultation here? Where is the consultation? Because from my understanding, and I stand to be corrected - it is my understanding that there was consultation from the boards. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, because what I am hearing is that there was no consultation. When we look at the text of what the amendments are, I would suggest to you, that there were school trustees, there were school chairs, and there were directors in this Province who had never seen it; had never, ever seen what this bill is all about. Now, if you call that consultation certainly I will sit down.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, I know there is no need to sit down because I know what happened with this particular amendment to The Schools Act and how important it is that this bill be taken off the Order Paper. When the minister got up today and talked about the amendments, I kind of said: Huh, thank heavens, at least she can see that what was originally intended was not the way to go; but, the minister reminded me that the amendments she was talking about are the ones that are in that particular bill, Bill 8.
To get back to it, Mr. Speaker, it is important that we look at all facets, all aspects of the presentation of this bill. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the consultation was lacking. There was not, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, proper consultation here. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say there was an attempt to slip this bill through. Because when you look at what goes on in this House and the access that people have to what goes on in this House, things can happen in here that people might never notice until it is too late. That is the responsibility, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, of the Opposition, to make the government accountable for their actions.
This particular bill, this amendment to the Schools Act must stop here, and the minister must go back to the people who are most affected by these and by that I say the school boards of this Province, the directors of this Province. She has to go back and account for why she tried to push this bill through without their knowledge.
The question still remains - and it is an overall question, I say to you, Mr. Speaker: What is going on here? Because I know, I was part of the system in the early 1990s to the mid-1990s. There was a great deal of optimism for proper reform to take place. A great deal of optimism. So much optimism that when the referendum took place in, I believe 1996-997, that really and honestly there was a movement throughout all of this Province to get it through, to get on with reform. Part of the reform was to give voices to the people who were most involved in education, namely; school trustees, the teachers and teaching staff, board staff, and also the parents of this Province. These were the people who were sold on the idea that the Department of Education was opening up its doors, opening up its windows and allowing true reform to take place.
When we get beyond that middle time and we find that a lot of the savings are gone - God knows where - now that all the schools that are going to be closed, for the most part are closed, they are gone. Now that - and I hate to say it - the dirty work is done. I stood in this House the other day and responded to the minister's statement that there was an election coming up in September for school board trustees. Now, I got up and said: Well, minister, thank you for the information; but I say to you, minister, I hope that there will be enough trustees to put their names forward because this government hid behind school boards for too many years, put too much pressure on trustees, and I hope that they would have, I guess -
MR. E. BYRNE: A full slate.
MR. HEDDERSON: - a full slate of candidates, because we need a full slate of candidates. We need trustees who have just come through, what I consider, a war. These trustees put their names forward in 1997 and let me tell you, if you talk to them today, many of them did not know what they were getting into, but they are still there today. They are still plodding on, but they need the support of the department, they need the support of a government.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, I am not exactly sure that you are going to get a full slate. I hope you do. In the midst of that I was told that I was slandering. As a matter of fact, the term that was used by one of the ministers on the other side was that I was scurrilous in what I was saying, because he misinterpreted what I was saying. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I have a great deal of respect for the school trustees of this Province. They have done a monumental task in the last couple of years.
To get back to my original, what is happening now that the dirty work is done is that the government is starting to reel in any type of autonomy that these democratically elected school board trustees have. So, Mr. Speaker, there is something going on here that we need to have fully exposed, that will not be by the passing of these amendments to the Schools Act. They cannot go forward until the department and this government steps back and fully consults with the people who are going to be most affected by these amendments. The amendments that I refer to are the ones dealing with the budget, having to go through for approval of the minister, and also with regard to the contracts of the directors and assistant directors, that the conditions and everything have to be applied.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: First, I say to my colleague, I am up on education today and I cannot remember bringing in hospital boards or anything.
MR. E. BYRNE: Tell him they appoint hospital boards; they don't elect them.
MR. HEDDERSON: That is what I was just getting at, I say to the Leader of the Opposition. When it comes to school boards, these are elected trustees, and they are trustees. If you just look at the word, trustee. Let me just look at trustee for a minute. As I say, Mr. Speaker, trustee means somebody that you trust; someone you would put the education of our children in their hands. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, I am comfortable in putting that trust in their hands.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON: I am very comfortable, but I don't think the Minister of Education, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, is comfortable in putting the trust in the trustees.
MR. SULLIVAN: They are not happy with those trustees over there.
MR. HEDDERSON: Absolutely, and these are elected trustees. It again begs the question: What is going on here? What is going on here is -
AN HON. MEMBER: Control.
MR. HEDDERSON: Absolutely; control.
AN HON. MEMBER: The dirty work is done now.
MR. HEDDERSON: The dirty work is done. Now let's get on to the glory. I do not know why but the glory times are supposed to be coming now. We can see that the boards are not at all amused by these amendments coming forward. What they see by these amendments is again, the Department of Education, this government, trying to manage or micro-manage the doings of the Province from the West Block. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that is not fair. With the sacrifices that have gone on over the last number of years - the tears, the emotions - I will tell you, you have to go down to a school board meeting and see trustees lined up in a gymnasium facing probably 500, 400, 300 parents and students, and they have to -
MR. E. BYRNE: Seven hundred.
MR. HEDDERSON: Seven hundred (inaudible).
- and they have to make really hard decisions. They know that whatever decision they make - if you close school A and leave B open, you know what is going to happen, or vice versa, Mr. Speaker. They have had pretty difficult times, and this is how the Minister of Education will treat them. She will try to slip through a bill, an amendment to the Schools Act, to take away the little bit of autonomy that they have. It is most unfortunate.
The minister bases her amendments on, I believe, Recommendation 65 from the current Williams-Sparkes report. Recommendation 65 clearly states, just for the record: "that the Schools Act (1997) be amended to accommodate a change to the legislative procedures for the appointment, termination and accountability of school district directors to parallel that of the model in place under the Colleges Act (1996)." I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this virtually snatches a valued leader, a valued partner, that the school board would have searched for; would have gone through the interview process and would have put someone in place - I say the directors and assistant directors. For them to go through that process, Mr. Speaker, of searching out and finding that very valued facilitator, director, leader, whatever name you want to put on him or her, and the assistant director, to take care of the business of the school board, only to find that once they have hired this particular person, it has to go into the minister to approve and make the conditions.
Again, Recommendation 65 should be taken out and done away with because that is the feeling - and we know it is the feeling, minister, as you know it is the feeling. These amendments that the minister is putting forth are not in keeping with the general consensus of the schools boards, the trustees, or the directors. She knows that. The minister knows that. So, the right thing to do in this circumstance is to pull back; to pull back in such a way that you open up communications with these groups, and you talk it through; but pushing it through is not the way to go.
Mr. Speaker, it has to be taken off the Order Paper. I would trust the minister to do that because if it is not done, where are the school boards going? Where are they going? We have an election coming up in a scant few months. We are hoping that we will get a good slate, a full slate of trustees to run for the post to, once again, bring the education system of Newfoundland and Labrador further along. We see that it is not going to happen if these trustees are looking at being seriously curtailed in their autonomy. We have to remember that the trustees are elected. By the very fact that they are elected makes them responsible. They are in responsible positions. They do not take lightly the responsibilities of being a trustee. It is so important that we move the reform of the education of Newfoundland and Labrador down the right path, but if it continues on -
MR. BARRETT: You are singing from a different hymn book today.
MR. E. BYRNE: In what way, Percy?
MR. HEDDERSON: If my colleague wants to get up on a point - do you want to get up on a point of order? If he wants to get up on a point of order, I will sit down. I certainly will.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what hymn book he is referring to. The hymn book that I am looking at involves the children of this Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON: I will sing a song - and I don't care about singing songs. I will sing a song, Mr. Speaker, for the children.
MR. E. BYRNE: Inside here or outside there.
MR. HEDDERSON: Yes, inside or outside.
I don't take a position on things like bulk water one day and then the next day change it. I don't stand in this House, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, and support a bill only to turn around later on and withdraw that support. We have to, but I got away from what -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I have to get back. This is so important. These amendments are so important. I apologize for allowing myself to respond to the hon. member over there.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: Yes, and I am glad. I will go on the record here now because I know that this same member, the Member for Bellevue, stood in this House and said: What's the big deal? One school board in the whole Province. It precipitated me asking the minister questions as to whether the direction of the government was going towards one school board. That is the member who just told me that I am singing from another hymn book.
MR. BARRETT: You are up all the time saying the school board should not close this school. In my district you were up (inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: I say to you, Mr. Speaker, again it is good that the Member for Bellevue goes back to school closings because that was the hardest thing for anyone. This is what I am saying about the trustees. Can you imagine trustees having to close as many schools as they did? I am telling you it is awful because they did -
MR. BARRETT: (Inaudible) interfering with the school boards, representing your party (inaudible).
AN HON. MEMBER: What does that have to do with (inaudible)?
MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I will continue if I could because I think - don't even think, I know - this is an important bill in the sense that it has to be stopped. I am sure that in the debate that is going on now we will be able to, on both sides of the House, see that these amendments are unraveling any progress that we have made in education in the last ten years when we talk about reform. Unravel is what I am saying, because you can't get back something. We need to move along.
Now that the restructuring is gone, for the most part, there may be some schools that will have to close out. I am not sure of the number, but now, for once in a long time, the trustees can get within the schools. They are not having all their time taken up with closing schools, negative things, if you want to look at it in that context. Now they were excited about getting into the classrooms and negotiating, partnering, cooperating with the department, with this government, to move forward and get into the classrooms, get into the curriculum, get into fixing the roofs so that there is no leaking, get into cleaning up the schools, getting into these positive things that would only serve to move education forward in Newfoundland. But what do we have, Mr. Speaker? We have a minister now who will bring forward amendments without proper consultation. She will put them on the table of this House and say that they are housekeeping. Housekeeping! I said to her at the beginning that the only housekeeping she is doing is bringing something in through the backdoor that she would not bring in through the front door. These amendments have to be taken off the Order Paper.
The minister is trying to put the department, to put this government, in a position where they are managing - and I say managing - the affairs of elected representatives in this Province, our trustees. They are named aptly, because these are just regular ordinary people who have an inkling that their participation can help maybe one child, two children, or a lot of children, Mr. Speaker. That is what they are there for, but they are not going to be there just to be rubber stamps for anyone; because these trustees have an awesome responsibility, and you only have to talk to any of them to know that they take it seriously.
We want to make sure that the reform promises that were made in the early 1990s - and not only were they made, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, but they are written down. I read some of them already today; I do not need to go any deeper than that. The government knows they are there, the public knows they are there, and they have waited with bated breath to see great changes come about in education, and they have been disappointed, Mr. Speaker. This is yet another disappointment, in this case, because the average person out there does not even know this debate is going on. But, I tell you, the trustees, they thought enough about it because they are in
this building today, I say to you, Mr. Speaker.
I was surprised when I looked up today to see, I will not call him my former boss because I am on leave -
AN HON. MEMBER: They were on that side of the House; now they have switched over here (inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: I did not realize, they are still with us. I cannot make reference to them but, as a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I happen to be on leave from -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) go back there. You will be here forever.
MR. HEDDERSON: The minister, not too long ago, Mr. Speaker, called me a former teacher. I say to the minister that my boss is up in the gallery today. If and when I decide to return to the classroom -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON: What is that?
AN HON. MEMBER: Some days you have two bosses.
MR. HEDDERSON: Some days, yes. I have been reminded that even today I have two bosses up in the gallery. Again, a bit of levity, I guess, is okay.
To get back to the seriousness of it, Mr. Speaker, it is so important that the trustees of this Province be permitted to do what they were elected to do, and that is to run the affairs of the school boards of the schools that are in their jurisdiction. They have done a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous - I cannot say it enough - job to this point in time.
There have been speed bumps along the way but, I tell you, to get a full appreciation of those speed bumps, attend a public meeting involving trustees and the parents. Get into these school board meetings. See the school board trustees going from school to school, looking at the needs of the students, responding to the needs of the students. Look at the directors, because the directors, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, are very, very important - the selection of the directors and the working relationship that the directors have with the elected trustees of the board. I cannot stress enough, Mr. Speaker, that important, important relationship; because both of those working together: the elected trustees, not only the directors, too. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, not only the directors. The director is, I guess you would call, the chair or the chief officer. The assistant directors, the board personnel, the staffs in the school, all of these people have to be working in a partnership. They have to be given the resources to be able to move forward in education in Newfoundland and Labrador.
If they are not given the resources, what is going to happen? You are going to get trustees who are going to get frustrated. You are going to get trustees who are saying, what are we here for? That gets down to these two amendments - I should not say two amendments, there are three - these amendments to the Schools Act, because if indeed the minister, the department, or the government are going to be responsible for hiring, for setting out the contracts, if they are going to be responsible for approving the budget, the question is: Why would the school boards be in operation at all? Is the minister, by moving forward with these amendments, going down the road that the Member for Bellevue brought up last year? Is this a move to not only limit the powers of the school board, but is this a move to change the structure as we know it now? Maybe in their minds, and in the mind of this government, again, if the dirty work is done, let's go for the glory now. Let's move along so that the repairs to the building, the new buildings - I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I can almost tell you, I can rattle it off now, the press releases that the Minister of Education put out, because it goes back.
I do not know if the minister wants to go back. Do you want to revisit? Let me revisit this one for you. I am glad, Minister, that you brought it up. I beg the indulgence of the Speaker. This is indicative of this government, and I call it flip-flop. I was taken to task here on a point of privilege from the Minister of Education, who stood in this House and looked across at me and said: You, as a former teacher, should know better. I have not changed my position. I have not done anything. I have not.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON: You talk about flip- flops. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that is what is happening now. They are good at it, because this was the latest one on language arts. It was May 5. This is the position that the minister said that she had taken from the beginning, that she understood fully, right from the beginning, that integration of the language arts was the thing to do, and she was not taking any time from music or anything else. That is the position. Now I have to find the position; I hope it is here. Oh, here it is. Now, this is May 15.
AN HON. MEMBER: May 5.
MR. HEDDERSON: Oh, I am sorry, May 5. My apologies.
Let me go back to the day after Valentine's, on February 15. Now, the position of the minister, she got up on a point of privilege and said: I have not changed my position, integration across the language arts. This was sent to all of Newfoundland and Labrador. This was not like the bill, just tried to pass in here unbeknownst to anyone. I will get right to the chase. It says, "What, exactly, is being changed?" Remember, the minister said integration. It says, "Right now, most students in Grades 1 to 3 spend 60 % (generally 3 hours per day) of class time in language arts (reading, writing and drama)...."
Now, remember, that is 25 per cent for language arts, 25 per cent for math, technology and science, and 10 per cent optional. That is the 10 per cent optional that is there. So, that is 60 per cent - and mathematics. "The plan is to increase this time to 70 % (3 ½ hours per day)."
MR. SULLIVAN: What did she say about that?
MR. HEDDERSON: Well, it is 10 per cent she is taking from somewhere. In this one, she says: No, no.
Let me go on a bit further. Again, the crux of the point of privilege was that she was not taking anything away. She had never intended it to be, but it is signed down here in the bottom.
MR. SULLIVAN: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts..
MR. HEDDERSON: Yes, I digress here.
She is not taking anything away from anything else; never changed that position. She says, "As you saw above, the reduction in the other 6 subjects..." - not integration, not inclusion; but, as a former teacher, I do not know the difference. Maybe you should have put me on detention, I say to the Speaker, right?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON: Better still, maybe I could have done with some peer counseling from the minister.
MR. SULLIVAN: Not on math, I hope.
MR. HEDDERSON: Oh, no, not math; because, as it stands,110 per cent.
Let me just finish up. Again, I say, Mr. Speaker, that it is clearly a change in position of the minister where it says, "...the reduction in the other 6 areas (art, music, physical education, social studies, health and religious education) totals about ½ hour per day - literally only minutes per subject."
Mr. Speaker, I say to the minister, we know what it is like for you to change positions. I do know what it is like. The minister does not always admit when, indeed, she is changing position, and certainly gets up on points of privilege to make her point. In this particular case, we have a debate going on in the House. It is obvious that again a change in position is happening here. It is happening here because the minister wants, as I said at the beginning, to do something through the back door that she could not do through the front door; because she knows that she will not get approval for these amendments outside of this House. Mr. Speaker, she will not get approval - not from the trustees. I certainly say to the minister that she is not getting it from this side of the House.
We need the minister to step forward now, Mr. Speaker, and own up to her lack of consultation, own up to putting forth amendments that are not in keeping with the promises of reform through the nineties, and to put in place, if anything, amendments that will support the autonomy of the school boards in this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I say to you that it is absolutely imperative that the minister realize how foolhardy it is to try and micromanage school boards from the confines of her office in the West Block.
MR. SULLIVAN: She might withdraw it.
MR. HEDDERSON: I would suspect that she will withdraw it, because it needs to be
withdrawn. It absolutely needs to be.
More serious thought has to be given now to the relationship between the Department of Education, between this government and the school boards. When I say school boards, let me qualify that, Mr. Speaker. When I say school boards, I have to take into account the trustees who are elected to that post and entrusted with putting forth the best delivery of education. I have to talk about the personnel in that school board, not only in the school board offices but in the schools throughout this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I have to talk about the parents in these schools - not necessarily in the schools, but whose children are in the schools, and their guardians. I have to talk about the communities. I have to talk just about every facet of society in our particular Province. I know, when the budget came down, I have to admit, I was optimistic, because all I could see was youth and that this was an education budget, that this was going to move us along. In due regard to the government, there was certainly an attempt to move forward in construction, and roofs, and so on and so forth; but, on top on that, to slap the trustees in the face with amendments such as these.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker: How can the department, how can the minister, expect partnerships, collaboration? How can the minister expect to get things done that need to be done? It does not always, as I say to you, Mr. Speaker, involve money. We have a tendency to talk about money, but this is not a money issue except that the budget has to be put in to the minister. This is an issue of power, I suppose. As I said at the beginning when I first got up, Mr. Speaker, it is so, so important that the boards remain as autonomous as possible. I know they have to have a partnership back and forth with the department. You cannot run the education system, but there are certain sacred things when it comes to elected representatives. We have to be absolutely sure, I say, that we carry on.
How much time have I got left.
AN HON. MEMBER: You have twelve minutes.
MR. HEDDERSON: Twelve minutes. Do I want to go on?
MR. SULLIVAN: It is up to yourself.
MR. HEDDERSON: What is your judgement? Have I said enough? I am after going through two Speakers. I am after wearing out two Speakers.
AN HON. MEMBER: This is the third Speaker now, isn't it?
MR. SULLIVAN: Don't wear out the third one.
MR. HEDDERSON: Madam Speaker, my colleague has indicated that I am going through Speakers today like nothing else.
Again, Madam Speaker, just to go back over where we are in this very, very important bill to amend the schools act, certainly, I say, should be taken off the Table and put in a place never to see the light of day.
Now, there is a clause in it regarding the transitional section that it is no longer required in the act, and I would assume - well, we should not assume anything - that particular part of the act may have outlived its usefulness. The transitional section from 1997 is gone by.
When it comes to other parts of it - and again I say to you, Madam Speaker, that Clause 2 of the bill is intended to repeal and replace subsection 65(3) to add a requirement for ministerial approval for the annual budget of the board. Again, I find this insulting, insulting in the sense that there is a great deal of work that the schools boards of this Province put into balancing their particular budgets. And I mean work! The thing about it, Madam Speaker, is that, you know, you can budget all you like, but just think about this past winter, and again you cannot help but feel for trustees putting together a budget and then being hit with a tremendous snow-clearing bill, being hit with, I guess, roofs that are leaking because of the weather conditions and trying to keep up that. So, budgets in the best of times, Madam Speaker, are very, very difficult to put together but - and it is a but - the boards do the job that they are required to do. They are guided by the schools act which clearly states to them that they have to run a budget that is not a deficit budget, and, if for any reason whatsoever, a deficit is looming and they know they cannot do without a deficit, they have to go back to the Minister of Education, under the current legislation, and get approval. Again, that is understandable, because you do not know what is going to hit at any particular time. These are school buildings, they are aging. You have curriculum concerns sometimes, replacement of books, and you can go on right down through the whole thing.
Again I find it insulting, Madam Speaker, for the assistant director and the director. You start off with the director, the assistant director of finance, all the support staff around, and everyone in the school board office have to put in their budgets. They spend hours and hours trying to stretch the resources of the board, and they do everything. Everyone has their hand out, as you can well imagine, but again, the directors and the trustees have to say no. They have to make some heart-wrenching decisions about: Will you repair the roof down here, or will you leave that one for another year and go somewhere else? Can we put an extra bus on here? Can we do this? Can we pave this lot? There are so many concerns that they have to juggle. It is a juggling act. As I said, it is not done overnight.
When, I guess, one school year ends, or one budget year ends, they have already put a great deal of work into the budget. I cannot imagine these trusted individuals putting together, in Committee, putting it to the full board, explaining everything, only to then have to turn around and send it in to the Department of Education, Madam Speaker. Now, it is not bad sending it in, if it would come back in the same form.
AN HON. MEMBER: Ask the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The Auditor General requested they do that. You should read the report. They requested that because (inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: How many people on the PAC? Seven. Four from government -
MR. HEDDERSON: We can't deflect on anything else, I say to the member. Madam Speaker, we can't deflect on other things. It is an attempt here, perhaps, to get me off the school board issue. That is something, I say to the member, that he should take up with the Chair. I think if he took it up with the Chair that his answers would be adequately taken care of.
To get back, Madam Speaker, to what I was talking about, I am just trying to sum up everything that I have been saying, and just going down through it. I still have some time, I see. When you are looking at, as I have pointed out, the process that goes on in the board offices of this Province for weeks and months at a time, trying to work within the limits that are placed upon them by the government, I tell you they do a good job, they do an excellent job. They should be complimented and encouraged, because they are the front line people, they are the ones who, if there is a leak in the roof, get the phone call first. When there is not something right they are the ones who have to take the heat, if you want to put it that way. They are the ones who have to try and juggle things to get the priorities done, to get the needs done.
As I said, Madam Speaker, it is insulting for me to have to stand here and try to have the Minister of Education take, from the table, these amendments. The boards of this Province do an excellent job with the resources that they have. They are trained professionals. They are elected trustees who, through a democratic process, come up with the best possible budget. Before I was interrupted on the other side, Madam Speaker, to be asked then to take a budget they have worked on for months and send it in to the Department of Education, not necessarily the minister, but to let it go through all the different departments and have it slashed, cut, changed and come back. Even if it wasn't touched, just the very fact that they have to do that. They are elected trustees, they have a responsibility that is covered by the law of this land. They are elected by the people.
AN HON. MEMBER: The same as us.
MR. HEDDERSON: No different from us as members of this House of Assembly. They should be accorded the same respect. This is a matter of, not dollars and cents, this is a matter, Madam Speaker, of respect. It is the respect that I see that is not there that is coming from these amendments to the schools act.
The second thing that I would like to look at, because there are two things - one is to have the trustees put in to the department, to the minister, a budget which they have already heart-wrenchingly put together. If that is not insulting enough, the second part of these amendments will take from the elected trustees - and these elected trustees, I say to you, Madam Speaker, have a feeling for their particular school board. I suppose, what I am trying to say is that all the school boards are not alike. They represent different parts of this Province, and there are cultural concerns. You know what I mean? There are so many differences within their schools and so on that they try as best they can to bring out in a positive way. So, here you have a group that are then asked to go forward and find a director who is going to oversee the professional operation of that board. The school board on the West Coast and the school board on the East Coast have different philosophies as to the type of person that they might want at that particular time.
Is this amendment saying that that is not to happen anymore, that when they go out and search across this nation, across the world, and they advertise for a director of education for a particular board - and they do this because they want the very best person to lead the professional part of that board. They do the search, and not only do they do the search but they do the hiring, they do the interviewing. I know what the interviewing is about. You don't get one or two candidates applying for these positions, you might get hundreds. You have to screen through it, you have to set up to get them in from perhaps other parts of Canada, you have to set up a search committee and you have to set up an interview committee. It is not the easiest thing in the world, I say to you, Madam Speaker. Again, you don't put it in the paper one day and hire someone the next. You have got to be sure that the person you are going to hire is the person who is going to do the best job at that particular time.
Can you imagine elected trustees, professional staff, doing that process and then pushing it forward, saying, we have our man or woman, this is the person that we want? Can you imagine how insulting it is to have to turn around then and send in to the Department of Education for them to analyze what you have done, for them to decide on what the contract would be, the conditions would be, not only for the director, Madam Speaker, but also for the assistant directors? I say to you, Madam Speaker, once again interfering with the operations of a duly elected board.
MR. SULLIVAN: It is the same as them doing it in the first place themselves.
MR. HEDDERSON: Exactly.
MR. SULLIVAN: The same thing.
MR. HEDDERSON: Exactly.
I say to you, Madam Speaker, that these two points are insulting, not only to me but to all of the general public of Newfoundland and Labrador, insulting in the sense that the promise of reform was to push our education system along, to give autonomy to those who are closest and know best what should be happening in the schools of our Province. I contend, Madam Speaker, that these amendments are seriously unraveling any movement forward with regard to governance, and we are stepping backwards if these amendments go forward.
So, I respectfully ask, Madam Speaker, that the Minister of Education do the right thing, and the right thing in this circumstance is to withdraw from the Table of this House those amendments which talk about the budget and the employment of the directors and the assistant directors in the school boards of this Province.
I ask, then, that she do everything possible to repair any damage that these amendments would have had in the relationship between the department and the boards, and to move forward in a spirit of co-operation.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!
I remind the hon. member that his time is up.
MR. HEDDERSON: Just one last statement. Basically, Madam Speaker, I hope that the minister will rise and do the right thing.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MADAM SPEAKER (M. Hodder): The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I sat and listened quietly as the hon. member was speaking to this particular bill. I say to the hon. member, yes it is strange in the context of - but I wanted to hear what he had to say because it is amazing to me how much an audience influences the description that the hon. member portrays of school trustees.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. MATTHEWS: Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member in complete silence when he spoke and I think it is only appropriate that I ask that he listen to me in complete silence.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. MATTHEWS: It was only -
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. MATTHEWS: It was only, Madam Speaker, four days ago that I was caused to rise in this House on a point of personal privilege because of the level and extent of the insulting comments that were made by the hon. member with respect to the capacity of school trustees in this Province to do their work in the context of their responsibilities.
I refer to questions that were raised in Question Period, or a response to a statement by the minister who was commending school trustees for their contribution to the educational system in this Province. The hon. member rose in his place - and I have the comments here. I can give him a copy of it. He said this precisely about trustees in the Province: Mr. Speaker, they are used. The government is using school boards for their own particular purposes. Now the comment that he made was to assert in this House that school trustees in this Province are no more - in terms of their capacity and ability - than potted plants at school board tables taking muted direction from government so as to do government's bidding without being able to apply their own mind and intelligence to the execution of their responsibilities.
I say to the hon. member, Madam Speaker, that when I rose in this House as a former trustee, I was insulted. I was offended. I was taken aback, quite frankly, by the comments that the hon. member made that cast very serious aspersions on the type of people that run to be trustees and on the level of competence that those people have, and on their willingness not to act independently.
Madam Speaker, if there is anything which confirms that he insulted trustees is the fact that he cannot keep his mouth shut now while I am talking, as I did when he was talking.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. MATTHEWS: Madam Speaker, because the Chair has not yet ruled on the commentary of the hon. member, derogatory in my judgement, to the role of school trustees. I ask if he would not take the opportunity now to rise in this House and withdraw the ‘slurrilous' scurrilous comments that he made with respect to school trustees in this Province.
MR. E. BYRNE: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order.
MR. E. BYRNE: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order to correct the information put forward by the minister.
In a shameless show for the gallery he is trying to impugn and put words of the education critic onto the floor that did not happen. In his own words, on that day, he said: "Essentially, Mr. Speaker, my interpretation of what he is saying..." Now that is what the minister is referring to now. His own interpretation. The interpretation is very clear. What the member said is that he complimented school trustees. He said it here. He complimented the work that school trustees had done in very challenging and very difficult times, based on his own conversations with those who had served in that elected role.
The member went on to say that because of these challenging and difficult times he felt, based upon conversations he had, that many would not offer themselves. He basically said, Madam Speaker, that he hoped many would offer themselves again but he remained unconvinced because in the years during the most contentious time under school reform - and the acts that were put in place in this Legislature, acts that this government put in place, commitments made by this government that are yet unfilled, that are yet to be fulfilled, Madam Speaker. That is what this member said. Any other interpretation by this minister or any other minister is completely false, it is completely wrong. I say to him, if you want your words to reflect accurately in this House for each and every person, not only in this House but outside this House to see, then, Sir, it is you who should stand up and apologize to this member for what you have just said in this Legislature.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MADAM SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
I ask the hon. minister to continue.
MR. MATTHEWS: Madam Speaker, it is clear that the commentary from the hon. critic last week and my response to it in the House, because I felt offended as a former trustee, has hit a nerve with the individuals. What I am rising to do in the House today, Madam Speaker, is for the record, notwithstanding the fact that the Chair has not yet had opportunity to rule on the point of personal privilege on which I rose three or four days ago, because that has not happened, I just want to remind the hon. member that he can take this opportunity to put the comments that were negative toward the role and capacity of school trustees -
MR. E. BYRNE: They were negative towards you.
MR. MATTHEWS: I say to the hon. Leader of the Opposition, Madam Speaker, the comments, with great respect, while he may have wanted them to be directed toward me, were not directed toward me. They were directed toward the role and responsibility and quality and capability of school trustees in this Province. I would say, Madam Speaker, that this debate today poses an excellent opportunity for the hon. member to do the hon. thing and withdraw any commentary that he may have noted in his comments in response to a statement from the hon. minister last Thursday, withdraw those remarks, to the extent that they do cast a negative reflection upon the quality and capability, the competence and independence, of school trustees in this Province.
Madam Speaker, I say again that the school trustees in this Province, in the eight years that I served in that capacity, were not potted plants. They were individuals who put their names on a ballot for no remuneration, who worked hard in the interests of the school children of this Province and who discharged their duties in an exemplary way at the various school board levels. I have no less competence and no less confidence in the trustees that are serving today on the various school boards or the trustees that will come forward in September and let their names stand.
Let the record show, Madam Speaker, that the people on this side of the House have great respect, have great admiration, have great confidence, in the ability of our school trustees in this Province. We take our hats off to the school trustees in this Province. We applaud their independence, we applaud their willingness to come forward, we applaud their knowledge, we applaud their ability to put to use their own intelligence and their own good judgement in terms of discharging their duties.
Madam Speaker, I would suggest to the hon. member, the critic for Education, that this is an appropriate time for him to correct any suggestion - if indeed, Madam Speaker, the hon. member had no intent to cast aspersions on trustees in this Province when he spoke last week, let him now rise and say that that was not his intention, and to the extend that that may have been the perception, even by one humble member of the House, and I believe it was much wider than that, but even if it was the perception of just one hon. member of this House, to that extent I would ask him to correct the record for all of our purposes.
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: I thank the Minister of Mines and Energy for his backhanded lecture to the members of the Opposition.
I would certainly give him leave, seeing as it is now my time, if he could stand up and elaborate on the exact contents of the bill and tell us why he supports the amendments put forward by the Minister of Education, where the government now will retain the right, by de facto status, to hire school board directors. Do you support that, and if you do, could you explain why you support that?
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
MR. MATTHEWS: Madam Speaker, I am not going to rise to the bait being offered by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, because it is a bit of politics probably creeping in to the floor of the House and we wouldn't want that to happen.
I would say this only, that the hon. the Minister of Education has amply and fully explained the basis of the amendments that are being put forward and he knows full well the substantiveness of the amendments, the purposes for them and the reason why government obviously has full confidence in her recommendation, and we support it.
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.
MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker, since the minister will not get up and outline his policies or defend his government's intentions with this particular bill, and after getting up and trying to chastise my colleague over here, I wonder if he might consider that since he has been in the House now for eleven years, if he would go and -
AN HON. MEMBER: Eight.
MR. H. HODDER: Eight years, I am sorry.
- if he would go and consider that - having the comments that he has raised and the words he has used, because you see, in the 6th Edition of Beauchesne it clearly says that certain words are parliamentary and certain words are not. If you look through the listing of the words that are not parliamentary, right after they list such things as reneged promises and right before they mention shameful conduct as being unparliamentary, in between those two is the word scurrilous. That is an unparliamentary word. So I am sure that the minister would not want to stand in his place on this particular issue and cause my friend, the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne such agony; that he would welcome the opportunity to get up now and say that he is sorry and withdraw these very terrible comments about the member that I just mentioned.
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
MR. MATTHEWS: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the effort that the hon. member has put into his extensive research with respect to the words that were used. He knows full well that any words that I used in this House were to indicate the seriousness of the negative commentary that the hon. member put forward.
Without saying more, I will await the ruling of the Chair with respect to the point of personal privilege that I raised. I am sure that if there was commentary in my language that was unparliamentary, I will be the first in this House to withdraw; but I will await the Chair's ruling in that regard with interest and with patience.
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I am pleased to have an opportunity this afternoon to speak on Bill 8, An Act To Amend The Schools Act, 1997 and in doing so, Madam Speaker, I have to say that this legislation appears, for all the world, to try to do something that the minister said she would not do, and that the public, I do not think, want her to do. It flies in the face of the whole point of having elected school boards in the Province.
We just went through a process - the minister in the House the other day talked about - I think she announced that there were going to be elections next September. Well, I think we all knew that, Madam Speaker, because it is in the legislation; when she took advantage of the ministerial statement provision to announce that there were going to be elections in September of school boards.
Now, we just went through a rather difficult period in this Province, a lot of change happening at once, and a lot of agendas being pushed at once. You know, of course, as we all do, of how important the whole debate about the future of education was to this Province and the difficulty a lot of people had with a changeover from a predominately denominational system to one where elected school boards were in charge, that they were to be the arbiters of decision-making in our schools. It was a big, significant change. Some people thought it was taking religion out of education. Others recognized it as shifting the power and control away from institutions and giving it to the people. That is what a lot of people supported and thought they were doing when they supported an educational system that was not denominational in nature. They saw it as democracy in action, as providing a means for the people to have a direct say through electing school boards, to have a direct say in the control over their schools. That, believe it or not, was the first time the first set of people who spent the last number of years as school trustees and school board members, the first time in this Province we had fully elected school boards after many, many years; fifty years almost after Confederation.
They had a lot on their plate. They were given a very difficult time. They were given a very difficult job to do, and in some cases, Madam Speaker, some of these people, even though they were elected, thought their job was to do the will of the government. You may know who I am talking about, Madam Speaker. There were individuals at various school boards who, even though they were elected by the people, not by the government, thought their job was to carry out government's wishes. In fact, there were a lot of difficulties that some school board members had when they were vocally critical of school board decisions, or other members decisions, and had to be reminded that they could not be fired by the school boards, that they were elected by the people.
We created a fourth order of government, if you will, in the Province. We have people elected to the House of Commons from Newfoundland and Labrador, not the Senate, of course, we all know that, but we have people elected to the House of Commons, we have people elected to this House, we have people elected in municipalities and now we have people elected to school boards. There are only four direct elections that we have in our democracy for the general population at large. I think that has to be understood as a significant and important role that we ask individuals to play as part of our democracy.
We do not pay school trustees. They work long and hard on a volunteer basis. It is a very significant commitment and, in some cases, a very excruciating commitment because of the nature of some of the issues involved and the high level of feelings that people have about where and how their children are educated. So, it is a very important role and a very difficult role.
I, Madam Speaker, along with many, many people in the Province, was delighted to see that change to democracy, a public election of school trustees, despite the fact - and I think the government is entitled to be deservedly criticized for this, needs to be criticized for the fact that they gave these school trustees and school board members too much in too short a period of time to do. They gave them very, very difficult decisions. They made them responsible, almost entirely, for the closure of schools, in some cases, many, many schools in one district in one year. That was a very difficult time for these school boards. They were, in one sense, doing the dirty work of government. The government was downloading these difficult decisions to these school boards
MR. J. BYRNE: All the negatives were done by the boards and all the positives (inaudible) by government.
MR. HARRIS: As the Member for Cape St. Francis quite rightly says: In many cases if there was anything negative to do, let the school board do it, let them take the blame. If there is anything positive to say, well, we will have the Minister of Education front and center, sometimes the member for the district front and center, announcing new schools, spending money, doing this. Anything negative: Oh, we will let the school boards handle that. That caused some school board members to resign and caused others to announce that they would not seek office again because they were given all of these negative things to do.
That is the context, Madam Speaker, in which I think hon. members ought to look at this legislation here, and in the context of the report of the task force who saw and thought that the directors of the school boards should be appointed by the minister.
Madam Speaker, what are we going to have here? Are we going to have the trappings of democracy for this fourth level of elected representatives and elected representation to the fourth level of democracy, or are we going to have real democracy? Are we going to give the school boards the right to run schools or are we not? Are these individuals, who are asking to seek election and serve on school boards, going to be given authority or are they not?
Madam Speaker, I do not think people are going to run if they see themselves as mere figure heads, to try and give some legitimacy to the plans of the Minister of Education, if that is there only role, to be the bad news bearers when it suits the government, and they are not going to have decision-making power with respect to school construction, for example, which they do not, and they are not going to have control over the curriculum, which they do not, and they are not going to have control over school busing, which they do not. Are they going to have control over their own operations? Are they going to make decisions that are not subject to the Minister of Education pulling the rug out from under them by influencing who they hire as a director, or how that person is remunerated. That is the question.
Now if the Minister of Education was bringing forth a piece of legislature that stated what the terms and conditions of employment of a director were, how long their term of office was, what the procedure was for hiring them, and spelling out these details in a piece of legislation or in regulations, I am sure we could all look at them and see whether they were reasonable; see whether they met the needs of the school boards of the Province; ask the school board members - I see a number of school boards members sitting in the gallery - is this a reasonable set of rules for a director. If everyone thought they were a sensible set of rules for an employment contract or a role, and rules for hiring and term of office and conditions of employment, then we could all say: Yes, this is good. Let's pass it. Let's support it. But, Madam Speaker, if we have control of this magnitude and this nature by the minister, then I have some very serious concerns about what level of respect, what level of appreciation, what level of legitimacy, this government is prepared to give this group of citizens who are coming forward and offering themselves for election to serve their communities and their constituents.
Those, Madam Speaker, are my concerns about this legislation. There are two parts of it: the section on directors and the section on budgets. What are we doing here? Are we saying that each line of a budget needs the approval of the minister, or are we going to be asking whether or not the minister is going to approve the expenditures generally as long as they are within - I can understand the minister and the government wanting to say, we will not approve or we will not allow a school board to have a budget that puts a school board in the hole, in the red, at the end of the year, so that at the end of the year there is a liability for $10 million, $15 million or $20 million. I can understand that. Guess what happens, Madam Speaker? School boards X owes $15 million, Y owes $20 million and someone else owes $10 million and, all of a sudden, they are all at the minister's doorstep saying: Look what happened, Madam Minister, we are all going to go bankrupt if you don't give us more money. So there would be a form of blackmail of some kind, some political blackmail. Let's call it that. I do not know if blackmail is a parliamentary word, and I am not accusing the minister of anything.
You can understand how the minister and the government would have an interest in ensuring that public bodies, for which ultimately the government is statutorily responsible, cannot go out and become bankrupt. We have seen it with some municipalities, I suppose. I mean the Americans have seen a number of their cities go bankrupt. We have not had that happen in Canada, perhaps because in some cases, Madam Speaker, in municipalities here in the Province, they are not allowed to contract debts without the approval of the minister. So there are certain areas of capital expenditures or capital debt or overall budget guidelines that I could see the minister having the ultimate say in. But if you are saying the budget shall be approved, does this allow the minister to sit down and say: Well, I had a look at your budget, Avalon East School Board. It is not bad on the whole, but I have a few problems with this, with that, and with such-and-such an expenditure. While I am not going to tell you how to do your business, I would be a lot happier to approve your budget if it did not have those things in it. So, let's meet again next week and we will see what your budget looks like then.
That is a scenario that I could see happening. I could see the minister issuing guidelines. I could see the minister deciding - not this particular minister perhaps, maybe some other minister next year, some other minister down the road - saying: We have good budget guidelines. This is the type of expenditure we are going to approve and this is the one we are not. Before you know it, Madam Speaker, the school boards are just a rubber stamp for what the minister wants to do. They are there as the fall guys and fall gals for the government when any bad news happens, some sort of buffer - I think that term has been used. We have seen hospital boards, with all of the bad news to be passed out by the hospital boards, all the good news to be delivered by the government, and these people taking the rap for decisions that are forced on them by government. I say this, not in a political sense, Madam Speaker. We could all get up and make rhetorical political speeches, but out of concern for the fourth level or the fourth order of elected personages that we have recently adopted in this Province, that is important to know.
I remember talking to some school board members who were very concerned about what somebody could do to them because they had done a certain thing or because they had said a certain thing. I pointed out that: We don't elect very many people in this so-called democracy we have. If we look at, who do we elect, we are not like the Americans, we do not elect judges, we do not elect dogcatchers, and we do not elect district attorneys in this Province, in this country. But we do elect members to the House of Commons, members to this House of Assembly, members of our municipal councils and, only in the last four years, we now fully elect school boards.
I think we have to give them respect. We have to give them, not total autonomy. We do not give any municipalities total autonomy, but we have got to give them room to make decisions. If there are guidelines to be established, then let them be established, let them be put in legislation, let them be put in regulations and let the people who are elected to run these school boards do their work.
Instead of that, we have the minister standing over them approving budgets, making decisions that have to approved in writing to prevent anyone from being liable for an expenditure or a debt. I do not know if that is a safeguard. If this is designed to safeguard the public from some unruly child who might go out and contract debts in his or her name and the parent would have to pay for it, that might be something that you would have to do.
So that is a very extreme piece of legislation. I suppose what it would amount to is if the school board did sign a contract prior to the budget being approved, the contract would not be enforceable. Because the contractor would probably go and say: Well, I want to see the letter from the minister. Where is your letter from the minister saying that this budget has been approved? I cannot enter into a contract with you. I need a letter from the minister because otherwise this contract is not going to be binding. Is that what we are going to have in this Province every time someone is going to sign a contract? Whether it be a school bus contact or any kind of contract for services to the school board, they are going to have to say: Where is your letter from the minister to show that this is approved? The Act says that unless the annual fiscal budget for the year has been approved in writing by the minister, the board shall not incur, contract or become liable. That is the one: Shall not become liable for an expenditure or a debt. So it is going to place a very serious onus on the way school board conduct their business if this provision passes.
Secondly, Madam Speaker, subclause (3) of this bill will also have the effect of diminishing the role, diminishing the authority, diminishing the legitimacy and diminishing the self-respect that school board members would want to have in taking the responsibility under the schools act to administer our schools and to carry out the functions of school boards in this Province.
So I am opposed to this, Madam Speaker. I think it regresses us back to a time when the people who have exercised their legitimate public right to choose school board members are now being told that some institution, in the form of the minister or the minister's officials, is going to have the final say on something as straightforward as a contract with a director or assistant director, and something as straightforward as what is in my budget; not the overall amount. Again, I would not have a problem if the minister set guidelines or certain things were nailed down, as long as they were public, as long as everyone knew what they were, because it is this element of discretion that concerns me, Madam Speaker, and I think that it is something that we should be concerned about, something that we should want to have spelled out in a very different way before we could support this type of measure.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Those are my comments on Bill 8 at second reading.
MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
If the minister speaks now, she will close the debate.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS FOOTE: Madam Speaker, I sat here today and listened to a lot of commentary from the Opposition, in particular.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MS FOOTE: A lot commentary and I will stop there.
Madam Speaker, a number of points were made that really concern me, because I think they have been misleading. I think it is one thing to stand on your feet and comment on amendments to a bill. It is another to take those amendments and play with them in such a way that you try to paint the bleakest picture that you possibly can of what you are attempting to do here.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MS FOOTE: Now, I listened and I would like to have the same respect, if you don't mind.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS FOOTE: Madam Speaker, first and foremost, let me say now, today, here, that every cent that we realized in savings through the restructuring process and through the reorganization of education in this Province has gone back into the education system; every cent and more besides. So, when the hon. member opposite stands and questions whether or not that has happened, yes, indeed, it has happened. If I have to say it a hundred times before it sinks in over there, I will say it again and again and again.
It is amazing, when I listened to what the Education critic has said. I can only reflect on what his cousins in Ottawa, or in Ontario in particular, have done with the education system there.
AN HON. MEMBER: Stick to Newfoundland.
MS FOOTE: He would love for me to stick to Newfoundland, Madam Speaker. The problem is that Mike Harris and the Tories in Ontario would like nothing more than to have strict control of the education system in Ontario; totally opposite from what we are proposing here in Newfoundland and Labrador, and what we have proposed and the way that we have been behaving as a government. We have elected school boards. We have trustees, Madam Speaker. This government, the Liberal Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, put this process in place; not the Tories, not the NDP; but the Liberal Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS FOOTE: We did that in the full knowledge that these trustees would have responsibility for managing the education system in the Province and that we, as a government, would turn over 100 per cent of the taxpayers' dollars to the boards to administer and to carry out the education system.
Having said that, there is still a responsibility on government to ensure that those dollars are being spent for the purposes for which they were intended. Now, there have been a number of things that have happened over the past five years, and if you will recall the commentary by the Auditor General, she has pointed to a number of instances where we have not followed the act. I guess I can be pointed to, as the minister, as being as involved and negligent, I suppose, as the boards, because I should have acted in some case where I chose not to.
We are now in the fifth year of a reformed education system. There were learning curves, and we can all appreciate that. Having said that, I recognize, too, that the trustees have had a very difficult time in some instances in restructuring the education system, in closing out some schools, in trying to ensure that we have schools where their programming would be the best that it could be for the number of students we have available. Yes, I recognize that they have done an extraordinary job. They have given beyond the call of duty and this government is grateful for their contribution to the education system.
Having said that, we do have a responsibility. We all have to be accountable. This government has to be accountable to the taxpayers whose dollars we take and turn over to the boards to run the education system. The trustees have to be accountable to the people who elected them. Just as the schools have to be accountable to the boards, we all have to be accountable. I am sure the boards expect the schools to be accountable. I am sure they would have to question if some things happened that the Auditor General would question about some activity that was not within keeping with the guidelines that they have established.
All we are doing here is pointing to two instances where we have had some difficulty in the past. We are trying to deal with those difficulties in a manner that we could all go forward, rest assured that we won't have to deal with them in the future, that we won't have the Auditor General coming out in the next report saying, yet again: What have you done?
Mr. Speaker, I could be specific in terms of some of the concerns of the Auditor General and things that we have had to do. In a number of reports, the Auditor General spelled out exactly what her concerns were. In fact the Department of Education, in response to her 1998-1999 report, gave this undertaking: The department is committed to ensuring that boards comply with all relevant legislation.
That is an undertaking that we have given to the Auditor General. The department is committed to ensuring that boards comply with all relevant legislation. For 1999-2000, followup is being undertaken for those boards which have been late in submitting budgets. The department will be advising boards that any projected deficits must be identified as quickly as possible with a plan for corrective action to ensure that a deficit is not incurred at year end.
That is one example of an undertaking that we have given to the Auditor General to try and adhere to the law, adhere to the Schools Act. We also, and this is common knowledge, have had difficulty in terms of contracts of employment and the fact that those contracts should be in keeping with the executive pay plan of the HAY system. We have had experience where that has not happened. What has transpired since that is that we have said to boards: It is really important to follow the guidelines. It is really important not to include, in contracts, something which has not been approved or is not carried under the HAY system.
Having said that, what we are attempting to do here is to formalize something that is happening on an informal basis in a lot of cases anyway. It is not new that the boards would advise the minister of whom they are hiring for a particular position, particularly the director of education for the board. That is not new. Boards do that. They write and tell me they have had their interview process and this is who we are hiring. Thank you, that is wonderful. I know who the director of education is going to be.
In a lot of cases, the boards would take it upon themselves to send in a copy of the contract to ensure that it is in keeping with the executive pay plan of the HAY system. That is good. If we notice that there is something that is not in keeping with it, we will send it back and say: No, you cannot give this extra travel allowance. You cannot give the extra educational leave. No, you cannot give them computers at home. No, you cannot do whatever is outside of what would be given in that normal contract - and, the boards have complied.
Having said that, we have the Auditor General who is breathing down our necks and saying: You have to enforce the law. Therefore, you have to move under the act. Therefore, we are looking to amend the legislation to make this a requirement; not that it just happens with some boards but that every board would follow the suit of some of their counterparts.
I have no interest, this government has no interest today, in hiring the directors of education. That is not what this is about. The boards have the authority, the boards have the autonomy, and they will continue to have the authority and the autonomy to hire whomever they wish for those positions.
The question, and this is the only question, is that we need to ensure that the contract that is entered into is one that we can all live with and is in keeping with the executive pay plan under the HAY system. That is the amendment that is being put forward.
In terms of the budget, I refer here to the Leader of the NDP. "A board shall not, in a fiscal year, incur, contract for or become liable for an expenditure or debt...." That exists now. Section (b) of that exists, which says "...that is more than the estimated expenditures or debt set out in its annual budget or substantially changes the manner in which an expenditure will be made, except with the prior written approval of the minister."
What is new is the (a) section or the (a) part of number (3) which says "...unless the annual fiscal budget for that fiscal year has first been approved, in writing, by the minister...". That is the amendment, and only that. We are not telling the boards what to do, but I would also ask you to think about the fact that where we have instances where boards have entered into contracts with directors of education, where they have gone above what is recommended, the money for that salary had to come from somewhere. It had to come from somewhere, and it certainly would not have come from the government because we have an obligation under the act to ensure that everyone who is hired is hired and in compliance with the executive pay plan of the HAY system.
So, the question is: Where did the money come from? When it was moved from one pocket to another, one part of the budget to another, where did it come from? I don't know. The only time that will turn up is when an audit is done, and that is a year after the contract has been entered into. We have, in fact, one director of education today who has been in place for four years and still does not have a contract. I do not know, and the Auditor General can look at me and say: What is in that contract? How much is that individual being paid? What are the benefits? I cannot honestly say. I don't know. I cannot say what is in that contract. I have a responsibility, as the minister, a responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure that those dollars are spent as they were intended to be spent.
One of the issues we have today, we may very well be facing a lawsuit because an employee of a board was paid more than what that individual should have been paid under the executive pay plan; and when that person left, retired, the severance that individual would have gotten would have been based on the salary that the individual would have been entitled to based under the executive pay plan of the HAY system. That individual may very well be looking for severance based on whatever the board chose to pay. So, you can see the kind of problems we run into if the law is not followed.
Mr. Speaker, all we are asking for here is, on a go-forward basis, for all of us involved in education to recognize that we are being watched very closely in terms of our actions, especially in terms of the expenditures of funds,100 per cent taxpayers' dollars. We are being watched very closely at how that money is being spent. I would think that we would all want a level of comfort, and we would all feel better knowing that we have enshrined in legislation requirements to ensure that we are all held accountable to the people we are here to serve.
Mr. Speaker, I close second reading.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
On motion, a bill, "An Act to Amend The Schools Act, 1997" read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 8)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I ask for leave of the House to have second reading on the bill that we gave first reading to today, Bill 20, An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No.2.
MR. SPEAKER: Does the House give leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: By leave, Mr. Speaker. I will proceed to introduce the bill in the absence of the minister who is ill today.
Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No. 2." (Bill 20)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: The Explanatory Note gives the essence of what the bill is about. The Explanatory Note says: "The Bill would amend the Provincial Court Act, 1991 to provide for the secondment of bilingual judges from other provinces to preside over trials where an accused has exercised his or her right to be tried in the French language. Currently the Provincial Court is unable to meet this requirement from its own judges."
As hon. members would know, people have this right, when they are being tried in provincial court, to ask for one of the official languages of Canada, the English or the French. In this place we have no problem with the English, it is the French. We have not had the problem until recently. Certain circumstances caused us to have the problem. So this legislation would address that, enabling the government, enabling the courts, to second a judge from some other jurisdiction so that the person being accused has the right to be heard in the French language.
My understanding is that we do have a couple of cases now, that is why the urgency of the amendment.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We will support this bill. I think it is only fair that people who want to be heard in the French language should not have to wait an undue period of time. Also, I will certainly indicate here too that, I think, government should take the necessary steps to ensure that this position is filled quickly. References are made to have someone from this Province, within the system, who is able to carry out that particular role of presiding over a case conducted in the French language.
With that, we will certainly indicate that we do not see any point in delaying any further. I certainly hope that if the circumstances that arose are a short-term thing, this will certainly fulfill the requirements. If it is going to be a longer term then government should move as quickly as possible, expeditiously as possible, to have that done for the judges here within our provincial court system.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader, if he speaks now he will close the debate.
MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments and I thank him for their support. I can assure him that the government will make every effort, in the future, to ensure that we have this -
MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible).
MR. LUSH: The hon. gentleman is asking if he could speak. I can concede to him now. He wants to speak, by leave.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to thank the Government House Leader. I had hoped to have a chance to say a few words on this bill in support of the legislation that would allow the provincial court to be able to conduct trials in the French language. We have had that capability up until recently and it seems that significant effort has been made to recruit, from the Newfoundland Bar, a provincial court judge to hear trials in French, but that has not been possible in the recent round of applications. I do not know whether that was specifically advertised for, or looked for, but certainly we ought to be able to conduct trials in the French language. This appears to be a reasonable procedure to carry that out. I understand that there are - as others have said - trials awaiting to be heard in the French language, and that is the constitutional right of every Canadian in this Province, aside from people or residents of other provinces or, indeed, other countries that may be before the courts of this Province. Certainly there are many residents of this Province who would be, want to and who would be entitled, under our Constitution, to have their trials or judicial proceedings undertaken in the French language.
I want to be on record in this House as supporting that notion. I know the Member for Port au Port, I am sure, would be fully supportive of any effort to include the French language speakers as full participants in our court process and have an opportunity, if they wished to exercise their constitutional right. It is not just an exercise of constitutional right, Mr. Speaker, in fact, it is a principle of fundamental justice to be able to be tried in a language which you understand. To understand what the courts are saying, to have translation services for witnesses but also to have a judge understand the language which you speak. There are many subtleties of language, as we all know, and a judge, who in the end has to make a decision based on the testimony of witnesses, ought to be able to understand the language, particularly of an individual who would be before the courts as an accused person in a criminal matter.
I think the real intention here is that an accused person who comes before a court, whose native language or first language is French, ought to be able to receive a criminal trail or be participating in a criminal trial in their own language. This makes that possible by the cooperation of the Provincial Court of New Brunswick, who I understand has similar arrangements for the Province of Prince Edward Island where, because of the small size of the Bar and the small size of the province, they too have had difficulty in recruiting a French speaking judge to be able to handle it. I know there are some members of the local Bar who are proficient in the French language and hopefully in a couple of years we may be able to have someone on our own bench once more who is proficient in the French language and can hear trials in French as well as in English.
I thank the Government House Leader for interrupting his speech to give me time to make these few remarks on this bill in support of the Act to Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No.2. (Bill 20)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Just simply, Mr. Speaker, to thank the hon. members for their support and for their comments, and to assure them that the government will make every effort to try and take care of this matter with our own judges in the future. We will ensure that no stone is left unturned in this resolve.
Thank you.
On motion, a bill, "An Act to Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No.2," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 20)
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I move that House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to debate certain bills.
On motion, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.
Committee of the Whole
MADAM CHAIR (M. Hodder): Order, please!
The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Madam Chair, Order 13, I believe it is. I hope I am looking at the same paper.
An Act An Act To Amend The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act And The Occupational Health and Safety Act. (Bill 16)
MADAM CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?
The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just a few more words on Bill 16, An Act An Act To Amend The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act And The Occupational Health And Safety Act.
This is further to the report that was submitted: Changing The Mindset, the task force report on the workers' compensation system. Now this report, as I said the other day, is a fairly extensive report. There was a lot of consultation and a lot of recommendations made from this report; some forty-eight recommendations. Some of the recommendations are being considered in this legislation, but not all. If you look at the summary of recommendations you would have to say that the report was really looking toward simplifying - making it better for the injured worker within the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to be able to access workers' compensation in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but when you look at this bill, Bill 16, it certainly is favouring, in my opinion, the workers' compensation commission.
When you look the report itself: Changing The Mindset, it was really emphasizing prevention, but in the legislation, Madam Chair, it seems to me that the government is now trying to give the workers' compensation commission the upper hand. I do not think that is right because I had a lot of dealings with injured workers in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador over the past eight years - have gone to many, many appeals, I say to you, Madam Chair. Now we see government, basically, trying to give more power to workers' compensation, especially when you look at reconsideration. Under reconsideration they want the workers' compensation to be able to reconsider a decision made by the commission. You know, that is in place now to a certain extent, but what they are doing in this, in my mind, are giving more power - and they have to almost reconsider. It is not right. I mean, if a person applies for workers' compensation and he is an injured worker, well then they go through the process, and they can wait months and months and months. I have one now in this system over three years, and it is going to be more complicated. There will be more red tape, in my mind, and I think it is something that I want to address. I had discussions with injured workers and they do not see this as being very beneficial to them at all. I thought that was the whole intent, to speed the process up and to look at the injured worker more so than workers' compensation.
I know that the funding for workers' compensation, Madam Chair, is a problem. We look at it compared to probably five years ago, the cost is going up exponentially, but that is all we can do about that. What the problem is here, if it is truly an insurance program for the people of this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, a decision that is made by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador that this is the system we are going to work at, people are paying into workers' compensation, they are paying different rates out in industry and in private business, depending on the risk factor involved in any job that they are employed in. If they are injured, they should have the right to access that. Red tape should not be put in their way.
One of the points, of course, as I mentioned earlier, is the reconsideration. If a commissioner decides in favor of the injured worker, what happens now? Automatically he is going to be reconsidered. He goes back to another commissioner, someone different, and: well, should we reconsider this? What is going to happen, I say to you, Madam Chair? Obviously, they will look at it and say - I think, but I am not sure, they get paid by the case, by the hearing, whatever. Obviously, it has to be pretty black and white for them not to have a reconsideration on that appeal. In my mind, as I said earlier, this is just another smack, another crack, at the injured worker, to try and take funding away from an individual who probably deserves it. It has been going on for too long.
Another thing, and I made this point the other day, right in the legislation, too, the injured worker now has to show the commission where it contravenes the act and the legislation. Now most people, I would think, are not lawyers. There are a good many out there, there is no doubt about that, but most people are not lawyers. They have to be able to read the act, to interpret the act and refer to the clauses, and say: According to clause such-and-such or section such-and-such, it is in contradiction of the act. If they do not and cannot do that, and it goes to the commission, they can automatically say: No, it is not in contravention. You have not made your case; and it is out the window.
My concern, and I am sure that there are members on the government side of the House and there are members on this side of the House, who go to numerous appeals on behalf of workers' compensation, injured workers. The President of Treasury Board said that she does. I do, and I know members on this side do. If they are not lawyers - now they are really closing the door - now it is going to be even more expensive on the injured worker to go contact a lawyer and have them make the case for them.
Often times I have gone to many appeals, as I am sure members on the other side and this side have, and they have won the appeals based on legitimate concerns of the individual and certain things that have not been considered that go before the appeal board. The commissioner who is there now, for all honesty, I have to say, is pretty balanced and usually makes some good decisions. I have had some that I won and I have had some that I lost. I could not really argue against some of the decisions that individual has made, the commissioner I appeared before anyway.
Forty-eight recommendations of this report, I think, are not in favor of the injured worker. Prevention is all important, there is no doubt about that. There are some concerns in here with prevention. I do not know if we need to get into them, actually, but under certain sections - we can do them section by section. I have reviewed this, I have to say. With respect to prevention, you really cannot knock it. Prevention is the key, and it is not being done here.
Another issue, of course, is the reoccurrence. Here is another one, with respect to the degree of injury and reoccurrence. In many cases, and I have had them - and it talks about co-operation here, too, with the injured worker. As a matter of fact, they are putting penalties in here if they do not co-operate with the workers' compensation. Most of the people I have had dealings with, go out and do their best to get back to work. Obviously there are some who are going to abuse it, naturally, no matter what you do. Generally speaking, most people would rather be back at work.
They talk about reoccurrence and the degree of injury. It is pretty loose, I would say. It is open to interpretation by the commission itself. I think that has some ramifications down the road for the injury worker and that needs to be addressed. I want to bring that here now.
Also, they are talking about the health and safety program, the health and safety policy, the committee training, and again prevention. I cannot knock that; it is fine. I am going to skim through this section by section here. I only have a couple of hours, I think.
In subsection 5(1) of the bill, it removes the word "disability", and thus the commission's authority is restricted to an assessment of the degree of impairment.
To me, really, it is a pretty interpretation, as I said earlier, to the degree of impairment and the compensation that an individual will get. That, in many cases, is open for an appeal; that in itself, I say to you, Madam Chair.
There are other sections here that I want to talk about: application to the review commissioner. As I said earlier, the process here, the chief review commissioner of a decision of the commission, "within 30 days of receiving the written decision of the commission". Thirty days, I don't know if that is reasonable. I really do not know if the commissioner can deal with these... Sometimes, the reports that I get back from the commission are an inch thick, and for the commission to be able to look at that, I don't know. It sounds a bit much to me. I have had some discussions with some of the injured workers.
It says here, section 54.2, co-operation in rehabilitation. The commission may suspend or reduce or terminate compensation made to a worker where the worker fails to co-operate in the development or implementation of a rehabilitation program. Who is going to decide that, if an injured worker is co-operating or not? Again, to me, it is too loose. It is up to interpretation again for the commission down there to say: Listen, Joe Blow is not co-operating; we are cutting him off. Then you have to go through the whole process again of appealing and what have you.
When we talk about ease-back programs, is the person co-operating? I had cases in the past where an injured worker tried to go back to work, and what happened? He or she intensified the injury, so now we have a recurrence, again something that needs to be considered here. I do not think it is really being properly considered.
Section 77, just as I mentioned, recurrence of injury. When an injured worker returns to full employment and suffers a recurrence of the injury, the compensation payable to him or her shall be based on the greater of his or her average salary, the average weekly salary, or whatever the case may be.
Again, it comes back to the very point: if a person goes back to work too early and they injure themselves, they should not be penalized; because probably they went back to work and the commission forced them back to work too early anyway.
It talks about minimum compensation, it talks about medical aid, all of these things, but there is one here that needs to be addressed too. It is education or retraining. One of my pet peeves, of course, is when they are talking about retraining. An individual, an injured worker, wanted to be re-trained. He went to the commission, agreed to go back to school, co-operating again. What happened? He was getting something like $14 an hour, a seasonal worker. What did they do? They averaged out his salary over the whole year, fifty-two weeks, so now it is $6.50 an hour. They want to retrain him for probably a minimum wage job. That is not right. It is not fair.
The bottom line is: get him off workers' compensation at all costs. I hope - I thought the legislation that would be brought forward would address that, but in a positive way with respect to the injured worker, not in a positive way towards the workers' compensation. We talked about educational retraining, there are problems with that.
Return to work and rehabilitation, section 88, says,"The commission may take those measures and make those expenditures that it may in its discretion consider necessary or expedient...." - basically to help in getting injured workers back to work. I know of an individual who was down to workers' compensation and they were told - I could not believe it, but I did because it was confirmed - that the caseworker said to client: Listen, I know what you are telling me is correct; you are right, but my job depends on getting you off workers' compensation. That is the attitude that is prevalent down at the workers' compensation commission and it has to be addressed. I really do not think that this is addressing that.
Also, section 89 says: Duty to co-operate in return to work. "An employer shall co-operate in the early and safe return to work of a worker injured in his or her employment...". The problem here, of course, is trying to get people back to work too soon. Again, I have to emphasize that yes, there are some out there who abuse the system, but I think these things needed to be said.
I have had discussion already with some of the injured workers on this bill. I have to tell you, and I say it here right now, they are not too pleased, because they feel that this piece of legislation, or this bill, is favoring the workers' compensation, to cut people off the workers' compensation and to basically address the funding. If there is funding with the workers' compensation, it should not be on the backs of the injured workers.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
MADAM CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?
The hon. the Minister of Labour.
MS THISTLE: Are there no other speakers?
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MS THISTLE: Thank you, Madam Chair - Madam Chairwoman is the proper terminology, I think. I would like to thank the Member for Cape St. Francis for his valuable input into today's debate. Just as a response to some of the questions that he asked, I just wanted to reiterate that workers' compensation is an insurance program that is paid solely by employers in the event that employees -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MS THISTLE: No, no, it is paid solely by the employer, as workers' compensation.
- in the event that employees may become injured on the job.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MS THISTLE: For the sole case of an employee becoming injured on the job.
One thing I would like to say to the member opposite is that the injured workers' benefits will remain the same. They will not be decreased.
I think what is important, out of the forty-eight recommendations that came before the task force review, was the fact that there were some key ingredients that could make this program a different one in years to come, and the key one is prevention: making sure that the people who are in the workplace are fully versed in safety. Prevention is the key.
The next one would be co-operation between the employer and the employee so that the injured worker can return to work early, and when the injured worker is well enough to return to work.
The next one is the time lines for appeals. Those have been reduced simply because it meant that injured workers in the past were waiting too long for an answer for an appeal. In order for an employee to get back to work, they need to know the answer.
I think what is also very important, and I will finish off by this Madam Chair or -
MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Chair now.
MS THISTLE: - Mr. Chairman, who has recently changed in the Chair.
The key message, I think, is that the system itself is not on a sound financial footing. When you look to the future, with the forty-eight recommendations that are made, to be implemented, if that system can accommodate those changes and the workers' compensation commission does come back on a sound financial footing, I think what we can look forward to in the future is enhanced benefits for all.
Thank you very much. I would move third read on this Bill 16, Mr. Chairman.
A bill, "An Act An Act To Amend The Workplace Health, Safety And Compensation Act And The Occupational Health And Safety Act." (Bill 16)
On motion, clauses 1 through 32 carried.
Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried
CHAIR (Mercer): The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Order 14, Mr. Chairman, An Act To Amend The Financial Administration Act. (Bill 17)
CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?
The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I indicated in second reading, and I want to reiterate again, we certainly support that the debt management of borrowing by the Health Care Corporation come under a government umbrella. I said it before, I will say it again, and I said it from day one: We should not have to go out to have the boards borrow the money. It should be done by the governments.
When you factor a budget to hospital boards, you could use the argument I think the minister might have used, that they might be more accountable or so on with that; but, look, if you are financing an amount the government has to provide the cost to meet capital expenditure anyway, whether they do it directly out of government or give it to the boards to do it out of theirs. It is as broad as it is long. We were told in day one also that the borrowing would be for over a twenty year period. Now I think the minister said forty years, if I understood her correctly, on second reading. She can correct me if I misunderstood her, but I gather it is now forty years.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: I can check (inaudible).
MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I think she said forty years. Initially, we were told it was going to be $100 million financed over twenty years, pay back $10 million a year for twenty years; $200 million paid back. Borrow one hundred, pay interest on a hundred, and we would have $20 million savings in the system. We were going to put $10 million a year to pay down and we were going to have $10 million more to spend; to provide back into the system to improve health care. It did not happen. It went up to $130 million, what they borrowed, not counting other costs that they obtained. There had to be other furniture and equipment that had to be paid over and above this. The cost of buying the hospitals and all that. We are looking at, by the time this is paid off, in the hundred of millions of dollars here; and what do we have? Empty hospital beds.
Not only in the hospital they closed, we have empty hospital beds all over in the other hospitals. We have empty rooms in hospitals, beds in there not being utilized, and we have shut the system practically down. We have wait listed the system, that is what we have done.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, and the minister might add, there were 3,100 hospital beds when this government came to power in 1989, today there are 1,800.
MR. J. BYRNE: What?
MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, 1,800. They shut down 1,300 hospital beds in this Province in the past twelve years. Now, what they are trying to do is say to the boards: Go out and borrow so it does not show up on the books of the Province. Well, you do not fool the credit rating agencies anyway. They look at that. They look at what they have out there.
These are some of the things - I will not get into a lengthy discussion. I will make my point. We will support it but the action that precipitated this bill should never have occurred in the first place. She did the right thing, you will go back and take that debt back on the books of the Province. You will manage it where it should be managed and not have to pass it off to hospital boards and expect them to be able to handle debt management in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It should be done within an area of expertise, I know that is why it is coming forward.
With that, I will say that I support it. I will sit down and not comment on any other clause or any point unless the minister wants to get up and tell me I am wrong on any point, then I will probably get up.
CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do have to respond in part to some of the comments the member made because I would like to say first of all, the Province is not trying to hide anything. The bill is right before this House for all to see and they know exactly what we are doing, is that we are trying to find the right expertise so the Health Care Corporation through our board of trustees can actually manage the $130 million.
Also, Mr. Chair, I would like to say that the business about we have shut down the system, that is totally inaccurate. The member opposite knows that. The member also knows that we have the highest bed utilization count in the country. We have improved on our out-patient services and our daycare services, which is the whole intent of reducing beds.
Mr. Chairman, trying to make the connection between the Financial Administration Act and allowing the Health Care Corporation the expertise of the use of the trustees to manage the sinking funds for this debt is totally irrelevant to the comments that he has made and in fact, inaccurate when he said the system is shut down because it is far from shut down with a $1.4 billion budget.
Thank you.
CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A 40 per cent shut down; 40 per cent of the beds have been shut down since they came to power. So, if you want that amended to say 40 per cent - I guess at that rate in thirty years the whole system will be shut down. There will not be a bed left in the Province at the rate they are going now. The rate is increasing, I might add, of shutting down beds, not decreasing. The rate of shutting down beds is increasing, and very rapidly when the minister was there. Maybe that is why she feels so guilty because she contributed to a shut down of hospital beds more than any other minister in the history of this Province. That is why she feels guilty as Minister of Finance, right now. They want to tell them to borrow the money but they are not going to give them the authority to be able to manage the money. That is basically what she is saying. She is saying: we will let you borrow it but you can't have responsibility for managing the debt. That is really what they are saying. On one hand they are saying we are going to trust you and on the other hand saying we are not, but they should do the right thing anyway and get it back on the Province.
I will leave it at that.
CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to say for Hansard: I speak with a totally clear conscience. I do not feel one bit guilty. In fact, we have increased the health care budget by 40 per cent, and we have increased a number of procedures, dialysis and the list goes on.
Mr. Chairman, I speak to the bill, the Financial Administration Act, and all the other issues around health care, both policy and funding, with an extremely clear conscience.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A bill, "An Act To Amend The Financial Administration Act." (Bill 17)
On motion, clause 1 carried.
Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.
CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Order 15, Mr. Chairman.
A bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act." (Bill 18)
CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to say a few words on Bill 18. How much time does the critic get on second reading? An hour? Do I have an hour on second reading?
AN HON. MEMBER: Two hours.
MR. SULLIVAN: This is Committee.
MR. J. BYRNE: Oh, Committee. We can go back and forth then. Oh, we have her made now.
Mr. Chair, Bill 18, An Act To Amend the Labour Relations Act.
MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) for two hours?
MR. J. BYRNE: We will see. I have done it before.
I want to make a few comments on this further to what I said in second reading, Mr. Chair.
MR. BARRETT: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: What did you say?
MR. BARRETT: I said you are the only one who does any research.
MR. J. BYRNE: No, we all do. I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, every member on this side of the House, when they speak on a bill, have researched it. They know what they are talking about. The problem is that members on that side do not know what they are talking about or will not speak on the legislation.
With respect to this piece of legislation, this is further to the Morgan-Cooper report, which has made some seventeen recommendations with respect to special projects, such as Bull Arm, and the penalties that may be involved, talking about unions and employers and what have you. There were some seventeen recommendations. Out of that, there was a total of seven recommendations that would need amendments to the legislation to accommodate what the government wants to do here with respect to this bill.
The seven recommendations are what I am going to go through. There were seventeen but the seven, of course, are numbers 6, 7, 11, 14, 15, 16, and 17. With respect to number 6 - and that is an important one, I say to the Minister of Mines and Energy, the man who gets up on points of orders in the day here and does not have a clue what he is on about, and trying to impress members in the gallery which he always does, but fails to do so.
MR. SULLIVAN: He tries to.
MR. J. BYRNE: He tries to impress but he fails to do so.
Anyway, recommendation 6: the consultant recommends that the Labour Relations Act be amended to authorize the Labour Relations Board to issue declarations of unlawful strikes or lockouts, as well as directives to cease and desist from that.
MR. MATTHEWS: What was that?
MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Chair, I don't know what is wrong with the Minister of Mines and Energy. I do not know what he had for breakfast today.
MR. MATTHEWS: I am delighted to see you (inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: I do not know what he had for breakfast today but if he wants something to say on this bill, he should get up, get out of his seat, get up and say a few words on it. I know when he was put in his place today by the Leader of the Opposition to make some comments on the education bill that was before the House, obviously he did not have a clue about it but he tried to impress people in the gallery, and he failed to do so.
Now, with respect to this bill, Mr. Chair -
MR. MATTHEWS: Jack, do not call me a loser. Put me down for (inaudible) rather than that.
MR. J. BYRNE: Loser? What do you mean? Are you talking about the next election, a loser in the next election?
MR. SULLIVAN: No, he is talking about (inaudible) loser.
MR. J. BYRNE: Oh, I see.
Anyway, recommendation 6, as I said, Mr. Chair, with respect to unlawful strikes. We seen it in the past, where unlawful strikes can impact upon the operations. There is no doubt about that, with respect to any operation, any business that is ongoing. We seen it out in Bull Arm last year where we had an unlawful strike, and it needed to be dealt with. We should be putting legislation in place to clarify those situations and to, hopefully, prevent that in future. We need to have harmonious relationships.
When the minister was up some time ago, I think she used to talk about harmonious relationships within the workforce. This legislation, she hopes, will go some degree towards having a harmonious relationship within the workforce.
Also within the bill, section 70(1), "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may by order (a) declare an undertaking that is a special project within the meaning of paragraph...", blah, blah, blah. It describes in this legislation what would be considered a special project, and rightly so, I say to the minister.
Under section 124, it talks about a failure to comply with directives. It also talks about penalties, and in section 125 with respect to an illegal lockout or an illegal strike, and the penalties involved. They are talking about monies upwards of $10,000, which is quite extensive for an individual but it may not be so much so for an employer. So $10,000 is quite heavy, I would say to the minister, for an individual.
We saw an illegal strike some time ago. It had nothing to do with special projects. I think it was with the lab and x-ray workers last year when they were trying to make the case for themselves, and we saw them all hauled off to court down here and being fined heavily. There were some heavy fines on individuals when they were fighting for a cause. The end result was, of course, they were right. It was only the other day that government announced here, again, that they were reclassified.
Recommendation number 11 also has to do with legislation: Moreover, the amendment shall provide that any agreement containing such a provision shall be to such an extent unenforceable and void. They are talking here, of course, about the employer or trade union: from including in an agreement in relation to an undertaking declared by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council on an act to a special project, a provision authorizing an employee to refuse to perform work.
Again, I believe there are occasions when an employee should have a right to refuse work. Bill 16, that we just passed in the House a few minutes ago, we had, for example, people who cannot refuse work, such as the RNC, the fire departments and what have you. So there are situations out there where people cannot -
MR. SWEENEY: Your audience (inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: My audience is the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, I say to the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace. I am here to represent them, not only the people of my district, I say to certain members over there.
MR. HARRIS: Not only the people who voted for you either.
MR. J. BYRNE: That is exactly right, a good point, not only the people who voted for me.
Recommendation number 14 talk about certain people -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Boys, it would not have had time to get through anyway. I cannot say here what they wanted me to do while you were gone. I will not say it. The members on the other side, that is.
Recommendation number14: The consultant recommends amends to the Labour Relations Act to clarify the statutory requirements for employees to be in the bargaining unit.
I would like for the minister to address that when she gets up, about those people in the bargaining unit, who they are, and the time frames basically.
This legislation is a positive piece of legislation, I would say. It can help, to a certain extent, to have harmony. Again the minister talked about how, to have harmony, you have to have co-operation between the employers, the employees, the trade unions and what have you. I do not know if this will do that or not. Maybe this legislation will assist in doing that. Hopefully so, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, that is all I have to say on this piece of legislation at this point in time. Hopefully, it will do as the minister says it will do.
Thank you.
CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Labour.
MS THISTLE: Is there any further -
AN HON. MEMBER: No.
MS THISTLE: Good.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the member opposite, the Member for Cape St. Francis, for his input into this bill today, Bill 18. I want to say that this is a very important piece of legislation, although it only contains seven recommendations. The recommendations contained here for legislation will, in the opinion of Morgan Cooper and the stakeholders who have been involved with this report, promote greater labour stability on the Bull Arm project.
What I want to say in closing this debate, Mr. Chairman, is that I think the most important underlying theme of the Morgan Cooper report was the fact that the greatest chance of labour stability rests with the parties themselves. These recommendations will enhance what the parties themselves will be trying to improve as they go on in enhancing labour relations in this Province.
Mr. Chairman, I move that debate close on Bill 18.
Thank you.
A bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act." (Bill 18).
On motion, clauses 1 through 6 carried.
Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.
CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Mr. Chairman, I thank hon. members for their co-operation and I move that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
On motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, Mr. Speaker returned to the Chair.
MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!
The hon. the Member for Humber East.
MR. MERCER: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered the matters to it referred and has directed me to report Bills 16, 17 and 18 passed without amendment.
On motion, report received and adopted. Bills ordered read a third time on tomorrow. Committee ordered to sit again on tomorrow.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House at its rising do adjourn.
On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1:30 p.m.