MR. SPEAKER: I would like to call the House to order at this time and to commence this evening's business.
Before we begin the daily routine, I wish to advise the House that earlier this day I received in person a letter of resignation from the House of the honourable member for Cape Breton West, Mr. Russell V. MacKinnon. Mr. MacKinnon has resigned from the Legislative Assembly effective today. I therefore declare the seat of Cape Breton West to be vacant. The letter will now be tabled with the Clerk.
Are there any introductions of guests before we commence the daily routine? If not, the daily routine.
PRESENTING AND READING PETITIONS
PRESENTING REPORTS OF COMMITTEES
TABLING REPORTS, REGULATIONS AND OTHER PAPERS
STATEMENTS BY MINISTERS
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Minister of Natural Resources.
HON. DONALD DOWNE: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to inform members of the House that from April 9th to April 15th, Nova Scotians will join with the rest of Canada in celebrating National Wildlife Week. The Canadian Wildlife Federation, working with federal, provincial and territorial agencies, will promote National Wildlife Week and encourage all Canadians to work together to help conserve wildlife, one of our most precious natural resources.
Mr. Speaker, National Wildlife Week was created back in 1947 to raise awareness about wildlife conservation. Each year, a different theme is chosen for National Wildlife Week. This year's theme, Wildlife . . . Yours To Recover, reminds us that everyone should make an effort to support wildlife and its habitat that is at risk.
Mr. Speaker, there are 258 different species at risk and in need of recovery efforts in Canada. Some of the species that are threatened or endangered in our province are: mammals such as the humpback whale or the eastern cougar; birds such as the roseate tern, piping plover or the harlequin duck; fish such as the Acadian white fish; and plants like the golden crest, tread-leafed sundew and the water-pennywort, to name just a few.
Mr. Speaker, to mark this important week, our department has sent out an education kit such as . . .
MR. TERENCE DONAHOE: Lots of big words?
MR. DOWNE: Yes, there are lots of big ones, Terry. We have sent out the kits such as the one I am holding here in my hand and I will table it to the House, that will be sent to every school in the province, some 500 schools, Mr. Speaker. French kits were also sent for our francophone students or those currently in immersion programs. Also newspaper and radio advertisements have and will appear throughout this week to help promote this very important initiative.
Mr. Speaker, we face a challenge as stewards of our natural resources. While we have a lot of work ahead of us to meet these challenges, we have made steady progress in the areas of wildlife and biodiversity. For example, the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy is nearly completed. It will guide us in conserving biodiversity and encourage the sustainability and the sustainable use of our biological resources. We expect this strategy to be signed in May at the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment meeting in the Yukon. We are very proud that Nova Scotia has played a key role in the developing of this strategy at the national level.
Our government is also working with other Canadian jurisdictions to create a national framework for the protection of endangered species. We are trying to develop strong and uniform protections across this country. As part of the effort to create this framework, national public hearings are planned. They are scheduled for Nova Scotia in late April or early May. I encourage all Nova Scotian wildlife groups and interested individuals to take advantage of this opportunity to make their views known.
Lastly, I want to put to rest any concern that Nova Scotians may have regarding the recent reorganization of my department and how our Wildlife Division will be affected by the change. Rest assured, Mr. Speaker, that the Wildlife Division will remain intact.
In addition to its current role, the Wildlife Division will be more involved in the integrated resource management program. A pilot project in integrated resource management for Crown lands is well underway in Cumberland and Colchester Counties. If integrated resource management is to succeed across this province, the expert advice and innovation and involvement of our Wildlife Division is essential. I am pleased to say that the new structure of the department will accommodate that.
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to advise the House that this government takes this concern of species at risk very seriously. Accordingly, reorganization of the department includes the addition of a biologist specialist in the Wildlife Division to deal specifically with species at risk in Nova Scotia. As you can see, Mr. Speaker, the division will play an expanding role in the management, conservation and sustainability of Nova Scotia wildlife and their habitat.
Mr. Speaker, I know all members of the House will join me in encouraging all Nova Scotians to do their part and enjoy Wildlife Week activities in their own communities. Thank you. (Applause)
MR. SPEAKER: The minister took four minutes for his announcement; each Opposition Party has four minutes to reply.
The honourable member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley.
MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the statement by the Minister of Natural Resources. I might add that I would have certainly appreciated receiving the minister's statement at least two minutes before he made it but, nonetheless, I do welcome it.
I certainly share in the minister's jubilation that we are going to join with the rest of Canada in celebrating National Wildlife Week. I do, however, find some of the minister's statements and some of his comments, Mr. Speaker, to be a little contradictory, especially when he suggests that this year's theme, Wildlife . . . Yours to Recover, reminds us that everyone should make an effort to support wildlife and habitats that are at risk. I find that a little ironic whereas the minister recently announced that the Two Rivers Wildlife Park will close down in Cape Breton.
AN HON. MEMBER: Shame, shame.
MR. TAYLOR: Yes, and there is some concern too for another park down in the other end of the province.
While we appreciate the minister's comments about endangered species, we certainly find a similarity between the endangered species and perhaps the endangered Premier; we are not quite sure if the minister, in fact, would draw the same conclusion.
Nonetheless, we note that the minister has announced that we face a challenge as stewards of our natural resources and we certainly do. When we think of natural resources and speak of natural resources, we have to be cognizant about our forests in Nova Scotia and, in fact, that there is no replantation policy in place. We have many, many concerns, Mr. Speaker, respecting our forest industry. We are extremely disappointed that the minister found need to close the only wildlife park in Cape Breton. Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, this is truly an important announcement and an important issue. It is unfortunate that we weren't given the minister's speech in plenty of time in order to review it and in order to make a cogent and reasonable and constructive contribution to the announcement.
As usual, and this is, I think, unfortunate, that we don't get these announcements somewhat ahead of time in order that we can try to, wherever possible, make a constructive contribution to a positive and important announcement like this.
HON. WILLIAM GILLIS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the honourable member has raised the fact that he wished that he had the ministerial statement in advance. The tradition in this House is that is has been normally done when the ministers rise in their place. I have been in this House quite a long time and it is not five minutes, 10 minutes or half an hour or an hour before the statement is made. So, I think we have to do the best we can. I would hope that all members on this side, while we are here, would make it available at least at the time we rise. But, I think, to start taking a shot at the minister and the government for not giving it to them in advance, is not to look back at precedent, which is clearly on the side of giving it at that time.
MR. SPEAKER: Well, the point is noted and I would certainly confirm that the procedure has been along the lines that have just been enunciated.
MR. CHISHOLM: I think the point has to be made that bad precedent or things that didn't work in the past don't necessarily have to be continued in the future. I think that is the point here, we are supposedly trying to reform this Legislature for better government.
Mr. Speaker, I can only say that I support the announcement from what I was able to review. It makes some sense. I don't know that the words of the government or the words of this minister to try to reassure people who are concerned about the reorganization of his department and how the Wildlife Division will be affected is going to be enough that people are going to have to wait and see whether the actions back up the words.
[7:15 p.m.]
I guess that one of the last comments here, that the minister says, I am very pleased to advise the House that this government takes the concern of species at risk very seriously, must mean that there are senior officials in the minister's department who are involved in the re-election campaign for Premier Savage. With those few comments, I will take my seat.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame, shame.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Minister of Natural Resources.
HON. DONALD DOWNE: As a point of order, I had instructed my staff and I understand, to my knowledge, this document was sent over here around 5:00 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. this evening or maybe 6:00 p.m. I will confirm with my staff but I understand I had asked them to bring it over here for the distribution of the Pages, so that, in fact, it was here in plenty of time and we can clarify that point.
AN HON. MEMBER: Well, they just arrived.
MR. DOWNE: Well, I am just saying, it was to my knowledge, it was cleared out of my office at 4:30 p.m. to be brought over here and to be circulated accordingly. Secondly, I find that some of the comments and that were made in regard to this important week, and we talk about other areas that are not really applicable to this presentation; I find is a little bit off-coloured. I know the members opposite being concerned about wildlife really are taking a little bit of liberty in making fun of this important week by making jest that at political futures of maybe himself or others in this room. I find that just a little bit distasteful and I, personally, on behalf of the Ministry of Natural Resources in representing the National Wildlife Week and the concerns of the people will certainly not express those kind of comments publicly because I don't think they are very appropriate. (Applause)
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party.
MR. JOHN HOLM: On the minister's point of order and comments and certainly, I would suggest that many members on this side of the House find many announcements and things that are done on that side of the House distasteful. But, I want to set that aside and I just want to deal with the issue very briefly, about the timing of the announcement being brought forward before the House. Quite frankly, I don't think that it is something that we should be particularly worrying about or trying to cast blame on in this particular situation, not at this point in time.
The point has been made that the minister's statement was not provided to members of the Opposition Party until after the minister stood and was part way through his presentation. Whatever the reason is, I am not interested in affixing blame on the staff in the ministry department or whether or not there is a mix up here and that they weren't placed on the desk. What I am suggesting, through you, Mr. Speaker, maybe to all ministers and members of this House, is it may be, we can make it as a courtesy and just try to assure that when a ministerial announcement is going to be made that that announcement be placed, as is the normal practise, on the desk of whoever the Opposition member is, who is going to be making a response, before the House opens. That gives the brief amount of time that is needed to do a quick overview and hopefully, in an amicable way, we can all agree that that is the way that we should be going.
MR. SPEAKER: I thank the honourable member for his representation. The honourable Government House Leader and then I wish to make a few comments.
HON. RICHARD MANN: Mr. Speaker, I will personally endeavour to have Cabinet members share the ministerial statements with members of the Opposition as soon as is humanly possible.
MR. SPEAKER: Possibly, in view of that undertaking by the Government House Leader, we could dispense with the matter and move on. I don't feel that it necessitates a lengthy ruling from the Chair.
GOVERNMENT NOTICES OF MOTION
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
NOTICES OF MOTION
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Hants West.
MR. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the member for Cape Breton West resigned his Legislature seat earlier today; and
Whereas the Premier on August 5, 1993 accused the former member of the Legislature for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley as being lame duck and urged him to do the gentlemanly thing by resigning, because the people from his constituency deserved representation; and
Whereas effective this morning, the residents of Cape Breton West are not being represented in this historic Legislative Chamber;
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier call an immediate by-election for the constituency of Cape Breton West, so residents of that constituency will be equally represented, like other Nova Scotians, in this historic Legislative Chamber.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party.
MR. JOHN HOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Minister of Transportation and Communications has shown absolutely no shame for his role in misappropriating $26 million that was to be spent to build the Highway No. 104 by-pass of death valley, where at least 40 people have died in the past number of years; and
Whereas the Premier has supported the minister's action and boasted in his Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne about his government's ". . . new and innovative way of building and financing highways . . ."; and
Whereas the Premier of Nova Scotia has repeatedly promised to end this type of blatant, pork-barrel politics, to ensure money was best spent to correct safety concerns, not partisan, political priorities;
Therefore be it resolved that this House calls for the Minister of Transportation and Communications to tender his resignation or, failing this, for the Premier to demand his resignation, because of the minister's shameless diversion of public funds away from the death valley by-pass, for his and federal colleague's political advantage.
MR. SPEAKER: Honourable Leader of the Opposition, I have not ruled that the notice is tabled.
There are no members rising to raise a point of order on that notice of motion, are there? No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable Leader of the Opposition.
MR. TERENCE DONAHOE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Halifax Liberal Association has extended invitations to members of the Progressive Conservative caucus to attend a Liberal fundraiser; and
Whereas the guest speaker for this event is none other than the Minister of Defense, David Collenette; and
Whereas despite the promises of the Leader of the Leader of the Liberal Party during the federal election, this minister closed down military bases throughout Nova Scotia and gutted Maritime Command;
Therefore be it resolved that the Progressive Conservative caucus believes that a military presence is vital to the Nova Scotia economy and respectfully declines the invitation to dine with the minister responsible for gutting the military community in this province.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable Minister of Supply and Services.
HON. GERALD O'MALLEY: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on this day, in the Year of our Lord, 1800, the foundation stone of St. George's Church, Halifax, was laid by the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Sir John Wentworth; and
Whereas St. George's Church was designed in the "Round" by Mr. William Hughes, Master Builder to His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, designer of other notable Halifax landmarks, including the Halifax Town Clock and Prince's Lodge; and
Whereas parishioners of this historic church, affectionately known through North America as Halifax's "Round Church", are in the process of rebuilding the church, following a devastating fire;
Therefore be it resolved that this House extend congratulations to the parishioners and pastor of St. George's Church, the Reverend Gary Thorne, on the 115th Anniversary of the church's foundation and applaud their efforts to restore this historic church to its original beauty.
I would ask for a waiver, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver of notice, which requires unanimous consent.
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried, unanimously.
The honourable member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley.
MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Minister of Transportation and Communications is quoted on Page 313 of Hansard, during debate last week, as saying ". . . trying to protect lives is an attack on no one and that is a responsibility that we as a government have, to make our highways safe . . ."; and
Whereas the slushing of funds from Highway No. 104 demonstrated nothing less than an abrogation of the minister's responsibility respecting protection of lives and property on Nova Scotia's highway system; and
Whereas the Liberal Member of Parliament for Cumberland-Colchester, who understands the urgent need for the twinning of Highway No. 104, called the Minister of Transportation's decision to divert funds "an insult to the people of Cumberland-Colchester";
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier make an immediate commitment tonight to Nova Scotians that he will not tolerate the crass and entirely irresponsible actions of his Minister of Transportation and immediately reinstate the funds intended for twinning Highway No. 104.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Bedford Basin.
MR. GERALD FOGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on this day in 1841 an Act incorporating the City of Halifax was given Royal Assent by the Lieutenant Governor in Council; and
Whereas the City of Halifax, founded in 1749 on the shores of Halifax Harbour, has grown to become Atlantic Canada's largest residential, industrial, commercial and shipping centre; and
Whereas in June the City of Halifax will open its doors to the leaders of the world's great industrial nations gathered for their Economic Summit, which offers a unique opportunity for the world to experience the beauty, history and culture of Halifax and her people;
Therefore be it resolved that this House congratulate the civil leaders and the citizens of this great city as they celebrate the 154th Anniversary of the Act to Incorporate the City of Halifax.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask for waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
The honourable Leader of the Opposition.
MR. TERENCE DONAHOE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on March 10th the Premier issued a press release boasting of a 0.5 percentage point reduction in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, even though the decrease was accompanied by both a 2,000 drop in employment and a 4,000 drop in the labour force; and
Whereas the Premier did not issue a press release when the latest Statistics Canada figures show a 0.5 percentage point increase in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate; and
Whereas Nova Scotia was the only province not to record employment gains over last March and the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey states that employment growth in Nova Scotia has faltered over the last 12 months;
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier and this Liberal Government stop patting themselves on the back long enough to recognize that they have done little or nothing to help the plight of well over 65,000 Nova Scotians who are still unemployed, despite the bold promises of this government while on the campaign trail.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Liberal Government of Nova Scotia will table its third budget on April 11, 1995; and
Whereas the Auditor General, in his 1995 Report, has once again reiterated his concern that insufficient information is provided to members of the Legislature to debate the allocation of provincial funds; and
Whereas the 1994-95 estimates for the Province of Nova Scotia provided less, not more, information for members of the Legislature;
Therefore be it resolved that this House congratulates the government for its plan to set budgetary goals and objectives and urges it again to actually do what it says, by bringing more, not less, information to the Legislature.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Kings North.
MR. GEORGE ARCHIBALD: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Minister for the Economic Renewal Agency owes the residents of Amherst a clear and concise answer as to when 75 provincial government jobs will be moving to our border town; and
Whereas on Wednesday the Minister for the Economic Renewal Agency evaded answering a question on the issue of government jobs moving to Amherst; and
Whereas the present Liberal Government has earned a place of honour on Amherst Town Council's monthly agenda for their "do nothing approach";
Therefore be it resolved that the Minister for the Economic Renewal Agency attend the next monthly meeting of Amherst Town Council and provide councillors with clear and concise answers as to when the 75 provincial government jobs promised by his government will be moving to Amherst.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage.
MR. DENNIS RICHARDS: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas famed American explorer and aviator Admiral Richard E. Byrd founded CFB Shearwater during World War I; and
Whereas Mrs. Bolling Byrd Clarke, daughter of Admiral Byrd officially opened the CFB Shearwater Headquarters building today, named in the honour of Admiral Byrd; and
Whereas this is the only time to date in Canadian Forces history that a structure has been named after a citizen of a country other than Canada;
Therefore be it resolved that all members of the House extend congratulations to Mrs. Clarke for officially opening the Shearwater Headquarters Building as a fitting way of recognizing the outstanding accomplishments of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask for waiver of notice.
[7:30 p.m.]
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver of notice which requires unanimous consent.
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
The honourable member for Pictou Centre.
DR. JOHN HAMM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas as stated by the Auditor General the debt of this province increased by $824 million in 1993-94; and
Whereas as stated by the Auditor General in 1994 our $6 billion debt in foreign currency resulted in a foreign exchange loss of $930 million due to the failure of government, despite advice, to protect our debt by hedging; and
Whereas the gamble by the Minister of Finance has resulted in the total indebtedness of the province increase by $1.7 billion in 1994 - the largest yearly increase in the history of the province;
Therefore be it resolved that the government stop its self-congratulations and face up to the financial chaos the mismanagement of the provincial debt has caused.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Fairview.
MS. ALEXA MCDONOUGH: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Minister of Health in his April 7th announcement of Pharmacare changes totally misrepresented facts about other provincial Pharmacare Programs; and
Whereas in an attempt to sugar coat the financial pill the Nova Scotia Government is prescribing for seniors under Pharmacare the minister falsely reported that a senior with cancer in Saskatchewan could end up "paying $17,000 out of their own pockets for prescription drugs"; and
Whereas no senior nor person of any age in Saskatchewan is required to pay $17,000 a year out of their own pocket for approved drugs to treat cancer because they are, in fact, provided at no charge;
Therefore be it resolved that the Minister of Health come clean with Nova Scotians about the increased cost being imposed on seniors for Pharmacare benefits instead of making false comparisons with other province's longstanding prescription drug programs serving both seniors and all other residents.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley.
MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas over 50 individuals have lost their lives on Highway No. 104 in recent years; and
Whereas the Minister of Transportation's number one priority should be highway safety instead of political opportunism; and
Whereas the Liberal Member of Parliament for Cumberland-Colchester is even incensed with the Nova Scotia Minister of Transportation's callous attitude towards this vital issue;
Therefore be it resolved the Minister of Transportation stop playing political gamesmanship and accusing the Opposition of opposing the Fleur-de-lis Trail and address the real issue of highway safety in Nova Scotia.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party.
MR. JOHN HOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the former Director of Public Prosecutions, John Pearson, announced his resignation one year ago, tomorrow, to be effective last August; and
Whereas the external review of the operations of the Public Prosecution Services under the direction of the former Dean of the Dalhousie University Law School has been completed since August 1994; and
Whereas no steps have been taken to enact the recommendations of the external review and the position of director has not even been advertised;
Therefore be it resolved that the Minister of Justice, instead of making excuses and feigning frustration, take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Ghiz Report and ensure there are no further delays in the recruitment process.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Kings North.
MR. GEORGE ARCHIBALD: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Liberal Party campaigned on the need for a Speech from the Throne at the outset of every session or sitting; and
Whereas the Liberals said that this allowed members to air constituency concerns that otherwise might not be aired before the body of Nova Scotia's elected provincial representatives; and
Whereas this same Party in government has instead muzzled its MLAs who are allowed only a few minutes or less (Interruption)
AN HON. MEMBER: Shame, shame.
MR. ARCHIBALD: They are allowed to talk now. You are just allowed to talk sometimes.
MR. SPEAKER: I wonder if the House could please allow the honourable member to read out his resolution.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Whereas this same Party in government has instead muzzled its MLAs who are allowed only a few minutes or less to respond to the Speech from the Throne, with the House Leader proclaiming Friday, "The rhetoric often comes in the response";
Therefore be it resolved that this government, which campaigned on the promise of accountability, become accountable to its many backbenchers who often have but this one opportunity in the Legislature to relay the concerns of their constituents to all members.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the discovery 10 years ago of deposits of uranium in Nova Scotia led to the establishment of a public inquiry into whether it would be desirable to allow actual mining to proceed; and
Whereas the great majority of Nova Scotians who appeared before the commissioner clearly stated their opposition to uranium mining in terms so definite that the government of the day terminated the inquiry before a final report was received from the commissioner and imposed a moratorium on uranium mining; and
Whereas the moratorium is in limbo because the government has not stated its position on the matter;
Therefore be it resolved that this House calls on the government to ensure that there will be no termination of the uranium mining moratorium until the public inquiry into it has been reconstituted, completes its hearings and reports to this House.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Fairview.
MS. ALEXA MCDONOUGH: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the 1994 Auditor General's Report makes repeated comments about the lateness of departmental annual reports; and
Whereas despite the fact that the Nova Scotia Lottery Commission is required to present an annual report within two months of its fiscal year end, the Commission has not tabled a single report since 1991-92; and
Whereas with gambling revenues representing an increasing proportion of government revenues, this government's failure to require accountability from the Lottery Commission over a period of several years does not bode well for what accountability can be expected from a patronage-packed Gaming Commission or Gaming Corporation;
Therefore be it resolved that this government ensure the immediate preparation and tabling of the Nova Scotia Lottery Commission reports for 1992, 1993 and 1994 as a first step in establishing proper standards and mechanisms for accountability of gambling revenues.
MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RICHARD MANN: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the order of business, Government Motions.
GOVERNMENT MOTIONS
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RICHARD MANN: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne.
MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that the adjourned debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne be now resumed.
The motion is carried.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I certainly welcome the opportunity to respond to the Speech from the Throne of 1995, that has already, over the past couple of weeks, been characterized in many different ways, but I will deal with that a bit more further on in my address.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to extend best wishes to you from me and from the constituents of Halifax Atlantic. I would like to add my congratulations to the honurable member for Bedford-Fall River, who was selected as the Deputy Speaker. I wish her well. I know that we will, undoubtedly, get a fair hearing from her and I would say that we certainly did with her predecessor, the member for Halifax Needham, who was in that position. On most occasions, anyway, we felt that we received a fair and reasonable hearing from that Deputy Speaker, and I am sure the same will be the case for the member for Bedford-Fall River and I, again, congratulate her for her position.
Mr. Speaker, I also would like to add to the condolences that were expressed in the Speech from the Throne and by the Leader of the Official Opposition and the Leader of the New Democratic Party for those Nova Scotians who passed away during the past year. As was indicated earlier, add to that the name of Giff Gifford, a founder of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms; unfortunately, I have a couple of other people to name to that list. One is Glenda Cooper who recently passed away after a very difficult battle with cancer. Glenda made a very significant contribution to the labour movement in Nova Scotia over very many years and I would like to pass on my condolences and those of my caucus to her husband and their son in this most difficult time.
Also, Mr. Speaker, we learned this morning that Anne Marie Peters, wife of Dave Peters, the President of the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, passed away with also a very difficult battle with cancer. Our condolences, our warm wishes go out to Brother Peters and his three daughters. It has been a very difficult time for them over the past few months as Anne Marie has been fighting a valiant fight as she has been known to do over many years. We offer our condolences and warmest wishes to her family.
Also, we offer our congratulations, or my congratulations, to His Honour, Mr. Kinley on his selection as Her Majesty's representative in Nova Scotia. The Lieutenant Governor and his wife, Mrs. Kinley, we wish them good health and happiness as they perform their important responsibilities in Nova Scotia.
While I am handing out congratulations, I must mention the appointment of the member for Halifax Needham to the Cabinet in his position as Minister of Supply and Services. Again, I wish him well and would advise him to watch his step on any gangplanks that he may walk, although I understand that he has lent a bit of clarification to that story and that in fact he plunged into the murky depths of the tar ponds in an attempt to try to save another individual. I commend him for his actions but would hope that . . .
AN HON. MEMBER: Wait until you see him in the dark and see if he glows.
MR. CHISHOLM: . . . the minister received a very thorough showering after his unfortunate event.
Also, of course, I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, from Halifax Atlantic and certainly from myself, to welcome back Buddy Daye and other staff of the House, Mike Laffin and all the Pages and those people who perform their duties so well in providing support to us, to the library staff as well and to the security personnel who, day in and day out, are not only efficient and effective in providing support to members of this House but also are always at the extreme of courteousness to us and to any other people who come into the House to watch the activities here.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn for a few moments and talk a bit about Halifax Atlantic. Unfortunately, I have to begin, in talking about Halifax Atlantic, by mentioning a couple of people. There have been a few unfortunate deaths over the past year of constituents of Halifax Atlantic. To those people, my condolences to their families, in particular, a gentleman by the name of Al Boudreau who passed away in recent weeks after a very difficult battle, again, with cancer. Mr. Boudreau was someone who I had a fair bit of contact with over the past four years. He was an individual who was dedicated to his community, was committed to providing for his family and no matter how difficult his life got, or that of his family, Mr. Boudreau continued to face life with a smile and with a positive thought and we are all going to miss him.
You will remember, of course, the unfortunate incident in Sambro last year where a young man was swept overboard, and Amos Henneberry, Mr. Speaker, was added to the list of unfortunate fatalities as the sea raged its unpredictability and again, to Mr. Henneberry's family, I want to offer my condolences.
You will also remember the tragic incident involving one Darren Watts last year, where Mr. Watts was savagely and viciously beaten and remained in a coma for many weeks. Mr. Watts is quite a remarkable human being. He has contributed immensely to his community in his short life. Mr. Watts, I believe, is in his mid-twenties and it was very tragic and we were concerned in our community of what was happening and what had happened to Mr. Watts. I ran into him again in the street the other day and it is quite remarkable the recovery that that man has made from the condition that he was experiencing shortly after the beating. I would just say that Darren Watts, before this incident, was a very positive example to his peers and to anybody else who knew him or came in contact with him. Having handled the difficult adversity that he has in the manner he has, once again I think has shown the merits of Mr. Watts and my kindest wishes go out to him and his family.
[7:45 p.m.]
In Halifax Atlantic, Mr. Speaker, I have an office, as you may know, in the South Centre Mall and have had one there since shortly after I was elected in the by-election of 1991. We carry out a lot of important functions in our community. As you know, probably one-half of the constituency is in the city and one-half of it is in the county. There is a real diversity of issues that come before us and I want to make special mention of a person who carries out a lot of the work on my behalf in that constituency, my constituency assistant, Catherine Chambers. She is the one who handles the majority of the cases that come before our attention. If I am unable to make a community meeting, then inevitably Catherine is right there in order to ensure that the constituents in Halifax Atlantic are represented at all times.
I think at this point it is also incumbent to pay a special thanks to the staff at the NDP caucus office. Madam Speaker, welcome and congratulations to you for the elevation to the position of deputy speaker. The staff at the NDP caucus office, as you have heard from me and my colleagues on many occasions, are quite remarkable in the effort that they put into their job in trying to provide us with the material and the confidence to come into this Legislature and represent our constituents and the people of Nova Scotia in the most effective and efficient manner that we possibly can. They do it with a sense of humour and with a sense of commitment and I thank them very much for that.
Madam Speaker, I just want to run through a few things that are going on and have been going on in Halifax Atlantic. You have heard me in past presentations to this House talk about the McIntosh Run watershed. It is an important body of water that runs from Long Lake down through the constituency, through Spryfield, into Herring Cove and out into the ocean at that particular point. We have had a concern over a number of years. A number of people in the constituency have had a concern over a number of years that that body of water has been contaminated at various times by improper sewage facilities, by development in the area and by just simply a lack of maintenance, a lack of use.
This fall I had the good fortune to be a part of the founding of an association called the McIntosh Run Watershed Association and we had a lot of support from the Department of the Environment officials, from the Department of Fisheries, from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Members of the community came together, formed this association in order to try to do what many community organizations have done from one end of this province to the other and that is, take a direct role in the stewardship of an important part of their community, in this case, McIntosh Run.
It is an important association, it combines activities of the J.L. Ilsley Environment Society and residents of all communities in the watershed, again, mainly from Spryfield and Herring Cove. They are presently in the stage of developing an action plan, complete with time lines for restoration and clean-up and will be attempting to obtain some funding and other kinds of support from this government, from the federal government and support and assistance from other members of the community, Madam Speaker.
The Captain William Spry Community Centre is a facility and an organic organization, really, Madam Speaker, that operates within Mainland South. It is the only facility out of which runs the multi-service concept in our community that brings together various parts of the community in order to identify needs, in order to try to meet needs from various avenues. It is a unique concept in the city. It has been extremely effective in Spryfield and in Mainland South. We are extremely proud of what has happened there.
The projects include: the newest one, that is the sponsoring of a conference on abusive mothers by their teenage children; it should be held on May 9, 1995. They continue to educate the community through a committee against women abuse and those initiatives including their abuse in pregnancy poster, jointly sponsored by the Department of Health and the Family Violence Prevention Initiative.
You have heard me indicate before that the Captain Spry Community Centre, through its multi-use advisory committee, has been or was directly involved in the establishment of the teen health centre in J.L. Ilsley High School, which has been a model that the Department of Health and other communities have attempted to replicate in other parts of the province.
The Spryfield Community Education Program is a program funded by government, by the province and the school board, but it could not function without the efforts of its other sponsors, which are the St. Paul's Family Resource Institute, Captain William Spry Community Centre, the City of Halifax Social Planning Department, Women's Outreach, the Single Parent Centre and the Captain Spry Public Library. It is in its 13th year of operation, Madam Speaker, designed to respond to the needs of single parent mothers; 344 adults have received math, English and/or science certificates from the Halifax District School Board as a result of this program. Also, 120 adults have received Grade 12 equivalency certificates from the Nova Scotia Department of Education.
The District 5 Community Development Association was formed, I believe it was two years ago, primarily in response to the crisis in the fishery. You have heard me say in this House before, that the Community of Sambro has a 500 year history of fishing and the crisis in the groundfish industry where quotas were so desperately reduced, the fact that there has been no fish, has meant serious economic problems for that community. The estimate, as I recall in 1993, was that approximately $20 million was generated through the Community of Sambro and beyond, directly as a result of the ground fishery and that has been significantly affected as a result of the crisis.
The District 5 Community Development Association has taken on the challenge of trying to do something about that. To pull the community together in many ways and to come up with ideas and projects to contribute to the community and also to put people back to work. They have received support in principle from the Department of Natural Resources, for a preliminary proposal for the development of the Crystal Crescent Beach Provincial Park. They have obtained municipal funding for a Needs Assessment survey for District 5, which is now up and running. They have actively pursued and I believe, have something on the go now, with respect to a mapping project for the area, much along the lines of the mapping project, the marine mapping project, that was done in Shelburne.
They are working with fish harvesters to propose co-management with the in-shore fishery. They have pulled together a few community meetings, in particular, to discuss the question of coastal communities and how, in fact, they are going to survive in light of the current crisis in that industry. I think that my view, in watching the District 5 Community Development Association, it is almost like, in spite of, the lack of leadership or the lack of involvement of or perhaps, in spite of the lack of involvement of some government agencies, both provincial and federal. This association and their members in the community have persevered because they had a vision of what needed to be done and they weren't going to be thrown off the track by some bureaucratic changes that were being made in terms of trying to fit their community and what they wanted to do, into a particular box. They have moved forward and are doing a fine job and I think, serve as another good example of what real community economic development is all about.
The whole issue of amalgamation of metro has been a concern to constituents of Halifax Atlantic, in particular in the county portion when you consider that there are historical connections between people who live in Sambro or around the loop in the county, from Duncan's Cove around to Harrietsfield. There are historic connections between those people and the people who live in the city part of Spryfield and surrounding parts of that community. When the amalgamation commissioner considers basically breaking that down the middle, in other words, taking the county portion of Halifax Atlantic and aligning it with Terence Bay or St. Margaret's Bay side of the terrain and not with the Spryfield, the natural community, it has caused them quite some considerable concern. Because as you know, Madam Speaker, geographically, they are not connected with or they are disconnected with, from the District 5 part of the old municipality over to Terence Bay, there is absolutely no geographical connection there.
It is a problem and it is certainly a concern that we brought to the attention of the amalgamation commissioner, and we'll certainly have brought in various ways to the minister's attention and we'll continue that fight.
[8:00 p.m.]
The whole question of education, I must tell you that members of the Halifax Atlantic constituency, the communities of Spryfield and throughout the county, have been very involved in all of these discussions around the reorganization of school boards, the "reform" discussions of the minister on education, members of many of those communities have been directly and very actively involved.
I want to offer my congratulations, for example, to all the participants in the strategic planning process that was undertaken this school year by the Halifax District School Board. Madam Speaker, volunteers put in a total of over 11,665 hours into that process. The board trustees ratified the plan on Tuesday, April 4, 1995. Many residents, as I said, from Halifax Atlantic, representing the staff, parents and students were involved in the time-consuming task of creating the vision and devising plans of action for implementing that vision.
Again, that certainly has been reported back to me that it was a rewarding experience for all involved, which saw individuals with diverse backgrounds coming together and putting forward solutions to a complex problem. Unquestionably, Madam Speaker, ultimately the students and their needs come first.
Finally, let me just say that congratulations go to J.L. Ilsley hockey team, the players and their coach, Donnie Power, which clinched the Metro AAA Championship for the first time just in March. Again, my congratulations go again this year to the participants in the model Parliament held this year. Unfortunately, once again it was a Liberal Government but, nonetheless, I think it is always a valuable experience, it gives the students exposure to the parliamentary system. Part of the struggle of understanding what goes on here, in the federal House of Commons, is understanding the rules and procedures and the functions thereof. Again, Madam Speaker, my compliments and congratulations to those participants.
Now to the Speech from the Throne. Madam Speaker, I guess my Leader said it best when he was reported to have said that this speech is not a Speech from the Throne, it is, in fact, a retreat from the Throne. It was clearly an attempt, and stated as such, as a consolidation of the plans laid out beforehand and trying to ensure, I guess stability that because the reforms were too fast and causing some amount of uneasiness among the people of Nova Scotia and that this budget leading up to the next election was basically the first salvo by this government in trying to get re-elected in 1997 or whenever it is that they decide to call the election.
The problem I have with that and that many people in Halifax Atlantic seem to have with that is that there is a whole lot more going on in the Province of Nova Scotia. There is a whole lot more to worry about in the Province of Nova Scotia, Madam Speaker, than whether or not John Savage stays on as Leader of the Liberal Party and whether or not the Liberals get re-elected in 1997. There are serious problems facing the Province of Nova Scotia; 65,000 people are unemployed in this province. Official unemployment levels in Cape Breton continue to exceed 25 per cent, even though this government was a government committed to job creation, was committed to putting to work thousands of Nova Scotians when they ran for election in the spring of 1993.
I think it is important that we don't lose focus on what it is this government got into power intending or promising to do. They got into government, they were elected by the people of Nova Scotia, given their trust and commitment, Madam Speaker, because they were going to create jobs, because they were not going to cut and slash the public sector because that would be a drag on the economy. What they were going to do was try to do things more creatively, that they believed that the policies of the Tories of cutting and slashing and dragging back on the people and on the economy was not going to serve us in good stead but that what we needed was better management and a more positive approach, a constructive approach to handling the affairs of Nova Scotia. For that, the people of Nova Scotia elected this government.
What we have attempted to show in this House over the past two years is that this government has not done that. This government, at every turn, has turned its back on the promises and the commitments they made to Nova Scotians in order to get elected. For them to tell you and me and other Nova Scotians that they did not know how bad things were in terms of the finances of this province when they were running for election, Madam Speaker, is absolutely a misrepresentation of what we all know to be the facts.
You remember and I remember, Madam Speaker, and Nova Scotians remember, that the facts were presented, not only by this Party, not only by the Tories when they were in government, but also by the now Minister of Finance when he was the official Finance Critic. He and the now Premier documented for Nova Scotians how bad things were financially. But time and time again over the past two years, that minister, this Premier, and everybody else on the government benches, has taken to their feet and exclaimed, when we made those promises to you Nova Scotians, we did not understand how bad it really was. The implication, I guess, being, Madam Speaker, had they known, they would not have made those kind of promises.
Well, I think we all know and Nova Scotians know all too well how hollow that representation truly is. Not only are we dealing with difficult times in this province in terms of our own finances, in terms of dealing with the economic restructuring in our resource industries, in particular in the fishery, we are faced with and have been faced with over the past couple of years a continuing decrease in the commitment that the federal government is making to the Province of Nova Scotia and to Nova Scotians, in many areas.
It is best represented, I think, in the last federal budget when the federal Liberals indicated that they are going to be reducing, over the next three years, federal transfers to this province of more than $300 million, Madam Speaker, in the areas of health care, education, community services and income support. They are going to back off from their responsibility to try to maintain national standards in these areas by way of providing the funds that are provided through block transfers, so that each and every province can make up its own mind.
Madam Speaker, this reduction in transfers is going to have a significant impact, not to understate it, on Nova Scotians. We are faced right now with a very significant reduction in income in a number of communities across this province. This is probably the biggest attack on all of our programs, on all of our communities by the federal government. Was there anything stated, was there anything said at all, in the Speech from the Throne, was there any indication given to Nova Scotians that in the face of this attack by the federal government to the quality of life of all of Nova Scotia, we are going to do the following? Nothing, not a peep. Was there any recognition of the difficulty that is facing each and every community in Cape Breton as the result of unemployment levels that in some communities are well over 50 per cent? Was there any recognition in the Speech from the Throne that there is a serious and obviously, I would suggest and I would allow this government to get away with saying, there is a serious structural unemployment problem in Cape Breton as evidenced by the fact that ever since this government has been elected that unemployment level and the numbers of unemployed has continued to escalate? Not a word.
For me as a Nova Scotian, for me as a representative in this House of a constituency, I think that is perhaps one of the most cynical parts of this Speech from the Throne. When the people of Nova Scotia are looking for this government to indicate what its vision is, what it is going to do to help people work through the difficulties that are facing them, the only thing we saw in the Speech from the Throne was this government's vision on how it is going to protect its own turf, how it is going to try to deal with the problems of its leadership and how it is basically going to keep its head down for the next two years and hope that it will make fewer mistakes and that people will begin to think more of it, Madam Speaker.
I think it is important to recognize that less than two weeks after the Speech from the Throne, Madam Speaker, was presented, where it says that today the unemployment rate is 12 per cent, the lowest in the Maritimes, less than two weeks later the unemployment rate is now 12.8 per cent. The fact that Nova Scotia over the last year has the largest monthly increase in unemployment in Canada, along with P.E.I. and Quebec, those are real problems and they indicate a serious lack of direction of this government. It doesn't matter how glossy the words are, it doesn't matter how pretty you sound, it doesn't matter how good you feel delivering a speech to people in Cape Breton or to people in Yarmouth or to people in Halifax if you are not able to put your programs into action, if you are not able to do something when it counts, then you are seriously failing the people you were elected to represent.
It has been said before and it must be said again that this is a government that came in with great fanfare about their commitment to community economic development, that that was going to be the engine. The problem has been that they have not had a clue in terms of what it is that they have to do in order to make community economic development. Either that, or they were not prepared to lose control of what was happening in the various communities, because that is what the reality is with community economic development. It is a question of communities being empowered to take control of the resources and the decisions that have to be made that will lead to, eventually, job creation and to the ties and development in the community that bind communities together.
[8:15 p.m.]
It is happening in spite of the lack of direction and the lack of assistance that this government is providing. It is happening in many communities across this province. To those people significant credit must be given, Madam Speaker.
I guess the final analysis really of this Speech from the Throne is the total commitment of this government to that whole deficit reduction strategy that we have seen from the Reform Party, from the Tories, now from them and from the federal Liberals. This whole strategy of deficit reduction at all costs basically comes out of the fact that they do not have any ideas. They are devoid of answers, of ideas, of strategies, of commitment to try things, new things that may or may not work and to keep working and to keep working with Nova Scotians in order to see that happen. So instead of that, it is just a complete commitment to reducing the deficit at all costs.
The problem with that, Madam Speaker, is that the result has been continual layoff, pain and suffering on the behalf of individuals who can least afford to pay and a lack of growth, a lack of optimism, a lack of a sense from the people of Nova Scotia that this government actually has any idea of where it is going.
During the 1970's, we saw the Liberals spend as if there was no tomorrow, the federal Liberals, but if they had planned ahead, I would suggest that we would not be in this mess today. Then again, they were followed by the federal Tories in the early 1980's, who talked a lot about fiscal restraint and the need to address the deficit but, all the while, they were dishing it out through the side door to their friends in order to continually feed the trough for re-election.
AN HON. MEMBER: You must support the Reform Party, do you?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please.
MR. CHISHOLM: Madam Speaker, deficit reduction, Tory reform and Liberal style means gouging the middle class, the working poor, by cutting off the disadvantaged and ensuring that wealthy and corporate Canada get all the breaks. We are seeing that here by this government. It is a return, very clearly, to a right-of-king philosophy where your ascendancy to wealth and power means that you have the privilege of calling the shots for everybody else in the country.
Very clearly, multinationals in this country and institutional rentiers dominate our economy and are devoted to high, real interest rates and that is the basis of our problem. The difficulty with that is that those people are quite prepared to accept economic stagnation in preference to the mere suggestion of a return to inflation. Thus we have the spectacle last Thursday, or we had the spectacle of markets that greet any hint of economic and employment growth as bad news, and we saw that just last week, on Thursday, when the Conference Board of Canada said there is good news ahead. Job creation is stalled, economic growth is slowing and there is a risk of recession by 1997. That is not my definition of good news. I suggest that we are playing to the financial markets everywhere along the road and for governments like the federal Liberals and these provincial Liberals, this means cutting and slashing at each and every turn.
Madam Speaker, there have been some suggestions by commentators across this country, that the deficit wall hysteria is being orchestrated by those people who can best benefit by the usurping of control of the democratically elected governments, can benefit by the selling off or the giving away of billions of dollars worth of services and goods. That is certainly a problem when you have governments like this government, that see themselves basically as the servants of the elite, of the business community and, regardless of the effects that it is going to have on the people of Nova Scotia, they just go about and do their bidding.
The problem with this fetish with the deficit - and let me say that that does not mean that we do not have financial problems, that the deficit is not a concern, it is not something that needs to be dealt with. What I suggest and my caucus will suggest, Madam Speaker, is that it is a problem that needs to be dealt with in a planned and an organized fashion, that takes into consideration a much more serious problem, the long-term deficits in our human capital and in our public infrastructure. That is what these governments are missing in their drive to balance budgets at all costs. It will not benefit any of us, if the price that we pay for getting the public debt under control is the decline of our health care, the decline of our education, our social programs, our environment, our roads, highway bridges and other vital areas.
It is not going to do us any good if, in four years time, we have a balanced budget, or at least we have the presentation of a balanced budget and yet most of the roads in this province have gone to pot, health care is in a total shambles, seniors are continuing to be forced to pay for more and more services, children and people that, unfortunately, cannot keep up, are in the streets and our education system is falling apart at the seams. That is not going to do any of us any good. Who is going to be patting themselves on the back when that happens?
I would suggest, Madam Speaker, that we are clearly into an ideological game here where, instead of trying to help create well-paying, relatively secure jobs, instead of trying to give workers the education, the skills they need to secure for them their future, our governments are committed to reducing the role of government, no matter what the consequences and, of course, all the while defending the cuts because they do not have any choice and pointing at the debt and the deficit.
Let us not forget, Madam Speaker, who it is in this country and in their province that are not paying their fair share. You have seen it. Anybody who has not seen it is looking at things with blinkers on or they are not looking at the information that is in front of them. But we have seen over the past 15 years that a greater share of the tax burden has moved from corporations, from wealthy individuals onto individuals, onto the working poor, onto the middle class. Those are the people who are being asked to pay, all the while we see economic stimulus plans of this government and their federal cousins based on giving those same corporations, those same wealthy individuals further breaks, further reductions. Based again on that old trickle-down conservative theory, that if you allow those elites to rack up the bucks and to have enough money to invest in the world markets, and to invest in this, that and the other thing, if you have enough money, then they may trickle that down and create a few jobs and to assist a few of the charities, some of the many charities that exist.
We know that doesn't work. We know it hasn't worked over the years and it won't work now and we need better, we need more than that from this government and from the federal government. The last few years of economic restructuring, without question, have had an enormous impact, a devastating impact on the number of full-time, full-year jobs with employees earning incomes of over $30,000. I would suggest that the crisis that we should be dealing with in this House and the crisis that every government in this country should be dealing with, is the crisis of unemployment and underemployment. That that is the crisis, that drives the fiscal crisis of our government and our governments.
It has been estimated, not by this gang, but it has been estimated that if we could create in this country half a million new jobs, that Canada's production of goods and services would increase by nearly $30 billion. About $12 billion would be generated in revenues for the three levels of government. In addition, the savings to unemployment insurance and the public purse would be substantial. What this government and what the federal government does instead is that they cut jobs. They cut as many well-paying secure jobs as they possibly can, it seems. They continue to cut services to individuals that will provide them with an opportunity to prepare for a secure and a constructive contribution in their communities, all the while handing off anything profitable to the private sector.
I often wonder, does anybody stop and think about the costs that are associated with having the private sector do everything? Governments borrow money at a much better interest rate than do private corporations and that cost is going to end up being part of the bill. Whether it is paying for the construction of national highways in the national highway system, by tolls as the Minister of Transportation is preparing to do with the Highway No. 104; or whether it is dealing with the clean-up of Halifax Harbour; whether it is dealing with the management of the Water Commission here in this city and elsewhere across this province.
If we turn it over and let the private sector handle it and come up with the money, I suggest to you and this has been shown over and over, that inevitably the costs are going to be greater and those are public services. Those are services that are important for all people in this society, not just those people that can afford to pay. Madam Speaker, I have said this before in this House but I unfortunately am faced with the opportunity of saying it again. In 1993, when this gang was elected, it was a change from an administration that had been around for 14 years.
Even though I had a lot of concerns because of the wholesale promises they were making and because of the performance that I saw of that group when they were in Opposition, I thought, well, you know, they have been given a pretty significant mandate by the people of Nova Scotia and they made a very significant commitment to the people of Nova Scotia in exchange for that mandate, to create jobs and to get the economy going, to pick up the spirits of Nova Scotians, Madam Speaker, and to move us forward.
[8:30 p.m.]
The biggest disappointment that I have suffered from and that other Nova Scotians suffer from is the fact that this government blew it. This government dropped the ball. They did not have the courage to move forward with that plan. They ducked, they made excuses, they blamed everything on the former administration, Madam Speaker. They are still doing that two years later because they seem absolutely incapable of coming up with new ideas and new programs and new policies in order to show Nova Scotians the most important thing, that they can do it differently, that they can do it better.
That is a serious problem. It is something, unfortunately, that we in Nova Scotia are going to suffer as a result of, for many years to come in the future, because you would have thought the political process could not have been tainted any further than it already had been, Madam Speaker, but it clearly has been.
I don't know what we are going to see over the next two years, other than the fact that this government has made it clear that they have two commitments. One is that the hide of Premier Savage is saved and protected. The second one is, Madam Speaker, that they get re-elected in 1997. I say to you that that is an incredibly cowardly sign of what is going to happen. That is an incredibly gutless commitment to the people of Nova Scotia, the 65,000-plus who are out there looking for a job; the many people who are suffering as a result of the reductions in transfer payments; the young people in this province, from one end to another, who are trying to figure out what they are going to do with their future, especially in light of the attack on higher education by the federal government and by this Minister of Education.
Those people are becoming extremely cynical and dispirited because of the way that this government has, basically, turned their backs on them and, even worse, many young Nova Scotians feel that they are being laughed at, that they are being excluded purposely from the economy by policies of this government that are reducing the number of jobs and that are not providing them with any hope for the future.
Madam Speaker, what do we get when we challenge this government? What do we get from this government, from the Minister of Education, from the Minister of Finance, from the Minister of the Economic Renewal Agency when we challenge their policies and their vacuous nature of their rhetoric? What do we get from them? What is your plan or we get, oh yeah. They say, in particular, to the Official Opposition, you know, well, if it was not for you guys, we would have done things differently.
This group, this government, they call themselves government, Madam Speaker, do not have the courage of their convictions to take responsibility themselves for the things that have to be done. Instead of trying to defend what they have got, in order to try to consider the merits of their policies, in order to try and consider some of the issues that are raised here, whether it is in the question of a debate on the establishment of casinos in the Province of Nova Scotia, whether it is issues relative to the emptiness of the promises for the establishment of home care, whether is the attack on seniors through changes in Pharmacare, whether it is the gouging of the education system under the guise of reform, all they can do when people criticize is argue with people on the basis of where they are coming from.
It is like the Minister of Transportation last week, when the Auditor General picked him up on the $26 million that was diverted out of one fund and one agreement made with the federal government for a project, into something totally unrelated, that had no connection whatsoever. Did he say to us, did he say to Nova Scotians well, we considered that and we decided to make this decision, we discussed it with our Cabinet, with our caucus, with the Premier, with the Prime Minister and we decided to go in this direction. No, no, he didn't say that. He said, how dare you attack Cape Breton? That is what he said, Madam Speaker - how dare we attack Cape Breton. Can you imagine, he slid $26 million of taxpayers' money out of a fund for which it was earmarked. He slid it into his own riding and he didn't have any shame about that whatsoever. He doesn't care about the history of Highway No. 104, he doesn't care about the concerns that members of Cumberland-Colchester have with respect to safety, with respect to the fact that that money was earmarked for that project, a project that was long overdue in the Province of Nova Scotia. No, no, he resorted to slide behind the old curtain of pork barrel politics.
If anybody thinks that things are being done any differently in the Province of Nova Scotia today than they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago or 30 years ago, the response by the Minister of Transportation to the revelations of that $26 million last Thursday and Friday have absolutely shown, without question, that patronage politics continue to rule in the Province of Nova Scotia. If the Speech from the Throne wasn't depressing enough, that fact following it is certainly of the same calibre.
In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I just want to say again that we expected a lot more from this government and maybe that was our fault. We will continue in our efforts to try to hold this government accountable, on behalf of our constituents, on behalf of all Nova Scotians. Thank you very much.
MADAM SPEAKER: The honourable member for Kings West.
MR. GEORGE MOODY: Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak in the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne in 1995.
I want to say, Madam Speaker, that I congratulate you on your appointment. I wish you well. I know you will do an excellent job. I know you have respect for this institution and for that position and I know you will carry out the job in a manner that I think all members of this House will be proud of. I wish you well in doing that.
I want to say to the member for Halifax Needham, whom I thought did an extremely good job as Deputy Speaker, was very fair. I want to congratulate him on being appointed to Cabinet and wish him well in his endeavours in that position. I hope he spends not too much time travelling around the province. It might get into a little difficulty but I do wish him well.
I want to bring greetings from Kings West. Madam Speaker, I am very fortunate since 1978 to represent an area that is mainly farming, that has a mix of industry and where the people are very hardworking. When times are tough they continue on and work hard and yet, I think, we have a lot going for us in Kings County. That did not happen because someone gave them a handout, it was because the people planned it that way.
We are very fortunate in Kings West to have the Greenwood Air Base in my constituency. A base that is growing when many bases across this province are shrinking, some are disappearing, but we welcome the expansion at CFB Greenwood and it is a great asset to the Valley. It has great economic spinoffs and I think over the years when other communities have economically gone up and down depending on certain industries, we have had some stability in the Valley and in Kings County because of CFB Greenwood.
We also are very fortunate to have Michelin in my constituency and the spinoff we have from Michelin. We had an announcement where there will be some new positions in Waterville with the continued expansion and continued growth. I keep hearing though every day it seems like the union, the CAW, in Michelin, now in the Annapolis Valley every 5 or 10 minutes I hear one ad that says from the CAW that you should join the union. Then I hear the ad from Michelin that says, no, you should not join the union.
I think, I hope, in the future, and I think it is good to have that process, but the problem I see with this is that it was lerss than a year when we had the last drive. I think it is unsettling and I hope that when this drive finishes we can get to somewhere where the drive can go on maybe every two or three years and not every so many months when you get people in the community pitted against one another during that drive. I think it is a process that has to happen, but I am not convinced that it has to happen as many times within a calendar year as we have seen it happen in the past.
I want to say too, Madam Speaker, that since I last spoke a year ago, we have two volunteer fire departments in Kings West that have big new fire stations. One in the Village of Waterville and one in the Village of Kingston. We are very fortunate in Kings West to have very active and up-to-date volunteer fire departments. Besides those two fire departments, we have one in Berwick and one in Aylesford in my constituency.
I do not know, Madam Speaker, whether everybody appreciates the amount that volunteer firefighters contribute in this province. Here is an organization that protects our properties, is always there in case of emergencies, is always there in case of accidents. I think that government has got to be aware that we have to assist these volunteer firefighters in their training because to be a volunteer firefighter today, you have to be prepared to give a lot of time, but it also costs money for people to be volunteer firefighters today.
I think when it used to be such that volunteer firefighters were not called upon as much. Madam Speaker, I remember back when I was a young chap in my early teens and that was not yesterday, but a while ago, of a fire at a warehouse in Grafton. When the fire truck arrived there was but the driver and maybe one other person and I remember helping with the hoses and all of that. We did not have the fear of chemicals and we did not have a lot of other fears that you have today. Today, when the fire vehicles arrive there is a rescue unit, a number of vehicles all fully trained so that has all changed. I think that this government has to be aware of the outreach program to train volunteer firefighters, as well as the Firefighter School. I know the Minister of Labour knows how important it is that government assist volunteer firefighters to be well trained.
I want to say that in Kings West we are very fortunate. I know that in the Town of Berwick the Wilson's Pharmacy, who was a family-owned drug store for many years has been sold and will either have Shoppers or somebody else will operate that business. There is probably close to 50 people who work in that pharmacy either part-time or full-time. We have a new drug store, Chisholms, in Aylesford, a new, much larger drug store that is helping that community.
[8:45 p.m.]
If you go along Route 1, through Cambridge and Waterville and Berwick, most of those businesses are up and operating. There are not many empty buildings, we have a few in the Town of Berwick, at one end of town, but for the main part, it is growing. I know that the business that I am a partner in, we plan to expand this summer and that will be additional people hired.
But one of the things where government can come into play, because the Board of Trade in the Town of Berwick is trying to expand that growth and the minister in charge of the Liquor Commission might appreciate this. I know she is not quite listening but almost, Bernie. The Board of Trade in the Town of Berwick is trying to get, because all of the businesses now are open two nights a week - they are open Thursday and Friday. They are trying to compete with the shopping malls, that are open every night. It would be nice - they are trying to get the Liquor Commission to be open on a Thursday night, along with the other businesses. Here we have in the Town of Berwick, the liquor store is open on Friday night but closed on Thursday night. If businesses are trying to strive and small towns are trying to make it on their own and draw people to a community, then I think that if the government would move in that same direction, that the businesses in that community would appreciate that. I think it would be a substantial help.
One of the areas that I do have a concern about is Kings Transit. Public transportation, Madam Speaker, is becoming more and more of a concern, because lately, when senior citizens hear about the possibility that some of them may not be able to drive in the future, that is fine, if you have public transportation. Public transportation is fine and if you live in metro, you can get on a bus. In some areas of the province, you have some public transportation. We had a transit system that went from Wolfville to Kentville, all the way out to Berwick, and the points in between. Because of the service exchange and the Department of Municipal Affairs taking away the grant towards public transportation, at the end of April, we are losing the bus from Coldbrook to Berwick. There are people that use that transportation that use it for work. There are people who, for various reasons, do not have a driver's license, may never have a driver's license. It could be because of physical reasons or they could be physically or mentally challenged, but yet they are able to have a regular job. I know some of those people and they totally depend on the public transportation system, totally - could not afford to hire a taxi but use the public transportation system.
Seniors, now that our hospital is closed in Berwick and you have to go all the way from Berwick into Kentville to the Valley Regional, and we have a public transportation system that is closing down at the end of April, some of those people are worried about, how are they going to get for their appointments and for their many tests and things that go on at the hospital, unless they hire a taxi? The other aspect that seniors have said - I will get into this a little more later - is that a Home Care Program for seniors, without some kind of transportation attached to it for them, then it is not real. Because for many of these people, we have to understand that they have to go to appointments and they have to go, whether it is physiotherapy, they have to go for doctors' appointments, they have to go for whatever, they don't have any transportation.
It is fine if you have family who live close by, but there are many seniors in this province who don't have transportation. I am concerned that we are losing the transit system in Berwick. There has been some talk that they might organize the run all the way to Kingston and that would be a positive. Here is a case where I think public funds to subsidize a public transportation system, we do it in other areas of the province and we should do it for those in some of the rural areas that have the population density, even though the ridership is not as great as one would like, but I think it would grow. So, the Board of Trade in Berwick is active and trying to make sure that working with the business in the community and the general public to make sure it is a town that is busy and one that continues to grow.
I want to say, and we have been very lucky. I remember when Larsen Packers built a new plant and there were people who were skeptical of the fact that Larsen Packers could compete and make it. Larsen Packers has been able to turn it around, make a profit. It employs over 200 people, plus the indirect spinoff. We have had expansions at O.H. Armstrong's in Kingston, which has been very good for the area.
I want to say that I know the Minister of Education was down to West Kings. We have a school that has some problems that need to be addressed, for air quality, the roof is leaking and many other problems that that school is having. I hope the Minister of Education will see to it in the next number of months that those kids who go to that school to receive their education, that that school will receive priority in making that a safe place for them to receive their education.
I want to say a few words about the closing of the Western Kings Memorial Hospital in Berwick, a hospital that was there for many years. We now have a Western Kings Memorial Health Centre. I think, Madam Speaker, that people accept the fact that there is going to be health reform, that there are changes in the approach to the health care system. I know that the Minister of Health of this province did not have the courtesy to go to make one visit to that community, not one visit; not one visit by anybody in Cabinet to that community. (Interruptions)
You know, we have a community that shows respect and I don't think that any politician who ever went there - and I hear the Minister of Education saying that he has been there - who has not been treated with respect; but can't go to a public meeting where the people have a right, we live in a democratic country and a democratic province where people do have some rights that government should respect and that is going to the people and explaining the government's position.
What is wrong with that? I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but couldn't show up to one meeting. Not one. It wasn't what was done, it was how it was done, Madam Speaker, that has upset the people of that community. How it was done has upset. They first of all said, this is being done, it is health reform. Well, it was first of all done because it was budget cuts. Later on when the people of that community rallied around and worked hard to come up with a solution that is workable under the health reform. The people who deserve a lot of credit, are the volunteer committee, the quality health care committee, from Western Kings that put together the package that we have now.
You know, Madam Speaker, the people who were hurt most by the closing of the hospital, were actually the hospital workers and we are waiting to see what happened in Annapolis, because the Annapolis Hospital did not give notice until two weeks to the end of March. All I ask for, for the workers of the Western Kings Memorial Hospital, is to be treated the same as every other hospital worker in this province. I acknowledge their rules. I acknowledge their procedures, but there is fairness that has to happen no matter where you work in this province and what hospital you work in.
The workers at Western Kings Memorial Hospital were given their notice in November. The workers at the Annapolis Hospital were given their notice at the end of March. There are some hospital workers who left the hospital on March 31st, who have no severance pay whatsoever. I think that I will be watching whether or not the Annapolis Hospital received the funds from the provincial government to cover those workers for the extra months that they were not given notice.
You know, Madam Speaker, I was interested in one of the opening lines of this government's Speech from the Throne. The line read, "My government continues with its plan for this province, one that will put this province on a secure footing and enable us to control our destinies.". I think this government is worried about one destiny and that is the destiny of the Premier, the Honourable John Savage. That is what this government is worried about.
If you looked at this government's obsession with casinos and we have a Premier who says to everybody in the province, you have got to cut back. It is part of the tough times. But anyone who can read, can look at the Premier's Office and he does not cut back. As I look from day to day, every day I read or hear about this government hiring expensive friends and I have to say that all of this is being done, Madam Speaker, not for the people of this province, but this is being done to save the Premier and that is where the efforts are going.
The Speech from the Throne went on to say that we are committed to working with Nova Scotians. I think if the Liberals did another poll on how well they handle consultation, I am sure they would come up with failing grades. Because I have seen polls, Mr. Speaker, where this government has received the lowest marks of any government in Canada on its management ability, the perception of how the public sees this government.
This government has not kept its campaign promises. They have ignored the advice that people have given them on casinos. You know, Mr. Speaker, I think it was very telling when they released the regulations on the casinos and they put them in the regional libraries and told the public, you have two weeks to respond to those regulations, if you can find them in the regional libraries. After the people submitted, we don't know exactly how many but I think the minister in charge, the Minister of Housing and Consumer Affairs said there were between 200 and 300 applications. They went through those 200 to 300 in a matter of two to three days and made their decision.
[9:00 p.m.]
Now I think if we are going to have true consultation, that always in the past people have had the opportunity to respond and I acknowledge that, but always in the past governments have released what people are saying. We don't know what people are saying, we have no idea, absolutely no idea what those 200 to 300 submissions said, no idea. As this government said, we are going to come to power in 1993 and we are going to be honest, we are going to have honesty, we are going to have openness, we are going to have integrity and accountability. That is what the government said they were going to do.
I want to know where honesty or openness fit in with what the government did with those regulations. I want to know where honesty is in the Morash affair. I want to know where honesty is in the hiring of the Protocol Officer. I want to know where the honesty is in the way that the agencies, boards and commissions are put together. I want to know where the honesty is when the government said or the Premier said before the election, no new taxes. I want to know where the honesty is and I can't find it.
I can't find out where the openness is that they promised. We can't see the final deal on the casino. We can't see what people said about the regulations and municipal amalgamation. We can't find out the information about contracts, whether it is Cynthia Martin or Berkeley Consulting or Berger. We can't get the information, there is no openness, everything is closed. The government said we were going to have openness.
They talked about integrity. I was at the health centre in Berwick today, the Western Kings Memorial Health Centre. The staff said there, we have yet to understand how Lucy Dobbin could work for one year and get $100,000 and we work for 35 years and we can't get $20,000; some of them got nothing. Some of them didn't get $5,000 and they don't understand how someone works for one year and can get a sweetheart deal. They don't think this government has integrity.
Where is the accountability? This Legislature has sat for 175 years and for the first time we saw closure by this government. We know this government wants to reduce the hours of sitting. We also see this government blaming civil servants or the Auditor General or somebody else, blaming somebody else and you tell me that is accountability. There is no accountability. This government started with no new taxes, that was the first flip-flop we saw, and from there it has been downhill.
You know, I don't think I remember an issue for a long time like I remember the casino issue, an issue a lot of people in this province had an opinion on, an issue that people spoke out on regardless of their politics but they weren't listened to. When people signed a petition of over 40,000, the government scoffed at that and said it wasn't important.
You know, I had the busiest weekend for a long time on the telephone this weekend. Who did I get calls from this weekend? I got them from seniors and I will tell you, I spent more time on the phone this past weekend than I have spent on the phone for a long time. What were the seniors saying to me? They were upset and it all started with the fishing license. You know what the government didn't have the decency to do? It didn't have the decency to even put an ad in the paper. Some of them had to go to the store and find out the government had charged them. They didn't have the decency to inform the seniors that no longer was it free.
Seniors say to me, why. Why wouldn't they have the decency, at least, to tell us instead of - I am embarrassed when I walked into the store and didn't even know that I had to pay because it was always free. One person said, I went to war for this country, I am a veteran, and I thought the government would have some respect for me; one of the little things I get out of life is, once in a while going and wetting my line. This government tried to hide it from me until I walked in to get my license and didn't even have the decency to put out an ad or tell the seniors. Not only that, they raised it up to $15. As one senior said, no, it is $16.05, Mr. Moody, when we pay the tax.
The other thing they said, this grey power of ours, and we are a little upset, the fact is that maybe they could have given us a break, at least in the private sector, if you go anywhere to shop as a senior and you get a 10 per cent discount. As a senior, the private entrepreneurs recognize seniors and the amount of fixed income they are on and they give them a discount. Does this government give a discount? No, you pay full price. They couldn't even come out and say, we will give the seniors a break, a reduced cost. They couldn't even do that. Now that was the start of it.
Then they announced the Pharmacare Program. I had all kinds of calls about that, even to the point of one person saying that they are taking away my rights and freedoms. He said, I didn't mind the co-pay and I don't mind the co-pay and if I had to pay, but he said you know if I don't buy one drug. He said also I was upset because the Minister of Health stood on TV with a bag of pills and said, here is what all seniors look like, they take this big bag of pills all the time. He said, that is not true, that is stereotyping seniors and he said I am not one of those. He said, I don't take any drugs and I am proud of it, but he said if I had to take some, I would take them. For the Minister of Health to stand on TV and say look, here is what one senior takes, this big of pills, he said is insulting to me, as a senior.
Anyway, I will tell you, one senior said today, I won't pay it. I said, you will have to pay it or they will bill you eventually. No, he said, I will go to jail and let them keep me first. I said well you can't do that, this government is not going to put seniors in jail. So I don't know what they are going to do if you won't pay.
I will tell you, I wasn't helping him, he didn't need any help and many of them who called me didn't need any help. I will tell you one thing, this group, this government has the seniors of this province very upset and they had better start talking to the seniors. They better not have any more hidden taxes or start making seniors pay more, those people on fixed incomes, without working with the seniors. I will tell you, any government that gets the seniors upset, as these seniors said to me, we are a powerful group; we have kids and grandchildren and we have all the rest. If this government doesn't change its attitude towards us, as seniors, they will be sorry in the next election.
I will tell you, I don't think there was an issue that has upset people as much as this one has. I don't know what the Premier said in an open-line show in the Valley but I got a call from one person who said, you have to ask the Premier - he is not here tonight but I will ask him at the first chance I get - he said, look if you are having trouble paying the $16 or the $15 fishing license give your MLA a call. I do not know whether he meant the MLA could look after it or what they would do. I have to find out. But what an answer to give some senior who called in from my area and that is what the Premier said to him. Call your MLA and we will see what we can work out.
I mean what are the rules for? Seniors of this province have been the backbone of this country and they need to be treated with respect and they need to be treated fairly. They do not need these things lowered on them that is creating a hardship. Many of them were so confused after they heard about the Pharmacare they did not know how it even worked. Very confused, but I will tell you they knew that if they did not use any drugs and if they were just above the supplement they had to pay $215. They knew that much. They knew it. I did not have to tell them. They knew it, but I will tell you if you think you can continue this onslaught of seniors, you have another thing coming.
I will tell you, we talk about health care and the things that are happening and yes, I agree with reform, but I have here a list, no names, just numbers, charts, of people who are waiting for radiation treatment for cancer. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, we know how important it is that cancer be diagnosed quickly and that cancer be treated quickly. We are down to three radiation oncologists in this province and they are saying, very clearly, never before have they had a waiting list like this. In other words, they have to decide. It used to be that if you were diagnosed, if you were on the primary list, not on the secondary list, but the primary list you got in within a matter of days and weeks to be treated. Now, the list is going to months. It is very crucial that you get there right away. They are saying, who do we decide gets it and who does not get it?
Now that has nothing to do with health reform, but that is health management of the system we have. This government is going to have to make sure that in the Minister of Health's zest to do all this reform, that these people are not forgotten. There has to be money and there has to be manpower and there has to be equipment, to make sure that if anybody, any one of us or our family is diagnosed and needs radiation treatment - because anyone who has radiation treatment it is 50 per cent curable. In other words it is 50 per cent successful. If you do not get it early, your odds go down and down.
So we can have all the health reform talk we want and we can have all the talk about the wonderful ambulances and we can have all the talk about the home care - which are all important - but if you forget things like this and you do not pay attention to it and the list continues to grow as it is right now, longer than ever before in the history of this province, then we are in for great difficulty.
It was interesting to note that the policeman who unfortunately was shot, in Amherst on the weekend, was transferred from the Amherst hospital to Moncton. You have to ask yourself, what kind of facilities do we now have here in Nova Scotia? Are we not equipped to handle these things? How many more people will be shipped out to New Brunswick for health care? I remember it used to be the other way around. We were proud of our system and we had people coming here for treatment. Now people are leaving this province for treatment. You have to ask yourself why. What is it that we are doing in health reform that is different from what they are doing in New Brunswick? You have to ask yourself that and you have to make sure that what we are doing here is the kind of health care that is going to look after us. You can talk all you want about prevention and that is the way to go, but some of us and people are going to get sick and if they get sick they want to be treated.
I want to say, too, that when, and we may get more hospital closures in the province, one of the things that I hear in the Valley, and they are all watching, is that we are down to less than 3 beds per 1,000; for every 1,000 population, we have 3 beds or less. That seems to be where most governments across the country are headed. But I look up in Cape Breton and up on the northern shore and we have up to 6 beds per 1,000 and, I say to myself, if we are going to have health reform, we have got to have it from Yarmouth to Amherst to Sydney. We have got to have the same kind of health reform and we have got to have the same kinds of opportunities for everyone, so that it is not politically decided that there are more beds here than over there.
[9:15 p.m.]
The rationale that is used and the formula that is used should be used straight across this province, from one end to the other, and I support that. But I do not support the kind of patchwork that is being done. We have our regional health boards that are to be up and running; they are up and running, but not going to, I think, take charge until September. Our community health boards are probably two to three years away. My caution to this government is to not allow our four regional health boards to end up being four mini-Departments of Health, because I understand they are already hiring bureaucracy, and bureaucracy, if we add more and more administration, then that leaves less money for people who actually need care.
You know, Mr. Speaker, I hope that when other facilities are closed or changed in this province that the approach is not taken that was taken in Kings West. We have a Minister of Health who, in the emergency services, has hired, I think, about every expert that was in his non-profit organization on emergency services in this province. A little company was formed and the minister was part of it and now all of those people have either been hired by the Department of Health, or are about to be, and that concerns me.
I want to go to another quote, not from the Throne Speech, it goes back to the Liberal platform, I guess, back in 1993, "We face social and economic problems together and we must solve those problems together. The solutions will not be found behind the glass and concrete walls in Halifax. The solutions will be found in partnership throughout the province, in partnerships for change . . . Where there is no vision, the people perish . . . Our vision is of a new government in which all Nova Scotians participate. Our vision provides firm ground for optimism and hope.".
This, if you can believe it, was taken from the Premier's speech back in the campaign of 1993 and here we are, two years later, looking for jobs. There are still a lot of unemployed people in this province.
AN HON. MEMBER: There are 65,000.
MR. MOODY: Yes, 65,000. This government came to office in 1993 with 30-60-90 and said that we have a plan and we are going to put people back to work in this province; we have a plan as a government where we will wipe out that awful evil of unemployment. What have we got? The biggest generator this government is able to come up with is two casinos. Two casinos in which Nova Scotians will send their money off with the Sheraton, outside of the country.
We will be taking cash away from working people. We will be taking cash away from restaurants in Halifax and Sydney, will be taking cash away from other lounges and bars in Halifax and Sydney, will be taking money away from the grocery stores in Halifax and Sydney, will be taking money away from the movie theatres in Halifax and Sydney. Is this the price we are willing to pay for those jobs?
As we have heard the Halifax Chief of Police comment on the weekend, they are going to need more police because the evils that come with the casinos are going to be here in Halifax. That yes, prostitution is going to be on the increase, drugs will be on the increase, crime will be on the increase, related to the casino. But that is not me saying that, that is the Chief of Police in Halifax saying that. He knows, as every police force in the country knows, the casino will attract an element of crime. That is what is going to happen here. He said he needed new, additional police to combat the element that comes with the casino. (Interruption) Well, he didn't quite say that Windsor, Ontario, have no problems. (Interruptions) They were preparing in advance for the problems they knew they were going to get. (Interruptions) Well, I am sure history will prove one of us right or wrong.
I believe we are in for a difficult time. It is going to change this province and this city, there is no question about that. I watched this government and the Premier who says that patronage is dead. I watched the hiring of Dan Reid over in the Department of Health. I watched Bob MacKay, I watched Heather Robertson, Jack Graham, Colleen MacDonald, George Doucet, Ralph Fiske, and the list goes on and on. But you know patronage is dead.
AN HON MEMBER: That is probably about $0.5 million worth of people, isn't it?
MR. MOODY: Then some, like Lucy Dobbin, come and go, and Fred MacGillivray.
You know the part that amazes me is that - you know, Mr. Speaker, patronage has been around this province for a long time. You are well aware of that, you are well acquainted with it. Over the years we all saw it, I don't think anyone denies that. The difference today is, we have a Premier who says it is not there any more, it is gone.
Mr. Speaker, Nova Scotians have said they don't want patronage any more - that's what they said and I understand that. Whether you were for it before or against it, it doesn't matter, the people of Nova Scotia have spoken. But we have a Premier who runs around the province and said, boy oh boy, one thing that I did was I stamped out patronage when I became Premier, even though I hired all my friends and I gave them big paying jobs and I look after them but that is not patronage, no, no. There is a different definition that this Premier has of patronage than the people I know.
You know, I can understand this Premier in the last number of months hiring his friends. He needs his friends to save him in his job. I can understand that because if he doesn't appoint these people to get out there to work for him - if he ever has the vote and I am not convinced he will ever have the vote - he just might not be there.
One of the things that has bothered me with this government is that this government has shown no compassion - maybe if you are Judge Bremner or you are Lucy Dobbin, but I am talking about the average Nova Scotian. I am talking about somebody like Dianna Parsons. And then there is Debra Stevens and her son. There are people in this province and I think this government, if it had some compassion, could meet with these individuals. Yes, they are not high profile Liberals, but they are individuals, they are people in need and they have rights. And if this government wanted to, they could help these people and it would not be called patronage. They can go out and give hundreds of thousands of dollars to friends of theirs, but they cannot show compassion for the small individuals, they cannot show compassion for the workers at the Western Kings Memorial Hospital, who were treated differently. They cannot show that kind of compassion.
I will tell you, this government is going to have to change its approach if it wishes to win the next election, because we are seeing in this province things being taken away from our community that have been so important. People have always taken pride in their community and have always taken an interest in their community. This government fails to recognize that, whether it is court-houses or hospitals or schools, when this government takes those things away from a community, it is really upsetting a lot of people.
AN HON. MEMBER: Destroying the community's life-support system.
MR. MOODY: That is it. Nova Scotians deserve a government that is honest. They deserve a government that is open. They deserve a government that has integrity and is accountable. You can make fun of the past, but we are in 1995. A lot of things have changed. We can laugh at Nova Scotians and make fun of them and say that they do not count and that we are all right and Nova Scotians are all wrong and we can ignore all that, but I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, Nova Scotians are going to get a government that will be honest, they are going to get one that they can hold accountable, they are going to get one that is open and one that has integrity.
It is easy to get elected the first time, because the other government gets voted out. This government has never been voted in. And for many of you who are smug and all of this, you wait till you go the polls the second time around, when you have to account for your years in office. There are only a couple of members here who have done that and a couple of times, they lost.
AN HON. MEMBER: A couple of members here?
MR. MOODY: A couple of members on the side of the government who went through the time, in 1978 or 1974 - maybe the member for Antigonish, the member for Cumberland South. So, you say, well, you know, it is easy out there, to get elected next time, on having people decide whether you are honest, have people decide whether you are open, have people decide whether you had integrity and whether you were accountable. But I will tell you, it is the next time around that you have to go door-to-door and you have to explain to seniors why you did this and this to them. You have to explain to other Nova Scotians why you put in the casino. (Interruptions) You have to explain to Nova Scotians why you paid off some of your friends. You have to explain that when you go door-to-door. It was easy last time, going door-to-door. It is not going to be so easy this time, going door-to-door (Interruptions) a government that invested so poorly, $1-odd billion, some management.
[9:30 p.m.]
AN HON. MEMBER: How many more Japanese yen do you want to get into?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The House is getting a bit unruly. I would like to ask for one speaker at a time.
The honourable member for Kings West has the floor.
MR. MOODY: I know my time is wrapping up but I want to say, we have a Speech from the Throne that was without substance. We have a Premier that is out there trying to save his job and they have got a team and he is going on an SOS tour. What we have is a government that I think has lost touch, and I felt that this weekend for the first time, this government has lost touch. When you lose touch and you don't have compassion for seniors and you don't have compassion for those that are sick and those that are in need, the unemployed and all of those people, if you don't have compassion for those people and you don't keep in touch, there is trouble ahead for this government. Not only trouble ahead for the Premier to save his job but there is trouble ahead for this government in governing in the next couple of years.
I can say one thing, Mr. Speaker, with very much confidence, if the government's performance continues the way it is, and upsetting people, I will guarantee you it won't be here 10 more years. I can tell you, as I travel about this province and I find that people have not been able to meet with the Minister of Health, I have had so many groups that have said to me, we have tried to get meetings, we try to be partners in this process and we are being shut out. As I heard at the Canadian Pensioners Concerned panel on health care where seniors felt very much that they were left out of the planning of the Home Care Program. I didn't say that, seniors said that.
If you are going to leave these very important people out of the process, then I think you are in for a very difficult time. It won't surprise you or surprise anyone else that I will be voting against the motion on the Speech from the Throne and I think that others who give it some thought will do the same when they analyze that what this government has promised the people of this province is very little hope in the next number of months and years to come.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. RUSSELL MACNEIL: It is an honour and a privilege to rise again in this historic Chamber to address the members and give an Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, for doing such an excellent job and I also bring greetings from your former constituents and I give this with a great deal of humility, by the way, for the idea that they still look for you quite often. I tell them that, for the difficult cases that I still use you to help me through all the difficult cases that you have gone through. I would also like to tell you that most people here would believe that you are probably the best constituent MLA in the province and I am constantly learning from you, even though I don't want to embarrass you, Mr. Speaker, you are good.
I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate the new Deputy Speaker, and I am sure that she will just do a super job.
The opportunity, also, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate the new ministers who have received new responsibilities, I have had an opportunity to work with them in their former ministries and they treated me fairly well and I assume that in their new ministries, they will also keep that in mind that things are needed in my constituency.
I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate our new Whip. Now we have a new addition in the member for Cape Breton South and we wish him well in his duties. I would like to mention, Mr. Speaker, because we are in this Chamber, what cost do we have for democracy. That is a loose term that we have in this Chamber. But I would like to try and put an analogy of two ways of the cost of democracy.
Neil Bernard MacKinnon was a young man who was in the Armed Forces and who was tragically killed in Calgary in a training exercise prior to going overseas to Bosnia. I say this because I had an opportunity to meet Mr. MacKinnon on a plane trip from Sydney to Halifax and we became very informed about it and I asked him, why are you joining the services and going across the way for peacekeeping?
Very simply, he said, I love this country. I love where I live. I love my parents and I think they should have the life we are enjoying. He said, some of these people - because this was his second trip -he said the people over there do not appreciate the relationships between the people and their neighbours. He said, we have that. We have it here. That is why I want to go over and try to tell them that it is a good way to live and if we have to do it in the peacekeeping area, that is what we are going to do.
Then he said, I think that if you get an opportunity to tell people about it, please do. So I appreciated the short time I had with Neil Bernard MacKinnon. The cost of democracy to him was the highest that anybody could take. He gave his life. The cost to us, democracy, as we all sit here, belongs to the people. We, as representatives of the people, have to try to uphold that democracy.
So how do we do it? We argue with words, one group against the other. Now sometimes we get groups who have many words, sort of machine gun words going all the time and some people think that is a good way to get your point across. There are others who have to listen to it who say, that is a waste of time. We also have people who give boisterous words, loud words, sort of loose cannon words, that think that is the best way to get things done. Sometimes it may be the best way, but a lot of times it has nothing to do.
I also hear from the Opposition that we do not have enough time to tell the story of our constituents. Well, to me, Mr. Speaker, that is a fallacy. We have ample opportunity. We do not have to spend hours and hours because I have heard people in this Chamber speak for hours and hours and say absolutely nothing. Some people (Interruption) if the hat fits, you wear it, but I have heard it, Mr. Speaker, the words keep coming.
What I want to do is to try to pinpoint a couple of things from the constituency of Cape Breton Centre. I would like to do this in a couple of ways. One is that I would like to bring a concern which is very crucial to the constituency and that is the Devco/Nova Scotia Power confrontation that is taking place and that is very worrisome. I would hope that the posturing that both are doing can come to an end because the people who work in the industry are very resilient. The miners who have worked there are very resilient. They have been going through it for year and years. They really do not need this.
One thing that I would like to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, is that both corporations should not forget who is giving them the product and they are called the miners, and that they should never forget that those are the people who are giving them the resource so that they can continue their corporate ways. It is a very delicate situation and we hope that a positive resolve will come to it.
It was interesting listening to some of the people who were giving their eulogies and speaking very long, that they criticized the infrastructure program. Well, I would like to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the infrastructure program worked really well in the constituency of Cape Breton Centre. (Applause) The need existed for some work. The need was there for a long time, it was not done. Those who made the decisions based it on need and as a result of that some of the areas of my constituency received some work that was needed for a long time. I would like to tell the people that the infrastructure work that was done in the Town of New Waterford has made that a beautiful place to see. Now some people will think that fixing a road or making a better sidewalk is not a thing of beauty, but from where I am, then it is.
I would also like to mention that the ministry responsible for Sport and Recreation was very generous in giving small assistance to people in Dominion, Reserve, New Waterford, the Pensioners Club and these sorts of things; not big financial items, but made the place more pleasant for all those who had not an opportunity to take advantage of it.
We have also had the Housing people, the Natural Resources, the Tourism, the ERA giving us little considerations and that enhanced the area. Now all things are not the best, but listening to some of the speeches that came about became very informative. I guess the one that emphasizes quite a bit, I have a general idea where Hants East is now by the way. It was brought forth very vehemently.
I have also listened to some of the historical analyses of all the different members and quite interesting by the way. They all love their constituency and speak very highly of it. Sometimes we talk so well about it, I wonder why they want to leave that and go on to other topics. Because if everything is so well in their constituency that maybe they can give me all their resources into mine because everything is not well. Everything seems to be well in all the other constituencies. Very informative, I really enjoyed it.
Another concern that is high on our agenda is unemployment. I heard members talk about it. Well, I just want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that on the past weekend there was the most refreshing economic summit for the people of the Island. The Cape Breton County Economic Development Authority put on probably the highest, first-class, professional seminar that I have been to in many years. The reason why it was so good was because the Cape Bretoners themselves took the lead and they are going to find the solutions. They are going to take unemployment down and they are going to make the place productive. I say that because I know a lot of the people on that committee and they are dedicated to it; they are dedicated to solving the problems of people in the Cape Breton area.
[9:45 p.m.]
So I listen to the rhetoric that goes on and I listen to the NDP just going out of their minds. I have to tell you that in all the talk they did, not one idea came out, not an idea, and he had the floor for almost an hour. They have no idea what they should do or where they should go and that is the way they will always be. The problem of unemployment in the Cape Breton area will be overcome by the people there. I have great confidence in that, Mr. Speaker. (Applause)
Some interesting facts that we should remember: the food and beverage industry is number one in Canada; the housing, the RRAP grants, have been revitalized, which is changed from previous governments; the housing starts are number one in Nova Scotia; 150,000 Nova Scotians have been assisted with their taxes; and $3,000 for the Housing Rebate Program is in effect. So there are some things that are going on.
I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that sometimes the words that emanate from the Opposition - and I think I heard, but maybe I am wrong and I am sure they will correct me -one of the sayings I heard, micro-surgery with an axe, when talked about us. Do you know what is the first thing that came to my mind? The toll booths. Now I am not sure about the toll booths, I think what they did is come with a big hammer and axe the jobs. (Interruptions)
The fact, Mr. Speaker, is that the province is $9 billion in debt and counting. That $9 billion and counting is what we have as the debt in this province. It was not the rural people who did it; it was not the industrial people who did it; and it wasn't the seniors who did it. Do you know who did it? The PC Government did it. They are responsible; they take the blame.
I have to tell you that that fact seems to be lost every time they get up. You did it; you take the blame. We are going to try and correct it. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, what I mentioned before, those who forget their past will be doomed to repeat it and we cannot have a repeat.
What I would like to do, if we are coming to a time near the end, I would like to remind the people of Nova Scotia that we are trying to build this province in a positive vein. We have the naysayers across the way, who will never know how it is done. They didn't do it before, they will never do it again. The Third Party will never get a chance, we are on the way and that is why I endorse the Speech from the Throne and I thank you for listening.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Are there any additional speakers on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne? If not, we have a motion before us that the Address do pass but there was an amendment presented to that motion. I would ask the Clerk if he could please bring the amendment to me?
The amendment moved by the honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party asks that the motion that the Address do pass be amended by adding thereto the following words:
"That this House lacks confidence in this Government because:
(1) The Speech From the Throne completely fails to come to grips with the true needs of Nova Scotians, who continue to reel from lack of opportunity for bettering themselves and caring for each other as the Government reduces essential public services in the health care system and in education; and
(2) The Speech From the Throne demonstrates that the Government persists in the delusion that reduction of the fiscal deficit is of more importance than reduction of the human deficit, the education deficit, and the natural resources deficit.".
We will vote first on that particular amendment.
A recorded vote is requested. Is it requested by two honourable members? The honourable Leader has the support of his caucus.
The motion is to adopt the NDP amendment.
[The Clerk calls the roll.]
[9:55 p.m.]
YEAS NAYS
Mr. Donahoe Mr. Barkhouse
Mr. Russell Mrs. Norrie
Mr. Leefe Mr. Downe
Mr. Holm Dr. Smith
Mr. Chisholm Mr. Boudreau
Ms. McDonough Mr. Gillis
Mr. Archibald Ms. Jolly
Mr. McInnes Mr. MacEachern
Dr. Hamm Mr. Mann
Mr. Casey
Mr. Gaudet
Mr. O'Malley
Mr. Harrison
Mr. Adams
Mr. Brown
Mr. M. MacDonald
Mr. Bragg
Mr. MacArthur
Mr. MacNeil
Mr. Rayfuse
Mr. Richards
Mr. Surette
Mr. White
Mr. Holland
Mrs. O'Connor
Mr. Mitchell
Mr. Carruthers
Mr. Fogarty
Mr. Hubbard
Mr. W. MacDonald
Mr. Fraser
Mr. Colwell
Mr. Huskilson
THE CLERK: For, 9. Against, 33.
MR. SPEAKER: I declare the amendment carried in the negative.
We are now on the main motion as is moved by the honourable member for Halifax Bedford Basin and seconded by the honourable member for Shelburne that the Address as a whole do pass.
Would all those in favour of the motion please say, Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
In my view the Ayes have it.
The motion is carried.
Ordered that the Address as a whole do pass. Ordered that the Address be engrossed. Ordered that the Address be presented to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor by such members of the House as are of the Executive Council.
The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RICHARD MANN: Mr. Speaker, in consideration of the hour, I will be moving adjournment of the House. I would advise members that we will be sitting tomorrow from the hours of 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. At 2:00 p.m., we will be tabling the budget and having the Budget Address. Following that, the Daily Routine and Question Period and following Question Period, we will have second reading of Bill No. 3.
I move that we adjourn until 2:00 p.m. tomorrow.
MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that the House do now rise to meet again tomorrow at the hour of 2:00 p.m.
The motion is carried.
[The House rose at 9:56 p.m.]
