Province Législature Session Type de discours Date du discours Locuteur Fonction du locuteur Parti politique Terre-Neuve et Labrador 34e 5e Discours du Trône 22 mars 1971 Ewart John Arlington Harnum Lieutenant Gouverneur Liberal NEWFOUNLAND: Speech of the throne, Fifth Session of the Thirty-Fourth General Assembly, March 22nd, 1971 MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: Our Province was saddened within recent weeks by the sudden passing of the Honourable William J. Keough, who had served in your Honourable House faithfully for twenty-two years. Throughout this long period of service he was always most conscientious in his attendance in the House and ever mindful of his responsibilities and obligations to our people. His contribution to the welfare and development of Newfoundland and Labrador as one of my Ministers was outstanding in every respect and his death is a sad loss. I take this opportunity to express deepest sympathy to his wife' and family. Mr. Speaker, my Ministers will lay before you in your present Session a large number of matters of great importance. Most of these will have to do with the development of the Province: the development of its industries, its natural resources, its public services, in many fields and in many directions. In the Development Conference called by my Ministers some weeks ago some indication was given of the nature of these developments. In the fisheries there are to be established a number of service stations for the larger fishing boats, and a number of launch-ways and ship-ways for fishing boats, and a number of unloading facilities to be installed on public wharves for the greater convenience of fishermen bringing fish to land. There are to be new bounties on boats, engines and fishing gear, and there are to be grants for fishing vessel conversion to other types of fishing. In fishery development there is to be the financing of a number of fish holding depots. The plan of development also calls for the establishment of a new Forest Corporation that would have supreme control over all logging operations in our Province. This would be made up of Government and private interests, and my Ministers look to this Corporation to establish greater efficiency and economy in the logging operations of our Province. Along with this institution there will be a programme of forest improvement, and the building of a network of forest roads that will give access to stands of forests that are presently inaccessible. There are to be some very useful developments for the encouragement of agriculture, and these include the erection of a number of structures in which the pre-packaging and pro- cessing of fish and agricultural products will be carried on. The plan further calls for the establishment of an organization which my Ministers hope and believe will greatly assist numbers of energetic businessmen in our Province to establish or enlarge industries. This will be a joint Federal-Provincial Development Corporation, whose capital will be provided jointly by the two Governments. My Government intend to extend valuable help to local development bodies, which they hope will be over forty in number, and it is their intention also to make an annual contribution to a central body of these local associations. In these and other ways the plan that my Ministers have decided to put into effect should have the effect of strengthening our economy and increasing the amount of employment in the Province. The plan calls for very substantial development in education. The number of scholarships and bursaries will be doubled. The allowance granted to mothers of children in school will be substantially increased. A new vocational school for handicapped children will be provided. Provision will be made for a number of mobile libraries. My Government have adopted the policy of establishing a polytechnic, which will embrace the activities of our present College of Technology, and our College of Fisheries, Navigation, Marine Engineering and Electronics. The plan calls for the assumption by the Government of the total cost of operating school buses in this Province. It calls further for the provision of school books without cost to all children under grade four, and payment by the Government of 75 % of the cost of all school books above grade three. The plan calls for some notable advances in the field of Social Services and Rehabilitation. There will be a new household visiting service for the elderly, reform of social security for old age pensioners and other improvements. My Government have adopted a policy of giving financial assistance to churches, service clubs or other reputable bodies in the larger towns that should decide to establish centres for the daytime care of children of working mothers. In the field of housing there will be a number of altogether new ideas and methods. These will include a new programme of housing loans in rural areas, a new programme of loans to be, made to local councils for land assembly in small communities, a new programme to supply incinerators for the disposal of waste in the communities, and a new programme to supply fire engines to communities. Under the heading of public health there is to be constructed on the campus of Memorial University a new General Hospital to serve the people of Newfoundland in general and in particular to be the teaching hospital of the new Medical College. There is to be other hospital construction as well. There is to be a new programme for the operation of ambulances connecting with district hospitals in various parts of the Province. The plan includes the building of a number of new landing strips for aircraft in various parts of the Province" the creation of a number of new parks and the rehabilitation of a number of public beaches. Still other projects of the plan will be laid before you in the present Session. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: You will be asked in the several Departmental Estimates to provide funds to pay the approaching year's portion of the costs of carrying out the various parts of this Plan. These costs will be laid before you in the present Session. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: My Government, in January past, despatched a delegation, headed by my Minister of Fisheries, to Norway and to Iceland for the purpose of examining the system followed in those countries for settling the prices at which fish is sold by the fishermen to the fish buyers. My Minister of Fisheries was accompanied on the tour by a high-ranking official of his Department; by representatives of the Fishermen's Unions, and by certain specialists who could give valuable assistance to the mission. The mission was accorded all possible help by the Government of Norway and the Government of Iceland, as well as by the organizations of fishermen in those two countries, and by the organizations of fish buyers and processors. My Government are most anxious to introduce into this Province a sound and mutually satisfactory system of settling prices between primary producers on the one hand and fish buyers and processors on the other. This desire has reference to fish other than salted, codfish, which of course comes under the aegis of the Canadian Salt Fish Corporation's marketing board. It is of vital importance in our fishing industry and in our Province generally, that this matter should be set upon a foundation that is both efficient and equitable to all concerned. My Ministers have therefore decided to ask your House to authorize the appointment by your Speaker of a Select Committee that would be charged with the important duty of hearing evidence, opinions and recommendations of the respective unions of fishermen, organizations of fish plants and processors, and any others who might feel that they had a stake in the success of the fisheries, with regard to the best system that might be authorized or enjoined by legislation of your House. Legislation will be placed before you to give to the fishermen of our Province, through their organizations, the right of collective bargaining, and this matter too will be referred to the proposed Select Committee. My Ministers have devoted considerable effort in the past two years to the development of a new health care policy, one better suited to the needs of our people. Important aspects of this policy are embodied in legislation which is to be laid before you in the form of the Hospital Bill. Furthermore, my Ministers have prepared legislation to replace the present statute law governing the care of the mentally ill, and a new Mental Health Bill will be submitted to you. You will be asked also to consider important amendments to the Newfoundland Medical Care Commission Act, 1968. This legislation, which is being developed in consultation with the professional groups concerned, including the Newfoundland Medical Association, will enable my Ministers better to administer the vast programme under which medical care is made available to all of our people. You will be asked also to enact new legislation to govern the profession of optometry and to constitute a foundation on which to co-ordinate and to extend all efforts, both public and private, in the fight against cancer. My Government have decided to introduce a new dental care plan to be provided without charge to all children in our Province under the age of thirteen. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF'THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: In further pursuance of their policy of developing the Province and finding employment for the people my Ministers have entered into certain agreements which this House will be asked to ratify: An Agreement with National Sea Products Limited which will result in the re-opening of the fish plant on the, south side of St. John's harbour and the building of trawlers at Marys-town; an Agreement with Forest Products Limited for extensive cutting and processing of wood at Hawke's Bay and Stephenville; and Agreements with Canadian Javelin Limited and Big Nama Creek Mines Limited extending the time for exploration of certain areas. It has been the practice of my Ministers to encourage such exploration and to make areas available for the purpose, with beneficial results to the Province. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: My Ministers will lay before you in the present Session of your House a number of Bills for your consideration. These will 'include a Bill giving women the same right to serve on juries as men now enjoy. Women, however, will not be obliged to serve should they desire not to do so, and provision will be made acordingly. It is the feeling of my Ministers that the privileges of our Courts should be made available to all our people, irrespective of their means; and that those less financially able, should share as of right equally with all others. With this aim in view, consideration is being given. to the possibility of increasing the jurisdiction of our District Courts, so that matters such as divorce, probate and other applications, presently reserved to the Supreme Court, may be dealt with more conveniently, and at much less cost. Legislation to enable this to be done is being drafted, and will be laid before you. My Ministers have decided to increase the per diem allowances made to jurors in civil cases. My Ministers will lay Bills before you to lower to nineteen years the statutory legal age in this Province for the making of contracts, to extend still further the presently existing authority of Magistrates to allow the payment of fines to be spread over reasonable periods in accordance with the means of those sentenced to pay such fines, to make suitable provision for children born out of wedlock under The Fatal Accidents (Lord Campbell's) Act, and to make provision for the recovery of damages in respect of infant victims of negligence, to enable an accused person who has no financial responsibility to secure bail on his own recognizance, and to provide for an appeal in cases where the Registrar of Motor Vehicles disqualifies a licencee from holding or obtaining a driver's licence. My Ministers have decided to retain the services of one full-time and other part-time solicitors to give free legal aid in the courts of the Province to those financially unable to engage their own counsel. My Government have decided to appoint a permanent Commission to carryon continual review of the laws of the Province. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: Information that has come to my Government suggests strongly that oil and natural gas will be, found in the earth lying off the shore of this Island and the shore of Labrador. Important drilling operations are to be undertaken in the immediate future a little more than 100 miles off the South Eastern coast of the Island. It is altogether inevitable, should oil and gas be found offshore, that very important economic benefits will arise for our Province on dry land. My Ministers are very conscious of these possibilities, and are conducting negotiations with a number of important companies for shore-based developments along those lines. Our people are conscious (it might almost be said painfully conscious) of the dangers of pollution that are admittedly inherent in large-scale oil development off our shores, and my Ministers are not content to leave this matter entirely in the hands of the Parliament and Government of our nation. They are examining the problem from a number of angles, and I am sure that they will have the support of the people in these endeavours. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: Newfoundland has heard with the deepest possible satisfaction the glad news that British Newfoundland Corporation have decided, if the Government of Canada permit, to construct in Canada a great industrial facility of a nature not presently to be found anywhere in Canada. This is a huge industrial plant for the enrichment of uranium oxide and the production of a commodity that it is believed will be in great world-wide demand a few years from now. Such a plant would take years to construct, would employ nearly 10,000 men to construct, and would engage a permanent staff of 1000 full-time employees when it came into production. The significant thing, for Newfoundland, about this great project are the facts that it will require a very large volume of electric power, running close to 3,000,000 horsepower, and a very large volume of cold fresh water. Power consumed in such a prodigious amount would obviously have to be obtained by the industry at a very low price. My Government are in close and intimate touch with the situation, and they are convinced that this plant would have to be situate in Lake Melville, Labrador. My Government have it on the best authority that the transportation costs of the raw material to the plant, and on the finished product to the markets, would represent little more than all insignificant amount of cost compared with the monetary value of the commodity that would be produced in the plant. The production, on the Lower Churchill, close beside Lake Melville, of more than 3,000,000 horsepower of very low cost electric power, and the need for nothing more than a very short and inexpensive transmission line, would appear to my Government to dictate the economic wisdom, indeed the inevitability, of the power to be developed on the Lower Churchill being used for this great purpose. Newfoundland would not be enchanted to see the power of the Lower Churchill exported from this Province to support such a great industry in another part of Canada. The Newfoundland people can feel quite confident that the Government that brought about the creation of the British Newfoundland Corporation, and thus the development of Churchill River power, will make every effort, if this great new Canadian industry is established, to see that it is established inside the borders of this Province. Mr. Speaker, the people of Newfoundland, but more particularly those of Labrador, have taken grateful notice of the fact that 1971 is the 200th year of unselfish, dedicated and altogether distinguished service given to the people by the Moravian Church in Labrador. My Government are desirous of marking this notable anniversary, and appropriate steps will be taken to that end. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: Our Province, and most of the Provinces of Canada, have endured considerable hardship for the last three years or more as a result of tight money, inflation, and economic slow-down. The situation has changed radically in recent months, and Newfoundland looks forward to a brisk and eventful year. The prices of fish, both frozen and salted, are likely to reach the highest levels in history. Employment will rise sharply in the coming months. Economic activity will be seen in many parts of the Province. The spirit of confidence and optimism will be felt on every hand. These will be welcome changes, and there will be universal satisfaction among our people as our Province resumes its onward march that was so unfortunately interrupted several years ago. It would seem that Newfoundland is to experience greater prosperity in the coming season than she has ever known in the past. MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE· OF ASSEMBLY: Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure will be laid before you, and you will be asked to grant Supply unto Her Majesty. In view of the lateness of the financial year you will be asked to grant Interim Supply pending the tabling of the full Estimates. I know that you will devote yourselves with patriotic devotion to your onerous duties in this Session, and I invoke God's blessing upon your labours.