Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, that’s possible. We’re well into our business planning. This would require new money, as Members know, but if there was a consensus here, or a majority of people agreed, then certainly we would look at that. We’ve looked at it, but we also have to recognize our fiscal situation. It may have to be somewhat limited or modest, but we’re certainly not opposed to that kind of support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If all we're getting is a little bit of corporate tax, a little bit of property tax and some payroll tax, and a lot of people may be getting jobs, that is still not enough. We know there's resource revenues that the federal government will benefit from on this project for a long, long time, and we need to get that share. I have stayed adamant with the federal government that any support for these kind of projects has to be tied to a fair share for us. The Prime Minister, in fact, has said that; now he's got to act on it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a copy of the presentation that was made; we've seen some media reports on it. We're doing a review of it now to try to figure out how they arrived at the numbers they have. If it is $17 billion profit, I agree with the Member, that is a lot of profit. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will commit to making a copy of the letters that I’m sending both to Minister Prentice and to Minister Harper available to the Members. Mr. Speaker, Ottawa’s a long ways away and they sometimes just don’t understand that the situation is different for us. I find it frustrating when I hear the Minister of DIAND talking about the per capita amounts that Ottawa gives us at $17,000 compared to $8000 in Newfoundland, as if our costs were the same across the country. We know, and I’m sure that he knows very well, that our costs are much different here given our big geography, the...

Mr. Speaker, the responsibility for the discussion paper and whistle-blower legislation rests with the Minister of Human Resources, so, Mr. Speaker, I'd ask that be referred to him.

Mr. Speaker, certainly one way of dealing with the shortage of housing for teachers and for other staff is to bring in more market housing. We have two units, I think, in Fort Liard. We're prepared to bring more market housing units in if there's demand for it. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, what we would like to see would be to have, in the community, a housing board and we're working on that with the local leadership. If there's a housing board and teachers need temporary accommodation when they first arrive in a community, then we would like to work that through the local leaderships so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have assigned the following portfolio responsibilities until such time as this Legislative Assembly appoints a new Member to the Executive Council.

The Deputy Premier, the honourable Floyd Roland, will take responsibility for Health and Social Services and will be the Minister responsible for Seniors, the Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities and will assume lead responsibility for the homeless. I will assume responsibility for Environment and Natural Resources. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are negotiating with the federal government and with Imperial. No doubt, Imperial, or Exxon who owns most of them, make profits. That's what those businesses do. But, Mr. Speaker, we are insisting with the federal government that they work with us to conclude an agreement-in-principle on devolution and resource revenue sharing within a matter of months. Mr. Speaker, we need their commitment to do that, otherwise, as I said, our support for these kind of big projects is questionable why we're doing it. Mr. Speaker, on resource revenues we're saying agree to an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, we will look at it. We want to know, we want to try and figure out ourselves what is the profit on this project. If there is huge profit, then we need our fair share of it. Mr. Speaker, I don't have a quarrel either with companies making a lot of money on these projects, but we do want our share and right now we have no commitment to have our share and it becomes increasingly difficult to support these kinds of projects if we're not getting a fair share of the resource revenues.

Mr. Speaker, I will certainly do that. I’m not sure of the exact wording we’ll use, but we will do it and make the point that we don’t have adequate funding. As I mentioned in the sessional statement, the current situation just simply is not sustainable and we have to get that message to the federal government, whether it’s through reinstating this money or a combination of this plus, as I say, the resource revenues. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.