Province Législature Session Type de discours Date du discours Locuteur Fonction du locuteur Parti politique Terre-Neuve et Labrador 32ème 2e Discours du Trône 18 janvier 1961 Campbell Leonard Macpherson Lieutenant GouverneurLiberal Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly The present year gives promise of being one of the most important in the history of our Island home from the standpoint of significant development in virtually every field. In economic development in fishery development, in mineral development, in forestry development, in road development, in hospital development, in school development, in the development of rural electrification, and in a number of other branches of development, Newfoundland in the present year is likely to witness more progress than she has seen in anyone year for a large part of her history. My Ministers feel that the present year will see the materialization of many plans made, and foundations laid, over the whole period since the coming of Confederation. My Ministers continue to give to the matter of a third mill based on the use of our natural resources of pulpwood and hydro power their most energetic attention. The creation of this third mill has been for them, almost from their assumption of office, the greatest single objective of Government policy. The incalculable benefits brought to Newfoundland by the continued operation of the two great mills that already exist are, without doubt, the best evidence of the need and the desirability of a third mill. With the rapid growth of our population, the high birth rate and low death rate, and the rising standard of living of our people, a third mill has become a sheer necessity for this Province today. Its establishment would represent the addition of some seven thousand or eight thousand to the number of jobs presently existing in the pulp woods industry of the Province. Other valuable opportunities for employment would be created within and beside the mill itself. The establishment of a third mill would mean the birth of a new town, with all the advantages that must automatically flow from such a creation. My Ministers have caused the most careful and painstaking investigations to be made into the volume of pulpwood growth in this Province. The information that they have obtained at the hands of some of the most expert authorities in the whole of Canada have convinced them that enough timber is presently growing on the Island of Newfoundland, quite apart from the timber which grows on the Peninsula of Labrador, to support, not only the two great mills that are presently operating here, but a third one as well. The third-mill, to be economic, would have to be built on the East Cost of the Island. Its principal supplies of pulpwood should therefore be drawn from stands of timber growing on land lying to the eastward of a line running from north to south at a point substantially to the eastward of the Grand Falls mill. In the area existing eastward of such a line very important stands of timber are to be found on Crown lands. These stands may not in every instance contain mature timber that could be utilized at the present time. Indeed, it might be necessary to wait for as much as a quarter of a century or even longer before many of these stands could be utilized. On the other hand, there are to be seen in this same territory, east of the suggested line, stands of timber which do not presently belong to the Crown, but rather to private enterprise. Very substantial stands, however, grow on Crown lands that are reasonably close to the existing mills. What is apparent is the fact that exchanges must be arranged by means of which the new third mill could have made available to it substantial stands of mature timber, east of the suggested line, presently owned by private enterprise, in return for which other stands of timber, owned by the Crown, and existing westward of the line, would be made available to the existing mills. You will be asked in this present session to enact legislation giving my Ministers ample authority to effect exchanges of timber growing on Crown lands for timber growing on privately held lands, with a view to consolidating the timber that would be placed at the disposal of a third mill. This, my Ministers feel, can be done in such a way as to leave the presently existing mills even better off than they are at present, and at the same time greatly strengthen the economic feasibility of the third mill. Other Provinces of Canada have already enacted legislation of this kind, notably the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario. My Ministers feel that there is a clear duty upon them to seek your authority to make such exchanges of pulpwood in this Province as to bring about the greatest possible use of the timber of the Province so as to effect the greatest possible good for the whole population of the Province. My Ministers have for some weeks past conducted negotiations with the two existing paper companies, and they are gratified to find these companies taking a patriotic stand in the matter, and the legislation that you will be asked to enact will in all probability turn out to be little more than a formality. Little if anything now stands in the way of a third mill except the need to make ample supplies of economic pulpwood available to it. My Ministers feel that it will probably be necessary to bring about, in the present year, the start of logging operations on the coast of Labrador. These operations would have to be conducted in the most efficient manner possible by operators of undoubted experience and dependability. If this is done it should be possible to establish, once and for all, beyond cavil or doubt, the practical and economic feasibility of logging in Labrador. This in itself should prove to be a giant step in the direction of solving the problem of an ample supply of suitable and economic pulpwood for three mills in this Province. My Ministers will invite your attention to these matters and I am confident that you will consider them on a hiqh level of devotion to the cause of development and progress for our beloved Province. During the past calendar year the Government received strong complaints from the Newfoundland Brotherhood of Woods Workers that the terms and rates of pay set forth in their contract with the paper companies were not being carried out in full by the companies concerned. Similar complaints were received by my Ministers from individual loggers and other persons as well. My Government therefore appointed a Royal Commission consisting of the Honourable Mr. Justice Dunfield, Mayor Allison Bugden of Corner Brook and Mr. Robert Leith, Chartered Accountant of St-John's, to conduct a thorough investigation of these complaints. The Royal Commission reported to the Government a few weeks ago, and their report is presently in the hands of the printers. It will be laid before you in a few days from now, and I am confident that you will consider it to be one of the most informative and revealing documents on this subject ever to engage your attention. My Ministers consider that the presently existing system of fixing the rates of pay for cutters in the pulpwood industry is just about as unsuitable as could well be imagined. My Ministers feel that the present system of determining the price of pulpwood to be paid to the cutters is one that can only produce the very maximum of discontent, unhappiness and frustration amongst the loggers of Newfoundland. My Ministers find it all but impossible to understand how so unsuitable a system could have continued so long without producing a most determined effort on the part of the loggers to bring about its immediate abolition. The Royal Commission have not contented themselves, however, with exposing the present intolerable system, but have outlined a simple solution that will, they believe, and my Ministers believe, bring a quick end to the universal discontent arising from the present system. You will be asked to consider this matter in the present session. My Ministers intend, soon after the report of the Royal Commission is laid before you, to invite the two pulp and paper companies, and the representatives of the Newfoundland Brotherhood of Woods Workers, to meet with them in a frank and friendly discussion of these matters with a view to bringing about agreement on adoption of the Royal Commission's recommendations. Mr. Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly, one of the most historic events of the present year will be the opening of Newfoundland's new University. My Ministers take the greatest pride in their decision, made some years ago to raise the college to the status of a degree-conferring university. Great progress has been made in the University from that moment. The next great step is the opening, later in the present year, of the new buildings. The Government have undertaken to spend the sum of twelve million dollars to erect five magnificent new buildings to form the nucleus of the new campus. The University itself is presently engaged upon the task of raising, from its friends and admirers throughout Canada, a further very large sum to defray the costs of erecting residences for men and women, together with dining hall, and other necessary facilities for a full-fledged university. My Ministers feel that all Newfoundlanders join with them in a sense of satisfaction over the growth of this great new institution. They feel that this is one of the greatest forward steps token in Newfoundland's long history. They feel that no trouble or expense should be spared in making the opening of it, later in the present year, one of the most historic events in the record of Newfoundland. The Government, in that ceremony, will pass the buildings, together with all their facilities, to the University with the good wishes of the people and with the people's ardent hope that this will mark the beginning of hitherto undreamed-of progress in the field of education in Newfoundland. My Ministers are not content, however, to provide the people with a great university, for they are well aware of the fact that there are thousands of our young men and women who may not be anxious to avail themselves of the opportunities of a university education. For them it will be even more important to have ample opportunity to get the kind of training that universities do not provide. I refer, of course, to the kind of technical and vocational training to be obtained only in vocational training schools and technical training colleges. My Ministers have therefore commenced the construction of a large new Trade and Technical Training College which, though built in the City of St. John's, is intended to serve the whole Province. This is in line with the announcement made two years ago by my Prime Minister when, in January of 1959, he announced my Government's decision to build, not only the trade and technical college in question, but some seven or eight separate vacationed training schools in such places as Port aux Basques, Stephenville Crossing, Corner Brook, Grand Falls, Lewisporte, Clarenville, Carbonear, Fox Trap, Bell Island, St. John's and Burin. This decision, taken just two years ago this month and announced by my chief Minister, has now been made all the more practicable by the policy adopted last month by the Government of Canada and approved by the Parliament of Canada shortly before Christmas. This policy is one to reimburse, by means of Federal grants, seventy- five percent of the expenses incurred by the Provinces in capital construction and the equipping of vocational training schools erected anywhere in Canada between December 20th past and December 31st, 1963. My Ministers regard this offer of the Government of Canada as an admirable one, and they are deeply pleased with it. My Ministers feel that if they were prepared, as they were, to build some seven or eight such vocational schools without this generous seventy- five percent reimbursed by the Government of Canada, they should now be willing to build an even larger number of such schools under the new arrangement. This they are resolved to do, and such schools will be built in several places in addition to those named by the Government some two years ago. Another great forward step in the progress of Newfoundland is to be taken this year in the great Peninsula of Baie Verte. This area, comprising some 2,000 square miles, gives ample indication of being the richest single section of the Island of Newfoundland discovered up to the present time. It is a matter of great satisfaction to my Ministers that they have been able to bring into this Peninsula a number of companies whose name command respect throughout the length and breadth of our great nation. My government’s original decision, made nearly twelve year ago, to conduct in that area the largest air-borne magnotometer survey ever seen anywhere in the world up to that time, at a cost of over three hundred thousand dollars, tough regarded at the time as a very considerable gamble, was handsomely rewarded by the appearance in Newfoundland for the first time in the great Falconbridge Nickel Company, who were greatly attracted by the encouraging signs revealed by the air-borne magnotometer survey reports. This great company was succeeded by the M.J. Boylen prospecting and exploration organization, who were brought into the Province by the Premier of Newfoundland, and the Boylen organization has not only itself produced six new mines operating or now getting in readiness to operate, but in turn have brought into Newfoundland a concern whose name is known throughout most of the world. I refer to the great Johns-Manville Company, who are about to invest a sum of nearly thirty million dollars to develop the first phase of the great asbestos deposits originally revealed by the air- borne magnotometer survey, discovered by Mr. Boylen's organization, and now about to be brought into production by this great concern. My Government have expended the very large sum of three million dollars to construct a large and modern fish plant at LaScie, and the Government of Canada have assisted this project by spending three-quarters of a million dollars to erect necessary docks and breakwater. This great plant began operation on a relatively small scale last summer, but is expected to get into something like full production in the present year. My Ministers are advised by Mr. Boylen, the Johns-Manville organization, British Newfoundland Corporation and others interested in the area, that still other mineral deposits are most likely to be discovered and that the whole of the Baie Verte Peninsula gives promise of developing rapidly into one of the great mineral sections of Canada. This must surely be one of the most dramatic instances to be found anywhere in Canada of mineral development produced in the original instance by Government action and the expenditure of public monies. Only this day there came to a successful conclusion a notable conference of some two hundred persons with my Ministers in this building to consider the many problems arising from this great development in the Baie Verte Peninsula. Mr. Speaker, I referred a moment ago to the commencement of operation of the great new fish plant at LaScie. It gives me great pleasure indeed to inform you that another very substantial advance has been made in fishery development this Province. In 1956 my Ministers appointed a Royal Commission to look into the condition of the fishery as it then existed along the South West Coast of our Island. It was headed by Mr. John T. Cheeseman. That Commission made a very exhaustive study of the South West Coast and their recommendations were given most sympathetic consideration by my Ministers. The Chairman of the Royal Commission was invited to enter my Government as Minister of Fisheries, principally, though not solely, for the purpose of carrying out the recommendations which his Commission had made. This proqramme, I am pleased to say, is now beginning to take definite form. At Rose Blanche a fresh fish and frozen fish plant is now under construction, and is expected to go into operation before the end of the present year. At Harbour Breton another plant is nearing completion, and is expected to go into operation during the coming summer. This plant is designed more to handle salt fish, and is intended to be a depot for deep-sea vessels that will ply offshore at much greater distances than will those boats serving the fresh and frozen fish plant at Rose Blanche. In this plant at Harbour Breton there will also be a section in which it will be possible to handle a certain amount of fresh and frozen fish, so that these facilities will be there as an auxiliary to the salt fish activities and at the same time to serve the local inshore fishermen's purposes. At the seaport town of Marystown the third branch of this programme is now in full operation. This consists of building a number of substantial long-line fishing boats running generally in the class of sixty-five footers. Two boats have already been launched and are now at fishing. One other is about to be launched and of two more are shortly to be laid. Construction of these boats will continue until further notice. These will rank in size from trap skiffs to boats measuring as much as a hundred feet in length. Careful attention will be paid to the operation in all three places, and it is the hope of my Ministers that these operations will not only prove to be successful, but will point the direction to be taken in future fishery development along that great ocast. Mr. Speaker, the history of Newfoundland is almost contemporaneous with that of the great Caribbean Island of Jamaica. Indeed, it may be said that little difference of time exists between the discovery and settlement of Newfoundland and that of most of the British and other islands of the Caribbean. Trade between these Islands and Newfoundland was established in the very earliest stages of our history. There has not been a time for well over three hundred years when Jamaica was not an important market for Newfoundland. My Ministers, in recent years, have watched with great interest the developments taking place in Jamaica and the other Islands comprising the new British Dominion of the Caribbean. Your attention was drawn to these matters in earlier Speeches from the Throne. My Minister of Fisheries has personally visited Jamaica on more than one occasion, and he has conveyed to his colleagues in the Government his own deep concern for the taking of practical steps that would strengthen the trade relationship between Newfoundland and that country. I am pleased to inform you that my Ministers have recently undertaken to subsidize the operating expenses of a direct steamship service between Newfoundland and Jamaica. This service, which is being operated by a Newfoundland steamship company, will provide a monthly voyage between St. John's and Kingston. Newfoundland fish and indeed products from some of Newfoundland's factories will be taken to Jamaica, and on the return trips fruit, molasses, and other products of that Island will be brought to Newfoundland. It may prove to be necessary, in the first year of operation of the new service, for the boat to call at one American port on the way along, so as to provide full cargo and thereby to assist to reduce the operating costs of trip. It is the hope that this service will come rapidly to be recognized by the business community of Newfoundland as one of the most useful to start up in many years. My Ministers at the same time engaged the part -time services of a Newfoundlander experienced in the fish industry and fish trade of Newfoundland to keep them fully informed of trade development in Jamaica itself, where he has been a resident for years past. Mr. Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly, the vast increase in the number of roads constructed and paved in recent years, and the correspondinq increase in the numbers of motor vehicles using the roads, have admittedly created great new hazards on our highways. My Government have given this matter careful consideration, and have decided to create a new police force to patrol the roads. This is to be known as the Newfoundland Highway Patrol and will come under the command of the Newfoundland Constabulary. The intention is eventually to have the Highway Patrol take over responsibility for the control of all highways in the Province. In its earlier stages it will limit its activities to the Avalon Peninsula. After gaining experience the Highway Patrol will take over the Burin and Bonavista Peninsulas, and then soon thereafter move farther west by stages until the whole of the Island is covered. The Highway Patrol will be much more than merely a traffic police. It will control traffic, but it will control much more. All matters affecting the highways will be controlled by the new Highway Patrol. These matters include dumping on the sides of roads or nearby, cutting trees too near to the roads, erecting unauthorized houses or other structures, erecting forbidden signs, committing any nuisances on the public roads, polluting rivets, ponds and lakes near the roads, and a number of other matters affecting the usefulness, efficiency and beauty of our public roads. This Force is to be recruited during the present winter and will commence active patrol of the highways in the coming spring. The nucleus of the new Force will be recruited mostly from the ranks of the presently existing Newfoundland Constabulary Police. Other great steps are being taken this year in the development of our Province, particularly in the field of public health. Construction of the large new General Hospital at Grand Falls is proceeding rapidly. This 200-bed Hospital and Nurses' Residence, so it is expected, will be ready for use in the summer of next year. In the new town of Gander another large hospital is to be constructed at a cost of approximately three million dollars. Construction will commence in the present year, and should be completed by the end of next year. Here in the capital city, as a long- overdue improvement, construction will start in the present year on a large new training school and home for nurses attached to the General Hospital. This new institutions, whose cost will run to approximately three million dollars, will be completed, it is hoped, some time toward the end of next year. These three large medical institutions should prove to be a very substantial improvement indeed to the overall medical services of Newfoundland. It is the hope of my Ministers that smaller hospitals may be constructed at other places in the Province. Such institutions are needed at Happy Valley in Labrador, at Bell Island, at another point in Conception Bay, and indeed in other parts of Newfoundland. If the necessary co-operation is forthcoming from the residents of these places, my Government will be prompt and happy to play their part in providing the people with these greatly needed new services. One of the most pressing needs presently existing in St John's is for the creation of a new home and infirmary for the aged. The presently existing home and infirmary is very old and quite inadequate to the purpose in these modern times. My Ministers decided quite some time ago to proceed with the erection of an entirely new building for this purpose. They had gone so far as to order the steel framing, which is now lying in the City of St. John's. The delay in building this new structure has been quite deliberate. It is common knowledge now that the United States forces have evacuated the former Pepperrell Air Force Base. The fact that this evacuation was to occur was known to my Ministers long before it became common knowledge. My Ministers felt and feel that this real estate once it ceased to be a military establishment would almost automatically become the property of the Government of Newfoundland. They are confident that this probably will come to them in the coming months. There are far more buildings and facilities in the former Air Force Base than the Government Newfoundland are likely to need for their own purpose. Should the final disposition of the property be according to the desire of my Government, then numerous buildings will become available for very useful purposes, including that of a home for the aged and infirm. It is my Government's intention to implement their decision, made and announced more than two years ago to open a Children's Hospital in St. John's, by using the hospital at the former Fort Pepperrell for that purpose. Mr. Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly, a number of pieces of legislation will be laid before you in the present session. These include amendments to The Labrador Railway Act, The Labrador Mining and Exploration Company Limited Act, an Act concerning the Hamilton Fall Power Corporation Limited, an amendment to The Education (Teachers' Pensions) Act, an amendment to The Education Act an amendment to The Gasoline Tax Act, a Bill concerning the new hospital at Grand Falls, amendments to The Department Highways Act, amendments to The Workmen's Compensation Act and an amendment to The Regulation of Mines Act. You will to pass a Consolidation of The Crown Lands (Mines and Quaries) Act, an amendment to The Newfoundland and Labrador Corporation Act, an amendment to The St. John's Street Railway Act and an amendment to The Unimproved Lands (Redistribution Act. You will be asked to adopt a Bill providing for a Newfoundland Research Council, and an amendment to The Logging Act, as well as an amendment to The Urban and Rural Planning Act and an amendment to The Corner Brook Act. You will also be asked to enact a number of important amendments to various pieces of presently existing Insurance Acts. You may be asked to adopt certain labour legislation. Mr. Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly, you will be asked to defray the expenses of the public services. Estimates of Expenditure will be laid before you in due course. I know that you will devote yourselves with patriotic devotion to your manifold duties in the coming session, and I invoke blessing upon your labours.