Province Législature Session Type de discours Date du discours Locuteur Fonction du locuteur Parti politique Terre-Neuve et Labrador 33e 4e Discours du Trône 12 janvier 1966 Fabian O’Dea Lieutenant Gouverneur Liberal Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly I welcome you to your new session, in which I am sure you will devote your minds vigorously to the public affairs of our Province. You will be asked to give consideration to many matters of considerable importance. The year just passed has witnessed more development and progress than ever seen in our Province in any one year before. The year upon which we have already entered seems likely to be even greater. It appears to be quite certain that more construction will be carried out than in any other year of our history. This will consist of University and school buildings, hospitals, public buildings, industrial and commercial structures, and housing. There will be more mineral production than ever before. Exciting prospects appear to be opening up in the discovery and production of oil. There wil be great progress this year in the field of hydro-electric energy production. The fisheries give every promise of seeing the start of more new development than in any previous year of our history. In the field of services, this year is likely to be the greatest, especially in education, public health, social welfare, and transportation. My Government, in common with all our people, are greatly pleased by the notable progress that is being made by the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Two splendid new buildings are under construction, and my Ministers are striving to have them ready for the purposes of the University in the coming autumn. Another new building, to serve the purpose of fishery research, is to be constructed on the Campus. Still another fishery research establishment is to be constructed by the Government at Logy Bay. This building will be passed over to the University for its work in oceanography and marine science generally. The National Research Council of Canada have made a generous contribution to my Government for this purpose. Construction on the Campus of six new residences for students is about to commence. My Ministers are very pleased to be in a position also to offer substantial financial assistance to our University's Council of the Canadian Union of Students to enable the Council to erect a multi-million dollar Students' building, to be centrally located on the Campus. This is a building whose cost will be met in the main, over a period of many years, by the students themselves. My Ministers are pleased as well to be able to assist financially and otherwise in the provision of a large new apartment building for members of the faculty of the University. This, too, will be erected at an appropriate position on the Campus. The increase in the numbers of students and faculty is such that the residences and apartment building that I have mentioned must be regarded as but the first of many such bui1ding to be erected on the Campus in the coming years. Legislative authority for free tuition for all students, and the payment of monthly allowances during their attendance at the University, which have already been announced by the Premier of the Province, will be sought in your present session. You will be asked in this session to approve the establishment of a research division within the Department of Education and other substantial improvements in the general field of education. I am confident that you will do so with alacrity and considerable personal satisfaction. Among these are important measures designed to make opportunities for vocational and technical education more easily available to our people, especially to unemployed adults. Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly My Ministers will lay before you important proposa1s for partial reorganization of some Departments of Government. The main purpose of this reorganization is to bring together, in the one Department and under direction of one Minister, a number of activities which, though they are of approximately the same type, are presently divided in responsibility and administration between several Departments of Government. A new department, to be known tentatively as the Department of Resource Development, would be organized, and to it would be assigned all matters relating to ARDA (Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Administration), the Newfoundland part of the Federal War on Poverty, the Newfoundland application of the Company of Young Canadians, all matters of centralization of population, and especially all matters of forestry and fishery development. These activities would be removed from the Departments in which they are at present found, and by being put together in this one new Department, under the direction of a Minister, my Ministers hope that substantial speeding up of these activities will be brought about in the immediate future. You will be asked to approve a proposal to create a new office of Government to be known as President of the Council. You will be asked to approve a change in the title of the department of the Attorney General, which would become the Department of Justice. The Minister in charge of this Department would be known as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. My Ministers will lay before you legislation to create a new Department of Labrador Affairs. This Department will be charged with the duty of promoting and assisting in every appropriate way the speedy development of Labrador, both as to natural resources and public and social conveniences. My Ministers are determined to reverse the tendency so often felt on the Island of Newfoundland to regard the resources of Labrador as being primarily of advantage to the Island. They are anxious to impress upon all concerned the fact that the resources of Labrador must be made to mean very great advantage and benefit to the people who work and reside in Labrador. It must not be supposed that the creation of these new Departments or Offices of Government would always mean addition to the number of Ministers in the Government. Some of them could well be filled by Ministers acting in a dual capacity. It would, however, be the desire of my Ministers as soon as may be to make the Department of Labrador Affairs the responsibility of a Minister who would have few if any additional department duties. My Ministers will lay before you a proposal that the present system of entitlement to vote in Municipal elections in the City of John's be changed to one that will provide for full universal suffrage. The question of shop closing hours and hours of work in shops and similar commercial establishments has recently been publicly raised again and my Ministers intend to propose the appointment of a Select Committee of your House to examine this question carefully in the present session. I need not remind you that the operation of such a Select Committee would enable all interested persons to appear and to present facts or opinions and that the Select Committee, if appointed, would have adequate opportunity to inform itself thoroughly of the facts of the matter with a view to possible recommendation of remedial measures to your House. In the field of municipal affairs you are doubtless aware of the appointment of a Royal Commission to examine the present system of municipal taxation in the City of St. John's. It is not likely that the report of that Royal Commission will be received by my Ministers in time to enable them to lay new legislative proposals before you in your present session. You are of course aware of the situation that imposed the disagreeable necessity upon my Ministers to suspend the life of the elected Council of the City of Corner Brook and the substitution of an appointed Commission. My Ministers believe that the time may be near when the democratic form of Government should be restored in Corner Brook. They have decided, therefore, that an immediate examination be made of the present position of the Commission and an expert judgement formed of the degree of success achieved in the purpose for which the Commission was created. The report of this enquiry would be published and the citizens of Corner Brook enabled to form their own judgement of the desirability of restoring the elective system to their City. Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly My Ministers have been giving some thought to the desirability of creating a new force of uniformed men for the performance of certain important special duties in our Province. The Province is presently served by three types of police organization: the Newfoundland Constabulary, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Newfoundland Highway Patrol. The Patrol is actually part of the Constabulary, though it functions to a considerable extent separately from that force. The new force that my Ministers have in mind is one that would be only in part a police organization. It would absorb the present Highway Patrol, and perform the duties that they presently discharge, except that they would do it on a Province-wide scale. If the Government of Canada agreed, this new force would take over the duties presently discharged by certain fishery, especially game fishery, wardens and patrolmen. It would also take over certain duties which are presently the responsibility of certain other patrolmen and wardens of the Government of Newfoundland and a number of other officials whose duty may be described broadly as that of enforcing public regulations and protecting public property. A novel duty of this new force would be that of "courtesy" patrol. The number of persons, especially visitors, that will be using our roads in future will become great. It may be confidently asserted that many thousands of visitors and tourists will travel within our Province. They will motor considerable distances between towns and settlements, between restaurants and hotels, service stations and filling stations, and otherwise be travelling under conditions frequently very different from those to which they are accustomed. Part of the duty of this new force would be to keep patrolmen on the principal highways, equipped with spare gasoline, mechanic's tools, tow rope, first aid equipment, and similar articles that would be useful in case of emergency. These courtesy patrolmen would be friendly guides and helpers to the travelling public, and they would receive special training in knowledge of our Province, simple motor mechanics, first aid, and other useful skills. We believe that our Province is at the commencement of a large tourist development, and my Ministers consider it to be of the greatest possible importance that all visitors to our Province be given every help and courtesy, on a generous and hospitable scale. The cost may be considerable, but my Government are confident that it will be a sound investment for the future. It is tentatively the intention to name the new force the Newfoundland Company of Rangers. They would number several hun- dreds, all of whom would receive intensive training at expert hands, and would wear an attractive and distinguishable uniform. My Ministers will probably approach the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an effort to induce that famous force to give the members of the Newfoundland Company of Rangers, at least in an abbreviated form, some of the training that the members of the Mounted Police now receive. Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly We are all of us looking forward to Come Home Year. We have reason to believe that many thousands of our fellow-New-foundlanders will come back to us from different parts of the world. There will be many joyous reunions of families and friends. These Newfoundlanders will bring back with them to their native land on these short visits new ideas, new appreciation of modern progress, and they will doubtless press home upon us their own thoughts of many forms of new and additional progress that we might attempt to achieve in our Province. They will, at the same time, especially those of them who have been absent for very many years, doubtless be favourably impressed the great changes and improvements that have occurred during their absence. If they go back to their new homes with good impression of Newfoundland they will advertise the fact widely among other Newfoundlanders and their friends, and this should help to bring us an even larger number of visitors next year. The main purpose that my Ministers have had in mind in holding Come Home Year has been to launch our long awaited tourist and travel enterprise that they believe could quickly become one of the great sources of wealth and prosperity for this Province. My Ministers deeply appreciate the spirit of co-operation which has been shown by our citizens in every part of the Province in preparing for Come Home Year. Because of this co-operation there are now several thousand citizens actively working on the special and regional committees associated with Come Home Year plans. The laying of an asphalt surface on the Trans-Canada Highway has been performed, and some refinements and upgrading will be carried out in the coming spring and summer. It is my Government's intention to draw attention to the completion of this greatest of all construction and engineering projects in the Island's history by means of a significant celebration in the early part of the coming season. A gratifying number of new hotels and motels is under construction, or about to commence construction, and while it is not considered that the number is sufficient, there is considerable satisfaction over the actual increase in the number of hotel rooms that will be available to travelers in the present year. Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly My Minister are greatly pleased over the progress being made by the Newfoundland and Labrador Power Commission and the Newfoundland and Labrador Rural Electric Authority, in my Ministers' great programme of electric development this Island. It may come as a surprise to honourable Members to learn that this present programme is costing close to ninety five million dollars ($95,000,000). This vast sum is made up of approximately eighty million dollars ($80,000,000) for the Baie d'Espoir development and its associated transmission grid and terminal stations; and approximately fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) for rural electrification for some fifteen Town Councils and fifty rural electricity boards. Close to two thousand men will be working on these projects in the coming season, and the Chairman of the Commission and his colleagues on the Commission are confident that they will realize the plan to complete the first phase of the great Bay d'Espoir project in the early spring of next year, approximately a year from now, and that by then electric current will be coursing through a great 600-mile network of transmission lines throughout our Province. My Ministers have already announced their hope to have ample supplies of electricity made available to all our people at a price of one cent, or even fractionally a little less than one cent, a kilowatt hour for ordinary domestic electricity. My Government believe that there will be a great increase in the use of electricity for many domestic purposes, including that of household heat. My Ministers have striven to bring to Newfoundland the great blessing of development of the first phase of the Churchill Falls Power. They believe that millions of horsepower will surge into Newfoundland from Labrador commencing in 1971, to be fed into the new grid of transmission lines. The Premier has been negotiating with a number of important industrial corporations with a view to bringing them into this Province to make use of large amounts of this low-cost power. The hope is that announcements will be made in the present year of the coming to Newfoundland of a number of such large industrial concerns. My Government have entered into an agreement with the Government of Canada to make Civil Servants and other employees of Her Majesty in Newfoundland eligible to receive the benefits of the Canada Pension Plan, which came into effect on the first day of this month. Legislation to ratify that agreement will be placed before you. From the beginning of the year the contributions required under the Plan will be deducted from the salary of all Government employees, as well as from those of teachers, and matching contributions on both will be paid by my Government into the fund. The financial and economic implications of this great social measure, designed as it is to provide comprehensive social security for all Canadians, are certain to be felt profoundly across the nation. Under it, Newfoundlanders, like all other Canadians, during the years in which they are employed, can provide for increased security in their declining years. It is encouraging, also, to note a continued improvement in general health conditions in the Province. All health statistics in the past year have shown improvement over preceding years and in respect of all the main items are the most favourable in the history of the Province. My Government expect to receive, in the present month, the report of the Royal Commission on Health from the Right Honourable Lord Brain. It is not possible at this juncture to say whether the report can be studied by my Ministers in time to enable them, in your present session, to lay before you new legislation that may arise out of Lord Brain's recommendations. The magnificent new Children's Hospital will be completed and ready for use in the coming summer. It is my Ministers' intention to make this fine new institution the headquarters of an important Child Health Centre at Pleasantville on the banks of Quidi Vidi. Construction will be commenced in the immediate future of a substantial residence for the staff of the Children's Hospital. My Ministers have decided also to construct a type of residence that will, in its function, be new in our Province. This is a residence for the parents of children who are patients at the new hospital. While it is not expected that parents residing in St. John's, or nearby, will use this residence, it is apparent that it will be a useful and convenient institution for parents coming into the City from places that are more distant. This new residence will have a number of housekeeping rooms and apartments for the economical use of parents accompanying their children to the Hospital. Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly My Ministers are negotiating actively for the establishment of a large new shipyard in this Province. This shipyard should not be confused with the ship repair yard already announced for the port of Marystown, although it is proposed to construct it contiguous to the repair yard. The ship yard will be thoroughly modern and capable of building a dozen or more steel ships each year. The intention is that certain of the facilities of the ship repair establishment be made available to the ship building yard, and some of them, for that reason, would have to be made larger that would otherwise be the case. This is particularly true of the machine shops. My Ministers are hopeful that very substantial additional development will de commenced in the forest industry this year. My Ministers are confident that great forward steps will be taken in fishery development in the present year. My Ministers are vigorously planning economic activities for the whole area of Bay St. George that will be affected by the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from the area. July 1st., 1966, will be the Fiftieth Anniversary of an event which, although it occasioned deep grief throughout the whole of Newfoundland at the time it occurred, is nevertheless remembered by all of us with great pride as one of the outstanding events in our history. I refer, of course, to the gallant action at Beaumont Hamel on July 1, 1916, when the Newfoundland Regiment was virtually annihilated by the enemy after a display of outstanding valour and courage. My Ministers feel that this Fiftieth Anniversary should be observed in a fitting manner and details of the ceremonies proposed to be held will be announced in due course. Legislation will be placed before you in connection with the Arts and Culture Centre in the capital City, the Arts Centre in the City of Corner Brook, the Grand Falls building, the Corner Brook public building, the Marine Science Laboratory at Logy Bay, and the public building at City of Wabush in Labrador. You will be asked to consider legislation that would empower the Province to make an agreement with Canada respecting Medicare. You will be asked to consider housing legislation, and a Local Government Act. You will be asked to enact or amend the Newfoundland and Labrador Power Commission Act, the Newfoundland and Labrador Rural Electricity Act, the Child Welfare Act, the Crown Lands Act, the Co-operative Societies Act, the Department of Highways Act, the Department of Public Works Act, the District Courts Act, the Health and Public and Public Welfare Act, the Highway Traffic Act, the Insurance Companies Tax Act, the Newfoundland Hospital Association Act, the Penitentiary Act, the Private Investment Holding Companies Act, the Public Utilities Act, and many other pieces of legislation. Mr. Speaker and members of the Honourable house of Assembly Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure will be laid before you and you will be requested to grant Supply unto Her Majesty. I invoke God's blessing upon your labours.