Province
Législature
Session
Type de discours
Date du discours
Locuteur
Fonction du locuteur
Parti politique
Terre- Neuve et Labrador
34e
4e
Discours du Trône
18 février 1970
Ewart John Arlington Harnum
Lieutenant Gouverneur
Liberal
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY:
As we enter the eighth decade of the 20th century, Newfoundlanders are very conscious of
the fact that this is also the beginning of the third decade of their career as citizens of Canada.
The two decades have been incomparably the best in Newfoundland's long history; and as we
push and are drawn into the seventies we do so with lively awarenes that sweeping social and
economic changes may all but overwhelm our Western civilization.
Newfoundland, like all of Canada's Provinces, but especially the less affluent ones, will
have to generate greater effort than ever before. That effort will have to be intelligent and
indefatigable to an extent that we have never been able to achieve in the past. The shape and
character of our Province may well be made for a hundred years in the next ten, and
Newfoundlanders will need to exercise all of their courage and all of their patriotism to keep their
Province abreast of the times.
We may well ask: What are our options as a people? What are Newfoundland's chances,
her opportunities? Given courage, intelligence and patriotism; making full use of our resources of
men and materials; devoting even more of our substance to the education effort; displaying
openness of mind in our official and private approach to the problem of finding solutions; and
pre supposing strong leadership by the Government of our Nation and by, the Government of
our Province: given all these, have we as a people got it in us, in the coming decade, to build
upon the foundation of the; past centuries and in particular the past two decades a Province
whose future will be no matter for doubt or even doubt in the coming years?
My Ministers have faced these questions and answered Yes. They are sure that our people
will share their confidence in our Province's future.
We must hold our population and establish the conditions for steady, even rapid, increase
of our numbers. We must maintain, and indeed expand and improve, the Province's public
services. We must find ever-increasing revenue to enable the Government to satisfy the proper
demands of people for an ever more attractive and pleasant Province. We must resolutely reject
permanent dependence on Ottawa as a principal means of our existence. We must bring about a
degree and quality of social and economic reconstruction that was never more than hoped for
before.
These are the great purposes that, my Ministers are determined that they and all Departments of
Government will strive vigorously to accomplish.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY:
Canada and the United States are at this moment caught in a crisis of relatively scarce money, the
highest interest rates for 110 years, and a degree of inflation that causes the gravest concern
among statesmen, financiers and industrial and commercial leaders. These situations are not
very helpful to the North American economy at the outset of the seventies. My Ministers believe,
however, upon the basis of professional advice received, that these adverse factors will
substantially subside in the coming months.
My Government have decided to call a conference of persons and organizations to whom
the economic, future of our Province is of particular concern. This conference will be held in St.
John's in the near future, and to it my Ministers will invite representatives of the local boards,
committees or associations that have sprung up around the Province in recent years;
representatives of Boards of Trade, Chambers of Commerce, Manufacturers' Associations; City
and Town Councils; Newfoundland Federation of Labour, Newfoundland Federation of
Fishermen, agricultural bodies, and other producers' organizations; representatives of the mining,
fishing, manufacturing industries; banks and other financial authorities; and representatives also
of various other bodies that could be expected to be particularly concerned with the matters to be
considered. The Government of Canada, and the various departments of the Newfoundland
Government will be asked to attend and assist. My Ministers are hopeful that important and
significant results will flow from this conference which is planned to last for several days.
This great conference will be the forerunner to the introduction of the Regional Economic
Expansion programme which my Government are about to launch with the generous, imaginative
and indispensable help of the Government of Canada. A great deal of preparation has been made
in the Department of Community and Social Development of my Government, in friendly an
intimate collaboration with the Department of Regional Economic Expansion of the Government
of Canada. My Ministers have long advocated precisely this type of financial and other
assistance from the Government of our Nation, and they are profoundly pleased by these
developments. At long last the Government of Canada are embarked upon a large programme of
employing the strength and wealth of the Nation to help the less developed Provinces to rise to a
level close to the Canadian average. You will be given much detailed information on this
programme in your present session.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY:
It was with deep satisfaction that my Government welcomed the decision of the
Government of Canada to introduce legislation into Parliament to provide a great reform in the
salt codfish industry. The organization of a marketing board has been advocated for many years
by my Ministers, and in June of 1964 they asked your House to adopt legislation to provide for
the creation of the marketing board insofar as your House had the constitutional competence to
do so. This legislation was enacted and has reposed in the Statutes of this Province since 1964
awaiting only the enactment of Federal legislation to give it legal effect. My Ministers share fully
the confidence felt by the fishermen in the prospect of better prices and conditions in the salt
codfish industry this year and in the future.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE
OF ASSEMBLY:
My Ministers, notwithstanding the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of
the Province of British Columbia, continue to believe in the soundness of our Province's claim to
mineral rights lying off the shores of our Province. They have therefore engaged the services of
a distinguished Canadian constitutional and legal authority to advise them on this matter, which
admittedly is one of greatest importance to Newfoundland both now and in the future.
Reference to off-shore mineral rights, including of course oil and natural gas, leads
inevitably to the grave matter of pollution. Here is a problem that Newfoundland have had
unhappy reason to discover, with most of the modern world in the past year or so, to be among
the most menacing features of our industrial civilization. My Ministers are very conscious of this
menace, and they are resolved to take all the steps that they can practically take to reduce the
danger substantially if it cannot be totally eliminated.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE:
OF ASSEMBLY:
Our Province, in the past two years, like most of the Provinces of Canada, has
experienced .a disconcerting falling off in the level of economic activity and of economic health.
Tight money, scarce money, high interest rates and fast mounting inflation have plagued us and
continue to do so. '·
Notwithstanding these facts, my Ministers are quite confident that 1970 will be a year of
distinctly improved economic conditions compared with last year. The frozen and salted fish
industry should see better prices. Exports of herring for direct human consumption will go up
from an average of 15,000 barrels a year in recent times to over 80,000 barrels this year. There
will be more employment at Churchill Falls. The DREE programme will go into operation.
There will be a roadbuilding programme, and there will be important rural and urban
development programmes. Important industrial development will take place at Stephenville,
Hawke's Bay and Comeby-Chance. Power Development will continue in Conception Bay and in
Bay d'Espoir.
The next great development in the production of hydroelectric power in our Province is
most certain to be done on the Lower Churchill. The British Newfoundland Corporation last year
spent more than $2 million on field and engineering studies on one part of the Lower Churchill,
that at Gull Island. That work last year included the drilling of fourteen thousand feet and
mapping of the whole area. These studies indicated that a plant on Gull Island, which is only part
of that section of the great Churchill River, would produce approximately 2.25 million
horsepower of electricity. It is estimated that another 1.5 million horsepower could be produced
at Muskrat Falls, for a total of approximately 4 million horsepower, or about seventeen thousand
million kilowatt hours a year. When this power is developed on the Lower Churchill and added to
the thirty-four thousand million kilowatt hours to be produced each year on the Upper Churchill,
it could give combined production of fifty thousand million kilowatt hours a year from this one
watershed in Labrador. Such production would place Newfoundland among the greatest sources
of hydro-electric power in the world. It gives the people of Newfoundland and Labrador great
satisfaction indeed to know that the Churchill River and watershed is only one of several great
potential sources of hydro-electric power in. Labrador.
Very important expansion of the iron-ore producing industry in Western Labrador is
among the attractive possibilities of our Province's immediate industrial future. There could be
an extension of an iron ore development at Labrador City amounting to as much as ten million
tons of additional production of iron ore a year, giving employment to an additional 700 workers,
and involving an additional capital investment of something between one hundred million and
two hundred million dollars. A somewhat similar development could possibly take place at a
point not many miles removed from Labrador City; and this, though not quite so large as the one
that is possible at Labrador City, would involve the employment of many hundreds of other men,
the production of many million tons of iron ore and the involvement of a very large sum of fresh
capital.
My Government have followed with care the public discussion and have participated in
some private discussion, of the effect that the mining tax proposals contained in the White Paper
on Taxation, could have upon these possible new developments in Western Labrador. My
Government have made strong representations to the Government of Canada in this regard, for
quite clearly it would be tragic for Newfoundland and Labrador if any system of taxation were to
have the effect of blocking a development so devoutly desired and so urgently needed.
My Government have followed with, concern the recent development of American policy
in connection with the operation of their armed forces base at Argentia, and they have maintained
close liaison with the Government of Canada and the representative of the United States
Government. My Ministers applied themselves energetically and with some success to the task of
finding solutions for the problem of Stephenville, when the base there was phased out altogether.
They will apply themselves with the same energy to the similar task of finding solutions at
Argentia.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: '
As an important part of my Government’s policy of improving the quality of their
administration, my Ministers continue to reorganize and strengthen the Department of Finance
and the Treasury Board, both of which, with the Department of Economic Development, and the
Department of Community and Social Development are destined to play a vital part in the
economic and financial strengthening of our Province.
The Civil Service, which in twenty years has grown from 5700 to 9900, and which is now
costing the Province $45,000,000 a year in salaries, has been under close study for a year by
Personnel Administration Services of Chicago. This well-known and respected American
organization has performed similar tasks for a number of Canadian Provinces and American
States, and my Government are confident that this review, with the accompanying
recommendations, which have now been received by my Ministers, will bring about great
improvement in the efficiency and stability of the Civil Service. Your careful attention will be
invited to this important aspect of public administration.
My Ministers have decided to strengthen greatly, and to extend the scope of, our central
purchasing system. My Minister of Supply and his officials have made a thorough study of this
matter, and Canadian Government specialists in central purchasing have been on loan to my
Government. My Ministers believe that substantial savings of public funds can be effected, and
you will be asked to consider legislation to enable certain important changes to be made in our
purchasing system.
Your House within the past year or so gave some consideration to the question of creating
the office of Ombudsman for this Province, and you will be asked in this Session to adopt
legislation empowering my Government to appoint an Ombudsman.
Very important legislation dealing with the re-organization and the consolidation of
education services in this Province was enacted last year. It was pointed out at that time that in
the ensuing months attention would be given to additional, changes and reforms. In the
legislation to which I have referred, a body known as the General Advisory Committee was
created with responsibility for advising my Ministers on Education policy. On that body, of
which my Minister of Education is Chairman, sit representatives of the Churches, the
Newfoundland Teachers' Association, the University and senior officers of the Department of
Education. As a result of the co-operation received from the constituent members of that body
you will be asked to consider some ten Bills relating to various aspects of education. While some
of these will recommend minor amendments, others will recommend substantial, far-reaching
amendments. In particular you will be asked to adop measures which will make mandatory the
election of at least one-third of the members of all school boards and the holding of certain school
board meetings which will be open to the general public. You will be asked also to consider
substantial amendments to the School Tax Act, based on recommendations made by a committee
appointed last year to study school tax legislation in this Province. Among the recommendations
that you will be asked to consider will be several designed to remove certain inequities from our
present system of school financing.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY:
My Government feel that it would now be appropriate to ask you to enact legislation to
repeal the section of the labour law that decertified locals of the International Woodworkers of
America, and you will accordingly be invited to adopt the necessary amendment.
My Government will ask you to repeal an amendment made in 1967 to the Workmen's
Compensation Act. This amendment allowed certain appeals to be made to the Supreme Court,
and my Ministers feel after three years' experience, that this right of appeal should be removed.
They are supported in this view by the organized labour movement and by organized industrial
interests.
My Government have decided that the time has come to remove the exception that was
made to the minimum wage where fish processing is concerned. My Ministers feel that the
provisions of minimum wage legislation should be made to apply to workers in fish processing as
to other establishments and other industries. My Ministers feel that this can now be done without
running the risk of hurting the fish industry.
My Ministers, in common with many, citizens of the Province, have been deeply
concerned with the problem of finding a practical means of providing housing for families of
modest income. This problem is one that is not peculiar to Newfoundland, but confronts people in
many parts of North America. My Government have considered the possibility of finding at least
a partial solution of this particular problem in a plan to erect what are popularly called “shell" or
“partially completed" housing units. This is a plan whereby families, after a small down
payment, are able to enter a house as the owners rather than as tenants and by monthly
payments spread over a period of years be able at last to discharge the debt and to be sole owners
of the house occupied. My Government have negotiated with Canada's, Minister responsible for
public housing and he has expressed lively interest in my Government's plans. A few such “shell”
houses have actually been erected by my Ministers on an experimental basis, and my Ministers
are hopeful that they will find it to be practical· to proceed this year with a programme of
construction of a somewhat substantial number of such new occupier-owner homes. My
Government will present to you in this Session proposals to enable them to help in the provision
of a number of co-operative homes that would be built and owned under the condominium
plan.
My Government are giving consideration to the matter of effecting changes in the
machinery for regulation and control of house rents in this Province with a view to making
procedures more effective in behalf of tenants.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY:
You will be asked in this Session to consider a substantial number of pieces of legislation.
These will include an Act entitled - The Clean Air, Water and Soil Authority Act, a new
Mechanics Lien Act, amendment to Public Printing and Stationery Act, an important amendment
to The Department of Supply Act, and amendments to the Civil Service Act, Community
Councils Act, St. John's Metropolitan Area Act, The Motor Carrier Act, Alcoholic Liquors Act,
The Constabulary (Pensions) Act, The Crown Lands (Mines and Quarries) Act, The Fish
Inspection Act, The Highway Traffic Act, Hours of Work Act, Local Government Act. In
addition to these you will be asked to consider - Solemnization of Marriages Act, Motorized
Snow Vehicles Act, an amendment to the Salt Fish Development Corporation Act, amendment to
the Social Assistance Act and an amendment to the Welfare Institutions Licensing Act. Other
pieces of legislation will come before you in the present Session.
MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY:
You will be asked to grant Supply unto Her Majesty.
I invoke God's blessing upon your labours as you give your careful consideration to
matters laid before you for the welfare of our beloved Province.
E. RALPH DAVIS, QUEEN's PmNTER.