MR. [Gerry] REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.__________________________________________________
My questions are for the Premier, and again they concern giving gifts to his friends.
Mr. Speaker, in the late 1980s, the Mayor of Calgary at the time indicated that he did not care if Eastern Canadians froze to death in the dark. That mayor later went on to become Premier and, as we all know, Ralph Klein is about to retire later this year. This summer, at a Premiers' Conference held here in this Province, our Premier gave Ralph Klein and his wife sealskin fur coats valued at $8,000 as a retirement gift, I might add, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Premier tell us today what Ralph Klein or his wife did for this Province that would allow us or make us believe that we had to give $8,000 of taxpayers' money as a retirement gift?
MR. SPEAKER [Harvey Hodder]: The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER [Danny] WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I cannot do enough or spend enough money here to help the sealing industry in this Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
PREMIER WILLIAMS: What this is, it is an opportunity to have the senior statesman in this country, a man who has been Premier of the wealthiest province in the country for thirteen years, whose wife was a champion against addictions in crystal meth and brought in the initiative, the crystal meth initiative that has gone right across the country, has also been part of the OxyContin initiatives, these two people are leaders in the country, and for us, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, to give them an opportunity to proudly wear seal coats from the sealing industry in this Province is money well spent, and I would spend it again.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have heard a lot of answers and non-answers in this House, but those are the lamest ones I have ever heard in sitting here in eleven years.
Mr. Speaker, we have hospital pharmacists looking for wage increases, we have out-migration at an alarming rate, we have schools that are full of mould, yet the Premier can spend our precious tax dollars so freely.
Can the Premier justify why he believed it to be acceptable to give $105,000 worth of gifts to the Premiers and their guests during this conference, including $35,000 worth of sweaters?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, if I may just expound, first of all, on the last question.
We have a sealing industry that is under siege and we have to do absolutely everything we can, nationally and internationally, to help that industry. It is an important industry to rural Newfoundland and Labrador and that is why I championed it on Larry King Live and took on the McCartneys on live international television, and we made a lot of ground there.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the question as to why we gave these gifts to heads of provinces, heads of states in this country, whose support we need and we have for the Atlantic Accord, whose support we needed and we have for fallow field legislation, we were giving them rural Newfoundland and Labrador arts and crafts, sweaters knitted by Newfoundlanders for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. [Emphasis added. The Premier refers to his colleagues as heads of state. That in itself is worthy of about an hour of careful consideration. Then he links giving of gifts with political support on certain initiatives. I doubt very much the Premier meant to suggest he was bribing other political leaders or that he was in some other fashion rewarding them for their support. Surely, their support for the initiatives mentioned were based on merit, not on the receipt of warm woolies.
And while we are at it, did the gifts come from Nonia, the province's oldest craft organization and a not-for-profit to boot? The Premier mentioned the arts council, which suggests the elite of the local arts community. Nonia is a crafts' store. It's merchandise is hand-made by women across the province. Bit of a difference between a sweater made like thousands of other for its practical value and one made as a purely creative endeavour.]
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER WILLIAMS: Those gifts all came from various members of the arts council. We spent a significant amount of money in the arts council. We had a fundraiser the other night, we brought in the cultural and the arts community. We have invested heavily in the arts community and this is about promoting rural Newfoundland and Labrador. If you do not like that, I make no apologies.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Let me get it straight, you gave Ralph the fur coats to support the sealing industry, you gave the sweaters to support the agriculture industry. Let's talk about some of the other ones, the entertainment - how about the entertainment expenses? During this three day conference the taxpayers of this Province spent $132,000 keeping thirteen Premiers entertained with music and comedy.
I ask the Premier: Do you consider this a priority in the Province, a priority that includes a $75,000 fee for a one-hour musical performance by one band? [Emphasis added.]
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I find it very acceptable. I find it to be money well spent. I take my greatest pride, as Premier of our Province, in showcasing every single bit of talent and music and culture that we have in this Province. If I have an opportunity to showcase that culture and that music, not only to the Premiers and their spouses and their staffs, but to international media, national and international media, and we take a group like Great Big Sea, recognized internationally all over the world, and this government has invested in them, we take someone like Rick Mercer, who is a tremendous talent, who has a national audience, one of the biggest national audiences on television, and we invest in him, then we take a whole showcase of our talent at The Rooms and we pay for them to perform, by God, that is money well spent. [BP note: Evidentally, I do need to raise my consulting fees. $75K for a one hour gig, even allowing for set-up etc etc? Wow. Even lawyers don't make that kinda dough.]
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. SULLIVAN: Sit down, boy.
MR. REID: I am not going to sit down, I say to the Minister of Finance.
He talks about how proud he is to spend this kind of money, when we have youth in this Province who cannot afford diabetic pumps because this government will not compensate them for it.
Mr. Speaker, it appears that the Premiers also had a very good time being wined and dined by the taxpayers of this Province. We have the agriculture and the sealing industry covered. Maybe we are going to cover off the wine industry and the alcohol industry next, are we?
Mr. Speaker, does the Premier believe that $100,000 is an acceptable expenditure on sightseeing tours that provided beverages of various sorts to the Premiers and their guests?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, there was a budget of about $1.25 million, basically, for this entire conference. You can rest assured that the cost to Alberta had to be significantly more than that. Albertans told us after it was over that we beat them to the punch. We basically put on a better performance for our Province than they did.
We took them - I am sorry, the Member for the Bay of Island obviously has a problem with the fact that we took the Premiers and their staff to the West Coast, so that we could showcase the Bay of Islands and Humber Valley and Corner Brook and Gros Morne and show off our tourism establishments. That is what we did. We took them there and then we took them back to the East Coast and we showcased the East Coast.
We showcased our talent, our music, we showcased our crafts and our manufacturing ability in rural Newfoundland, we showcased our land and we showcased our people because we gave them a good time and they talked about it all over this country.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The Chair recognizes the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Just imagine, what the Premier just said. He said: We beat Alberta in the show that we put off. The richest province in the country being out done by spending money by the poorest one in the country.
This issue is obviously a touchy one.
The Premier's Office issued a news release later that day suggesting the total cost of the conference was about $500,000. The figure given above is accurate, not the one from the news release. The total budget, but the tab was picked up by the provincial government, corporate sponsorships sought by the provincial government and some contribution by the conference secretariat.
The budget for the conference came in at about $1.5 million, which is - as BP understands it - about a half million more expensive than the Alberta show. No wonder the Albertans thought we outspent them. We did.
How do we know the figure? It was already made public in August in a story about the corporate gifts that government received to underwrite the cost of the show. Companies like INCO gave the government upwards of $500,000 in sponsorships.
INCO alone gave $75, 000. As the story linked above notes, Premier Williams had previously banned INCO from making corporate gifts to the Tory party because of concerns over conflict of interest. Here's what Bond wrote in August on the whole thing.
But here's an interesting thing: given that the "showcase" cost about $1.5 million to produce and, as we gather from the lame release, the economic benefit was calculated at $1.4 million, that leaves some fairly obvious implications:
- The whole thing was a wash, with the potential profit eaten up by added costs (like all the showcases); or,
- The "economic benefit" is actually just provincial government money being spent in the province, which really provides no substantive economic benefit at all. doesn'tt bring new money in; it merely recirculates the old.
Either way, that sort of funky fiscal figuring, coming from the Premier's Office makes one wonder about the fibre deal all over again.
