Person and number

"It is the custom in the House that no Member should refer to another by name. Members should be referred to in the third person..." — Beauchesne.

Just another day in the Bow-Wow Parliament, where, mercifully, the least effective Speaker in the known history of the Westminster parliamentary tradition is apparently set to retire:

MR. REID: I ask the minister today: What discussions have you had with your federal counterpart since that meeting last Sunday pertaining to this very serious issue?

MR. REID: I say to the minister, you missed a golden opportunity to, at least, bring it to his face when you met with him in Ottawa last week. Unfortunately, you forgot to do that. I ask the Premier: Will you step in to help these fisherpeople who are in such a bad need right now?

MR. REID: I ask the Premier: What is it that you do not understand about the people who live in rural Newfoundland and Labrador? They are in a desperate need of help. Some of them have been without an income, they and their families, for well over a month now. I know that is hard for you to understand, but I want to know: Why are you sitting idly by and watching the federal government do nothing whatsoever to help these people and help them with their plight? When are you going to step in and try to do something for these individuals, I say to the Premier?

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, how low can you go to suggest that the Premier does not understand? How low can you go?

MR. REID: I say to the minister and I say it to the Premier, if you had more interest in the plight of rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians as you do in political polls, something might be done to help those individuals who are in such dire straits today, I say to the minister.

MR. REID: I ask the minister: What is your government’s position today? What is your position here and what is it going to be when you walk outside the House? Because you have two very different positions on a daily basis.

MR. REID: I say to the minister that he has no monopoly on poverty, and if he did think a lot about the people he represented and the people on the Baie Verte Peninsula and every other peninsula north of the Bonavista Peninsula, you would be doing something more than yelling and screaming and talking about political polls. You would be doing something to help those individuals.

MR. BALL: I ask the minister: How long did you and your department have the results of these re-tests, and when were the women involved notified of the errors?

MR. WISEMAN: If you had to ask me the question last week, what was included in that figure, I would have laid out $2.5 million for you to respond to home support that would have provided a salary increase for home support workers and another $4 million to increase capacity for home support. All you had to do was ask it.

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I am sure when I leave here today the question I am going to be asked, so I will ask the minister right now: How much an hour are you prepared to pay home support workers and how much in block funding will you give to the agencies?

MS JONES: I ask the minister today: Have you considered a similar rebate program for commercial and industrial power users in that region of Labrador, and have you done any analysis on what that cost would be to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro?

MS JONES: Minister, if you want to support your rural agenda, why not reduce the rates to those businesses and do it immediately?

MS MICHAEL: Minister, with regard to the quality control that you are telling us about, what has been put in place to assure that this kind of lack of direct information to a patient is never going to happen again?

MR. WISEMAN: The unfortunate thing about it was many patients heard about the retesting process, as you have described, through the media, rather than having it coming directly from Eastern Health themselves.

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I say to the member opposite, that is an excellent suggestion and I will, in fact, relay that directly to the CEO of Eastern Health, because it is an ideal suggestion. Thank you very much for making it.

Mitigating factor: There was one brief glimmer of hope:

MS JONES: I would like to ask the minister: In that analysis, I am sure you have estimated what the cost would be to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to extend that rebate program to those businesses and industrial users. I am wondering if she could give me what that cost would be and to table the report and analysis that was completed?