Legislative Assembly

assistant, a very fervent Liberal indeed that is being employed there as well. And they are not doing those things not on the basis of competition or tender. There is a co-ordinator in the Fishermen’s Loan Board, and he is a very nice chap too. I don't know what he is getting but we will find that out or how much he knows about fish- eries as a matter of fact. There is an executive assistant who is getting quite a nice salary, $2,000.00, or more than my assistant got when I was in there, and I had two very excellent men.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: He is getting the same. Walter R. Shaw: No he is not getting the same. Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: Yes. Exactly the same.

Walter R. Shaw: No, I beg your pardon don’t you put that over, or try to put that over.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: $6,500.

Walter R. Shaw: He is getting $6,500. Whoever of my executive assistants got sixty-five hundred? They were coming under four thousand dollars when they came in green like that fellow. Now don't try to tell me anything like that because I know. Another man here is getting $22,000.00; another is getting $15,000.00; ano- ther $18,000.00; another — this is not in the government employ but I suppose they are paying it indirectly — $23,000.00 or $24,000.00. I think on all these new co-ordin- ators and their staff taken into consideration will cost the province of Prince Edward Island at least $200,000.00 a year. What would $200,000.00 a year along with the money that is being put out for the golf course at Brudenell have done to the people who are fired out of jobs in that complex at Georgetown? What would it have done for Georgetown? I ask you as honest, honourable men that these things cannot be justified, and I mean every word I say on that.

We are facing a period of serious economic reverses for our farmers and our fishermen and our labourers with fewer jobs and lesser revenues. It is indeed a period of great unrest and the careless practices at Government levels are not de- signed to calm the troubled waters into which this Government has now become embroiled.

Now I don’t intend to go into this matter of a rail strike in this province that was so badly bungled that we don't wish to hear about it. When that strike came on I asked, I suggested to the government that we have a session of Provincial Par- liament where we could get together and get along with the Boards of Trade and other public bodies, and I am sure if that had been done and our particular position had been explained to the Union authorities at Montreal or Ottawa that we would never had the hold up that we had. But from week to week this went on and that was the Premier's statement, “Something is going to happen tomorrow, it’s coming." Nothing came and the whole thing was bungled and in the meantime we lost millions of dollars in this province because tourists left and many of them will not return because of a condition of that kind. If that had not been settled with the Unions, with the labouring people, you had the redress to the federal level, to go to the Government of Canada. These boats should not be stopped; they are a part of our agreement in the terms of Confederation in that there should be continuous trans» portation between this province and the mainland. Why was that not done? If it was done why didn’t Ottawa come across and say this we are going to step in and have these boats operating but they didn’t do that. And I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that that whole strike situation was bungled and we lost millions of dollars. Not only a loss in tourist trade but the loss to the farmers of this province who couldn’t get their materials to market at the proper time.

Now that situation is not settled yet, it can happen almost anytime that a strike takes place. I do feel that this is a matter that is beyond party politics and it is something in which we are all interested and every person in this province is interested in seeing to it that that situation with regard to transportation is solved at the earliest possible moment. I didn't blame the Labour Unions; they were carry- ing out the orders from their headquarters, they were doing their jobs as their loyal- ties dictated they should do. They were reading out of some kind of emergency legis-

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