Legislative Assembly

of costs programs; this is what they said at the conference that they didn’t hear about. Hospital insurance, the Canada Assistance Plan and others, but the Premier forgot them, he never heard of them! Possibly he would like to explain what he meant when he said that the program there was simply steaming rather than plan- ning. That is his own statement. Coming back again to the phasing-out plans Mr. Sharpe said federal proposals for the years 1967 to 1972 and tax agreements are a shift away from the direct participation and shared costs of social programs. The shared-cost arrangement in question, and note it, hospital insurance, national health grants, Canada Assistance Plan, covering Old Age Assistance, blind and disabled allowances, and unemployment assistance, that is the statement of the Finance Minis» ter. How does this suit our farm people? The Montreal Star, an upper Canadian paper, commented on this at the time, and if you wish further quotations you can get the Federal-Provincial Tax Structure Report and it gives you that statement in full: “Where it is indicated that the federal assistance should be withdrawn as soon as full provincial responsibilities can be established.” How do we know what the full responsibilities is going to be five years from now, or what the revenues of this provinces are going to be? Wake up you people of the Government side, and on this side too, to the fact that we are facing one of the most dangerous financial associa- tions in our history. What will be the cost conditions in the next ten years with Mr. Sharpe prophesying increased surplus at the federal level and increased deficits at the provincial. What form of a miracle is to be devised to take care of these com- mitments? This whole package-deal accepted by the Leader and his aides means a disasterous future for the province of Prince Edward Island.

Now I don’t wish to pursue that any further. I have given you the figures, I have given you the statements from Ottawa. but these are the facts of the results of that conference and I say that the interests of this province have been “sold down the river” under the guise of very. . . .what shall I say. . . .effusive statements through the ghost-writers and others on the return of our representatives from Ottawa. Not only that, but I would like to take something here that perhaps of more interest to the farm people. on page twenty-two of the report of Mr. Sharpe. He was referring to these plans in which we participate. “That all existing shared-cost programs in this field will be continued or that they will be continued in the present form. Many of them are currently under scrutiny within the federal government to determine whether they are making as great a contribution as they might, the objective of economic growth or economic stability. I would hope that this would be true of all our economic measures. It is to be expected, therefore, that federal Ministers will periodically suggest the revision or discontinuation of existing programs or the in- itiation of new measures for economic purposes. I might note, and take notice of this Mr. Minister of Agriculture because you have to answer to the farm people, “I might note in this connection that we plan to discontinue these shared-cost pro- grams at their expiry date; the forestry agreements, the roads to resources, and the agricultural lime assistance policy”. What does that mean? How are we going to assume these costs by ourselves? Yet these people come back and say there was nothing said about these shared-cost programs. I think we are facing a very serious, a most serious situation and I can tell you this, that when my honourable friend talks about comprehensive plans he better examine very carefully the revenues of this province and the responsibilities of the federal government to this province at the federal level because we cannot carry on these programs.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to go on to another matter of a most serious nature, and I desire to discuss in some detail the matter of industrial development in the Province of Prince Edward Island. In doing so I would like to go back over the record of the past few years and to outline to you what was done under our govern- ment in our program of expansion. The development of industry in all its phases was one of the first problems that was considered by our government after we came into power in 1959.

Our study involved education, industry expansion, cultural activities, and trans- portation with special attention to the encouragement of industrial projects. This whole program was closely examined and planned with the base centered upon educa- tion and the training of our young people to qualify through academic and voca- tional training to fill the jobs that we envisaged would take place as a result of our programs. It was recognized under existing conditions that many difficulties

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