Thursday, March 16. 1967

Council also provide for “the performance and conduct of my Government of Prince Edward Island and the members of that Government of Prince Edward Island past and present relating to the establishment, promotion and development of the said industries of Georgetown.”

It is quite obvious that it is intended for the previous government for the present had little of anything to do with promoting the developments and bitterly attacked the government that had. Is this another attack on the part of this Gov- ernment to examine every act or decision of previous Ministers in the hope that some

, unethical conduct may be discovered? Is this a “witch-hunt"? This, of course, is in g keeping with past practices. What right legally or morally has this government to place members of any government in this position as if they were common malefactors and assume that this was a court of law conducting some criminal charge? By all means examine the Georgetown situation and have members of this and the previous government make their statements, give their statements before the Commission bear- ing directly on the Georegtown project. Why conduct investigations specifically on the records of members of any government, past or present, whose records, services and activities are in the past, and have never been questioned and have always been available to the public and the Opposition of any government in power.

I have not the slightest personal reluctance to have my record and my services paraded before a Commission, neither will any member of the former government. I do protest, Mr. Speaker, with all my power, the principle of having this investi- gation on Georgetown and the industrial program to include the records of men who have given loyal and honourable services to the province, and whose position as members of Parliament. and the elected representatives of the people entitle them to a measure of dignity and respect. This action on the part of the present Govern- ment is beyond my understanding. If this extra-ordinary procedure, to my mind entirely indefensible, is to be permitted we could very well have similar circumstances arising from time to time — almost any protest — until Parliamentary proceedings become the handmaidens of political prejudices.

Now I wonder whether this practice that has been followed with regard to Georgetown of dragging everything into the press, making it a cheap public display, has been adopted toward other utilities? It is adopted towards tourist loans? Or the farm loans and other investments? Why was not this done when the Liberal Government experienced difficulties in the Souris plant and lost over $100,000 in that development. Why was it not done in a number of other developments in this rovince which we could mention? This is not an ethical or a sound procedure and s it any wonder that the people were confused and misled by this program that ser- ously injured our development and chased away industrial investments from this rovince. Is it any wonder that independent parties express contempt of these under- anded measures. Let me quote an editorial from one of the provincial papers, it an independent paper. Possibly not so independent; it belongs to Summerside.

It is entitled the “Mystery of Georgetown".

“The development has been under criticism for a long time but always veiled. obody comes out and says that he is wrong. At the last session of the Legislature, e Liberals waged a vigorous attack on the Georgetown development, raised all kinds f suspicion and doubts and then dropped the whole thing, and it was never mentioned urlng the election campaign. Once again it is to the fore and it is still not quite lear why the Premier states a problem exists but that is all he will say.”

And that was the impression left with the people of this province that they are misleading statements calculated only to undermine the confidence in industrial evelopment in the province. Statements are made to the effect that seven to ten nd one-half million dollars of the provincial revenue went into the construction of ese lants. I don’t think that is correct. These statements were made even to Upper d 11 papers. The Premier knows these statements were not correct and that no ch amounts were spent by the government of this province in the construction of eas plants. Why did he not explain that the Dominion Government was invovled to e extent of almost four million dollars in these plants? Why did he not tell the ublic that the Atlantic Development Board, after investigation, had put in almost million dollars for certain utilities? Why did he not state that those promoting of

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