Legislative Assembly

great value. But Highways did it their own way. Then of course the Expropriation Act, Section 23 says: “A copy of such plan and description shall be delivered to the owner or lesee of such lands, if known, or if not known, shall be posted on such land.” Now that is not done. At least the land that was taken from me during the last year I never saw anybody. Never heard a word from an official of the Department of Highways; I wouldn’t expect that I would hear from the Minister because I don’t think he should be attending to such details. But no official, the only notice I got was a letter in the mail about two weeks ago with a deed asking me to appear before a Commissioner of Deeds and sign the deed making this land over to the Department of Highways. Of course I lmew there was action on the land and I didn’t object because I felt that the highways work had to go ahead. But if I had been a little thin-skinned about it I might have felt a bit outraged at not being consulted in any degree as to what course was going to be taken, and then of course there is the matter of compensation. “The Minister may make an agreement in writing with the owners of the land so appropriated fixing the compensation to be paid therefore which agreement shall contain a description of the lands appropriated.” Now there is no agreement made as to the value of the land. There was an arbitrary amount that the Minister should take a look at because the prices that are paid for this type of land, which they take in perpetuity, forever, is ridiculously low even as the prices of good

farmland go at the present time. Some Member: How much did you get paid?

L. George Dewar: I didn’t get paid anything. (Laughter) But the amount offered was ridiculous and if a private person had come along and asked to buy a lot in the same area I wouldn’t have even sold him a lot because I wouldn’t want to clutter up the front of the place with small holdings. I wouldn’t even have considered it and even if he had offered a very large amount per acre I doubt if I would have considered

selling it, but the Highways Department... . Honourable George J. Ferguson: Did you approve of the highway?

L. George Dewar: I approved of the highway, yes.

Honourable George J. Ferguson: Good. Your property went up in value, so you got your money back.

L. George Dewar: There was already a paved road by it; I don’t think it went up very much in value. So I would suggest it would be good policy for the Minister if he would look into this whole Expropriation Act and see that more justice is done to land owners of this province with respect to the appropriation of land and the

compensation for same.

b Honourable George J. Ferguson: Do you think we would ever get highways uilt?

L. George Dewar: Oh, yes; they do it in England through all those great built up areas; they get the land and they put through these roads. Honourable George J. Ferguson: You said four or five years.

L. George Dewar: Sometimes it does but they seem to accept that. An Eng- lishman’s home and his land is his castle, and you have to treat it accordingly. I think that there should be more respect for private holdings in this province.

Honourable Daniel J. MacDonald: They can’t take the land with them.

L. George Dewar: No, but their sons and daughters have the use and the re- venue from it for all time to come. Anyway, I wanted to bring that matter up be- cause I feel that the Minister, if he did something about it, would make himself

even more popular than he is with the good people of Kings County. Some Member: O’Leary.

L. George Dewar: I think perhaps I should say a few words for the benefit of the Minister of Health. He has assumed quite an important portfolio at the present time, one that is going to have its problems in the next year or so. We were told

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