Friday, April 14, 1967 things connected with Kings County. Of course, Mr. Speaker , Bathurst Marine was later re-opened, bat to this day Foods is stall closed and the Government is unable and unwilling to answer any questions as to when it will re-open. We have been shown no evidence that effective measures are being taken to insure it's re-opening. Perhaps this underlines the Government's reluctance to talk on this subject. Now, after some considerable delay, the delay from December until March 7th, we learn that a Royal Commission was appointed, and we on this side of the House never did quarrel with the appointment of this Commission; we rather applauded it, The same thing holds for the personnel on this Commission. They are excellent people and the results of the deliberations of this group may indeed be most beneficial. But, Mr. Speaker , in the meantime, valuable time has been and is still being lost. There are constant charges which continue to mount, such as interest charges, depreciation, and all the other many fixed costs, these continue to accrue whether or not the plant is open. Together with this, Sir, is the loss of the potential income of the workers of these industries which could be represented as being approximately three-quarters oi a million dollars per year. Now in an earlier stage in the sittings of this Houset the Premier, in refusing to table correspondence, says that an issue of such magnitude should not be discussed in this House. He said that he did not feel it was in the best interests of the House. Now, Mr. Speaker , I dont very much care whether it's some subject not in the best interests of this House, and furthermore 1 don't very much care whether the discussion of any subject is not in the best interests of this Government; when this conflicts with the best interests of a large group of Prince Edward Islanders . I know where I, and I know where other Members of the Conservative Party stand on such matters; we stand on the side of the people. For a few moments I would like to discuss another area where the record is somewhat less than laudible and that is the area of Tourist Development. I was some¬ what surprised and shocked to hear the Minister speaking on an amendment to an act he was promoting here a few days ago when he said Tourist Development had slipped to third place as far as dollar value was concerned among our Island industries. Now, perhaps at this time, I might quote a February report which we received this morning and the annual report the Department of Fisheries for the year ending March 31st, 1966. It's presented by your obedient servant, Cecil A. Miller , Minister of Fisheries and I believe that certain aspects of this were respectfully submitted by E.M. Gorman , the Deputy Minister . You will wonder, Mr. Speaker , what relation this report has to Tourist Development, but I am coming to this. On page sixteen of this report I quote from a paragraph dealing with a comparison with agriculture, now we have the three top industries together, and this is from the Fisheries report, and it reads "The value from the sale of farm products for 1965 amounted to 40.8 million. The value from the sale of fishery products for the same period is estimated to be ten million, approximately 25% of the agricultural total." This is interesting, the next sentence; '"It is the prime interest of the Department of Fisheries to close this gap between agricultural and fishery production and this trend will be accellerated to a greater degree." Now, Mr. Speaker , the ten million mentioned here, and it would only be an estimate and that is fair enough, estimates sometimes prove to be wrong. We read in the Interim Report of the Department of Fisheries for the season ending December SI , 1966, that is the most recent report of course which could be available, and it mentions that the total value of fish and sea food products in the year 1966 was not ten million but rather seven million. And in the following year 1966, the year with which this report deals, it is 6.5 million a decrease, three million off the projection. The most recent year is a half million off that even. And now the 40.3 million in agriculture, which is mentioned here, I note that this year, now these are preliminary estimates from the Bureau of Statistics in Ottawa, but in the past these estimates have proved to be reliable and reasonably accurate, the farming industry is reported at 36.3 million dollars. Now almost 86.4 million which is a decrease of well over 10%. In view of their prime interest it says here to close the gap between agriculture and fishery production, they are indeed doing this, the fisheries has declined by well over 10% and I must say the two departments are co-operating, they are going down about an equal rate and at the present trend. If the present Government continues to hold office it will only be a few years till the two will meet to-gether at zero. Now I am only going by the report, Sir, and I am drawing the logical conclu¬ sion. I am sure the Provincial Treasurer could follow me and I am sure he would not disagree with the logic in the original conclusions. —175—