Legislative Assembly

As far as Tourist Development is concerned, there is a very interesting record involved here as well. The present Minister to get a figure of third place, that is be- low fisheries, when fisheries were rapidly going down must have been quite a man- euver. However he did, and so we take his word for it. However. there are a few interesting facts and figures which I would like to bring to the attention of you, Mr. Speaker, and to the Honourable Members of the House. I have here a clipping from the Charlottetown Guardian of July 28th 1966. Honourable Members will recall that this was the date the Government c anged in Prince Edward Island and it was a mem- orable date and I am sure it will become more memorable for quite a wide variety of reasons; perhaps we will all agree on that. I am reading from a report on Tourist Development of that date and apparently it was a report and comment by George V. Fraser, the Director of the Travel Bureau. Let me read the first three sentences; they

are only short.

“The number of tourists visiting the Island show an amazing 22% jump over last year and every available facility is taxed. Visitors have packed resort Motels and Hotels, trailer parks and camping grounds to such an extent that secondary housing is being called in to play to take care of the unexpected heavy overflow. Beaches are crowded daily. The especially heavy flow of traffic on the highway and city streets has kept all Police Forces busy to prevent long tieups and hasten the movements of tourists and residents alike." A most glowing report.

This was on the day that the Government changed on Prince Edward Island, and I may have more to say about that day, a little later on. Now, in view of this and having left when the Tourist business was blazing so brilliantly, I was indeed shocked and surprised when on February 28th I picked up my Guardian and lo and behold there was the progress edition and the story that it told didn’t indicate much rogress. Let me tell you what it said, I am quoting now from statistics according to t e Honourable M. Lorne Bonnell of February 28, 1967. The statistics show that the Province’s Tour- ist Industry managed to register a slight increase. This is most amazing when we had left them with this 22% cushion and then we received the report from the Min- ister of Tourist Development, the present Minister of Tourist Development and we find in this report that this registering a very slight increase which is referred to in more or less general terms in February 28th turns out to be an increase of 4%. Whatever in the name of goodness they did with that 22% the cushion that we left them with in the few short weeks or months that were left is really hard to imagine. We have consistently shown good increases in the receipts from the Tourist Industry over the recent years. As I stated here, Mr. Speaker, a year ago our increase for the pmced- ing year over the previous year to that was approximately 16% and this should be compared against an increase for that year for the whole country in general of 10%, so we were running well ahead of the national average.

Now, of course, the Government have an alibi, they have a reason, and it’s been advanced before. We will hear it again. They say the rail strike and the stop a of the ferry service at Borden and the poor publicity of this had a lot to do wit it, well, Mr. Speaker, I would say that this was indeed a problem, but I would suggest, Sir, that the inept handling of the situation and the lack, absence, Sir, of the total absence of intergrated co-operation between the Federal and Provincial authorities certainly did nothing to or did little to help solve these problems that resulted in this, which I submit, Sir, was an unnecessary ferry tieup. It is too bad the present Min- ister of Tourist Development is not in his seat, he has a splendid record earlier in this

sitting of being here with us so much. Some Member: He's sick; he’s sick.

Lloyd G. MacPhail: His marks are still good; I hope he will soon be back. He has a splendid record like I said of being with us through the sittings of this House and he is a splendid, personable fellow. Sometimes he leaves me with the impression that he thinks that he discovered tourist development; well it wasn’t quite that simple or at least my understanding of it wasn’t. It seems to me that in 1959 when my col- league the junior Member from Sixth District of Queens was a Member of the then Government, Tourist Development for the first time became a full fledged department of government and since that time rapid increases, rapid success have taken place in the industry. I believe that it was the first time it got a real good injection of pro- motion and I think that it benefited atly during the years since. Before this, of course, there was progress in Tourist velopment, at times it was slow, and of course

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