Monday, April 24, 1967

Henry W. Wedge: Mr. Speaker, while I congratulated you at the start of my Draft Address on assuming the very important post of Speaker in this House, I must say that I as well as many of the other members of this House, many of the people of Western Prince County, were very disappointed by the fact, due to your being the senior Member of First Prince, that you did not get consideration as an appointee to the Cabinet of the new Government. I know that you are quite capable in the governing of many of these Portfolios. But the pressure was all put on by your associate in First Prince that he must be appointed the member of the Cabinet other- wise I know that you would have honoured the people of that area. (Applause) The other matter, Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention is that we in Prince County did not get our fair share of the representation in this Cabinet when it was formed this time. Previous Governments divided these Portfolios and we had three out of the nine posts. But we see now that we have two Ministers in the new Government with a population of almost forty-four percent in this Province. We are represented by two Ministers.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Honourable Member would permit a question. Which two of the three are you counting?

Henry W .Wedge: Well I am considering you, Sir, and your riding mate Mr. Hickey. Of course, we hear tell of the third member, the Minister of Nothing from West Prince. We don’t consider him a member; he has got nothing to say, he just comes down and attends the meetings.

b Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: Oh Dear; Shame; Terrible; Terrible; Ter- ri le.

Henry W. Wedge: I think this is an unfortunate affair. Further we realize that the Premier, although he is from Prince County is a very busy man. He’s going to be particularly busy this year due to the fact that he is going to attend Expo and all the Centennial celebrations throughout the Province. He's not going to be available to the people of Prince County because just as soon as the weather breaks the Centennial celebrations will be taking place and he’s going to be attending all these gatherings. He’s going to have the photographer follow him around and photo- graph him every time he shakes hands with people from different areas and then it is going to take him a lot of extra time forwarding copies of these pictures out to the different people. ,

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: Did you get yours yet?

. Henry W. Wedge: Some are very disappointed that they are not getting their copies.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: Did you get yours yet?

Henry W. Wedge: Not yet. And then of course we have the Finance Minister from Prince which is a very important post, we must admit, but these Portfolios don’t mean so much to the people of Prince County as the Minister of Highways. We would like to have there because we need more roads in Prince County. We would like to have the Minister of Industry in Prince County because we want the Minister of Industry to promote industry. We want the Minister of Fisheries up there because fishery development needs attention. We want the Minister of Educa- tion up there because with all the play pens that the Government are going to build all over the Province I think the Minister of Education should come from Prince County. And then of course the Minister of Labour, we would like to have him up here because these are all important posts. Prince County didn’t get any considera- tion at all on these posts, so we are left with two members of Cabinet, and it looks as though King’s County, with the smallest population, gets all these appointments. The main Portfolios, highways, welfare and health are all from King’s County. I trust that when the Premier makes some changes in the Cabinet that he will take this under consideration and give Prince County what they deserve in representation in this Government.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: After the next election we will appoint all ten from Prince County.

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