Legislative Assembly

Henry W. Wedge: Mr. Speaker, I want to refer to several sections of the Speech from the Throne and I notice that it says we will be asked to provide neces- sary funds to inaugurate, in three years time, a construction subsidy program. I think everybody will agree that this is the modern way of farming and preserving food for the cattle and I don't think anybody will have any objections to give this. But does it give anything to the ordinary farmer, the big percentage of farmers? These are the rich farmers who are going to build silos, they are not the majority of farmers in this province who are trying to operate with 150 acres of land and I think something should be put in there to help this classification. But we find nothing here other than the repetition that they are going to give crop insurance. We already have that, providing subsidies; we already did that. Now I think the most important thing for the small farmers is the cost of machinery and this is the effort that should have been tackled if they wanted to help the farm economy. I think the Government should do something immediately to help these smaller fam- ers in the way of organizing co-op machinery clubs throughout the Province. financed by the Government. It would save the small farmer from buying expensive mach- inery, which is in the barn for practically a large percentage of the year. This machinery could be used by a group in the community and could possibly be charged on an hourly rate basis. I don't think there is any hope for the small farmer in this Province unless some concrete effort is made to find a solution to the high cost of machinery. Now we see another section here that “My Government proposes to con- tinue its program of consolidating elementary schools” and they are going to ex- amine the feasibility of some consolidation at this level so that all young people from every part of the province will have equal educational opportunities. We had hoped that there would be a master plan and this was promised on several occasions that this plan would be promoted whereby the people would know exactly what the Government had in mind to approve these school situations. But instead of that, this committee is going from one place to the other stirring up trouble. They are talking about consolidating Regional High Schools. I think they should be very cautious about this because I know every member in this House has been questioned on this. We have the people from Tignish who were down saying that they are going to close our school up there. The people are now worried about it, about their school. The people in Miscouche are worried about their school they just don’t know where they fit and they are very proud of the new buildings they have in their community because they are used for other purposes besides the schooling. They are used for social events. I think this was a very good step as far as the previous Government is concerned, but I think we should know where we stand. Is the school in Kinkora going to be closed? Are these people all going to be taken by bus to Summerside. This is what these people are asking and I think some general plan should be outlined to let the people know just what they can expect in the future. There is another section concerning the future of higher education in the Province. The Royal Commission that was appointed to study higher education in this Province filed their report and the former Government carried out their recommendation. Prince of Wales College will remain a separate entity from the Government and the plan was that these two universities should get together and work out their common problems. It’s a strang thing that we haven’t got any suggestion from the Govern- ment side of the House to try and solve this problem. At the same time we talk about consolidating the hospitals in Charlottetown; we talk about consolidating the primary schools, we talk about consolidating the already constructive regional high schools, we talk about consolidating the nurses training center in this Province, but when it comes to Universities it’s a different problem and it seems that no one wants to step into this affair. I hope that something will be done to bring these people together so that this Province can have a worthwhile University and a great saving to the taxpayers of this Province. Another Section of the Throne speech regards the Planning Group; another Group is going to be organized, planned and studied, and this seems to be all we have in this Speech from the Throne, planning groups, study groups for the pre-school children. Now everybody will admit, I think, that pre- education is the good thing and I know that in Prince County we want this and we ho e that we won't have to wait for too many of these Studies. The people are as ing every day when these are going to be staretd. Will they be in operation next fall. I attended a social evening last week; there were a lot of mother’s there and this was all you could hear. I wonder if we will have our play pens in operation this fall? In Summerside alone we know that we could handle the bulk of these kinder-

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