Monday, April 24, 1967

about that store. Apparently it is working fine, at least the report which came to the Department, my Department for the end of July last year, was to the effect.that it was working out satisfactorily, was well accepted b the people of the commumty, and was a much better arrangement than the prior one. hile the other store remained open this one served a much more convenient Elace for people to call and for that reason they approved of what was done by the iquor Commission of that time and also of which the Government had consented and approved.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: I thought you told the people of the prov- ince that the Government had nothing to do with it. It was strictly a matter for the

Commission. M. Alban Farmer: Yes, but you know that I didn’t tell that.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: Oh, you certainly did.

M. Alban Farmer: No I didn’t. You know that I didn’t tell that, you know that I said that the Government, that the Liquor Commission made those arrangements and they were approved by the Government and that is what has happened. If you will look at the Act you will find that that’s what the Act provides for. Now the third one was in Charlottetown here. The rent in Summerside is $2.00 per square foot. The rent in Charlottetown for the newer one which is down on Queen Street is slightly over $2.00 per square foot. The former store on Great George Street was a source of traffic dif- ficulty for the City of Charlottetown for a long time. It was a good location all right and a good premise, and the arrangements for rental were apparently very satisfactory because the Commission was there a long time. But the proprietor had an opportunity to change the type of tenant and he was anxious to do that. He was anxious to get into this different type of tennancy and he had an offer of a very substantial increase in the rent. hit he didn’t say we would have to get out at all. He said is it possible that you would like to move and there were many reasons why we should have moved from there prior to that. These were the traffic problems, because it is located on the main entrance to the City of Charlottetown with a great deal of through traffic. In addition to that, the loading facilities had been curtailed because the owner of the premises had built other buildings where the trucks used to o to unload, and there was a good deal of difficulty in unloading. There were several p aces considered, one of the adjacent —— right across the street from this one, which was a very good remise, but the problems there were similar to the ones that were across the street wit the result that arrange- ments were made for the new premises on Queen Street. And that premise is serving very satisfactorily and the rent is very reasonable. In Charlottetown the rent for ground floor space runs as high as $4.00 per square foot. Now in this particular in- stance it is slightly over $2.00 per square foot. We regarded it as reasonable and a

satisfactory rental.

The next thing I want to refer to, Mr. Speaker, is the administration of justice. The Government was hardly in office when they started firing the people from the employ of the provincial vernment. Among those who were fired out were the Sher- iff’s and we notice here t at the Government had to brin in Legislation to ratify the mistakes that they made in that. Now this was an uncalle for step. The administration of justice has been an important matter and the Attorney-General should have been able to discern that he was walkin into trouble. However. there were political pres- sures, and he acceded to those and t t is another example of the abdication of respons- ibility to those who have no responsibility in Government. The next thing is the quest— ion of the pin ball machines. I asked on the floor of the House, on one or two occasions, about the advent into our society again of the pin ball machine. There was a long time when the pin ball machine was before the Courts on account of the question as to whe- ther they were contrary to law or not. The final decision was rendered approximately a year and three months ago which said that they were. When that came through all the officers, all the law officers of the province were notified about the situation and there was no more doubt about it and they were gradually pulled out of circulation in the province. Now they are back again, and I wonder why? There is a rumour that strong friends of the higher up mple in the government are responsible. Now this is another case where the Leader abdicated his responsibility to somebody else, the responsibility to enforce the laws of this province.

There was another question I asked, I didn’t know it was an embarassing ques- tion. I asked about the provisions for the jail here but couldn’t get any answer. I didn’t know that it was an embarassing question; how was I to know that it was an embarass-

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