Iagislative Assembly

family of the honourable member from Second Kings? —— with a sworr affidavit involved?

Mr. Speaker, don’t you think it is a curious coincidence indeed tlat a pro- posal should be extended to the Premier on behalf of the Georgetown situation, and involving a sum as large as two and a half million dollars, presnmfly avail- able from parties unknown, and that all this should be cloaked in dark secacy. Don’t you think it positively incredible that the authors of any such proposal — if it ever did have any substance, — should find it impossible to disclose ther identity to the Government of Prince Edward Island, to the elected representatives of the tax payers of this province, that they should find it utterly impossible o divulge their identity to anyone save the learned doctor representative fnm Fifth Kings and his patron and advisor the honourable member from Second Kings? What kind of fools do they think we are in Prince Edward Island? ’erhaps I should not ask that question, for the record of this whole situation place me in a

most embarrassing situation. How long must this nonsense continue? ire there now two strings? Two puppets?

I am going to give one more example, Mr. Speaker, of the lengths to which these men will go in order to confuse, to destroy efforts to bring harmmy to the Georgetown situation. On April 4th the Foreman of Bathurst Marine ‘ard, now operated by the Loan Board, addressed a letter to the Honourable A. B. Campbell, with copies to myself and to the Honourable Leader of the Opposition.

T-hese letters were posted by Arne Thoresen at Georgetown about the close of working hours. The envelope bearing my copy and the Premier’s war stamped at the Charlottetown post office 11 pm. on April 4th. But the learned Dotor’s, the member from Fifth Kings, pony express did much better than Her Majesy’s mails. Shortly after eight o’clock that evening the learned Doctor stood up wid a paper in his yhand and gasked if I had received a copy of this letter. I said no. ie turned to his colleagues and said “he is lying." Fortunately for him, Mr. Spaker, he said this in a voice low enough so as to escape my hearing. Otherwise pu should have had a much more difficult situation on your hands than you may have had to this date. The next day he made a pretense of withdrawing the staement. A gentleman would simply have said “I made a mistake”. On account ofthia, the foreman felt obligated to address another letter to the Honourable Pemier on April 7th; and they have asked that this letter also receive a hearing in he House to avoid any further misinterpretations.

Here is the first letter:

“We, the formen of the shipyard in Georgetown, feel that we 1113 entitled to some answers concerning the future of the yard. We have already had L meeting with the Chairman of the Loan Board but he was unable to give us my satis- faction. It would be ridiculous for us to stay on here any longer unles we get assurance that the yard will continue, as most of us have been offered iobs else- where. Is the yard going to continue?

After being promised that no changes would be made and that he “yard would be running better than ever", we are now given to understand th.t all the Government contracts have been cancelled from Hull 18 onward. Are thre to be any new contracts for the yard? It must be obvious that, if shipbuildng is to flourish on P..EI. the skilled men_ must be retained. These men are gradually leav- ing because we are unable to give them answers concerning the future. We feel that it would be a disaster for the men in this area and for the Island as 1 whole if we were to let a booming industry such as shipbuilding slip through or fingers for the sake of a timely word from the right quarter.

As previously stated we have all been offered higher paid jobs in oher parts of Canadap We have stayed for one reason. We like to work here on P...E As our main interest is to see that work here continues for the benefit of all oncerned, surely we should be given the satisfaction of knowing whether or not shpbuilding is to thrive in Georgetown?

We look forward to a reply and sincerely hope that our efforts to hlp build an industry for Prince Edward Island have not been wasted.”

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