# Legislative Assembly

Walter R. Shaw: Don’t you think it would be well to have them all here and stay here until that report is through?

Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: They’ll be here for two or three years. Walter R. Shaw: I wonder. Mr. Premier, if you could table that list. Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: Yes, well I can’t....

Walter R. Shaw: In due course!

Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: The policy director, Mr. Speaker, of the Opposition would love me to try to table it at the moment because that would constitute an amendment to the Speech from the Throne and we’d get into a great constitutional argument as a result, the same kind of constitutional argument that resulted in 1960 in this House when the then Provincial Treasurer moved to table the interim financial report and got the then Government into an awful lot of trouble.

Walter R. Shaw: Well, I’ll put a question through on the proper order paper.

Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: One disturbing feature, however, has been the criticism often repeated in this Province that there is no consultation between the Economic Improvement Corp., the public, the farmers of the Province, and the Government. I don’t know what has created this notion such that the Leader of the Opposition goes on public television and says emphatically, “N0 consultation!" Not only does he go on television and say, “No consultation!” He also writes to vari- ous organizations in this Province, Mr. Speaker, and among other things, referring to my television address, states that we’d been on consultation with this group or that group. He states emphatically, in his letter of January 29th to the President of the Federation of Agriculture, “No one in the Province has any contact with this Corporation”, and that’s his statement. “No one in the Province has any con- tact with this Corporation!” Well. You didn’t tell us about that phase of investi— gation, Mr. Leader of the Opposition. But here’s a two page letter reciting: the various meetings and consultations and briefs exchanged between the Federation of Agriculture on behalf of the farmers of this Province and the Economic Im— provement Corporation. I can recite thirteen hundred personal interviews in this Province last summer conducted by the Corporation and I can recite approximately three hundred interviews with business, community leaders throughout the Pro. Vince. The Leader of the Opposition rises in this House and says, “This Government should interest itself in the rural development council of the Province”. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that I agree whole heartedly with the Leader of the Opposition that the non—partisan, non-political Rural Development Council in this Province is probably the most effective agency which any Government, which any opposition, which any Legislative Assembly in this Province can ever hope to enlist as a means of creating public interest in programs designed for their improvement. I commend the program and I commend the efforts of the Directors of the Rural Development Council to each and every Prince Edward Islander, and I wish them well. They are receiving the full support of the Government and We have hurl many

consultations.

Walter R. Shaw: They told us this morning that they didn’t know anything about this plan.

Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: This is correct. Walter R. Shaw: They must have been in very close consultation!

Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: We haven’t outlined to them a plan that does not yet exist, but they know . . . .

Walter R. Shaw: By the way, where did you get this letter from the Fed- eration? Did you pick it up on the street?

Hon. Alex. B. Campbell: Yes, I picked it up on the street; yes, picked it up on the street.

Walter R. Shaw: Well, that’s a great way to collect your garbage.

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