Thursday, February 29, 1968

Hon. Alexander B. Campbell: I don‘t know what kind of a policy it is that’s going to convince the Ontario housewife, who is our consumer, to pay 29¢ more a bag for a ten pound bag of potatoes. But I can say that the work we’re doing is in the transportation and the marketing end of it, trying to reduce those costs as

much as we can and we are about to begin to work with the farmer in helping him reduce his costs of operation.

Walter R. Shaw: Well, why don’t you try to reduce the cost‘.’ You‘re not doing that.

Hon. Alexander B. Campbell: I seem to have started a friendly conversation here and I know that throughout the Province tomorrow when people read my re— marks that there will be a great debate as well because these problems have been perplexing Islanders for years. Why can’t we get this price up 2’ No future in it. We think there is a future, Mr. Speaker, but we think we must help the farmer, lessen and lower the cost of his production and this is what we’ve been working on for eighteen months, ways and means by which he can turn out his product at lower cost to himself and increase the productivity of his farm, and this, We believe, is where the answer and the solution to our present problems is. Not, as the Leader of the Opposition says, establishing a policy that will raise the price of potatoes in Ontario because we do not believe that such a move would have any substantial effect on the price at all.

Walter R. Shaw: That Leader of the Opposition seems to bother you, Mr. Premier.

Hon. Alexander B. Campbell: Oh, sometimes. Walter R. Shaw: Oh, you’re a good entertainer, I’ll say that.

Hon. Alexander B. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, just before I sit down, there’s an item in the Guardian of, the front page, in here somewhere. This is the Guardian of this morning and this morning is the 29th. There’s an interesting item here. “Just a little over your Budget, boys!” and it relates how, in the annual report of the Prince Edward Island Department of Welfare and Labor, shows that the department spent just over two million dollars more in the fiscal year ending March 31st, 1967, than it had estimated. Then it went on to suggest that, after having spent two million more dollars than it had estimated it would, the report was tabled by the ‘Hon. Mr. Bonnell and the Hon. Mr. Blanchard and that it should stick very solidly in the minds of the citizens of the Province that it was the present administration that g‘oofed and that went somewhat over their estimate.

\Valtcr R. Shaw: Your public accounts show that.

Ilon. Alexander B. Campbell: But if we might go a little up higher on the page we’ll find on Page 25 of that same report, and I’m certain the newspapers w111 be happy to make this clarification to the public, we’ll find in division of pensions. the Item No. 7, Supplementary Assistance, $2,175,519.00. That is the amount spent: we will find that there was no estimate of any expenditure whatsoever for that year provided for in the Estimate and that will explain why the expenditures were two million dollars more than the actual estimate. And now, if we can re— arrange this in time, what we are referring to, of course, are the pensions that are presently being paid to the senior citizens of this Province. The twenty-five d01- lars a month, or whatever.

Walter R. Shaw: Twenty-three fifty. Hon. Alexander B. Campbell: Or twenty-three fifty.

Walter R. Shaw: You’re cutting that down. What are you making it ix- your Estimate when you’re putting them through?

Hon. Alexander B. Campbell: Pardon?

Walter R. Shaw: Why didn’t you cost your Estimates properly?

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