Thursday, February 29, 1968 L. George Dewar : Oh no he wasn't a defeated candidate, he was a member of the Legislature. Hon . Robert E. Campbell : Watson MacNaught beat him. L. George Dewar : He was a member of the Legislature. Well, anyway that is by the by. I am very pleased to see that the Minister of Education has such a capable and able Deputy and I think he will do a very good job. In fact I only brought one matter to his attention this year, and I must say that it was attended to immediately the day after. I can only commend him for his action in that respect. Hon . Robert E. Campbell : I had to go to him twenty times for your district! (Laughter) L. George Dewar : You are doing my work. (Laughter) You have enough to do of your own. The Minister mentions of course that he is going to recruit new teachers. I think this is a very important thing, I don't know exactly what he means by new teachers, but I assume that it means that he's going to try and train more people to enter the teaching profession. I think, of course, that he is a little concerned about the situation in this respect, because the number of teachers in training has declined rather drastically in the last couple of years. In fact, it has declined about forty per cent I believe which is a rather startling percentage.. There certainly is a need for more and better trained members of the profession. Of course, it is pleasing to see so many of the teachers upgrading their qualifications and acquiring more skill in this important profession. Many of the items that were mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, of course, are a completion or continuation of policies that were formulated by the former government. I am glad to see that he mentioned the Navigation School, because that was something that was started under the former administration. I am not backward in saying I did a lot of prodding to get that going myself, because I always felt it was a very disgraceful condition of affairs in this Pro¬ vince when nearly all the officers on the ferries were people from somewhere else besides Prince Edward Island . I prodded the Departmet of Vocational Training until they did something about it and we got a Navigation School going, and I am glad to see that it is increasing and becoming more popular every year. Because in the old days we had a great many people who were qualified captains and officers on ships from this Province. It was said that there were enough sea captains in Prince Edward Island to man the British Navy almost at one time. And this is a field that I am pleased to see is going ahead satisfactorily, and the training of fisheries also. He also mentions the basic training for skilled development under the new Manpower Training Program that is being extended, and this is a good thing. This was another program that was started under the former government and I must give the credit to the Director of Vocational Training for a great deal of the promotion of this type of work on the Island. I think it was his idea and it is one that has proved very popular and worthwhile. He mentioned the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra. I think this is good. We were sorry to lose Mr. Gledhill from the Department, because I think he started something and I am pleased to see there is the formation of a Symphony Orchestra, I hope they are successful. I was going to suggest that one of the first tunes that they should learn to play is "Blues in the Night," which they could play for the benefit of the government once in awhile and it would probably be appropriate. ? He mentions the improvement of instruction of French in the schools. I think that is an important item too. The Governor - General of Canada said in his New Year's address that everybody should avail themselves of whatever opportunity therethere was to become more proficient in the second language. I used to advocate, when I was Minister of Education, that the Department should institute the teach- —95—