Legislative Assembly

M. Alban Farmer: You tell us. You know. . . . Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: I asked you.

M. Alban Farmer: I know how it’s set.

Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: Orders-in-Council.

M. Alban Farmer: Yes. You know how it’s set.

Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: By a Board order and what was the previous Board order to the last one. When was it put in to effect 27

Walter R. Shaw: $1.10. M. Alban Farmer: It’s a $1.10 an hour for basic wages. Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: The one previous to that.

Henry W. Wedge: We increased the Minimum Wage Act. We started at 90¢, we went to $1.00, we went to $1.10 and we said we would raise it to $1.25.

(Applause)

M. Alban Farmer: And before that it was brought up from 75c to 90¢. Now, if you’d look over your records you could find that in your own Department with- out asking the people up here.

Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: There were no records in my Department when I took over.

M. Alban Farmer: Yes there’d be . . . . Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: No, there weren’t. M. Alban Farmer: Order-in-Council.

Hon. J. Elmer Blanchard: Oh, yes, yes. There were no records. They were in shoe box, Sir.

M. Alban Farmer: They weren’t in a shoe box. The records were all there and were in effect and all you had to do was to look at what was happening in the other departments to see what was going on. If you didn’t have time to do that as a full-time Minister you must have been very busy at something else but it wasn’t helping the laboring people of this City or the other places in this Province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to go on to another matter, Medicare. We apparently, are not going to have any activity on that this year. The medical people are probably better qualified to deal with this matter than the rest of us. They have been studying it in their organization and they have been acting on committees to deal with this matter. But I want to say this, the plan which the Shaw Government introduced here of having medicare for those who were in Mothers’ Allowance, Old Age Security and some of the other areas of welfare, that was one of the best plans that was ever devised for Medicare because it placed Medicare in the reach of those who otherwise could not get medical attention paid and that’s why that was a good plan. I would like to see the present Government try to extend that plan, maybe you’ll have to take it by steps but take the total people who cannot pay anything, let the Government subsidize their premium as they do today. Then, the next step, take a range of income and step up and say, “We pay 25%, we pay 30%, we pay 40%, we pay 50%, according to the amount and make another stage and then the ones who can look after their own Medicare, let them do so.

I notice here the Mental Health Act. The Minister of Health is not in his seat but I notice we had a man, it says, who was engaged to draft a new Mental Health Act. Where does he reside and what is his remunerations, travelling and other expenses paid. First is Dr. Beck, Charlottetown. .He’s in charge at River-

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