Thursday, March 7, 1968 Hon . J. Elmer Blanchard : The auditor should go into the City of Charlottetown and to check up on these amounts. Do you know who administers the Welfare in Char¬ lottetown ? Henry W. Wedge : I think the City of Charlottetown does. Hon . J. Elmer Blanchard : Yes, but through what Agency, Sir? Are you suggesting that the Catholic Welfare Bureau and the Protestant Welfare Bureau are doing something wrong with this money? Are you suggesting this? Henry W. Wedge : It does seem strange that these figures are so much higher than the rural areas, I mean there should be an answer for it. Hon . J. Elmer Blanchard : Are you suggesting that they should be checked up ? Henry W. Wedge : And when I know that the people in my own Town are getting much more than they are in the rural areas, and this doesn't seem fair, because they have the same costs. Hon . J. Elmer Blanchard : It is a larger population. Hon . Robert E. Campbell : How many homes did welfare cheques go into before elec¬ tion that had not asked for a cheque? (Applause) Walter R. Shaw : That's a brillant question. Henry W. Wedge : Mi-. Speaker, my answer would be none, because the Social Assis ¬ tance Committee approved every payment that went out and unless there was a re¬ quest there from the Welfare worker or from some neighbour, it would not be con¬ sidered at all. Hon . Robert E. Campbell : Mr. Speaker , I can inform my good friend that there was many in the First District of Prince. Walter R. Shaw: They are still there. Some Member : Be careful what you are saying. Walter R. Shaw : They are still getting it. Tell us about the Bedeque one, I am interested in that where the rich people are. Henry W. Wedge : The Winter Works program. I notice that in 1966 the govern¬ ment did a terrific job on winter works. They had 166 projects throughout this Province, beautification projects, and all types of work. I notice this year this has been cut down to 56 projects. Sixty-six now? The last figure I could find was 56. Now I realize that the Minister was up to Ottawa and had a meeting and apparently he was quite agreeable to change some of these Regulations. I realize that there was a problem in trying to control this because sometimes in the rural areas it is difficult to find the records the way you would like to have them. Apart from that, this has been cut down to a point where I understand that there are only now avilable to permanent and long lasting projects. When we look at the answer to that we find that this practically only supplies winter works for the tradesmen, not for the labourer. This has been felt all over the province. I know that the Minister must have had complaints, and it is unfortunate because this was a great thing for the winter months, particularly for the small farmer who didn't have Unemployment Insurance. It provided a means of livelihood and after all the cost was only 30% to this Prov¬ ince, the Federal Government were paying the big share. It looks as though this has been phased out. Now we know that some of the work possibly wasn't as necessary as it should have been, but at the same time the removal of old car bodies, the cutting of brush along the highways, and the dismantling of old buildings certainly was part of the beautification project and these items are not now allowed. We were also hoping too, that the Minimum Wage, a person would have been taking some off because I think this was one of their fine promises in their cam¬ paign. "A Minister of Labour will be appointed to devote his full-time to meet the —201—