Wednesday, March 13, 1968 Unknown Voice: Just stay right in your seat. Hon . Alex B. Campbell : Mr. Speaker , an untrue statement has been given to this House and I take objection. 8 u lms Walter R. Shaw : You made your speech, sit down. M. Alban Farmer : You should retract that statement that an untrue statement has been made. You should retract that. rlBS mynpot!rofBordearTbel,: ^^ "^ Statement' Mr" SPeaker > do you want to give .1. David Stewart : That's no point of order. That's an argument. Keep quiet. J. Cyril Sinnott : All I said. Mr. Speaker , was this and I repeat it. It was that there was not one word of evidence presented to the Commission concerning the collusion of the Government with the Norwegian and other investors in the final strangulation of Georgetown . One of the worst features of the whole campaign, of course, is their use of the Royal Commission as a political weapon. By saying that, I mean they have used the Royal Commission hearings as a political forum to try to discredit the Shaw administration and thereby withholding the whole storv of their complicity in the whole affair and I do not suggest that the Commission itself is political It can judge only the evidence which is presented to it and I suggest to you that less than half the story has been told. I have inquired on several occasions why all of the details were not presented to the Commission and I have been unable to learn why. On one occasion I was told bluntly that we could dig it out for ourselves Now, this is obviously impossible since our legal counsel cannot know what witnesses to call or what documents to ask for. That story is locked in the secret conclaves of the present Cabinet and it will never be brought out. The Liberals have also set a dangerous precedent. They have wrecked an industry which was only in its in¬ fancy. They have poisoned the economic climate in this Province and they have used the Royal Commission as a political instrument all with no regard for anything except possible political advantage hopefully to be gained by character assassination and implied guilt by association. You may well ask whether I have any basis for these charges. Well, I think that I have. Otherwise, I would not make them and I will certainly be glad to retract them if it can be shown that there is no basis for them. When the Government, Mr. Sigsworth , and Mr. Nicholson gleefully dove into the filing cabinets they found, to no ones surprise, that Bathurst Marine, Foods and Mr. Moe were operating on a shoe string, mostly dependent upon govern¬ mental funds and a sizable amount of other investors money. I have already suggested what the most sensible course of action would have been but the Government must hav been mesmerized by the eloquence and persuasiveness of Mr. Sigsworth into believing that here was a golden opportunity to discredit the Torys once and for all. Tn addition, there was the added bonus of the character assassination of the former Minister of Fisheries. Mr. Leo Rossiter . and the almost certain probability of using a Royal Commission's hearings as a political propaganda forum. It would be neces¬ sary, of course, for them to tell the whole story of Mr. Moe 's financial dealings with other investors and as a pre-requisite to induce those investors to co-operate. This would not be difficult. All one had to do was to offer them the repayment of the whole of their investment in return for co-operation. The co-operation of Norinvest was necessary in order to acquire the shares of Foods because Mr. Moe had pledged the shares to them as a security for a bank loan of a quarter of a million dollars. An army of foreign lawyers arrived here last spring and after the legal machinations were completed the investment of the Norwegians was returned to them in full. Not only was it returned in full but with interest at six percent. This amounted to $391,500 plus interest at six percent from Jan. 20th, 1966, an amount well in excess of $400,000, but that's not the total cost to the Norwegian co-operation by any means. This money represented the down payment on nine trawlers and as such it could be argued by anyone, any creditors, that most of it was an asset of Foods which was then threatened with bankruptcy. There was, there¬ fore, a danger that one or more of its creditors might realize this and take action to have this money distributed to the creditors. This possibility was forstalled by the Government by their offering to give $274,000 as an offer to the creditors in lieu of bankruptcy. This would give the creditors twenty cents on the dollar and probably —273—