Wednesday, March 27, 196g
of these institutions through General Welfare Canada Assistance Act. So now they
$elfadministered by the Department of Health, but paid for by the Department of e are.
Leo F. Rossiter: This has nothing to do with the psychiatric end of it?
Hon. M. Lorne Bonnell: The psychiatric end of it, Mr. Speaker, is a health problem
and it does not come in under Welfare, and it does not come in under Hospital Insurance. It Is a 100% provincial cost.
J. Cyril Sinnott: Do I understand that this will not come under Hospital Services Commisswn?
Hon. M. Lorne Bonnell: Which?
J. Cyril Sinnott: Some years ago there were negotiations conducted b
Government of P.E.I. and the Government of Canada in regard to mentafitvhzzIthtli: general, including Riverside Hospital and Hillsborough General and so on as a shareable cost under the Hospital Services Commission whereby the Province, would gain a lot more because the contribution of the Federal Government would be much
greater. Do I understand you to say that this is not the situation at the present time, that this hasn’t happened as yet.
Hon. M. Lorne Bonnell: Well, Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of being the Minister of Health at the time that the Hospital Insurance Agreement was signed, and I went to Ottawa to see the then Minister of Health and Welfare the then Honourable Mr. Monteith, who signed the agreement with me, and I took with me on that trip to Ottawa the present leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Mr. Robert Stan- field, Nova Scotia, the Minister of Health from New Brunswick and the Atlantic Provinces asked specifically to have this added to the Hospital Insurance program, we were unable to do so and no government since then has done it.
J. Cyril Sinnott: What I was referring to, what I meant to say, and perhaps it is not fair, that negotiations were continuously carried on between the Government of P.E.I. for several years with the Federal Government insisting that this be done and never got it. I was just wondering if these negotiations were being pressed still further? Because there is no reason why the mental health institutions on
Prince Edward Island or in any other Province should not be included with the Hospital Services Commission.
Hon. M. Lorne Bonnell: Mr. Speaker, for the first time, I think, since this young gentleman came into the Legislature he and I are going to agree. I think that the Federal Government should be sharing in the cost of mental and tuberculosis con- trol in this Province as well as the other Provinces of Canada, and the whole should be under Hospital Insurance.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell you some of the things that we propose to do in the Department of Tourist Development. Tourism continues to be the stable commodity in our overall economic structure. In these days of depressed prices for potatoes and other agricultural products, and the fluctuating markets in lobsters, and some of the other fisheries we are fortunate to possess a healthy and expanding tourist trade.
L. George Dewar: They cut your budget.
Hon. M. Lorne Bonnell: The other day, Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend, whom I have great respect for, from the Sixth District of Queens quoted some figures where- by in his opinion the tourist trade did not increase in Prince Edward Island to the extent that I had quoted from our statistical review. And while I don’t argue with the gentleman, I think every man is entitled to an opinion. One of the fact that he quoted to substantiate his argument, and I am saying it is true facts, I don’t have any fault to find with his facts, that at Citadel Hill in Halifax there was a 100% increase approximately over other years in the amount of tourists that visited the Citadel last year. He was showing that we had gone up only 4.2% in our Province. It was a peculiar thing about our tourist trade last year, Mr. Speaker. Our tourists last year seemed to make a special effort to visit tourist attractions. Not only in
—329—-—