I would like to begin my speech with gratitude from which all things in life ought to start. It is first appropriate to pay tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Trevor Taylor, for the years he served as MHA for the people of The Straits & White Bay North. Anyone who serves public life in this Province, no matter what political box they come in, should be commended for their service.

Next, I express my deepest thankfulness and appreciation for support, kindness and trust shown and conveyed during my election campaign. I thank all who assisted and encouraged me and brought me here today, particularly my hard working volunteers, my dedicated campaign team, my friends and my family members.

My standing here today in this great House of Assembly, however, with my esteemed colleague, is the result of a sacred covenant passed to me by the all inspiring people of The Straits & White Bay North. For their vote of confidence, I am eternally grateful and bountifully blessed.

I am certain the hon. members who travelled to the district during the by-election found not just a region graced with resilient and interconnected communities, but proud and determined people who are bounded by their blessings as well as their challenges.

Geographically, as many of you are aware, The Straits & White Bay North extends above the rest of the Island portion of the Province and occupies a significant part of the top of the great Northern Peninsula. It is separated from Labrador by the Strait of Belle Isle. Within its boundaries are some 10,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who live in communities along this magnificent shoreline from Anchor Point through to Flower’s Cove; on to Cook’s Harbour, up to Noddy Bay and down along the northeast side of the district into communities and coves such as: St. Anthony, Main Brook, Roddickton, Conche and Englee.

While The Straits & White Bay North is but one of forty-eight electoral districts across our beautiful Province, to me it is an extraordinary district; not just because we have the World UNESCO Heritage site at L’Anse aux Meadows with its reconstructed sod Viking huts, nor the majestic Long Range Mountains; or have one of the most important botanical sites in the Province at the ecological reserve of Burnt Cape which are the earliest, or the inspiring legacy left behind by the heroic missionary, Sir Wilfred Grenfell. Indeed, all these features combine to make our district dynamic and help attract thousands of visitors each year to our northern shores, where icebergs, whales and moose concentrate like no other place on earth. For me, The Straits & White Bay North is simply the best for many personal reasons. To begin with, my roots are there. I was born there. I live there. I have family and friends there. I work there. I serve as a volunteer in many areas. I am a part of the community and they are a part of me.

This community of communities, from Englee to St. Anthony to Anchor Point to Cook’s Harbour and L’Anse aux Meadows has now bestowed upon me a privilege to help shape their lives and their future. I do so with pleasure and reverence, both as their friend, as well as their Member of the House of Assembly. In doing so, I have entered into a solemn agreement, a pact if you will, to ensure that I will build a road for them.

This is no ordinary road, Mr. Speaker. It is a road that should take them further than where they are now; economically, socially, culturally, psychologically and emotionally. This is a road that ensures their lives, their voice and their concerns are just as much a centrepiece of government’s agenda and action plan as any other area of this Province. They no longer want to be underserved. This is the message that they have desperately been trying to convey for the better part of this decade.

In 2001, they were reassured that they would not be the forgotten people; whether intentionally or not, they have been let down since that infamous promise. Yes, Mr. Speaker, like a vase, trust, that most important value of all, has been broken in The Straits & White Bay North. Part of my work here as an MHA is to restore that trust so that the people in the district I represent can again feel empowered, engaged, and respected. Quite simply, the people of The Straits & White Bay North want to feel encircled into the provincial community. They want to feel valued, and they want to feel justice and fairness.

These are simple human needs, but ones that if attended to, could be powerfully healing and forward moving in our overall provincial progress. You see, Mr. Speaker, our district is a part of this great Province that is particularly concerned about our future, our communities, about population changes, the loss of our youth, families broken down due to lack of job opportunities, the loss of a sustainable tax base, the shrinking of volunteers, the downgrading of our precious health care, the watering down of our educational system, the limitation of broadband services, and being trapped in poverty and apathy. Economic and social crisis lead to other hardships, including depression, alcohol and drug dependency, and other human ills, which further distress our communities.

As I indicated during my campaign, we are a district that is particularly challenged, in that all of our communities have populations of less than 5,000 people. Perhaps more than any region in the country, and most certainly in the Province, we are fighting the perfect storm that is challenging our very core, our viability and our sustainability. The issues facing The Straits & White Bay North are not unique, yet they are matters left unaddressed for many years by this Administration.

In particular, the fisheries is critical to the economic, social, and cultural elements of our people and their lives. Like many regions around our Province, The Straits & White Bay North arose from the fishery and it has been a way of life for hundreds of years. While the fishery sustained us for centuries, the people I represent were the hardest hit by the devastating cod moratorium of the early 1990s. The people I represent lost their livelihood, their stability, many family members through outmigration, and a part of their spirit.

To be certain, the cod moratorium was a black time, but it is a watershed moment that has had strong repercussions well into our future. Nearly twenty years later, the news headlines sadly still report crises after crises in our fishery, as was evident in our lobster and crab fishery sector this year, with low prices and scarcity of resource. Why is this so? I believe there is a simple reason: it is evident that there is a lack of genuine and heartfelt commitment to the fishery, both at the federal level as well as the provincial level. There are many who would like to believe that the fishery is a part of our past and that we should focus primarily on non-renewable resources. I would suggest that would be short-sighted and that would be blinded by the here and now.

Despite the rhetoric that would have us believe otherwise, our fishery has, without a doubt, been badly neglected. The bold fiscal investments and the management arrangements needed to correct the outstanding challenges are not there. What is there is an offer that is wholly inadequate to address the real issues surrounding this resource.

As a priority, the recovery of our cod must become more of a national and a provincial passion. It is not acceptable to merely wait and see. Achievement is possible only when there is action. We must be vigilant, day in and day out, to ensure that our solutions to a sustainable fishery include effective NAFO reforms, a joint management framework between the federal-provincial governments, the necessary scientific research, the right dialogue, and the necessary innovation and resources, particularly into the secondary processing side of this industry. For example, trucking unprocessed fish off the Great Northern Peninsula is a crime to our coast.

Mr. Speaker, when a Province’s unemployment rate is 17 per cent and the national average is 8.6 per cent, it tells the tale that something is not working here in this Province. When a Province still has the highest rate of unemployment in Canada, at levels we were thirty years ago, someone is paying the price. I would suggest among others that fish plant workers, fish harvesters and their families in their communities in my district are bearing the brunt of this failure. We have lost valuable time in progressive fishery management and it is time to play catch-up, kind of fast.

Health care, clearly, is another vital area of concern to rural citizens as well, Mr. Speaker. Maintaining the integrity of rural health care is a vital piece of the rural revival puzzle. For a majority of people on the Northern Peninsula, to access health care services, more often than not, means travelling to great distances, incurring excessive costs in time, and yes, at times taking risk as we travel over long distances and through harsh weather conditions. It also means that we are often short of the resources, staffing and professionals that are all essential to a wholesome health care system.

For example, life-saving dialysis services and equipment are not fully available to residents in our district. A small investment would so improve the lives of many living in our region.

Our district would also benefit from an enhancement of the medical travel assistance program, so we do not have to endure financial hardship to obtain the medical attention and specialized care, which is often required, particularly as our population ages. Accountability from our government is badly needed so that smarter leadership in health care is provided. Not to mention, we need short-term and long-term investments. Our health care system is long overdue for a systematic review and priority attention needs to be focussed on health care in all rural regions, but especially in The Straits & White Bay North area.

Education is yet another cause of concern by parents, teachers, and other leaders in all our communities. A K-12 education should be a basic right for every student in this Province. Having to travel up to forty kilometres on a school bus to receive an education, as the people of St. Lunaire-Griquet are asked to do, in our inhospitable climate, should not be forced on any human being, let alone our precious children.

Our mature students are also underserved in The Straits & White Bay North, Mr. Speaker. What is the purpose of having any post-secondary institution if the living accommodations for students are lacking or inadequate? Education is but a tool of social justice, and a driver of economic development, and a high quality system needs to be available to all citizens, whether they live in St. John’s or St. Lunaire.

Our forestry industry on the Great Northern Peninsula has suffered through a number of rough years. While there has been some investment into this industry this year, Mr. Speaker, forest harvesters are still not on a solid footing. They still worry every day whether the investment is sound, and whether their industry has any long-term sustainability.

Our issues are not just service or industry related, Mr. Speaker, we are concerned about people, especially those on fixed incomes, our seniors, those on unemployment benefits and families on social security or earning low wages. Day in, day out, our citizens and our families grapple with hikes in food, heat, accommodations, prescription drugs, transportation, and other commodities that lessen the well-being of their lives. If we can address the ordinary and the not so ordinary properly, we can once again put the great back into the Great Northern Peninsula.

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line, the crux of the matter is that there is, in this Province, a thorn that divides us as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The unaddressed issues I have raised previously highlight this most contentious issue. It is referred to by many as the urban and rural divide.

The urban and rural partition that exists in this Province is not a figment of anyone’s imagination. It is there as certain as the stars and the heavens. Like any problem, it needs to first be acknowledged. A problem realized, they say, is a problem half solved. Once the issue of rural disparity is openly acknowledged, it needs to be addressed. Not just with meaningless dialogue reports and strategic plans.

Government must commit themselves to an authentic rural contract. It is a moral responsibility of all elected officials. It is not good enough anymore to stand and spout the words: You will not be forgotten. It is not good enough to say that a rural lens is being applied in all government decisions, misleading us to think our concerns count. It is not good enough to touch down in a district only during an election or a by-election. It is not good enough to have one have region, while other regions are still mired as have-nots.

This rural contract will ensure that no region or community shall be left behind. They want to know government have their backs covered. Rural Newfoundland and Labrador has made it loud and clear; they want to be on team Newfoundland Labrador. We are not a cookie cutter district, Mr. Speaker. We are unique and special, and we have unique and special needs, and our solutions need to be user-friendly to us.

The Straits & White Bay North, however, is typical of mainstream rural Newfoundland and Labrador, which simply have not enjoyed many of the benefits of progress in this last decade. We want to be balanced partners in this provincial community, together with our urban partners, which mean we need input into our path.

Joseph Joubert, a French essayist, once wrote that it is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it. The threatened health care cuts that were about to be inflicted on the people in Flower’s Cove and Lewisporte are instructive of how not to grow a strong rural Newfoundland and Labrador and how not to balance the partnership scale. It is instructive instead of how to tear the guts out of people and a region. Mr. Speaker, no one wants to be dictated to. It is callous. It is disrespectful. It is wrong. People, for the most part, are in better positions to make decisions for themselves and their families than any politician or bureaucrat. That is the message that I represent today.

The other part of the message, sent by the good people of The Straits & White Bay North, is that we need, not only to affirm, but also to action a strong rural inclusion agenda. A rural inclusion agenda will ensure we make a tangible difference to rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who face barriers to everyday life simply because we have listened to people’s issues. After campaigning door to door, I now call these issues the open door issues. These are the issues you hear when you open your door, that is open your ears and allow people to air their heart and soul, their worries and concerns, their fears and their frustrations.

These issues need to lead the way to a people responsive government. These are the issues that not only require strong and innovative leadership to address, but it grows strong and innovative leaders. You see, Mr. Speaker, many people are mistaken about leadership. They think it is about being served. In fact, it is opposite; a real leader seeks to serve. They create leaders and not followers. The ultimate test of leadership is whether you can effectively make yourself irrelevant by empowering those around you. The political process we are involved in should not be a racket; instead, it should be an opportunity to ramp up for people.

Mr. Speaker, in the environmental movement, there are three words that are used to convey the message of protecting our environment. We are all familiar with them, they are: reuse, recycle, and reduce. What rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians need to believe, Mr. Speaker, are three words that will protect their concerns. First, they need to know they are respected. Secondly, they need to know they will be represented. Thirdly, they need to have hope that their region will be revived. All of this takes another R word. Our citizens need to know they have a real and respectful relationship with government, not a ‘reliatory’ relationship. To do otherwise is to commit to the other R word that should not be a part of any government’s back or front door agenda, and that would be resettlement.

Many in this Province have always dreamed of a fixed link across the beautiful Straits of Belle Isle to connect the Island and Labrador. What a wondrous link indeed that would be, and I am confident one day it will be actualized.

In the meantime, I propose, Mr. Speaker, that a more significant and meaningful fixed link would be the bridge that links us in equality as regions, but more importantly, as people. We really are all in this together and we have to stay together and work together for we cannot build a healthy economy without considering the interdependence of our urban and rural areas. All regions should just not be players, but winners in this game of prosperity.

Never before has a government in this Province enjoyed so much wealth to make this happen and to make a difference in people’s lives. We must understand that it is not enough to have a vision, mission or strategy, we must plan and implement. We must quieten our voices of what we think is the right way and listen to the voice of those who live in rural regions and communities who need practical solutions and real action.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the privilege of addressing the House today. I look forward to the years ahead as we work together for the people who have put their trust and faith in us. Indeed, I dedicate this speech to the courageous people of The Straits & White Bay North. Often, it is not easy to stand up to those in authority or to let someone know that they are getting it all wrong, but those I represent did just that.

During this by-election, the people I represent became rural warriors, not just for themselves but for all regions and people that are rurally based. While my principle responsibility is to champion rural renewal for The Straits & White Bay North, I am also committed to our collective path as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I pledge to vigorously oppose policies which will hinder rural growth, and advance policies designed to rebuild our place within this provincial community, not just our living standards but our self-esteem as a people. For unless some significant changes take place, we will see the emergence of a permanent underclass in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, or just as devastating, ghost communities and empty shores. What a terrible legacy that would be, Mr. Speaker.

As I conclude my maiden speech, I call upon this entire hon. House to leave a legacy of finally closing the gap between our rural and urban residents and regions. Only then will I be confident that our children and grand-children will want to remain in Newfoundland and Labrador. I want to help build a better road for all of us to journey on. Let us build it together, the most important fixed link together, where rural and urban come together and share its benefits as one community.