MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I stand today to present a petition, as well, on behalf of residents in the Province, with regard to the air ambulance services.

Mr. Speaker, many people in this Province are unhappy with government’s decision to not improve service but rather to relocate an aircraft from one tarmac in the Province to another. People feel that this is inadequate in meeting the needs that are out there, and the gaps in the system.

[Disturbance in the gallery]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is after giving two warnings already to the visitors in the gallery. I have asked visitors to respect the traditions of the House, and not to show pleasure or displeasure with what is happening with the proceedings here on the floor. Obviously, people in the galleries have seen fit not to adhere to our Standing Order 22. If there is one more interruption, the Chair is not going to ask a single person to leave, but the Chair is going to ask that the galleries be cleared. That is the final warning.

[Disturbance in the gallery]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask that the galleries be cleared and that this House be recessed.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the people in the Province with regard to the air ambulance services. This petition is signed by people from the West Coast of Newfoundland.

Mr. Speaker, the issue around air ambulance in the Province goes back to the last two years in particular. I think the first time I asked one of the health boards and the department to do an investigation into a case stems back about two years. In fact, last year, in July, a full month between July and August, there were three particular cases in which we asked for an investigation because we were recognizing that there were tremendous gaps in the air ambulance services in the Province that were not going to be fixed by moving an aircraft from one tarmac to another, but only by adding more flight medical specialists and by adding a third air ambulance.

Mr. Speaker, we did not come to that conclusion out of the air. We came to that from talking to people who deliver the services on the front lines in this Province, people who operate it every single day. We came to that conclusion as well by talking to families that were impacted.

Mr. Speaker, what has happened here is that government went out and hired some consultant. We do not know how he was hired, where he was hired from, or how much he was paid, but obviously he did not do very good work. It was a very shoddy piece of work. The terms of reference were inadequate. They were not broad in scope and they did not cover the premises of the full air ambulance services within the Province. Mr. Speaker, in fact, it did not look at even one-half of the variables that should have been considered in reviewing a service of this critical nature for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, today we had the people on the Northern Peninsula come to the House of Assembly to try and plead their case to government on the front steps. We had the people in Labrador West, on Thursday night, 700 people in a room trying to plead their case to the minister that their services were still going to have a gap as a result of all of this; because, not only in Labrador West do they not have an air ambulance, but they do not even have the basics of diagnostic equipment in their community to provide services to their people, and there is more urgency than ever, I guess, for people to be medevaced out and to have a reliable air ambulance.

Mr. Speaker, the people on the steps of the Confederation Building today, from the St. Anthony area, came here scraping together all the resources they can to try and bring their issues to government, to the House of government; and, Mr. Speaker, the Premier’s Office and the Premier refused to meet with them. They were told over the telephone, by people in the Premier’s office, to go home; to write us a letter; that we would put the letter on file in our office; it would be on the bottom of the pile; we would get to it in about so many months down the road.

This is what people were told when they were out there trying to save a service that affects the lives of people every single day.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. Leader of the Opposition that her time for presenting the petition has lapsed.