MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition again, on behalf of residents in my district, with regard to the road conditions in that particular area. Mr. Speaker, I will read into Hansard the prayer of the petition.

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS the residents of Red Bay to Goose Bay use a section of the Trans-Labrador Highway that is unpaved and in poor condition; and

WHEREAS this road is no longer suitable for the traffic volumes that travel this route; and

WHEREAS government will not commit to provide funding to even begin paving for Phase II and Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway; and

WHEREAS the residents of this region deserve a similar standard of road as the Island portion of the Province;

WHEREUPON the petitioners call upon the House of Assembly to ask the government to provide funding, to pave the road from Red Bay to Goose Bay.

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, these petitions, as I said, are circulating around Labrador, and as they come in I will be presenting them to the House of Assembly. The petition today is signed by people in the Labrador Straits area. Mr. Speaker, this highway is the main highway through Labrador. Right now, that section of highway, in places, at least fifty kilometres in the area from the middle depot at Red Bay, going toward Mary’s Harbour, is in very, very bad condition. It is so bad, Mr. Speaker, that even over the weekend I had calls from tractor-trailer operators, companies that are running freight in and out of the area, bus tour operators that made the first trip up over the road, who said that it was the worst piece of road they have ever travelled over in their entire lives.

If you read the paper today, Mr. Speaker, the local paper, the Northern Pen, I believe it was, carried an article which quoted all kinds of people who use that road for delivering goods, for traffic, for work, and they have all said the same thing: they have never seen that section of road as bad in the years that the road has been there.

Mr. Speaker, last week the minister committed to put some crushed stone on that section of road, but to date there has been no crushed stone on the road between the middle camp and Lodge Bay. There was a little bit of stone put on the road between Mary’s Harbour and Lodge Bay over the weekend, where kids were being bused to school, Mr. Speaker, and parents had refused to send their children over that section of road any longer. There was some crushed stone put on there, and it is continuing to be done today, from what I understand, but still nothing to address the other section of road.

Mr. Speaker, it is because of the state of the roads, and because of the dependency upon these roads, that people feel that government needs to take it more seriously and maintain a certain standard on that road, and to start putting together a proposal to ensure that this section of highway gets paved as well.