MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It is like the old song: The twenty-fourth of May and we gotta get away. So, Mr. Speaker, I present another petition on behalf of all the individuals throughout the Province, petitioners from Smith Harbour, Burlington, Middle Arm, Stephenville, Seal Cove, King’s Point, Hare Bay, Dover and the Eastport area.

So Mr. Speaker, I will read the prayer of the petition exactly as it has been recorded:

WHEREAS we, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, have always built cabins or tilts away from our homes for hunting, fishing, berry picking or just spending time up in the country or places around our shores, sometimes just to get away from the stress of everyday living, a place to relax and enjoy the great outdoors; and

WHEREAS your government has come down hard on the thousands of cabin and trailer owners that are out on our land with eviction notices and forcing them to move without providing them with an alternative; and

WHEREAS Kruger Inc. has timber rights to approximately one-third of all forested land on this Island and is refusing the vast majority of applications for cabin development;

WHEREUPON your petitioners call upon all Members of the House of Assembly to urge government to have compassion on the citizens of this fair Province and allow them the right to enjoy what is rightfully ours. We were born on this land and should have the right to enjoy it.

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, before I go into the few comments I want to make on this petition, I have to go back to the speech yesterday by the Member for St. John’s South, where he got up and he ranted and roared about all the good things, and about how the Liberals will be going knocking on doors and asking for your support next election. Well, Mr. Speaker, I had three phone calls after that yesterday. They said: You ask that gentleman - they did not know his name and did not know his district. They said: Ask him to speak to his colleagues in the House of Assembly - and said, yes, when they come knocking on our door, we are going to say: How come you never stood for us with our petitions about camping in the gravel pits or whatever with the cabins?

Mr. Speaker, one gentleman I heard from lived in the community of Dover, and he told me there are ninety of them, ninety individuals go to, I think it is called Greenspond Road every year, camping. It costs them $50 to travel there and $50 back. He said: We cannot afford to move back and forth every weekend. One of the town councils out there even called government to support them because they know anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 comes into that community from the people who camp in that area. He told me, he said: Look, we are getting mixed messages. We were told we cannot go back there, not even for a short term, not even allowed on the site. Whereas other people are being told they can go somewhere for a short term.

So, Mr. Speaker, I call upon government again, call upon government to sit down and consult with those individuals because they are saying we are going back to that site on the twenty-fourth of May weekend. We are going back there, and God help the people who come to take us out of it. That is the feeling and that is not fair.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Verbatim.

MR. BUTLER: That is verbatim. Those people are saying to government: sit down and consult with us before something is done that we do not want to do.