MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the citizens of Burgeo & La Poile and it concerns the provincial HST portion on home heating fuels. I will read the petition itself for the record.

The petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS the people of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador pay the government harmonized sales tax on home heating bills; and

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of discussions in this House daily concerning families, people who are trying to get by in our Province. The government, for example, touts itself on certain strategies and the Poverty Reduction Strategy, for example, which they have. Mr. Speaker, the statistics and the facts just do not match what they claim to be doing with their strategy.

Here is an example, again, where a lot of people living in this Province, we just heard the petition from the pensioners who are finding it difficult. Everybody in this Province, regardless if you are on a fixed income or you have a generous income, everybody feels the burden of it. It is certainly felt very much so by people who live on fixed incomes. Single parents, for example, as well.

The government claims to be doing a lot of good things for a lot of people – and some of their initiatives, you have to give credit where credit is due, have indeed been very good. For example, I refer to the dialysis piece. This is the type of thing that hits everybody in the pocketbook, and that is the HST portion on your oil bills, for example. Now, the government does not put a whole whack of money into the rebate program. The oil tank program we also had as well. I think it was $220,000 a year, maybe, was committed to that. This is something that every citizen in this Province who uses home heating fuels would benefit from.

Again, I understand they have made approaches to the Minister of Finance, I know they have been on Open Line shows; they have submitted letters to the Minister of Finance and to their own MHAs. In fact, I understand that many of the citizens throughout this Province asked to have this type of petition brought to the House of Assembly by their MHAs, and their MHAs refused to do it. Now, Mr. Speaker, in this House, regardless of who you might represent, whether they be of any particular political stripe, if your constituents call upon you to do something, even if you are a member of government, you ought to have the respect for the constituent and bring their concerns to the floor of the House of Assembly.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is the first, I have received already hundreds and hundreds of people who signed petitions who want this matter dealt with. I will be more than pleased on their behalf to rise each and every day that the House of Assembly is open, and to make this matter be heard by government.

The Minister of Finance always says: stay tuned. Well, Minister, people have stayed tuned long enough, when it comes to this issue, and it is time for government to deal with this issue. We are in a financial position, we claim to be a have province, if we are such a have province, as this government claims, let’s see the government do something to respect the wishes of these people.