House of Assembly
Newfoundland and Labrador

Oral Questions  
April 7, 2008

Home |  In the House | Question Period

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today my questions are all related to the faulty ER/PR testing and the details that are unfolding around the Cameron Inquiry.

My first question, Mr. Speaker, the Province has been riveted by the testimony and other news coming out of the Cameron Inquiry, and I am sure the Premier has been kept up to speed on all of the details in his absence in the last week. So, Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier.

Have you, Premier, received a subpoena compelling your testimony at the inquiry at this stage?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: First of all, Mr. Speaker, if I might ask yourself, and Opposition, if there are going to be several questions here, if we can have some extended time for answers and extended time for questions, if necessary, because of the importance of this matter, I would ask if that is okay?

The other thing is my preference would be, quite frankly, not to discuss this matter at all because it is before the inquiry, but because of the importance to the patients, their families, and the issues, then I am certainly quite prepared to discuss them, as far as I can go.

In answer to your question, I do not think I have formally received a subpoena but I have certainly been asked to testify and have actually, in fact, appeared before commission council three months ago and gave them my full testimony at the time.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Before I recognize the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the Premier has asked for extra time to answer questions, and I guess the same can be said for asking the questions. The Speaker, as a servant of the House, will take guidance from the House. If that is agreeable to all members present, then we can allow for the questions to be asked and ample time given without trying to stay within the forty-five second time limit. I seek guidance.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we certainly have no question with anyone on the other side taking an extended period to give an answer. In view of such importance, as well, we have extensive questions. So maybe the government would consider extending Question Period if we need to ask our questions.

It is one thing to ask the question, an answer might take ten minutes, and we do not want to circumvent Question Period either. So in the interest of fairness to all hands, maybe we could agree that if it takes longer than the usual thirty minutes, we would certainly go along with that, by all means. That is not to say it is contingent upon extending Question Period. We just ask for the same courtesy.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, in terms of an extension to Question Period, that is another issue which we can deal with at the appropriate time. For now, I think there is an understanding that if questions are a bit longer than normal and if answers are a bit longer than normal, then there is an agreement that Your Honour will take under advisement, I guess, the fact that both sides of the House have concurred in that happening.

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My next question to the Premier: Was your office advised in July 2005, as your former Minister of Health and Community Services has indicated, and if so, were you also advised as the head of the government?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: In July of 2005 - the nineteenth or twentieth of July, 2005 - the date of the e-mails, my office, the Premier’s office, was advised and some of my staff were actually advised of the issue. I personally was not advised at that time.

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I can only assume then, from previous questions in the House of Assembly, that the Premier was first advised in October of 2005. Mr. Speaker, that was eighteen months before any documents were filed in the courts regarding the matter.

So my question to the Premier is: Why did you or your government not take the lead and bring information forward to the public during that eighteen-month period?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: First of all, Mr. Speaker, for the record - I just want to make sure I am very clear. When I am saying I was not advised, I am saying I was not advised by the Department of Health or any officials in the Department of Health. My office was advised, and officials in my office were advised.

I cannot remember, I have no recollection whatsoever of any conversation between myself and any of my senior officials, whether my director of communications, my chief of staff, with regard to that matter at that time.

Having said that, as Premier of the Province, and as head of that office and as head of government, I take full responsibility for any messages or communications that come to that office or to any of my staff. Now, the fact that I cannot remember it does not mean it did not happen. What I am saying, from my knowledge, absolutely, honestly, sincerely, I have no recollection and cannot remember any conversation on that particular matter.

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I guess for me, this is the same competent staff I think that the Premier talked about giving raises to just a year ago. Now we are learning they did not pass this information along, to his recollection.

Just to ask the question again. If you did find out in October of that year, 2005, that was eighteen months before this issue broke open in a major way in the public, again, I ask: Why did government not take a lead and bring the information forward to the public?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I want to point out - and I am sure it is not lost on the hon. members opposite - is that this is about the patients, the victims, their families, their care, their past care, present care and future care.

When we called the inquiry we wanted to make sure that questions were answered, that they got basically to the bottom of it, that everything that was available was disclosed to the inquiry so that the commission could make findings, to make sure that these troubled victims had answers for what went wrong, those certainly who were impacted in any way whatsoever, and also to give the public an assurance that on a go-forward basis we were going to have the best system that was possible, that we certainly could afford to the best of our ability. That is why the inquiry was called.

What is happening - and that inquiry should be allowed to take its course. It should be allowed to go the process so that instead of plucking out one-tenth or one-fifth of the evidence and trying to sort of draw conclusions on that and lay blame - which the Opposition is starting to engage in. It is unfortunate. I have great respect for the hon. members opposite but the media are also playing a game. Last week, CBC, for example, basically had a question as: What do the public think, and who is to blame for this problem? Now, what kind of irresponsible reporting is that, at 20 per cent through an inquiry to talk about who is to blame at this stage of the game? They asked if politicians were to blame or physicians were to blame. A ridiculous question!

Then, building on the eighteen-month issue, my office was notified in July. In October there was something on the CBC Web site, I think there was a story on NTV, and there was a story in The Independent, it kind of laid this out and made it a public issue. Shortly after that there were ads taken out, I think in local newspapers or publications whereby this was very, very much a public issue. The hon. member now is trying to imply that myself, or the minister, or my government sat on information for eighteen months that would affect the health of people in this Province. Well, I can tell you quite sincerely, I can tell the hon. member opposite, and I can tell the people in this Province, that I, or nobody in my government, under any circumstances, would attempt to conceal or prevent the disclosure of information that would affect the health of people in this Province. I mean that sincerely.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Now, to take that a step further, Mr. Speaker, the national news last week - and I received a call on this - the national news, last week, Peter Mansbridge, in his opening story, talked about - and I have the quote here somewhere. The National - I am just going to read you this paragraph, and I shake when I speak about this because it annoys me so much, and we have asked the CBC for a retraction of this: It is an astonishing admission from someone once in charge of the public’s health. John Ottenheimer was the Health Minister in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2005. Today he told a judicial inquiry that he knew there were serious issues with breast cancer testing years before the public did; yet, he remained silent. What’s more, the Premier’s office knew it too.

So, the rest of this country thinks that John Ottenheimer, the Premier’s office and this government, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, sat on vital information and hid information from people for two years when, in fact, the time limit that is even in question here is less than three months.

The Leader of the Opposition herself is talking in terms of eighteen months. Nothing is further from the truth, and I think that does a great disservice to the people who have been affected by this wrongful testing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I think first of all it is important for me to point out that this inquiry was not a revelation of the government but rather, Mr. Speaker, we pushed for this in the House of Assembly. We asked questions on several different dates, in this House. We had a private member’s motion here forcing the government’s hand to go out and support and launch a public inquiry. So, first of all, I want to clarify that for the Premier.

Mr. Speaker, irregardless of the fact that Eastern Health may have taken out an ad in the paper, irregardless of the fact that there might have been an article in a newspaper - and let me just say the articles that were there, government did not respond to those articles; it was articles responded to by officials at Eastern Health saying the situation was under control - notwithstanding that, the fact remains that government did have access to information for a period of eighteen months and had an obligation, in my opinion, to make that information known to the public.

Again, I ask the question: Why did this government not do so?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: There are issues here of patients’ stress, patients’ health, patient confidentiality, and government and health care department and health care officials have to be very, very careful to make sure that they do not violate those personal privileges and go out talking about diseases or problems or illnesses that people have. Government has to be very, very careful how it handles the information.

You need to look at the context back. The e-mail that was disclosed last week indicates that when the Department of Health actually notified the Premier’s office, within hours in the same day, it came back with an e-mail that said, no action required, that the publication of this will be actually minimal or minimized.

So, in fact, there was a stand-down order, a stand-down statement, that came from the Department of Health that this issue was being dealt with internally.

Now, from another perspective, as you go to October, the assurance that was given to government by Eastern Health through the minister – and the minister at the time would have to speak to this – was that testing had stopped; that, in fact, retesting had been done, it was started back in May, or the May-June period; that, in fact, testing locally had stopped; that any new testing was going to be done at Mount Sinai, which we consider to be one of the best institutions in the country, to perform that; that present testing was going to be done there, future testing in the short term would be done there, and past tests would be re-tested at Mount Sinai.

So, government and government officials of the Department of Health, through Eastern Health, had the assurance that this matter was being taken care of, and at the same time were receiving advice from doctors who were treating these victims not to put them under any duress or put them under any strain.

In addition, we have not chosen, and will not do so and are not doing so, attempting to place any blame on other governments. As Premier of this Province, if this government has done anything wrong, or any of my ministers have done anything wrong, providing it is not criminal, then I will stand up, as head of this Province, and accept full responsibility on their behalf, on behalf of my government, for their actions or actions of officials or actions of people down the line, and will also be prepared to stand up on behalf of former premiers, Premier Grimes, Premier Tobin or Premier Tulk, and their governments, for any actions that happened on their watch if, in fact, government is wrong; because these patients and these victims have a right to know that someone is accepting responsibility, at the end of the day, for what has happened to them. They need to have that assurance. They need to know that.

The hon. member opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, knows that in 2003 a letter which I presented to this House, within hours of actually receiving it, disclosed to this House a letter from Dr. Ejeckam, who is a doctor in the lab over there, who basically gave a letter to Eastern Health that said, "Diagnosis based on inappropriate immunostain will surely jeopardize patient care…" – now, this is in 2003; this was before this government came into power – "…and may even expose (HealthCare Corp. of St. John’s) to litigation. Therefore, it will be ill advised to operate an unreliable and erratic immunohistochemical procedure in our laboratory."

A clear warning to that government - not to that government, necessarily - that there was a problem there. At the same time that doctor closed that lab for five weeks, approximately five weeks, so that laboratory was actually closed down and he put on the record his concerns.

You were in Cabinet at that time. I do not blame you for not knowing that, under any circumstances, and if that was not conveyed to you or to your government - and you were the Minister of Fisheries at the time - but if that was not conveyed to your government, or to your Cabinet, or to your Premier, then he or any of the members in there are not responsible because they simply did not know.

These problems were happening then. These problems go all the way back to 1997, when the Tobin government was in. This is a communal problem that we are trying to deal with, but it is not appropriate to turn around - like CBC are trying to do - and say who is to blame a few weeks into an inquiry. Let’s go through this process. Let’s get to the bottom of it. Let’s find out what it is.

The people who were there along the way are dealing with it and trying to handle a problem that they did not cause, that they did not want to happen. I can certainly give you my assurance, on behalf of this government, that nobody is covering up information, under any circumstance, particularly that would affect the health of these patients.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I do want to respond to the point that the Premier has made with regard to the letter from the laboratory to Eastern Health. It is important to point out that correspondence, to my knowledge, was never forwarded to the government at the time, in 2003, and not to the Ministry of Health and therefore not to the Cabinet, and there was absolutely no way that we could have been aware of an internal memo that circulated between the laboratory and the officials at Eastern Health.

Mr. Speaker, getting back to my questions, the Premier has said that they have taken the advice of professionals in making their decision in terms of what they would reveal to the public. I guess we also know that the Premier is on record as saying that any time the boards in this Province make decisions that do not sit in the best interest of the public then they are prepared to overrule it.

I guess, Mr. Speaker, my question is: What makes this case any different in terms of overruling the decisions and the advice of Eastern Health than it does with any other board?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: First of all, Mr. Speaker, you cannot compare the closing of a school and relate it to busing issues as being comparable to life-and-death issues for people with cancer.

Having said that, in this particular issue, it is my understanding of the legality of this, and I think it has been changed according to recent legislation, that government did not have a clear legal authority to overrule or tell boards what to do. Having said that, you and I know - and I was speaking to the Leader of the Opposition and members opposite - that if government disagrees with a position that a board is taking, it, even if it does not have a legal authority to do so, can express its displeasure about that situation or suggest that another alternative should be done. Boards will often follow that direction, but in this particular – it is my understanding that there was no legal authority, at that time, to tell the health board what to do.

Notwithstanding that, though, if, in fact, we felt that something was seriously wrong and we had all of the information, it would not be unusual for us to say to that board: Look, I think there might be an issue here; there might be something wrong. But, it goes back to what you said: What did we know? What were we told? What were we being told? What information was being provided to us by Eastern Health?

You are saying that your government did not have notice of the Ejeckam letter that went to Eastern Health Board. I believe you, I believe you clearly on that, but a laboratory was closed down over in that hospital for five weeks on the basis that a doctor in charge of that laboratory had serious concerns about patient care and safety. So, again, we have to look at what information was being provided to the Premier’s office, to the Minister of Health, to the Deputy Minister of Health and to health officials by the Eastern Health Board. These are the kind of things that that inquiry and Madam Justice Cameron is going to get to the bottom of and is going to find out and find out where the communication broke down; where, in fact, information was filtered, or where, in fact, incomplete information was not provided. We can only make decisions and draw conclusions on the basis of the information that is provided to us, and we all do that to the best of our ability.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I say to the Premier, the difference here is that your former Minister of Health and Community Services, John Ottenheimer, has stated on the witness stand that he had the information, wanted it to be public and was prepared to release the information each day, but no one asked him. That is the difference, I say to you, Premier.

So this, do not ask, do not tell: Is this a policy of your government, or was this just a case where a minister did not know his legal responsibilities as a Cabinet minister and answer to the public in that way?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: I cannot speak for Mr. Ottenheimer, but Mr. Ottenheimer is a lawyer and Mr. Ottenheimer knows the parameters of his responsibilities. Mr. Ottenheimer - according to what I have been told, I did not hear it directly because I was not here to hear the testimony - has indicated that his preference was to go public. This matter was not discussed with me so I cannot discuss any conversation or communication that I had with John Ottenheimer on this because we simply did not have one.

Having said that, he says, though, he also relied on the greater evidence from the medical profession and from the doctors and from his health care officials that said we should not go public with this now because it will either cause - I do not know his exact words - duress, or hardship, or stress, or anxiety on the patients.

If, in fact, a treating doctor said to me that you will affect the health of my client if you disclose to the public tomorrow that this is a big issue and he or she will have serious adverse health effects because of that, I would have to very, very seriously consider whether I would go public under those circumstances. As I understand it, that is the decision that John Ottenhemier had to make.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I certainly understand that there may have been concern about fear and stress and anxiety in patients, but I also remember very clearly the statements of your current Minister of Health in terms of what the legal obligations or legal fall-out of this information could be for government, as well, in his comments that he stated in the House of Assembly on May 16, 2007.

Mr. Speaker, we know already that under the lead of Minister Ottenheimer, the Department of Health did inform officials in the Premier’s office of the issue. On March 15, 2006, Tom Osborne took over the portfolio as Minister of Health and Community Services. Did he, as the minister, bring this issue to your attention, or to the officials in your office?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: That is a question - he certainly did not in March or around that time. That is a question I would have to check and have to get an answer for you, as to whether he did communicate that to officials in my office. That is something I have not actually looked at under any circumstances.

MS JONES: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Oh, to me, personally? In what time frame?

MS JONES: After he became minister in March of 2006.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: I would say at some time after he became minister in March, he talked to me about this. I cannot tell you an exact time. I would have to go back and see if I can retrace the records.

One thing I do want to mention, as well, with regard to the legal action, you have indicated Mr. Wiseman has indicated this is more of a legal issue. I do not want the public to think that there was suppression of information here because the lawyers had told us to do so.

Let me tell you something, I can speak, certainly on my own behalf and members of Cabinet, of specific experience. Minister Kennedy there, and myself, have acted for the wrongfully convicted, of victims, oppressed people who have claims against hospitals, insurance companies, whatever reason that they have been wronged, people who have had something negligent done to them, and we act on their behalf. Part of, I guess, a frustration through the years would be getting to the bottom of things and trying to find out information.

We, and this government, and myself, would be the last ones in the world who would try and suppress key evidence to help out an insurance company. I can tell you that straight from the heart. In fact, that is a big reason as well, why this Ejeckam letter was put out there. So that Mr. Crosbie and these victims would know that this letter existed and that they would have that to rely on, that the people in the system knew there was something wrong and they did not correct it quick enough.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier, when you are able to, provide the dates that you would have been briefed on this by Minister Osborne at the time, or your officials.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

Mr. Speaker, there either was a briefing note provided to me in August of 2006, which came from the Department of Health.

The other thing I need to put in context for hon. members opposite and the public: I have asked our office to see if they could determine the number of transactions, communications, interviews, briefings and contacts that get made with our office in the run of a year. Over 125,000 e-mails, phone calls, communications, briefing notes, meetings and interviews happen every year on the 8th Floor. Now, that needs to be put in perspective so people can get some understanding of the volume of communications that actually happen.

This doesn’t count phone calls that are not recorded. I don’t mean recorded in the sense of tape recorded, I mean written down and saying, Mary Smith called, you call her back; and any other conversations that happen with anybody in the office that are simply not recorded, are not written down. That is the magnitude of the number of transactions that take place in the office and I think people need to be able to put that into perspective, when somebody is trying to recall what happened on July 19, 2005 in that atmosphere.

I happened to find out today, or it might have been yesterday, that on that particular morning, for example, I was at Clayton Forsey’s swearing in at Government House. Now, if you had to ask me what date Clayton Forsey was sworn in, with all due respect to the Member for Exploits I wouldn’t have been able to remember that date. I would not have been able to say it was on that Tuesday morning.

We have to be fair here and things have to be put in perspective when people are trying to recollect and recall specific instances and specific discussions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly appreciate where the Premier is coming from. There are many dates that I don’t remember specifically as well, but I guess my question is, during the period of time that individuals held offices as Cabinet ministers in your government. That is what I am looking for.

On January 19, 2007, Ross Wiseman was appointed as the Minister of Health and Community Services. Did he, as a minister, during that period of time following his appointment, bring this issue to your attention, or did it not become a major part of discussion between you and his department until the spring of 2007?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: My best recollection of that would be that it did not become an issue between myself and Mr. Wiseman until the spring of 2007, and the same with Minister Osborne for that matter.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, would like to address a couple of questions to the Premier.

Premier, your former Minister of Health, John Ottenheimer, I think has been very forthright in letting the Commission know, and the people of the Province know, that he really did want disclosure. He wanted disclosure both in a public way and also to the patients, and he has spoken very strongly about his concern about the patients. We have also heard during the short time that the Commission has been sitting, that there were patients who had great difficulty in getting their results, and some who never did get directly informed by Eastern Health about the change in their breast cancer results.

I am wondering, once you did learn about this - which you have told the House was in October of that year, 2005 - did you and Mr. Ottenheimer ever discuss together his major concern, and how his department was monitoring that information getting out to patients? – because, obviously, it did not get out adequately.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: If I can put that in context, the last information which my office had received was the briefing note which indicated that no action was required. That comes up on a lot of briefing notes, and quite often there are matters that come up at our office that appear to be a firestorm in a very short period of time and then just die out and within an hour, within the end of the day, more information is gleaned and the issues do not come back any more.

On this particular issue there was no action required and there was a clear indication that it was probably going to be minimal, anyway, at the end of the day. From that time on there were no discussions, and there were not any discussions between myself and John Ottenheimer on this matter.

With regard - and only Minister Ottenheimer can speak to this, but - with regard to his decision not to go public, it is my understanding - and you have heard his evidence and I have not, or I assume you have - that he basically said it was his preference to go public but he decided not to. He never came to me and said: Premier, do you think I should go public on this? Do you think it would be wise to go public? I have serious concerns it should go public.

I think that Minister Ottenheimer made a conscious decision based on the fact that he had medical advice which was coming to him, and advice from his officials that was saying we should not do this because this could affect people’s health.

Now, that is a judgement call that Minister Ottenheimer made. If that was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, someone will decide that. At the end of the day, as a government, if Minister Ottenheimer made an error in judgement, we will take responsibility for that - I will take responsibility for that - but it was a weighted decision, a weighed decision, a decision, I think, that he considered and he decided, on balance, that he would not do that. As a matter of fact, like I said, he didn’t come to me on it, either, to discuss it, so….

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Just for clarification, Premier, are you saying that even once you learned about this in October, 2005, that you and the minister never, ever, discussed it together either?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: No, there was no discussion.

The main issue was the article, of course, that appeared in the Independent, and at that particular point in time we received - I think it was the day after, I received, or a couple of days after, I received - a briefing note, on October 5, and that briefing note basically indicated that tests had been done; there was some improper testing but things were being retested; that this was basically in good hands, in the good hands of Eastern Health and the medical profession; that, in fact, people were being tested now safely; that testing had been terminated on a temporary basis at the Health Sciences; that retesting was being done; that people were being notified. This was really about the patient care, then.

Our focus was on making sure that the patients were being taken care of, that they were getting the proper results; because, in fact, when this first broke we did not know even at that stage whether, in fact, the tests were right or wrong, so they had to be actually retested to verify whether what was being discovered at the Health Sciences was accurate or not.

Then they had to be retested, Mount Sinai had to come back with accurate results, and that had to be conveyed to the patients. Otherwise, you could go to a patient and say, we think your test might be wrong when, in fact, with some of them, they were not wrong. Therefore, you are creating alarm and creating concern.

The clear impression that was being given through the article and through the briefing note was that this matter was certainly under control and was being handled, and certainly no action was required from us.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: I just really want to be clear, Premier, and if this is not a normal thing then I would like to have you speak to it.

Are you telling us, then, that this did not even come to the Cabinet table, that something of this magnitude did not get discussed at the Cabinet table even? Is so, is that a usual thing? I have never been at a Cabinet table.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: No, this did not come to the Cabinet table at that particular point. (Inaudible) to the Cabinet table until, in fact, it arose in the spring of 2007, so it had not come to my attention as Premier. The matter was under control within a department.

There are thousands of matters that get handled by each department over the course of a month, or over the course of a year, by ministers. They are the managers and they handle those departments themselves. Despite the opinion by some people that this might be a one-man show - which has been termed - in fact, these ministers are managers of their department and they are delegated with the authority to run their own departments. They, in fact, did this, and we were assured that things were being done right.

Now, even recently, over the course since this broke in May of 2007, numbers kept changing so Eastern Health were providing new information. Then, when it became a public issue, alarm set in by everybody because, in fact, we were realizing that these numbers continue to change and they are not the exact numbers that were given to us in the first place.

I have to rely on the information that is given to me by the experts. I am not an engineer; I am a lawyer. I have some sense, possibly, of what the legal issues are. I certainly do not know all of them, and do not profess to be an expert on all of them, but particularly with medical issues and health care issues, I mean, there is terminology in some of the briefing notes and some of the reports that I do not even understand. I can put them in context, of course, and obviously get an appreciation for them, but with health care issues, specialized areas, we have to rely on the advice that is being given to us by a group of doctors.

As well, there is another issue here: a peer review had been done. On that briefing note it indicated that a peer review, in fact, had been done and the results were going to be provided at some point in time.

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question again for the Premier.

Robert Thompson, who is a senior civil servant, was Clerk of the Executive Council in 2005. He managed government’s messages on the ER-PR issue as the Deputy Minister of the Department of Health and Community Services after John Abbott was fired from that position. Now he is in charge of government’s interest in the inquiry. He is the top guy, determining what e-mails and what information is to be submitted, and has been also subpoenaed to testify at the Cameron inquiry.

I ask the Premier: Is his appointment affecting the confidence that people have in an open process when you have an individual like this, in my opinion, who is in a conflict of interest and yet he is managing the information going forward by government?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: The hon. Leader of the Opposition knows Mr. Thompson. Members of the Opposition - some members of the Opposition - have worked with Mr. Thompson. He was a senior public servant, a Clerk for Cabinet, again the highest public servant. He is a very ethical person. He has, in my opinion, an impeccable reputation. I spoke to that in this House when he was appointed. He is, in my opinion, singularly the very best person that we could possibly put in this position in order to assemble information, to put the information together, to provide it for the Commission.

I hope - and I am not implying this - I hope the member is not insinuating under any circumstances that he would be withholding any information or not providing any information because he is in conflict and he may be trying to do it in the best interest of this government; because, I can assure you, to the best of my knowledge and based upon my appreciation and understanding and my personal value of this individual, he is doing a tremendous service to the people of this Province by having him there. He has had all the experience; he is a former Deputy Minister of Health. He knows how government works. He is probably the single best person right now in the Province who has a complete grasp of all of those issues and can figure out on a go-forward basis how we can make sure that this does not happen again.