Mr. Speaker, the people of Labrador were not satisfied with the answers given on June 16 concerning the Trans-Labrador Highway.
I asked if the Prime Minister's promise to support a cost-shared agreement to complete the Trans-Labrador Highway meant the entire road, including the south coast and phase III. I asked if the Prime Minister committed to fifty-fifty cost-shared funding, as Premier Williams said. The province has already budgeted this non-existent federal money, which is very unusual.
There was no meaningful response to either question.
By way of background, in the 1970s and 1980s, under current Senator Rompkey, federal Liberal governments provided the first major highway funding for Labrador, funding for the Straits highway, and for the Wabush to Churchill Falls road, but in the 1988 roads for rails deal, concocted by the federal and provincial Conservatives, just $8 million out of over $800 million went to Labrador. The Tories sold us out.
It took a Liberal government in 1997 to help right this injustice. The $340 million Labrador transportation initiative funded the reconstruction of the Wabush to Happy Valley-Goose Bay road, the construction of the south coast highway, and several branch roads. It has also funded a portion of phase III, which will link the other two sections, despite the provincial promise to pay for it with its own funds.
Conservatives have never shown an interest in the Trans-Labrador Highway other than during byelection campaigns. In the 1996 byelection, the Reform and the PCs suddenly discovered Labrador. They ridiculed the fifty-fifty funding formula that the premier now calls for. They made lavish highway promises, then disappeared.
In 2005, with another byelection looming, the Conservatives rediscovered Labrador. By then, federal Liberal funding had seen the construction of more highways in Labrador than under the Mulroney and Peckford Conservatives put together.
During that campaign, the current defence minister said that “a Conservative government would commit funds to complete Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway” and that it “would share the cost on a 60/40” [federal-provincial] basis”, but in the 2006 election the Prime Minister would only vaguely offer “a cost-shared agreement”. The sixty-forty figure was gone.
The premier now says it is fifty-fifty, but the Minister of Transport and the Prime Minister will not confirm it. In a letter to me, the transport minister admits that federal highway plans “have yet to be determined”.
Towns like Labrador City and Happy Valley-Goose Bay are impatient with Conservative inaction. On the coast, residents worry that the Conservatives will ignore their needs altogether. The provincial transportation minister talks of highways and money but makes no mention of a plan for a coastal highway and connecting the unconnected communities.
The provincial transportation minister said in August that he expected a roads deal by next June. More recently he changed the deadline to this Christmas, yet nobody has seen the province's official proposal to the federal government. According to a New Brunswick media report, there is no federal highways program anyway. The transport minister has generously given himself 10 years to come up with one. So much for a deal by Christmas.
We cannot wait for 10 years, so I will ask my question again. Is the Conservative minority government committed to cost-sharing the Trans-Labrador Highway on a fifty-fifty basis? Will this include the whole Labrador Highway from Labrador City to the Straits? Has the province made an official proposal? Is federal funding even available? Will Labrador have a highway deal by Christmas?