Sparks fly between Joyce and Ball over who gets to build Corner Brook hospital

Replacing the Corner Brook hospital has been on the to-do list of successive provincial governments since Danny Williams pledged to break ground on the project in 2007, but in Wednesday's House of Assembly session, another roadblock to its construction left politicians squabbling.

A brewing battle over who will build the new hospital left Independent MHA Eddie Joyce at loggerheads withPremier Dwight Ball just after question period.

The Ball government has already promised a new facility, but details about who gets to build ithaven't yet been worked out, leadingJoyce to raise the issue on the floor.

Local tradespeople, particularly those from the west coast of Newfoundland, want first dibs, he said, and are concerned their voices aren't being heard by the ruling party.

"When I was knocking on doors ... the two biggest issues I heard were the hospital, when it's going to be announced. People are still waiting. And I'm very confident that's going to happen," he said.

"The other one is [to] hire local workers," he added, many of whom currentlyfly elsewhere for work, and would be happy to stay home for the four-year build.

Ball said appeasing those hopeful workers is not as easy as it sounds.

"Of course what we want to see is people from Newfoundland and Labrador, local people, find jobs," Ball said.

But he said restricting companies to only employing people from a certain area leads to a messy implication: that companies would lose business by only being able to apply for contracts in their own neck of the woods.

"We have some large companies that operate on the west coast that actually do business all around this province, so we have to be very careful," said Ball.

Joyce says workers want answers

MHA Eddie Joyce said it's the workers, not the companies,who want a guarantee.

Last summer, tradespeople from Prince Edward Island were flown in to help build a long-term care facility in Corner Brook. Local workers, according to Joyce,want the premier's word that something similar won't happen again.

He brought up the issue near the end of proceedings,which led to a brief but heated exchange between Joyce and Ball.

"When I stood up today to ask the question ... [he] wouldn't even give the workers, the local workers, the courtesy of an answer," Joyce said, gesturing to the man whokicked him out of caucus last year.

"He's over there smiling. It's shameful," said Joyce.

Ball clarified he wasn't taking the matter lightly. "I wasn't smiling, Mr. Speaker," he said. "I have to correct that for the member opposite."

Joyce presented Ball with a petition signed by tradespeople asking him to guarantee their employment on the project.

"When you got a chance to have 300, 400 local people, all from western Newfoundland, to work in their own communities, be with their own families, and him not even try and give a reasonable answer and say we'll work and see what we can do I found it very demeaning and dismissive,"Joyce told reporters.

"I think we gotta start working together."

When asked whether the showdown hinted at a divided House just three days into its first post-election sitting with a minority government,Ball downplayed the exchange.

"No, no,not at all," Ball said.

"It was really just clarifying the answer."

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