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March 21, 2002
Standing Committees
Community Services
Meeting topics: 

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HALIFAX, THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2002

STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY SERVICES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Mary Ann McGrath

MADAM CHAIRMAN: We have enough to start, so we will begin. You guys have come a long way. Welcome to the Community Services Committee. My name is Mary Ann McGrath and I am the chairman. I will ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I am expecting that one or two other members may make it, barring the traffic. So begin whenever you are ready. Introduce yourselves - sorry, just for the microphone.

[The witnesses introduced themselves.]

MRS. HELENA WINCHESTER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Government of the Province of Nova Scotia and all their representatives. My name is Helena Winchester and I am Vice-President of MADD Canada Digby County Chapter.

About seven years ago, our son, Nathan, was killed by an impaired driver. His friend was also killed in the crash and their other friend was seriously injured. The man who hit them was driving drunk. He crossed the centre line and hit my son and his two friends head-on on Highway No. 101. The offender was also killed at the scene of the crash. This tragic event was devastating. We were beside ourselves. We were lost, emotionally unstable and very angry for the loss of our beloved son to the hands of a drunk driver, an incident that was fully preventable.

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Shortly after the death of our son, representatives of MADD Canada Halifax and Annapolis Chapters contacted us. The support and the compassion that we received from them was beyond what we could imagine. They were a major contributing factor in giving us the strength to continue with achieving goals in our lives and also in keeping up with our sanity.

On July 30, 1997, the MADD Canada Digby County Chapter was chartered. I was elected the first president of the chapter and we commenced to promote the mission of MADD Canada at a small scale. It did not take long for us to realize that there was a serious need of promoting the mission of MADD Canada in our county, so we approached and planted a seed with representatives of numerous organizations at the local level.

Within a very short period of time, our chapter became very active in numerous areas. The activities of our chapter spread to groups of people of all ages, targeting any class of society. The efforts and the activities of our chapter were quickly noticed and recognized by other agencies. Local driver-training schools, local high schools, high schools from outside Digby County and other detachments of the RCMP have contacted us to obtain information or assistance in setting up effective presentations like we do. Since 1997, our chapter has been involved in providing services to victims in many communities in western Nova Scotia and as far as Montreal and Thetford Mines, Quebec.

We are here today to present the members of the Government of Nova Scotia and their representatives with a project that has been put together by the members of the Digby County Chapter. This project's objective is to prevent death and injuries caused to innocent victims by impaired drivers, a crime that is fully preventable.

Members of the government and representatives, I would like to introduce you to Cst. Christian Thibaudeau. Cst. Thibaudeau is a police officer employed by the RCMP in Digby. He has been an active member in our chapter since the beginning. He has worked on numerous projects for MADD Canada Digby County Chapter involving youth and young adults. In the year 2000, Cst. Thibaudeau won the Award of Excellence in Police Services in the fight against impaired driving, presented by MADD Canada. It was the first time that an RCMP officer won the award.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Government of the Province of Nova Scotia and all their representatives, I am inviting Cst. Thibaudeau to present the proposal on my behalf.

CST. CHRISTIAN THIBAUDEAU: Thank you, Helena. Madam Chairman and members of the government and their representatives, my name is, as said before, Cst. Christian Thibaudeau and I am involved with the Digby RCMP in Digby County. I have been an RCMP officer for 11 years. I have been 16 years involved in law enforcement related duties. For the last six years of my career, I have been in Digby County and four of them

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have been spent on highway patrol. There is basically not a crash that I have not attended that was serious in that county. It brings a lot to your personal life when you deal with those factors. As a result, MADD came along and here we are today with a project to present to you, a proposal, and what do we want? Money; this is a request for funding.

Before I start, there are two packages that were put on your desk. This package is the project presented by us. I want to apologize because Pages 18, 19 and 20 are in reverse order. It was put in an automatic feeder and I just realized this morning when I started reviewing some of the package, but all the pages are there except the three pages I mentioned. This package is a consulting firm that gave us a bit of their time to come with ideas and everything and it was a great help to produce the final package of the visitation programs. The official package is this one. The other one was just given to you as more information in case we miss something in this one.

[9:15 a.m.]

The problem we have is that in Canada, we don't hear it on the news as much, but every five hours someone is killed by an impaired driver in the run of a day; that comes to 4.85 people a day in this country. Over 100 people a day are being injured as a result of impaired driving. We have done, through my investigations as a highway patrol officer, one day we started measuring the cost of prevention and the costs on the Department of Health and the social impact on society for this cause. Everything that's happening with impaired drivers - the people who are killed and injured - has a phenomenal financial burden on society. This is why we are pushing our project to the limit to try to reduce that cost and also to try to reduce the number of people killed and injured on our highways.

Sixty-five per cent of impaired driving crashes happen between 6:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. Seventy per cent of crashes involving Ski-Doos and ATVs are caused by alcohol. Two-thirds of accidents of all drinking-related crashes happen on weekends. Alcohol is a drug - it's a legalized drug. Alcohol's effects on the human brain have the same type of impact that marijuana can have; it also has the same type of impact that downers will have; it also has the same type of impact of other drugs, like ecstasy, where you are unable to think straight. It really plays on your mind and it's a legalized drug. Alcohol will have effects on a human body every bit as what marijuana and ecstasy will do to some people and all that. On top of that, our laws permit people to a certain degree of intoxication to take the wheel and drive a vehicle or fly a plane or drive a Ski-Doo.

Alcohol is a depressant, it slows down your reaction time, it affects your perception and affects, most of all, the decision-making skills. The decision-making skill is what kills people. Alcohol is the drug that is the most widely used because it's legal.

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Over the years we have found that today's society has become too tolerant with alcohol. A lot of progress was made in Canada and in the Province of Nova Scotia to help law enforcement officers to reduce the number of impaired drivers on the road. The limit was brought down to 0.05 at the provincial legislative level and punishment has changed under the Criminal Code, but now we're at a stage where we have to educate people to make sure that they understand the consequences of drinking and driving.

There is an alcohol-related driving injury every five minutes. We take all the injuries and divide that by 365 days, by 24 hours a day and this is the number we get from them. We don't come up with those numbers off the top of our heads to look good. They're numbers that come out of statistics agencies in this country. Drinking and driving is one of the few crimes that results from a combination of two perfectly legal behaviours - drinking and driving. Drinking is legal, driving is legal - the two of them kill people.

As a result of that, we have a mission. MADD Canada - Mothers Against Drunk Driving - from the Digby County Chapter, our mission is to stop impaired driving and to support victims of this violent crime.

We already have a program in place; we call it the Visitation Program. It's already in place, but it's very, very limited in the type of effect it has on our audiences because the means that we have on hand to carry the message and make people understand is very limited. To do a presentation, I have to go to Helena's and grab the TV out of her living room and then I have to go to somebody else to get the VCR and take my daughter's stereo system. We're very limited and all that ends up in me or Helena or another member of this committee making a speech and everybody knows how boring I can be sometimes, so we're trying to come up with better ideas to grab people's attention to make a change with the impaired driving situation.

MADD Canada will mount a full-scale education campaign aimed at reaching the students in our schools. To this point in time, the chapter has been conducting Visitation Programs at various schools. However, if we are to make headway against this hideous crime, more students must be reached. The chapter is committed to expanding its Visitation Program to cover all schools in the Southwest Nova district, to refine the Visitation Program so as to run parallel with police and enforcement strategies to improve public awareness of drinking and driving.

The goal is to reach, in the next two years of our program, 25,000 to 30,000 high schools students. We have those numbers right on because Mr. Winchester worked with the school board for 30 years and he knows what it's all about dealing with kids in schools. After that, once the program is in place and it's set in different RCMP detachments and we set up local satellite MADD chapters, we will reach those students every year; Grades 10, 11 and 12 will be reached every year with the presentation.

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The primary objective of the Visitation Program is to promote the awareness of the dangerous consequences of drinking and driving through education. The principal audience will be Nova Scotia youth and the program will also be made available to any and all other interested groups. The reason we are so focused on promoting awareness of the consequences of drinking and driving is that this is a crime that, hopefully, down the road in future generations, we hope there is going to be zero drinking and driving in Canada. We have to be realistic and this is a dream goal, in my opinion as a police officer.

As a result of that, the government and law enforcement agencies have been putting programs and laws in place and making changes to legislation to help to reduce that factor. But one factor that is not being attacked directly, efficiently in a real efficient and quick manner is, in my opinion, the education of youth and to the group of people who are drinking and driving all the time. As police officers, we cannot be on every corner, we cannot check them all. We grab a lot of impaired drivers, but this is the key. We have to keep in mind that one impaired driver on the road causing an accident, for some reason, in rare cases they're killing themselves; there's always another victim around that gets injured or killed. After that is the trauma that the families have to go through.

I am going to cite some examples of what the Visitation Program does. The first Operation Prom Night was in the year 2000 at the Digby Regional High School. It involved a group of 95 students - I believe we had 100 per cent collaboration from the students - it's a one week event working in partnership with the school and parallel with school education goals and MADD goals to talk to the kids, to make them participate in activities.

They participate physically in being victims in car crashes and work in parallel with rescuers where we have fire departments, ambulances, police officers and tow truck companies. To each emergency personnel we assign a student as a chaperone, and we make a crash scene of several cars, two or three deaths, four or five injuries, and each emergency personnel, including myself, when I prepare these things, I have somebody who chaperones me and it is like, okay, pick up the brain. You see this, this is the brain. Pick it up. Help this guy to get out. The car will start to burn. What do you do? He is trapped. This is what our Operation Prom Night does and it is a seven day event.

Once it hit the local news and local newspapers, and it hit the electronic e-mail system of the RCMP, we got calls from numerous detachments in this province and outside the province for them to kind of copycat this program because it works. The kids, they loved it and many of the kids - that was in 2000 - are telling me to this day, Chris, we still remember and yes, we went drinking and we found a drive home. It makes a difference, it saves lives.

As a result of that, members of our chapter were involved to be the guest speakers for the graduation of that year and that is to show, in my opinion, that the group of youths that we dealt with were really appreciative of the time that we took to spend with them.

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The other activities we do: parades - our chapter does seven parades a year, at least - we do checkpoints, lectures to schools, lectures to driver training program participants - we travel way out of Digby Town to do those things - mock accidents, interactive discussions with participants, presentations to repeat offenders through victim impact panels.

We had a situation where as a law enforcement officer I received a complaint. Well, we get, John Q. is driving drunk all the time, what can you do about it? We have approached the board. We discussed it at the board level. In one instance, we went to the guy and the guy was borderline and we just went and between MADD and the Drug Education Rehabilitation Program and myself and the parents of this young person, we created some type of a funnel scenario for this person to make sure that he understood the consequences of impaired driving. It worked, the guy doesn't drive drunk anymore. They still, today, thank us for this.

So there are avenues other than just being the hard-liner law enforcement officer that work better than sending a person to the courts when we don't have enough evidence to send it to the court and we use other avenues to reach the same goal, to keep this person off the road. We do mall presentations, memorial cross program - this has been well known by the government in the past. They had to approve for those crosses to go on the side of the road - the red ribbon campaign, the interlock device.

Actually, MADD at the national level, I believe, are still working with the provincial government to have the lock intervention device in vehicles, so that if you are a repeat offender, the court can order you, down the road, to have this gizmo in your vehicle. You cannot start your car unless you blow a full pass on the instrument - your car will not start - and as your car drives, the instrument, after 15 minutes or half an hour or two hours, will do a spot check: okay, you have two minutes to pull over on the side of the road and perform a positive test to make sure you are not drinking while driving or you didn't have somebody else blow into the instrument to start your car and then go.

Operation Prom Night is our newest that we have been doing. The Visitation Program is designed to be versatile and fits all audiences.

So far the human resources within the chapter, this is us. We go to Meteghan, we go to Digby, we go to Bridgetown. We all have jobs. It is all done on our own time and it demands a lot of us, especially when on top of it I have to go to Helena's to steal her TV and to somebody else to steal their VCR and to somebody's daughter who has a stereo system so they can hear me in the room.

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[9:30 a.m.]

Ladies and gentlemen, that is, in our opinion, the best avenue to explore at this time.

There are three approaches to our Visitation Program. There is a multimedia approach, there is an interactive approach and there is also the visual approach. The multimedia approach is a concept where it is visual. We have to create between the two, the visual, the multimedia and the interactive, the presentation of the Visitation Program is to take an audience, a group of people, and put them in a room where it is going to be set in a way with what we call still pictures on slides, videos on two different screens and also a couple of TVs broadcasting scenes of happiness and sadness and everything combined together, with a person being a guest speaker at the front at the same time, and this goes on for about an hour.

During that time, we set up the room in a way that we reach every type of student, because some students will associate a topic with violence - not violence but with reality, I mean. Like with the reality of impaired driving. Some other student will associate this impaired driving, or the message we are trying to broadcast, by looking at a screen where it is peaceful, the water rolling on the rocks or to nature. Our objective in this multimedia approach is to have many things going on at the same time that each category of people around will be able to focus on what suits them the best. Then, from there, yes, okay, this suits me; I'm looking at it, I'm hearing it and the message comes from the side and from behind. After that - that was part of the multimedia approach - is the visual approach. I have a diagram, after that, of the room. I'm going to explain it. It's further down in the package.

The visual approach. Our visibility is crucial on the roads. We all drive. We all travel. We all travel above the speed limit. What do you do when you see a police car coming? You slow down. It is visual. You can see him on the road. Well, if it works for the police and it works for the ambulance and it works for the fire truck, guess what? It works for MADD. We want to be visible on the road. In our project, to do those presentations, there is a list of equipment attached to the package that we are going to run through and I will put together how it's going to work.

As part of the project, we have obtained prices to obtain a vehicle at cost price from GM that is going to carry seven people - us basically - with a 14 foot enclosed trailer and it's going to be the colour of MADD. It's going to be: Don't drink and drive, MADD Canada Digby County Chapter. All the equipment we have is going to be loaded in there in boxes, set up in a way that anybody trained in the program will be able to just roll the box and open the cover and plug whatever instrument there is to be plugged. Then the presentation starts.

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Part of the Visitation Program is to take the presentation where the potential offender can be reached. Being seen on the roads will ignite conversation and awareness among family members and acquaintances of the offender which will raise the level of awareness to the offender and within his or her family members.

Being visible on the roads will increase public participation in reporting impaired drivers. Many people are reluctant to contact the police directly in fear of retaliation because the police have to disclose the complainant, but they will not hesitate to contact MADD at the local level to make a report. That has been done already where members of this chapter have received a call at home or on our local MADD line saying listen, I don't want to say my name but if you need information call me back. My name is John Doe and Chris Thibaudeau, he drives drunk every day after work at 6:00 p.m. from Point A to Point B. Is there anything that can be done about it? Yes, we will take care of it. MADD sends me a request. It is anonymous. Then I don't have to disclose the witnesses. Then I can go on the road and do my job and take that impaired driver off of the road, again to save lives and injuries to himself or the innocent general public who are out there.

This reporting system has already been used. Unfortunately, many of the public are not aware of the MADD Digby County Chapter and the time has come to let them know that we're here. Well, we're here in Halifax, but I mean right there in Digby.

Can everybody see this? This is an example - and again it's only an example - where a group of students will enter a room or a gymnasium or something like that and they will be funnelled in a way that every person or student or audience, driving classes - when I say students, we do driving classes to adults. Many adults who have been caught impaired driving, it's a condition to reinstate their license. They have to take a preventive driver course and every preventive driver course, we have set up a program with the local one in Digby County where we attend and every one of them, before they finish the course and graduate, we give a two to three hour presentation to those people. Well, we all do it orally, like I just did, and with stealing Helena's TV and somebody else's VCR for a 20 minute video.

In this instance, we could bring the group to a room where each participant, when entering the room, the first thing they do is they are being funnelled in a way where they have to walk by a coffin with a mirror placed in the coffin and a message: Hi, what's your name? Or: How do you feel to be laying here? Things like that. After that, the participants are directed to their seats. The ideal group would be about 30, but 45 to 50 at the maximum.

You bring the students to their seats and then on the big screen we will make a presentation, a video make-up, that will be done professionally, of the real facts of impaired driving where you will see the police officer receiving a call and the ambulance receiving a call. We are basically doing one of our mock accidents that we do every year at the local level and we are going to find somebody to do it professionally, to throw a good video at it

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where there are graduation students who will be killed, some of them will be injured, and go through the whole nine yards. That will be presented on this big screen.

The opposite TVs are going to be the video presentation for the people who cannot watch this because there are so many people who have been killed in this country by impaired drivers that every lecture that we have attended, every presentation we have done, there is somebody bursting into tears or gets up and walks out. They can't take it because the only tools we have to funnel our message is through tragedies. We have nothing to show those people real compassion when we give the lectures. During the lecture they are being told about the compassion and everything and the services we offer but sometimes our lectures can be a bit hard for people to take, not because we want it that way but because our lectures reflect reality and reality hurts when you have somebody close to you who was killed by a drunk driver. So that's what those two giant TV sets are for. The large screen here will be the one that will display the accident from the drinking right down to the funeral.

Those stationary slide systems will be like one a police officer has in Toronto, from Toronto metro, and with copyrights and all that. We're going to work on obtaining something similar but at the Nova Scotia level where you will see the way that that video is set - and it is an approved MADD video - where, sir, if you got killed by an impaired driver, we can show a picture of you on the screen as a Member of Parliament or a lawyer or a carpenter, whatever you do, and right beside it a far picture of the crash where people don't see inside and the gross things but people can get an idea. Two of those screens are going to be slide shows. They are going to throw slides for the full hour on just that: Chris Thibaudeau in his police uniform at the scene of a crash, he got run over by an impaired driver; a five year old kid, a picture there, killed in a car by an impaired driver. It is going to go on and on like that.

On top of it, we have the advertising boards that are going to be put in crucial areas at the ends of the room where they are going to carry a message in a flip chart system. I say advertising board but I am thinking more about a laptop preprogram that is just going to throw messages on different walls with those mini projectors they have. They work out of a laptop. You just start the program and it goes on its own. It can shoot messages on the walls of a building or room at different stages during the lecture. Obviously, this whole ordeal is not going to be done by me or us because we are going to need professional advice to do that and we will find how to make everything tie together.

There are going to be tables for sponsors and displays. There is going to be a stand-up display. Here there are booths in the program. We are planning to buy Playstations - the Sony Playstations that our kids love so much - with the race car driving program. We have what we call the sobriety goggles. It is a set of goggles you put on your face and it simulates a level of impairment. We are going to have the kids drive the computer program with these on their face.

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The beauty about it is that when you're drinking, you do funny things sometimes and you think that you're in full control but you don't realize that you're not in full control because your brain is not reacting normally and your brain thinks you are in full control. The beauty with those sobriety goggles is that your brain is in full control and your decision-making system is not because of the effect that those goggles have on your sight, on your balance and on your brain. As a result, doing an exercise with those goggles on, you can really realize how much of a fool you can be when you're drinking and trying to do something or how your brain isn't really working the way it's supposed to be.

The sobriety goggles, we have only a couple of them and we go to a class of 30 and it takes like about 45 minutes to make them go all through but they just have to walk in a straight line and they can't. Many people with those goggles can't put them on and walk from here to the other end of the room and avoid the gentleman sitting over there in the chair. They will bump into him or they will fall over on the green chairs. We brought them for you to try after the presentation just to give you an idea of how bad it can be sometimes.

Another one is that we will buy tricycles, at least two of them, hopefully three, where I just put a straight circuit here but at the local detachment, we have a member who does the rodeo ride, the bicycle ride for kids and he has all the stop signs and the cones and the yields and everything. So we are going to buy a kit that comes like that and we are going to take his diagram where you are going to be able to have a figure-eight shape or something like that and those two will represent two drivers in their vehicles. Again they are going to have to drive those tricycles in the gymnasium through a miniature roadway with the effect of being impaired and they are going to be synchronized in a way that one is going to have to yield to the other and things like that. Anything we can come up with to make the attendants to those presentations realize that, hey, I lived it; oh my God, this is how I am when I drive drunk? We, in our opinion, will take people off the road very clearly, no doubt about it.

[9:45 a.m.]

In my concluding comments, the Visitation Program, when fully in place, will permit members of the Digby County Chapter to be versatile in promoting the mission of MADD at any place required and to deliver the proper product of awareness to individual, specific audiences. Being a good organization means that all necessary steps must be taken to protect the general public and the potential victims of the crime of impaired driving. The steps that we are taking to improve the Visitation Program will better protect the public and will reduce the likelihood of having more innocent victims being killed by impaired drivers on our roads. No one wants to be the next victim.

Alcohol traffic fatalities are socially accepted murders. The new Visitation Program of MADD Digby County Chapter will save lives. Who knows, it could be yours, ladies and gentlemen, it could be mine. One thing I know is that each lecture we do - each lecture - it doesn't matter if it's an official audience or a bunch of high school kids, each lecture that we

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do, I know down deep inside, we do reach at least one person. We don't reach them all, but we reach one.

Numbers I can give you, I investigated a major crash that was really bad. The driver and the passenger were very seriously hurt. The medical bill to the province was $725,000. I know, I called the insurance company, the private investigator who did the job, the investigation on the civil side, but it was $725,000 and one of them was still in the hospital at that time.

For our project, we're asking for $117,240 and each presentation we do, I know deep down inside that we reach one person; one person will stop drinking and driving, at least one. How do we know that? Because we get feedback from those people that they, six months down the road, somebody I always suspected of being an impaired driver, starts leaving his car home when he goes out and walks instead of driving, takes a cab, drives with a friend. We see it after every presentation we do no matter the age or the social class of the audience. In my book, that's a lot of money saved for the government. That's a lot of money saved in the pockets of the taxpayers and that's why I strongly believe that if the government is willing to invest in a project like this, I promise you that there will be savings. It will save lives, injuries, the trauma that the victims' families have to go through and money.

Unfortunately, because we cannot read the future, I am unable to tell you how much you're going to save because I don't know how many accidents we're going to prevent, but I know we will. This project is a one-time investment. It is designed with sponsors and with private industry and with the participation of MADD at the national level where once it's in place, we're running with it. It's not a project where you're going to see me back here year after year or Ms. Susan MacAskill here year after year, any one of us; well, you know, the project we did, we need $4,000 to buy gas, it's taken care of by awareness.

There are a lot of people who want to help. GM is one of them, we have an insurance company which is a sub-branch of Allstate in Ontario from a Digby local firm, they've offered to supply the liability insurance for free. All the materials that we have, the price is at cost. We have mechanics in Digby who have said when it's time for an oil change for your truck, just buy the oil, don't bother about paying me my $20 an hour for 45 minutes. There are a lot of people interested in this project.

We need it and the reason we need it is not to please us, the reason we need this project is to save lives. It's to save the lives of your children, your life and your grandchildren out there. I haven't lost anyone close to me as a result of an impaired driver, but I have done next of kin and I will tell you, I wouldn't want to be the one receiving the news. It's hard enough to give it. A project like this is going to spread all over western Nova Scotia and once it hits the news and hits the school board at a higher level, I promise you it's going to become a provincial program.

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The RCMP is in line with prevention, the RCMP is in line with anything that can reduce the number of people driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. We're working in partnership, it's our responsibility as a law enforcement organization, it's the responsibility of civilian organizations and also the responsibility of the government in place to work in partnership to help a cause that - please keep in mind - is fully preventable. It's a free murder. You kill somebody while driving impaired, it's a free murder. You get like 18 to 24 months house arrest - if you get 24 months - and you leave people grieving for the rest of their lives. Keep in mind that some of the victims I have had to deal with, that man was the only income in the house with three kids at home. It has a very high social cost and it's fully preventable.

I'm asking you on behalf of MADD Digby County Chapter and myself to please accept this proposal and give it a high-five, because it is going to work. If we need to report to you to show you how it works, we will put in place a reporting system to satisfy you, ladies and gentlemen, that the money you invest in this project is going to be well invested, in the proper manner and it's going to have a very strong positive impact on society. Thank you very much. We're open for questions.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Cecil O'Donnell.

MR. CECIL O'DONNELL: A few years back it was the law that we had to buckle up because it was proven that seatbelts save lives. Today, in most public places, you're not allowed to smoke because we know that second-hand smoke causes cancer and causes death. Why don't you think that it's realistic that we have zero tolerance today? We know that liquor and alcohol and driving causes death.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: There are many countries out there where the tolerance is zero, but even in those countries there are still impaired drivers. The problem that we're approaching here is that I think it's unrealistic to think that there's never going to be an impaired driver on the road. Where we can make the difference is through education and awareness of the consequences of impaired driving. That, I think, is realistic. That I know first-hand by experience and the members working together here on this chapter and myself - of which I am a member of the board - we know that first-hand because we live it every time we meet a group, we get feedback.

It would be great if it were zero tolerance. I fully support that. We're lucky enough that the government in place was able to take it from 80 milligrams down to 50 milligrams of alcohol per millilitre of blood. This is great, but it's obviously not enough. We have reached a point where it doesn't matter how much we pound on peoples' heads with laws,

we have reached a point now where I don't think another law is going to make a difference and we have to start educating people to stop drinking and driving. It's got to start today in a cost-effective manner. I hope this answers your question.

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MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: If I can add to Chris' response, I'm Susan MacAskill and I'm the Assistant Chapter Services Manager for the Atlantic Region out of the national office in Mississauga. My home base is Windsor, Nova Scotia. I am former national president and I have been employed for only a little over a year. Prior to that, I served six years as a volunteer. I am the victim of impaired driving - I have lost two family members, two separate crashes.

Your question is very relevant. It's something that MADD Canada has researched for a number of years. Our organization here in Canada is only 11 years old, but we have done extensive research with professional people who come from professional backgrounds who would know how to access the information that we need. Scientific evidence shows that impairment begins at 0.02 and 0.04. Provincially and most of our governments in Canada have a 0.05 legal limit for administrative license suspensions. Federally, 0.08 is still a Criminal Code offence. We've launched a major campaign to the federal government, we've been visiting Ottawa - the federal justice committee - to bring in recommendations to lower the federal Criminal Code limit to 0.05. We're in that issue right now with the feds, but we recognize impairment begins at 0.02.

Ideally, zero tolerance, we would love to see it, but we know that in reality it's critical at this present time that enforcement is done at 0.08 and that legislation comes in to bring it federally at 0.05 so that those who are driving on our highways, who have consumed minimal amounts of alcohol, are apprehended and taken off our roads. We already know for those who are over 1.0, they will be processed. Law enforcement officers will tell you they cannot bring in a criminal charge under 1.0 because of the Charter of Rights, because of the margin of error and so you get into the court system, it takes them hours to process an impaired driver on their shift and then you go through the whole judicial process and they end up being acquitted or the charge is dropped. So, zero tolerance is ideal - we're not there yet, we want to be, but it's a struggle to bring it back and educating the communities, public awareness, a lot of people take part in the process, but we do want to go there.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Any other questions? Mrs. Baillie.

MRS. MURIEL BAILLIE: I'm interested in your coming to the government looking for funding and of course, you know our fiscal situation. I realize that you have a national group and I'm wondering about funding from your national group. Is there any way that they can help you with your local initiative as far as money goes?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: The national group, there are 50 chapters now, the national group is already - we're here because of the national group. The national group receives donations from different companies that I am aware of and it's redistributed through the chapters. It involves things like population ratio and geographical situation and everything. The national group is at this time already committing to its fullest for our chapter. We've researched it, Helena has sent a formal request, we've made telephone calls. We are at our

[Page 14]

maximum funding availability from the national office, as it stands for now, at the point where I know first-hand that every one of us, for the program to carry on, we all invest our own money; we all invest our own time and our own money on top of what we receive to make the program go. Because of these efforts, it is important that we do go further than that because we have learned first-hand and that's why we're here.

Yes, I understand - lately, when it came up two weeks ago, I said, yes, I wish that the last reunion that was set up in February didn't get cancelled. The only answer I can give you after I pass the mike to Susan is, I know we will save you money. You're looking to save money? Here's a program that's going to save money. It's not going to say at the end of your budget, we've got $2.5 million saved because of this program, but it's money because it's not going to be spent on crashes. The government will be able to redistribute to offer better health care services or better roads in other areas. We're giving you a tool - I'm trying to be politically correct here - to improve the financial situation of the government. I'm not kidding - it works. I know it will.

[10:00 a.m.]

MRS. BAILLIE: You're saying spend money to save money.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Well, yes, because it's like retiring; you spend money now to receive money later. It's like putting a new roof on your house to replace one that is leaking; you spend money to save money because you don't want to have two feet of water in your living room. This is the roof on your house.

MRS. BAILLIE: You made your point.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: MADD Canada is a grassroots, volunteer-based organization that is totally self-supporting. We do professional fundraising through direct mail outs - you've probably received our information packets in the mail asking you to submit a financial donation or make a commitment on a regular basis and you would receive a token gift in appreciation for your donation. We also raise funds professionally across the country by telemarketing - when you get those annoying calls asking you to donate, that's us, we're one of those. We raise millions of dollars that way annually.

Because we have 50 chapters across the country - we are in every province except Prince Edward Island and in the Northwest Territories; we are in the Yukon - our budget is very high and we do disburse our funds at the chapter level based on, as Chris said, population and the area that the chapter can service geographically. So, grants are awarded to the chapters as they meet compliance requirements; the amount of the grant is dependent on the geographical area that the chapter serves.

[Page 15]

Our corporate sponsors are Bank of Montreal, Shoppers Drug Mart, Hallmark Cards, Allstate Insurance. Chris has already mentioned that there are some of these corporate sponsors who are willing to support this project, if you agree to commit the funds to it initially. He's already indicated that Allstate will be a strong supporter of the project as it's been proposed today. We do have a person on staff in our national office and her responsibility is to raise the funds to finance the function of MADD Canada so we can accomplish our mission.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Chataway.

MR. JOHN CHATAWAY: I would certainly like to compliment you all for this very good presentation. It really is, it's very good to see what you are doing and certainly I very much appreciate what you're doing across Canada too. You have 50 units in Canada and it takes millions of dollars to do that, but it's very effective, I'm sure. Christian, you've done a wonderful presentation, you've given a lot of good thought to what you're thinking of and how important it is and I certainly appreciated Helena's introduction. I wonder how many people really involved in MADD have had an unfortunate accident. We must encourage them to join. I don't know if you keep figures on that.

MRS. WINCHESTER: National does.

MR. CHATAWAY: Yes, I would imagine it sees half - any tragedy, especially when it's so sudden, not expected, but it's still - well, for the rest of your life you go on memories.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Our membership is probably about 60/40. There are many non-victim people involved as well and we certainly appreciate the fact that they consider this to be a serious social issue and they want to join with an organization to combat in the fight against drinking and driving. Typically, our organization has grown across the country because, as in Helena and Roger's situation in the death of their son, they wanted to try to do whatever they could in their community to help keep this from happening to other people by raising awareness and inviting MADD to come. They've agreed to serve in their local community at the chapter level. That's how our organization has grown until the last few years.

In the western part of the country and in Ontario, there are many people in communities and rural areas who have taken a proactive approach and said, no, I haven't been personally affected, but I do want to begin a MADD chapter here, and they contact our national office and go through the process.

One of my responsibilities as a staff person is to develop the organization in the Atlantic Region. I have to penetrate into communities, generate an interest with local citizens and business people and stakeholders in this issue in the health and education fields, and gather a group of people who will serve on a volunteer basis. We've recently chartered a

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chapter in the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, in the Stephenville-Corner Brook area and our newest chapter is MADD Pictou County. We have a new chapter there and the chapter launch date will be during Police Week in May, so we're very pleased that that's the fourth chapter in this province. So we are continually growing and that chapter has come, not because there's been a specific recent crash and victims have contacted us, but because the people in the communities of Pictou, Trenton, New Glasgow and Stellarton want to be proactive in the fight against drinking and driving.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: If I can add to this, for our territory, one of the reasons our goal is to reach at first the Southwest Regional School Board, is because at this time Digby County Chapter covers from Bridgetown to Digby, Meteghan detachment, Yarmouth rural RCMP, Yarmouth town RCMP, Barrington, Shelburne, Bridgewater and back here. When there's a request coming in this area, we are the closest. Obviously when I'm satisfied that this project would go ahead is, it's going to be a matter of redefining our area, which will redefine the funding, which will redefine the instalment of satellite offices instead of duplicating the cost of running a chapter with satellite offices and everything, all that put together.

It's not only for Digby town. We're serving a large basis of population for a little town of 2,107 people, as per the last statistics from several weeks ago. We're only 2,100 people in Digby and we're the closest hands-on for anything that's happening with MADD or fatalities as a result of an impaired driver for the whole western loop from Bridgetown all around to Bridgewater and back in. I think I'm correct on citing these unless anything has come up in the past two weeks.

MR. CHATAWAY: I represent around Hubbards and Lunenburg County and I do know that various schools, basically before this interesting life that I have now, I was a school teacher for 29 years so I am aware that various high schools did put shows on. I would certainly like to compliment you because it isn't one person in Digby or this location or that location thinking it, but many people have put in and now you've got a very good show. As you say, you have about an hour show or a 40 minute show and it's very effective in dealing with people of different points of view and different attitudes, and you have a very good show so it's very important.

I think the idea as you suggested, when you go along, you want to have it in the back of a trailer or something, just unfold this and there's the show and in five minutes it's set up and the people trained to use it and . . .

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Just like when the circus comes to town.

[Page 17]

[10:09 a.m. Mr. Kerry Morash took the Chair.]

MR. CHATAWAY: Exactly. Absolutely. So it's a good idea. Of course, I think at some time or another I would like to know more about the budget that you people work on, but have you really appealed to the people that make alcohol, like the big breweries or the big Seagrams, et cetera, people like this? I do know around Christmas they used to say, yes, alcohol is involved around Christmas, but use it wisely. I think they should most likely give money to further your cause because, just like many things in life, if you abuse it it's bad but if you use it wisely, as you've said, drinking and driving are legal activities. But if they mix up, that's wrong. Just, maybe getting money on that.

The other thing is, I know you are indeed RCMP, but police authorities, of course, go through life and they not only catch people doing things badly but part of their budget, I'm sure, is to prevent accidents. I'm sure that any policing authority should also be looking at contributions. I just wonder also in education.

[10:11 a.m. Ms. Mary Ann McGrath resumed the Chair.]

CST. THIBAUDEAU: The first part I will let Susan talk about because you will hear it from the top, her being at the national level. The second part of it, each RCMP detachment of 9 or 10 people or more - I'm not sure - the province has put on the responsibility of the municipalities and the town to cost share what we call PCR people - public relations community people. What happens there is those people do lectures, do presentations in the schools, but it's a standard in fields that are pre-set by the provincial government and by the local governments. Those fields are senior citizen Hug-A-Tree programs, they do drug use with the DARE Program that set foot this school year in Nova Scotia which has proven very effective and very appealing to the young population. Actually, those programs are already predetermined and the budgets for those positions come from the municipality and the town.

We're in a situation where we, as a law enforcement outfit, have taken the task of the municipality and the towns around this province to a maximum for cost of policing in communities. I can fairly say that when this project hits the pavement - you worked at the national level more than I, Susan - and once this is up and running, I guarantee you that there's going to be a demand for the whole province because the problem is across the province - from Yarmouth to Cape Breton - it's everywhere. It won't take long for this project to get out of our jurisdiction. The PCR people, that's where they will come into play.

The long-term plan for this is - I have a job to do, I cannot take days off week after week, five days a week, to do lectures in Cape Breton - the long-term plan is to make a proposal to the commanding officer and the public liaison officer of the RCMP to have training. We are designing the lecture. The lecture will have one format and nobody - RCMP or local citizen - is going to be authorized by us to do this presentation unless they receive the two day training that we are going to set up, once a year maybe. We're going to go to

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those people and say, this is the lecture you will give, this is the program for the presentation, and we're going to ask the commanding officer to make this a priority for all PCR people in detachments for this to become part of their duties to make sure that it reaches as many kids and other audiences as it can.

As a result of that, once the commanding officer says yes, I like it, and once you say you like it and you say, yes, go ahead, the commanding officer is not going to go against a program in place that has been approved by the government. Of course, it's going to be a yes. Then it will only be a matter that the public relations officer from Bridgewater says, Chris, I have two weeks set for presentations at my school; yes, no problem, here are the keys, here's the van, here's the trailer, here we go, and you do the presentation pre-formatted.

MR. CHATAWAY: What encouragement do you have from the Department of Education?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: The Department of Education actually has been to their financial limit, they have been very co-operative with us by giving us the time, by giving us a free room, free access, all our meetings are taken care of in the school, they don't charge us for the activities and I know that the school is paying the labour to clean up after us. So, I think they are also stressed financially and they are helping us the best they can with what they have to work with. We have full co-operation in Digby, Bridgetown and Meteghan from the schools there, but financially, I think that they expended their budget the best they could on other priorities.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. CHATAWAY: You have the Department of Education, of course the school boards in various areas, does one school board teach you all the same or in certain areas they may feel that your cause is more needed in their schools than say another area? Anybody in that responsibility has all sorts of requests to do this, to do that, to do things and they have to make a choice so they sometimes make a choice . . .

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Operation Prom Night is a great example which didn't happen in 2001 because the students were moving from one school to the other and it was not physically possible to do it. With Operation Prom Night, what is happening is that the school director meets with his teachers, meets with the guidance counsellor and I was there at those meetings, I know it is happening - and they switched, the whole schedule twisted around and teachers will stay a bit later or they will come earlier to make sure the students are still getting the quality of education so they can be free every day for five days for two or three hours to participate in our activities and so on and so forth. Like I am saying, I worked with other school boards before and the answer was, sorry, if you can't fit it in my schedule there is nothing I can do.

[Page 19]

In Digby and the Southwest Regional School Board, the person we have dealt with in Shelburne, I don't remember her name, they have been bending backward for us and also for the students because to answer your question, yes they think it is very important that the student population receive the awareness with impaired driving. Impaired driving, we are not only talking alcohol, we are talking drugs too. Like in our presentation, drugs and alcohol go together. They think it is very important and they help us. They are very effective, they are very nice with us but I cannot talk for school boards outside of southwestern Nova Scotia because southwestern Nova Scotia is only place I have worked in Nova Scotia since I have been here. Question No. 1.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: The alcohol industry, that would link with the comments I made earlier about zero tolerance. That is one of the main reasons that, realistically, we aren't going to have zero tolerance for it is hard to say how long, but because the alcohol industry, the brewers and hospitality industry have such a stakehold interest in the circulation of alcohol and the consumption and its use, that's why we have to be having open lines of communication with the industry. When we approach our provincial governments we usually sit prior to in consultation with one another so that when we come with the request we know, realistically, what will bring in the balance in saving lives and accomplishing our mission and what's appropriate for the use of alcohol and safe driving issues on our highways.

With regard to your question, we do not receive funds. We do not take funds from the industry because we are self-supporting and we rely on donors across the country. We have 4 billion supporters. We rely on those funds to promote the work and mission of MADD Canada and we do not rely on the industry for any funds.

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, I listened to a couple of the questions that were raised earlier with regard to your financial proposal and funding suggestions that we go back to liquor companies and so on and so forth. Here, in Nova Scotia, one of the biggest cash cows we have is owned by the provincial government and that is the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation with an average rate of return of 35 per cent for every dollar invested. I haven't heard anyone make any suggestion or any comment to the effect that perhaps this agency should be a contributor to your proposal. Has your organization made any requests of the liquor commission directly to that?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: No requests for funds, no.

MR. MACKINNON: Would you consider that as a possibility?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: I believe the answer would be no at this point. As Chris indicated in his presentation, it's not criminal to drink, it's not criminal to drive but when the two are combined, that's when we have tragedy and loss of life and injury. So that's what our promotion is for, to save lives.

[Page 20]

MR. MACKINNON: Perhaps, Madam Chairman, I miscommunicated my verbiage there. Would your organization be prepared to make an official request to the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation to receive part of your funding, your proposal for funding?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Not at this point.

MR. MACKINNON: And why not? If you are prepared to look at liquor companies, why wouldn't you look at the Liquor Corporation?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Okay, continue on with your thought. If we are prepared to go . . .

MR. MACKINNON: Well, here in Nova Scotia, recently, the Nova Scotia Government just expanded its liquor outlet program to make liquor more accessible to Nova Scotians and I believe at the time - the minister made the announcement last year - these private outlets, that for the sake of convenience, to be able to access liquor outlets within 15 minutes or so.

Last night I saw on the news where the government said, well it would be within the norm, the national standard, to be able to access emergency health care services within 20 minutes, thereby closing the emergency outlets for community hospitals in various communities around the province. Looking at it holistically, we are talking about the cost of health care, we are talking about the social costs, and the quality of a government is measured not only on the cost sheet side of the equation, but how it deals with certain social issues. This is all integrated.

I would suggest, I mean the laws have been changed to make alcohol more accessible in the casinos, that's a big cash cow. We have the Liquor Corporation. In fact, if you come looking to the government for money, whether it comes out of general revenues or from the profits of the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, it's all one and the same. That is my question. Why wouldn't you go to the very source of where the problem starts? I know it is complicated, but essentially you are looking for money.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Yes, and at this point our proposal is to the provincial government for a one-time grant and then beyond that, because we have a commitment from sponsors, we know that it will support itself. (Interruptions)

CST. THIBAUDEAU: We haven't done any because I'm aware of national policy where we don't take funds from the drinking industry because we don't want to create a double standard, basically, and I'm sure that Susan explained the reason very clearly from the national point of view.

[Page 21]

MR. MACKINNON: Maybe I could make one final comment on that, Madam Chairman. Perhaps that is the dichotomy, that is a bit of a contradiction because the Nova Scotia Government depends heavily on gambling for revenue. In fact, Nova Scotia has the highest - that's percentage of the total budget - gambling in Nova Scotia is the highest of all the other provinces and that is in part because of the regulations to make alcohol accessible. As well, the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation is an agency of the government so whether you take it out of the Department of Justice budget or you take it out of the Department of Education budget, the money is all coming from the same. Why not go right to the source and say okay, look, if you folks are part of the problem, you should be part of the solution.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: We are coming to the source. We are coming to the source of the people who manage that money of all those departments. We are coming to the source of the people who say okay, that dollar, we will spend it there. I'm sure that if I approached the manager of the Liquor Corporation, he is going to send me to the government.

MR. MACKINNON: But if you went to the minister responsible for the Liquor Corporation, that would be the same thing. Anyway, if I could fast-forward, because I know everybody wants to ask some questions.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Okay, I see your question. We made the proposal to Gordon Balser to be taken, at first, before the Health Department because in our issue at the time, it is a health problem. Also, like a criminal problem. There are a lot of problems involved in impaired driving but we thought that by approaching the Health Department that, hey, we are offering to help the department to save money. Then things didn't work out that way. I'm not a politician. Politics got involved, blah, blah, blah and numerous conversations occurred between our chapter, myself, local councillors in the Municipality of Digby and the local MLA, and we were directed - I was told, and first-hand - to the people who make the decisions, who make the right decisions. That's why we were directed here and that's why we're here.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you.

MR. RICHARD FOX: There was one point related to your question. We are a local chapter and we must operate within the parameters that our national office has set for us. So therefore, we can't approach the alcohol industry on a local level.

MR. MACKINNON: Directly.

MR. RICHARD FOX: Yes.

MR. MACKINNON: I think, to be clear, what I'm saying is, I support your initiative, it's just cutting through the icing and getting to the cake. I know what you are doing is going through the proper process and effectively, I think I'm safe in saying, our caucus fully

[Page 22]

supports your application for this financial assistance. Obviously it is the government that will have to make that decision. I think it's a very worthy one. I thought I would highlight those other variables because they all tie together, much the same way the Nova Scotia Department of Health subsidizes the American insurance industry.

If I'm working on the job and I get injured and I have to have some extended health care, that's charged back to the employer through the no-fault insurance fund, the workers' compensation system. To a limited degree, the Department of Health, yes, with certain instances as you have mentioned, officer, but not all the time. So the American insurance industry is getting a free ride in Nova Scotia. This is an issue with several governments in the past. So I wanted to flag that.

I also wanted to compliment you on the school program. I think that's important. I'm just wondering, have you had any strategies or do you have a strategy to deal with the issue of peer pressure? Obviously that's a major issue.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Our national office launched an initiative approximately one year ago. We have hired to our staff a youth coordinator, nationally across the country, and she works with levels of teen peers and young adults up to age 24. What we have done is placed in every province a youth advocate and that Grade 12 or university-age student, is responsible for conducting the youth work of MADD at the provincial level, meeting with government bodies, bringing public awareness into the education system and the instructions that come down from our national youth coordinator.

Under that student, there will be youth who will be trained at the school level to be the peer in their school and there is an opportunity this summer for students in areas across this province and all provinces to go to the University of Toronto and attend what we are calling Power Camp, where MADD Canada will train these students to come back to the local communities and be the peer student for social issues, specifically the use and abuse of alcohol, and to be effective in their own student body. That training, for those who will be the instructors at the U of T, is taking place under MADD U.S. direction in Austin, Texas, in two weeks and I will be flying down there to be taking the training, so I will be involved in the instructing of these students across the country at the U of T in August, this summer, so we have just launched into that area.

We recognize that because many provinces have brought in the graduated license legislation, with the zero tolerance in alcohol, the whole social outlook is changing in our young people, generally speaking. There are still some who will take risks, but we feel that that will take us a long way to making our highways a safer place to be as we change the mindset of our Canadian youth. That's the way we've launched the project, so we're getting there.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you, Madam Chairman.

[Page 23]

[10:30 a.m.]

CST. THIBAUDEAU: To answer your question, sir, at our chapter level, we are in a process - it's in its infancy, but it's there - where a previous member of MADD who was involved in Operation Prom Night, working closely with us, is back locally. He is coming back with us. We have been working on at least one person, 15 years old, to be involved in the school. Roger and Helena Winchester are presently working with the school principal at Digby Regional High School to create a liaison between youth, us and MADD - local and at a higher level - to facilitate the message and to facilitate the prevention, to reduce alcohol use behind the wheel and drug use behind the wheel.

Let's face it, I'm sure that our school in Digby is not the only school. The rate of drugs in our schools is phenomenal. There are a lot of drugs being used in the schools in this province. There are a lot of drugs being used by youth. Alcohol during school hours, how do they get their drugs? They drive a vehicle. That's where we kick in. Our program is to make sure that they don't get in that vehicle, to sensitize them down deep inside.

I'm sure many of you had the chance before to speak to a youth audience at some point in your political life. There are always a couple of smart alecks in the back or on the sides; they laugh, they have a smirk on their face, something. Well, I guarantee you that when they attend our lectures, the smile and the smirks go down real quickly because it is real-life people talking to them. Once reality kicks in, I have seen the toughest guys at Digby Regional High School have tears during our presentations because we go and get them emotionally right in their heart and in their soul. That's what we have to continue to do at a higher efficiency level, but our local program is kind of trailing behind the national one by the time it gets to us and we get going and find the people. But we're working on it, to answer your question.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Kerry Morash.

MR. KERRY MORASH: I just have a couple of quick questions. One, I was wondering - you may have already mentioned it - how many chapters we have in Atlantic Canada.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: There are four in Nova Scotia. The Province of New Brunswick, I don't know if you are familiar with their provincial legislation or not, but they lag way behind. Two years ago we released a report rating the provinces in areas of impaired driving laws and insurance, five key areas. It wasn't for the purpose of making us look good or bad across the country, the purpose of that report was to identify areas where we, MADD Canada, can partner with provincial governments to promote highway safety and make our roads a safer place to be. So Nova Scotia scored a C, the highest score was a C+ and that was British Columbia and Ontario, New Brunswick had an F; so there is a significant difference in the areas of what legislation is in place to combat impaired.

[Page 24]

Now in the last couple of years, Nova Scotia slipped behind. There will be a report released again this summer and we are not going to score as well, because the legislation that has been proposed has not been enacted yet so we need to push our government that way. However, in Nova Scotia there are four. In New Brunswick what we have are community leaders. We did have a chapter in Saint John, but there were some internal issues so we are realigning that chapter. In Grand Manan we have a community leader, and in Newfoundland, St. John's, on the west coast side, Stephenville, Corner Brook and Goose Bay, Labrador, and we do have a community leader in Mary's Harbour in Newfoundland.

In P.E.I. there is no presence of MADD. I have been there and other representatives from the national office, our executive director and our director of legal policy have been there to present to highway safety groups and we have not been able to generate an interest there. The mindset there is it's not a problem. So we really still need to be working on the educational piece.

Unfortunately, what I feel, someone will be killed and that will be the jolt and then we will be able to get started. I really don't want to have that day come but, in reality, I believe that's how it will start in Prince Edward Island. So they are not open to us just coming in and starting there yet. It is on request. There is no cost to the local people to set up a chapter.

MR. MORASH: My question was with regard to a trailer, if there was one, how would we maximize its use in Atlantic Canada and ensure that it's used by everyone, nobody is going without?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: I'm surprised you haven't gotten to that question sooner because this was birthed out of the Digby Chapter but, in reality, with manpower, it could go right across Atlantic Canada. It probably could be a model for the country.

MR. MORASH: Chris has covered, I guess, with regard to the RCMP, perhaps passing the keys from one chapter to another, but I was just wondering if there were any discussions as to how you would do that if the RCMP were not as directly involved as they are in your situation.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: MADD Canada would oversee the process and we would have protocol and criteria for engaging the unit in different communities and it would be well organized and make sure that all of the legal issues would be covered insurance-wise and the maintenance of the vehicle and so on. The housekeeping pieces would be overseen by our national office.

MR. MORASH: I was quite sure you'd have an answer, but I thought I would ask the question.

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MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: I am surprised it wasn't the first one; I really thought it would be.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Cecil O'Donnell.

MR. O'DONNELL: I noticed that the Digby chapter first started in 1997. Did the government of the day give you initial funding to start up or have you received funding or is this your first-time request?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: This is the first request. We've received no government funds to date, at all.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Any other questions?

MR. MACKINNON: Just a few housekeeping ones. The second component of your submission is to support victims of this violent crime. I know under the victims compensation program the issue of impaired driving is not included. Has there been a request made to the provincial government and, if so, what has been the response?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: We have participated in round table meetings with the provincial bodies to give input in that area, and so we are invited probably once or twice a year to come as representatives of MADD and give our victim perspective on what we feel is appropriate so that would become included in the compensation package.

MR. MACKINNON: Is there any indication that it will be included in the near future?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: I don't have anything as of yet to say yes by such-and-such a date, no.

MR. MACKINNON: There was that, and I guess I was a little concerned because they did cut back the funding in the 2000 budget, they shifted the funding. They took a lot of the funding for the victims of crime and they put it into general revenues and just left enough in there for what they call counselling, the psychological, but that doesn't really address some of the major, that's the aspect that you're looking for.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: That's right.

MR. MACKINNON: One other question Madam Chairman, is with regard to the sign laws that just came into effect in Nova Scotia. Has there been any discussion with your organization on this issue or has this new sign law had any impact on your white cross program?

[Page 26]

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: I am sorry, I am not familiar with the sign law.

MR. MACKINNON: Well, here in Nova Scotia the Minister of Transportation and Public Works introduced a new signage law for advertising and billboards and the like, which includes everything . . .

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Okay, for road side?

MR. MACKINNON: Yes.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Okay, and your question about the crosses is?

MR. MACKINNON: The white cross program that your organization has, has there been any discussion with the Department of Transportation as to how this new signage law would impact?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: I am not able to answer your question this morning. Our white cross program is implemented through the Halifax Metro Chapter. The purpose for that is because they would have the contact people and we like the Department of Transportation and Public Works to be speaking with the same - I am sorry, were you indicating . . .

MR. MACKINNON: I am sorry, there are two other ladies sitting who are indicating that they probably have some insight on that. (Interruption) No? There was no discussion?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: No, but we do like to have a common contact and so the Halifax Regional Chapter implement, through the Department of Transportation and Public Works, those placements all across the province.

Just to go back to your previous question about victim support. MADD Canada does train nationally at the local community level; advocates to do victim support, to do court accompaniment, to access information, to do referrals to appropriate services that are available to victims of crime and we do circulate printed material that we leave in funeral homes, doctors' offices, police stations. It's a packet called We Care and in that is a breakdown of any of the services that you might need to access assistance or help from. We also, at a higher level, offer instruction to our law enforcement officers in the notification of death, and that's a training that we conduct across the country to police officers who are interested in participating in that training so they're more effective when they have to do that notification.

Those are other areas that we cover in our support to victims. We don't actually issue dollar support, we do it in terms of assistance and services.

[Page 27]

MR. RICHARD FOX: I could speak to the issue of support. My wife Elizabeth and I lost our 22 year old son in an alcohol-related car crash about three years ago. If you have children, you can only imagine what the sudden and tragic loss of a child can do to you emotionally. It was MADD Digby County Chapter which came to our aid, and the emotional support we received from them, not only in the immediate aftermath of the crash but in the ongoing aftermath involving the court situation, the support was wonderful. Without it, I don't know what we would have done.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: If I could add to your signage, I believe the new law - is there something in the works about no signs on the side of the road on 100-Series Highways up to 500 feet, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth?

MR. MACKINNON: One kilometre?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: That was an issue, I believe, over the news two years ago about those crosses because they were within that. The only thing I can say for being involved in the laying of the cross for Nathan Winchester, and they have been involved in the cross for Jamie Fox is a cross is not laid until it gets permission from the Department of Transportation. So, there is a link there somewhere. I don't know at which level, but somebody within the government approves this and so far they've been A-1. We have never had a bad experience or a thorn in somebody's foot about it, they're very compassionate and they've been very helpful.

MR. CHATAWAY: I don't pretend to be an expert on the sign business, as far as I know this is for permanent signs, not temporary things like that. So along the road, if you had a cross raised, it isn't there forever and ever, it's there for a certain length of time and I would think that the Department of Transportation, just phone them, they have an expert right there.

MR. MACKINNON: The crosses are permanent.

MR. CHATAWAY: Is it always permanent? Forever permanent? Oh, I see. You mentioned to Kerry's questions about various things you leave across Canada as assistance to somebody who suffers tragedy. I would very much like a copy of the brochures, things like that, and maybe the whole committee would like something if that's possible.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Certainly. How many copies would you need of our information?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Nine.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: We do printed pamphlets too, to families who have been affected by impaired - Your Loved One Drinks and Drives, Don't Call Me Lucky! If You're An Injured Victim, Men and Mourning and Closed Head Injury - those are pamphlets we've

[Page 28]

published to circulate to families who have been affected in addition to our We Care packet that we leave in the funeral homes. We have a national victims' services co-ordinator on staff and she has a social work background and it's her responsibility to oversee and approve all of our printed material.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I have a couple of questions of my own. Susan, I think the first one is probably yours. You alluded to a downgrading of our report card because there were a couple of initiatives that hadn't been followed through on. Can you tell me what those are?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: They would be the ignition interlock. We've asked the province to bring in legislation whereby judges could use that in the process of sentencing if they're allowing a repeat offender to have the privilege of driving again. Chris explained how that technology works. I believe in 1999 that legislation was proclaimed but not enacted. Is that the way it's . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I think it's been on the discussion paper to be included in legislation. Can you tell me, have there been any studies or any information from areas that have used it. I know one of the questions I have heard in conjunction with that particular legislation is, how it would affect a family. You talk about the breadwinner who's more often than not perhaps the offender, then you have a single-vehicle family - this is an expensive piece of equipment - how does this impact on a low income family when if they can't afford the ignition device, what do they do? Is there any information about how this program rolls out across the country when you're dealing with that socio-economic impact?

[10:45 a.m.]

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: First of all, it is user pay. It costs about the equivalent of a drink a day.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Over what period of time?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: For as long as the sentence is imposed. So it would cost $3.00 or $4.00 a day to have this device in your vehicle. It has to be serviced every 30 days and there are specific points for you to take the unit and your vehicle in to be serviced so it can't malfunction.

In the situation of your first question, let's use this scenario: you and I are sisters, we live in the same household. I have been charged with repeat. If I am going to be allowed to get my license back, it's been a part of my sentencing that I must have that installed and you and I share a vehicle for our own personal use, you too would be eligible to take the training, to activate the device, even though you aren't considered to be a risk. But, in order for you to continue on with the privilege and necessity to drive the vehicle as well, you too can take

[Page 29]

the blow and hum sequence. It's applied over a specific period of time and then your ignition will engage. You're just as eligible to learn how to do that as I am. I am the risk, you're not, but unfortunately, that's what happens when there are people in our lives who are risk takers - we're affected by the consequences of their choices. You are only restricted in the fact that you choose not to learn how to do this, otherwise, life is normal.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: But the machine is attached to the family vehicle and it won't function unless whoever is behind the wheel activates the machine.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Exactly.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: So, I am given to understand that the provincial government is the owner of the machines and they're on a user pay basis - rented out to the people who have to have them?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: We have a company who leases them called Guardian Interlock and I believe we've had a representative at our provincial government to actually demonstrate the device. Guardian Interlock.

The value of this is that an offender becomes rehabilitated. They can stay in jail forever - well, nobody does - but when you come out you can go back to the same type of social behaviours and so you never really change your social actions and continue to place people at risk. With interlock, you drive sober, you don't have any choice. That's the beauty of it.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: So, it's not that the family involved has to outlay a big sum of money to buy this piece of equipment, they have to arrange to lease it through this company for the period of time.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: And it's been effective. The provinces of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have had high success rates in reducing the re-offender occurrence.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: If I can, Madam Chairman, the legal point of view and the practical point of view of a highway patrol officer is that if you have a device like that in your vehicle, the way the device works is if you blow a warning or a fail, that's it. Tow truck. The device will not permit the computer system in the car to restart even if you cut the wires, throw it in the ditch and try the key, the computer system in there has been affected. There's one way that vehicle is going to be able to move and that's behind a tow truck or on a flat bed.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Until a certain period of time passes and you . . .

[Page 30]

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Until the vehicle and the device is taken back to the servicer and then at that time - now in comes the provincial legislation, like in Alberta, where every 30 days you have to report to your station within two days - they then download the information from the chip inside the device into the main computer. They look, they say, 0.04, 0.03, 0.04, okay, we gave you a break, we gave you your license back, but now they re-suspend the license for an indefinite period of time. It's not only that you prevent the guy from drinking and driving - oh, my car won't start I am drunk, well that's okay I walk away. No, that's not how it works because the system works is that by doing that you went, you blew, you got a red light, you're drunk, the car won't start, it shows that you had the intent to drive while drinking and it's the intent that is important.

This gizmo will tell you, call your server, this car will not start. You call the server once you're sober and the server will send a tow truck, tow the whole unit out. The investigating police officer is being contacted at a local detachment, wherever you were given the sentence. The matter is being investigated. Your driver's license is suspended. You are brought back before a board of the motor vehicle branch and your driver's license is suspended on the spot. They decide for how long because keep in mind that owning a driver's license in Canada is a privilege, not a right. It is a privilege, like a little kid I think, is candy every day at 3:00 p.m. that can be removed at any time.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: What is the limit at which the device disables the car?

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: Ten days to the notice, until your maintenance period . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: No, no. I mean if you attempted to drive and you have had a drink over some period of time, what is the limit at which the vehicle disables the car?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: I have it in my package but it has been a couple of months since I gave a presentation with a device so it is not right off hand but it is safe. It's for public safety, it's for the family members of that guy or that woman. It is to protect people and I believe it works and it should be in this province quickly.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: And in other jurisdictions, say you were in that situation and you flunked and you got your license re-suspended, would the device stay on the car to make sure that you didn't continue to attempt to drive the car if it is . . .

CST. THIBAUDEAU: I can't comment on that. I would assume that . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: It would depend on the jurisdiction.

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: It is up to the judge.

[Page 31]

CST. THIBAUDEAU: It is up to the judge, yes.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Oh, okay. That was that one. Were there any statistics, just during the period of time that you have been piloting the program that you have in place in Digby, do you have any statistical information about any levels that would have been in place for drinking and driving incidents in Digby with youth that are there now?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: I can proudly say that since we started this program, I say it proudly but then you guys can say, well, if it works, why bother? We started a program in the year 2000 and we haven't had a fatal due to alcohol.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Among this age group.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Since we started this program. The problem, we still have a lot of accidents that are injuries. Two of them, all right, it is not fatal but the person spent like nine months plugged into a machine in a coma and is now a vegetable for life. You know what I mean, where do you cut the line to say, we didn't have a fatal, well, they don't need a program. Yes, we do.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: How many would you have had before, do you know?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Keep in mind that the Digby area is a small one, in 1994 there was a quadruple fatal in Barton where a drunk driver on Scallop Days drove drunk and hit four people, aged 17, 16, 20 and 22, I believe, who all died on impact. There has been another incident that I was involved in in 1997 where a lady returning home at night got run over by somebody, left for dead in the ditch, and somebody walking their dog the next morning found the body and the bicycle in the ditch. What other fatal we had (Interruption) Pardon me? We had Nathan, September 6, 1995, Helena's son and Roger's son was killed with his friend and the offender. Same thing again, Highway No. 101, Nathan there in the vehicle not drinking. It is 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. They are returning home from purchasing an ATV or something like that and somebody just fully drunk, with a high level of alcohol comes across the line, and bang, head on. Three dead, one with serious injuries. The other one that we had, that I am thinking, was the Fox family, May 1999, I believe. The son is a passenger in a vehicle and the vehicle was pushed off the road in some way and he is killed because they hit a telephone pole or a tree on the passenger side.

We have a high rate. In the Municipality of Clare, they have fatal accidents every year. They are either related to just a fluke accident due to impairment or due to human stupidity behind the wheel but there is a need for, believe me, it is with my heart that I am telling you that there is a need for a prevention program, an awareness program to be established in Digby County and beyond.

[Page 32]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Are there any other questions? Well, this is the part where I tell you that this committee has absolutely no fund-granting ability. We have no budget and no ability to grant funds. I don't believe we even have the ability to recommend. What we can do is endorse and certainly, before the meeting concludes I would entertain a motion from the committee to endorse your request and provide you with a letter to that effect and write to any government department that you choose to apply to for funding. Funding is done by the various government departments usually specific to certain programs that they are running, but I wouldn't say that a request that didn't fit into a program wouldn't be entertained. We would also be more than happy to support any request to federal programs, which I suspect might be even easier to tap.

MR. MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, if I could, on a point of order. This committee does have the power to make a recommendation.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Yes, a recommendation, but not to grant funds.

MR. MACKINNON: No, not, but you indicated, if I understood you correctly, that the committee did not have the power to make a recommendation. Am I correct? Is that not what she indicated?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: It wasn't what I meant.

MR. MACKINNON: I think Hansard will prove me correct, but we do have the authority to make a recommendation to . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: But it doesn't carry any weight with the department. It is a recommendation of ours.

MR. MACKINNON: I would think an all-Party committee of the Legislature should carry some weight.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: It doesn't guarantee anything, that is what I tried to get to.

MR. MACKINNON: It doesn't guarantee you are going to get up tomorrow morning either, but the point I am making is that we have to show full support to this organization with every legal tool at our disposal.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Oh, absolutely.

MR. MACKINNON: I would certainly put a motion that we recommend full support of this proposal going forward to the respective ministries and urge those respective ministries to collaborate with a view to providing some funding for this proposal as presented today.

[Page 33]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Would you have a suggestion as to the respective ministries?

MR. MACKINNON: I think that would certainly include the Department of Health, Department of Education, Department of Justice and certainly the Minister responsible for the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay, I would concur with those. Nobody can think of any other department that we would tackle at this point? I think that pretty much covers the big ones.

MR. MORASH: If there is anything else that comes up, I am sure we can forward something along at a later date.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: In the interim, though, I would make a couple of suggestions.

MR. MACKINNON: Could we have a vote on that?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Certainly. We might want to amend the motion but (Interruption) I just wanted to make sure there was nothing based on the rest of my comments that we might want to amend the motion. That's the only thing.

MR. MACKINNON: Well, that's open for all members to consider if they want a friendly amendment.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Do you want to vote on the motion now?

MR. MORASH: What's the motion that's on the floor?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: To write a letter of recommendation to the departments that we have cited supporting the request for funding from the Digby Chapter of MADD for this program.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried unanimously.

The other thing I was going to suggest, I know that the Department of Transportation and Public Works has a surplus equipment program whereby they make equipment available that every department across the province has declared surplus. The Department of Transportation and Public Works has the ability to award this equipment to volunteer and community organizations or sell at - and you see the advertisements occasionally for the sale

[Page 34]

surplus equipment, but they do give surplus equipment away. What normally happens is that organizations make a request through the Department of Transportation and Public Works with a list of what they are looking for. If the department has such equipment available for disposal they will advise you and you arrange to pick it up. Now whether that would extend to something like a van, I don't know, but certainly some of the smaller items like projectors and that kind of equipment, I would suspect that that would routinely run through their hands and that might assist in alleviating some of the funding that you would need.

MR. MACKINNON: Madam Chairman, if I may add, they have a large warehouse over in Dartmouth area near Burnside where you can view all of these if it is there.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I'm sure we can provide you with an address and contact, can we not?

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: That's not a problem. Oh yes, the other thing I was going to suggest, and this is just sort of a gut feeling - you indicate that this is going to be a pilot program that would be rolled out eventually across a wider jurisdiction - that if you have any ability to get letters of support or endorsement from other jurisdictions, from the local high school principals as to the effectiveness of what you've done so far or from other MADD chapters that they would be very interested in participating once the program is up and running then those kinds of things lend a province-wide or an area-wide support. In the case of an application for federal funding, they would lend an Atlantic Canada flavour to the thing and any agency that would be considering funding would have a better appreciation that this is something that's going to have a bigger impact than just southwest Nova.

[11:00 a.m.]

MR. MACKINNON: She keeps shifting over to the federal . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Look, I never leave any stone unturned when I am looking for money and I wouldn't advise anybody else to do any differently.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Before you close this session, Madam Chairman, I know we all have busy schedules, but if I can invite you people to the next boardroom to give you an idea of the equipment we use when we do the display. We brought it . . .

MS. SUSAN MACASKILL: And that wasn't all of it.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: What else we have is similar to it. It shows the limitation we have in expanding our program and this is the limit that we have now. If you don't mind taking a few minutes to come in and view it?

[Page 35]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: No, not at all. I want to thank you very much for coming. It's been an extremely informative session from my perspective.

CST. THIBAUDEAU: Don't thank me. You thank the people that set this up.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Can we have about two minutes to discuss future agenda and then we'll adjourn to the opposite boardroom.

To my recollection, we still have to hear back from the youth smoking initiative and they were going to invite us to something? They haven't yet. Is there anybody we can send a letter to asking if they've forgotten about us.

That one is postponed until the commission reports; that one is postponed; we've heard from everybody else that's approved.

Back in November when I held my first meeting - there were a number of initiatives that we put on the table in addition to ones that were already there. I remember we discussed the possibility of Phoenix House in dealing with services for youth and we discussed the possibility of the Children's Aid Society in conjunction with the youth in the system that did the report, the system that doesn't work for us.

There were a few others. Two that might be timely: Sport and Recreation initiated the fitness activity for youth with little fitness activity monitors that they had a bunch of kids wearing. They're supposed to have information . . .

MR. CHATAWAY: I think those vibrators you put around your waist . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: No, it was more like a little pedometer kind of thing. They're supposed to have something ready, I thought, fairly soon for spring and Dr. Brendan Carr is working on a wellness initiative and a support network for family physicians. He indicated when I spoke to him last year that in the spring he would probably have something to report on how that was going and what the initiative might look like. So, any of those things strike anybody as one/ two we could approve to set up for a couple of future meetings?

MR. CHATAWAY: I think they're all informative, but you mentioned Sport and Recreation - I think that would be very good. Who's Brendan . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Dr. Brendan Carr.

MR. CHATAWAY: That might sound interesting.

[Page 36]

MR. MACKINNON: A lot of the ones that you have mentioned, Madam Chairman, I am just looking at the committee title here - Community Services. It would be interesting to just, I am thinking aloud here, probably your caucus may want to take it on notice - invite, if it's possible, representatives from - I know there are a large number of families receiving benefits in Community Services, to be able to go inside their heads and find out what it is like to live on social assistance and see if there is something we can learn from that in terms of social policy, because I believe on a previous day with the Department of Health, in terms of the no smoking and lifestyles, it's an issue. I think it would be interesting to invite either some parents or family members or children or somebody from that group who would come in and you could get inside their heads and, for the lack of a better phrase, to walk a mile in their shoes, to better understand, as public policy makers, we might be able to improve.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: That is in line with the Youth in Care, because they actually did a project with some Youth in Care and the generation of that was the report, The System: It Doesn't Work For Us.

MR. MACKINNON: Yes, that would be a great one.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: That was done a little while ago so it would be interesting to see if between the report and the Children's Aid Society or the department there has been any movement on some of the issues that were raised vis-à-vis that report.

MR. MACKINNON: That's right. Educational-type programs, it is an opportunity for the government to really provide some leadership on this because there has always been this concern whether it's real, apparent, or perceived and not real, that people on social assistance spend a lot of their money on alcohol and cigarettes and habits . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: That's the perception.

MR. MACKINNON: It could be perception, it could be reality. I don't know. I can't say one way or the other, but anything that the government would have an opportunity to improve lifestyles, that sort of thing. I don't know. I am just thinking aloud.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I am not sure how that would roll out but let's start maybe with the Youth in Care, and maybe the other two, Dr. Bendan Carr and the Sport and Recreation initiative. Does anybody want to make a motion for those three?

MR. MORASH: So moved.

MR. MACKINNON: I second that.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

[Page 37]

The motion is carried.

Then we will see among those three issues what we can come up with for a schedule over the next few months. We are adjourned to the other boardroom to practice drinking and driving.

[The committee adjourned at 11:08 a.m.]