MR. CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon, committee members. My name is Brooke Taylor, MLA for the beautiful Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley. I have the pleasure of chairing the Standing Committee on Economic Development. Perhaps before we introduce our witnesses, committee members would identify themselves and maybe we could start with Mr. Estabrooks.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, members. Of course, accompanying us is the very capable Mrs. Darlene Henry.
Now, with us as witnesses today are members of Georgia-Pacific Canada Incorporated and I would ask the individuals if they would introduce themselves.
MR. THOMAS HOWARD: I am a resident of Vassalboro, Maine, and I work for the Georgia-Pacific Corporation out of an office in Augusta, Maine. I have a regional responsibility for government affairs in the northeastern part of the United States as well as the Maritime Provinces.
MR. ROBERT FRASER: I am the plant manager at the Sugar Camp quarry in Cape Breton and I live in Port Hawkesbury.
MR. JAMES GRAHAM: I am project manager for the new mine site at Melford. I live also in Port Hawkesbury and have been associated with Georgia-Pacific in Nova Scotia for 40 years.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much gentlemen. Mr. Graham, I understand that you will be making the presentation.
MR. GRAHAM: Rather than the letter, the circular, that you sent, you were talking about the gypsum industry in general, I thought today that I would rather focus on Georgia-Pacific in Nova Scotia and do an overview of our activities in Nova Scotia, a profile if you will. If you have any questions about G-P in other parts of Canada or the United States you could probably get an answer from Tom Howard here.
I brought along a location map. It is probably pretty hard to see but this is the Strait of Canso dividing the mainland and Cape Breton Island. You will see three yellow blocks on the location map. Those are three gypsum deposits that we purchased back in the mid-1950's, did the exploration work on them and the engineering and we let them lie for several years until we activated the middle one, to the right, that one there. We opened that one in 1962, we operated it for 30 years and at the completion of the reserves there we moved our operations south to where we are right now. That is called our Sugar Camp mine site. That one has about four years of reserves left in it and we are trying now to phase that one out and phase in the new deposit up on the Trans Canada Highway at Melford.
The first one we opened, we railed our rock into Point Tupper. Our marine terminal is at Point Tupper. The Sugar Camp one we are trucking on Trunk 4 into the marine terminal. The marine terminal used to be the CNR ferry terminal between Cape Breton and the mainland.
As our reserves are being depleted at Sugar Camp, the farthest one south, we started in 1997 to do some active work on our Melford deposit. In 1997, we decided we would start the environmental assessment. We started that in 1997, it took two years, March 1999, before we received a conditional permit. I can tell you, gentlemen, that process is a long, tortuous, expensive and frustrating experience. Nevertheless after two years, we have the permit and I am happy to report that we have started construction of an interchange from the Trans Canada Highway into the Melford deposit. That construction is in progress and we hope to have that interchange finished by this fall. So that is where we are in Cape Breton.
On the permitting side, I would like to mention that our problems in getting a permit were not with the Department of Natural Resources or the Department of the Environment. Most of our problems came from external groups, as you might call them, the Sierra Club, Transport 2000, the World Wildlife, another group led by an activist. All of these groups had a commonality; although they were presenting different opposition views to the project there was dialogue going on between them but we had to deal with each one on an individual basis. It got to the point at several times we were just about to say this is enough of this. Anyway, we persevered and got through it and I hope that is all behind us.
I would like to mention that early in the permitting stage, we had a meeting with the provincial and the federal regulators and it was almost unanimous with them that they suggested to us that we make an agreement or some kind of an arrangement with the natives in Cape Breton before we would ever be granted a permit. So we started that in 1997 also. It was new to us. We hadn't dealt with the natives before. We hadn't hired them, we had no dialogue with them. Anyway, we worked through and we ended up with a memorandum of agreement with the five native bands in Cape Breton in 1998.
The framework of the memorandum, there were some economic considerations - they will receive five cents a ton for every ton mined, which they plan to spend on a marine institute. There are some scholarships. There are some employment opportunities and there is training and employment for environmental work for the duration of the Melford site.
The natives were suspicious of us, a large American corporation. They were particularly suspicious or reluctant to sign an agreement. I think their past history of signing treaties and agreements has not been very satisfactory. It took quite a while to convince them and also to get the five chiefs together to thinking the same way. We were happy with the agreement and I know they are. I know they are using it in their discussions with the Stora group, with the pipeline people and other resource companies. That has been on the table more than once. Maybe some of you gentlemen have seen it before.
We have been here for 40 years with the development of the Melford project up there. We are looking at, perhaps, another 30 years of life here in Nova Scotia. I can tell you our company is comfortable doing business here and we look forward to the next development of this mine site.
Our company, our location dollars that we spend in a year at the Sugar Camp site right now are around $16.5 million. That is payroll, taxes, that is money that is spent locally. On top of that, we have a capital budget of around $3 million, $3.5 million a year. We are an $18 million a year company, a small company in South Inverness.
Our environmental record has been stellar. The DOE will attest to that. This site here, the first one we opened at Big Brook, in River Denys, has been nominated for the President's Award for Excellence for reclamation work that we have done on it. Our safety record is also commendable. Next week, we recognize our employees for completing 500,000 hours without an injury. Back in the 1970's, we had another record of 2 million man-hours without an injury.
I think that is probably as short a profile as I can give you of the company. If you have any questions, maybe the three of us could answer them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Graham. Do members have some questions for our witnesses?
The honourable member for Timberlea-Prospect.
MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: Thank you for your presentation, gentlemen. I am interested in your comment, Mr. Graham, around the whole experience of the permitting, as you said. You said you found it expensive and frustrating.
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. ESTABROOKS: The expensive end of it, I would assume, bears fruit with the frustration.
MR. GRAHAM: That's true.
MR. ESTABROOKS: One of the things that you have pointed out in your comments - and I am just making a few notes - is that you found it frustrating dealing with all the different groups separately.
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. ESTABROOKS: How could it be improved then? Could you just expand on that, perhaps?
MR. GRAHAM: Well, as far as anyone improving on it, everyone has something to say. The Sierra Club had their point of view; they say, well, you are developing close to an old growth forest. They wanted to protect the forest. The Transport 2000 group said, well, you are going to have too many trucks on the road. The Neal Livingstone group, they were just against everything. World Wildlife, they were against any trees that we might cut. To pacify all these people, we ended up donating several hundred acres of land to the province; some of it outright donations; some as protected areas. That seemed to be the only way that we could get them to back off.
There was another group led by an activist, one of the residents close to us. His motive was that he wanted a price for his house that Georgia-Pacific didn't think was acceptable. They all had - and the press, they get lots of press. They got lots of media coverage.
Then the Sierra Club asked for a judicial review; you remember that, perhaps, and they lost that case. But all these cases took more lawyers, more consultants and more time and more dollars.
MR. ESTABROOKS: You know, when we look at the experience of - I think I remember them - the 1960's, when you look at, maybe, how things were done initially, I think you said the 1950's, correct?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Now, when this becomes an issue, and it has become an issue, I think - it has become an issue because of where we are at this time in the 1990's, but even now, as we turn the corner. You have to understand some of the media connections. We have some of these here in front of us that we get put together, by our excellent staff member; this book.
MR. GRAHAM: Right.
MR. ESTABROOKS: For example, the Inverness Oran which is a paper of some importance locally and is very conscientious about reporting some of the ongoing struggles.
I am concerned about the fact that these various groups want to have their say. They do get the ear or the camera of the media. That is, after all, how they make their views known. You pointed out - and this is included in our media package here - the settlement with the natives. It is considered as a model, in terms of a very progressive step.
MR. GRAHAM: Well, yes, this is true. Berndt Christmas is the guy who made that statement to a meeting we had with him several weeks ago.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Excellent. So here's my question. The chairman said that you don't talk much but we talk a lot, right? The employment opportunities for natives. You said you had never employed them before at the other sites?
MR. GRAHAM: That's true.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Now, do you have plans in that direction?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes, we do. We have them employed now. We started that as soon as we signed a memorandum of agreement. The last count I had was five or six employed and Seaboard Transport, which does our trucking for us, they had two or three.
It is not an easy transition for the natives to work in a structured environment where there are company rules and where there are union rules. That environment is kind of foreign to them. It takes a lot of adjusting and it takes a lot of patience on the employer with them. It is easy for them to say on back shift, you know, I've got a pain in my head or I need to babysit. They just call up and they won't come in. But we have discipline, rules of our plant. They don't take direction very well, unfortunately. We had made a commitment that 25 per cent of the mine force at Melford will be natives.
MR. ESTABROOKS: How close are you to meeting that goal?
MR. GRAHAM: Right now?
MR. ESTABROOKS: Yes.
MR. GRAHAM: Well, we haven't employed anyone at the new mine site, as yet. We haven't broken ground yet.
MR. ESTABROOKS: So these other statistics here, okay, I know where you are going, thank you. Sorry for that.
MR. HOWARD: Just a point of clarification if I may. There was never a prohibition, it was simply that as positions became open at Sugar Camp, either there were no natives who applied or didn't fit the particular criteria.
MR. GRAHAM: Yes, they never applied.
MR. HOWARD: There was never a prohibition in effect or anything like that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hendsbee.
MR. DAVID HENDSBEE: I would like to ask some other generic questions with regard to the sites. The mine sites that are presently in operation and about to close because they are meeting the end of their capacity, what plans are there for mine-site reclamation?
MR. GRAHAM: We are bonded, several million dollars reclamation bond. When you abandon a mine site in Nova Scotia you have to go through a process called mine abandonment and you make an application to the Department of the Environment and they set out certain conditions and stipulations that you have to meet prior to them accepting your proposal for mine abandonment. We did that with the first one in Big Brook and at that time you didn't have to post a bond but we have a reclamation bond posted at Sugar Camp, so you have to do the work or else they will call the bond on you.
MR. HENDSBEE: How much would that bond be?
MR. GRAHAM: Several million dollars.
MR. HENDSBEE: Several as in - numeric value - $1 million, $2 million, $5 million, $10 million?
MR. GRAHAM: I think at Sugar Camp it is around $2 million, I am not really certain on that.
MR. HENDSBEE: With regard to the site reclamation process, I don't know how large the hole may be at these facilities - is it landscaped or filled in, flooded, or a combination of both or use of construction and demolition debris facilities, or perhaps residuals from a landfill operation? What process does the company take with regard to these reclamations?
MR. GRAHAM: Our operation was an open pit operation, it was an open quarry, so you would remove the overburden from the top of the rock, you would go in and drill and blast and take the rock out and crush it. We had formed spoil piles of the overburden that was removed from the top of the rock. These had to be contoured and in a lot of cases they had to be backfilled, they had to be seeded, the drainage had to be in such a way, there had to be collection basins so that any run-off wouldn't get into the streams. There was a requirement to plant it, seed it and to block off access. No foreign materials of any kind were allowed. It was grading and planting work mostly.
MR. HENDSBEE: There have always been comments about the export of raw materials from this province and there has always been the question of whether there should be value-added production in the province. Has Georgia-Pacific Corporation ever considered doing sheetrock production or other plastering product production here in this province, instead of shipping it out to its other facilities across North America?
MR. GRAHAM: I think all three companies that operate in Nova Scotia have looked at that, National Gypsum, Georgia-Pacific, and U.S. Gypsum. There is a small wallboard plant in Point Tupper owned now by U.S. Gypsum, which is Fundy and Little Narrows, the same company. We supply it with rock, they run three days a week, their market is in the U.S. and some overseas. If there was a market here there would be a board plant here. To make our board plants profitable, it is a low margin product, the margins on a sheet of wallboard are very small. We try to run our board plants in the United States over 300 days a year, 24 hours a day. They run on a average of 300 to 550 feet a minute and make money at that. The wallboard plant at Point Tupper, because of the size of their market, runs 38 feet a minute and it only runs three days a week. So if the market was here, the board plant would be here.
MR. HOWARD: Can I add to that, if I may.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, yes, Mr. Howard.
MR. HOWARD: One of the issues with producing wallboard is that it has to be produced relatively close to the market place. As Mr. Graham pointed out, there is a very low margin. Because of the low margins and the difficulty transporting the product any great distance, if you do transport it, as you know, a 4' x 8' sheet of wallboard is relatively heavy, you can imagine if you put that on a truck, you are limited in how much you can actually get on the vehicle, a truck or a train. It doesn't lend itself to shipment over any great distance. So typically, you will see a wallboard plant constructed closer to its final market.
MR. HENDSBEE: I would just be curious to know what the import limits or amounts have been for sheetrock into Atlantic Canada with all the housing construction, especially in metro here. I used to work in building supply stores and see truckloads of it coming in. I am just curious how much in Atlantic Canada is being brought in versus what is being shipped out. It would be a nice statistic to see and have an appreciation. I understand the capital infrastructure required to put in such a plant and trying to operate at capacity, I can appreciate all that but there is an economy here and I think instead of shipping all the way down to New Jersey, I think the closest site production for mass quantities and bring it all back by transportation, it is highways one way or the other, to bring it in or by barge. I am just curious.
MR. GRAHAM: There is a board plant in Newfoundland that supplies a lot of Atlantic Canada, Corner Brook. The other one is in Montreal East and that is U.S. Gypsum.
MR. HOWARD: I would like to add also, if I may, in regard to the reclamation, certainly any member of the committee, any member of the public is welcome to come and look at the reclaimed River Denys site. Jim mentioned in his opening remarks that the reclamation project at River Denys was nominated for a presidential environmental excellence award within Georgia Pacific and was named as a finalist in that competition. Both Jim and Bob have taken me through and it is a very nice looking site. We would certainly welcome anybody here to that same opportunity.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Epstein.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: I wanted to ask about the transportation issue and I wonder if someone could bring me up to date about the question of roads versus rail on this but before I move on to that, although I do want an answer on it, I want to make some comments on the question that Mr. Hendsbee raised about the possibility of having a manufacturing plant here.
There are some products for which, of course, you can take the raw materials and if you are taking raw materials to a central manufacturing location where you have a whole bunch of raw materials in the product, then maybe it makes sense. On the other hand, that isn't the case, really, with wallboard and I don't know that anyone really believes that it is necessary that it be manufactured close to the place where the market is.
Clearly, we can export the raw product and re-import the finished product here and it manages to get to our markets and not be damaged and broken and all chipped up and the same, I think, would be true in the U.S. If it was really the case that it had to be manufactured immediately beside the location where it is being used, you would see wallboard plants every 300 yards or by every subdivision and that isn't the case. So, quite clearly, the stuff can be moved around, including from Newfoundland to the rest of the Atlantic Provinces. Obviously what happened is that the companies involved in mining gypsum here decided that when they
were doing that that they preferred to take the raw material here and set up their manufacturing plants back home in the United States instead of doing it here. That is the long and short of it.
MR. GRAHAM: More money.
MR. EPSTEIN: It is not that it couldn't be done. Well, it could have been done here and it wouldn't have mattered one way or the other, I don't think. Is there a factor? Why would it be more money to the company?
MR. GRAHAM: If you are going to manufacture it here and ship it to the United States, you would have a lower margin on your board. You would have that transportation cost.
MR. FRASER: Transportation of the finished product is a lot more expensive than the transportation of the raw materials.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, in part that is certainly the case.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Howard, are you going to make a comment on that point?
MR. HOWARD: Yes. I would just say, too, that if you look at Georgia-Pacific, through the last 70 years of the company, our growth strategy has been one of acquisition. Georgia-Pacific builds very few greenfield plants, if you will. Recently, our gypsum business grew dramatically when we acquired the assets of Domtar. I am not sure that this really gets to the heart of your question but in terms of the way that Georgia-Pacific looks at it, we are in the business, by and large, of buying facilities and running them. We have not constructed many greenfield facilities, virgin facilities, if you will.
MR. EPSTEIN: You mean manufacturing facilities?
MR. HOWARD: Right.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, which actually gets me to another point. Do you own any manufacturing facilities in Canada?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: For wallboard?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: Whereabouts?
MR. GRAHAM: Ontario.
MR. EPSTEIN: Again, closer to the big markets.
MR. GRAHAM: Yes. We have a wallboard plant in Surrey, B.C.; one in Edmonton and another one in Winnipeg.
MR. HOWARD: We also have a paper mill in Thorold and we are in the process of acquiring the assets of the Fort James Corporation and Fort James has a number of tissue facilities. It manufactures toilet paper and paper towel. That is in the Province of Ontario. We have a small manufacturing facility in Quebec as well.
[1:30 p.m.]
MR. EPSTEIN: Do you have any other gypsum properties in Nova Scotia besides the three you have indicated?
MR. GRAHAM: We have one asset that Domtar had. It was a little plaster quarry down outside of Windsor, Nova Scotia. It is not in operation.
MR. EPSTEIN: Is it your view that there is essentially full identification of the gypsum resources in Nova Scotia at this point?
MR. GRAHAM: A full identification by DNR?
MR. EPSTEIN: Or yourselves and DNR, that is right, and the other companies involved, yes.
MR. GRAHAM: Well, speaking for our company, I have done a lot of exploration in Atlantic Canada. I have looked at probably most of the deposits in Nova Scotia and some in New Brunswick and Newfoundland. I know our competitors, National and USG have done the same thing. I would say they are pretty well documented.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, so at this point you are not really expecting any more gypsum mines to be proposed, is that right?
MR. GRAHAM: I would be surprised if you would see any more gypsum quarries developed in Nova Scotia forever.
MR. EPSTEIN: That is my understanding, too. So can we go back to the roads versus rails issue?
MR. GRAHAM: Sure.
MR. EPSTEIN: I wonder if anyone can bring me up to date about this. Did I understand you correctly that your permitting is still tentative permitting from DOE?
MR. GRAHAM: No.
MR. EPSTEIN: So that is finished now, is it?
MR. GRAHAM: It is conditional.
MR. EPSTEIN: Conditional?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes, there are environmental conditions attached to it.
MR. EPSTEIN: Oh, I see what you mean, that kind of conditional.
MR. GRAHAM: We railed from our first site in Big Brook, up there, for 30 years, with CNR. It was a situation where you are locked in. CNR can say to you every year, we are going to put your rates up 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 15 per cent, whatever, and you had no recourse. Once we got out of rail, at our other site, at our Sugar Camp site, where we are right now, we considered rail and we elected not to go with it because trucking gives you more flexibility. With the new site at Melford, we did a rail study early in our environmental assessment. The capital cost came out to - our estimates - around $20 million to put a rail spur in and after a capital investment of that, we would still be locked into the same conditions as we were before with CNR, although it is a different railroad down there now.
So we elected to go the Trans Canada, by road, by truck and when we looked at the rates, it was cheaper to do it that way. The railroad did a study. We didn't even get their proposal. I don't know what happened to their study but there was a lot of press about rail versus road and the railway wanted us to spend some capital and lock our mine site into a railroad for the duration of the deposit and we did not want to do that.
MR. EPSTEIN: I can understand it from your perspective and I can understand it from the perspective of a monopoly carrier like rail line, of course, but there is also a public perspective and the concern from the public point of view is going to be twofold. One is that if a public facility, like highways, is being used for heavy transportation, then this contributes to the wear and tear, of course, on the roads and sooner or later we have to pay the bills for that. I am not saying you are the only trucking business using the roads but it is part of an overall picture that we face. So that is one aspect of it. The other is, we always have to look at what we consider to be generally more environmentally-friendly forms of transportation. Rail tends to be more in that category.
I don't know that there is much, if anything, at this point that we can do to nudge this particular process but those are the factors and those are the ones that we have to consider.
I don't think it is unusual that you would think about your factors but we have to think about ours, as well. I don't know how this one will shake out.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Howard.
MR. HOWARD: I would ask my colleague, Mr. Graham, if I go to the map, if I could show how far away the existing rail line is from the mine site.
MR. GRAHAM: Sure.
MR. HOWARD: I will point out and you can speak to it.
MR. GRAHAM: Go the Melford site there, the one on the top. Okay. There is the other one. That is the main railroad there, from there to Sydney. To construct that railroad across from those two yellow blocks of land there was a $20 million capital.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the amount of traffic. We have been hauling from that Sugar Camp on the highway system for 14 years. We haul 1.5 to 1.6, 1.7 million tons. We will be hauling the same amount from the Melford area on the highway.
We are presently now using 5 trucks, 5 days a week, 24 hours a day. For the Melford site, we will use 10 trucks, 5 days, 24 hours a day. Ten trucks on the road versus 5 trucks, right now, we are going right through the Town of Port Hawkesbury. We have not had a complaint, an accident or an incident in 14 years. I think this issue of traffic on the Trans Canada is over-blown.
MR. EPSTEIN: Maybe we are the ones who hear the complaints from Port Hawkesbury. I am surprised that you have...
MR. GRAHAM: Well, yes, you do, and we are caught in the middle of that. The Mayor of Port Hawkesbury had the press down there saying, oh, Georgia-Pacific is going to ruin our highways; they are going to tear up Reeves Street and we need a by-pass. We like Georgia-Pacific, they are great guys, but we need the by-pass as soon as they put their trucks on. That is what you hear.
MR. EPSTEIN: They want us to pay for the road, they are not complaining to you.
MR. GRAHAM: Well, we have made an offer and we will be paying for a passing lane on the Trans Canada. We pay for that next year. We have agreed to pay $400,000 to construct a passing lane on the Trans Canada.
MR. EPSTEIN: Can I just ask one thing about the trucking that you have there. Are these private trucking services that you are using at the moment?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes, Seaboard.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes. So you don't own it, yourself?
MR. GRAHAM: No.
MR. EPSTEIN: No, okay. Has that always been the case?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay. You put out to tender, do you?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: How long are your contracts?
MR. GRAHAM: Well, with this particular case, Seaboard started and we just kept renewing their contract.
MR. EPSTEIN: Every year, every two years, every four years?
MR. GRAHAM: Every three years.
MR. EPSTEIN: So that is when you renegotiate your rates, do you?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: Anything built in for renegotiating of rates during the three year interim?
MR. GRAHAM: I think there are a few escalation costs but the cost per ton is fixed.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay. Thanks.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Epstein.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Just on a point of order, Mr. Chairman, if I might. On the trucking part. Some of the press has been out there. Just for an example, in the first year, there will be 21 trucks per day; the second year, 63 per day and that will escalate in the third year to 147 per day. So I guess what you are seeing here now is, that is not accurate, that is not . . .
MR. GRAHAM: That is trips, I think, they are talking about.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Trips. So it would be a total of 147 trips.
MR. HOWARD: Well, right now, we have five trucks on, Bob, isn't it?
MR. BOB FRASER: No, we have eight.
MR. GRAHAM: Eight, okay. We have 8 trucks hauling, 5 days, 24 hours a day. We haul 1.6 million or 1.7 million tons. At Melford, we will be hauling the same amount of rock, 1.6, 1.5, or whatever it is, million tons, but we have a 25 mile haul versus a 10 mile haul right now.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Oh, yes. I was going to point that out. It is a longer haul.
MR. GRAHAM: So we just need that many more trucks.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: So the actual density of trucks on the road is not going to be any greater than what it is right now. There are not going to be three trucks per minute going to Shopping Centre Hill, in Port Hawkesbury?
MR. GRAHAM: No.
MR. CHISHOLM: Okay.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.
Mr. Chipman.
MR. FRANK CHIPMAN: Mr. Chairman, mine is more of a technical question. I have the same concerns that my colleague, Mr. Hendsbee, has raised about employment in Nova Scotia and the number of jobs we lose here because of it being transported out of the province.
Under the Gypsum Mining Income Tax Act, I know Section 2(b) says, "'income derived from mining operations' means the net profit or gain, derived or deemed to have been derived from mining operations by a person engaged therein;", so it is based on net profit. When you look at the definition of mining operations, it excludes the processing, " . . . but not including any processing thereof after removal from the mine;". The tax is paid on the annual income derived from these operations.
I guess what I am saying, there is no tax on anything after it has been processed but there is on the actual mining of the material.
MR. GRAHAM: We pay 12 cents a ton, gypsum tax . . .
MR. CHIPMAN: Right.
MR. GRAHAM: . . . but we don't process it.
MR. CHIPMAN: That's what I mean, but there isn't any tax on the processing of it. I was just wondering, is that because of the tax, the taxation base, or the tax system in Nova Scotia and Canada?
MR. GRAHAM: I don't know. All we do with the rock is drill and blast it, crush it, convey it and unload it on a ship.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right. But I am just wondering why that was included in the Income Tax Act, as far as the Gypsum Act goes, to exclude the processing of it?
MR. GRAHAM: I must confess, I don't know much about the tax codes.
MR.CHIPMAN: Right. But it is in the Gypsum Mining Income Tax Act, but under Section 2(e) it says, "processing thereof prior to or in the course of such transportation, but not including any processing thereof after removal from the mine;".
I am just wondering why the processing has been excluded?
MR. GRAHAM: I don't know.
MR. CHIPMAN: I wonder if it is because of a factor as far as taxation in this province, is it cheaper to process it somewhere else because of the tax? I realize there are more benefits if it is processed in the area because of the economic spin-offs but . . .
MR. GRAHAM: I'm not sure.
MR. CHIPMAN: Anyway, that is the only question I have at this time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chipman. Perhaps, maybe, if I could ask a question to Mr. Howard.
I had an opportunity to transport - I used to call it sheets of gyproc or wallboard - from Atlantic Gypsum there in Corner Brook for several years. It was a major part of the work the company that I trucked with did. After a couple of years of that, we were told that gyproc could be purchased just as cheap from Texas on the mainland, as Newfoundlanders called Nova Scotia. As a consequence, that component of our trucking business essentially dried up.
I am just wondering, today, I think somebody mentioned that wallboard plant in Corner Brook there. I'm not sure if Lundrigan's still own it or not, but is that plant only serving the Province of Newfoundland at this time?
MR. HOWARD: I can't answer that.
MR. GRAHAM: No, they export some into Nova Scotia.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do they?
MR. HOWARD Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, that is an old wallboard plant, I think . . .
MR. HOWARD: Yes, it is ancient.
MR. CHAIRMAN: . . . by anybody's standards, but there are quite a number of employees that work at that wallboard plant. We are going from, so to speak, rock to wall-board.
The new plants that are built today - you know, when we are speaking of value-added and that may be a poor comparison - but how many employees, potentially, could work at a modern wallboard plant?
MR. HOWARD: The class of the industry, if you will, will probably be our Newington, New Hampshire plant, which is labelled as one of the newest, most modern facilities that we have. I know the forming line on it is over 1,300 feet long and it goes fast. I don't know exactly how many feet a minute.
Employment at the Newington, New Hampshire facility is, I believe, right around 120. Do you know, Jim, the exact number?
MR. GRAHAM: I think it is more than that but it is not a whole lot more.
MR. HOWARD: Between 120 and 150 at this large facility.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I wasn't aware that there were, potentially, that many jobs at a modern wallboard plant so it is quite significant.
MR. FRASER: Could I just make a point?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
MR. FRASER: I don't think anybody has asked how many people we employ at our quarry in Cape Breton . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, that is where we were . . .
MR. FRASER: . . . which I think is a very important point. We employ 125 people. When Jim mentioned that the approval process was long and tortuous, it was also a long and tortuous time for our employees. I can remember talking to many people in the shop floor, wanting to know why small splinter groups with, maybe, half a dozen people could put in danger the future of 125 employees. It was hard for me to come up with an answer for them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
MR. FRASER: I'm not sure what the unemployment figures are in Cape Breton but I would expect it is around 20 per cent to 25 per cent. We were in a situation where it was becoming very doubtful if those employees were going to have a future. That went on for about a year and one-half, or two years. I would think that if a system was put in place that that could be rectified, it would be a very important thing to do.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Graham, you mentioned earlier on that you didn't feel that there would be any new gypsum mines established in Nova Scotia. You are aware that LaFarge, for example, is doing exploratory work in an effort to identify mineable reserve, allegedly to sustain existing wallboards in northeastern United States?
MR. GRAHAM: Well, that's true. They have two plants: one in Wilmington, Delaware and one in Buchanan, New York that were Georgia-Pacific plants that we had built. We had to divest ourselves of them when we acquired Domtar Gypsum. That is true.
There is another deposit here at Murchyville that is already permitted and has been for several years, and nothing seems to be happening to it.
It is difficult to find a deposit of any size that is outside of a watershed or outside of a municipal population. To find a deposit of gypsum with 30 million or 40 million tons in it that you can develop in Nova Scotia is difficult, because as you know there are only limited areas where gypsum occurs.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. I will conclude before I recognize Mr. MacAskill. The number of trucks that are going to travel or potentially will travel once the new mine is up and running would be how many a day, approximately?
MR. GRAHAM: Well, we are using eight trucks, Bob says. We are hauling 10 miles. I don't know. I'd have to work that out. Maybe Bob could answer that.
MR. FRASER: The best timing that we can get on a truck through our system to load it, weigh it and dispatch it is about one truck every five or six minutes. So that is the maximum. That is what is going through right now.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It might be a good idea to recommend to some of these folks that are so critical of your operation, in terms of the transportation, that they, perhaps, come up and monitor Route 224, up through the Musquodoboit Valley, where we have MacTara Lumber, Tusket, Mosher Limestone, et cetera. A lot of folks seem to feel that it is essentially the government's responsibility more so than the company that is investing and providing job opportunities and economic benefits to the province. I think it is easy to lose sight of that fact. Nonetheless, I think we should move on with our next person.
Mr. MacAskill, for Victoria.
MR. KENNETH MACASKILL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Jim, in 1997, when we started negotiations - and I was with Natural Resources at the time as the minister - I recall many meetings and many discussions with staff. I want to say that Georgia-Pacific was a good company to deal with. They were reasonable and I think Nova Scotians, the taxpayers, have certainly gained from your period here over the last 30 years.
I want to go back to the railway for a moment. You mentioned CN. I am wondering, since the Cape Breton & Central Railway, I think that is the name of the company that runs the rail line to industrial Cape Breton; I am just wondering, what was the relationship between CN? Were they in charge of the rail, building the railway bed or were you dealing with the Cape Breton & Central?
MR. GRAHAM: We were dealing only with the Cape Breton & Central, I think they call themselves. Do you mean when we were hauling from Big Brook?
MR. MACASKILL: No, when you were developing the new Melford mine?
MR. GRAHAM: At Melford?
MR. MACASKILL: Yes.
MR. GRAHAM: No, CN wasn't involved with that.
MR. MACASKILL: So you were dealing, strictly, with . . .
MR. GRAHAM: Cape Breton & Central.
MR. MACASKILL: . . . Cape Breton & Central Railway.
Given the fact of the uncertainty surrounding Sysco, would they not aggressively seek new business to take up the slack should Sysco close down?
MR. GRAHAM: They were aggressive for us to sign a commitment with them but when it came down to investing the capital, they backed off. We told them right up front that we would not put any capital money into building a railroad, a spur line from the main line to the site at Melford.
They came back and they said, okay, we will build the spur line. We had, at that time, already priced it because we had done a rail study. We gave them that number and we told them it would cost us - our estimate said - $20 million, and they said they could do it for less. They commissioned a study. We agreed to pay for that study but we never, ever received a copy of it.
As far as the railroad was concerned, they dropped the issue. I know they made representation here in Halifax to try to persuade Georgia-Pacific to go with the railroad but they never finished their report. I just don't think they were prepared to spend that much money to put the rail spur in.
Besides the cost of the rail spur, there were other environmental issues. They had to go right across River Denys Basin. You know that basin, as well as anyone, I guess. There was a lot of Crown land; there was a lot of private land and it was a wetland. There were a lot of environmental considerations. That, with the capital cost, I think they just backed off.
MR. FRASER: If I could just add something to that, too, Jim. I know at the time that that study was made across the wetlands there, it was almost a certainty that by the time the permitting was done to go across the wetlands and the private property owners had been bought out, we would have been out of rock at Sugar Camp and Georgia-Pacific would not be in Nova Scotia any more.
MR. GRAHAM: That's true.
MR. FRASER: That's a fact.
MR. MACASKILL: Of course, I drive by your activity in Melford every week, going and coming. You say it is you that is building the passing lane there, or is the government building it and you are reimbursing the government? Is that the arrangement?
MR. GRAHAM: No, right now we are building the intersection - and these are two holdings lanes - the intersection from the Trans Canada into the mine site. That is what is under construction now. That is Georgia-Pacific's cost, although some of it is on Department of Transportation right-of-way. It is called William's Hill. I don't know if you know but there
is a hill on the other side, we have agreed to contribute $400,000 next year to the construction of a passing lane on the Trans Canada, so it is a separate issue.
MR. MACASKILL: So that is not the passing lane they are working on now?
MR. GRAHAM: No, that is a new one.
MR. MACASKILL: So when do you expect to have your mine in Melford up and running?
MR. GRAHAM: We hope to start stripping next year. We would hope to take, maybe, a limited amount of rock out next year. That is 2001-02, we hope to begin phasing it in and phasing out Bob's operation in Sugar Camp. It will take several years to deplete the reserves over at Sugar Camp and bring that one up to production.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Epstein.
MR. EPSTEIN: A couple of points. Mr. Graham, you know, I think I heard you say earlier that Mi'kmaq workers don't take direction well. You know, that is a pretty offensive generalization to make and it is especially offensive from an employer who says he has not had any Mi'kmaq working for him.
Now, I think it is regrettable that such a thing got put on the public record but I also have to tell you, and I guess, also, your colleague, Mr. Fraser, that I tend not to take direction well, myself, especially if I am being told something that I think is puzzling or wrong.
I want to focus on something that Mr. Fraser said about the environmental assessment process. What he said is that he found it - well, you said in your opening, Mr. Graham, that you found it a frustrating process, and he echoed that and said he wished there was a way in which it could be changed.
Well, if you have problems with the process, the Environment Act is actually up for review right now. It was passed in 1995. It is mandated that there is a five year review and it is being reviewed at the moment. So that is an opportunity, if you have something solid to say.
I have to say, I haven't heard exactly what is wrong with the process we have. As I understand it, there is no American jurisdiction that wouldn't have environmental assessment of a mine. I think a mine proposal should undergo environmental assessment. If you disagree, I would find it startling but I think this is an opportunity for you to put that on record if you think the mine shouldn't undergo environmental assessment.
The Act provides for different degrees of environmental assessment. One of the highest degrees would be an open public hearing and there wasn't one ordered, in your case. It is not mandatory under our Act and the minister didn't exercise his discretion to require one so you didn't have to go through that process. You went through a normal, regular environmental assessment in which you filed your undertaking and your engineering reports and your studies which is no more, I think, than would be required from anyone else. I don't find that surprising.
As I understood it, you were essentially complaining that people who had environmental concerns spoke up. Well, do you know what? That is their job. I think it is their job to speak up if they have concerns. If some people think that rail is better or that they have problems with noise and dust or if they think that there is a threat to forests, especially old-growth forests in the vicinity of your mine, or on the whole they think it may not be overall a net benefit to the province, I think it is perfectly valid that any members of the public stand up and give their opinions. Now I can see that there was a lot of back and forth in the paper and that you came in for some criticism and so on but do you know what? I would have thought that just about every sophisticated company would recognize that that is a part of doing business now and you run into it, I think, pretty well wherever you go, that your plans are put up for public scrutiny and people say their piece and it gets thrashed out and it gets sorted out. So far as I can see, you have a permit to go ahead with your mine in a very normal and usual fashion and if I missed something I would like to hear it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Epstein, is there a question somewhere in that editorial comment?
MR. EPSTEIN: There is. I said, if I have missed something, I would like to hear it because I haven't heard what exactly it was that you found so problematic about the process.
MR. GRAHAM: We have no problem whatsoever with the regulations for permitting with the Department of the Environment. We knew what they were from day one. We have no problems with them whatsoever, nor do our American friends have any problem with them. The problems that I mentioned, and I said it was from these groups who had different interests, but I will tell you one thing about all of these groups that we talked to. Not one of them, on any one occasion, when we confronted them, said what about 125 people that we have working. If you pursue this and this mine doesn't develop, what about those 125 people and not one of those groups ever responded and said, well, we feel sorry for them. They wouldn't talk about them, they wouldn't discuss them. Most of them, it seemed to us, wanted the project stopped at any cost.
MR. EPSTEIN: At any cost hardly seems to describe what I . . .
MR. GRAHAM: If they could stop that they would say, well, we got victory, to hell with those 125 guys. They would let them go find a job somewhere else.
MR. EPSTEIN: I have never heard them say that.
MR. FRASER: I think from my point of view, too, if I could just put my 5 cents worth in here, when I made my statement, it was stating on what I was getting involved with, with our own employees. I have worked at that gypsum quarry since 1962 and I have seen a lot of employees come and go and I have seen sons come to work, their fathers worked there and now their sons are working there. So we have a lot of continuity of people, and you know them personally, who depend on that gypsum quarry for a livelihood and I take it personally. When I see individual groups with half a dozen members making statements and getting all kinds of press and I have people coming to me asking me, what about my job, and I can't tell them because it seems that every time one of these people want to speak about something, they get all kinds of publicity and the ordinary guy who is out there coming into work every day, doing his job, he is not getting anything. If he went and called somebody and said I want some publicity, it would be my guess he would get very little.
MR. EPSTEIN: So you are complaining about the media. Okay.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Howard, I think, had a comment.
MR. HOWARD: I am not sure there is a lot I can add to this discussion but when we, as a company, go to the government and discuss our intentions, you are given a book that contains the regulations and it is our job to go out and design a project that meets those regulations. We did that with the Melford site and it is frustrating from our perspective to have gone in and met not only the spirit of the regulations but the letter of the regulations only to then have the project further delayed by NGLs.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Chipman.
MR. CHIPMAN: Could you just tell me, roughly, what does it cost to mine a ton of gypsum?
MR. GRAHAM: To put a ton of gypsum on board a boat costs about $10.
MR. CHIPMAN: How many sheets of 4' x 8' gyproc will the ton convert into? You don't know. I am not giving you hard questions, I am just trying to . . .
MR. GRAHAM: I know what you are trying to do but I don't know the answer to it. I did once but I have forgotten.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right, and I don't know what gyproc is, I haven't bought it for quite a while.
Anyway, my other question is, soils in Nova Scotia, they are naturally acidic. The farmers used to all make limestone to raise the magnesium level and there is a little bit of calcium in the dolomitic limestone but it is now used extensively to raise calcium levels. Does any percentage of your gypsum go for agricultural uses in the province?
[2:00 p.m.]
MR. GRAHAM: None of ours but it was in the past. As a matter of fact gypsum, in Nova Scotia, is not classified as a mineral. It is called land plaster because the original old farmers, the old timers, that is what they used to use on their fields. To my knowledge, no one markets it in Nova Scotia. I think limestone out at Musquodoboit is more effective than gypsum.
MR. CHIPMAN: It is marketed here in Nova Scotia but it may be - who is in Windsor?
MR. GRAHAM: That is Fundy Gypsum, maybe they do.
MR. CHIPMAN: Because there is a fair amount of it. I know G.K. Morse trucks it and there is a considerable amount of it used on agricultural lands now because our soils, although the pH level may be raised to 665 but there has always been a deficiency in calcium and that is the only way they get it. I don't know the rate but it seems to me it is $40 to $50 per ton.
MR. GRAHAM: They are making money on it at that.
MR. CHIPMAN: That is including, of course, spreading, I think. What are the uses other than wallboard? I know toothpaste, lipstick, things like that but what are the other major uses?
MR. GRAHAM: It is used as a filler in plastics. A lot of it is used for castings, toilets, ceramics but 99 per cent of it is used for wallboard.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hendsbee.
MR. DAVID HENDSBEE: I have a series of questions but first of all back to the traffic question in regard to, you talk about a number of trucks running 24 hours a day, could I just have a simple answer in regard to the frequency of round trips per day?
MR. FRASER: Okay, out of Sugar Camp I can tell you what it is. I am not sure out of Melford.
MR. GRAHAM: Well, we will just multiply it by two and one-half, I guess.
MR. FRASER: So out of Sugar Camp, you have eight trucks making approximately 10 trips an hour.
MR. HENDSBEE: Is that a return trip, so basically 20 trips.
MR. FRASER: That is a return trip.
MR. HENDSBEE: So it is five one-way trips, then.
MR. FRASER: Yes.
MR. HENDSBEE: So it is 10 trips an hour, 24 hours a day, you are saying 240 round trips a day.
We all know that gypsum is a non-renewal resource, unlike some of our other natural products, forestry and fisheries, I see that on the maps there are over 30 processing plants across North America that Georgia-Pacific has but only two production facilities. They are opposite sides of the continent, one on the Baja Peninsula in the Mexico area and the other one in Port Hawkesbury. Do those two quarry sites supply all the production facilities in North America or do you import elsewhere or buy elsewhere?
MR. GRAHAM: The one in Baja is jointly owned between Georgia-Pacific and private Mexican investors. They own 51 per cent, we own 49 per cent. It supplies most of the raw gypsum used on the west coast of North America. We also have mines in the United States. We have quarries as well. We have some quarries in Northern Canada and we an underground mine in Caledonia, Ontario.
MR. HENDSBEE: I am just curious why those weren't presented on the maps that we have. It is just that it looks a little deceiving that these quarries supply the rest of North America for production and I would like to have seen another siting location of other quarries of where you acquire material. In regard to that, though, I read in the literature about synthetic gypsum. Does Georgia-Pacific anticipate that being the wave of the future of producing this product in a chemical fashion versus doing it in a natural product?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
MR. HENDSBEE: I anticipate that could have been your comment on why you don't foresee any new gypsum mines being open in the province, probably because they are going to get away from the natural product and going synthetically?
MR. GRAHAM: Well, there is no synthetic that I know of produced in Nova Scotia. Synthetic gypsum is a by-product of power generation using coal and limestone, there are some in the fertilizer industry up in New Brunswick. In the United States it is definitely what
has happened and Tom can comment on this. The board plants are built adjacent to the power plant, connected in most cases. So all the new gypsum plants that are being built in the United States are synthetic gypsum.
MR. HOWARD: If I may make a follow up on that. I said earlier that Georgia-Pacific doesn't build many new manufacturing facilities. One of the exceptions to that is what Jim just alluded to. We feel that in Wheatfield, Indiana, we recently constructed a synthetic gypsum facility which is co-located with a coal-fired electrical production unit and we manufacture synthetic gypsum there and we are converting that into wallboard, we are manufacturing wallboard there. It is a very new plant. It has been on-line about six or eight months working through some operational issues with that plant but as Jim said, we do see that as one of the keys to the future.
MR. HENDSBEE: I won't get into the merits of coal burning, as that's another matter.
MR. HOWARD: Let me say to that, a synthetic gypsum plant really solves two problems. It solves the problem that you mentioned earlier that resources of gypsum are being depleted but it also solves the problem of disposal of coal ash.
MR. HENDSBEE: Also in regard to a further question that my colleague from Annapolis Valley had mentioned about agricultural uses. I am curious to know about the recyclable components. Is Georgia-Pacific doing any recycling or reclamation of any of the wallboard by-product from commercial construction debris facilities anywhere in this province?
MR. GRAHAM: No, we are not. We did allow the new wallboard plant at Point Tupper when it was built by Louisiana Pacific, they had difficulty making the board and there was a lot of waste. Along with the Department of the Environment, we allowed them to dump their waste wallboard at our old quarry site in Big Brook and River Denys, but we stopped that within about six months and there has been nothing on our properties ever since.
MR. HENDSBEE: So are they trying to reuse their material into their wallboard manufacturing?
MR. GRAHAM: They are now.
MR. HENDSBEE: In regard to our C&D sites across the province, has there been no collection of the gyproc products that are being deposited in these other facilities across the province? Has there been any initiative by G-P to collect any of it or reuse any of it?
MR. GRAHAM: Not here in Nova Scotia but they do it at our U.S. plants. Because the U.S. board plants they use any rejects, they recycle it through their process.
MR. HENDSBEE: My last question is with regard to another use, I know that there have been some uses of wallboard or C&D material for lining of acidic waterways, in particular for doing an experimental pilot project at the Halifax airport. Does Georgia-Pacific do any research in regard to acidity uses of gyproc either as a finished product or a raw product in the liming or deacidification of rivers?
MR. GRAHAM: I am sure they do a lot of research in it but that would be done by our lab in Decatur, Georgia. We wouldn't here in Nova Scotia be involved with that.
MR. HENDSBEE: I just kind of wanted to know because Nova Scotia having what is considered a major fallout of acidic rains and stuff and having high acidic water levels in our waterways, I was wondering if Georgia-Pacific had looked at possibly entertaining some further research with our province with regard to the matter.
MR. GRAHAM: We don't have any research facilities here.
MR. HENDSBEE: You don't need the research facilities but to use your technology and expertise that is learned elsewhere and probably apply it here, it is nice that you take the resources from here but I would like to put something back once in awhile besides the jobs that are in the process.
MR. GRAHAM: We can check that out.
MR. HENDSBEE: I appreciate it. Thank you very much and it is kind of curious that the Tories are asking more environmental questions than the NDP.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Hendsbee.
Mr. Estabrooks.
MR. ESTABROOKS: You are learning from us, but I do appreciate those types of questions, David, and the answers. Mr. Howard, I would like to deal with an issue, which, here we are as provincial politicians in this province playing for the hearts and minds of Nova Scotians and I have met with you and I appreciate your very candid approach to the issues that we have dealt with. But you know, do you believe that Georgia-Pacific has a PR problem in this province?
MR. HOWARD: We could always do more in that regard. As we are shifting our focus, we traditionally have been a commodity-based manufacturer, as we are shifting our focus more toward a consumer base, we are recognizing that we do have issues there and we are working to address those issues.
MR. ESTABROOKS: If I may, Mr. Chairman. We talk about the negotiations. We talk about the bargaining process, the conciliatory or the confrontational approach to dealing with things. Of course, in the political business that we are in, I want to call it a game, but let's try to give us ourselves some positives today that we are in the business of politics. Parker Barss Donham, oh heaven forbid I read Parker, "Province rolls over for gypsum quarry", and other comments here. Have you as a regional operations officer in your department, have you ever met with some of these so-called media types who have been giving you the gears pretty good for a number of months?
MR. HOWARD: It has been a while since I read the Parker Barss Donham column. I don't recall exactly what it said except but I do recall that there were a number of what we consider to be factual inconsistencies with that.
MR. ESTABROOKS: But if I may, Tom.
MR. HOWARD: I am leading to my answer. As a result of that, yes, we did have some discussions with the Daily News to point out the inconsistencies in that column.
MR. ESTABROOKS: So did you respond in writing, pointing out these inadequacies?
MR. HOWARD: We did it face to face.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Finally, I can't let this go by. I know that my friend for Halifax Chebucto has made reference to it. I think there is a real difference between tokenism, when you are involving a member of a native band and affirmative action, proactive, involving a group in our province, and in many cases has been shut out for employment reasons. I think that it would be really very important that the issue that was brought up earlier by Mr. Graham, that it is pointed out that when you have new employees and they are learning various new expectations of them in a job of whatever description, that there is a training process, there are various steps that are taken in terms of a proactive way to deal with new employees. I am wondering if that is going to be the case, not just for the native population who have been fortunate enough to get some of these jobs, but for other new employees also?
MR. HOWARD: I can assure you it will be the case, With Georgia-Pacific, our first responsibility is to the safety of our employees. Our second responsibility is to the safety of our community and that includes our commitment to the environment. The way that Sugar Camp next week is going to be honoured for reaching 500,000 safe work hours - that is 500,000 hours without an on-site work injury - has been through training. New employees when they come in to work be it at Sugar Camp, be it at Melford, be it at my two-person office in Augusta, Maine, we are indoctrinated into safety. Georgia-Pacific has the safest - in the United States it is called OSHA Incidence Rate, it is the OIR - we have the lowest OIR in the forest product industry. So our commitment to safety is something that we take very, very seriously and that starts with training.
MR. ESTABROOKS: I know where you are going and I appreciate that comment. But, Berndt Christmas, the good relations that have been established in the positive relationship between the native bands and your company, the inflammatory comments that were made earlier have to be put in perspective - not that I am giving you advice on PR , but it would seem to me, yes, I am giving you advice on PR. It seems to me that you have to be proactive with the idea that, we have some new employees and perhaps expectations have to be made a lot clearer to them.
MR. HOWARD: Let me apologize for those remarks, they don't reflect the policy of the company. When our jobs will be filled at Melford, the 25 per cent of the jobs that will go to natives, the truck driving jobs that will go to natives, they will be given to residents of Nova Scotia. Granted, they may confer some status because of their tribal ancestry but we will look at those native people, along with all of the other workers, as natives of Nova Scotia. They won't be conferred special treatment, they will be conferred the same treatment as every other worker.
MR. ESTABROOKS: I thank you for the commitment that you have given us, I appreciate it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to say that I do not often - hardly ever - agree with my colleagues on my political left but I tend to agree with the comments just expressed. Whether it is in the trucking industry, or high-rise structural steel work, or whatever, there is certainly a lot we can learn from aboriginal people as well, I think it is a two-way street along those lines. I appreciate the comments by Mr. Howard.
Mr. MacKinnon.
[2:16 p.m. The member for Cape Breton West replaced the member for Victoria.]
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I apologize for being late, I am just filling in for my colleague. I want to go back to the issue of supply and demand. I notice that you have approximately 20-some plants down through the United States that you feed your product to, is that correct?
MR. HOWARD: I don't know the exact amount.
MR. FRASER: The plants that we feed our product to from Nova Scotia?
MR. MACKINNON: Yes, the raw gypsum.
MR. FRASER: We supply gypsum to Newington, New Hampshire; Savannah, Georgia; and Brunswick, Georgia. We do ship some to Canada, so we do have four of our own plants.
MR. MACKINNON: So approximately 25 per cent of your total number of plants. The cost per ton paid to the province is what, 13 cents a ton?
MR. FRASER: It is 12 cents a ton.
MR. MACKINNON: You stated the cost of producing to the market is $10, is that correct?
MR. HOWARD: Our contribution to the province is actually much greater than 12 cents per ton. Through the employment numbers we have, the taxes that we pay . . .
MR. MACKINNON: I realize that. Every company, like the Cape Breton Development Corporation and different mining companies pay specifically on the resource itself. What is a ton of gypsum on the open market worth?
MR. GRAHAM: It is not a commodity.
MR. MACKINNON: It is a product.
MR. GRAHAM: All of the gypsum that is mined in Nova Scotia is mined by the company that is manufacturing it. So it is an extension of their manufacturing facilities. It is not a commodity like paper, sulphur, wheat, or something like that.
MR. MACKINNON: By extension if you look here at Stora, they pay a certain stumpage fee and then the cost of producing that wood is anywhere from $75 to $90 a cord, ship it to the mill and then there is a certain cost for production and so on. Perhaps that may run up to about $250 a ton and then on sale on the market as a final product you could be looking at anywhere upward of about $400. I am just using general round figures, they may be a little obsolete but I think I am not too far off the mark. The same type of philosophy, I am sure, would apply to your company.
I don't want to get into a Public Accounts factor here but in terms of the value for dollar, this fee of 12 cents - I know with coal here in Nova Scotia it is 50 cents a ton. Many of my colleagues, some of who are here at the table, argued that that was substantially low. Do you feel that this 12 cents a ton is a reasonable figure?
MR. CHAIRMAN: He had the same question.
MR. MACKINNON: Well, I guess the question I have, I know it sounds paradoxical, but the issue is, how essential is this market in Nova Scotia to the overall survival of your operation? Is this just a small percentage? You made reference to the fact that the product is depleting and you have to have this operation, this next site, up and going before the next one is completed within 20 years.
MR. HOWARD: Is your question, could we survive without Nova Scotia?
MR. MACKINNON: Yes.
MR. HOWARD: I submit that we would probably find a way.
MR. GRAHAM: There are other suppliers. Spain is exporting to the United States. We could survive without Nova Scotia, very easily.
MR. MACKINNON: Are there escalation clauses built-in? How long is this resource agreement for, this 12 cents on the ton?
MR. GRAHAM: That is set by the province and it has been 12 cents a ton for, I don't know, the last several years. I think it went from 9 cents to 12 cents a ton in maybe the early 1980's. It used to be called a royalty but now they call it a gypsum tax.
MR. MACKINNON: So the province has the authority to amend that on an annual basis, is that what . . .
MR. GRAHAM: I don't know. They have the authority to tax us, that is about all I can tell you.
MR. MACKINNON: Well, how would you know what the terms of reference are for your agreement on 12 cents if you don't know whether it can be changed or not?
MR. HOWARD: You refer to it as an agreement, I am not sure it is an agreement.
MR. MACKINNON: Well, it is a fee, it is a structure. You agree to buy.
MR. FRASER: It is a fee set by the province.
MR. GRAHAM: It may not sound very much and you talk about a non-renewable resource but all the people who quarry rock in Nova Scotia, granite, quartzite that is used for highways or concrete or riprap or environmental work or wharves, the government doesn't receive anything on that. That is a different type of permit than we have. You don't hear many people discuss that permit. That is a permit where you can get almost like a fishing licence and go in and open a quarry and mine the rock, you don't do a reclamation bond, you don't pay any taxes, you take it, you sell it and you run and the province doesn't get 5 cents out of it.
MR. EPSTEIN: Those are good changes we can make to the Environment Act.
MR. GRAHAM: If you are looking for something to change, there is a good starting point.
MR. MACKINNON: Yes, just one final question if I could, Mr. Chairman, on that. That is I suppose aside from the issue of royalties, how much money the government will take in and what it does with it . . .
MR. GRAHAM: No, it is a non-renewable resource.
MR. MACKINNON: I am well aware of that. The same as coal and oil and so on. We won't live to see the next generation of that product being replenished. But that 12 cents, what factors are built-in for remediation in terms of water quality?
MR. GRAHAM: None.
MR. MACKINNON: So if there was a . . .
MR. GRAHAM: A performance bond/reclamation bond takes care of that.
MR. MACKINNON: What is the value of that bond?
MR. GRAHAM: It is set by the Department of the Environment. In Melford I think it is over $2 million and I don't know what it is at Sugar Camp.
MR. HOWARD: Are you suggesting that part of that 12 cents is set aside for reclamation?
MR. MACKINNON: No. I understand the distinction. From the governmental point of view, if you look at the $2 million, the $2 million wouldn't even scratch the surface should there be a back drop on the water quality.
MR. HOWARD: You perhaps weren't here but Mr. Hendsbee had a line of questions along the reclamation line; the record should reflect. Did you miss that part?
MR. MACKINNON: I got part of it.
MR. HOWARD: I can get with you afterward and we can discuss that if you would like.
MR. MACKINNON: I will get the transcript. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go on the record, I am very pleased that Georgia-Pacific is here in Nova Scotia. I believe it is a good corporate citizen. Perfection isn't always in the market place as we sometimes like but on balance we are very pleased to have Georgia-Pacific as an employer in Cape Breton. We are perhaps a little more sensitive than those that don't have a direct interest and it is easy to criticize from ivory towers but when you are on the front lines, as I said to Bruno Marcocchio one time when he came criticizing on the issue of the seal hunt, that there should be no culling
of the seals, I said go work in the fish plant in Louisbourg for six months and find out what it is like to do a real day's work and then come back and criticize. I haven't seen or heard from him since.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I appreciate the analogy. Ron Chisholm.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Mr. Chairman, just to follow up on what Mr. Fraser said about the employees. When this whole issue with permits and the environment was going on and quite a number of your employees called my office in Port Hawkesbury, as well I think I met one guy in Antigonish one day, he was at a car dealership there, he wasn't buying, he told me he was just trying to patch up his old one, so there was a bit of concern in the community about the job losses if that mine didn't go forward.
You tell us you have 125 employees there now. Do you expect that to grow any with the Melford site coming on or will that basically remain about the same?
MR. FRASER: I guess we had predicted, did we Jim, that this transition might go to 145 or something like that?
MR. GRAHAM: Yes, for a short period.
MR. FRASER: During the transition.
MR. GRAHAM: But it would level out probably somewhere where we are now.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: I guess to relate what Mr. MacKinnon had said as well, that Georgia-Pacific has been there for 40 years and it a good corporate citizen I figure and I am looking forward to some day in the near future going down there and doing a tour with you. I will try and set that up.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Boudreau.
MR. BRIAN BOUDREAU: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions. Just to follow up. Are there approximately 30 new jobs, is that correct? Out of the 120 jobs, are there approximately 90 to 100 now working?
MR. FRASER: Right now there are 125 working, counting salaried people.
MR. BOUDREAU: That is at your old site but when that site closes down, they will be transferred over to the new site, is that correct?
MR. HOWARD: Yes and in the interim there will be some additional employment. There are also additional truck drivers that will be employed. So I think that maybe where the 30 additional jobs . . .
MR. BOUDREAU: So there are certainly new positions related to this project?
MR. HOWARD: I think that is fair.
MR. BOUDREAU: In regard to truck traffic, isn't your company contributing a couple of million bucks overall to road improvements, with the cost of the interchange and the passing lane?
MR. HOWARD: With the interchange.
MR. BOUDREAU: I think I read somewhere where it indicated approximately $2 million to $3 million of company investment.
MR. GRAHAM: The interchange there would be in excess of $1 million, probably about $1.2 million that we are constructing now. The passing lane is $400,000 and that will be constructed next year.
MR. FRASER: If I could just make one point too. We also pay fuel tax on our off-road equipment that we operate. Last year we paid approximately $450,000 in that tax. Those vehicles didn't put one piece of rubber on the highway. So, I think it should be put in context that the company is contributing a lot of fuel tax dollars every year and those vehicles aren't contributing to wear and tear on the highway.
MR. BOUDREAU: I agree and it is a good point to bring out, thank you. In exploration for new sites, do I understand that you are not exploring any other sites in Nova Scotia?
MR. GRAHAM: Not at the present, no. We have looked all around the area of Port Hawkesbury, adjacent to our Sugar Camp quarries in the River Denys Basin but we don't have any active exploration program on right now.
[2:30 p.m.]
I don't know if there is any misconception here but Bob just brought up a point that maybe you people aren't aware of, that in Nova Scotia when you own the land, you own the gypsum on it. It is not a Crown mineral like gold. If you own the land, you don't necessarily own the gold, the silver, or the zinc that is under it but in Nova Scotia, the way gypsum is classified, it is owned by the landowner and that is getting back to your question on the royalty.
MR. BOUDREAU: Just one question I will ask for my friends across the table. I think they may be a little shy to ask. Could your company be convinced, through various angles, I guess, to build a processing plant here in Nova Scotia?
MR. GRAHAM: Tom will answer.
MR. HOWARD: Yes.
MR. BOUDREAU: You could be?
MR. HOWARD: If we could be convinced it was profitable.
MR. BOUDREAU: So if the government was to provide some assistance or whatever, it is possible.
MR. HOWARD: I don't want to sound crass but the bottom line is the bottom line. If there was an ability for the operation to be profitable; we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders and we would not be exercising our fiduciary responsibility if we didn't take advantage of a profitable opportunity.
MR. BOUDREAU: That is very good. It is good to get that on record. Thank you.
Your company spends, what, $10 million a year, I think it is, in the local Port Hawkesbury area economy?
MR. FRASER: Last year it was over $16 million.
MR. BOUDREAU: Over $16 million in the local economy and of course you will see an increase in that as the new mine site is in operation.
MR. HOWARD: That is correct. There will be additional employment levels, more trucking jobs.
MR. BOUDREAU: Just my last comment, Mr. Chairman. I am an MLA from Cape Breton Island also. To my knowledge, your company has a very good reputation, it is very well respected throughout this industry. I know historically the community hasn't had any major difficulties, at least with your company and its other two sites and I want to congratulate you for coming to Nova Scotia, and particularly Cape Breton, in an area that is stressed to the limit economically, that is obvious. I think your company and your officials should be commended for coming here and investing those types of dollars into the economy, particularly in that area. I think that the present government should encourage further investment in this particular company since it obviously has a willingness to increase its place in the community.
MR. HOWARD: Thank you, Mr. Boudreau. I would like to say that these two gentlemen are both facility managers and facility managers are required by the company's environmental and safety policy to maintain a log of such things that include complaints from neighbours, complaints from local citizens and so forth. Any complaint that comes in has to be logged, investigated and ultimately gets reported up through the corporate structure to headquarters where records are kept and managers', compensation is based in part on how many complaints are received and how those complaints were responded to. We have a responsibility, obviously, and a strong incentive to make sure there are no complaints that come in and if any complaints do come in, they are met with an address.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hendsbee.
MR. HENDSBEE: Just a couple of quick questions. You had on the top of your head the amount of taxes you paid in the fuel oil or the fuel taxes and stuff for your off-road equipment and everything else, is it possible that the annual statement the company has to submit to the minister, is that considered a public document or not in regard to the value of taxation it pays and the calculation of its income? Is that a public record document or is that a privy document? Could someone tell me that?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just a second, Mr. Hendsbee. Does somebody want to answer?
MR. HOWARD: I am unable to answer that.
MR. HENDSBEE: It makes reference here that an annual statement is required from the company to the minister. I would like to know if that statement is a public statement or not or is that considered private information of business activity? I am just curious about the taxes paid. I would like to know how exactly how much you paid in taxes in regard to the gypsum tax versus your property and municipal taxes versus your fuel tax versus your income contribution payroll tax. I would just like to know the total.
MR. GRAHAM: I can tell you we are the highest taxpayer in Inverness County. There is another tax that we pay that you might not be aware of, 17 cents a ton is a marine tax. On every ton that we export we have to pay 17 cents a ton to the Coast Guard to keep the buoys in place, I guess.
MR. HENDSBEE: So you are paying the Coast Guard more than . . .
MR. GRAHAM: The province.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You have to get to Montreal somehow.
MR. GRAHAM: That is to keep the ice out of the St. Lawrence, primarily, I guess.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Chisholm.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: I was just wondering, there was some concern around the community about the truck traffic, the dust, the noise and that sort of thing on the new site. I know Georgia-Pacific has indicated they would pay fair market value plus 10 per cent, I believe it was, to buy out people's houses. Has anybody in residence there taken you up on that opportunity?
MR. GRAHAM: The offer has been out there for seven years and no one has. We bought one property adjacent to us two years ago but the offer is still there. I think they are just waiting to see what happens.
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: So that offer is still on the table.
MR. GRAHAM: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. MacKinnon.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, a few short snappers on some housekeeping matters. Occupational health and safety, you have a safety committee on site, I presume?
MR. GRAHAM: That is a requirement.
MR. MACKINNON: They meet regularly?
MR. FRASER: Yes, they meet every month. We have a very active health and safety committee. It is made up of 12 members. The make-up is roughly 50/50 from salaried and hourly personnel. I attribute a great deal of our excellent safety record to the work of that committee.
MR. MACKINNON: Do you have regular Department of Labour inspections?
MR. FRASER: Yes.
MR. MACKINNON: How often?
MR. FRASER: It is irregular and I couldn't really say. I could tell you that probably there was an inspector in last month but to my knowledge they don't come in on a regular, set basis.
MR. MACKINNON: How would you know when they are coming in?
MR. FRASER: You don't.
MR. MACKINNON: That is a good point. So the new Occupational Health & Safety Act is working.
MR. FRASER: It is at our plant.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Chipman.
MR. CHIPMAN: Just one more question, Mr. Chairman. I am not trying to give you a hard time, don't get me wrong, but I do have a question. When I look at 12 cents per ton, we are looking at a non-renewable resource and we met with a group here two weeks ago from the forest industry and they are paying $16.90 for stumpage from the Crown, which is a renewable resource, and which I feel is too low, and they are both used in the construction industry. We export lumber to the U.S. It doesn't seem to me that it is enough, 12 cents a ton today. I am just going by this as hearsay, you must realize. There is a company down in the Valley and I think they have a 99 year lease. I don't know the terms of reference or the fee schedule or whatever and I realize probably your costs are high, transportation costs by ship. Do you ship at all by sea?
MR. GRAHAM: Everything, 100 per cent.
MR. CHIPMAN: Because you were mentioning trucking. Anyway, that is more or less a statement. I guess it wasn't a question but when I think of renewable and non-renewable resource, this definitely isn't a renewable resource.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Howard.
MR. HOWARD: The difference you said, give 68 cents a cord, or whatever, to the Crown . . .
MR. CHIPMAN: No, this was stumpage . . .
MR. HOWARD: Stumpage, on forestry. We own the land and, as was said earlier, the mineral rights for gypsum go with the landowner.
MR. CHIPMAN: I realize that. What I was comparing with is one is a renewable resource, the logs, forestry, where this is a non-renewable resource, both used in the construction industry and comparatively speaking, when you look at the cost of construction of a house, the gyproc is probably the least expensive.
MR. GRAHAM: That is true.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I am just wondering if I could ask Mr. Howard, who is with government affairs and the United States representative for the company, as to whether or not
the wallboard plants that Georgia-Pacific has - and you clearly indicated here that it is not feasible, and I tend to agree with you that is not feasible perhaps to establish one here in Nova Scotia - I am just wondering, are you prepared to say whether or not there is government money in the other existing wallboard plants, in terms of investment, either through grants, forgivable loans or through loans?
MR. HOWARD: I can't answer that question with 100 per cent certainty but with the exception of the Wheatfield, Indiana plant, which is the newest plant that we have built, most of the other facilities that we have were acquired. So there would not be government money in facilities that we acquired. There may be some, in fact, there is some government money that I am aware of at the new Wheatfield facility.
I can discuss with you what I am aware of, if you like, but I think in a more general sense, if we were to go to any of the jurisdictions in the States and discuss putting up a green-field site - that is, to take a green-field and put a facility on there - then the local government and the state government would step forth with various offers of assistance. The most typical offers of assistance that are put forth would be things such as a rebate on your property taxes for a set period of time, that rebate being used to pay for infrastructure improvements. We call those TIFS, tax increment financing.
Another very popular option in the States is the use of government grants for training. In some instances, in some states and some jurisdictions, the governing agency will actually take over the training function for you and they will do the training to your specifications. Beyond that, the limit, really, is the limit to one's creativity, in terms of what type of incentives are offered. Tax increment financing to help with infrastructure improvements and training grants or training funding are probably the two preferred methods of trying to incent businesses to establish new facilities.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps I could understand that in certain locations, depending on your proximity to population numbers and communities. Not to disagree with my colleague, the honourable member for Cape Breton The Lakes, I think it would be very difficult for this government to consider investing in something that is not feasible for the pretty big corporation, Georgia-Pacific; if it is really not profitable. I think you, very clearly, said it wasn't for you, through private investment, it probably wouldn't be too profitable for the taxpayers of this province to indulge in that type of activity. That is just an observation but it is much deeper than that.
MR. HOWARD: When I responded to Mr. Boudreau, I tried to place emphasis on, if we could be shown it was profitable. Obviously, if we can be shown that that is the case, we would give it every consideration.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Epstein, the final word may go to you.
MR. EPSTEIN: Perhaps it is. Well, a comment and then a question, if I may, Mr. Chairman.
The point raised by my friend, the honourable member for Preston, was having to do with the annual statements that led to a calculation under the Gypsum Mining Income Tax Act of revenue derived from mining operations. He was referring to Section 5 of the Act. But if you skip ahead to Section 7, you will see that, in fact, a company doesn't have to file such a statement. What they can do is they can say to the minister, let's assume that the standard rate of our money earned from mining is as specified in the Statute. What it suggests in the Statute is 18 cents per ton. Then in Section 8, it sets the tax as being one-third.
Then if you skip ahead to the one regulation that exists under that Act, you will see that the 18 cents has been set since 1975 as being 36 cents a ton. So that is where the 12 cents per ton comes from, it is one-third of a deemed amount. So I suspect that none of the companies actually file this report. I suspect what they do is they take the deemed amount of income from revenue at 36 cents a ton and apply the one-third tax to it and that is where they pay the 12 cents per ton. That seems to be where it comes from and it seems to have been in place since 1975. My question for the witness, really, is if 12 cents a ton is too much, as you have said to us, what should we lower it to?
MR. HOWARD: Zero would be good for starters.
MR. EPSTEIN: I see. That's what you think.
The point of departure for your analysis seems to be that, because gypsum is treated differently as a mineral under our Statutes, that we should assume for all time, perhaps, that it should be treated differently. Of course, this is a policy decision that a government could make. It doesn't have to be treated that way. Of course, it is, as you say, taxable.
If we are not going to get a manufacturing plant here, I guess, on the whole, we have to direct a lot of our thoughts to the overall taxation system, regardless of whether that is expressed as a royalty or a tax on profits, or what. Anyway, nice talking to you. Thanks.
MR. HOWARD: Don't leave here with the assumption that the only money the Government of Nova Scotia receives from Georgia-Pacific Canada, Inc. is the 12 cents per ton, mining tax.
MR. EPSTEIN: Oh, no.
MR. HOWARD: In fact, it goes much beyond that. Our total payments to the government would be closer to something with seven figures when you figure in the fuel tax, the marine tax and so forth.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes. That includes federal and provincial taxes, I guess, if you are talking about the marine tax, of course. You wouldn't be including in that, income tax paid by your employees?
MR. HOWARD: No, I wouldn't.
MR. EPSTEIN: You are talking about what the corporation pays.
MR. HOWARD: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay, thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Committee members, we do have some unfinished business we will try to take care of after the conclusion of this meeting. Mr. Boudreau, I guess it is now you who has the final word.
MR. BOUDREAU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a short question. How much royalties in the United States do you pay per ton, zero?
MR. HOWARD: We don't pay royalties in the U.S.
MR. BOUDREAU: Does the company or the government own the resource?
MR. HOWARD: The company owns the resource in the facilities, in the mines that we have in the U.S. I can't speak to what the situation would be if it was mined off federal or state land. I am not familiar with that.
MR. BOUDREAU: But you also own the resource here in this province?
MR. HOWARD: That's correct.
MR. BOUDREAU: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Howard, Mr. Fraser and Mr. Graham, thank you very much for coming in this afternoon. If you did want to take a couple of minutes and take a parting shot at us or make some comments in closing, you are certainly more than welcome to do so.
MR. HOWARD: I guess I would just like to say that I have dealt with the three Parties in the province. I actually have roots in the Melford area; my grandmother was born in Orangedale so I have had a particular fondness to get back and work on this project. It has been a great learning experience. In my meetings with members from the three Parties, I have been very pleased with the support that we have been shown and the hospitality that our company has received. Several members around the table said that they were pleased to have
us here and I guess I would just like to say that on behalf of Georgia-Pacific Corporation, the parent of Georgia-Pacific Canada, Inc., we are pleased to be here as well.
We all have open-door policies and that extends all the way to the chief executive officer of our company. The three of us distributed our cards around. Any time that there is any concern, we want to hear about it. It is far better to hear about it from the source or from one of you than to pick up The Daily News on Wednesday and see it there. We try to be accessible, we try to do our best, we sometimes have failings and when we have failings, we want to hear about it and we want to do whatever we can to correct those. So that is my parting shot.
MR. FRASER: I would just like to say that although I am fortunate enough to work for a company like Georgia-Pacific and I have worked for them for 38 years, I am also a native Nova Scotian, a fifth generation Nova Scotian and I am proud of it. We feel we have done a good job as a company and as a group of employees in Nova Scotia. We look forward to many more years of doing the same. Thank you.
MR. GRAHAM: I will pass.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Honourable members, as you might know we had a situation down at the Bluenose II and my colleague, Cecil O'Donnell, polled the various caucuses and individual members. We try to be as flexible as we can as a committee and I indicated, on behalf of this committee - and based on conversations with Cecil O'Donnell - that we would certainly entertain Mr. Fred Sears and his associates, who are concerned about the inshore fishery in Nova Scotia. They are going to contact us and as a consequence, we will work them into our schedule.
Our next meeting date is October 17th, Communities in Bloom, we will have Mr. Raymond Carriere, national chairperson and Mr. Ivan Stinson, provincial judge and Mrs. Margaret Stinson, national committee member, before the committee. Also in your package there is a tentative schedule, I guess. Darlene, do you want to comment?
MRS. HENRY: No, I didn't contact anybody yet for November, December, January or February. I wanted to make sure first that this is okay with the committee, if you want me to call them in that order, or if you want me to change them around and put other people prior. Once that is done I can make the telephone calls, set up the meetings, and you will be all set, with the exception of the inshore fisheries group which I will have to fit in there somewhere.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. Chairman, I know that when I talked to the member for Shelburne we discussed that as soon as possible we agreed to meet with Mr. Sears and his group. Are we saying that the October 17th group could be bumped if we could get Mr. Sears in then?
MR. CHAIRMAN: I am wondering if perhaps by consensus or unanimous agreement, we could conduct a special session and stick to our witness list. We have been flexible in the past. Would it be agreed by all members that if Mr. Sears and his associates wish to come in at a particular time we will try to work around their schedule?
MR. MACKINNON: Perhaps we could meet him down on the Bluenose II.
MR. ESTABROOKS: With the proviso it would be on a Tuesday, correct?
MRS. HENRY: It would be a Tuesday, yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: If you look through the package that was graciously provided by Darlene, you will see a witness list right through to February 13, 2001. Darlene, have we agreed at a previous meeting that we will try to follow this agenda as far as the witnesses go?
MRS. HENRY: Yes, at the last meeting that we had, this was presented before the committee and it seemed to be okay at that time.
MR. BOUDREAU: The list is fine but I would appreciate an opportunity to have someone added to the list.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
MR. BOUDREAU: It would be Mr. Whalley, who is the economic development officer for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. The municipality down there certainly has a plan in place for its economic abilities in the future. It may be beneficial to members of this committee and the government, of course, to hear what plans the CBRM does have on paper.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is it timely that they appear before the committee or can it wait until after February 2001?
MR. BOUDREAU: I would suggest March would be fine, yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is it agreed?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: It is agreed.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can I have a motion to adjourn.
MR. ESTABROOKS: So moved.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We are adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 2:54 p.m.]
