MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to call the committee to order.
The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage, to continue with the estimates on Education. You have approximately 16 minutes remaining.
MR. KEVIN DEVEAUX: Mr. Chairman, I wonder, given the fact that the minister is waiting for her staff, could we have the clock start ticking after the staff arrives.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It is normal for the clock to continue ticking. If you have a question, you may ask the minister now.
MR. DEVEAUX: Madam Minister, going to Page 8.8 of the Supplementary Details for this year, Acadian and French Language Services. You may recall we had a discussion around this last year, specifically on where the extra money from the federal government was being spent. I see your department has become smart enough to at least show that you are spending all the federal money where you say you are spending it, but I do have a few questions around that, some of them relating to the questions from the member for Clare last week and some other information I have received.
I want to start by asking, with regard to those numbers under Acadian and French Language Services, you have $220,000 for Administration; $525,000-plus for French Curriculum Development; $842,000 for School Governance. Overall, you see a reduction of about $250,000 from last year. Can the minister explain why there has been a reduction in the department in that particular program?
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Education.
HON. JANE PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the recovery numbers are actually a bit less than what the forecast was, it is slightly less than the estimate. I believe in the rest of the spending it is roughly the same, if not a little bit more.
MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Chairman, it is like the layers of an onion, every time I peel a layer of this I have more questions. (Interruptions) With tears, yes. The minister seems to be saying that the numbers are slightly higher overall. She said Recoveries were less in the forecast than they were in the estimate, in fact the forecast recoveries - let's face it, that means money from the federal government - was actually up almost $200,000. My question to the minister is, why is she expecting a reduction in federal recoveries this year and is that the reason why, because the federal money has gone down, she is spending less money in each of those divisions of Acadian and French Language Services?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the federal programs under Official Languages and Education Program are usually three year agreements. This was the last year of a three year agreement, it was less and it was predicted to be less. We are going to be signing new agreements for three years next month - it was going to be this month but now it may be next month. We actually expect them to be higher, but since we haven't signed on the dotted line yet, we are not counting on that.
MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Chairman, I am going to table a document, it is actually in French, it is the New Brunswick agreement that they made. They actually went back to 1999-2000 with regard to their agreement. It is a five year agreement, I believe, in New Brunswick, and it goes back to 1999-2000. I find that interesting because if you look under this program back to 1999-2000, the numbers - no, sorry, I am going to go over to Page 8.9 and move you around a little bit, Madam Minister. On Page 8.9, under Other Grants, you would look at French Language Grants and Recoveries - French Language Grants again, it is federal money. In 1999-2000, you thought you were going to get $2.8 million, you actually got $4.264 million. My question is, is that because you are expecting the federal money to be retroactive to two years ago like it was in New Brunswick where their money went up in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 and again this year, over what was estimated? If I could get a copy of that and have it tabled.
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I am going to have to get back to the member on the variance in that year.
MR. DEVEAUX: I would hope that the minister would have actually had some good idea as to the differences. Let me ask, if you are signing this agreement this month, and now it is put off for a month, how much are you expecting, on Page 8.8, to get from the federal government and on Page 8.9? How much do you expect the federal grants to come to and can you break it down by division?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we will be able to do that, but it is still under negotiation, so I can't do that right away. When the agreement is signed we will certainly table them all, as I have said previously.
MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Chairman, the problem is that I remember on Friday, to a question from the Leader of the Liberal Party, you said it is $5.8 million that you are expecting. Oh, now she remembers. My question is, you know how much it is, you know it is going to be signed, why aren't you reflecting those numbers in this particular budget? And why, given the fact that you know you are getting more money, did you actually reduce the amount of money you are expecting to get to spend with regard to French language programs in Nova Scotia?
[5:30 p.m.]
MISS PURVES: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I did reference the $5.8 million and I said that is what we are expecting. We have asked for some more things this year, but they have not been signed on the dotted line. The estimates reflect what we knew for sure or thought for sure was reasonable to expect at the time that the estimates were made up and that was $4.5 million. There are other circumstances this year that the federal government may help us out in certain areas, but we put in the estimates what we were certain of receiving.
MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Chairman, the minister has just said that she knows she is getting $4.5 million. Maybe I am missing something here, maybe there is another page where there are recoveries from the federal government, but I calculate these two federal grants to add up to $4.1 million. So there would still be another $400,000 somewhere in your budget that you should be accounting for. Can you explain to me where the other $400,000 is?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, it doesn't show explicitly broken out here, but it is contained within Public Education, where the grants to school boards are.
MR. DEVEAUX: So you are saying there is a line item that relates to the CSAP, that that then is reference to the $400,000? I am not clear, because I understood that all the money with regard to French language education came either under the French Language Grants you get from the federal government on Page 8.9 or specifically accounted for under Recoveries under Acadian and French Language Services. So can the minister explain to me why this is $400,000 she knows she is getting from the federal government yet isn't accounted for in one of these two line items?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, there is $402,000 netted against grants to school boards. In the past I am told that the money was shown differently, but this year - and none of the school boards have their own specific lines in this budget, including the Acadian one - the funding is under Formula Grants to School Boards.
MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Chairman, let me be quite specific. Can the minister show me in the Supplementary Detail or in the estimates, a line item that shows where that $402,000 is being accounted for?
MISS PURVES: No, Mr. Chairman, there is no such line item.
MR. DEVEAUX: So we are right back to where we were last year, Madam Minister. Maybe you are a little smarter this year because you didn't actually put in brackets that you are taking the money and putting it somewhere else; but you are doing exactly what you did last year and this year it is even more money. Last year it was $220,000 - well, it might have actually been $400,000 between the two programs. You are taking that exact same number again, or similar, and you are spending it in general revenue. The federal government has given you that money to spend on French language programs, programs for those people who want to learn French, want their children to learn French under French immersion, and also for programs obviously through the Acadian School Board, but this government decides instead to pocket that money and put it somewhere else.
Last year there was supposed to be an audit done of this government. There was supposed to be an audit done of how you are spending the federal government's money with regard to French languages. Can the minister tell me if there was ever an audit done and for what year those audits were done?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the audit was done for last year. The audit has been completed. We have not received it, but we have received no indication that there was any misallocation of funds. The province spends a great deal of money on French language education. We do receive recoveries from the federal government. We receive recoveries somewhere between, in the last few years, $4.5 million and maybe $5.8 million if our agreement is signed, but we spend more than $60 million a year on French education with provincial money in this province and that is because we are committed to doing so.
MR. DEVEAUX: It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that most of that $60 million, correct me if I am wrong, is spent on Université Sainte-Anne and on Collège de l'Acadie, but when we are looking at programs to help promote French through curriculum development to help ensure that the students who want to learn in French, whether that be through immersion or whether those be francophone students who want to learn in their first language, whether those programs are there to ensure that those students have the same opportunities, you are not providing any more money than what the federal government has provided and, in fact, I think it could be said you are providing less than the federal government is providing.
Now, let me put this to you. It is my understanding that the audit that was done by Heritage Canada was for 1999-2000. It was not for 2000-01. Can the minister confirm if the audit that was done was for the 1999-2000 fiscal year?
MISS PURVES: Yes, Mr. Chairman, the audit was done for last year because that was where the questions were raised. They were about last year, yes, that is correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage, you have two minutes.
MR. DEVEAUX: I am sorry, I am not clear what the minister is saying. You say 2000, but the fiscal year runs into another year. So is it 1999-2000 or 2000-01?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, they did the audit for the last year available. They didn't do the audit in-between terms. So it was for the year 1999-2000, that they did the audit.
MR. DEVEAUX: I have about one and one-half minutes left, is that right?
MR. CHAIRMAN: A minute and a half.
MR. DEVEAUX: So, thank you for confirming that the audit was done for a year prior to your first full year as a government, your first full year in which you started showing that you are taking the money and pocketing it for other purposes. The audit was done for 1999-2000 in which, I will give them credit, the former government was providing extra funding or at least providing the full federal funding. There was no audit done on last year, the year you showed that you were actually going to pocket some of that money.
Mr. Chairman, through you to the minister, I find this so frustrating because this province has never really shown a full commitment to French education and this government has clearly shown no commitment to French education, whether it is because there has been no full audit of last year with regard to how they spent that money; and now we have a government that is continuing to hide. They are even hiding it worse than they were before. Before they used to show it on the books. Now they are burying it somewhere else. They have become good accountants, yet, still, we see money being wasted that is supposed to be spent on specific programs. I find that offensive and I think all Nova Scotians should find it offensive, but particularly francophones and Acadians in Nova Scotia because that money was delivered to them for that specific purpose. (Applause)
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to thank the NDP caucus for their questions. Now I would like to recognize the Liberal caucus. We are going to start off with the honourable member for Dartmouth East, at 5:39 p.m. He has one hour in turn, so that would be 6:39 p.m.
The honourable member for Dartmouth East.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I just rise briefly to address some education issues, more local issues to my riding of Dartmouth East. So I will be very soon deferring to our Education Critic for the remainder of our hour. School closures is the big issue, or the big issue in the Dartmouth East community right at this juncture, particularly the Prince Andrew family of schools as it is referred to. Having represented that area since 1984, I realize the importance the families in the communities of Woodlawn and Westphal area have placed on education. This has been an extremely strong community in education. They have seen school closures, particularly at the elementary level with Woodlawn School, which has now been torn down; the Penhorn School, a few years ago, now demolished.
I am going to confine my comments, basically, to the impact of the closure of the elementary school, Mary Lawson Elementary School, and whatever impact that may have on Admiral Westphal Junior High School, that is basically in that community, as we used to call it, the old Westphal area, now it is really called the Main Street area of Dartmouth East.
Mr. Chairman, there are two particular areas I would like to focus on, because of the review community that has been set up and the process has been set up. I want to thank the minister for responding, albeit a bit delayed, but I thought it was a response to a letter that I sent regarding the process, and I want to acknowledge that and thank the minister, it arrived a couple of days ago. The process has proceeded through the review committee, but now I believe there is a report being tabled relative to the staff report on the fate of the Mary Lawson Elementary School. There is some indication - and the media has been reporting this as such already - that the Mary Lawson Elementary School would again be back on the list of closures. It is an elementary school, an excellent school in that community, high-calibre for a long period of time and a real hallmark of that community.
The elementary students would be going to Admiral Westphal Junior High School. The definition of a school, if we are speaking just in terms of the facility, where you have a junior school, if the elementary schools are going to feed in, and that will be changed from a junior high school to an elementary school. If the minister understands that to be the change of a role of a school, the closing of a school, or if she is really just looking at a school as the bricks and mortar.
The two schools are essentially closing, the junior school's children will be moved out of their community into other junior schools, the two elementary schools, Alderney School and Mary Lawson Elementary School, it has been rumoured, would be coming into the junior school. In the minister's opinion, does that constitute the closing of a school, that junior school, and, if so, where is the process, for that closure, of consultation and of a fair hearing for the information for the people of that community?
We have the closing of a junior school and the closing of an elementary school. I would be interested in the legitimacy of that, within the regulations of school closures, and how the minister would define a school, as bricks and mortar or a school or place with children that, in this case would involve the closure of two schools, a junior and an elementary?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, as the member from Dartmouth East knows, school closures are handled by the school boards. It is a very emotional issue for all the communities involved. Usually the conversation is about small rural schools, but people care just as strongly about their schools in metro or metro areas. The school board can redefine its school district, its boundaries from where pupils come from, and they can use schools for different purposes. Schools can be upgraded to serve a different age population than what they were originally intended for. That is within the authority of the school board to do that.
Obviously, a school is not just bricks and mortar, but given the climate we live in, bricks and mortar are certainly a part of it. A school is a community, and if a school and many of the staff have been there for a while and many of the same family members have gone there for years, then it is a very tight community, but school communities do change. Children are quite resilient and are usually able to accommodate the change often better than their parents.
DR. SMITH: I thank the minister for her attempted answer, but I am not quite sure that addressed the issue. I will simply ask if the Admiral Westphal Junior High School is closing, the students are leaving that building and going to two other schools, out of their community, does that constitute a school closure?
MISS PURVES: Sorry, I am trying to answer the question, but I actually don't understand the question. If a school is going to be used for something different and pupils are going to be sent somewhere else because of that, then I don't think, technically, that that would constitute a school closure.
DR. SMITH: So, the minister is saying - just so I understand - that those parents of those junior high school children who are being moved out of the area, out of their community, that she doesn't recognize her own regulations regarding school closures, and that that does not constitute a school closure, that they would be afforded the public consultation and the input and some explanation of the reasons why that would be. To date, there has been no public consultation, as far as I know, or communication with the parents of the junior high school children.
I appreciate children are tough. I realize they are resilient. But I am telling you, Mr. Chairman, that I really think as a society we should look very carefully at how we deal with children at the elementary school level. We have learned a lot in research about children and their social and educational development. They are tough. I always remember people saying
the death of somebody in the family, how the children were so great, they were handling it better than the adults, how tough and resilient they were. That is a myth. There is major impact on children, I refer to death and dying within a family. Those children who lost parents at a young age, and everyone said how well they were doing, never recovered from the death of their parent.
That is a myth that has been shown to have taken place in the way that we see children. Children are not little adults. They have major vulnerability. They go to school fearful. Now we are proposing - at least from the media, I haven't seen the report yet - that we take them from the Mary Lawson Elementary School, put two schools together, a large number of children in a junior high school, which takes a lot of renovation. That is the other item I want to get into, the cost of this.
I really think that the minister should rethink what she just said, that the parents get more upset than the children. These parents, Michael Monk and Deborah MacLellan and all the others of the Mary Lawson Elementary School have been very responsible. They have appeared time after time at meetings; they have done a lot of research; they started from ground zero. There is a letter coming to the minister - I received a copy - that I don't want to get into tonight because I don't think she has had a chance to read it. I think it is that attitude, that you can take these children, you can bus them anywhere and they can get up, goodness knows what - I know I grew up in a rural community, 12 miles away from the school that I eventually went to. I had the advantage the first 8 years of being at a one-room school; 11 grades in one schoolroom. It was great. I wouldn't advise it for the children of this era, but that was a better alternative than getting bused out of that community, I believe.
If you want to bus junior high school children and senior high school children, I think that is not bad. There is a resourcefulness built in. But I think we know that two or three years - that Fraser Mustard, Paul Steinhauer and all those people who are real international experts on the development of children, and the Minister of Community Services is aware of this, because that is what they are trying to do, address that window of opportunity. We have a lot of children, and a lot of children in that community that I know quite well are coming into that environment very vulnerable. To say that their parents are upset, more upset than the children, that might be, but they are doing it with concern. They want the system to be fair, and they will accept the decision, but they want it to be open.
I prefaced my comments about a school not being bricks and mortar, and there is the closure, if this happens, if Admiral Westphal Junior High School closes, is the minister satisfied that she can do that and move those children, those junior high school children out of their community - and they will be going out of their community if that happens - that you can do that without a public consultation? Does she think that is fair to those parents? I am talking now about the junior high school children, forgetting for the moment that the elementary schools will be closing? I just think we can do better in society.
I think elementary schools should be small, very small and very close to the community. I think children are resourceful, but not all in total have that much strength. Many times many of them are coming under very difficult circumstances. We know breakfast programs are a very large part of that community. There are a lot of vulnerable children. I think to add a bus drive or something else on top of that is just not the way to go, regardless if it is Alderney School or any other school. I think, in society, surely to goodness there is enough money in the budgets that we can afford to keep some of these schools open, and not close them because there are two empty classrooms, so to speak, that are being used for a music room or an art room or a lunch room. At least be honest with the people and say what you are doing.
I will go back to the question, does the minister believe that it is fair to close a junior high school, such as Admiral Westphal Junior High School, without a public consultation process - I don't want to go through all the regulations - and the regulations regarding school closure?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the school closure process has comprised a lot of public consultation. Obviously, a lot of people don't want their various schools closed. The board has not made any final decision on which schools will be closed. I really don't want to get into commenting on a certain situation that may not happen. I have received a lot of correspondence from parents, including Mr. Monk, who the member mentioned, although I haven't had a chance to read tonight's yet.
I agree with him, and I have said so publicly before, that elementary schools should be as close to the community as possible, that elementary students shouldn't have to be bused long distances to go to school, that as kids get older their world can get bigger, and that is the way it should be. In a specific case of any one school that may or may not be closed, I prefer not to comment, as the school board is going to be deciding that.
DR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I can understand the minister's position. We have all been there, whether it is a hospital or a school, as a minister. I don't want to put the minister on the spot for that, but I do think there has been concern about the process. I think if a school such as Admiral Westphal Junior High School was to be closed, generally they have been afforded the courtesy of a process of some consultation. I am sorry to be mixing up the two schools, but they are very much interrelated and there is a process there in place.
I did want to just briefly comment on the capital costs and the renovation of a school such as Admiral Westphal Junior High School. If it is converted, where the two elementary schools would come and occupy it, there are some obvious changes that have to take place. Would it normally be that those figures would be available, if it is being laid out that there is going to be so much cost saving here - that will be determined - that there would be some engineering assessment on some capital costs to do renovations? Would the minister expect that that would be available to the community?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, since the decision has not been made, there have been no engineering studies and no cost estimates of doing that. They would be available for members of this House and the media, whatever, should any decision like that be made. We make our cost estimates for renovations and alterations public.
DR. SMITH: That would pretty well concludes my comments at this juncture. I want to thank the minister. As I did mention, the letter that she has - I know from representing that community - is on her desk. I didn't want to question her specifically, I wanted to address these two broad issues of the changing role of the particular bricks and mortar part of the Admiral Westphal Junior High School and the impact that would have on the students themselves.
Also, I understand the minister to say before there was any definite change in the role of the Admiral Westphal Junior High School, if it does become an elementary school, those figures would be known to the community, maybe to the member of the Legislature, the media - she mentions that - and I look forward to those figures being made available in a public way. That would be some indication that the transition period, the cost savings would be realized, and that the difficulty in uprooting children from a school they have been very familiar with, at least from a financial way, is worthwhile, even though in human terms it may well have a negative impact on the children who have to make that transition into a much larger school. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to thank the member for Dartmouth East for his questions.
The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party.
MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to the information the Minister of Education tabled on Friday. We were talking about capital costs on school construction. She tabled a one-pager here, it is called the Capital Cost Estimate 2001-02. There is a list of different schools, with different school boards. The total school construction is $67.5 million.
I just want the minister to indicate, is this budget item listed under the Minister of Transportation and Public Works? This was information that was tabled on Friday by the minister. The amount is $67.5 million for total school construction for 2001-02. My question is to the minister, is this information under the Minister of Transportation and Public Works' budget or is this information somewhere within her own budget?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, that amount is contained in the Department of Transportation and Public Works' main estimates, Page 1.5.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to the Supplementary Detail, Page 8.10, School Capital - Amortization. This year we have $32.3 million budgeted. With the information that the minister tabled on Friday, it indicates that $15 million will be spent on additions, alterations, renovations, repairs; and $4 million for Robb joist repairs to the area schools. Technically, we are looking at roughly $13 million left over from what appears in the estimates. Could the minister indicate what that additional $13 million will be used for?
[6:00 p.m.]
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we are still working on the list, it is not finalized, but I would like to assure the member for Clare that there is $3 million off the top for renovations to the Clare District High School.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I just want to clarify, again, coming back to Page 8.10, the minister has $32.3 million in her estimate for 2001-02. That is Page 8.10 in the Supplementary Detail. She indicated that $15 million would be used for renovations and repairs, and $4 million for Robb joist repairs to various schools. I am just wondering - we are talking about $19 million, there is roughly $13 million left over - what is this $13 million going to be used for?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, as I have said, the list for the renovations and repairs is not complete yet, but it will be very shortly. Plus, the $4 million for the Robb joists. The rest is the treatment of the new buildings we will be putting up, this year's amortization for the new schools we will be putting up, with the whole budget shown in the Department of Transportation and Public Works. They are booked as tangible capital assets, and that is what is showing here on the amortization of school capital.
MR. GAUDET: The minister is indicating that the remaining $13 million will be used for amortization for the new schools that are actually coming on the books this year, is that correct, the new schools that are opening in this school year?
MISS PURVES: I have a list here, if it would be helpful to the Liberal Leader. It shows the amortization in detail. If I could just note that in the new schools to be completed in 2001-02 would be Elmsdale, Clare, Argyle, St. Anne du Ruisseau, Pomquet, Chedabucto Place and Whycocomagh, and it has the amortized costs of each. Elmsdale, $175,000 for that year, and so on and so forth, and I can table that for the member's information.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, before I move over to another topic, I just want to touch base on a situation that happened during the Christmas break at the Maitland District School. I am sure the minister is aware that during the Christmas break the maintenance staff was laid off during that period. Pipes froze and burst, all kinds of damage was caused. They had to replace ceilings in the hallways and I think it was six classrooms. Quite a bit of damage was caused. There is no doubt that when school boards are faced with probably
doing with less, they have to make some tough decisions. In this particular situation, school boards, probably, rather than a saving in this particular situation, it actually cost them a lot more than what they were planning on saving, to lay off the maintenance staff over the Christmas break.
I am just wondering if the minister could indicate to the committee, is this government's policy, department's policy for school boards to lay off maintenance staff over the Christmas holidays, or is this something pretty well left to the individual school boards in order to make ends meet or, more or less, do some selective choices?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, that was a choice made by that particular school board, to cut back on hours for maintenance staff, it was not a government-directed policy. As the member knows, we had very cold weather over Christmas. To my recollection, the pipe burst either on a holiday or a weekend, and I was told there would have been no one there in any case. Although I understand what the question is trying to get at, in this particular case, what happened - I am told, anyway, by the school board - it was an accident. A pipe can burst in anyone's house, even when they are in it, if the water isn't running all the time, when the temperatures get that low.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I am sure the minister knows, especially with the type of winter we have just finished, leaving schools unattended, laying off maintenance staff for the school break, more than likely things could certainly go wrong. In this situation, something did. Instead of actually saving money, it actually ended up costing more money to the school board. I know my time is running out, and I want to share some of my time with the member for Richmond.
I want to move on Community College Grants, Page 8.11 in the Supplementary Detail. The government indicated they are providing community colleges with a $4.2 million grant that will be used for training and creating an additional 200 seats. Could the minister indicate how much of this money is going to be used for training, and how much is going to actually be used to help community colleges increase the numbers of seats?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, it is $2 million of the $4 million that we have targeted, and the college has agreed, to use it to provide more training seats for the college, not the whole $4 million.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, with the line budget for Collège de l'Acadie Grant, we are seeing that the college is actually receiving an additional $200,000. Let's not be fooled here for a minute, last year the Collège de l'Acadie was cut by $500,000. Is it the minister's intention to restore this funding to the 1999-2000 level in next year's budget?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we had asked the college to cut back to the tune of $500,000. It turns out that was not workable, so we have restored some of that funding for this year. Depending on how the merger with the Université Sainte-Anne goes and how the budget allocation works, it would depend on how they worked it to see what the funding was specifically for the college in the coming year, not this coming year but the year after. One of the areas that we have been exploring with Heritage Canada is, perhaps, some transition funding for the college and the Université Sainte-Ann to help with that merger.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, my next question is in regard to the business plan or technically what the Department of Education sees as what lies ahead for the Collège de l'Acadie. We are talking about a possible merger. In this possible merger, are we seeing that the college will disappear under Université Sainte-Anne and Université Sainte-Anne would have some colleges or some campuses in these different areas where the Collège de l'Acadie is currently in place around the province? Maybe the minister could indicate, what is the long-term plan for the Collège de l'Acadie?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the vision is fairly straightforward. It is a university-college where those taking post-secondary education in French could move more easily from one to the other, where resources could be shared, such as the registrar, and as some of the really excellent distance learning facilities of the college could perhaps be used as well by the university. That being said, the devil is always in the details. Of course, one of the fears of the college is that it will be swallowed by the university. That is not the intent. The intent is to help create something with more critical mass than exists at the present time, resources that didn't need to be duplicated wouldn't have to be duplicated, but we would see college programs continuing and university programs continuing, as well, in a shared atmosphere.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, could the minister indicate to us what is the plan of the department regarding the different campuses around the province, with the Collège de l'Acadie, is it the intention to close these campuses or is it the intention of the department, along with the Université Sainte-Anne-Collège de l'Acadie merger to continue to provide a satellite university-college campus in these areas?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, no, we have no intention of trying to close the campuses around the province. It is one of the most valuable things they do. Also, the fact that they are able to give courses in many locations is very helpful for those people trying to take those courses. In the case of the Collège de l'Acadie, their excellent distance-ed programs also help, but we have no intention of eliminating the actual physical campuses.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, under Recoveries - Community College Grants, I suspect this is money that is being paid by students for tuition fees. Am I correct? Are those student fees paid to community colleges, Recoveries - Community College Grants? Is that tuition fees?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, that is not tuition. That is, HRDC buys seats at the community colleges, and that is an estimated recovery in 2001-02 of about $8 million from HRDC.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, could the minister indicate where the tuition fees are listed in the estimates?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the tuition fees are shown in the books of the community college itself, and these are our grants to the colleges. The fees are not taken into consideration.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, my last question regarding community colleges, could the minister indicate to us how tuition fees for community colleges in Nova Scotia compare to neighbouring provinces? Are they higher, lower, average, some general direction?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I would say they are average to low. They have gone up in recent years, but until the recent increases they were quite low. By comparison, right now, the fees are $1,750, and the fees in New Brunswick are $2,400. There is a little room to manoeuvre there. They are not particularly high by national standards, and certainly not compared to our neighbour to the north.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to move back to Page 8.7, Higher Education and Adult Learning. I am looking at Private Trade Schools. The budget shows, when you are looking at the forecast for 2000-01 versus the estimate for this coming year, trade schools are actually losing close to $100,000. Could the minister indicate to us why there has been a decrease in the level of funding here?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, there was a technical college, Future Gateways that closed down last year. Our train-out costs for those students, whose training we had to complete and pay for through the department, was $155,000. There is a system in place now, with better bonding and so on, so we are hopeful these situations won't recur, or when they do recur that the train-outs will be self-funding. In that particular case, it was not self-funding, and the department was obliged to pay for the training of the students, who themselves had paid for this but the college closed down. Their education was completed at the expense of the taxpayers, obviously.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, again, looking at the funding used for private trade schools. I am just wondering, do all private schools in the province qualify for some funding? If so or if not, what factors determine if you qualify for funding?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the costs are to do with our own staff at the department, which is fairly large in administering the immense amount of paperwork to do with private trade schools. That is largely what the regular funding is, year over year, the staff in the department who advise and make regulations and help them apply those regulations.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, could the minister indicate whether or not any private schools in the province receive any funding grant from government?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, that I am aware of, that the deputy is aware of, there are no private schools in the province that receive funding from the taxpayer.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, this is probably one of my last questions. In the Throne Speech, Page 11, it basically talks about how 80 per cent of our students who go on to post-secondary education choose university, 20 per cent opt for community colleges, and then it talks a little more about, from all our grads from high schools in Nova Scotia. I am just wondering, what about those who do not graduate from high school? We have students dropping out, probably in junior high and in senior high. Could the minister indicate to us, how many students actually drop out in the province, in a year, or in last year? The second part to that question is, what are we doing to help these students, to try to encourage them to finish their public education in our schools?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I will provide that number, I don't have that number of drop-outs at my fingertips but we can get that. There are a number of things that we are doing to try to prevent kids from dropping out. Part of that is Youth Pathways and Transitions which I am sure the member may be familiar with. It was discussed when he was at the department. We also now have agreements in place between all the school boards and the community college about trying to introduce junior high kids and kids who may be at risk of dropping out, because they are less academically inclined, to work with them to try to get them involved in courses at the community college early on.
In some cases, that may involve getting advanced standing at the college. In some cases, that may be actually getting credits. We have recently announced the Nova Scotia School for Adult Learning. This is not meant to address potential drop-outs, but those who have already dropped out and have not completed their high school. That could be for middle-aged people, elderly people, but it can also be for people in their early 20's who may not actually need a huge amount of upgrading in order to get a high school diploma. They may need four credits. They may need five credits. They may need six credits. We are making that a lot easier by creating the high school diploma for adults that will be the one credential that they need to get a high school equivalent that is recognized by the community colleges and the universities.
We still will have the GED program, but the new high school diploma is based on actual curriculum. It is not just a standardized test the way the GED is. So it is obviously very important to try to help those people who want to be helped, who can be helped, to upgrade their education. We do have a number of efforts underway.
MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the minister and I encourage her to continue to invest in these students. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons - and it is not just located in one area of the province - this is a problem that basically affects us all in all of our communities. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, if these students decide to leave school to pursue whatever they choose, I think it is encouraging for the department to invest in trying to help these people along the way, at the same time, to provide pilot programs in order to try to provide them with as much help as we can.
I think we should never forget that even though we often try to look at how many students do graduate, where they will pursue their post-secondary education, there are always those, for whatever reasons, have different game plans. I have seen that. I spent 14 years in high schools. From those years, Mr. Chairman, I have come across many individuals, for whatever reason, they decided that they had to leave school. So I am encouraged to see that the department is actually investing to try to help these individuals, these students, along the way and I certainly would encourage the department to not forget them and certainly to continue to provide whatever assistance that the department can.
Mr. Chairman, for the little time remaining, I will take my seat and the member for Richmond will take the remaining time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to thank the Liberal Leader and the member for Clare for his questions.
The honourable member for Richmond with about 15 minutes in turn.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Madam Minister, last week I asked you a question about the Loan Remission Program and the minister seemed to get a bit exercised over my question and indicated that some students would receive loan remission this year. Could the minister indicate clearly to this House who is eligible for loan remission this year?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, for students who had applied for a student loan before April 1, 2000, they would still qualify for loan remission because the program was going at that time. So if the loan had been applied for before the cut-off date, then loan remission would have still been available to those students. So my guess would be a very small number of students, but depending on when you applied for your loans, which aren't due to be paid until you graduate, there still could be money that they could apply for, if they had applied for their student loan before a certain date.
MR. SAMSON: So if I understand this correctly, Madam Minister, every student in the Province of Nova Scotia who applied for a student loan prior to April 1, 2000, whether they are in their first year of study, second year of study, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, whatever, will qualify for loan remission when their study period ends at the end of April of this year. They will be eligible for the same amount of loan remission that would have been available last year. Is that the minister's response and if it is the minister's response, where in God's name is this in your budget? Where is this money located at?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, if the student applied for a student loan, and I will double check the cut-off date to make sure that is right, and was eligible for the student loan, that student would have been eligible for loan remission. I don't actually know and I don't think the department knows how many of those students would have applied for loan remission. It is actually a fairly small number in terms of numbers. They would be eligible for the loan remission that would have been given to them before that date.
In answer to the second part of the question, where is that in the budget, we have Student Assistance. There is a line of Page 8.7 and it would be contained within that. I think that if we all went back, which I am sure nobody particularly wants to, but the years of loan remission in the past, it was constantly under-budgeted in terms of the estimate versus what you actually ended up paying out. It was a moving target because you never knew how many students were going to apply for the loan remission, even though quite a few were eligible, not always everyone who was eligible applied. So it was really a guesstimate. It was usually off by $4 million or $5 million in previous years. So we do have money within Student Assistance to cover it. It would likely not be a large amount.
MR. SAMSON: Madam Minister, last year you cut $10 million out of the Loan Remission Program and $10 million to the students of the Province of Nova Scotia is a lot of money. That is not a small amount of money, in no way, shape or form. I can tell you, I benefited from the Loan Remission Program myself. I had six years of study and I believe four out of those six were eligible for loan remission. That means a lot to students in Nova Scotia.
If I am to understand this correctly, if I applied for a student loan by April of last year and I am in my academic study this year then when my academic study ends at the end of April of this year, if I have my yellow form to apply for loan remission and I fill out that form, I show the numbers that I have, is it the minister's statement today that anyone who has gotten a loan prior to April will still get that yellow form, will fill out that yellow form and sometime this summer, or even close to the fall I think is when you get notice, they will get a notice from the Department of Education that they have received loan remission because there is still money in that budget for loan remission?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I am told that within the $14.379 million allocated for student assistance that we have about a little over $300,000 budgeted within that to take care of remaining loan remission assistance. Yes, again, I will check the cut-off date, but for those who applied and were eligible before that date, there would still be some loan remission available if they apply.
[6:30 p.m.]
MR. SAMSON: You are saying that last year you cut $10 million from loan remission and this year you have $300,000 left for loan remission and that is going to cover the amount. Unless I am missing something, the amount of applications you got last year for loan remission should pretty much be near the same amount of applications you are going to get this year for loan remission. It may be a little bit off, but not very much. So your budgetary line on that should not change very much. You cut $10 million last year and now you are saying you have $300,000 and that should cover all the Nova Scotia students who are eligible. Something just doesn't fit right here. I am wondering if the minister can explain, how is that $300,000 figure supposed to be comparable to the $10 million she cut from this program last year?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, that has to do with the cut-off date and the department staff going through the statistics and estimating that that is the amount that it will cost.
MR. SAMSON: Will the minister confirm that the regular cut-off date, I believe it is four months after graduation that you had to apply for loan remission. Is that still in place? Secondly, as the minister well knows, the student assistance department would show a maximum amount of borrowing for a year if you went over that. That is how they calculated your loan remission. Have those numbers remained the same as they were last year?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I will supply that information to the House. My department can get all that together in very short order and I will table that information.
MR. SAMSON: How much did the Government of Nova Scotia pay last year to the Royal Bank to administer the student loan program?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the department paid the Royal Bank $3.8 million last year. That was largely a risk premium, I believe.
MR. SAMSON: Madam Minister, am I correct to state, during the last fiscal year, in which you paid $3.8 million, the Province of Nova Scotia assumed 100 per cent risk for student loans approved in this province? Is that correct?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I think that the member knows that during last year, we went from paying a risk premium and providing interest relief to having to guarantee the full amount for the student loans that we gave out. We did pay out $3 million for a risk premium last year. We paid $5.6 million on interest while students are in full-time study and another $3.8 million in interest relief and budgeted for this year $312,000 for loan remission and, again, guarantees death and bankruptcy, about $100,000.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, I am going to pass over the remainder of time to my colleague, the member for Cape Breton The Lakes. I am curious if the minister will table that information which she just provided and if she will also table with the House - I know that the Royal Bank agreement is expiring, I believe it is either May 1st or June 1st. I think June 1st might be the accurate date, or even July 1st, whichever one; it was only a four month extension - what her department's plan is to administer student loans once that four month extension expires. I hope she will table that. With that, I pass that off to my colleague.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cape Breton The Lakes. You have three minutes.
MR. BRIAN BOUDREAU: Mr. Chairman, I just have a short question. Madam Minister, the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, under the new school construction program, which was known prior to 20 months ago as the P3 system, the Iona area was allotted a new school. Could you provide a brief update as to how that process is to date?
MISS PURVES: Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I was looking at the list of schools for the due date. We have the Rankin school down here as due in the 2004-05 fiscal year. The site selection process is underway.
MR. BOUDREAU: Mr. Chairman, I am wondering if the minister would agree to table the process development, to date, regarding this particular project.
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, certainly, between our department and the school board, which is also obviously involved in the site selection process, we can table what we have. I don't imagine, at this point, it is a huge amount. But, certainly, we can collect together everything we have and table that.
MR. BOUDREAU: I just have one other brief question regarding that particular school board, Madam Minister. It is no secret that I know you increased the budget a little bit, but it hasn't had much of an impact on that particular board. In fact, there were 63 teaching positions to be eliminated, 20 through attrition and there are 40 layoffs coming in that particular board. Madam Minister, the community cannot afford to lose the wages, that is for sure, the resource of the teachers. If they move out of there, heaven forbid, even if they move out of the province, even if they move to Halifax, it is a blow to the Cape Breton area.
So will the minister agree to review the funding allotment for the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we are meeting with the board and expect to have a report by the 15th to talk about what help we might give them in the transition, but there is no . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I would like to thank the Liberal caucus for their questions and now I would like to recognize the member for Halifax Chebucto for the NDP caucus with the first question; the time being 6:39 p.m. and they have one hour allotted, which would make 7:39 p.m.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Madam Minister, I wonder if we could have a discussion about high schools on the Halifax peninsula. You will know that there has been a lot of reportage this year about a proposal that came forward to merge the two high schools that are on the Halifax peninsula. Those two schools are Queen Elizabeth High School and St. Pat's High School. This is something of great concern, not just in my constituency, which makes up one-third of the peninsula, but, I am sure, in your own constituency, to parents and families there and I know to parents and families in the constituency of Halifax Needham. What I am wondering is whether you can let me know what the current plans are?
The reason I ask this, Madam Minister, is that when I look at the document that you tabled last week with respect to projections for the next three or four years as to expenditures on building new schools around the province, there is nothing listed there for any new building to replace QEH and St. Pat's. So what I am wondering is, does this list mean that there will not be any new building built to replace those two schools, at least until some time after the 2004-05 fiscal year?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the member opposite is correct. Unless there were some extreme emergency we would not be looking at merging or replacing the schools within that timeframe. The talk of merging St. Pat's and QEH was trying to look at a long-term plan and where we would go and in terms of what such a move might or might not mean in constructing a new school for the Halifax West area.
We are looking at considerably lower enrolments in high school in metro Halifax within the next five years so that - should the two schools be merged and they are both in pretty bad shape, some areas worse than others - we definitely have to replace at least one school. With the population projected at maybe 1,200 or less, it would only make sense to have one school instead of two. This is not going to happen tomorrow. It probably will not happen for at least five years. But we have to try and the board has to try, too, to get into
some long-range planning of what to do with its kids and not just assume there are going to be two schools.
MR. EPSTEIN: Thanks very much, minister, for that information and if we could nail down, a little bit, the details. What you seem to have said is that in terms of building a whole new structure to replace St. Pat's or QEH, that will not happen - I believe you said - for at least five years. What I am wondering is whether you contemplate during that period of five years any major investment in renovations for either of those buildings. If so, can you tell us what you have in mind for that? Can you tell us, for example, which of those buildings might be the one or are you contemplating both for repairs and renovations? I am wondering if the department has any particular plans they can tell us about right now.
MISS PURVES: At this time there is nothing in the way of any significant renovation or alteration planned for either of the two schools. We and the board will see that the schools are kept safe. If something should happen that requires a major expenditure of funds, then obviously we would be obliged to do so if it was about health and safety. Otherwise, we do not have any major renovations planned for either of the two schools.
MR. EPSTEIN: That is a big help, minister, thank you very much and I am glad to hear you refer to safety issues because students in either of those buildings ought never to be put at risk and I am glad to hear this is something that you have turned your mind to.
Can I ask though if you could help me understand the proposal which - although it may not go forward for a number of years - was actually floated earlier this year? The reason I ask is that the proposal seemed to come forward in a lot of detail. It was not in the abstract, by any means. There was virtually a definite proposal for merging the two high schools. There was talk about the possibility of the QE II hospital complex taking over the land that is now occupied by Queen Elizabeth High School. There was talk about a new high school being built on the location which now hosts the Nova Scotia Community College campus on Bell Road and as you can see, this is not a casual proposal. This is a very detailed, elaborated, thought-out proposal.
I am wondering if you can help me understand it. I am wondering if you can help me think through particularly the uses or the need that might lead to this particular arrangement that was put forward earlier in the year. Perhaps you could start by addressing all three of the sites that are involved: that is the Queen Elizabeth High School existing site, the St. Pat's High School existing site and the Nova Scotia Community College existing site.
MISS PURVES: I will talk about the sites in a second. I just want to remind the committee that the original proposal to put together St. Pat's and QEH was floated by the school board before last fall. Then when the board was asked to submit its list - its capital construction wish list for the department for September - after Halifax West, a new QEH/St. Pat's was at the top of the board's wish list. When we were trying to decide what the best
option for Halifax West was, the department and the board and city council began looking at various options that would try to make financial sense for everybody.
The city has donated the land for a new school on the mainland common. The Halifax West site would revert to them. Then we were trying to find a way to work with city council that would ensure the best deal for the province in any ensuing land transfers that might or might not go on.
The site issue was added to the school issue which had previously existed with or without the site issue. It seemed to us that the best deal for the provincial taxpayer was if we were going to eventually fund a new school in downtown Halifax that it would be to the province's advantage to spend its money on that new school on the St. Pat's site, so we would not have to re-buy the QE site which might eventually be wanted for expansion of the hospital. I know people have talked about a parking lot, but there is no proposal for a parking lot there. It was just somebody's idea, but the province might want that land adjacent to the hospital for the hospital's purposes.
But, in turn, if the province were to gain that land, then the province would have to offer city council some other land to make the swap fair. We were discussing where the Bell Road campus of the community college is as perhaps - which is now owned by the province - reverting back to the city for its own uses. Those buildings, as you know, are not in very good shape either and eventually - Ray Ivany would like it to be tomorrow - the community college is going to have to have a new campus and that land would be available. That is the kind of site trading they we were trying to arrange with the city so that everybody would gain something to their potential advantage. And it actually does make sense.
MR. EPSTEIN: I think I might even be more confused now than I was before. Just to focus on the Bell Road campus of the community college. Did you tell me that in your conception, this would not be the location for a new high school?
MISS PURVES: No, we were not envisioning the Bell Road site as the site for the new school. We were envisioning the St. Pat's site as the site for the new school.
MR. EPSTEIN: Is this still the minister's view or is there some kind of process that will be gone through in order to discuss and select? The reason I raise this is that I can immediately tell the minister that there are very many problems associated with choosing that one site. In fact, of the three it may be that it is the least desirable in terms of surrounding land. I think, for example, about the very limited opportunity for sports and recreation associated with that.
I do not want to complicate the minister's life unnecessarily, but I will draw her attention to a long-standing problem associated with the development of the Quinpool Centre, immediately behind St. Pat's High School. The minister may be aware that when that
site was developed in the mid-1970's there were serious traffic problems associated with it. In particular, anyone wanting to leave the Quinpool Centre by vehicle who wishes to head north will normally be tempted to head out Monastery Lane, drive up and proceed along Allan Street and go through what are, essentially, residential neighbourhoods. The traffic counts on Monastery Lane and Allan Street are comparable to main arterial thoroughfares and in no way comparable to the traffic counts on normal residential streets.
One way that has been identified - in fact, I have to tell the minister - virtually the only way that has been identified to alleviate that problem after 20 years of grappling with it has been to consider the possibility of an exit from the Quinpool Centre right through to Windsor Street between St. Pat's High School and St. Vincent's Guest Home, allowing for a turn north onto Windsor Street.
If the minister can think of some other way to solve the traffic problem from the Quinpool Centre, I would be happy to hear of it. My point being is that this is one aspect of the planning mix for that sight. That, combined with the absence of recreation land around that high school might, indeed, make it a very undesirable site if a new site was to be chosen.
My question really though is, what process will be gone through in order to select a site?
MISS PURVES: The member knows, but there would have to be a huge amount of process involved in a new high school in that part of town. There would have to be school boundary processes, there would have to be a process with the municipality. It is obviously, at this point anyway, a best deal for the province overall for it to have access to the land where QEH is right now in terms of future uses for the hospital.
The eventual site of QEH/St. Pat's, we were looking at the St. Pat's site because we were not envisioning that the Bell Road site would be ready, i.e., raised and ready for a new high school in the time needed for that new high school to be built. Obviously, those things are not carved in stone and if it turned out that the Bell Road site was the best and the St. Pat's site was impossible, then we would have to look at that. I mean, this is not by any means carved in stone. This is just what the ad guys like to call blue-skying it in terms of trying to reach an equitable land arrangement with the city. We could not rule out the Bell Road site, it would just make Mr. Ivany happier to get his new campus sooner and right now we do not have the money, but we will see how that goes. We have several years to work that out.
MR. EPSTEIN: These comments are very helpful and I would like to thank you very much for them. I am particularly happy to hear, now I think, for the first time the plans of the QE II does not necessarily extend to a large parking garage filling up what is in fact a very substantial piece of territory immediately facing on Robie Street. In fact, I have to say independently I had heard that the QE II might also be interested in some additional research
facilities and that seems to me to be a more reasonable, generally more sustainable and eco-friendly use to those lands than a huge parking garage.
The other thing I would like to draw to the minister's attention is that any land that is located on the Halifax Common has to be dedicated to public use. The original words in the grant were: To the use of the citizens of Halifax forever, when the Halifax Common - this was the peninsula common - was created, so that is why we see public purposes on anything built in the confines of the old common.
Let me turn to another aspect of this question that intrigues me, that I have to say is somewhat worrisome for parents of children who are attending elementary and junior high schools on the peninsula. It has to do with the interaction of any new high school on the Halifax peninsula or the existing high schools with the new proposed Halifax West High School. I noticed when you were making your first response to me that you explained the origins of this idea of merger as being linked to the development of a new Halifax West High School, and that is my understanding as well. What parents are concerned about is that they have heard that part of the plan of the local school board, in order to keep the total numbers of students down on any new merged high school, would involve moving to Halifax West High School any of the French Immersion Program at the high school level.
There may well be an argument for that, both in terms of keeping numbers down in any new high school that might be built on the Halifax peninsula and it may be that there is a certain equity in terms of where the students go for their French immersion high school because I think students who have come from the mainland have had to travel to St. Pat's in the past for their French immersion high school.
There is a second aspect of the plans that has also come forward in comments from the superintendent of the HRM School Board and that is the possibility of creating an arts program or specialized programs of study at the new Halifax West High School. The concern of parents throughout the peninsula is that during the process of planning for the new Halifax West High School and the programs that might go in there, all the effective decisions would have been made in advance with respect to what would ultimately be the program offerings at the high school on the Halifax peninsula, and that those program decisions will be made this year - maybe over the next year and a half - without any opportunity for involvement from the parents whose children may well not have access or not have easy access, to any of those programs.
Minister, I have to say this is a great worry to parents all across the Halifax peninsula and I am wondering if you can tell us anything about such plans? I am wondering if you can tell us anything about opportunities that the parents might have to have a fair input so that they have the opportunity to present their concerns for the richness of the programs that might be available to their children on the Halifax peninsula?
[7:00 p.m.]
MISS PURVES: In the matter of the French immersion programming, that is obviously a concern to many of my constituents as well and the member pointed out that right now there are a number of - between 250 and 300 - kids being bused in to take French immersion at St. Pat's who, in the new plan, would not have to be bused in. There is no plan to move the peninsula kids out to the mainland common. It is one of the programs in which the enrolment is increasing, and it is going to keep on increasing. The projections are that each school will have its own French Immersion Program. It will just simply take some kids from the Halifax West area and put them back out where they live, but there is no plan to stop French immersion from being offered at either St. Pat's or any new high school. There will be French immersion in both places.
The arts high school, I think that has been floated in a few places, that is more blue-skying too. I don't think it is a bad idea, but most of the parents I have talked to are very concerned about the affordability of such a thing in the sense that they don't want the arts programming being taken out of all the existing schools in order to make this arts super school somewhere else. They are very concerned about that. Yes, we would all be taking a very close look at what might be offered at one school that would mean taking something away from another school, and whether or not that was fair or feasible or viable at this point. It is not that it is not a fabulous idea, there are lots of fabulous ideas around but we can't afford them all. We don't want to take away arts programming from kids who already have it.
MR. EPSTEIN: I thank the minister again for her information and her views. I think many parents will find this very helpful, and should there be an occasion for any kind of tussle with the HRM School Board, I look forward to working with the minister as an ally on these issues. I think the school board would be hard put to resist us in our combined forces, should the occasion arise. With that, I will thank the minister for her assistances on this point. If I may, I would like to turn matters over to my colleague, the member for Hants East.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Leader of the Opposition.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Mr. Chairman, for the minister I only have one question, it may filter out into a number. Some days ago I spoke with the deputy minister, and I think he tried to answer my question but we were kind of not in a situation for a long discussion. I didn't get to ask all I wanted or at least he couldn't answer all I needed to know. It was around a concern brought to me by a former colleague, around retroactive pay that was to go to teachers or at least this person thought there was supposed to be retroactive pay. They thought it was going to take place in December, I think, last fall. I guess my question is, was that accurate, and if it is going to happen at some point in the future, could you confirm that?
I would like to know the circumstances around the necessity of that retroactive pay, if it is accurate.
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we will table what information we can on that. I think the member for Hants East is aware that the grievance stemmed from way back when teachers' wages were frozen, and it was about the increments that would have accrued during that wage freeze. The department did appeal the decision that the increments were valid, and we lost. Then we appealed, I believe the time-frame, as to when the increments would start. We didn't dispute that the increments were owed, but it was the time from when they would start. It has worked out that there are many more teachers potentially involved in this former dispute than had previously been thought.
We estimate it will cost around $5 million (Interruption) Oh, $2 million first and then $5 million. There has been a lot, as I said previously, of paperwork going on, trying to sort out those whose claims we know right off the top are valid, and then getting a different list of maybes. It is going a lot more slowly than anybody thought. We are still aiming to have the first cheques out this spring, but it is definitely not going as quickly as we thought it would. There is nothing else I can say, except that it is taking a long time.
MR. MACDONELL: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the minister, that was helpful. That freeze, I think it would be back to 1993, if I remember right. I guess my next question is around the question of when their increments would start. I would like you to clarify that - I thought it would be fairly clear in 1993 - or are you trying to tell me that you are thinking of paying the retroactive as increments, or what?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, no, we will pay all in one cheque, when they get it. The difficulty has been because anyone who was in doubt - not the difficulty but the longevity, shall we say - or thought maybe they were entitled to it has applied. It has been a very long process to weed out. There are some that we know definitely, but then going through all the maybes is really taking a long time, because there is a huge number of applicants. I think people have put applications in without necessarily having the easiest of claims to prove, and we have to go through all of those. That is what is taking the time. They will not be paid out as increments, it will go in one cheque, the money owed to the person.
MR. MACDONELL: Mr. Chairman, I will only add the comment, I haven't filled out an application. You have peaked my curiosity. Anyway, I want to thank the minister and the staff, I appreciate your time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cape Breton The Lakes.
MR. BRIAN BOUDREAU: Mr. Chairman, again, I am going to repeat my question, because we ran out of time. I am wondering, I know you are in negotiations with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, but as I indicated with my question before, the 63
teaching jobs being eliminated, 23 of those are through attrition; the other 40 are eliminated, full-time teaching positions. It is obvious the community can't afford to lose the salaries, economically, that is quite obvious. My concern, too, is the resource. If we continually lose teachers at this pace, then we will have to export our children somewhere else to get them educated. My question again is, will you agree to increase the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board budget to the amount that they are requesting?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, as I started to say earlier, we are talking with the Cape Breton board about some kind of transition funding. We won't be increasing their budget per se, as a straight increase. They haven't given us their final numbers on what they expect they will have to do. There are other areas that boards can explore, and we are going through that with them.
I would like to say, about that particular board, that it has made some difficult business decisions in a tough environment in the last year, but there were years previous where it did not. Every school board is losing kids, but the Strait board and the Cape Breton-Victoria board are losing them faster than others. The Strait board went through a long period of time where it did make the kinds of decisions that, although they were hard at the time, they are in a much better situation for dealing with the drop in enrolment. As I say, we have received no final proposal, no final asked from the Cape Breton board and no final number of positions that they would be looking at.
We don't want to punish any board unduly, and if we can help the board in other ways, then we will try to do it, but we still do want them to try to downsize their system in a way that fits their student population. That is what we are looking for and they are willing to work with us, that is for sure. They have been working with us quite closely since September, the same as the other boards.
MR. BOUDREAU: No, it is not a surprise to me, Madam Minister that the staff of that particular school board is eager to work with you and your staff. That doesn't surprise me in the least, but what does concern me is some of your comments. To penalize an education system because of some difficulties. Are you indicating that there is waste occurring within this school board?
MISS PURVES: No, Mr. Chairman, I wasn't talking about waste. I didn't mention that word - it was the member opposite who mentioned that word. All the boards last year did make some administrative cuts at about 10 per cent and that was about the same as what we did in the department. I think that is pretty well what we expected on the administrative level. No, we are not talking about waste. It is a problem - one of the issues that is more prevalent in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board than perhaps in - well, let's take the most extreme example - the Halifax Regional School Board.
Because of the state of the Cape Breton economy, it is quite rightly the desire of people involved in health boards, school boards, whatever to regard job creation as something they absolutely have to do and my job as Education Minister is to always try to think the best for education first. I would say that to drag out an old example of a teacher seconded to another organization while the school board paid for that secondment and paid for the substitute cost as sort of an example of past practices that weren't' thinking of the student in the classroom first. I am not saying that there is any of that left, I am just saying that does occur and the board has worked very well over the past year in trying to do the best it can for its students and cope with declining enrollment - all the school boards are the same.
MR. BOUDREAU: Mr. Chairman, I am getting more confused by the moment. Madam Minister, at least if I understand what you are saying correctly is that the board has already undergone some difficult pains, particularly financial pains, in the last couple of years, particularly last year as you indicated. However, you are also indicating that you feel that they have taken a pretty responsible direction in improving whatever issues you are indicating. I have no idea because I can't for the life of me, believe that board could slice anymore from its budget than what it already has. After saying that, if your department does not provide the resources necessary to run an education system in that particular area of our province, where do you suggest the resources should and will come from?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we have asked the board for their plan, not just the plan for the coming year, but for years further on to see if we can work with them with that. What we are asking all the boards to do is to accept the principle of declining enrollment as representing certain reduction of expenditures in some areas even though expenditures in other areas may go up. It is the principle that the bulk of the money should follow the student, but not in an untimely and unduly harsh way. If we get a plan from the board that takes more than one year into consideration, we will look at what transition funding we can give them in order to cope. It is not easy.
Everybody involved in school boards, hospital boards wants the best and they want the province to provide the funds, but we have to work with what we have and they have to work with what they have and they have to fight for what they want and so do we. We still are working with limited funds. All the boards know that and are working with us and we will see what the board comes up with for the talks on the 15th and, hopefully, we can work something out. It won't be everything they want, but it won't be a blanket increase in funding without further discussion.
MR. BOUDREAU: Mr. Chairman, I thank the minister for her reply. It is obvious that the minister is very well educated on these issues within that board. I hope you know all the issues, Madam Minister, and you take them into consideration. For instance, that board has the highest number of special needs students in the province. That needs some attention by the minister and by her department in order to ensure that those students have the same type of education and can enjoy the same style of education right throughout this province.
Again, I will ask you, if the budget numbers that your department is crunching are not sufficient and there are two others - the Acadian board and the Strait Regional School Board as you indicated - are you prepared to increase the level of funding to those boards that are necessary for the boards to deliver the service that you expect of them at a certain level? Will you increase the funding of these boards, the three boards and will you take into consideration the difficulties in all three boards separately?
MISS PURVES: The three boards that the member has mentioned, their situations obviously are not the same, they are different. The same with every board in the province. But, every board in the province, including the Cape Breton board is still talking with us. Most boards have accepted the plan for next year as something they can work with. As I said from the start, the most difficult was with the Cape Breton-Victoria board which thought this budget was unduly harsh on them. We are working with them to try to come to an accommodation without changing the principles of what we are trying to do. We will continue to work with them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Richmond.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, in following up on what my colleague was asking, I certainly understand how the minister has said the situation is very serious in the Cape Breton board. I can certainly assure you that information I have received is that this budget is going to be unduly harsh on the Strait Regional School Board also and the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial. I am pleased to see that the minister is saying that on April 15th she expects these school boards to bring back a proposal. I guess my question is, on behalf of these boards, on behalf of Nova Scotians, do you actually have money in your budget to provide additional funding to these boards should they bring you a proposal which you deem acceptable? In other words, where is the money in your budget or is this just a PR exercise and you actually have no additional money to offer to them?
MISS PURVES: It is actually only one school board that we are expecting back at the table on the 15th and that is the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board and we will have to wait and see what they suggest and what we think we can afford. There is no money in next year's budget set aside anywhere. There is no fund set aside for such an arrangement, but the books for last year haven't been closed yet. We may be able to help in certain areas. We are not going to be able to provide them with millions and millions of dollars because we don't have that kind of a fund available. There is no such thing but we may be able to work something out depending upon what they ask and the amount of money they are talking about.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, in her comments, the minister has named three boards that were going to be harmed by this budget - mainly the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, the Strait Regional School Board and the CSAP. Why has the same courtesy that has been extended to the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board not been
extended to both the Strait Regional School Board and the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the discussion we are having with CSAP is different from the discussion with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board or other boards. A number of new schools were turned over to the CSAP this year and there is a cost associated with the extra square footage for that much new space. So we are looking at helping them out in that area. That means they don't have to rob other areas to pay for the space that they have assumed. The situation with the CSAP, as the member for Richmond well knows, is spread out across the province. It is entirely different. The biggest issue with them is paying for that extra space and we are in the process of working something out with them to do that.
MR. SAMSON: So am I to assume from your answer to that, Madam Minister, for the Strait Regional School Board it is tough luck, too bad, so sad, not interested in chatting with you. I will chat with the CSAP. I will chat with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, but the headlines today in the local papers are of more drastic cuts coming from the Strait Regional School Board. I can tell you that the Strait Regional School Board has made some tough decisions in the last four to five years, some extremely tough decisions and it has massive school closures. If Halifax is feeling frustrated now, they should see what we have gone through under that school board in the last number of years to try to address funding concerns.
Because of the budget this year, Madam Minister, and because of declining enrollment, they are once again faced with serious cuts. Will the minister extend the same courtesy as she has to other boards and sit down and talk with the Strait Regional School Board to address their funding concerns also?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of things that we are looking at that have still not been resolved in last year's accounts to do with the Strait Regional School Board and some of them are rather significant sums. One of them has to do with busing that is supplied to the CSAP. They had to change busing schedules at the last minute and that was a considerable expense. There are issues of receivables they were owed that they haven't collected yet that we have been able to help them out with, temporarily. So I wouldn't want the committee to assume that we are not constantly talking to other school boards. We are, but in terms of the upcoming year's budget, there are always things that we are discussing. The board that feels the hardest done by is still the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board and that is why we have something going on with them, above and beyond the other school boards.
There is no question that the CSAP needs to be recognized for the extra space they are taking on and that some of the costs in dispute with the Strait Regional School Board, we believe we will be able to resolve those.
MR. SAMSON: Madam Minister, will you commit today to setting up a meeting with the superintendent and those necessary representatives from the Strait Regional School Board so that they can immediately meet with you and your department to discuss these very pressing concerns? I do not doubt there may be some correspondence going back and forth. I think what they are asking for now, clearly, from the reports in the media, is for a face-to-face meeting with you - the same courtesy that has been extended to other boards. Will the minister commit now to meeting with officials of the Strait Regional School Board in the immediate future?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, certainly, I would prefer that these things get straightened out at the interdepartmental level, but if they don't, certainly I will commit to meet with anyone who wants to see me. But I would prefer the process that we set up in the fall to continue to work, but if it doesn't or people want to meet with me separately, I would be quite happy to meet with them.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, I will certainly convey that to representatives with the Strait Regional School Board, that the minister would be prepared to meet with them on the concerns that they have. Madam Minister, you are well aware that back in August or September of last year, your government reneged on its commitment to build a new Primary to Grade 12 Ecole Petit-de-Grat, a commitment that had been made to this community. Your government reneged on it at the last minute. As a result, the entire education system in the Isle Madame-West Richmond area was thrown out of whack. The fact was the Isle Madame District High School, which was supposed to revert back to a Primary to Grade 8 elementary school, that was stopped as a result of your change.
There was a lot of uproar in the community. A lot of parents were extremely upset. That has not changed, unfortunately. The English-speaking children who are at Walter Fougere School and the Louisdale school are in Primary to Grade 4 and then Grades 5 to 8. Neither of those schools have cafeteria services. There are a number of deficiencies in both schools and there continues to be a great deal of resentment at your government for its decision.
Back when this happened, Madam Minister, quickly, after the reversal was made, a number of concerns were raised within the community, as you well know. Your own deputy minister took the initiative to come down to the area, tour the schools in question and was also the one who went and met with the boards once the decision was made. A number of concerns were raised as to who the deputy minister held meetings with in this period of time, from July 2000 to September 2000 to discuss these issues. The freedom of information request sent to the deputy minister asking him if he met with a number of individuals which were listed came back saying there was no documentation showing any meetings with these individuals. The deputy minister had a clear opportunity to say he did not meet with these individuals. Unfortunately, he decided to play word games and simply say that under the
Freedom of Information Act guidelines, there was no documentation showing that these meetings had taken place.
Therefore, Madam Minister, I want to take this opportunity to ask you directly, will you confirm whether or not your deputy minister, Dennis Cochrane, in the period of July 2000 to September 2000 met with either Mr. Frank Sutherland, Ms. Eva Landry, Mr. Dave Samson, Mr. Gabriel LeBlanc or Mr. Andre LeBlanc?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I believe that question was answered in earlier correspondence and the answer to that question is no, he did not.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, will the minister confirm whether her deputy had lunch with a Mr. Gabriel LeBlanc during this period of time while he was down in the Richmond County area?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the deputy minister did not have lunch with anyone.
MR. SAMSON: Well, Mr. Chairman, how interesting things become. We will certainly follow-up on that. Ironically, Mr. Gabriel LeBlanc (Interruption) Well, the Minister of Justice might want to wait on this one - is the Director of the Collège de l'Acadie, Petit-de-Grat campus and it is my understanding that the deputy did have lunch with Mr. LeBlanc at La Picasse. In fact, he was introduced to a number of individuals during that lunch date that he had with Mr. LeBlanc. It is certainly my hope that this House is not being provided with incorrect information. Therefore, I will ask once again, the minister and the deputy having said no, in light of what I have just pointed out, is the deputy still holding to his position that he did not meet or have lunch with Mr. Gabriel LeBlanc, Director of the Collège de l'Acadie Petit-de-Grat campus?
[7:30 p.m.]
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the deputy went on the tour and, rightly so, of La Picasse and various facilities in the area. The deputy assures me he did not have lunch at La Picasse.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that receipts from the deputy minister's office will certainly help us clarify this matter in question. Madam Minister, you have indicated that the Loan Remission Program will still be in place this year. Will the minister indicate, whether as a result of the $10 million cut last year, if any changes are being anticipated in the interest relief program currently administered by the Department of Education?
MISS PURVES: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there are no plans to change the interest relief portion of our student assistance for this year. I would like just to correct a statement earlier, I didn't say the Loan Remission Program still existed. I said there was some money in the budget for some remaining loan remission applications that would have been eligible previous to the cut-off date, but the program, per se, obviously, no longer exists.
MR. SAMSON: Madam Minister, as we speak now, is it safe to say that all new student loan applications for the upcoming academic year of September 2001 to April 2002, that as we stand here today, those new applicants will not be eligible for any form of loan remission from your department?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, that is correct.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, the minister has mused about looking at a new loan remission type plan. Could she indicate at what stage she is at with the negotiations or the workings to have a replacement Loan Remission Program for this province?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, some preliminary work has been done, but that issue is being referred to the Advisory Board on Colleges and Universities. Student aid, student assistance of all forms is now a part of the mandate of that body which was previously the Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education. We will be looking at whatever recommendation they come up with to carry forward for a decision for the next budget year.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, what is the minister's plan for student loan administration when the Royal Bank agreement expires?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, the present regime with the bank has been extended to July 31st. We have a consultant working with us to help determine what our role should be and there is no doubt it is a very big issue, but we will have a resolution to it and the student loan program will continue.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, you know, for a government that has plans for this and plans for that, there clearly is no plan here and, unfortunately, Madam Minister, with all due respect, a simple statement that there will still be student loans in this province, one would think that when the minister is speaking about a program that affects educated people here in this province, she would give a bit more respect to them and give a bit of a better answer than the program will still be there, yet give absolutely no indication of what plan she has in place to be able to carry that out. Could the minister indicate to us, how much does it cost the taxpayers of Nova Scotia to have the Royal Bank administer student loans for this from the period of January 1, 2001, to the end date of July 31, 2001, and I assume that during that period it was 100 per cent risk for the Province of Nova Scotia, no risk premium was being paid to the Royal Bank on that. What is the total cost to the taxpayers for that six months of coverage?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I will undertake to supply that information as much as is possible.
MR. SAMSON: It is saddening to think that those numbers aren't readily available to the minister considering the importance that this is to students throughout the province. Madam Minister, how long have you known that the Royal Bank was no longer interested in administering student loans on behalf of the Province of Nova Scotia?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, it has been roughly a year, it could have been a little bit longer since we have known that and what our people have done is to look for other sources to see what the federal government was doing. We are looking at what other provinces are doing and we have gone after the extensions and they have supplied the extensions. I mean this was the responsible thing to do.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, we all know that the federal government has decided they will do it in-house now as a result of the banks pulling out. Will the minister confirm today that because of the fact the Royal Bank has indicated they wanted to pull out of the administration of the student loan program, that this province, in fact, and the taxpayers of this province are being charged at an extra rate than previous agreements by the Royal Bank because of the fact that they were not interested in the administration of this program? Yet because your government had no plan, and in order to convince the Royal Bank to maintain the administration of the student loan program, that, in fact, a different deal was struck with the Royal Bank which means that the taxpayers of this province are paying a much higher premium than previously for the Royal Bank to administer loans which are at a 100 per cent risk to the taxpayers of this province. Will the minister confirm that that deal is much higher than the previous deals that were with the Royal Bank?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, we will table all the amounts that we have in order to show those comparisons but, generally speaking, right across Canada it has been the case that the banks have wanted more of their costs covered by the various governments issuing student loans.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, we know that the banks have moved to wanting the province to provide a 100 per cent guarantee on their loans. The banks no longer provide coverage. The question is, Madam Minister, are we paying more today to have the Royal Bank administer student loans than what we were paying previously, minus what we were paying additionally for that risk - taking that risk premium out - but on balance, are we paying more because for one year now your government has known that the Royal Bank did not want to be administering student loans in this province? Will the minister confirm today whether or not the taxpayers are paying more than they were paying in the past for this service?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, I repeat that I will provide that information and I will provide the comparisons to the committee. My guess is that we are paying more because that is the experience across the country, but I will table the exact figures. I do not have them with me and I repeat that promise to the committee.
MR. SAMSON: Mr. Chairman, in closing I want to thank the minister for the answers she has provided. I want to remind the minister, in the first year when we did do the estimates, unfortunately, a number of things that were supposed to be tabled and questions to be answered were quite late. In fact, we had to remind the minister in last year's estimates to get the first year's stuff. I know that last year the situation was much different than in the first year.
There have been a lot of commitments made by the minister to table information, to provide answers to questions and to provide the numbers that she was unable to provide to the committee here today. I would ask the courtesy shown to the committee last year by the minister and her staff, in trying to get us quick answers and tabling documents as quickly as possible, that the minister would commit to making sure that takes place again this year. I certainly hope not to have to stand up at next year's estimates and remind the minister of commitments she made during this year's estimates. With that, that terminates our line of questioning from our caucus on the Education Estimates.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you to the Liberal caucus. Does the Minister of Education wish to respond?
MISS PURVES: Mr. Chairman, actually, I do have a number of documents here in response to questions asked last week. They are in a folder, but they cover a number of questions asked by various members. The ones I committed to today, I will provide equally quickly.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I understand that both Opposition caucuses have concluded their questioning.
Shall Resolution E4 stand?
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
[Resolution E4 stands.]
MISS PURVES: I would like to thank the members of the Opposition for their questions.
Resolution E4 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $888,437,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Education, pursuant to the Estimate.
Resolution E5 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $201,232,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of Assistance to Universities, Department of Education, pursuant to the Estimate.
Resolution E19 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $668,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women, pursuant to the Estimate.
Resolution E29 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $3,372,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Technology and Science Secretariat, pursuant to the Estimate.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Resolutions E5, E19 and E29 stand?
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
[The resolutions stand.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: That concludes this portion in supply for the Department of Education.
The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Chairman, would you please call the estimates of the Minister of Health.
Resolution E9 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $1,819,031,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Health, pursuant to the Estimate.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Health.
HON. JAMES MUIR: Mr. Chairman, just before beginning my formal comments, I happened to see this particular magazine and happened to open it. As all members of the House know, this is Cancer Month. There is a significant article on cancer called, Making Cancer History. A good deal of our budget this year and our ideas on health have to do with the improvement of primary care and, of course, education. I was kind of struck by this. I
suppose one of the reasons I was struck by it was, when I was going to elementary school, some of you will remember the old Red Cross cards . . .
AN HON. MEMBER: Sounds like a long speech.
MR. MUIR: It very well could be. What they used to do is, you got a card and it had these rules for health. When I reflect back 15 years ago when I was in elementary school (Interruptions) I really don't think the rules, quite seriously, for good health have changed that much in that period of time. I think, perhaps, all members would agree with that.
In this particular document by the Canadian Cancer Society it talks about seven steps to health. In this case it is referring to things to do to reduce your risk of developing cancer.
First, it says be a non-smoker and avoid second-hand smoke. Of course, we are in the throes of putting together and rolling out a comprehensive tobacco strategy, and one thing we think will help us was the announcement made by the federal government the other day, increasing the price of tobacco.
Second, it has to do with diet. It says, eat 5 to 10 servings of vegetables and fruit a day. Choose high-fibre, low-fat foods. If you drink alcohol, limit your intake to one or two drinks a day. Another fundamental part of our primary care initiative has to do - and working in the community health boards - with, basically, prevention and responsibility for your wellness.
Third, it is to be physically active on a regular basis. This also will help a person maintain a healthy body weight.
Fourth, it is to protect ourselves - this hasn't been a great problem for us in Nova Scotia the last little while, although yesterday was nice - from sun, reduce exposure between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Fifth, we are talking again about preventative medicine and a person's responsibility for health, the evolution and strengthening of the primary health care system, and the devolution of a lot of these responsibilities to the communities. In the case of cancer, to follow cancer screening guidelines. For women, discuss mammograms, pap tests and breast exams with a health professional. For men, discuss testicular exams and prostate screening with a health professional. Both men and women should also discuss screening for colon and rectal cancers.
Sixth, to visit your doctor or dentist if you notice a change in your normal state of health.
Seventh, to follow health and safety instructions both at home and at work when using, storing and disposing of hazardous materials.
Mr. Chairman, those may seem slightly off the topic but, again, I was struck by it because so much of what we are trying to do, and I think all members will agree with the thrust, is to spend a greater effort on prevention and on education and to try to lessen the dependence on, basically, the health care professionals for treatment.
Mr. Chairman, what I am going to do now is briefly review, for you and the members, this year's estimates for the Department of Health. I would like to take the time I have now to highlight and explain the impact of some of the decisions we have made and, then, members on the other side, I will be pleased to take your questions.
I would like to introduce the gentleman on my right at this particular time, Mr. Byron Rafuse, who is the Chief Financial Officer in the Department of Health. He will be with me during the examination of our estimates. I should be joined shortly by Cheryl Doiron, the Associate Deputy Minister of Health, and she will be able to assist me in answering some of the more substantial questions.
Mr. Chairman, the 2001-02 budget validates what is being done at the Department of Health. It will allow for strategic investments in health and, at the same time, will permit the changes that we have initiated to continue. Among other things, the 2001-02 Health budget will see the district health authority projected expenditures, the allowance given to them, increased by 1.2 per cent. While the districts did respond positively to their overall budget allocations this year, we are certainly aware that the money we have been able to allocate to the district health authorities won't meet all of their wish lists, and that to meet their budget targets there are still some difficult decisions that these men and women must make.
As everyone knows, health care costs continue to be very difficult to manage here in Nova Scotia. We are no different than the rest of the country. Everybody is well aware that the population is ageing and, of course, the older the population the greater the demand on the health care system. New and expensive drugs and surgical procedures continue to put pressure on the system. I think I said last year in my remarks leading into the examination of the budget estimates for my department that, indeed, some of the high-priced drugs, obviously, that have to be made, aren't made for individuals to pay for them. Obviously, some of these drugs, by and large, the only way they could be afforded is for a government or some agency to pay for them.
We know that our health costs have risen tremendously over the past seven or eight years. We also know, to be factored into our approach to the Health budget, the support that we are receiving through transfer payments from the federal government is not what we believe it should be and, indeed, what I have lobbied for as a Minister of Health, and I know
my predecessor on the opposite side of the House also lobbied his federal counterparts for the same types of things that I did. Our Premier has been extremely forceful and articulate in putting the health care needs of Nova Scotia to the federal government. The facts of the matter is that as far as the CHST, it will be another two years before we get back to the level of commitment from the federal government that it made in 1993 and 1994. Because we have limited financial resources it is extremely important that we, in the department, work carefully and closely with the district health authorities, the various health care professions and others in the health care field to ensure the money that is available is used to meet the needs of as many Nova Scotians as possible in the most efficient and effective way.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce, at this time, to the members of the House, Cheryl Doiron, the Associate Deputy Minister of Health. She will be joining me for your examination of our estimate, as well.
Mr. Chairman, we must work towards achieving our vision, which is to establish a health system that is dependable and caring, one that provides the right response by the right health care provider in the right place at the right time. I think, as well, it is appropriate to say that what we are trying to do is to create health and a health care system that is sustainable and, obviously, if it is to be sustainable it has to be affordable.
Mr. Chairman, I can tell all members of the House that if the increase in health care spending had continued at the rate it had during the previous five or six years, not only in Nova Scotia but I guess it was a Canadian phenomenon, but particularly here in Nova Scotia, probably in about seven or eight years every cent this province could generate would be going for health and health care. I know some honourable members on the other side of the House have been talking about roads and paving and things like that at this time of year and, by the way, the honourable members on this side of the House have been talking about roads and paving.
We just examined the honourable Minister of Education's estimates. Some of the questions I heard coming from that side of the House were, why is there not more money for Education; why is there not more money for Community Services; why is there not more money for Economic Development or Agriculture or Natural Resources? Well, there is a good reason for that. One of the reasons there is not more money for those things is because there is a lot more money for Health.
The whole thing is a matter of balancing, it is a matter of choices, there is a finite revenue pool and really, what governments were forced into doing is to try and decide what is the best way to distribute that revenue pool for the benefits of all Nova Scotians. The district health authorities, the government and others will continue to work together to ensure an appropriate and affordable health care system that provides quality care to Nova Scotians today and in the future.
If we are going to provide quality care today and in the future, the health and health care system has to be managed and its costs controlled. To do that we need to make our decisions based on solid evidence. We need good information and better information so we can make better decisions. This was recognized by the Auditor General; it has been recognized by the federal Minister of Health; it has been recognized by our provincial and territorial counterparts, both at the minister and deputy minister level, that one of the things we are going to have to do right across Canada is improve the information upon which we are making decisions.
There has to be a balance somewhere. Health costs, as I have just indicated, are far and away the biggest pressure on our province's budget and, indeed, the health spending in Nova Scotia accounts for about 42 per cent of the program expenditures once you take away the debt servicing charge. Indeed, if you were to look at the health expenditures as a percentage of the total of the provincial expenditures, it is about 35.5 per cent.
[8:00 p.m.]
Mr. Chairman, although some people may criticize us for it, we did not do as well, financially, with our health costs last year as we would have liked. I believe we were the only province in Canada that did not see our health costs increase last year over what they had been the year before. They were increased over what we would have liked to have seen, but we did get some sort of handle on them and I think all members recognize that that was not an easy task. It required the co-operation and the determination of people right across Nova Scotia and I am indebted, as are all Nova Scotians, I believe, to those people who enabled us to get at least to that level, even if it wasn't the one where we would have liked to have been.
Before continuing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the district boards and the chief executive officers for everything they have done over the past few months. I have met with the Department of Health personnel regularly and continue to meet with them on a very regular basis to discuss cost pressures, concerns, plans for the future and other areas of mutual interest.
I suppose, Mr. Chairman, it might be appropriate at this time simply to say that we are indeed very fortunate in this province to have such a high calibre group of individuals committed to serving their communities, not only in the district health authorities but in the community health boards. I want to tell you, because other than their time and a nice thank you, that is really the reward for doing that. It is satisfaction for a job well done. These are not plum positions in terms of being paid, but I want to tell you that I don't think right now in Nova Scotia there are probably positions that are more responsible and more critical as we move ahead. We are really delighted to see these people allow their names to stand and I am confident we are well on our way to making the changes that are necessary to make our health care system sustainable.
I can say as well, Mr. Chairman, that the district health authorities that we had brought forth a couple of months ago, the clinical services planning document, that has now been reviewed with all the district health authorities, and I believe it is fair to say that all those in the know who have viewed that document see it as a very positive step in moving health care ahead in Nova Scotia and guiding the strategic investments that have to be made. It talks about benchmarks and best practices and, I think, if we are fortunate, those words and those descriptors will be the things which will lead our health care into sustainability and to protect the future for all Nova Scotians.
Some of the particular dollar amounts that we have increased in this year's budget, if we looked at the budgets of the former regional health boards to the budgets of the district health authorities, the budget-to-budget increase for those particular institutions, and that would include the IWK-Grace Health Centre, the increase is about $56.4 million; hardly a small sum given the financial situation of this province. Actually it is about an $8 million increase from forecast to this year's estimate. This investment, we believe, will stabilize the district health authority budgets and allow the process of change that has been started in them to continue and, at the same time, we appreciate that there are still challenges ahead and there will be additional changes in the acute care sector. We believe that the money we have provided to the district health authorities should negate the necessity to have any major impact on clinical services. We hope that this is the case. Obviously, we can't guarantee at this stage in the year, but I think the general feeling is that we may have been able to do that.
This is not to say, Mr. Chairman, there won't be any changes to clinical care. Indeed, there will be changes and some of the changes will be accepted by many and other changes, I expect, will not be accepted by everybody. We think the change will help to make the hospitals more efficient because it should, hopefully, identify inefficiencies and it means that the scarce resources that we have for health care dollars can be redirected to enhance other areas in accordance with community needs.
Accountability is an underlying theme, Mr. Chairman, and in accordance with the Health Authorities Act, there will be regular financial reporting. DHAs must and will be accountable for the money that they spend and the decisions they make. We discovered in this process that the reporting situation between the regional health boards and the department in terms of accountability is not as good as it could be and that is not to try and point the finger at anybody. Those were evolving structures and it takes time to reach that stage and, obviously, we are in a position to build upon the strengths of the regional health boards and I think, in terms of moving and understanding what happens when you don't have regular financial reporting, we have been able to build on that.
Mr. Chairman, I compliment my colleague on the right, Byron Rafuse, who is the Chief Financial Officer; we are now probably in a better position in the department than we have been in some time to monitor that. The department like everything else, we weren't geared up the way we should be and one of the things we did work at this year in the
department, or in the 20 months we have been in government, was trying to put together a structure that will allow the accountability theme to be put into place.
Among other things, this year's budget will see about $10.5 million more for Home Care Nova Scotia. This will allow thousands more Nova Scotians, both young and old, to have the opportunity to get assistance they need for their health needs at home. That enables them to retain their independence and also to be closer to family and friends.
Another thing, Mr. Chairman, is that the strategic investment that we are making in home care is also important because as we improve the home care sector it should take pressures off the long-term care sector which should take some pressures off the acute care sector. So we think it is very important, these changes; and strengthening the Home Care Programs will have a domino effect. So, as I said, what you see in the health care system right now is that any decision made has a direct impact on other parts of the system.
The decisions in health care have to connect and they have to be strategic if we are to be successful in our mission. There is no question, and I think everyone recognizes, Mr. Chairman, that a change in one program, and I mentioned home care, long-term care, and the acute care, the interrelatedness there, the change in one program will have a direct effect on other parts of the system. The additional investment in home care will also support the province-wide rollout of single entry. The single-entry placement process will ensure that people are directed to the most appropriate care; in many instances this will be Home Care Nova Scotia.
Just a word or two about the single entry process, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted that we have been able to get this up and running. It has been an initiative of governments for some time. I think there is unanimous agreement, including members from the other side of the House, that this is a good thing. The unfortunate part of it is that probably we are about the last province in Canada to roll this out and that is where we are. We are playing 10 year catch-up. Thus a lot of our efforts, when we talk about structural change within our department and being able to respond to things, has been a big part of last year.
We have allocated $1.5 million to further implement the single entry access and we hope that we will have the provincial rollout of this program virtually completed by this time next year. This is a program that will help guide seniors to the most appropriate care options. Single entry means a senior or a family will no longer be burdened with making a series of phone calls to learn about care options available in the community. This new approach is much easier and we believe much more efficient. We hope that just one call will guide people to the care option best suited to their needs, whether it is a nursing home, home care, adult day programs, or respite.
Interestingly, when we were talking about this, Mr. Chairman, this afternoon, about another program in the department having to do with self-managed care, as some members know, particularly the member for Richmond, we have had some of these programs more or less on hold. Well, in that particular case we found out there were 30 different models around the province and we thought that some consistency might help before it went away. I mentioned it may be with the complete rollout of this single entry access it may not only provide an entry into home care and long-term care, which we are talking about, but it might provide an entry into self-managed care; the assessment instruments that we are using there. It is not only for the things which people think about most typically, there may be some other things this single entry may help us with, as well.
In addition to the $1.5 million we are rolling out for the single entry, we are making a further $19 million investment in long-term care. It is not right at this particular time for beds and I will tell you why. We have had a pilot program in Cape Breton County, Antigonish County, Guysborough County and their surrounding areas regarding the single entry program. As a result, the waiting list for nursing home beds in that area has been reduced from 300 to less than 100. Earlier this evening I was talking with the member for Lunenburg West about long-term care in his constituency, and looking for beds. I said, well, one of the things we really didn't have here in Nova Scotia was a lot of really good information to help us make decisions.
I just want to give you an example of what happened in New Brunswick back in 1989, or after 1989. In 1989 New Brunswick went to the single entry program. By 1994 they found that the waiting lists for nursing home beds in that province had dropped from 1,050 to somewhere between 50 and 80. That is quite a significant drop. The number of medically discharged patients in hospital beds waiting for long-term care placement went down from 300 to 50. The province went from a projected need to build 300 nursing home beds, to the closure of 141 beds in 1996, which was two years later. As of November 1996, there were between 60 and 80 vacant nursing home beds in New Brunswick and 25 per cent of nursing homes had vacant beds.
What I am trying to point out, Mr. Chairman, is that until we have accurate information or better information and we get this single-entry access program up and fully running, based on the information which we have now, a lot of which is anecdotal, it does not really make a whole lot of sense to run out and build all kinds of beds. Once we improve our decision-making process and we have better information than we have at this particular time, it may be that we have to have beds. If that is the case, indeed, they will be added; I mean if that is the case. I think people understand that until we get better information than we have now, it doesn't make sense to go out and spend a lot of money, do a lot of things and build a lot of facilities that we might not need in the not too distant future.
We are investing in our health spending, Mr. Chairman, and what this province needs, which is a new and more effective approach to ensuring that our seniors have access to the most appropriate care. The investment in long-term care, this additional $19 million, will sustain the program, it will cover wage and benefit increased costs for the 2001-02 year and help maintain the current level of service, recognizing that the care needs of residents are constantly increasing.
There is, Mr. Chairman, no reduction in the nursing home budgets. Also, this year we were able to maintain the seniors' contribution to the provincial Pharmacare Program at the same level as it was last year. How long we will be able to maintain the current level or participation of seniors, I don't know. We will be reviewing the costs and the expenditures of that program, the income, the expenditures every year, and as everyone here knows, drug programs are not a federally insurable program. They are not insured under the Canada Health Act. So when provinces make a commitment to this, and every province has, it is something that has added a pressure to the actual health expenditures.
We have also made a $0.5 million investment in mental health this year. Primarily this particular $0.5 million, we had a report done this past year making some recommendations about the mental health system in the province, the Bland Report, and we have targeted about $0.5 million to proceed with the implementation of certain recommendations in the Bland Report. This means that the province's mental health delivery system for children, youth and adults is probably going to be extensively overhauled and perhaps, even completely redesigned.
Mr. Chairman, over the past 10 years our mental health system has been reviewed about 30 different times. Four of these reviews have referred to the need to provide services for children and youth in a coordinated way. We believe it is now time for action.
Another investment which we are very proud of and we think will have a great impact on the province was one that was announced last week, indeed, last Tuesday, the $5 million investment in Nova Scotia's first nursing strategy. This particular strategy was designed by nurses for nurses, and we think that makes it even stronger. We realize that nurses make up about two-thirds of all the health professionals in Canada, and they play a unique and special role in maintaining a high-quality health care system to meet the needs of our population.
They need, indeed, by this announcement last week, they can see that they do have our support and our attention. Nova Scotia's first nursing strategy addresses four things. First of all it addresses recruitment; it address retention of the fine nurses that we have here; and it talks about quality work environments. The strategy has a four-point plan, which is to provide support to practising nurses; it provides support to student nurses; it enhances recruitment resources; and it also provides for workforce development and better utilization.
Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to note that that strategy encompasses both the RNs and the LPNs, and has been very positively responded to by both of those important groups. In addition, we are moving forward on our commitment to develop and implement a health information managing strategy for the province. That is very important. As I said on a number of occasions during these few remarks, we need good information to make good decisions. The health information management strategy will enable us to do that. It will promote quality care delivery and efficient management practices throughout our health system.
Mr. Chairman, we will be announcing more details about the information strategy over the next few weeks. I believe, honestly, that the steps we are taking will be endorsed by all members of this House. As I indicated earlier, as we move forward in our new fiscal year, we are paying special attention to accountability, and we are increasing our emphasis on decisions based on evidence, benchmarks and best practices. Evidence, benchmarks and best practices, terms that I don't think anybody can quarrel with.
The clinical services planning initiative will help ensure that health care resources are directed by real and measurable evidence. This is a first for this province. Indeed, the new approach we are taking is relatively new on a Canada-wide basis. Speaking of that particular exercise, there were some questions a couple of weeks ago about our methodology and our approach to doing this, but I want to tell you that we were able to do in one year what the provinces that initially entered into this did in 10 years. I think that is something (Interruptions) that puts our practices into context. We have been able to do this in a very compressed timeframe, and the process that was produced has been recognized not only in Nova Scotia but it has been recognized right across Canada as being among the forefront of tools for decision-making in health care.
Mr. Chairman, the fact is that to be relevant for our population's health needs, we have to keep changing, we recognize that, because everything in health care is changing around us. Technology is improving. I think of this and one of the things we did and announced was about $15 million worth of hardware that went out into the long-term care and acute care sectors this past year. The hardware included some high-tech diagnostic equipment, it also included some practical things like lifts for nursing homes or long-term care facilities and acute care facilities, so when people who are heavy have to be lifted you don't hurt your back doing it. (Interruptions) A good minister.
We think this was very important, but I just want to mention about some of the improvements in technology. In terms of that, last year - and I will give the former minister across the way some credit for this, I believe when he was minister they decided to upgrade the CAT scan up in the Cape Breton Health Care Complex (Interruptions) We are pretty pleased with this. They have that new machine up there, they had an old machine, a CAT scan. They had something between a six and twelve month waiting list for CAT scans, and that would include the area of the members for Cape Breton The Lakes and Cape Breton
West, as well. With that new machine, they are basically able to run the old machine about three days a week. You can get a CAT scan in the Cape Breton Health Care Complex now in probably three weeks or less. It has been a remarkable, positive change.
We have some new diagnostic equipment that is going to go into Kentville; it is going into Truro; it is going into the Victoria General Hospital; it is going to a new one down in Bridgewater. Our province, in terms of up-to-date diagnostic equipment, is not where we would like to be. We don't have the money that we would really love to have to go out and replace everything.
Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you, I think that by the time we are finished this next round, which will probably be this summer, there is probably no other province in Canada that is going to be better equipped for CAT scans than we are here in Nova Scotia. (Applause) It is not just the number, it is the capacity of these machines, and how they improve the diagnosis for people who have illnesses.
We say, as well, that drugs are positively impacting more and more diseases, and recruiting and retraining various types of health care professionals is a new reality. As I said earlier, surgical techniques are changing all the time. The notion that our system can ignore the realities of change is simply foolhardy. Our health system not only needs to change, it must change to keep up with the factors that are impacting on it.
Our goal is to have a system that meets the needs of Nova Scotians today and into the future. It will be a system where people are at the centre of every decision. If members of the House remember, I read a resolution today which was passed unanimously, about the Frosst Foundation in Canada. It is an advocacy group to see that we don't lose sight of the patient when we are talking about health care in Canada. That is why I read that resolution today, not only because they had their meeting here on Friday and I was privileged to attend a portion of it, but that is why we have health and health systems, it is for people, it is not for bureaucracies and it is not for the medical profession, it is so people who have needs, those needs can be met. That is what we are trying to do. We want a system that is fully integrated and of high quality. The bottom line for us is a province where Nova Scotians are healthy and active members of their families, communities and the province.
[8:30 p.m.]
I mentioned when I began my comments that this is a joint initiative. The responsibility for improving health and health care in Nova Scotia does not fall just on my shoulders nor on the shoulders of my colleagues in the Department of Health. They are on the shoulders of the districts, the doctors, the nurses, the other health care professionals. The responsibility for health and health care lies on the shoulders of each and every Nova Scotian and we cannot forget that. All of us have to take better care of ourselves and each other.
We are looking forward to a year that will start to demonstrate the many positive outcomes of the initiatives I have just outlined. We recognize we have much more to do, however, it is a work which we are committed to in the best interests of Nova Scotians. Thank you for indulging me these few words to begin, Mr. Chairman, and I would welcome now some comments and questions from members on the other side of the House.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour.
MR. DARRELL DEXTER: I just have a simple question to start out. I wonder if the minister would mind explaining to all of us here what privatization initiatives he intends to commence in the Department of Health in the coming year?
MR. MUIR: We have no immediate plans for privatization. I take it that the honourable member perhaps is referring to what he would call two-tiered medicine. You know that is not permitted under the Canada Health Act. We adhere to the principles of the Canada Health Act. On the other hand, I do recognize that, not necessarily government initiatives, but there are private initiatives that do play a role in health care in Nova Scotia and indeed, every other jurisdiction of which I know.
But, in direct answer to his question, are we intending to privatize any part of the health care system, which I think that is the question you are asking, the answer is no.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I have noticed always the minister, the Premier and others whenever they are trying to address that question, begin by saying, we adhere to the principles of the Canada Health Act and I know that Mr. Bouchard used to say that in Quebec, as did Mr. Klein in Alberta and yet we see a proliferation of private clinics in those provinces. So, I am going to ask the minister again if he would mind just indicating to us which initiatives - these were his words - that he thinks do play a role in the health care system?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, one of the interesting conversations I had with a gentleman last week and the honourable member for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour mentioned Alberta and I believe it was Bill No. 11 out there and, interestingly enough, I think there were four or five jurisdictions in Canada - and Nova Scotia is not one of them, by the way - which had more liberal provisions for - small "l" liberal, I guess - the type of thing that was contained in that bill. That bill, if you took the time to read through it - at least in my opinion - was a pretty conservative approach - small "c" - to that particular juncture.
Some of the things that I think of, Mr. Chairman, in response to his questions, are dental services, physiotherapy services, psychology services. Some people consult psychiatrists. We have a number of health care services, some of which are provided as insured services but some people, because they either have particular means or they have insurance, and physiotherapy would be an example of it, you can do your physiotherapy free
in any one of a number of acute care facilities around the province. There are lots of these physiotherapy clinics around and people go there if they have private insurance to do that. I hope, perhaps that answers partially your question.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I want to use a specific example for the minister and perhaps he could tell me where this stands in the province. I know that in other provinces, for example, there are private facilities that provide MRIs. I wonder if the minister could tell me whether or not there are any plans to have private clinics providing MRIs in the province?
MR. MUIR: I can tell the honourable member that we have been approached by a couple of individuals about the possibility of not necessarily establishing clinics or whatever it is, but have indicated an interest in providing MRIs. In parts of the province, we have actually talked to them, we do not have any plans, but I guess in answer to your question, as you know, we have no plans to do that at this particular time. There are two types of those things and I think in terms of the aspect of privatization, one is that you set up a clinic and if you have the dollars, then you go and access it. The other would be - and I do not know, we may find this in some parts around the province some of this X-ray machine, the diagnostic imaging machines - we may indeed be leasing some of that equipment rather than owning it outright.
But, it is in the public service, it is owned and basically maintained by G E Capital or whoever else does this type of thing, but the use of that machine is according to the public interest, there is no short-cutting, no jumping lines or things like that.
MR. DEXTER: That is very interesting, Mr. Chairman, and I guess the question I had, I want to follow up on this some. You said you have been approached. Has a proposal been made to the department for an MRI clinic of some sort? I want to ask - well, let's deal with that one first - have you received a proposal?
MR. MUIR: I can tell you basically, have we received a proposal and the answer is no. The conversation would have been this: if you ever, we would be interested in providing a private MRI, if you go in that route, please let us know.
MR. DEXTER: Could I ask the minister what his reply was? Are you going in that direction?
MR. MUIR: We have no plans to go that route right now. On the other hand, quite honestly, I would tell the member as we continue to take a whole look - in particular the case of MRIs and whether they should be on the back of a transport truck or they should be fixed in one place or another - I guess you might say I hate to say this, but no, that was a bad example, the P3 schools - but, if somebody was to provide the machine and we were to lease the facility as a government or lease the equipment as a government, we have not gotten that far, to respond to the member for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour.
MR. DEXTER: Well, I will ask this, Mr. Chairman. In this budget year, will there be a privately operated MRI clinic in the province?
MR. MUIR: We have gotten to that point yet. Ask me again in five months, maybe I can (Interruption) Literally, and I mean this sincerely, we have not gotten to that point.
MR. DEXTER: Let's put it another way. Is it possible that by the end of this year there will be a privately operated MRI clinic in this province?
MR. MUIR: Certainly not on a government-funded basis. I think what the honourable member is trying to get at is, are we going to try and set up a two-tiered health system? And the answer to that is no. On the other hand, if somebody comes along, makes a proposal and says, look, I will buy an MRI and you rent space from it - we haven't gotten to that point yet.
MR. DEXTER: The minister said, not on a government-funded basis. I am not sure what he means by that. He means that there would be a facility, and the staff in that facility would be employed privately by whoever built the facility, whoever purchased the MRI, and they would provide a service that would be contracted by the government. Is that what the minister means?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, we are currently working at trying to determine where we need MRIs in the province and in what type of capacity. We really haven't gotten to that stage. I appreciate the question, I am not trying to hedge. We haven't hit that point.
MR. DEXTER: I don't suppose the minister knows if there are some of these supposed proponents out today, looking to buy property to set up clinics. Is the minister aware that that is happening in the province right now?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I think the question was, am I aware that there are individuals out there who are . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: I understand the question was, is the minister aware of proponents that may be outside trying to establish . . .
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, we have been approached by two people. One of whom I know, and I am afraid if you asked me to name the other I couldn't tell you.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the minister could indicate whether or not there are officials from his department who are working with these individuals to develop a proposal for the Department of Health to put in place privately-run MRI clinics in this province?
MR. MUIR: The short and quick answer to that is no, they have posed questions to us, which we have tried to respond to, but the answer is no.
MR. DEXTER: Perhaps the minister could tell us how long this dialogue between the Department of Health and these proponents have been going on?
MR. MUIR: There is no real dialogue, that implies something has been ongoing for a particular period of time. We have fielded, I guess, two or three calls over the past three or four months about MRIs.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister could tell us if, over and above the private MRI clinics, are there other proponents proposing other services that would be provided in private clinics?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I have been informed that one of the people who has talked about the MRIs has also inquired if there might be an opportunity to do something else. For the honourable member's information, I think he knows this but, we do have a private clinic that operates in Nova Scotia, as you are well aware, the Morgantaler Clinic.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister could tell us whether or not the Department of Health is entertaining proposals for private-for-profit clinics that will, in fact, provide a range of services other than just MRIs?
MR. MUIR: No.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, in follow-up, I wonder if the minister could tell us, if it was not the proponent who had asked specifically about the MRI clinic and about the possibility of providing another service, which he didn't identify and perhaps he will, would be provided at the same facility?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I really can't answer that accurately. When you say a proposal, it implies that we asked for one. We did not. My understanding is that the person said, look, would you be interested in anybody providing any other service?
MR. DEXTER: Perhaps the minister would, please, identify the services that were proposed?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, I missed that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member asked if you would identify the services that have been proposed.
MR. MUIR: Well, the MRI was one. The other one, I am told, was if there would be any interest in a private lab service.
MR. DEXTER: The private lab services are services that are presently provided through the laboratory services of the province at present?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the details of those lab services - I am not really trying to be evasive. As far as I know, the question was asked and there was no exploration that followed that to say well, what are you talking about in terms of lab services. To be quite frank - you asked me the questions today - if you are talking about lab services, would it be a substitute for something that is there now or an addition to something that is there now, my guess is a straight probably yes.
MR. DEXTER: Can the minister tell us whether or not he has received any of these proposals in writing?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, no, there are none.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, that is a very interesting engagement by the Minister of Health. It certainly is something that he knows and, I think, we know is out there in the health care community. There are certainly lots of questions being asked about the direction this government is going in with respect to the privatization of health care services in this province. That is why I asked, on numerous occasions, in Question Period, the questions that I did ask with respect to their commitment, and why there was always this reliance on saying things like we are committed to the principles of the Canada Health Act.
What the minister knows, and knows only too well, is that if he puts his mind to it, there are lots of ways to contract out services and still, as far as the letter of the Canada Health Act goes, maintain, to the letter of the Act, those principles. That doesn't mean that we are not travelling down the road toward privatization.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to turn my attention, at this time, to another decision that was made by the Department of Health and just a short time ago came to light. I believe that the Department of Health spent somewhere in the vicinity of $520,000 between Healthcor and Bristol Communications for the development of the clinical services footprint. I wonder if the minister could tell us whether there were any other services with respect to the clinical services footprint that were contracted out?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is no.
MR. DEXTER: Just so I am clear, $520,000 was in fact the correct figure for the development of the clinical services footprint, was it? If not, could the minister indicate what the cost was?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, he has asked a difficult question. The reason the question is difficult is that we did some preliminary work. The question is when did you actually, formally get into the exercise. For the purposes of the question, whether you take in the preliminary things, then I would say, yes, that is probably a reasonable figure.
MR. DEXTER: I just want to put $520,000 into perspective for a second and see if the minister agrees with my mathematics on this. I know that one of the things this government is trying to do is to recover fees on services that are being provided. They announced, for example, that they are going to charge seniors who stay in long-term care beds an additional $50 a day; after they could have been medically discharged, if they are going to stay in that bed it is going to cost them an extra $50 a night. To recover $520,000, you would have to charge, what, I would say 10,400 seniors $50 to get that money back. Does that seem right to you?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I guess if you take the number - what did you say, $520,000? - and divide it by 50, I don't think it would be quite that much but it would be a significant number. I think it is short-sighted for the honourable member to put it in that perspective. I think I know where he is trying to go with that. The fact is we are optimistic that what we did will, in the long run, save this province money.
I mentioned, back in my opening comments, that in other jurisdictions where they had done this - I think the honourable member for Dartmouth East would be supporting this, because he would know it from his time on the other side - it was sort of a 10 year process. We were able to basically do it in a one year time-frame. We now have a document which will help the district health authorities in their decision making. The decision making that they are going to make is based on best practices and benchmarks. That was not there.
Mr. Chairman, you saw what happened when we didn't have this information, what was provided. What was happening to the health care costs in Nova Scotia was they were going on up. If we can level that off and manage it, I think you will find - and in his heart I think he knows - that this was a good investment for the Province of Nova Scotia.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, it is interesting, the minister talks about the commitment to the health care system. I remember when they were sitting on this side, the Honourable Neil LeBlanc saying that health care does need more money: There is an urgent need for new nurses; there is an urgent need for more doctors; particularly in rural Nova Scotia; there is an urgent need to invest in new medical equipment and technologies. And all these needs are very real.
As soon as they were elected, the first thing they did, of course, was to cut the health care budget. In particular, and this is interesting to me, I would ask the minister if he could turn to the estimates, in the Supplementary Detail, to the Pharmacare Program, Page 15.8. You will remember that during the estimates, we spent a fair amount of time on the
Pharmacare Program last time. At that time, we knew that the actual pay-out figure was going to be somewhere in the vicinity of $78 million. It was estimated that in the following year it would rise to $83.250 million, as I understand it.
Now we know that what happened instead is that Pharmacare costs actually fell, and fell well below what was estimated and fell below what was the actual amount for the 1999-2000 year. I remember standing here last year, and I remember telling the Minister of Health that when you increase the co-pay and you up the ceiling on seniors, what will happen is that there will be a drop-off in the uptake on the program. I think the drop-off in the uptake was actually something that the minister's department, in fact, said would happen. I believe they thought, even with that, there would be an offsetting rise in the increase that would still push the budget higher.
I want to ask the minister, can he explain for us why it is that there was this drop in the Pharmacare Program expenses, and why it comes in, I guess it is, $6.25 million under budget?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the expenditure per senior this past year is roughly about $1,125. The main reason is that there were just about 2,500 people less, and also because they went to their private insurers for that increase. So the program served 2,500 people less.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I remember tabling for the minister, in the last set of estimates, a study that was done out of Quebec that showed a number of deleterious effects on the seniors' population when you increased the co-pay and increased the ceiling in these programs. Not to put too fine a point on it, but among other things, it was determined that your mortality rates increased; it was determined in that study that more seniors showed up in emergency rooms; that there was heavier usage of primary care, they ended up at their doctors more often.
I am going to ask the minister - I tabled that information for him last year, because I thought it was important that he know what the literature says and he know what the research has been saying on this - I would like to know if the minister took that information seriously enough to do any kind of a follow-up. He talks a lot about the need to have good information. Has he taken it upon himself or has the department taken it upon themselves to find out what kind of an effect the rise in co-pay has had, with respect to those indicators, on the seniors' population?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the best information that we have is that there would be no evidence to support those suggestions that the honourable member made last year, and don't forget some of the suggestions he made were pretty loose on the data side.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I will indicate to the minister that that report I tabled was done by prominent institutions in the Province of Quebec. I would just like to know if he can table, for us, the information he has that says there are no effects on the seniors' population. I would be pleased to see it.
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I guess I could turn it around and say that I would like to see him table evidence that it did have an effect here in Nova Scotia. You might note that in the Quebec study that he referred to, there are some procedural flaws and notwithstanding that, he may, indeed, remember that the Quebec Government - notwithstanding that little bit of information - just about doubled their premium last January, doubled the cost to seniors. Clearly the Quebec Government, for whom the study was done, wasn't profoundly influenced by it.
[9:00 p.m.]
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, that is an interesting response because it displays a rather cavalier attitude about the seniors of this province. The minister, through this program, has a responsibility - not only through this program but in his capacity as the Minister of Health - to all the people of the province and, of course, the seniors of the province. If he is going to undertake a change in a program that is potentially going to seriously affect that population, I think he has the responsibility to table any information he has that shows that there will be no deleterious effects. Can he do that or can't he?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, what I can tell the honourable member is that I cannot table information that shows there is a deleterious effect.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, can the minister table any evidence, any information that he has whatsoever that he has tried in a quantitative way to determine what effects these changes have on the seniors' population?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I can consult with my staff in the Pharmacare Program. For the honourable member's information, what we have tried to do with this - and he knows too that the Seniors' Pharmacare Program is a critical part of our health care system, and it has to be sustainable in the long term - is protect seniors from the increasing costs of drug therapy. In the last number of years our Pharmacare costs have increased significantly. Indeed, I will go back - for the honourable member, just to refresh his memory - to when the Seniors' Pharmacare Program was introduced. It was introduced, basically, on somewhere around a 50/50 basis, that is what it was intended to be. I should also remind the honourable member that pharmaceuticals are not insured under the Canada Health Act.
To put in place a provincial Seniors' Pharmacare Program - I think, as well, to isolate the Seniors' Pharmacare Program, I know he is doing that because that is the one that most people think of - this government spends a tremendous amount on not only the Seniors'
Pharmacare Program, but if you were to add up what the Department of Community Services basically spends, we have a whopping big drug bill in this province. We also cover things under our Pharmacare Program that most people don't even know about, to be quite frank. There are some significant things that are done under Pharmacare.
One of the things that we have come to the conclusion of, at least I have as Health Minister, is that the Pharmacare Program certainly needs to be re-examined. If we are going to have an insurance program, then we have to have an insurance program. This is not an insurance program we have now; basically it is, in many ways, a grant program.
The Pharmacare costs, as I think I said, for seniors this year is roughly about $1,125. I was going back to the point, it started out at 50/50. When the Pharmacare Program, the co-pay and the premium had not been adjusted, I think, for nine years, despite the fact that Pharmacare costs had gone up. Somewhere back in the early 1990's, it got to about 70/30; 70 per cent being paid for by programs through the Department of Health and 30 per cent by those who were receiving the benefit, the user participation.
During that period of time, the balance on that swung; the government had gone from about 70 per cent to roughly about 87 per cent on what was being paid for by the government. So the percentage, in that eight or nine year period, had remarkably gone the other way. People basically agreed 70/30 wasn't a bad split. Because there were no adjustments made in that program - and the honourable member can speculate as well as I can why there were no adjustments made in that program, and probably there should have been in that interim period - it got to about 87 per cent for the government and about 13 per cent for those who received benefit.
Mr. Chairman, what we tried to do was to halt that escalation. In other words, we tried to restore some balance. Even this year, despite the fact that adjustment was made last year, we didn't get near the 70/30, it was roughly, for us, around 74 per cent, and those receiving the benefits were, in that case, contributing about 26 per cent; a fair way from where it was back in the early part of the 1990's, and obviously a long way off from where it was when the program was first put into place.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to continue, if I can, with the minister's dissection of the Pharmacare Program. Of course this is purely a case where the minister gets to choose. The program was funded before, it was funded out of the consolidated revenues of the province. The money came into the program to support the program at the level, I believe, the minister said was 70/30. This minister makes a choice, and the choice this minister makes - and they can choose among a whole array of options - is to claw that money back from seniors, to take the money away from people on fixed incomes, who in many cases have nowhere else to get the money, they have a limited budget. The minister dismisses this, I know, he says it is anecdotal and therefore somehow it is untrue.
We hear constantly about seniors who are telling us things like, we have no choice but to cut our medication in two, or to take it every other day, or to take the money for medication out of our food budget. I had several seniors in my riding who ran out of oil this winter. (Interruptions) Maybe the member thinks it is funny, but it is not funny. These are the kinds of choices that these individuals, these seniors in the province had to make. The reason why they had to make this choice is because the minister made a choice. The minister chose to seek recovery under this program for a higher percentage of the costs.
I just wish the minister would tell us now, if he could stand on his feet and tell us why it is he felt that it was fair to place that burden on the backs of the seniors of the province. Could he just explain that?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I think I probably gave a relatively clear answer to that in response to his previous question. We go back into the history of that program, and what it was intended to be was 50/50. It had escalated to where the government was paying around 80 per cent and the seniors were paying about 20 per cent, and that is not the way it was intended and set up to be. Similarly, 10 years ago, it was roughly around, as I understand it, about 70/30. I can speculate why there were no adjustments made during that period of time and there should have been. Basically what we tried to do was to get that program back on a sustainable basis.
It is okay when you are sitting on that side of the House to stand up and say, well, it doesn't make any difference, forget about the long term, we want this program to be around, and you have to make adjustments. What he is not pointing out, which is fair enough, is that
is a sliding scale. If you are single and your income is less than $18,000 a year, if you are married or have a live-in partner and you count as a married couple and your income adds up to less than $24,000 a year, there are premium reductions. There is a good chance you won't be paying any premium if that is your income. What you are paying for, I guess you can say, is really if you don't use any drugs then, probably, you are not going to pay very much.
Mr. Chairman, I think the thing about it that is very important is that the amount that these seniors can contribute in this program, or people can contribute in this program, is capped. I would love to tell you that I just picked up not only the seniors Pharmacare cost, but I would pay total Pharmacare costs for every citizen here in Nova Scotia. I would love to do that, but we cannot afford it. In a lot of other provinces, let's take New Brunswick, the only people who are covered under their Pharmacare Program are people who receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement. We have probably about the third best Seniors' Pharmacare Program in this country. It is not what everybody would like, Mr. Chairman, but I want to assure all members of this House and those that have studied and actually done a little bit of looking at it, you know that we have a good program here. It is a reasonable program, given the benefit.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, it is pretty cold comfort to say to somebody, we are actively working to undermine the Pharmacare system, but don't worry. It will still be better than systems somewhere else. That doesn't help anyone here. That doesn't help any of the seniors. All that does is further promote the anxiety that seniors have over the continuing escalation of the costs that they have to pay in the Pharmacare Program.
Now the minister knows, because it is right here, that he has had a two year, year over year, decrease in the cost of the Pharmacare Program. That is a fact. It is right here. So I want to ask the minister, will he undertake now to commit his government and his department to a re-examination of the Pharmacare Program with a view to dropping the co-pay back to 1998 levels?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, like all our government programs in the Department of Health, they are re-examined annually. I do commit because we do it on an annual basis and it is part of our accountability scheme, to re-examine these premiums. Is he asking me, do I commit to rolling back to the 1998 levels? The answer is no. If our numbers show that it can go back to the 1998 levels and that program can be protected, then it would go back. But, no. I am not going to make that commitment. That is an irresponsible question, I think.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I would invite the minister to come out to my riding and to meet with the seniors of my riding who have called me and have indicated, on many occasions to me, how difficult they are finding it with the changes in the Pharmacare Program and then, perhaps, we could determine which of the statements they consider to be not relevant or, what it was the minister said - irresponsible - because, I can assure you, that is not the way the seniors in my riding feel and I doubt that is the way the seniors in your riding feel about increases in the cost of Pharmacare. (Interruption)
Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Minister of Health would be prepared to tell us exactly which line item the $480,000 paid to Healthcor falls under?
MR. MUIR: Just forgive me for one second. It is here. In the honourable member's Supplementary Detail, it would be Page 15.11. It is included in the line item which is called Transition Support.
MR. DEXTER: I just was finding that, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to continue, just for a second, on the question of Pharmacare costs. I am not sure whether or not the minister knows this or not, but one of the things about the Pharmacare Program in this province, and the minister has mentioned many other provinces, but in many other provinces, there are subsidies provided for Pharmacare assistance for disabled individuals who are earning an income. I assume the minister is aware that is not now the case in this province. I am wondering if the minister has had a look at the programs in the other provinces and whether or not the minister is considering assistance to disabled individuals with Pharmacare costs?
MR. MUIR: I guess, Mr. Chairman, we do provide assistance to a number of people who would be disabled because of disease. I am talking about the high end diseases when I talked about the province's Pharmacare bills including a number of things a lot of people don't know about. Yes, there would be people included in that category. On the other hand, I can tell you that we are currently undertaking a review with the Department of Community Services, an assessment of the drug programs that are available. It is a difficult question to directly answer. Could you give me an example? If you give me an example, I may be able to provide you with a specific answer.
MR. DEXTER: Certainly, Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased. I was contacted by an individual who is a part-time worker suffering from epilepsy. The cost of the medication has increased from about $63 to $147 a month. Of course, the individual's wages have not increased. The cost of the drugs have increased dramatically. That individual undertook to find out what was going on in other provinces and, certainly, passed that information along to me to indicate that, in many provinces, because of a disabling disease, they would qualify for a subsidy for their drug costs. That is the example, I think, the minister requested.
MR. MUIR: I ask the member for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, is that person receiving benefits under Community Services or is he self-supporting. I don't know the answer. I will have to get it for you.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I think I have about five minutes left, so I have time to pursue a very specific question with the minister. The minister may know that the QE II often carries out studies and protocols that are somewhat experimental. In this particular case I have been contacted by an individual who is receiving what is known as photodynamic therapy because she has been diagnosed with macular degenerative disease. This particular program has been undertake by the QEII and the cost is being billed directly to this patient. She has a private insurance program that will cover 80 per cent of it, the other 20 per cent, though, she has to cover herself.
The question that she has and the question that I have for the minister is, if the QE II is undertaking this kind of procedure - certainly if it is successful it is not only of benefit to that particular patient but of benefit to other patients, other people in the province or people who have a similar kind of difficulty - why is it that the province does not cover at least the remaining cost of those programs?
MR. MUIR: I think the answer to that - and I am trying to go back in my memory because I do remember seeing something about that come across my desk - is that it is a new program. I think he has answered himself, Mr. Chairman. It is a new program in Nova Scotia and all of those new programs would be assessed by our Insured Programs Division and they haven't made the determination yet.
MR. DEXTER: I would like to ask the minister how long this procedure takes and if it is determined that it should be an insured service, do you have a look-back program and do you then pay the patients for the costs they have incurred until it is insured?
MR. MUIR: It is an interesting thing, in a look-back program it is not the practice to do that.
MR. DEXTER: Mr. Chairman, I understand that it may not be the practice to do it, I guess what I am asking the minister is that when you see situations like this come along, individuals on limited incomes, will the minister tell me whether or not the department is considering undertaking a proper review of this program so that in fact a look-back program will pay the cost of the program?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the sincerity behind that question and there are other situations that arise like that, too. What he is actually doing is asking us to pay retroactively for something that has already occurred. We pay, Mr. Chairman, for the services that are insured. If they are not insured then right now we don't pay for them.
MR. DEXTER: I know that I only have perhaps seconds left, so I am not sure that I will get through another question with the minister. I want to point out to him that in the coming time allotted to this that I intend to pursue the budgets of the health authorities in the next part of my questioning and I just ask the minister to think about this, if he can, over the next 24 hours or so - or whenever we reconvene - which I guess will be less than that. The minister indicated in the press that the health authorities were going to receive the same budgets that they received last time. It appears now that they are not, in fact they are going to receive increases and so that is where we will begin next time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I would like to thank the member for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour. Today's time for consideration of the estimates has expired.
The committee will now rise and report progress and meet again on a future day.
The committee stands adjourned.
[9:25 p.m. The committee rose.]
