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HALIFAX, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2007

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Chuck Porter

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We will now continue with the estimates of the Department of Transportation and Public Works.

The honourable member for Pictou West.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Chairman, another day, another opportunity to get some answers, I guess, from the Department of Transportation and Public Works on some of the budget estimates and some of the public policy questions that arise here in our province. Yesterday, as you may recall, we were in the midst of talking about some public tenders and the public tenders office and the procedure and how things operate there. As we learned yesterday, sometimes the lowest tender is awarded and sometimes it's not. I think in particular of the case I mentioned here with the public tender not being awarded was for a tire-retreading contract that didn't go to the lowest tender but in actual fact, for what I understand were quality reasons, it has been retendered and we will see what happens on that. The only difficulty, of course, is sometimes when there's a retender that other competition then knows what the ballpark figure is for those who have already tendered their price, it's public information.

I guess just as we ended yesterday, I was going on to another public tender case that came to my attention just yesterday. It was a tender around pavement line painting. In this case, it was awarded to the lowest tender, but there are some concerns raised by the operator that had the contract for a number of years so he's asking some questions. So, really, I'm asking those questions on his behalf. The company was City Pavement Markings Canada Ltd., a local company from my area. In this case, the contract has gone to a new company that I'm told has little or no experience.

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So I guess the question I have, first of all to ask, is around how is it that tenders are awarded? Is it always based on price, the lowest price, is that the most important consideration, or are there considerations around quality or around experience of operators? In this particular case for sure, was price the only criterion or were other factors taken into consideration?

HON. ANGUS MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I can tell the honourable member that first of all in respect to the tender he is talking about, that the contract has not been awarded. The tenders are in, the tenders are opened. There is a process whereby the lowest tender is evaluated to determine that the proponent is qualified to do the work and if it is the lowest tender and the company is qualified to do the work, then under normal circumstances the contract is awarded to that person, or company. I can tell you that to date no decision has been taken with respect to that contract because the process of determining the qualification is still in process.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I had understood that perhaps the award had already been given to the other company. I guess if it's still under consideration, that's good to know. I just want to ask, then, what are the factors? There are several factors that I think, or I would hope, would be considered in the awarding of a contract like this that would include certainly the price, that's an important component, but also the quality of the workmanship, past history or past performance of the company, safety, I suppose, especially in a case like this where it's on a very busy roadbed, much traffic. It would be the experience of the crew that would be directing traffic and so on. I just want to ask him, what criteria are looked at in awarding a contract?

[12:15 p.m.]

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, again, price, of course, is the factor that causes us to say here is the company with the lowest price. Now the job is to determine whether or not, in our opinion, that company is capable of doing the work. We need to look at the equipment that they use or propose to use, look at the qualifications of the personnel in that company, and their ability to be able to deliver the job according to the specifications that are laid out in the contract.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I have a follow-up question then. When an award is given to a particular company and it's found partway through a period of time that it's not working out or the company doesn't have the staff to do the job properly, or whatever circumstances, it's not in a timely way meeting the specs of the contract, does the department have a policy that they can actually step in and take remedial action to either improve the quality of the work that's being provided or some assurance that they are actually going to be able to finish on time, or can it actually be taken away from a contractor that's not performing according to the specs that are there? I know there is often a bid deposit that's put down or security given, but sometimes the cost of remediating a contract that has gone

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bad may be actually more than the bid deposit. Does that happen very often and, if so, what process do you have to mediate in a situation like that?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the contractor who is awarded a contract must live up to the specifications as set out in the contract. If they fail to do that, the initial step would be to point out to the contractor that there are deficiencies in the work they are doing and sit down with them and address those deficiencies. If, however, the contractor is not able to correct the deficiencies that are there then, of course, you reach a stage where you need to take other action and part of that other action is to, in fact, take the contract away and give the work to somebody else. Most of the time, fortunately for us, when we award a contract, the due diligence that we do prior to the awarding of that contract determines that the contractor is qualified and, for the vast majority of our contracts, the work is carried out according to the specifications.

Now that is not to say that we don't from time to time need to have discussions with contractors. That's why there are inspectors, that's why there is a process of due diligence, but for the most part, our contractors in this province deliver very good work on behalf of the department and the people of the province.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I just have one final comment, or question, on this situation. I guess I would hope that the department will follow all their guidelines and look at full due diligence and the quality, experience, safety and price, all the factors would be considered, and I'm sure it will be. So the final question is just when do you expect that this tender would be awarded?

MR. MACISAAC: Normal process to determine the qualifications of a contractor would be a couple of weeks. It's a normal process and that is underway. Obviously we want the work done in the Spring, so we're not going to dilly-dally with respect to making that determination.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I want to move on now to another topic. As you know, Mr. Minister, part of my role as Transportation Critic is to bring forward issues and concerns from residents around Nova Scotia and certainly from my own riding as well, with concerns about roads and bridges and other transportation issues. Yesterday, I brought to your attention the situation on the Mooseland Road along the Eastern Shore.

Today, I have a letter that I want to bring forward and I believe that the minister also received it. It's concerning the Millbrook Road in my riding in Pictou West, located in western Pictou County. It's from a gentleman by the name of David Boran. David is a safety compliance officer who works with King Freight Lines in Pictou County, a large, international long-haul trucking company. He has about 12 years experience as a safety officer with that company. He lives in the Salt Springs-Limerock area of Pictou West.

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I assume, Mr. Minister, you have seen this letter. It's dated March 28^th of this year. He points out the very poor condition of the Millbrook Road. He's mentioning that it's full of holes. There are a couple of holes right across the road that are about six inches deep, basically saying that the road is not acceptable. It's a safety issue more than anything. He's asking, in light of the mild winter we had and hopefully cost savings that we had on winter maintenance, that there might be some available dollars to help fix the Millbrook Road. He says it's an accident waiting to happen.

He goes on about other problems that have occurred on the road, pavement cracking and so on, but it's a very serious issue and as a safety compliance officer, I think he certainly knows what he's talking about. He's basically asking, instead of continuously patching the road and a little bit of work here and there, is it possible to have some commitment to a long-term plan, or some hope that people would know that there's going to be work done on this particular road?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, just before I call on the minister, I would ask the honourable member to table a copy of that letter, please.

The honourable Minister of Transportation and Public Works.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I can tell the honourable member that within the department the normal course of addressing correspondence such as the correspondence the member has tabled is, first of all, for it to be routed through to the local staff so that they are aware of the concerns that are being expressed by citizens, and the local staff also provide us with their assessment of the road in question. That usually winds up being incorporated into the response that would be sent out to that letter either by myself or a member of staff.

Of course, all of these communications that we receive from all Nova Scotians are duly noted and the roads in question are categorized with respect to the priorities in the regions and they become part of a larger plan. Because we are dealing with scarce resources then, of course, very often our ability to address every concern that we hear is limited but there is an effort made to ensure that the concerns of citizens are, in fact, addressed and that work on these roads is performed over time. The scope of the work will very much depend upon the condition of the road and the resources that we have available at the time.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I will table that letter shortly but I see the minister was copied on the letter as well as some other folks here. Certainly, if the local staff don't already have it - Area Manager Troy Webb, or the operations supervisor for the area - I certainly will be bringing it to their attention. I assume that may have already been done. I will make doubly sure that they have that.

I guess really the question here is a safety issue. It's a major concern for Mr. Boran, as it is for a number of drivers and residents in that particular area. It is, in his opinion, one

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of the worst roads in the area and he's asking why we can't fix the worst roads first. I will ask the minister that question, can we fix the worst roads first?

MR. MACISAAC: We do a rather significant evaluation of the conditions of roads before a determination is made with respect to the amount of work that will be done by way of repair and when that will be done. Part of that evaluation is the drive over by the ARAN vehicle which evaluates the ride, the quality of the road, the rutting and the roughness of the road. It provides us with an assessment there. That's part of the factor. The traffic volume that goes over that road is another consideration that is taken into account, the maintenance history of the road, things that need to be done.

There are sometimes various steps that you need to take to restore a road. If the drainage on the road, for instance, is not good, then you can't address the surface of the road first. You first must address the drainage, ensure that the moisture is moving away from the road so that it has the capacity to dry appropriately, before you can go ahead and start addressing the surface of the road, either through the addition of gravel and the crowning of the road with graders or, in the case of pavement, the restoration of the pavement, that needs to take place after drainage issues are done.

So it's certainly a rather sophisticated process that is followed by the department in terms of establishing the priorities as to where the work is done. As I indicated, volume is also a part of the criteria that is applied.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I would ask if the minister and staff would be able to give every serious attention to the Millbrook Road, one of many roads in our province that need attention. I, too, will be bringing it to the attention of our local staff.

In the few minutes I have remaining, I want to move on to another topic that I don't think I had the chance previously to bring up and I'm not sure if any member has brought along. In your budget on Page 20.8, it talks about the Nova Scotia Gateway Initiative. This is certainly an exciting prospect for Nova Scotia if it were to become a reality. I see over $1 million has been budgeted to get started on this project and if I can quote from Page 20.8, it says, ". . . an aggressive gateway communications and marketing strategy . . ." will be undertaken, ". . . engaging key stakeholders, conducting in-depth research . . .". I wonder if you can give us, Mr. Minister, just an overview of what this gateway initiative is all about and just where we hope to end up with it.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I certainly welcome the opportunity to address the gateway and some of the opportunities that are available to Nova Scotia as a result of the gateway concept and the development of the gateway. First of all, it is important to understand that the world economy is very rapidly changing. Areas of growth in the world economy are in the subcontinent of India and in China, the fastest growing areas. Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with the Consul General to Canada from India and we talked

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about the growth of the Indian economy and the opportunities that exist for trade as a result of that growth.

[12:30 p.m.]

There are some other factors that are occurring that are very significant with respect to this whole opportunity around the gateway. The traffic patterns that are developing as a result of the change in the size of the ships that are being used to transport containers, the next generation of ships are so large that they're unable to traverse the Panama Canal in its present configuration. That means that the Suez Canal is going to become the preferred route of these vessels to North America from the Indian subcontinent and from parts of China. So as a result of these changing vessels - and they are being assembled as we speak, and some already plying the waters - there will be increased container traffic coming to North America from the Suez Canal.

Nova Scotia is ideally positioned to be able to become the first port of call of those container ships that are coming here. We have some challenges to ensure that not only do we convince them that we should be the first port of call but that we should continue to be the first port of call. So marketing is a very important element of reaching out to the people in the transportation business, as well as the people in the retail business, because more and more, the retailers are taking a bigger role in answering the transportation questions. It used to be that was left entirely in the hands of the transportation companies, but now the retailers and distributors are beginning to become very much involved in that decision-making process themselves.

So there is a very real marketing challenge that's there, or marketing opportunity that's there for us to be able to reach out and to convince the decision makers of the importance of them deciding to make Nova Scotia the first port of call in the North American East Coast.

If we are successful, and I'm very confident that we will be, in bringing these people to Nova Scotia and Halifax, and there is also interest in the Strait of Canso by shipping interests, but Halifax has demonstrated its capacity as a container port. It is well-known throughout the world and we have the opportunity to attract this traffic to this area. When we get them here, it's extremely important that they know they're in a port that is among the most efficient ports in the world, so that the containers can be offloaded and loaded quickly enough for those vessels to be able to stick to very tight schedules that they keep as they traverse the world. So we have a challenge to ensure that we are the most efficient port anywhere and that's certainly one of the objectives that would be there as part of the responsibility of the Atlantic Gateway.

There are some other issues that are relevant with respect to opportunities. There is a lot of congestion, for instance, on the West Coast - not just in Canada but the entire West

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Coast of North America - that's causing shippers to seek different routes in order to get to market. So Nova Scotia is ideally positioned, then, to become the conduit for container traffic that would flow from these new vessels that are plying the waters coming through the Suez Canal into the Central Canadian market, into the American Midwest, and from there funneling into other parts of North America. So we have tremendous assets here but it is a very competitive world and we have to be out there ensuring that we're on top of things.

So the $1 million will help us doing the marketing that needs to be done. It will help us hire staff who will assist us in formulating the nature of the research that needs to be done to allow us to become more competitive, to allow us to examine in conjunction with the ports, issues around configuration, best use of equipment and things of that nature so that we can establish ourselves as one of the most efficient ports in the world. If we do that, we will certainly be very successful in attracting this container traffic to North America.

Now having said all of that about container traffic is not to diminish the potential that is out there with respect to the air traffic coming to Atlantic Canada and Nova Scotia. Halifax International Airport has established itself as one of the class airports anywhere in the world. It has won numerous awards and recognition and that will assist us both in the development of the tourism industry but also in the development of air cargo transport, which is becoming more and more important with respect to business. So the airport is an extremely important element of the gateway concept.

Reference was made earlier today, I believe, or yesterday, about the growth in the cruise ship industry in Nova Scotia. That, of course, is a very important part of the gateway concept as well.

So I apologize, Mr. Chairman, if my answer was a bit lengthy but he, in asking the question about the Atlantic Gateway, has put his finger on something that we consider to be very important, something about which I am extremely enthused and we look forward to some very positive results for Atlantic Canada, and Nova Scotia in particular.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I know and I share the minister's passion, or enthusiasm, for this project. I think it's a good one for Nova Scotia and, of course we know we do have competition, and I guess the Port of Montreal is one of those competitors. I certainly would encourage the department to do all that they can to move this project along. It has a lot of potential for increasing the economy here of this province. I did probably expect a long answer and I guess that is maybe what I got.

Anyway, we only have so much time in our estimates and I am going to share my time now with the member for Halifax Atlantic.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.

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MS. MICHELE RAYMOND: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Minister, very much for making the time to answer some of these questions. I know he is not here officially, but I'm glad the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations is here as well because I know that you share a good number of concerns. I'm sure you know that, as you and I have spent a lot of time discussing the great puzzle of the relationship of municipal and provincial jurisdiction inside the sort of non-urban core areas, the larger municipalities.

I would like to bring up a couple of specific issues that do come up in my area of Halifax Atlantic as a result of the confusion of jurisdiction, I guess, and the lack of change in the jurisdiction of responsibility over these areas. As I think I have told you, a lot of the constituents in Halifax Atlantic who live beyond the urban core area, as it was defined in 1996 at amalgamation, really find themselves and feel, I think, that they are paying city prices for country roads. I keep telling them that country roads, in effect, is what the province is, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and the province does, I would say, a very fine job of providing service on those roads - those are the roads that lead from community to community as opposed to being the roads that are being inside the community.

In some of the growing exurban areas of the regional municipality, though, what you get is those roads between communities have really turned out to be the roads inside communities more recently, and the tangles that come up concern sometimes the issues of plowing and paving on the highway when the change comes between the urban core and the provincial areas of responsibility, and sometimes all those roads that existed in rural communities before amalgamation - and I'm sure you know where I'm going with this - it is just that at amalgamation, and I know your predecessor and I have had this discussion many times as well, the commitment was that every three years there would be a review and a renegotiation of the urban core area. That has never taken place and I'm wondering if you know anything about the process of those negotiations, and when can the residents of the developing urban areas in the municipality expect that in fact there will be a clear decision made on whether they are living in an urban or a rural area?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the honourable member for the question. I certainly appreciate the challenges that would exist in terms of getting your head around the results of the amalgamation, vis-à-vis roads in HRM. I can tell the honourable member that there was an agreement reached with HRM in 2002, and as a result of that agreement - I'm sorry, in the Spring of 2006 there was an agreement reached as a result of the discussions - the honourable member made reference to the need to get together and to discuss, well they did get together in the Spring of 2006, they did in fact come to an agreement and the results of that agreement were the transfer of 60 kilometres of roads, and that was a very significant change with respect to the thing, and we are continuing to be in contact with HRM.

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MS. RAYMOND: Yes, I knew that there had been a transfer of roads in many parts of the outlying areas within the last year or so. Is there at this point a triggering density of a long distance of highway, I guess you would say, at which provincial roads do become municipal responsibility - and I mean per kilometre of road as opposed to per square kilometre density?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, there is indeed a number that does trigger some activity with respect to number of dwellings per square kilometre, and that triggers a discussion. I can tell the honourable member that the last agreement was in 2006 and the next term is in 2009, but of course in the meantime we're always open to sitting down with HRM to discuss various concerns that people have, especially when an area does reach the threshold of dwellings per square kilometre that might trigger the need for a transfer.

MS. RAYMOND: I'm very pleased to hear that because I know it has to be difficult to get those discussions going, particularly in the light of council minutes and so on that basically indicate in the past that they just plain don't want to take over roads unless obliged to, and I can give you that documentation if you want.

One of the specific areas - and again I just have to ask you about this - the tangle of jurisdiction, and I had talked about this with the Premier in his former portfolio as Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, and I think he hadn't been able to get much traction with it at that time, the transfer of lighthouses, and it may not seem as though it's all that relevant, but at least within Halifax Atlantic there is one lighthouse, federal ownership, of course, and the federal government wants to divest responsibility and has offered it to the province as part of a menu of lighthouses.

[12:45 p.m.]

When the lighthouse reaches a final ownership, the road leading to it will then have some ownership and it will be possible to assign responsibility for it. At the moment, however, the federal government - I assume it was the federal government - had granted permission to numerous householders over the preceding 60 years to build along that road and they're sort of stranded out there at the end of a road which HRM doesn't want, the province had not made a decision about ownership of the lighthouse itself, and the residents are concerned, and I would say justifiably concerned, not so much about the potholes but about the extremely dense overgrowth at the sides of the road which carry some 400 cars daily in the summer, and has children walking home from school - it really is an accident waiting to happen.

MR. MACISAAC: Excuse me, is that Duncans Cove Road?

MS. RAYMOND: Yes, it is.

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MR. MACISAAC: Yes, it's not a road that is under our jurisdiction and we don't take ownership of lighthouses, we don't have any need for them. All of our ferries are able to see their destination very clearly, and so we don't have a use for lighthouses whatsoever.

MS. RAYMOND: That's a really nice segue because one of my next questions was about ferries in fact - one of the questions that I did have was about TPW's responsibility inside municipalities and so on for ferry infrastructure. I'm sure you're familiar - I've probably told you about the past with the Northwest Arm ferry, which is an old public wharf that has been in existence, I mean it has been a place of public transportation since approximately, oh my God, 1810 or so. A public wharf matched by another public wharf on the other side of the Northwest Arm used to be the place from which ferries traversed the Arm from the outlying county area to the City of Halifax, and that went on for many, many, many years.

At some point the public wharf was determined to be municipal ownership, which has meant that it is no longer possible for private - or has made it necessary for ferry operators to deal solely with the municipality in providing marine transport, and I'm just wondering whether the Department of Transportation and Public Works sees any role in saltwater transportation inside the province, inside municipalities, given that every square inch of the province is included in some municipality or other?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the role that we have with respect to saltwater transportation is to serve the provincial highway system in the province. We don't have a role and have not exercised a role with respect to transportation within a municipal unit and that's not something that we've done, but we do operate with respect to the provincial highway system.

MS. RAYMOND: Okay, good to know. You must have a role inside municipal units because everything is in one, but I can certainly understand. So basically ferries are along when they're part of the route of a provincial highway - got it, okay.

Another question that I did have and it is sort of a Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations question, but I'm wondering whether you have had any discussions with them - I had the opportunity to meet with officials from CNR recently and I'm waiting for the figures, but it would appear that a relatively significant portion of the budget of CNR, at least in Nova Scotia, and I don't know about other provinces, is in fact the payment of property taxes on rail lines, and to the degree that rail lines have been considered public infrastructure, to the degree that we have been losing rail lines within the province, has there been any discussion around the taxation of rail property in the province?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I can advise the honourable member that my colleague, the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, will be doing his estimates after me and that issue is something that lies entirely within his area of

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responsibility. I'm aware of that because I'm a former minister of that department and remember dealing with those issues. So it is not something I want to comment on since he is going to be doing his estimates.

MS. RAYMOND: One last question, and I'll be very brief. In the 2005 Auditor General's Report there was reference to some 80 Department of Transportation and Public Works fleet sites which were contaminated - almost all were contaminated, I think, in the Auditor General's Report - by spilled fuel and so on, at that time. I'm wondering whether by now an action plan has, in fact, been prepared for remediation of those sites and whether the cost of cleaning them up has been estimated, in fact whether the recommendations of the 2005 AG Report have been addressed vis-à-vis the environment, so that is to say the cleanup of contaminated sites - and the second part of that is what progress has been made in ensuring that provincial policies on fuel-efficient vehicles are, in fact, echoed in procurement policy for the Department of Transportation and Public Works fleets?

MR. MACISAAC: Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to go to the last question first, and that is the procurement policy with respect to vehicles. The role of the Department of Transportation and Public Works is in the administration of the vehicles and the purchase and that. We do not develop the real policy as such, that's administered by the Minister of Economic Development, but I can tell the honourable member that the policy question surrounding vehicles is something that is a matter of discussion by government, but it would be another minister who should address that.

With respect to the sites that we have, we have addressed a number of those sites in the province. One of the areas that was the biggest offender was in our salt sheds. They have been almost completely - we have four left to replace in the province, so there is considerable progress there. We have also, in other areas, done quite a bit of remediation work. We have a plan; we have done an assessment as to which ones were the worst; and we are following through, based on that assessment. We have made some very real progress.

MS. RAYMOND: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will pass my time to the member for Cape Breton Nova.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cape Breton Nova.

MR. GORDON GOSSE: Mr. Chairman, let's start off in the short-snapper category. I heard you mentioning earlier about the Atlantic Gateway. I wonder, has your department met with any company that is looking at building a container terminal in the Strait area of our province?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, we have met with a number of business interests who are interested in the Strait of Canso; we have people who have expressed interest in

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Sydney; and we have people, obviously, express interest in Halifax. There is a considerable interest out there related to Nova Scotia.

MR. GOSSE: I am wondering, in that interest, you did mention Sydney and I will bring this up. It seems that it is always brought up about Sydney not being an ice-free port. I wonder if the minister knows that over a 20-year period that the Sydney Harbour was closed a maximum of seven days. I find it hard that we still talk today about Sydney not being an ice-free port, when for seven days of 20 years the port has been closed. I think Sydney should be in the running also for consideration, along with the other companies in the Strait area and Halifax. Hopefully that will come to fruition and we will have some great economic development in those areas in the future.

My next question now will be toward the corridor study on the Sydney-Glace Bay highway. I am wondering if there is anything scheduled this year within the Department of Transportation and Public Works pertaining to the corridor study on the Sydney-Glace Bay highway, like lights, and I know there was some repaving, but is there any type of work to be done this year on that corridor study on the Sydney-Glace Bay highway?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I want to just go back to the first question for a moment, if I might. I want to make it abundantly clear that the role of our department, relative to the Atlantic Gateway, is not in any way to try and dictate or move anybody to any particular part of the province. Our role is to promote the assets that we have and to work with companies that show an interest. Anything that is going to take place will take place as a result of private investors making a decision to invest in projects within the province. We will do our best to accommodate and to look at needs that arise as a result of those investment decisions.

With respect to the corridor highway, I can tell the honourable member that this year, as flowing out of the study, we will be putting a set of traffic lights at the Central Supplies intersection that is there and that was contained in that. That work will be completed this year.

MR. GOSSE: It's strange enough because I was out Saturday with my wife at the Mayflower Mall to pick something up and, sure enough, there was a car accident right there when we were coming back in, at the scheduled place for a set of lights. I said to my wife that there is going to be a set of lights there shortly and she said well, not soon enough apparently, when the ambulance and police were on the scene. I'm glad that it is happening for the safety of the people who use that road.

Also, there are quite a few bumps between the intersection on the start of the Highway No. 125 to the Sydney River exit. I think somebody had counted 32 bumps from that area right through on the Trans Canada Highway - it is becoming quite a desperate

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situation. They do have signs on the side of the road stating the bumps are there, and hopefully it looks like maybe we will get some work done on that.

I don't want the minister to answer that, because I would like to ask the minister some questions on Sysco, if that's possible. I know that over the times I have not agreed sometimes with some of the staff there, but I will say that the staff has always gotten back to me on the Sysco issue. I see them in here now for three days, and I think I will ask a question just to make it worthwhile being here for three days. I'm wondering if the minister could answer, is there any money left in the Sysco budget? I have two questions; is there any money left in the Sysco budget for 2007-08, and also if the Department of Transportation and Public Works is in charge of Sysco, I'm wondering if there is an ongoing court case between the province and Duferco? If the minister could answer that, please.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I thank the honourable member for the question. The budget for 2007-08 for Sysco is $17.5 million. That's money that is in there for this year. And I did miss the last part of your question, I apologize.

MR. GOSSE: Sorry about that. I will ask it again. I'm wondering if there is an ongoing legal action or court case between Sysco and the former buyers that were going to buy Sysco, Duferco - is there an ongoing case in the province suing Duferco?

MR. MACISAAC: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there is indeed a court case.

MR. GOSSE: I would like to know, if that's the case, if the province is successful in suing Duferco and receiving back some of the money, will that money be going to former steelworkers or to the general revenue of the province?

MR. MACISAAC: That's money that would flow to the general revenue of the province, Mr. Chairman.

[1:00 p.m.]

MR. GOSSE: Boy, that's disappointing to hear as a former steelworker and a third generation steelworker, because some of those men - there are 200 I think, around 214, and some have died so there's around 200 - I know now that some are on social assistance in the province. I don't understand why the government would take that money from a court case and not give it to the former Sysco workers, maybe to enhance some of the pensions that the other fellows had already received or put the members who do not have a pension - maybe that money should be used so they could actually have a way of life. I don't think the money should go into the general revenues of the Province of Nova Scotia.

We see the same thing going on here in this Legislature recently with Trenton, and I just hope that Trenton doesn't go by the way of Sysco, in having guys on social assistance,

[Page 578]

because I do know members in my constituency are on community services. Their average age is between 48 and 60 - they can't travel to Alberta to work; they can't do anything like that. So they would be very disappointed by the news if there was a successful court case, because I will bring back the minister on actually what has happened there.

The pension issue back in 2000-01 was whether Duferco was going to take the steel plant and operate the steel plant. When the Duferco deal fell through, whether it was because they couldn't get a deal from Nova Scotia Power for the new electric arc furnace to operate that furnace and produce steel at about $140 a ton, when it was selling for $120 - that was what the take was back then, so the deal was that everybody else from 1974 to 1975 on, anybody who was hired before that, 1975, would get a pension based on the number of years service, whether it be $1,300 or $1,400 right up to the number of years' service, but the deal was that those 214 guys who were left in the plant were going to be working for Duferco.

Now it's interesting to see that here is a court case going on and if we are successful, that money is not going to go, which I feel rightfully should, to the former steelworkers who spent their livelihood in every dirty hole possible to mankind, and even stayed on to clean the place up and did an admirable job cleaning that place up. I don't agree with that, not one bit. I'm just thinking that that's where that money - or even indexing the Sysco pension, and my former colleagues in the Legislature have known that I have said that. You know, with Sysco, it's the only pension in the Province of Nova Scotia - well the teachers' pension now - that's not indexed to the consumer price index. I was talking to a gentleman who was 86 years old, who went on pension in 1974, gets $308 a month, and he still gets $308 a month. He'll get $308 a month if he lives to be 100 - there's no indexing of the Sysco pension. Everything else is going up around us today - 2.9 per cent in other things in consumer price indexing, but yet that pension has remained the same with no indexing of that pension.

I'd like to switch now to the tar ponds issue. I know the tar ponds issue now is getting underway with contracts and everything else. I introduced a Private Member's Bill in the Legislature just last week on monitoring the health conditions of the people who live in the area surrounding the tar ponds. I'm just wondering if the minister thinks that as time goes by, with the high cancer rates in the Province of Nova Scotia, that the bill that I put in for monitoring the health risks associated with the cleanup of the tar ponds, I'd like to know the minister's thoughts on keeping an eye on some of the health problems that we have there and also monitoring the health issues with the people who live closest to the tar ponds for all these number of years - I'm just wondering about the minister's feelings on how that's going over.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I thank the honourable member for his views and his expression of those views. We have, in fact, entered into contractual arrangements which were negotiated with workers. We have, in fact, lived up to all of those contractual arrangements and have provided a considerable amount of work, as the honourable member referenced, related to the cleanup at that area.

[Page 579]

We, with respect to the issue of health and dust at that site, the Department of Transportation and Public Works and the Department of Environment and Labour, have prepared a health risk assessment for the site related to that, the soil cement has been applied to on-site flue dust in an attempt to control that, air monitoring is in place and will continue, watering equipment has been put in place in order to help control that as well, and there is a complaint phone number that is available for people to make contact when they feel the need.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Honourable member for Cape Breton Nova, you have approximately 30 seconds.

MR. GOSSE: It just so happens that I have a copy of that community update on dust issues, this was given to me by the Minister of Environment and Labour, and in that some of the people I talked to, the statement in that was where does dust come from. There has been 100 years of steelmaking, coke processing in the steel plant, but right now - the whole idea I'm trying to say is, and I only have a few seconds left, nobody has ever been held responsible for the dust in the area of that community.

If it was anywhere else in this province, somebody would be held accountable - whether it was a private company, the government company, somebody would be held accountable. That's what we have to do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time has expired for the honourable member for Cape Breton Nova.

The honourable member for Clare.

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to talk about crosswalk safety this afternoon. In the last several weeks, we've had some debate in this House about crosswalk safety. I think we all realize that using crosswalks is a shared responsibility between pedestrians and drivers. Unfortunately, it's the pedestrians who have the most to lose.

We brought the statistics on crosswalk accidents here, especially in HRM, to the floor of the House. When you look at the statistics, they show that people are being injured at an alarming rate here in HRM and throughout Nova Scotia. Mr. Chairman, I'm sure that Nova Scotia is not unique with problems of crosswalk safety, so my first question to the minister is, has the department staff done any work at looking at other jurisdictions across Canada, or even outside the country, that have had similar problems in crosswalks, and at the same time have addressed the issue of crosswalk safety - has the department done any work at looking at how other jurisdictions are looking at addressing crosswalk safety?

[Page 580]

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I want to say to the honourable member that as a department we belong to national organizations that deal with a variety of issues relative to highways, roadways, crosswalks, and safety, and as a result of belonging to those national organizations we are able to be continuously made aware of issues that exist in other jurisdictions. We're made aware of steps that are taken to address many of those issues and we also, through membership in the national organization, are able to access other forums that are held internationally. Members of the department do travel to various points of North America and are in contact with what is happening elsewhere. It is a continuous effort on the part of the department to keep themselves up to date on various issues, but in crosswalks in particular.

MR. GAUDET: I want to thank the minister for his response. Mr. Chairman, last week it was reported that the Halifax Chamber of Commerce hosted a safety symposium here in HRM back in January. I notice from a government press release dated April 3, 2007, it makes reference to a crosswalk safety symposium hosted by the chamber of commerce held here in January. So I have two questions to the minister: First of all, did some of the department staff attend this symposium? And my second question, was this symposium focusing strictly on crosswalk safety as the government press release indicated back on April 3^rd?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I can indicate to the honourable member that yes, we had several people from the Department of Transportation and Public Works attend that symposium. I can also indicate to the honourable member that we expect a report from that in early May, and once that report is received then we have a timetable in place where both the mayor and myself hope to receive results from that, on an interim basis, in July of this year and that will allow us to set forth a course of action, in particular one which might lead to legislative recommendations, and I anticipate the final report of this group that will be dealing with it by October - and we have funded this group as well.

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to focus a little bit on this joint working group. Last week the minister announced that the government, along with the Halifax Regional Municipality, will be forming a joint working group to improve crosswalk safety. Now, we don't know when this working group will be formed; we don't know when this working group will be up and running - the minister just indicated that he anticipates to receive a report from the symposium sometime next month. Again, we don't know when the report on this January symposium will be completed for this working group, so my question to the minister is, while we're waiting for the working group to be up and running and get to work I'm just curious when I hear the minister talking, how we need to take immediate steps to ensure safety in crosswalks - there is no time here to waste in promoting safety for our citizens - in the meantime will the minister consider implementing an advertising campaign to promote safety awareness in crosswalks?

[Page 581]

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the answer is yes. We have money set aside for that purpose, and you can expect to start seeing the results of that campaign in the very near future.

I want to clear up, perhaps I wasn't as clear in my answer as I might have been, I anticipate receiving a report from the symposium that was held in January in early May. We, through the mayor and myself, are in the process of putting together a group. We have identified ten people, and I think seven have confirmed that they will be part of that group that will take the results of the symposium, as well as the other results that we have - the honourable member made reference to the fact that we have people travelling to various parts of Canada, keeping up to date, and other parts of North America and other jurisdictions. We anticipate that this group will work for the period of the next six months. I am seeking an interim report from them in July that would give us the heads-up we need with respect to any legislative changes that we would want, so that those legislative changes could be ready for the Fall sitting of the House. We anticipate that the final report from that working group that the mayor and I have put together would be available at the end of October, the end of that six-month period.

So we are gearing up to work very quickly to deal with the recommendations and other recommendations that we have, to prepare a legislative program, and to fully implement the results of that. In the meantime we are going to increase the awareness around the safety issues with respect to crosswalk safety through a public awareness campaign.

[1:15 p.m.]

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, certainly that will be, I am sure, welcoming news for all the citizens here in Nova Scotia, with that awareness campaign.

I want to return to the symposium. I'm still not clear - as I indicated, the Halifax Chamber of Commerce hosted a safety symposium back in January, and I am trying to find out if that symposium focused strictly on crosswalk safety or did it focus on a number of road safety issues, including crosswalk safety? I am just curious, if the minister could inform the committee on this symposium that took place back in January, exactly what was this symposium focusing on?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, first of all I want to indicate that the symposium was focused on crosswalk safety entirely - that was the subject matter that was at hand. Secondly, it looked at the whole range of issues that exist around crosswalk safety, beginning with the very important need for the promotion of crosswalk safety and ways in which we can be more effective relative to that promotion. It is also looking at engineering around crosswalks. It is looking at the configuration and the types of crosswalks that exist, and

[Page 582]

hopefully they will incorporate an assessment of the most up-to-date technologies that are around that, or that would have been made available to them in that symposium.

Let's see, I've done engineering, design - oh, enforcement was a very important part of that symposium as well. So it was focused on crosswalk safety and it was comprehensive in terms of the subject matter that was dealt with.

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, maybe just to close discussion on crosswalk safety, I certainly appreciate the member sharing what the department is actually in the process of doing. I think that ultimately whatever the minister of the department, the government, can do to increase crosswalk safety in our province, I'm sure will be welcomed by everyone.

Mr. Chairman, I have a couple more topics. The next one that I want to talk about is the policy of the department for painting highway lines on our roads. I know in Clare, for the last several years, the department every year paints the highway lines on our roads, on our three major roads - Highway No. 101, on Trunk 1, and on Highway 340, and all the secondary roads that basically criss-cross our municipality. They alternate - every second year they basically come around and paint the lines on our secondary roads. I'm curious, first of all, is that the department's policy or is that strictly a policy that applies to the Municipality of Clare? So maybe I will begin with that one.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that the honourable member has raised that issue, but I just want to make one reference - I truly appreciate the interest that the honourable member has on the issue of crosswalk safety. I know that you related to me an experience that you had, and it's experiences like that that really cause one to focus on the issue, and I very much appreciate the sincerity with which you bring that issue forward to the House today.

On the matter of lines, last year we added an additional $1 million to the budget of the Department of Transportation and Public Works specifically for the purpose of making sure that we painted the lines on every road every year, and that applies right across the province. We also, in our routes, added the feature of not just painting the routes and the trunk roads, of not just painting the centre line but also painting the white line at the edge of the road to more clearly mark the road for people who are driving - and that's a major improvement for the department, something which I am very pleased with. It's something that the Premier was a real champion of because it is very important for all of us, but especially those of us who are greyer and thinner on top than others, these lines are very important in terms of assisting people in their driving. (Interruption) You will get there soon enough, Trevor - I'm sorry, I just used his name . . .

MR. TREVOR ZINCK: That's all right.

MR. MACISSAC: You'll be there soon enough.

[Page 583]

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I understood from the minister's response that it is provincial policy to paint all the highway lines on all our roads. So I still don't understand - in Clare for the last three, four or five years, we have been painting all the lines, as I have indicated, on three main highways but we have alternating, every second year, to paint the lines on our secondary roads. I am just curious if we are looking at all the major roads are painted every year and all the secondary roads are basically being painted on a two-year cycle, so maybe the minister could clarify whether or not secondary road highway lines are painted annually or if it's on a two-year cycle?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the policy is that all roads, secondary route roads, trunk roads, and 100-Series Highways, will be painted annually. Now that policy was put in place last year, but I can say to the honourable member that while we put the money in place to be able to do that, we didn't have the resources and we needed to purchase an additional truck to assist with the painting, so last year we were not able to meet the objective of doing every single road once a year. This year we feel quite confident that we will, so your area should be able to look forward to having all those roads painted annually and, if not, we would like to hear from you.

MR. GAUDET: Good, I am glad to hear that. The reason why I'm raising this is because, of course, residents from Clare have raised the safety issue with me personally. Especially in the second year, or going into the second year, there are a lot of roads where the lines have practically disappeared. Again, I'm glad to hear the minister talking about bringing this change in policy and making sure that the lines on our paved roads are painted annually.

Mr. Chairman, we have approximately, I believe, 10 or 15 minutes and I will take my seat and my colleague, the member for Kings West, will complete the time that we have left.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings West.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, I am certainly pleased today to have the opportunity to ask a few questions in the remaining time with the Minister of Transportation and Public Works and his staff. The first one is one of those ones, I guess, as I make the trip each week from the Valley to Halifax, travelling over Highway No. 101, I couldn't help but wonder if the replacement work on the cement section of Highway No. 101, when you leave Falmouth heading to the city, whether or not the work that was done last year, which certainly I think was more extensive than the previous year, whether or not that comes under a warranty arrangement or just the condition of the road necessitated that there be some replacement of the cement? Perhaps the minister could comment as well on the future of using cement on our roads in Nova Scotia?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I thank the honourable member for the question, and I want to make it quite clear to the honourable member that the work that was done last

[Page 584]

year was done under warranty. The work was not up to standards, certainly not up to the standard that the cement industry itself would want to see and what they feel they are capable of doing, so that was repaired and we look forward to that being able to last.

I am familiar with a piece of cement road that is Cumberland County - and the honourable member may have been on it - it has been there for quite a few years now, 14 years, and it seems to be holding up quite well. The real issue around cement is a price issue; if asphalt prices had continued to rise the way they were last year, if that was the trend that was going to continue into the future, then you might reach a point where it would trip the use of cement as being much more viable.

The other factor that you have to take into account is the longevity of cement, and that's something that we will look forward to evaluating on Highway No. 101 in terms of how well it lasts, now that it has been properly repaired.

I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if I might take the time for an introduction while I'm on my feet?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please do.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, joining us in the east gallery is a very good friend of mine. He's a constituent of mine as well, and lives in Dunmore, in Antigonish County. He is a former Member of Parliament for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso, and is a former President of the Antigonish Progressive Conservative Association. He is very active in his community and somebody whom I have come to respect greatly over the years, Mr. Lawrence O'Neil. If Lawrence would stand and receive the welcome of the House. (Applause)

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings West has the floor.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Minister, for those factual comments that you presented me with.

The other area in regard to Highway No. 101 that is easy to make a positive comment about is the work that was carried out this winter, and it was somewhat surprising to see that much work go on, but perhaps due to an open winter - and just basically heading to the obvious point as to the minister making a little bit of a status report on how work on Highway No. 101 is progressing and targets set for the 2007-08 construction season.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, while we get the plan of action available here to me, I just want to add something to the comments about cement, that we do in fact call alternate proposals in certain circumstances where we would evaluate a cement bid as opposed to the normal asphalt bid. So that is something that is ongoing.

[Page 585]

I can tell the honourable member that our plan of action with respect to this road is the Hantsport interchange at Halfway River, we are going to be doing structures there in 2007-08 at an estimated cost of over $4 million to do that; the Bishopville Road tunnel, that replacement will occur and that is about a $1.1 million cost; the Hants-Kings County line westerly to existing twinning at Avonport is 7.6 kilometres subgrade from Station 84, plus 500 to 90, plus 122 - that's grading work and some of that was begun last year and it will continue this year at a cost of over $3.5 million; and also the Falmouth to Hants-Kings County line, 5.5 kilometres of grading, and that is an amount of over $5 million for that.

[1:30 p.m.]

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for that update on Highway No. 101. The only question that I have regarding Highway No. 101 in my riding is an area that has been talked about now for several years, and certainly the need continues to grow, and that is an interchange west of Coldbrook, in the Waterville area. We all know there has been an additional expansion at Michelin, and the Twin Mountain Construction, Howard E. Little Excavating - certainly the tractor-trailer traffic has increased substantially going through those populated and business communities, so I'm just wondering if that has been taken out of the filing cabinets and is receiving any work, any look at this stage?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the interchange is something that indeed is coming out of the filing cabinet. It is part of the planning process and I can say to the honourable member that it is a piece of work that would be eligible for cost sharing when we are able to reach an agreement with the Government of Canada relative to the most recent budget that they brought forward.

MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, to the minister, one of the very strong initiatives perhaps over the last 25 years in the riding where I reside and represent is the sand seal program. I know at one time there was a plant perhaps in the vicinity and sand sealing roads was very aggressively carried out and certainly in some of those areas where you have sand base and an esker type of geological structure, I know they have served very well. There seems to be a reduction now in annual work on sand sealing on a couple of the roads in particular and I think of the Ward Road where we have the Oaklawn Zoo, which is very heavily travelled and certainly could have some upgrade there. So I'm just wondering a little bit about the future of the sand seal program and what may in fact be carried out this year.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the sand seal program has been quite consistent over the last number of years and it's our plan to maintain it as we have. Not every road needs to be done every year when it comes to sand seal. Sometimes you get a much longer period of time out of that, but there are no plans to alter the current sand seal program.

MR. GLAVINE: Just to be specific for the coming season in terms of RIM work, I'm wondering what the dollar figure may be. I know Kings County certainly gets broken up

[Page 586]

according to the ridings and the base garages. I just would like to know if there's anything specifically targeted under the RIM program. Does it match what we traditionally have in the area and whether the budget has allowed for some expansion of that program?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member would know that we allocate the money according to administrative districts, and Kings County is one of those administrative districts in the province. You will get proportionately the same share that you got in previous years except this year there will be $2.5 million more in the RIM pot than there was previously since we reached our commitment of putting $20 million of RIM money in the budget annually. We are very pleased that we have accomplished that and we have accomplished it one year earlier than committed.

MR. GLAVINE: The past year, perhaps the past winter and this Spring, I must say maybe a combination of the kind of winter that we had plus I know that in working closely with Berwick base and with Mr. Ward before he was moved out of New Minas, I know that areas that require some urgency and immediacy of attention, they certainly get responded to. As other members have commented upon their base garage, I can certainly only give strong, positive comments and accolades to Mr. Mike Best and his crew for the work that they do.

The one area that I have received a number of calls on, because it has become, I guess, a more used section, a higher volume of traffic, is the North River Road. I know it's a road that the deputy minister is quite familiar with because he goes out to Aylesford Lake. I'm just wondering, there was a paved section done in Kings South of about 10 kilometres and there is a very poor section of about four kilometres. I'm wondering if that's in the works for any upgrade, or do we basically have to sort of put in a request through the RIM program to hopefully give that road some attention?

I know that there are certainly a few advocates out there who are hoping to get a meeting with the deputy minister to discuss the issues of that road. It's becoming a more heavily populated area. The lakes are selling lots now for people who are in the latter years of work and looking at retirement and certainly the volume to Aylesford Lake, which is a prominent recreation area promoted and developed by Kings County. So that section of the North River Road is one of the troublesome ones that I hear a lot about. I'm just wondering if the minister has anything specific in regard to that road.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I can assure the honourable member that the priority that he presented to us, which was the Aylesford Road, will be met regardless of any protestations I might get from the deputy minister. However, once work on that road is completed then, of course, we will be moving on to other priorities. The road in question is obviously one that needs attention but in the interim, I'm sure that appropriate amounts of RIM money will be spent on that road.

[Page 587]

MR. GLAVINE: One of the paving projects that was designated for the Fall did not get completed on Victoria Road and I'm just wondering if that was just the company that had the contract, the time of the year, or was it the paving materials? I'm just wondering, a quick comment from the minister about Victoria Road.

MR. MACISAAC: There was some question with regard to the design of that road and related to that, it wound up being held over for this year.

MR. GLAVINE: I would like to, at this time, thank the minister and his staff for giving us very frank and candid responses to our questions. Certainly, our caucus appreciated that. With that, I will take my place and once again thank the minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I invite the honourable Minister of Transportation and Public Works to close the debate and offer any closing comments.

The honourable Minister of Transportation and Public Works.

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to all members who participated in the examination of the estimates for the departments and offices for which I have responsibility. I do appreciate this opportunity to be accountable for how we do our business. I'm very pleased to be able to represent a group of professionals who are dedicated Nova Scotians, very proud of the work that they do and that pride shows through, I'm sure, to Nova Scotians.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Resolution E33 stand?

Resolution E33 stands.

Resolution E17 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $28,012,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Executive Council, pursuant to the Estimate, for Treasury and Policy Board, Voluntary Planning and the Office of Gaelic Affairs.

Resolution E44 - Resolved, that the business plan of Sydney Environmental Resources Ltd./Sydney Steel Corporation be approved.

Resolution E45 - Resolved, that the business plan of Nova Scotia Lands Inc./Harbourside Commercial Park Inc. be approved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Resolutions E17, E44 and E45 carry?

The resolutions are carried.

[Page 588]

The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. MICHAEL BAKER: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise and report progress.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is carried.

[The committee adjourned at 1:42 p.m.]

[2:55 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I will now call the Committee of the Whole House on Supply to order. For the record we have two hours and twenty-eight minutes left today for estimates. I call the estimates of the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations.

Resolution E31 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $121,743,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, pursuant to the Estimate, and the business plan of the Nova Scotia Municipal Finance Corporation be approved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations.

HON. JAMES MUIR: Mr. Chairman, indeed I am looking forward to answering some questions on the budget estimates for the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. I will be joined in due time by members of my staff, and I will introduce them when they arrive, but I do have probably a fairly lengthy description of how our department operates.

To begin, I would like to tell the members of the House a little bit about the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, as well as a little bit about the Municipal Finance Corporation, but first I'm going to begin by touching on a few of the budget highlights.

When members compare the first line in the Estimates Book, Net Program Expenses, from last year's estimate to this year's estimate, you are going to see a decrease of $14.5 million. Now I know that members would say that that is because we have an extremely efficient department, but I do want to also add that the majority of the difference, $14.5 million, is explained by the transfer of the rebate costs for the energy rebate program from my department to the Department of Finance this year.

[Page 589]

Actually, Mr. Chairman, that does account for a reduction of about $28.1 million. Now that reduction has been offset by a new Public Transit Capital Trust program, which is about $8.7 million, and the contract settlement with union and management employees for about $4.3 million. In addition, the budget for the Provincial Capital Assistance Program has been increased by $500,000 for this year - and this is a program which assists municipalities in water-related projects to achieve compliance with the new Drinking Water Strategy for Nova Scotia. This includes studies that determine a municipality's infrastructure needs; estimated costs, which is necessary information to apply for larger capital projects under federal-provincial infrastructure programs; and the program also provides financial assistance to solve immediate problems that propose a risk to public safety or the environment.

[3:00 p.m.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you and members of the House, that is a program that is very much appreciated by the municipalities in this province and it's one of the very important and really practical and useful programs that government has generated in recent years. I expect, Mr. Chairman, the good residents of your home constituency can tell you about that.

Funding for the Community Transportation Assistance Program is increased by $120,000 - the additional funding will help expand transportation services into rural areas that are currently underserved; the program assists in the purchase of accessible vehicles for qualifying organizations; and it also supports additional research and best practices to promote community transportation options. A few other changes to operational expenses, amortization, and municipal grants make up the rest of the difference in expenses.

There are some other significant changes that members may wish to note. Last year's budget estimates for the department included responsibility for financial institutions and the Nova Scotia Insurance Review Board. However, during the year, these two responsibilities were also transferred to the Department of Finance and that transfer reduced our budget by $736,000. Some other changes this year that reflect fairly major changes in budget lines - this year we are investing in the Ignition Interlock Program, which is an investment of $270,000, and of course that is in co-operation with our colleagues in the Department of Transportation and Public Works.

Once we are able to effect the payday lenders legislation there will be $175,000 in the implementation of it - as I say, once we are able to effect it, as members of the House would be aware, there is federal legislation that must be passed before we can implement the changes that we have made. The other very positive investment is in BizPal, which is an initiative of the department to make businesses that are trying to set up, or continue to make their relationships with government and permitting much easier, and that's a $100,000 investment. I will address the details of those a little bit later.

[Page 590]

I want to remind members that even though the estimate is $14.5 million lower than the previous fiscal period, Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations is able to maintain the status quo of the excellent services that it does deliver. We have accomplished being able to maintain the status quo through internal shifts and we have also included some small, additional programs that contribute to the government's priorities, and I will explain these as I discuss highlights of the budget.

The other line that should be explained is the difference between this year's and last year's funded staff or FTEs. The funded staff has increased by 13.5 FTEs, and that is rounded to 14 in the Estimates Book, and the reason for this follows. During the upcoming fiscal year, Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations will hire 16.5 full-time equivalents to manage Your Energy Rebate Program. The staff will be responsible for the issuance and the audit of the rebates paid, and this year, as we initiated the program, we contracted those particular services to an outside agency.

The department is also currently developing new computer programs to replace the current systems which can no longer be supported. The new investment in technology will further improve client service and enable more electronic service delivery, and there will be six funded staff hired to support these new systems. The cost of the staff and the cost to maintain the new systems is less than the support cost for the systems which they will replace. There are three staff being added to administer the Ignition Interlock Program. This type of program is already in place in nine other provinces and territories. However, the Ignition Interlock Program is more than a device which is installed in a vehicle - it encompasses training, monitoring, and ongoing education and rehabilitation for participants.

This program will provide Nova Scotia with an enhanced countermeasure in the management of impaired drivers. This program provides benefits to the policing community, addiction services, and also people wishing to have their licences reinstated, by offering a safe alternative. The program will be administered by the Registry of Motor Vehicles in co-operation with Addiction Services, Justice, and Transportation and Public Works. The tentative start date is November 2007.

Two staff have been added for the administration of the Petroleum Products Pricing Act - and I'll provide more information on gas regulation shortly - these additions, along with five staff added through restructuring to meet business needs, have been offset by the transfer of 14 funded staff related to the financial institutions in Nova Scotia Insurance Review Board to the Department of Finance. There are also five staff working on capital projects, for whom we see funding from outside the department.

Overall, revenues have remained relatively equal to last year's estimates. Although revenues have been reduced by $60 million, the most significant change is a reduction in revenue of $59 million caused by the transfer of financial institutions to the Department of

[Page 591]

Finance. So because we have moved that service, if you take a look at the revenues that we have for the services that we've maintained, we're very close to where we were last year.

There are two other types of revenues: revenues from taxes include gasoline and diesel tax; a levy on the private sale of used vehicles; the tobacco tax; and the corporation capital tax. Revenues from fees received include such items as commercial registration; passenger registration; drivers' licences; and company registrations - just to name a few.

In looking through the Estimates Book, members probably already noticed that we're predicting that the tobacco tax will decrease by $12 million. Although the average retail price of tobacco products is estimated to increase 4.5 per cent in 2007-08 - generating an increase in tobacco revenue of $4.5 million - taxable shipments of tobacco products are forecast to decline $16.5 million. Now this is due in large part, I think, to the success of the programs designed to encourage people to stop or not to begin smoking, also the rules which restrict the (Interruption) Yes, where some cases we have not quite succeeded, Mr. Chairman, we will continue to work on those individuals.

Mr. Chairman, the cessation programs, and also, to be quite frank, the rules which really severely restrict the places where smoking can occur, have obviously cut down consumption. The other thing which we have to recognize is that as the price of tobacco products does go up, there is an increase in smuggling.

Now we know for certain there has been a decline in smoking as a result of our tobacco control strategy; however the decline in revenues is also the result of increased smuggling. Tobacco smuggling is not just a Nova Scotia issue - it's a national concern with other jurisdictions, in particular Ontario and Quebec, seeing the same trend as Nova Scotia.

To combat tobacco smuggling we're assigning two compliance officers to work full time in partnership with the RCMP on a trial basis. The purpose of this partnership is: to provide resources solely dedicated to illegal tobacco matters; to promote the exchange of information; and to lend our tobacco expertise to the RCMP, especially as it relates to the Revenue Act, tobacco markings, and prosecutions. In addition we have visited each RCMP detachment to provide them an information package introducing the fuel and tobacco compliance unit, contact information, and as well as an overview of the common Revenue Act offences and fines.

We have full confidence, Mr. Chairman, that our tobacco control strategy will continue to help more Nova Scotians quit the habit, and as a result we expect tobacco revenues to continue declining.

On the other hand, revenue and fees have increased by $7.9 million, primarily due to two factors: changes in volume, and the government-wide 6.8 per cent in fees for the past three years of CPI. More specifically, changes in volumes account for an increase of $1.4

[Page 592]

million and the CPI increases account for $6.5 million or 5.31 per cent of revenues. The percentage is below 6.8 per cent due to the varied implementation dates of April 1, May 1 or June 1, 2007 - and of course the difference in these dates was to allow for reasonable notice of changes.

The Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations is guided by the interests of consumers, businesses, and municipalities as it supports the government's priorities to create a globally competitive business climate, to seize business economic opportunities and to build our communities. Virtually every Nova Scotian, at some point in their lives, has a direct contact with the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. From the registration of the birth of a child, to the registration of an ownership of a car, to the application for a birth certificate - all of these major milestones in life involve contact with our staff.

As the name describes, Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations is the service delivery arm of the Government of Nova Scotia. The department brings government programs and services to citizens and businesses. Now the department is fortunate to have an excellent staff. The number of people working for Service Nova Scotia, in the 50 locations in the 24 communities around our province, numbers approximately 800, and they answer over 13,000 information and service inquiries daily.

[3:15 p.m.]

They do that through our Access Nova Scotia Centres, registry offices, our call centre and our Web site. The Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations Web site receives an average of 4,800 visitors a day. Visitors are spending, on average, 10 minutes to half an hour on our Web site, and almost 70 per cent are returning visitors to our Web site. The high number of return customers tells us that we can be quite confident that the information on our Web site provides a very valuable service to those who use it.

I also want to tell the House that we have done exit surveys at some of the Access Centres in the province. The results of the exit surveys at the Access Centres said that 90 per cent of our customers are very satisfied with the service they received. I am very encouraged that Nova Scotians appreciate the efforts of the staff of these centres, and how the staff work to serve their interests.

Our staff also play an important role in the development of communities. We foster strong municipalities by providing them with information and advice and also with financial support. We also provide property assessment data to Nova Scotia's 55 municipalities and to over half a million property owners every year. Municipalities use that assessment roll for levying property taxes, which of course are the foundations of municipal finances. Through the Registry of Deeds the department provides a vast array of geographic information and property registration services.

[Page 593]

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to go over some of the background of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations in more detail, but I'll just hesitate here for a second while staff does move in and I will introduce them once they become settled.

Sitting in the chair to my left I'm joined by the Deputy Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, Mr. Greg Keefe, and if I am not mistaken, Mr. Keefe, you may be the longest-serving deputy in government by this time, are you, at least in a single department?

MR. GREG KEEFE: I think Peter got me by quite a bit.

MR. MUIR: But he switched departments, hasn't he?

MR. KEEFE: Oh, yes he did.

MR. MUIR: I think. So he probably has seniority in terms of his service in a single department with a variety of ministers - all very good ones according to him.

I am joined on my right by the Director of Finances for the department - and what is your exact title? Director of Finances, Pam Muir, and obviously you can understand with a name like that how efficient she would be. I don't think we are related. Anyway, as I said, at this time I'd like to go over some background of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations in more detail.

Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations was formed almost seven years ago to be the lead department for improving access to government information and services for businesses, individuals, and municipalities. At the time of its creation the department was mandated to become the single-window service provider for government's services; to provide quality services delivery with convenient access; to reduce the amount of red tape on businesses and individuals by streamlining processes; and to provide municipalities with a single access point to the provincial government. This mandate requires the department to make extensive investment in technology and process re-engineering to ensure that its systems meet or exceed government and client expectations.

In many areas the department has made significant advances in streamlining processes and improving government service. Experience has proven that with careful planning, appropriate development time, and the use of technology, the department can simultaneously achieve more effective and more efficient service delivery. Most of the investment to date has been obtained by reallocating resources and attaining internal efficiencies.

The department is responsible for ensuring results in the following areas: effective and efficient access to government information and services through service channels, in

[Page 594]

person, by telephone, the Internet, e-mail and, of course, the other type of mail as well; the provision of streamlined registration, licensing, and permitting processes; customer and stakeholder satisfaction with the services of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations; effective and efficient policy development, enforcement and program management in the programs and services related to consumer protection, petroleum products price regulation, driver safety, taxation, business practices and registries offered by the department; the provision of local government-related policy advice to government and quality advice, support, assistance, and program delivery to Nova Scotia's municipalities; the provision of a fair, equitable, and defensible assessment roll; collaboration with internal and external partners to evaluate and improve the quality and effectiveness of government services; support for government policy in several areas including data privacy, security and access and integrity of data holdings; support for government's corporate strategy for e-government services, integrated service delivery and its corporate collections policy; effective and positive relationships with other levels of government, provincial departments and agencies and the private sector; the provision of geographic information and associated technologies to support decision making by all provincial departments; effective and efficient management of the department's resources - financial, human, information technology, information - and, obviously, quality performance and high morale for our staff.

Most of these responsibilities are fulfilled via ongoing operations, and the services and programs identified in the department's core business areas. However a few of these responsibilities have been identified for greater emphasis over the next several years, and represent the department's strategic goals for the near future.

Now the department's four core businesses are consistent with its four divisions. The four divisions are: first, Program Management and Corporate Services; secondly, Municipal Services; thirdly, Assessment Services; and lastly, Service Nova Scotia. These four divisions correspond to four lines in your Estimates Book: Service Delivery, Strategy and Innovation, Corporate Registries, and Information Management Systems.

The department is largely organized on a matrix basis - meaning that it's organized around the function being performed, such as service delivery or program management rather than on a sectoral or client basis.

Program Management and Corporate Services has responsibility for most of the programs offered by the department. This includes strategic direction for programs, program development, enforcement, and public awareness. The division is also accountable for the related legislation, regulations and policies necessary for each program, and for human resource support. Currently major program areas and activities of this core business include: Provincial Tax Commission, Residential Tenancies, Corporate Collections, Consumer and Business Policy, Corporate Development, Human Resources, Financial Services, and Audit and Enforcement in several program areas.

[Page 595]

The benefits of these programs include: a fairer and more efficient tax collection system; better consumer protection; more effective program management by the department; improved compliance by business with licensing requirements; optimized revenue collection by the department on behalf of government and other departments; and, very importantly, a healthier and safer workplace for the department's employees. This division is also charged with administering the Petroleum Products Pricing Act and its regulations, and the administration of the government's Your Energy Rebate Program.

Consumer and retail concerns over the cost of home energy and petroleum pricing stability have become challenges for government and for our department. In 2006-07 the government implemented the Petroleum Products Pricing Act to create a regime for regulating petroleum prices in Nova Scotia, and the Your Energy Rebate Program will help Nova Scotians with the rising cost of home energy by providing a rebate of 8 per cent, which is equivalent to the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax.

Now that both of these programs are fully operational, program evaluation and compliance will be the main issues facing the department. Department staff are working with vendors under both programs to ensure that they understand and fulfill their obligations. The Your Energy Rebate Program will save the average Nova Scotian family about $200 this year by providing an 8 per cent provincial tax rebate which, as I said earlier, is the province's full share of the HST. It's provided as a rebate on almost all energy sources including electricity, oil, natural gas, coal, propane, kerosene, wood, and wood pellets.

Members of the House will know that our government fast-tracked the implementation date from January 1, 2007, to December 1, 2006, for all energy sources with the exception of electricity and natural gas. The customers using electricity and natural gas began receiving their 8 per cent energy rebate on January 1^st. To the greatest extent possible we're making our energy tax rebate available to Nova Scotians in the simplest manner possible. Bulk fuel and electricity consumers, who make up the vast majority of Nova Scotia consumers - indeed about 85 per cent of Nova Scotia consumers - have their provincial tax rebate reflected directly on their bills.

[3:30 p.m.]

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Nova Scotia Power, the Municipal Utilities Co-operative, and our bulk fuel vendors for their support in making the rebate directly available to their customers at point-of -sale. Application forms for all other energy sources, which include wood, wood pellets, coal, cylinder propane, or kerosene, are available through the government's Web site, at Access Nova Scotia Centres, or by calling a 1-800 number. The Your Energy Rebate Program is designed to address an immediate need to help families stay warm and better manage the high cost of their energy bills.

[Page 596]

As I mentioned earlier our department is also responsible for administering the Petroleum Products Pricing Act and its regulations. Government began regulating gas and diesel fuel prices in July 2006. Nova Scotians wanted more stable gas prices, and they also wanted those prices justified. Where possible regulation holds gas and diesel prices steady in Nova Scotia for two-week intervals - in our province we set our gas prices every second Friday. Regulation also helps provide small and independent gasoline retailers with stable margins so the gasoline dealers will continue to be viable in communities throughout Nova Scotia. As members will know, we agreed to perform an evaluation of price regulation after the first six months in the program rather than the first year as was initially intended.

Gardner Pinfold Consulting Economists Inc. was contracted to undertake that six- month review, and of course their experience in the oil and gas industry in general, along with specific knowledge of the Nova Scotia marketplace, made that firm the best choice to conduct the review. Now, the review examined factors that impact the policy goals of regulation, stability of consumer prices, support for gas stations - especially those in rural areas - as well as the cost of regulation for customers and for the government. It also assessed the pricing model and was charged with recommending any improvements they felt would help the policy better meet its objectives.

Government, as members in the House will know, has received the Gardner Pinfold report on gas regulation. We're currently reviewing the findings and also the recommendations. We will meet with the caucuses when we have completed that and that actually should occur the week after next, because next week the person who did the study is not going to be here - I expect to be away as well. Once we have brought the report, the government had a chance to examine it and we have been able to meet with the caucuses, or I should say Mr. Gardner has been able to meet with the caucuses and explain the report to them, then it will be made public.

Now, I'd like to provide an overview of another branch of our department, which is the Service Nova Scotia branch. Service Nova Scotia was established to provide Nova Scotians with seamless access to citizen-and business-related government information and services. Service Nova Scotia is the government's service delivery arm that provides people and businesses of Nova Scotia with easy access to registration, licensing, and information retrieval services while ensuring the integrity, security and, where required, the privacy of the data and information received.

The Service Nova Scotia branch is organized along four highly integrated functions, as reflected in the Estimates Book. This organizational and management structure supports the efforts of the branch executing its vision, mission and mandate.

Corporate Registries leads the modernization's streamlining of legislation and regulations related to citizens, businesses and land registries. This includes the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Vital Statistics, Nova Scotia Business Registry, Land Title Registry,

[Page 597]

Personal Property Registry and the Registry of Joint Stocks. Information and Management Services develops and implements departmental information management and technology strategies and leads the GeoNOVA Secretariat and the geomatics functions. Service Delivery provides client-focused access to a broad range of government services and information including the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Land and Vital Statistics. They offer services in person at Access Nova Scotia centres, via phone from the call centres, and on-line at Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations' Web site. Service delivery is also responsible for the efficient design of all back-office transaction processing.

Strategy and Innovation is responsible to provide leadership and be the innovator of integrated service delivery initiatives for government. This area also develops and nurtures strong relationships across jurisdictions and with all levels of government and at the senior executive level. Benefits of the core business include easier access to ever-expanding information and other services offered by the department on behalf of government. This is accomplished through electronic or physical tools providing more timely responses to service requests and better quality services in terms of accessibility.

Other benefits from the operation of this core business include improved efficiency in the provision of registration and processing functions on behalf of departmental programs and external program owners and, hence, integrity and security around the information holdings of the department, improved quality of the data contained in the holdings, easier access to that information, as well as increased ability to share data with other government departments and agencies.

As members of this House are well aware, our department is responsible for managing government's relations with the province's 55 municipalities. The Municipal Services Division provides advice and assistance and prepares policy on municipal matters for the government. The division is also responsible for maintaining the legislative framework in which the municipalities operate. Of equal importance, staff in this area provide advice and assistance to municipalities on behalf of the government. This division operates most of the grant and other financial support programs offered to municipalities. Programs within this division include advice and support to municipalities in the areas of governance, local government administration, finance and land use planning.

This division, Mr. Chairman, also administers over $90 million in total programs such as the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund, the federal transfer of gas tax revenues to municipalities, the Community Transportation Assistance Program, the Accessible Transportation Assistance Program, the programs such as equalization, grants in lieu of taxes, fire protection grants, farm land grants and the HST offset program. The staff in this division help municipalities become more effective at providing services to their residents to ensure their financial viability and to provide better support development, which provides long-term benefits to the entire province.

[Page 598]

This division, as members can imagine, also partners with key clients such as the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities to support training for municipal councillors and staff. It would probably be fair to say that a number of people who sit in this House as MLAs and came from the municipal political arena have gone through those programs.

Finally, Assessment Services is responsible for delivering an annual property assessment roll to each of the 55 municipalities in compliance with the Assessment Act. The property assessment roll provides municipalities with a reliable and stable basis to generate revenue to fund the services to its constituents. Uniform assessment is used to calculate municipal contributions towards education and corrections and determine the distribution of provincial grants to municipalities. Producing the assessment roll is integral to the interests and financial health of Nova Scotia's 55 municipalities.

Legislation also requires assessment notices to be delivered annually to each property owner and to provide for an assessment appeal mechanism. The major activities in the assessment area include the preparation of the annual assessment roll, a property inspection program, the new cap assessment program, an appeal process, client relations and technology support.

As of April 1^st of this year we reached an important milestone in our Assessment Services branch; the Property Valuation Services Corporation became a legal entity. Over the next year we will complete the transfer of assessment services from the department to this municipally-controlled, not-for-profit corporation. Open communication with municipalities and staff will continue to be a priority as the process continues.

This change is a result of consultation with municipalities which use the market value assessments to set their tax rates. This municipally-controlled, independent agency will give municipalities greater input into and control over the assessment operation. Control of the organization will be vested in a municipally-appointed board of directors. This is a logical step since the municipalities have financed the operation since 2001. The province will continue to set tax policy, keeping it separate from program delivery.

I am also responsible for the Nova Scotia Municipal Finance Corporation, a Crown Corporation that provides a great service to municipalities, their enterprises, school boards and hospitals. The Municipal Finance Corporation has three principal goals: first, to provide capital financing for approved projects at the lowest possible cost; second, to manage the finances of the corporation prudently to ensure access to capital markets; and third, to help the municipalities build their knowledge of financial management.

The corporation has over $600 million in loans outstanding and it's completely self-funded and has never had a client default on a loan. It's estimated that in the upcoming year another $100 million in loans will be issued with about $93 million of loans being retired. This corporation is governed by a board of directors with 40 per cent of the board appointed

[Page 599]

upon the recommendation of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities. It has just four full-time staff with support resources in the Departments of Finance, Justice and, of course, Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations.

[3:45 p.m.]

By pooling borrowing requirements, the corporation saves municipalities time and money on the costs of issuing debt and the associated legal requirements, the administrative costs and the issuance of tax information slips, the premium the market demands to borrow smaller amounts of money and the borrowing costs, by benefiting from the province's credit rating.

I have just touched on many of the areas that Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations employees will be acting on behalf of Nova Scotians throughout this fiscal year. Every day the employees of this very diverse department go all out to help and serve their fellow Nova Scotians. They are fine civil servants and I'm proud to be their minister.

Now, because staff have joined me and I assume members on the other side of the House may have some questions, I will take my seat and do my best to answer them. If you're not ready, I can keep going. (Applause)

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank.

MR. PERCY PARIS: I don't know if we're ever ready, but we'll give it a go and see what comes of it. I first want to acknowledge the minister and certainly welcome staff here today and trust that over the next little while the human interaction that we're going to experience will be rewarding for all of us. I'm sure it will be. I suspect, if nothing else, it will be rather painless.

I think, first, I want to replay the memory tape a little bit and go back some months ago when government brought forward amendments to its own bill, Bill No. 92, the Assessment Act. I think that was back in November. The change brought forward by the government was to set the cap on assessments at CPI - consumer price index - and I think it's pretty well-known, certainly in the House of Assembly, that we, the NDP, had for a long period of time advocated for just such a change.

Since this change took some time, and taking into consideration what we heard in Opposition, that it was somewhat impossible to do, I'm curious as to what work took place within the minister's department to make this change possible. I guess I'm wondering if it was facilitated over a period of time, was it a difficult task and just what hoops or barriers did you experience? I'd like to hear, if the minister could explain when he talks about that work within his department, also, what points led up to the department making that decision?

[Page 600]

MR. MUIR: I thank the honourable member for that question. One of the high-profile things that has happened through our department this past year has been the decision by all Parties in this House to limit, beginning in the taxation year 2008, the property tax increases to CPI.

Just to go back a little bit in history, as the honourable member would be aware, we have operated with the ability of people to apply for a 10 per cent cap for a few years. That was brought in primarily to protect property owners who saw their property taxes rise very, very dramatically in a short period of time. Of course, the place where that happened - it didn't happen all over the province, but it did happen in some of the shore areas, it happened here, I think, in the City of Halifax, I guess you would say we had a very hot housing market, residential market here in the City of Halifax. There were rapid increases in property assessments.

In some of the more rural areas, let's call them, people would sort of view those properties as potential recreation sites, sort of resort areas, on the water. People like to live on the water. You know a lot of people go from one place and try to get by the water or by a lake or something in the summer months when it's warm.

So the issue of a lot of people being very unhappy with the increases in their property assessment led to the implementation of a policy where people could apply for a cap and that cap originally was 10 per cent.

Mr. Chairman, each department had worked with the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities and what we wanted to do was to extend the cap legislation. If you remember, the initial bill as it was introduced was that we would take the bill in, which would introduce the cap legislation, but the amount of the cap would be determined after consultation with the UNSM. You also will remember that once the bill reached the Law Amendments Committee, then there was an amendment to put that cap at CPI.

Now I can remember, I think there were at least two bills in the House that did reflect that, one from each of the Opposition Parties. So when the bill came back to the Law Amendments Committee, the CPI was included in it. So beginning in 2008, the property assessments in Nova Scotia for people when properties don't change hands, for residential properties that don't change hands or they don't do renovations that would increase the value of the property, there will be a change to CPI. To be quite frank, in some areas of the province it's not going to make much difference; in other areas of the province it will make a lot of difference. I'm told that there are certainly people in this Chamber who feel that the other added advantage of CPI is to make the municipalities more accountable for how they spend money and also how they raise money.

Now getting back, I guess, to the other part of your question, which was what have we done in the department. Well, I guess in November we would have had about a 13-month

[Page 601]

period to implement this. The Property Valuation Services Corporation is now a legal entity and will sort of take over that assessment function, the whole assessment services function, from the department, beginning in April 2008.

What we will be doing is, because we generate the property rolls every year, the assessed value of it every year, it's not a major shift in a policy because we assess basically every year anyway and what we will do is with the assessment notices send out an application for people to cap. It's still an application-based process because the process is for Nova Scotians who own property in Nova Scotia.

MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess for the minister, since we're on the theme and we're talking about assessments and we're talking about the cap and I know since we've already taken that trip sort of back in time a little bit, when we replayed that memory tape, I can remember standing in my place on at least a couple of occasions when the minister and I talked about the cap and even when I made the suggestion around the cap being automatic, I know that sometimes you hear the word "no" and I often ask myself, well, how can I take that no and turn it into a yes? So I guess for the minister - I'm going to reiterate another question that was asked by myself in particular some months ago in respect to the cap - have things changed in the mind of the minister and his department with respect to making the cap automatic for those who are eligible for it?

MR. MUIR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The reason for the application for the cap is that the program was intended to be, or is and will be restricted to, Nova Scotians who own Nova Scotia residential property. Unless there is an application process, we really don't know the residents or the geographic location of the people who own the property.

I expect that the Property Valuation Services Corporation, which is going to be responsible for administering this next year, will be under the CAP program, they will assess to see if it is possible to make this automatic. If you apply for the cap and have already applied for the cap and have been approved for the cap, you don't have to apply for it again. Once you get it done once, then it becomes automatic until the property changes hands, but initially people are going to have to apply for the cap.

MR. PARIS: Well, we'll continue to work on that one. Again, when I do hear a no, there is always, I guess, hope and maybe the possibility that no at some point in time will become yes.

I want to really change gears quite dramatically here and go from assessments and make that real leap from assessments to MVIs, motor vehicle inspections. Now one of the things that I've heard certainly in recent weeks, not only just from motorists but also from mechanics, I've heard things around frustration, anger and I guess to some degree, worry.

[Page 602]

I can't stress this enough and also when we talk about motor vehicle inspections we're talking about safety and we're talking about public safety and road safety. I feel it incumbent upon me to preface my comments by saying that I want to make this perfectly clear and establish without any doubt in anyone's mind and certainly I want to make this perfectly clear to even anyone who might be witnessing the proceedings today that the NDP and I agree that road safety is vital to all Nova Scotians and in no way would I want to do anything or to say anything that would put either pedestrians or the motoring public at any sort of risk.

There are some things and I think some concerns that have arisen. One of the things that I've heard particularly from mechanics who have been in contact with my constituency office is they feel very adamant about this, and that was the lack of consultation. It seems to me that according to the reports that I hear from them, that the consultation was followed after the decision was made with respect to the cost, the $25 increase in the fee for the MVI.

My question would be, why wasn't there consultation? The $25 fee, I hear complaints from mechanics that it doesn't cover the cost of the inspection, itself, now with them having to remove the tires and inspect the brakes. As a result of that, I think even some motorists or vehicle owners who are taking their cars in for inspection, the potential risk now exists for them to be held hostage so that the mechanic can make up for some of that lost revenue.

[4:00 p.m.]

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member raises another of the important initiatives that the department is administering now. I just want to go into a little bit of history. When the honourable member for Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank began his comments, he talked about safety. Indeed, that's what this is all about, road safety. I think you can put the new motor vehicle inspection regulations maybe in the same category along with my colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Public Works, of the Ignition Interlock Program, the improvements to the Graduated Driver Licensing Program - the call for cars to be kept better, motor vehicles to be kept in better mechanical shape and also for the drivers to be better regulated.

So what this new regulation was intended to do, and I have been told by those in the industry that it will improve road safety. I have talked to a number of people who are involved in the motor vehicle business - and I'm not talking necessarily about the debate about how frequently new cars should be inspected - but they simply say to me, it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do. We have a lot of vehicles on the road that just should be examined. They need that annual check to see that they are roadworthy and they are safe.

There were some stats, I can't give them to you right now, about the number of older vehicles that when they were stopped by departmental inspectors and checked, it was kind of scary, the number of those, the percentage of them, that, despite the fact that they would

[Page 603]

have gone through and would have passed the old MVI inspection, probably shouldn't have been on the road without some modifications to them, some safety things.

Anyway, the fee and the changes were done in consultation with industry, the associations that represent the people who do that work. To be quite frank, in terms of price, the person who goes in to get the car inspected now will tell you it's too much. You go to the garage where I take the car, they have a sign up on the wall saying it's not enough. So I guess if we have those who are paying for it saying it's not right and in some ways those who are providing the services are saying it's not right, then somewhere in there is a reasonable happy medium and those prices, Mr. Chairman, had not been adjusted for, I think, about 15 years. So the old fee structure was not good.

We get the criticism, they say, well you have to take the drums off and it takes you a long time to take the drums off. Well, Mr. Chairman, if the car is in good working order, I'm told by people who perform that, then taking the drums off is not a big thing. If the drums have not been taken off and the brakes are seized, which is normally the things that we hear, that if you take them off once and get them fixed or whatever you have to do, the next year you don't have to perform the maintenance on an annual basis, and the inspection on an annual basis becomes easier because the things won't be seized.

The other thing the regulations do provide, if there is going to be an extraordinary amount of work to inspect a car, then the person doing the inspection, the inspection agency, can inform the consumer in advance of doing the inspection and the fee could be adjusted.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I guess for the record I will remind the minister it is Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank.

I heard the minister say that he didn't have any statistics, and I guess I would be interested at some point in time in seeing some statistics that certainly prompted this initiative to begin with.

There's a word in there that I have heard over the last couple of minutes and it's "roadworthy". Since we're talking about safety, I know a vehicle deemed as not being roadworthy will be banned from the roads. They don't get a rejection sticker they just say that's it, you can't drive your vehicle, it hasn't passed the inspection. I guess what I'm looking for is a definition of what is roadworthy. I want to continue on that train of thought because what I'm also looking for is some consistency.

If I was a mechanic, who defines roadworthy? Has it been defined by the Province of Nova Scotia and if it has been defined by the Province of Nova Scotia, what are the criteria? Is it left up to the individual hands of the mechanic, which again, is there a standard? Would each mechanic have in their own estimation what they would consider roadworthy and what is not roadworthy? If I go to a mechanic for an MVI and I have a

[Page 604]

cracked windshield and maybe a broken tail light, is that considered as a roadworthy vehicle or a non-roadworthy vehicle? I think I'm looking for the definition of exactly what roadworthy is or isn't.

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, in answer to the member's question, there is an inspection manual that every inspection station would have and presumably, every person who performs an inspection would be familiar with. It does specify in great detail what elements are to be perused or examined during the inspection process. I guess I would say that if all those criteria are met then the vehicle is determined to be roadworthy.

On the other hand I know what the honourable member was talking about, that if you have a burned-out tail light, or in my case the other day I had to get a daylight driving light replaced, certainly the car was roadworthy but I do know if I had taken it in for an inspection it would not have passed. I know also under the Motor Vehicle Act, if one of the people who do enforce motor vehicle regulations chose to stop me, I guess I could have been charged.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I guess my interpretation of that is that through the manual then, it is considered that there would be some consistency throughout the Province of Nova Scotia. Is there any way or are there any checks and balances in place to assure the motoring public and pedestrian traffic as well that everybody is being held to that standard?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the department does have inspectors who visit the inspection stations and also on occasion, on a spot-check basis, they will re-examine vehicles that have been inspected to see that they have been inspected properly.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, the minister mentioned earlier in one of his responses that motorists were complaining because the price was too high and there were mechanics complaining because the price was too low. I hear that, so if the price is considered too low for the mechanic, isn't there a potential risk for the vehicle owner, when he or she brings that vehicle in for that inspection, the mechanic or service station has to make up for this lost revenue some place, so isn't it a real danger that the consumer can be dinged for other things other than what actually is?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I guess anything is possible but my experience in dealing with the businesses here in Nova Scotia - and I guess I do most of my business in Nova Scotia - is I find the people with whom I deal to be good, solid, honest individuals and they're in business to make a dollar, there's no question about that.

I'll give you an example of something, a gentleman who is no longer in business, but it was a car thing and it happened to me a number of years ago. I had taken a car into his service station, it was one of these cars that probably should never have come out of wherever it came from, it was nothing but trouble from the time it left the lot and it was probably trouble on the lot, but they didn't say that when it was sold. Anyway, it wasn't my

[Page 605]

car, it was somebody else's. I took it to the service station where I always took mine and there were two things that had to be fixed before it would pass an inspection. He fixed one and when I went to pick the car up he said, that should be under warranty, you take it back to the dealer and get it fixed for free. I think most of the businesses in Nova Scotia operate on that basis.

There was a risk when the fee for inspection was whatever it was before, the same thing, the people who were doing the inspection for the most part would tell you that probably that was not enough to cover that fee for that inspection either. I don't think anything has changed. I think the people who provide these services are reputable businesses. We're going to have some fly-by-nighters and it doesn't make any difference what field it's in, whether it's repairing cars, selling clothes, or whatever it is. By and large, as consumers, I think most of us will deal with businesses that we can trust and are established because of their good service reputation.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I just want to continue this for another minute or so with respect to MVIs. Under the old system, if I got a rejection sticker, I had 10 days to rectify or fix whatever it was and then I could go back and reapply for an MVI. I think what I see, certainly in the riding that I represent, I see a lot of individuals who like to work on their own vehicles. If I am - and I'm certainly not and it's probably a good thing that I'm not - but if I were a backyard mechanic and I go to a service station for an MVI and my car does not pass for whatever the reason is - and we're almost getting back to that roadworthy thing - am I allowed to drive my vehicle home to my backyard garage and fix whatever the problem is?

[4:15 p.m.]

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the way that works - and it's a good question - if the car is not deemed to be roadworthy, in other words was dangerous, the person who did the inspection would not pass it because the car was not safe to be on the road, then you would not be allowed to drive the vehicle from the inspection site. If you wanted to fix it in your backyard you would have to get a tow truck or somebody to tow that vehicle out of that service station to take it to get it fixed. On the other hand, if it's a minor repair that doesn't affect basically the road safety - and I'm talking about a major thing where you can drive down a highway and stop the car and all of those things - then you would get a rejection sticker and you would have a certain period of time. If you could fix it yourself, because you have to take it back and get it reinspected, that would be fine.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I see with MVIs, it's my interpretation that motor vehicle inspections are not a money grab by the government. I could be wrong but I think government only gets $3 per inspection, so I don't see that as a huge revenue generator. Having said that and again, I don't know if it's just me or not, but I just want to reiterate that I do get a lot of calls not only from residents but from mechanics who are complaining on both ends, one complaining that it's not enough and someone complaining that it's too much.

[Page 606]

I think when we talk about increases - and I do recognize the fact that it has been a number of years since there has been an increase with MVIs - we can't lose sight of the unfortunately large number of Nova Scotians that any increase in anything can be a significant amount of money. Whether it be $5 or $8, it sometimes can mean the difference between whether you do something or whether you don't and when it comes to a motor vehicle, depending on my wealth, that vehicle that I own, I'm going to take a real risk and say the more disadvantaged I am when it comes to financial income, I would say the more at risk I place myself when it comes to having a vehicle that's going to pass traditional motor vehicle inspection. It makes a common sense equation for me. My question to the minister is, over the next little while, do you plan on doing some tinkering with these regulations or are these going to be enacted as is forever and a day?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I was wondering if the honourable member could repeat the last part of that question. I was trying to get a little bit of information on the first part and I missed the last part.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, you're asking me to replay that tape, I'll try to. My question is - and we're talking about increases in fees - what I was talking about was the tinkering, is there going to be any more tinkering with the regulations as they stand now? What led up to that was the fact that there are many Nova Scotians who are what I would call financially disadvantaged when it comes to the money coming into the household, which places many more Nova Scotians at risk when it comes to the motor vehicle inspection. Does that do it?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I know that the motor vehicle inspection regulations are reviewed regularly, not only under the leadership of my department but in consultation with those who actually work in the business. There is a price to owning a motor vehicle and I understand full well what the honourable member is saying is those people have greater financial means. Normally, they probably change vehicles more frequently. Secondly, they would change things more frequently if something was worn out or beginning to wear down and somebody said, well, you know you only have another 5,000 kilometres on those brake pads or whatever it would be, they would probably tend to change it rather than going back in a second time.

You know the only real difference, I guess, if we're talking about road safety, the difference is in the price of getting that inspection sticker. Clearly, if a person was driving a vehicle that was not roadworthy, we would not want it on the road, regardless of the level of the income of the person who owned it or who was driving it.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, still I think, continuing with this train of thought, maybe staying with motor vehicles but going somewhere else, no pun intended. The Province of Nova Scotia, through your department, Mr. Minister - literally, I think there are just hundreds of user fees. I don't know how many there are but there have to be user fees all over the

[Page 607]

place. There have to be, would it be fair to say, 500 user fees in the Province of Nova Scotia? I see a staff member kind of shaking their head. (Interruption)

I'm wondering - I guess there might be a Part A and a Part B to this question. My question is, are user fees reviewed on a regular basis? I know that there has been an increase. I think the increase this year is tied to the consumer price index, I think so. My question is, when you do that, does somebody on staff sit down and review user fees on a regular, consistent basis, and does anybody make the assessment about what is fair and what is not fair?

We have many user fees and I think one would - and we could take motor vehicles into consideration because I often wondered, as a person who drives a motor vehicle, I only drive a four-cylinder vehicle, I'm trying to be as environmentally friendly as I can, but there are other vehicles that are smaller than my four-cylinder vehicle that don't cost as much for registration. I sit there sometimes and I ask myself the question, why should I be paying more because the time it takes to process my vehicle registration is going to be the same as it takes to process that little Smart Car that's being driven around?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that there are probably two things about service fees and the price of licensing a vehicle. I guess the first thing is the time or what it would administratively cost the staff to process it. Indeed, that is reviewed regularly. I'm looking at my colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Public Works, but I know one of the reasons that there are differences in the fees for different sizes of vehicles is the heavier the vehicle, in general, the greater the wear and tear on the highway system. So the greater the wear and tear, then there's a premium paid, they try to make an assessment, obviously the lightest car should be - well, it would be - the cheapest to license and the heaviest and the biggest vehicle, because of the amount of wear and tear that they put on the roads, they would have a much higher fee and indeed, for some of these very heavy trucks - and there are people in the Legislature who know more about those than I do.

You and your colleagues stand up and say these roads are torn up. Well, one of the reasons they're often torn up is because they're not built to the standard for some of the traffic that's moving on them and we have weight restrictions and things like that. That's the reason, the two things. One is the actual time it takes to process it and secondly, is basically the amount of wear and tear that somebody says a particular vehicle would put on a road.

MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I can understand the weight restriction and I don't want to go down that road. Again, no pun intended. I can understand the variance in prices when it comes to weight and axles and that type of thing, but what confuses me and what I don't understand is when I hear that time is a factor taken into consideration, the time it takes to register a vehicle. My opinion is that a vehicle is a vehicle is a vehicle, whether it be a four-cylinder vehicle or whether it be a six-cylinder vehicle; it shouldn't take any more time to process the registration, regardless of what the size of the vehicle is. I mean, I would think

[Page 608]

that if it takes five minutes for one, I would think it would take five minutes for all vehicles. The only time I think it would take some time is if there was some type of glitch, if there was something wrong with the registration, a name misspelled or some type of technical glitch. So the argument of time, I don't completely understand that one.

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, what I was saying was that probably in determination of the fee for a vehicle licence, it would be the two parts. One is the administrative cost to generate the licence and to be quite frank, I agree with the honourable member. I think probably the administrative cost for registering a big truck or registering a motorcycle, is probably about the same thing. So in terms of that particular fee, it's probably the same. So really where the variation comes in is that road use, the levy for road use.

MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to, I guess, offer a wee bit of an apology because I know I'm going to be jumping all over the place and I just want to revisit something. I started off, when we were talking about user fees and I'm going to ask the question again around user fees and the assessment process and if there is one in place and during that assessment process, if one considers the fairness of user fees, is that taken into consideration when the assessment is made, if indeed there is an assessment?

[4:30 p.m.]

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the assessment service is self financing. It's financed by the municipality and the amount that a municipality would pay to the assessment agency would be prorated based on the total assessment and the number of houses. So I guess if there's a fee - and undoubtedly municipalities, in their budgeting process, have to pay a certain amount to the assessment agency every year, because they do provide the financing for it - so if there is a fee, it would be sort of a line item in a municipal budget, whether it's a fee for assessment agency or whatever it is. I guess you could call that a fee. I'm not aware of the individual property owner being levied a direct fee. If there is a fee, it would be really an indirect fee.

MR. PARIS: I want to go back and I guess when I offered the apology before, I knew I was going to come back to this. I just had to get some information. I want to revisit the assessment cap. In the Province of Nova Scotia, we have an Act and it's called the Land Holdings Disclosure Act. I guess when we talk about people having to apply for the cap, once you apply for it, you don't have to reapply for it, then it does become automatic. My question was, why wouldn't we make it automatic for everybody who's eligible? You explained the reason why.

So with the Land Holdings Disclosure Act, if we enforced - we, being the Province of Nova Scotia - that Act, then we, the Province of Nova Scotia, would know who's eligible and who's not eligible for the cap.

[Page 609]

MR. MUIR: The honourable member is correct. What he's speaking of is when somebody buys a house, they have to register it. I guess two things with that is that we are moving towards that, but obviously there would be technological changes that would be needed. To be quite frank, we aren't there yet - we will be someday, but we're not there yet.

The other thing is, if you look at the cost effectiveness, the paper to apply for an assessment cap - I applied for an assessment cap a couple of years ago on a property and I want to tell you, it was pretty painless. It may be, to be quite frank, just that the process, as you understand, is going to become automatic, it may be more cost effective. To continue what we're doing now, then the necessary investment in the technology to make the change which you're suggesting, although the department is moving in that way, it would probably be a very expensive technology shift for us.

We are upgrading, the department is really undergoing a technological renovation there now. The deputy has informed me it is something that's being looked at and we'll assess it, but the issue of applying for that cap is not a big deal. It's not a real hardship, having gone through it.

MR. PARIS: I just want to pursue this for another minute or so. With all due respect, I know, and I hear you and I believe you, that it was not a hardship for you, Mr. Minister. There are many residents of Nova Scotia that, when it comes to applying for things, just simply don't apply for multiple reasons. Maybe they're not aware of it, they maybe get frustrated with the process, there could be many reasons. I know that there are a number of times - it's like I go to the grocery store and I often get these rebate cards and if I send it in I'll get back 10 cents off or $1 off or $10 off. I never send them in. I'm sure there are many Nova Scotians out there who are like me who just will not bother to sit down and even though they're eligible for that rebate on that grocery item, they just will not send it in.

When you talk about the technology being expensive, when we say that you're heading toward something when it comes to making this automatic, I'm not sure if I understood if you were talking about making the cap automatic or the enforcement of the Land Holdings Disclosure Act. If you could just clarify that for me then that would be helpful.

MR. MUIR: As I understand it, Mr. Chairman, the honourable member had asked the question why we did not use this Act to find out where people lived. I said that technologically we weren't set up to do that at this particular time, the department is looking at it. Then I said you know the process of applying for a cap is not really - having gone though it, whoever designed that form made a very user-friendly form. I don't know who it was but if one does not send it in, it's not because it is a complicated form, I can tell you that, it is very, very user-friendly.

[Page 610]

The other part of the question is, we're looking at it but it may be, in light of the fact that we're basically moving to an automatic cap to the CPI, we have to determine, for Nova Scotia residents it may be more cost effective at this particular time to continue the process of the paper application than to move the technological, it may not be cost effective to do that.

I guess the honourable member talked about people who don't bother to get rebates and I suppose that many of us in this House would fall into that category. There are a lot of advantages. I remember a job I had one time I used to fill out income tax forms for people. People would come in with five years worth of forms and they'd be able to get back - and I see the honourable member for Dartmouth South-Portland Valley there nodding her head, she's done it too, that they just don't bother to do it unless somebody does it for them.

An income tax form is a little bit more complicated, I'll tell you, than that cap assessment form. It's just human nature and they're - you know one of the reasons that the government went to Your Energy Rebate Program and doing that at source was that the take-up on the Keep the Heat Program was very low, so we did go to that automatic one there. People said, well, you put a program in that wasn't as good. Well, the program was a lot better because those people you're talking about, who didn't apply for it, got the rebate so they didn't get anything the year before and this year they did pretty well on it. That's one of the reasons we made that shift.

MR. PARIS: I heard cost effective - does the reason it may be considered as more cost effective have anything to do with the number of people who are applying for the cap? I mean if the number is low, then the amount of money that's being not collected would be low as well.

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, in talking about the cap, first of all we have to talk about people, you know, for whom the cap is a good thing. There are an awful lot of properties in Nova Scotia, more properties in Nova Scotia for which the cap is immaterial. In other words, this program wasn't put in place to benefit all Nova Scotians. This program was put in place really to benefit a few select areas of the province, to try to protect people who, in some cases, were being forced out of their homes, family homes that they'd had for years and years and simply because of where that house was located, the taxes went up, the property was just a property and the location, it had nothing to do with the value of the home itself. That's why that was put in.

So in terms of being cost effective, it may be that it's just as cost effective for the department to do this. I have some sympathy for people who will not take advantage of programs, good programs for them, but sometimes you have to draw the line at the amount of sympathy you extend. I mean we all, in our lives, have done things or not done things we should have done and regretted it later, but I'm not sure that we have to blame the government for that.

[Page 611]

MR. PARIS: Well, I've been timing myself here and I'm getting close to my end and I mean that in more ways than one. I want the chairman to know that there will be a number of us who were speaking to the minister and putting questions forward - and I do know that the member from the Liberal Party will be speaking for a wee while this morning - and we'll probably adjourn and continue tomorrow. So at this point in time I'd like to take my seat and I'm going to turn things over to my colleague.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Dartmouth South-Portland Valley.

MS. MARILYN MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually I have two issues I want to ask the minister about. The first one is the status of 211. As he is aware, I am the NDP critic for the voluntary sector and the headquarters for the United Way of Halifax Region is in my constituency, so I've been following quite closely the evolution of 211 in the province.

As the minister understands, it's a telephone number that would provide centralized access to a full range of non-emergency information about social, health and government services. It basically is sort of value added to a lot of what government does, a lot of what the voluntary sector does and it provides a way for people to get information when they need it, on their own time. It ensures that there's a live person at the end of the phone.

I'm just wondering if he can give me an update on the status of the 211 program. Thank you.

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I don't doubt that the honourable member for Dartmouth South-Portland Valley would know that the group of whom she is speaking, that I'm very familiar with, came in about some period of time ago and made a presentation to government and, indeed, probably to all three caucuses.

There is a group out there that's trying to get this going. They have made a presentation to government. It has been on the government's radar screen but to be quite frank, this year it didn't make the cut. There is a cost to government in providing this service. This year, government, to be quite frank, I guess to quote my friend the Finance Minister, this was really a very, very difficult budget year. The items that we included in the budget this year were those which we prioritized and that one didn't make it to the top of the list.

Having said that, the government will be considering the 211 issue again in the very near future. I forget what the cost was going to be, it was not a cost - I guess it was the feeling of government that there were other priorities that suited the needs of more Nova Scotians and were more important at that time. That does not mean that it's not a worthwhile program and that the government will not consider supporting it in the future if the resources become available.

[Page 612]

[4:45 p.m.]

MS. MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not even sure my information is up to date. I know there were two sort of beginning phases of 211, I think there was a feasibility study somewhere in the area of $90,000 - I'm not sure if that was even started. There was also sort of a developmental initial stage where the factual information would be collected from all the various help and support lines around the province, sort of building the database before the 211 line actually started. Does anyone know if either of those stages has even started or where are we, just in that very beginning stage?

MR. MUIR: We have done the consulting phase and quite frankly, the consultant report was positive. If we can find resources in our budget this year, we will begin that data collection.

On the other hand, we don't have, as you saw, a line for that now so it will depend if the resources do become available. As I said, it is an item that is going to be discussed again in the near future by government. Other than that, I can't give you any more information at this time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time for the NDP caucus has expired.

The honourable member for Preston.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: This is quite a wide-ranging department the minister has here. I'm going to start with some of the things I've been hearing lately. I'm going to start with the motor vehicle inspection.

The new motor vehicle inspection regulations - I can understand why they've been put in place for people's safety and the safety of other people on the road. This new system opens up the possibility of major rip-offs by auto repair places. Over the last, probably, 50 years, there have always been disreputable people out there, I think they're in the minority and not the majority.

I will give you a couple of examples that happened to me and fortunately I didn't fall for them. I was into a local, well-known establishment which I won't name here, but I can tell you afterwards if you'd like to know, and I had a small truck at the time. It wasn't a heavy enough truck so I took the small, little shocks - there were tiny little shocks on it - and I put shocks on it out of a one-ton truck because they would fit and it made the truck more solid. I had them put on and they had a lifetime guarantee on them.

Three months later I went back to the same establishment and I had to get a new tire. The guy came out, big smile on his face, you need new shocks. I say, I didn't realize my shocks were gone, I'll be back next week. So the next week I went back and said, I'm here

[Page 613]

to get my shocks replaced, here's my warranty for my new shocks I bought three months ago. He put the truck up on the hoist, oh, those don't need to be replaced - the same guy who told me they had to be replaced.

I took a truck I had into a dealership, a Ford dealership actually - I've always driven Fords, for whatever reason, I've always driven them - for an alignment. I go in for the alignment and the guy comes out after about half an hour and says I have some bad news for you. He said you need a whole new front end on your truck. You need new upper and lower ball joints, tie rod ends, $1,000 bill. I said you'd better show me before you spend this - this truck was just off warranty, 70,000, 80,000 kilometres on it. So I go out and look at the truck and there was one tie rod end gone, no question about that, but maybe nothing else.

So I said, no, take it down off the hoist, I'm not going to get it fixed here for $1,000. I went to a local garage that I trust very much and I could leave my vehicle and they wouldn't charge you extra. I told him what had happened. I said the upper and lower ball joints are gone, the tie rod ends are all gone, I need a whole new front end. That's what they told me, but I said, I want you to check it.

He checked it over and there are two different ways to check a front end under the manual the department has. One tie rod end's gone and that was accurate because it was obvious it was gone, but he said nothing else. Absolutely nothing else gone. He said, go get the tie rod end, so I went and picked it up, he assembled it, put it back on and then I had to take it to get an alignment.

Needless to say, I didn't take it back to the dealer I had it from. I took it to a tire place in the city that does alignments and does very good work, asked them the same question, check my front end over, make sure there's nothing wrong with that front end. They checked it over, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that front end. Until the day I traded the truck in, not a problem with the truck. Both those places were not just backyard, these guys weren't backyard mechanics. These were established, well-recognized and well-used operations, both times. Neither time I fell for it because I knew better but someone would have brought it in, my wife would have taken the truck in and had a $1,000 repair bill. Do you know what the repair bill on that truck was, excluding the alignment? It was $79.

So what protection do you have for consumers? This law, I understand why it's there but what can happen is, they can go in and they can say your brakes are all gone, put all new brakes on, for someone who doesn't know what to look for, put all new brakes on your vehicle, $500 or $600 later and maybe your brakes weren't gone. Maybe they would have been fine until the next year. How are you going to police that and how are you going to stop it? What penalties do you have in place for the people who are unscrupulous and do these sorts of things to people?

[Page 614]

MR. MUIR: Let me say I agree with the honourable member that the great majority of the people who provide service to Nova Scotians, whether it's in the automobile service or the food service or whatever it is, are good, reputable and honest people. That's one of the things that makes Nova Scotia such a great place to live. On the other hand, I do know that there are rascals out there as well and I guess we have all experienced that at one time or another. I don't know, particularly in light of the example which the honourable member used with the front end of his car, whether the new set of motor vehicle regulations would have - well, I guess it was under the old set, maybe, you were talking about. It seems to me front end, that had to be checked anyway, even under the old regulations. So they were unscrupulous then, they could be unscrupulous now.

All I can tell you is that if there are complaints levied against a service station, we will check those things out and if we find that there's some validation to them, then the licence for inspection would be suspended and there are fines for doing that. I know one of the things, particularly in the automotive industry, I can remember this coming up a number of years ago and perhaps it was when Ralph Nader was running around with the lemons and whatnot, is that most of the dealers now, or a lot of the dealers, if they change something for you, they will give you back what they have replaced in a plastic bag. Of course, you can say, they just put an old part in but I think by and large, we have shysters in any line of business but the people with whom I'm familiar, the ones with whom I deal with in my home community, I feel I have every confidence when I go to them that I'm going to get good value for the services they deliver.

MR. COLWELL: I'm certain that you do because you know the people and they are very reputable people. I can say the same thing about the people I deal with. It's unfortunate if you go in, it seems that these operations prey on women worse than they do on men. I don't know why, because some women know more about cars than men do, quite frankly. But it seems to happen, it does seem to happen. The thing that worries me, and there is going to be some major backlash from this as time goes on, if someone goes to get their car inspected and they can't drive it away and they can't take it away and it's going to be towed to do something and it's going to be a huge bill to get it, you're going to see a major backlash from this. I have had many calls on it already and it leaves too much to the discretion of the local mechanic who's looking at this.

If you don't have some serious penalties for these people when you do catch them, and it is difficult to catch them, because you get the part, you say the part is in a plastic bag, but whose car is it from? It's easy to get a bunch of scrap parts. I mean they are real easy to find, so it could be off anyone's car of the same model as your car, so there's no way you could prove if they were yours or not. So there's no real way to do that.

You're not allowed in the service bays anymore for safety reasons. I can understand that as well, but as you go through this process, there are going to be some people who get ripped off and ripped off seriously. We're not talking now about repair bills of a couple of

[Page 615]

hundred dollars, some of these things are in the thousands to repair. If they don't need to be done they should not be done. So it's going to be a serious situation. I don't know what your fines are. Could you tell me what the fines are for someone who rips someone off and you can actually prove it?

MR. MUIR: Through you, Mr. Chairman, to the honourable member for Preston, we would have to get that information for you. We'll do that.

MR. COLWELL: I'd appreciate that. I think that would be quite helpful. The next thing I'm going to talk about is a problem that I've encountered in my area. When you remove rent controls - and there are all kinds of arguments on both sides of rent controls. I have a mobile home park in my area that has, I think, 10 or 12 different rates of rent, for the same size property. And the reason that the landlord has done that, I believe, is because each group has to make an appeal when a rent increase comes. So if you're going to put a $10 or a $20 across-the-board increase for everybody in the park, they have to do 10 or 12 separate appeals, to appeal it. And if they don't appeal it, if someone slips and doesn't appeal, which has happened, they get the maximum rent increase, usually.

This is a hole in the system. I think it's being used by the owner of the mobile home park and I think that's something that should be fixed. Was the minister aware of this?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, I have not, during the, I guess it's eight months that I've been minister, had any complaint about that. So, no, I was not aware of it.

MR. COLWELL: It's something I would suggest that the minister might, when he has time, check into. I must say, I've been working with your director for the Residential Tenancies and he's been an excellent person to deal with - up front, all the information. I mean, it has just been really good, really informative and very helpful. But of course, your staff can't do anything if the regulations say that they can't. So they're doing the things that they have to do under the law and I respect them for doing that and I can't say enough good about the people I've been working with in your department. I'm going to ask you to pass that along, if you get an opportunity.

The other thing is, it's been changed awhile ago is, on the other side of it, if a landlord has a tenant who's not paying the rent - so they go through the process, they go to the Residential Tenancies Board, they go in and make the application, win the case and they go through the process to evict the tenant. The tenant then goes to the Small Claims Court and that holds it up again and in the meantime, the landlord's not getting paid the rent the whole time, and then nobody knows what's going to come out of this. There's no consistency in the Small Claims Court, absolutely no consistency. There's no consistency with past cases in this matter. There's no consistency with anything that goes on there. It's because it's the opinion of the adjudicator at that time, who may not have ever seen one of these cases before. So it's hard to say and it depends on what people can have.

[Page 616]

Basically, a landlord can be out of rent, maybe, close to a year, while this whole process is going on and by the time this is all done, usually the people who aren't paying the rent have no assets and have no ability to pay anyway. So by the time this is all over, then the landlord has lost the money.

The landlord could probably afford to lose the money, but the problem is, the other tenants in the mobile home park, in particular, end up paying this lost rent. Because the landlord doesn't want to lose, he puts his statement together to do a rent increase, and bang, the rent goes up for everybody to pay for this person who is not paying their rent. Were you aware of that situation?

MR. MUIR: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I've heard of that one and indeed I guess all of us, as MLAs, have been visited by landlords who have been in that. As a matter of fact, there was a situation - actually it was in another province - that somebody drew to my attention that led me to go to the department and say, look, is that the case in Nova Scotia? And if it is, is there something that we can do about it? Anyway, yes, we are aware of it and indeed it is being reviewed to see if there are some protections that perhaps are feasible to effect for the landlords and on the other hand, of course, the advocates for the tenants. We're looking at both sides of the issue.

[5:00 p.m.]

MR. COLWELL: The real issue here is we need protection on both sides, in reality. The problem is when your staff, which is a very good staff, the Residential Tenancies review officers review these cases and make a decision on the process and then it's laid down, following all the rules, because I've never heard of a case in my whole time as an MLA, or when I was minister of the department, of anyone complaining about the adjudicators in these cases. They might complain, well, I didn't get a fair deal but when you really check into it, they did get a fair deal and probably better than a fair deal from the adjudicators you have who work within the department on this.

So, basically, you have a dual standard now. You have, in one case your adjudicator is there. They're very experienced doing this and know all the rules and all the tricks and have seen everything under the sun that anyone could give to them, both from landlords and from tenants, because there are some people on both sides of that case always who want to get an advantage one way or the other. Then when they make a ruling and it goes to the Small Claims Court, it's overruled and it doesn't meet the criteria that they're under. How can you expect the staff to really do the job that they're well trained and well prepared to do and they've made a decision following the rules? How do you expect them to rule the next time knowing that could very well happen to their ruling?

[Page 617]

MR. MUIR: The honourable member draws up another issue that comes from many years experience as an MLA and, of course, a stint in the department as the minister. That is also one of the things that we are looking at, at the present time.

MR. COLWELL: Any idea when you might have that resolved?

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, we would hope to put that matter to rest one way or the other in the Fall, or by the Fall I should say.

MR. COLWELL: That would be positive and any change I think would be an improvement at this point, because I haven't talked directly to any of your people who work in the department but I've talked to people who have gone through the system and then talked to the adjudicator afterwards and they're pretty upset about it, because they're doing their job, they're doing it right. They're following every rule that there is to follow, been fair on both sides of the issue. Then it goes to Small Claims Court and the ruling is overturned and if I was in their shoes, I would be very discouraged, as would the individual who went through the process properly and then found themselves on the other end of the stick.

I want to ask a couple of other questions. One other question - and I know that the present government eliminated rent controls in mobile home parks - did you do a review to see what the rents have done since then?

MR. MUIR: I guess the short answer to that is no, Mr. Chairman, but again it's one of those items that there is a form of control which is based on complaint but it's not the type of control that the honourable member is referring to. It is, again, not an issue that has been drawn to my attention in the short period of time that I've been minister. Now, there was a Mobile Home Advisory Committee which provided some recommendations to government, and I'm working from memory, but I don't think that was part of their recommendation. I can't remember.

MR. COLWELL: I'll bring the minister up to speed here with what people are living with out there, are contending with in one park in my riding. It's not all the parks. It just depends on who owns it and who the tenants are but in one park we have rents from just slightly over $100 a month, all the lots are exactly the same size, all the same services, and the new rents now are up to $275 a month. So the rents are all over the place for exactly the same services.

Something has to be done to level this out, because what's going to happen is, in this one particular mobile home park, it's going to put people out of there. They have nowhere to go with these when you move a mobile home, especially someone who has been there for 30 years or so. There's nowhere to go. You can't move into another park because they want to sell you a new mobile and it's pretty well all tied up. So that's an issue I think that the

[Page 618]

minister should be aware of and I can give you all the documentation on that. I will forward that to your office in the next while.

I have a couple of questions here on the infrastructure agreement, the Canada-Nova Scotia Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund. I want to know, first of all, what is the duration of the agreement?

MR. MUIR: The current MRIF, Mr. Chairman, we have five years left on it.

MR. COLWELL: This is an answer you probably won't have but if you don't have it today, just indicate that and you can forward the information, I would appreciate it. How was the funding divided across the province now and what kind of structure do you have to review the different applications to see if it's equally distributed across all parts of Nova Scotia? Is there a formula for doing that or is there a process for doing that? The funding that has been spent so far, I would like a detailed report of where that is by community.

MR. MUIR: The allocations for that, Mr. Chairman, are primarily to counties based on population with some recognition of the employment rate or the unemployment rate in the county. The projects, certainly there's no problem to get you a list of the projects that have been funded up to this point.

I guess what happens is the counties submit a list of priority items and there's a review committee that takes a look at those. You know sometimes it's not as straightforward as it seems because you get three number one priorities, or if you have smaller units within a bigger municipal unit. For example, one of the things that happens is if you have villages in a county municipal structure, I know that sometimes the county would ask the villages not to submit their own application because it detracts from the pool of money. But if the village does submit the application, in my constituency, last year, the Village of Bible Hill had an MRIF project funded which had to do with replacing an ancient sewer line which needed to be done. So that was a portion of the money that went to the county - or would have been allocated to the county, I guess, would be a better way to say it.

MR. COLWELL: I have two more questions on that topic and if you don't have the information today, you can forward it to us. That would be fine. How much money has been spent so far out of the agreement and how much money is there left to be spent?

MR. MUIR: I can tell you there's been a lot of money but I can't tell you the exact amount. We will provide that information for you, of course, but the other thing is that despite the fact that the agreement has another five years to run, all of the projects have been submitted, so additional applications are not being considered at this time.

MR. COLWELL: The next thing I want to talk about is something that's probably dear to the minister's heart - gas prices and regulation in Nova Scotia. You must hear a lot

[Page 619]

about this. Does the department keep a cost comparison between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador on a daily basis or a weekly basis on the differential in pricing?

MR. MUIR: I guess there would be both a yes and a no response to that, Mr. Chairman. First of all, the staff in the department clearly on a daily basis, or whatever, keep track of the prices in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and in Prince Edward Island. Are they looking at the differences? No, they're more looking at the price rather than the differences in the prices.

MR. COLWELL: Did the minister or anyone in his department look at the difference in costs? Let's just use New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for an example, what it costs an average family and the price differential we've been seeing between the two provinces.

MR. MUIR: Not really and I think in that line of questioning, and I understand it because that's one of the things that we do get in our department all the time, is that gas is cheaper and why can't you sell gas at the same price they can in Ontario, or why don't you sell gas at the same price they do in New Brunswick.

I think the New Brunswick Government chose during an election campaign last year to take about 4 cents off their highway tax, you know, actually the tax on the price of a gallon of fuel and once you added in the HST, it would be more than that. That was a pretty expensive thing for them to do. We were asked here in Nova Scotia why we didn't do that and, quite frankly, we couldn't afford it but if you take a look at the New Brunswick budget that was introduced this Spring and compare it to the budget which Nova Scotia introduced, you will find that there were significant increases in taxation in other areas where there wasn't here in Nova Scotia. So, you know, you rob Peter to pay Paul.

MR. COLWELL: The unfortunate thing with that type of a transaction is that sometimes the people who need it the most, or the people who it affects the most who maybe have to travel further because they can't live with the expensive taxes here in the city, or in the rural areas, anywhere in HRM, they have to travel a long way to work and they don't necessarily get the benefit on the other end of the projects that the government is going to do.

So when you look at that and you look at an average family, and I did a rough calculation and the differential there at one time, and I don't know what it is today, but I think it's very high today, it was around 11 cents. It sure doesn't account for the 4 cents difference in taxes. If you did even a 9 cents differential over a year, you're looking at something like $265 a year for 50 litres a week of gas, which is not very much today. If you look at that and compare that with a business that maybe has three or four service trucks, or a trucking company, or some other company that runs gasoline and compare it with what a similar company in New Brunswick does, their costs are a lot higher just for fuel and if you

[Page 620]

get the costs higher, they're less competitive, especially if they're exporting out of the province.

It's going to hurt our economy long term and when it hurts the economy, everything hurts. I mean people don't make as much money because the companies can't pay as much money. So it's just a vicious cycle. It's an absolutely vicious cycle and the longer we keep gas the way it has been, it has been shown to be more expensive in Nova Scotia than it has been in New Brunswick, regardless of the tax because even without the tax, seldom it's very close with the tax, and even the administration of this is so expensive. So when you go through the administration costs, we've got that as well.

[5:15 p.m.]

I know we've heard the Premier stand up in this House and indicate that we want to save the local, the distant service stations in the rural areas, but at the expense of what? I don't want to see those close either, I don't want to ever see a business close, but there has to be some structure in place where we can ensure Nova Scotians get the best possible price for fuel, and at the same time we can have the small businesses survive in the rural areas because they're needed in the rural areas.

I think the department should start doing a comparison to see what it does and see what kind of negative effect this is having on our economy. This will kill our economy over time, it takes time. I ran a business for a long time and when you get an increase of 2 per cent or 3 per cent on something, it doesn't sound like much, but if you start adding that to your bottom line and then something else rises 1 per cent, something else a 0.5 per cent, all of a sudden a bottom line that was very healthy is not healthy anymore and it takes a long time for that to really hit the bottom line. It may be a year, it may be two years, but when it comes it's too late and you can't make enough corrections anymore. You can only cut so much and there's only so much efficiency you can get and when it gets to a certain point, you either have to put your prices up, you have to lay people off, or you have to cut costs in other places.

Is the minister aware of this? I need to know that, is the minister aware of that, is his government aware of that? We have fewer jobs in Nova Scotia today, fewer people working than we ever had in the recent history. There's proof, that's true, we have fewer people actually in the workforce today - according to the labour briefs that come out in this province, that's what they're saying - we have lower unemployment because there are fewer people looking for work. The unemployment numbers, people don't understand, are just the number of people looking for work. A lot of people gave up or they have fewer people working. So it's starting to have a negative effect already on our economy.

MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the last comments the honourable member made, I guess I would have to see the statistics because certainly the information that we've had is that

[Page 621]

there are more people working in Nova Scotia than at any other time in Nova Scotia's history. Clearly, he's presenting a different story than one that the information I have would support.

The honourable member knows too that governments review their policies from time to time and having been the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, whatever the name was when he was there, he would understand that our role in gas regulation is to deliver it. The actual policy of whether it is a good thing or not, it's a government policy.

One of the things that I assume the honourable member is saying, although he hasn't directly said it, is if we weren't in a regulated system the gas would be 8 or 9 cents cheaper. I can tell you that's not the case in Nova Scotia because one of the things the Gardner Pinfold Report did, which I looked at - which has not been made public and I won't talk about the detail on it - certainly his findings were not that, that in terms of price differential, 8 or 9 cents a litre, that's just simply not the case.

The other thing is that when we take a look at the New Brunswick market, as a matter of fact, this is a question that every two weeks just about I sit down and I ask staff, because we make the determination every second Thursday what the price is going to be on that Friday, whether it's going to go up, down or remain the same. Clearly, when we have that discussion, the issue of how much the price in particularly New Brunswick and P.E.I. does come up, I have those figures - Newfoundland and Labrador, we get that as well, although that's sort of a different thing.

When you look at the New Brunswick prices one of the things that people look at, I guess, is maybe what the price is in Aulac or in Moncton, but I'm not sure they're looking at what the price is in the smaller communities where it's at least that in Nova Scotia or likely higher. Well, it's like comparing the price of gas in downtown Toronto with the price of gas, perhaps, in Dryden - not necessarily the same thing.

Just one other comment before sitting down, some of the information we've had is that this past year, there are figures that indicate that the price of gas in Nova Scotia was closer to the average price in Canada than it had been for some time. Indeed, I think the Retail Gasoline Dealers' Association has made this information public, you probably looked at it, that there were a number of times when the price of gas in Nova Scotia was below the average price of gas in Canada.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Preston has approximately three minutes left.

MR. COLWELL: Thank you. The real issue here is regulation. I didn't bring it up before, but that's really the issue. That's what I was talking about. Everyone knows and

[Page 622]

we've been tracking very closely the actual prices between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. New Brunswick is our closest competitor when it comes to business, it's the closest we have to compare with what families are going to pay for. When you look at that, New Brunswick has been consistently lower in price. Sometimes as high as 11 cents a litre, and 11 cents a litre runs to about 50 cents a gallon - that's a lot of money.

When you look at that whole process, that does have a negative effect on our economy over the long term, it takes a long time, but it has a negative effect. The regulation, I don't think works properly. I don't think it works. I think it's costing Nova Scotians more than it has cost without regulation. We see ups and downs in the regulation, we've seen ups and downs before, but recently we've only seen a whole bunch of ups and very few downs and watching the crude oil prices, they're going down.

When you look at the whole picture, it doesn't seem to make sense in Nova Scotia with the price we're paying for fuel. As we see this and businesses start to realize when they're burning several thousand litres a week or a month, it's a huge impact on their bottom line - huge impact. That all comes back to the consumer. After all, the consumer can only pay so much. When it comes to the point in the day that they can't afford to pay it anymore, what do they do?

If someone is living where they have to commute back and forth to work and they find they can't afford to travel back and forth to work with the income they have, they're in trouble. They just simply do not have an alternative - they can't sell their home and move to the city where it's more expensive to buy a home because they don't have enough equity. So what do they do? They can't quit their job, they're stuck. I think there are a lot of families in that situation, a lot more families are going to get in that situation.

Even 2 or 3 cents a litre makes a big difference. Even as we go to more fuel-efficient vehicles, which is what we should be doing, it's still going to hurt the average Nova Scotian and to the point that they're probably going to have to sell their homes and move into apartments. I've seen that with the taxes going up. When you tie that into the fuel and to all the other costs, Nova Scotians are going to hurt and they're going to hurt for a long time.

The hurting has to stop. If it doesn't stop . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time allotted for debate in Committee of the Whole House on Supply has now expired. So far in committee, we have completed 39 hours and 34 minutes so we have approximately 26 minutes left for tomorrow.

The honourable Deputy Government House Leader.

[Page 623]

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee do now rise and report progress and beg leave to sit again on a future day.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is carried.

[The committee adjourned at 5:24 p.m.]