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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2009

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

4:41 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Gordon Gosse

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Chairman, I move we continue the Estimates of the Department of Education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Progressive Conservative Party has 24 minutes remaining.

The honourable member for Argyle.

HON. CHRISTOPHER D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Chairman, merci beaucoup, M. Président, I'm going to take a couple of minutes to talk of Argyle and, more specifically, of some projects that we have running, some projects from a broader standpoint of the CSAP that are going around the province, and maybe some thoughts that the minister has on some higher education issues as they pertain to Université Sainte-Anne and their broader system. Of course, they used to be called Collège de l'Acadie.

The first set of questions will revolve around École Wedgeport. Wedgeport is a small community in my riding, it's a small school, one of those schools that has been around for upwards of 40 years, and one that I was very proud to bring forward to the previous Minister of Education in trying to get a renovation at the time for the school. As I said, the school is very old. It does need some changes. I think there are two physically disabled children who go to that school, there's no elevator, et cetera, et cetera. I mean it is one of those kinds of schools.

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So I'm just wondering, maybe the minister could tell us what the plan is for renovation and/or replacement, because what we're finding is the cost of renovation is only a little bit less than a total replacement for that facility that I believe houses somewhere over 100 children from Primary to Grade 6?

HON. MARILYN MORE: Mr. Chairman, I just want to start off by reminding everyone that I'm joined today by Deputy Minister Dennis Cochrane on my left and Darrell Youden, Senior Executive Director of Corporate Services. To the honourable member, I do appreciate your question. I met with the CSAP Board a few weeks ago and it was a marvelous meeting. I have to say I was very impressed by the interest and depth of experience and knowledge around the table. Certainly, I have to say it was probably one of the boards that has the most retired educators on it. So the dialogue and discussion was very knowledgeable, very in-depth.

They certainly raised the issue of the Wedgeport school and, as the honourable member has suggested, that school is currently in our capital construction plan as an alteration. They presented some very reasonable arguments why that should be transformed into a new building, and possibly in a different area of Argyle. So I suggested to them that perhaps they should make a business case to me and it's something that I would be interested in reviewing. Certainly the department has not made a decision on transforming it into a new construction capital project but I am open to hearing more details and I look forward to those discussions.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Thank you very much, minister, for those comments. What we find, which was quite unfortunate I think in the end, where we finally had gotten some real work done on renovation, because the original ask from CSAP was for a renovation, a fix-up of that facility for the longer term. It wasn't until the last number of months of our government that the CSAP basically changed their minds in thinking, if we're going to go to this number - I think the original number was going to be $4 million - if it's $4 million, we're going to do a renovation; if it's $5 million, well, maybe we should really contemplate a replacement of that structure.

I thank your deputy minister for coming down and meeting with the board at that time. I know he took the opportunity to see the facility, to understand the shortcomings of that facility. The challenging part though, you know, the board members for the area - Donnie Jacquard; the chair of the board, Ken Gaudet; and of course the executive director, Darrell Samson, took the opportunity to really push us to see if there was an opportunity for it.

Their added idea is that because of the declining enrolment in that facility, that if we try to move it somewhere else, i.e., closer or more central to a number of other communities, because if you go around from Wedgeport across the Black Pond Road, you have the communities of Comeau's Hill, Little River, you have more people from Plymouth, but you

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also have that opportunity to take people in from Yarmouth. Right now those Yarmouth students are going to École Belleville, but there would be some kind of time saving in busing if that would be the opportunity.

There's a broader idea now, rather than just having to replace that facility, maybe there's another opportunity to bring more children to the CSAP that might not have taken that opportunity before. I thank the minister for keeping an open mind on this issue. I know it's one that the community is listening to attentively, one that they do want to see some movement over the next number of years for that facility.

It's unfortunate though, because it's a P to 6 and I would believe the disabled children, the ones that do have the physical disability will probably be moving on to the other schools as we might be able to get this on the books and actually get some kind of renovation or construction going because of that lack of elevators. Really what the staff is doing right now, which is very accommodating, is that as these children move from one class to the next, the teachers are basically taking their class and moving it all downstairs to another classroom in order to accommodate these children as they come through the system.

Again, it's one of those of keeping an open mind in order to see if there's more that we can do for that community in trying to save its identity, its francophone identity, in the area. A lot of the children are actually going to Plymouth, which is just up the road. I know the deputy is aware, back a long time ago, whether it was a good decision or a bad decision of a previous municipal council of putting two schools so very close together at the time.

Again, I thank the minister and I know she'll take that opportunity over the next number of months to review that file and maybe come back with a positive answer for the CSAP.

While we're talking about the area, I know the minister is aware of the school community centre that is going on at École Par-en-Bas which is the high school in the area. Over the last number of years and a lot of lobbying in front of the department, Acadian Affairs, Heritage Canada, ACOA, we were able to grab a sum of $3 million, I believe, for the construction of a school community centre. When École Par-en-Bas was constructed, it was done in haste, let me put it that way. There were two schools built at the same time because of the outcome of the LeBlanc decision.

What happened was, the community didn't have the opportunity to make that presentation and get a school community centre built at the same time. A lot of school community centres that are built at francophone schools are sort of built together. In this case, because we had to rush a little bit to get a French school built and get an English school built, the school community centre sort of fell to the side. Then it was a struggle with the federal funding partner in order to get their funding attached to it and to have the province's

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contribution of an $11 million school counted towards the construction of the school community centre, which was like $3 million.

There was always a constant discussion to make sure the dollars were available. I'm very happy to report to the House today that facility is just about built. As far as I know, within the next number of weeks, the child care centre will open. What we have now is a wonderful building that houses an art gallery, child care centre, some community offices and a 300 seat auditorium, which the school didn't have.

The problem we have is that they're about $300,000 short. Dennis rolls his eyes, I know I've rolled mine on a couple of occasions on this one too, I scratch my head because we always thought we had enough money involved in this one. Anyway, the amphitheater now, amphithéâtre, will not get a completion. It will not have the seats, it does not have the lighting, and does not have the sound system - pretty much the three items that we really need to complete that facility. So I was wondering, maybe you had some thoughts on that and maybe if I can get, you know, something to go forward to Heritage Canada and the other funding partners to see if there's some more money to complete this project. It's very important for the whole constituency of Argyle.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the question from the honourable member. I would like to go back and just comment briefly on his earlier comments. I think we're both aware that the timeline for the Wedgeport, either renovation or replacement, is quite far in the future, and certainly those decisions were made under your former government. So I know you appreciate even better than I do the fact that the community is going to have to have some patience both before a decision is made and the actual renovation or replacement happens, but I do understand that you appreciate that timeline.

I also wanted to mention that what had been projected in the capital budget for the Wedgeport renovation was approximately $5 million, and it's anticipated that a new school would probably cost around $8 million. So finding that additional capital funding is going to be a struggle, but we will consider it very seriously.

I have to admit that the issue around the school community centre is a new one. The board hadn't raised it, and I don't actually believe my department had been notified that there was a shortfall in funding for that. Certainly we applaud the efforts of CSAP to add these sorts of community enhancements to all the schools, and it certainly makes their multi-use and community use much more evident, and they provide a centre of activity for the community. I think the board should be commended for all the time and effort they put into expanding the educational use of those facilities. Certainly if they're $300,000 short, we would support an approach by the CSAP to Heritage Canada, you know, to enter into discussions. We have no way of leveraging that money provincially, but we would certainly work alongside them to see, you know, if any more money could be freed up federally. So I think perhaps I'll leave it there.

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MR. D'ENTREMONT: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much, minister, for that. I think in this particular case we do need your office to advocate on behalf of the community to see if there can be some more dollars to finish it, because what we're seeing - last year the community, or the school, with Yvette d'Entremont and Grade 10, Grade 11, and Grade 12 students, put on a wonderful production of Romeo and Juliet. I forget the version that they did, but I mean there was a lot of dance, a lot of music. They practised for well over a year to put this on, and they had to go do it in Yarmouth at Th'YARC - which is a nice facility, and actually one that I'm sure the member for Yarmouth would really like to see a replacement as well, but ultimately it would have been nice for them to be able to do that work in the school right next door, as they were basically living theatre, that they could actually do it right there. So we would like to see that, and I know that the fundraising committee on behalf of the community does need to do a little more work in order to get those community funds put aside for the completion. Again, it's seats, lighting, and the sound system, which are sort of ancillary features of that building. It's a wonderful theatre. It has got a huge stage, you know, one that you can do a lot of work on, so they're at the cusp and it would be nice to see it get done.

I'm going to share my time with the member to my left. I know he's more to my right sometimes. Where am I going, you guys are going to have to decide here. You guys fight it out for a second while I finish up.

We have the Jeux de l'Acadie that the Municipality of Argyle is putting a bid in to have the grand finale in Nova Scotia. We just had one, I believe last year or the year before in Halifax. So we have the finale coming up and Argyle would like to host it. It will be the second time Nova Scotia ever had the finale of the Jeux de l'Acadie and as a part of that bid we're going to be utilizing a number of the schools in Argyle, not only the CSAP schools, but also utilizing Drummond Heights, which is the anglophone high school.

There is a request floating around, and I don't know if you've been a part of it yet, for a track and field facility for Drummond Heights. This is a support issue more than a dollar and cents issue, as well - not necessarily together, just more to be aware as well - a reconditioning of the soccer field at Par-en-Bas. I believe there is going to be a request that is going to come from CSAP as well for a turf soccer field. The field there is in crappy shape, actually. I think it's over a $3 million track and field that they're proposing so again it's more of an advocate on behalf of the board when it comes to this facility so that we can truly host the 2012 Jeux de l'Acadie. We have a few years to pull it off, but it's going to be a phenomenal draw for parents and students to southwestern Nova Scotia where Acadians are.

The challenge we had when it was here in Halifax is that it's not a traditional Acadian area. Of course, this is where people have migrated to and there is a wonderful community of Acadians, actually in your riding and the member for Dartmouth East, in that area, and in Dartmouth North, I believe, as well. I'm just wondering, there are going to be these couple of projects, what are the minister's thoughts on these added infrastructures to the schools in

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order to bring something as important, that we supported in the past, that I'm sure this government will support, which is the Jeux de l'Acadie?

[5:00 p.m.]

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving us a heads-up on the Jeux de l'Acadie. That's exciting news. Has it actually been awarded to the Argyle area? You're bidding on it, okay. What I'd like to suggest - usually those kinds of sports and recreational enhancements are done either municipally or done through funding programs that might be available through Health Promotion and Protection. I think those might be obvious areas to investigate. Perhaps you could suggest to the organizers that they might want to look into those. I think it's an excellent suggestion and I'm really pleased that region is considering bidding on those games. Please pass along my congratulations and thank you for that question.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Thank you very much, that ends my questioning and I do pass the rest of my time to the member for Cape Breton West.

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

MR. ALFIE MACLEOD: Mr. Chairman, first let me congratulate you, Madam Minister, on your position and I wish you well. I know you have a very competent staff. I was wondering if you could indeed give an upgrade as to where the renovations are on the Riverview Rural High School and if there are any further plans for that facility.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, yes, I'd be pleased to provide some detail about the Riverview Rural High School. As the honourable member probably knows, it's a $10 million project and the renovations were first proposed in 2004, I think it was a recommendation from the school board. They're going to be completed in 2013, I believe.

The school board has completed some work to date, including the roof and siding in 2004 and some master planning took place in 2005. A new entrance for the building is currently complete, which allows easy access to all levels within the school. The next phase of the work began in 2008 and included refurbishment of the administration area and renovations to some classrooms. As the honourable member knows, more work is required to complete the school.

We've actually added $935,000 to our capital budget this year to continue those renovations. We're hoping some of them actually will be completed this Fall. Thank you.

MR. MACLEOD: Thank you, Madam Minister, for that. I wonder, is it right then to assume the plan is to continue on with the renovations to Riverview until all of what was suggested by the school board has been completed?

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MS. MORE: Yes, as I indicated, this year $935,000 has been set aside. It's projected that in 2010-11, $600,000; in 2011-12, $900,000; and in 2012-13, $1.9 million. So, yes, there's every commitment to continuing with those much-needed renovations. Thank you.

MR. MACLEOD: I can tell you that I, along with the member for Cape Breton South where the school is actually located, are happy to hear that. My question to you is, what is the status regarding the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board's new transportation centre to replace a very old and ailing centre?

MS. MORE: The school bus garage for that board is on the capital list. We've recognized it on the list, but we're continuing with discussions with the board, so there's been no funding set aside at this time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The time allotted for the Progressive Conservative caucus has now expired.

The honourable member for Bedford-Birch Cove.

MS. KELLY REGAN: I think we'll resume with P-12 education. The first thing I'd like to talk to the minister about is the Student Walking Distance Review. The Department of Education Web site indicates the minister's response will be available once she has considered all recommendations and input from the public. I'm assuming that's left over from the previous minister.

The report makes 14 recommendations, I'm not going to list them all here now, but I'd like to highlight a few of them. The report suggests we reduce the maximum walking distance under the Education Act from 3.6 kilometres to 1.6 kilometres for elementary students, and 3 kilometres for secondary students. Both of these distances mirror practices of other provinces; that school boards retain authority under regulations to provide courtesy busing where dangerous conditions warrant; that there is a limit on the maximum time young children are expected to travel on a school bus, that younger children should not be picked up before 7:00 a.m. and dropped off after 5:00 p.m.; that each school board employ a routing technician specialist and that a funding formula based on total enrolment, the number of transported students and other criteria be implemented.

Is the department prepared to move on any of the recommendations at this time, if so, which ones?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the honourable member for bringing up this issue. Yes, the Student Walking Distance Review was presented to the former government in December 2007 and there hasn't been a response from either the former government nor the current government at this stage. Some of the recommendations - there's no consensus among the school boards as to their value and there are concerns about the

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impact on their current practices. As you can imagine, there is a significant financial impact of the report. It's still under review and I would be pleased to have the input of the honourable member if you'd like to meet and discuss some of those recommendations.

Certainly one of the more problematic recommendations is the one that suggests that courtesy busing and courtesy stops only be approved when required for safety reasons. This has caused considerable - I won't call it anguish - but concern among various school boards because it doesn't fit their current model of transportation delivery. Again, I'll be quite frank, obviously the financial impact of many of the recommendations are part of the reason that we've slowed down a response from the department. As I said, I would be interested in meeting with you to discuss some of the details.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, my concern is that by not responding we're leaving parents in limbo wondering, are we going to have a change here, what's going on? If the department is not prepared to deal with the walking distances at the time, is it at least prepared to insist that school boards abide by the actual walking distance children must travel? My point is that some school boards apparently, at least one that I'm aware of, is calculating the walking distance not by the actual distance a child must walk but by the radius from the school. Technically, you could live within the 3.6 kilometres, but you actually have to walk four kilometres, because of impediments like highways and railways and that kind of thing.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that the Act sets out the minimum distances and we are not aware of any board that's not meeting that requirement. However, some boards bus below the minimum, they may have different ways of measuring those distances, and we have no control over that because they are meeting the standard that has been set provincially through legislation.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, with great respect, I think you can insist that they observe at least the letter of the law. If someone is walking four kilometres to school, that is not an appropriate distance under this Act. I don't understand why we would say, well, it's okay. I don't have any problem with children getting courtesy busing below 3.6 kilometres, I have a problem with children walking four kilometres to school because they can't go over a railway track or they can't go over a highway.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, well certainly, as I've expressed in this Chamber many times, one of the highest priorities of the Department of Education is the safety and health of the student population, so if the honourable member is aware of any board that's not meeting the standards set out in the Education Act, I'd be pleased to get those details and we could investigate. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move on now to the Options and Opportunities program. Is your government planning to continue to expand this program?

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MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to check my facts here. We have expanded the program. We included $800,000 new dollars this year for the O2 program. Just to give a little bit of history, because this is one of the success stories and I have to give credit to the former government, it was an excellent educational move.

In 2009-10 it's going to be expanded in Grade 10 to 44 schools, in Grade 11 we'll have 43 schools involved and in Grade 12 we'll have 33 schools involved. The total funding - and it's in a restricted envelope so it's dedicated to that particular program - is $7.099 million this year and that includes the $800,000 that I just mentioned. So we have 44 schools offering O2 to 1,620 students and it's encouraging to know, obviously the interest and the demand is there because enrolment has quadrupled since the program was first introduced in 2006-07. Last year, 10 additional schools offered the program for Grade 10 students.

We certainly intend, when resources are available, we'd like to look at the possibility of designing a program for junior high students or middle school students because these opportunities for community-based learning are working very well. They're helping to re-connect and re-engage often high-risk students back into the academic program. Thank you.

[5:15 p.m.]

MS. REGAN: Of those 44 schools that are participating now, would it be possible for you to outline how many are in rural schools? My particular concern was that they had not previously been, not well-served, but they weren't getting the same kinds of options and opportunities as students in more suburban or urban schools.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure we have that information with us but certainly we could make it available and I will table it as soon as possible. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: I'd like to move on now to English as a Second Language, our ESL Programs. I'm wondering what the breakdown would be by board and the number of students participating in there and also the funding.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, English as a Second Language Program certainly is concentrated in the metro area so about 80 per cent of the students are within the Halifax Regional School Board. They receive approximately 80 per cent of the provincial funding that's available, either from the Department of Education and also, I think, the Department of Immigration. We do not have those figures, but we could certainly contact the boards and survey them and get the other detail for the other 20 per cent.

MS. REGAN: Could you please outline the amount of funding that the program gets from the Department of Education versus the Department of Immigration?

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MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, we can get the actual details but, roughly, we believe it's about $250,000 from each of the two departments.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I did want to point out that I will be sharing my time with the member forHalifax Clayton Park, but not right this minute.

Madam Minister, it seems to me that there isn't enough public funding to pay for more support programs at schools. These programs are crucial support and they make children and their families feel welcome within the school system, because we need to attract more immigrants and we've had a poor record in doing so in the past - of course the failure of the business mentorship program certainly didn't help. I'm wondering, what are you going to do to increase ESL programs and services within the school system?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, there are sort of two groups of ESL students within our school system and the provincial Department of Education provides funding to English as a Second Language, but there are a number of international students also with various school boards, and when they come they pay tuition directly to the boards and the boards, as part of that contract, are providing support services. I don't have the specific breakdown by board between ESL and international students, but if that's something the honourable member is interested in we could certainly arrange to get as much of that information from the boards as possible.

In terms of other supports - I'm sort of racking my brain here - I know that some students at Dartmouth High, and I believe Citadel High as well, combined to create an award-winning video that I think is being used in schools to make students from outside that area feel more comfortable, and trying to raise awareness among the rest of the population as to how they can be more friendly and supportive - I wish I could remember the name of the video, but certainly it was an excellent work and an excellent concept by these high school students. I think there are a lot of similar initiatives happening across our province to try to help students from away integrate more fully and in a more positive light into our school systems.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, with great respect, I don't think you quite answered my question. I asked what are you doing to increase ESL programs and services within the school system, not how much money is coming from various boards or whatever - I'm just wondering what it is we're doing to augment the need there. I am aware that there are different schools that are doing projects and videos; for example, in my own riding, the Bedford South Communication Club exists. They have a huge number of students receiving ESL, and that's to help them, but my question is, is there more funding for it, are we increasing the amount of aid that is available to students, has there been an increase in it, is there an increase projected in the future - sort of not the individual boards?

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MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the honourable member's genuine interest in this issue. It's actually the responsibility of the school boards, and certainly when the Department of Education officials meet with school boards to find out where their financial pressures are, additional programming needs and things like that, this is not usually raised as a financial pressure, although to be fair, it has been mentioned - not as a significant pressure, but it certainly has been mentioned as a factor with the Halifax Regional School Board because, of course, the majority of students are enrolled within that system.

You know, whether through the Halifax Regional School Board, or through the School Boards Association, or during those initial consultations with school boards in terms of their program and other pressures and interest priorities for the coming year - certainly if that issue was identified, our department would be willing to work alongside them to see what sort of supports and funding assistance might be possible.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move on now to the issue of H1N1 and its potential impact on our school system. It's my understanding that the school boards have submitted plans for dealing with a potential outbreak to the department. Have they been received and have they been approved?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, this is certainly an important issue. The boards were asked to send along their action plans - not to be approved, but in order for us to see where the best practices were and to encourage the boards to share the best practices among themselves. So, yes, they have been submitted, and they are consulting with each other. Certainly their major partner in terms of being as prepared as possible during the pandemic is the district health authority. Each school board has a very close and regular consultation with the medical health officials in their regions, and as the department is being informed by the Chief Medical Officer for Nova Scotia, the boards are getting their direct information through his colleagues around the province.

MS. REGAN: Has there been an increase in funding to help prepare for potential H1N1 outbreaks within the school system and, if so, how much and what supports and resources have individual schools been given?

MS. MORE: There have not been significant expenditures to date by the boards. The department has asked the boards to track any expenses they have related to this issue, and certainly that's why the additional money was added to the provincial restructuring fund - to cover some of these costs. We have no idea, there's no way of anticipating what financial impact this may have on the school boards, but there is money in the provincial restructuring fund so that we can take into consideration any additional costs that the boards may have because of H1N1.

MS. REGAN: We have previously discussed in the House the possible strike at the Chignecto-Central Regional Board for school support staff, including custodial staff, and this

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could put students and school staff at a greater risk for H1N1 if the schools are not being kept clean. I'm just wondering what contingency plans are in place, should a strike occur there, to keep the schools clean?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, it's still very early. That board has notified us that the union is waiting for the outcome of the lead table discussions that are happening with the Annapolis Board. They've given no notice of strike, so there's plenty of time for that board to develop contingency plans. So we're awaiting the outcome of the settlement of the provincial part of those negotiations, and the local has said that the concerns they have locally, regionally with the school board - there will be no action taken until they know what's happening provincially. There are two levels of negotiations going on, and so there doesn't seem to be any immediate need to have a contingency plan, but certainly I have full confidence that the board will have a contingency plan in place if needed.

MS. REGAN: I just wanted to make sure that I understand this correctly. You're telling me that at this time there are no contingency plans that have been put in place to keep the schools clean in Chignecto in the event of a strike and in the event of an H1N1 outbreak?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, no, I'm not suggesting that there aren't any contingency plans. They would be developed by the local school board, but it's our understanding that they understand that they do have some time to develop those and make them known when necessary, because they know the timeline for the provincial negotiations that are going on with the lead table on provincial issues such as wages, benefits, I believe, and the length of the contract. That's all being negotiated through the Annapolis Valley School Board for that union and so the local school board union is waiting for the outcome of those negotiations before they decide whether they're going on strike and when. So the school board does have some time to finalize their contingency plans.

[5:30 p.m.]

MS. REGAN: I'm not sure I really got an answer out of that, but I think I'll just proceed along. My next question is surrounding rural schools and declining enrolment. We're seeing it to be a huge problem. It has impacts for students in that they're busing long distances and there are many more on-line courses, et cetera. What is the government planning to do as enrolment declines in rural areas, and what long-term plans are in place to ensure the quality of education for all Nova Scotian students?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, we had a little bit of discussion about this yesterday as well. Certainly the current funding formula does recognize that we have two categories of school boards in terms of the issue of declining enrolment, one in which it seems to be declining fairly rapidly and the other category for boards where it's a slower decline. So the formula actually has a 2 per cent cushion in there to help the boards that are having a rapid decline. There's also a factor in there that recognizes that it's more expensive to operate

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small rural schools. So those considerations are all factored into the funding formula used to give the core envelope of funding to school boards. Just to give you an example, the reason that the protection was put in there for the rapid enrolment decline was that, for example, in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Board and the Strait Regional Board, their decline at the time that this cushion was put in was almost four times greater than the rate of decline in the Halifax board. So, as I said, some cushions were put in there to protect those school boards from dramatic loss of provincial revenues.

In my travels around the province over the last couple of months meeting with all eight school boards, seven of them regional and one provincial, the issue of declining enrolment came up every time, because, quite frankly, it's one of the most significant factors facing education and how it's delivered in this province. Certainly it's a trend that's happening elsewhere in Canada as well. We expect by 2020 to have the same number of youth and children in our school systems as we did in 1910. So we can't take an ostrich head- in-the-sand attitude about this, we have to deal with it.

So we're trying to encourage boards to balance quality education and provide the variety of course selection, especially in the higher levels, with the need to maintain community schools, because often they are the only public building in that community. So boards are wrestling with these issues as they have since the 1970s. I think in 1971 we had the highest number of students enrolled in the provincial public education system. We've had declines ever since. So this is not a new problem, boards have a lot of experience in trying to deal with it, and certainly the Department of Education and my government will assist them in any way possible.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to point out to the minister that I come from one of the few ridings that have the opposite problem where we have a massive influx of students and we are anticipating having to build many schools in the next 20 years.

I would like to move on now to French Immersion Programs in the province. I'm just wondering how many students are registered for French immersion across the province? If you have a board by board breakdown and we could have that tabled and I could have a copy, that would be a good thing as well.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I'll refer to the note and then we will get it copied for the honourable member and also table it for the convenience of other members in the House.

I'm sure that the honourable member realizes that there are optional French second language programs and we have early immersion offered in six school boards, and I'll get to the student enrolments shortly. That includes the middle immersion in four schools. We have late immersion in six school boards. We have an intensive French, which is a pilot

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project in Grade 6 only, offered in four school boards. We have an integrated French, which previously was called extended core French, offered in four school boards.

Now, in terms of the actual enrolments, which I believe perhaps was the point of your question, in core French we have 51,228 students, and that actually has decreased over the last three years, possibly by roughly 2,300. We have early French immersion for 8,672 students, that's a 607 student increase in the same time period. Late French immersion, we have a 235 student decrease in the same period. The integrated French, which I explained earlier, is the former extended core French, we have a 36 student increase.

So I just want to also add that the department is implementing different teaching strategies for French as a second language for the teachers, with a strong focus on literacy, and we're implementing a variety of delivery methods in 23 core French classes at the elementary and middle school level.

So, we have an action plan for French as a second language in the department and, as I mentioned earlier, it is to promote increased language proficiency among those students. I think some of the boards are looking at the social marketing strategy to promote the opportunity that French as a second language provides to young people in our province, so families are better informed when they make these decisions.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, just so the minister is aware, my two eldest children went through the late immersion program that the former Halifax County Board had and my youngest, my son, is in the early immersion program, which was, I think, only the second year that they had it out in our area.

So, I would take from your last answer that there are no plans to get rid of early immersion or anything like that, like we have seen in New Brunswick, that we're going to continue on these multi-tracks and different pilot projects and that kind of thing, or is there a plan to streamline this at all?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, there are no plans to change early, middle or late immersion. Certainly, we're following very closely the benefits of the integrated French because it seems to be a stronger version of the core program that is more traditional in the province.

MS. REGAN: My last question is surrounding the issue of substitute teachers for French immersion. What I have noticed a lot over the years - this is just a personal anecdote - is that quite often the schools do not appear to be able to provide French-speaking substitute teachers in the elementary grades. There seems to be a real problem with having enough teachers in this area. Can you elucidate what our plans are to augment the number of French- speaking substitute teachers?

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MS. MORE: The department does provide bursaries at Université Sainte-Anne and certainly we recognize that we need to have more teachers who can substitute in early French immersion. The various school boards, when they have their recruitment job fairs - I believe it's late winter or early Spring - they certainly give priority to French-speaking new teachers and through a variety of means, we're very pleased with the program at Université Sainte-Anne and we're hoping that is going to be part of the solution, to make sure that we have adequate teachers for all the speciality areas that we need in the public school system.

MS. REGAN: I would like to turn over my time now to my colleague, the honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.

MR CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, it's my pleasure to have just a few minutes, I have until 6:00 p.m., to have a little dialogue with the Minister of Education and congratulations on your new portfolio. I had a number of questions and mine are more of a local nature, by and large, I have lots of other questions I would love to ask, but with 20 minutes I had better stick to my local ones.

I wanted to flag ESL again. I believe that subject has come up in your estimates already. English as a second language is a big concern in the growth areas of the city and certainly in the area of Clayton Park. We have, I think, the highest proportion of new immigrants and new Canadians who have moved there, although a great number of them are moving to the new subdivisions along the Bedford Highway and falling into Bedford-Birch Cove.

I wanted to look at the supports that are there from the province, because my understanding is that dollar-wise it has been pretty fixed. We were looking at $250,000 in past years, so you can tell me how we're doing. Is it frozen, has it increased this year? The last figures I had was $250,000 coming from the Office of Immigration and $250,000 from the Department of Education. Could you tell me if that is where we are and if it is frozen?

MS. MORE: The honourable member is correct, $250,000 is provided from each of the departments, Education and Immigration. And, as has been referenced here earlier, about 80 per cent of the money goes to the Halifax Regional School Board because about 80 per cent of the ESL students are being educated in those schools. The amount has not increased recently. It is not a freeze as such, it is just a matter of trying to spread the amount of money available for public education over all the very necessary areas of interest.

MS. WHALEN: Well, I think it's interesting that there is some money. When I was first elected in 2003, I don't think there were any funds going from the province to the school boards. So, I'm glad that there has been a recognition, it sort of followed along with getting an Office of Immigration as well.

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But we have hundreds of students in the Clayton Park riding who require ESL assistance. Last year, when I checked at our high school, there were 80 students who were not able to function at a level where they could go into the classroom, 80 is a large number who required special services and ESL, and there are very few teachers you can hire in the whole board for $250,000 - or 80 per cent of $500,000 I guess, I know that the schools are under a lot of stress trying to provide the services.

At Park West School, where, again, there - and I don't have the exact numbers but - there are literally dozens and dozens of students who move in there, primarily from the Middle East right now, but they're coming from Korea, a lot of from the Middle Eastern countries, and from China, and whereever we see our immigration going, many of the members would know where those countries are. What's happening is those children really need that extra help to be able to integrate and it is particularly difficult with the higher grades because the work they're expected to be able to understand in the classroom is more difficult.

[5:45 p.m.]

My appeal is to urge the minister to look at more, because the students, just to reference it anecdotally at Park West School, were getting two one-on-one periods a week with an ESL teacher and that is only 45 minutes, twice a week, out of their entire school time with an ESL teacher. The rest of the time they're back in the classroom struggling to learn and pick up what they can in the classroom. So it's really difficult. Park West is a Primary to Grade 9 school, a very big school and a very multicultural school, so I hope you will come visit some time. But if it is only two 45 minute periods a week, you can see that the 1.5 teachers they have there just can't do it.

MS. MORE: Thank you Mr. Chairman, I recognize the honorable member's interest in this issue and realize it has a tremendous impact on many of the residents and students in her constituency's schools. I do want to remind the honorable member that each of those students is also part of the funded enrolment for that school board so the school board would be receiving about $9,700 per student in addition to the ESL additional funding that is provided. While it may not be sufficient to provide every support and service available, it certainly should provide more than just the basics. I also want to remind the member that there are a number of international students in various school boards and they're recruited separately. The support services for the international students would come out of their tuition fees that they pay directly to the school board. We have to be careful to separate the genuine ESL from the international student category.

I also want to mention that I think helping students to adapt to a new country and adapt to a second language can be a shared responsibility as well. I know that a lot of community organizations have an interest in helping out, certainly MISA and some of the other immigrant associations do a tremendous job of providing additional instruction and fun

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activities for children and youth as they're going through that transition period. It is an important issue and I thank the honourable member for raising it.

MS. WHALEN: I appreciate that and I agree there is per student funding and I was just going to mention, it's my understanding HRSB gets a lot less in the way of per student funding, $7,235 was the figure that was given on a per student basis in HRM. I think you quoted me the average for the province, I think, so, I thought we are less. Again, I just point it out that it's a tremendous advantage to our community to have the international addition to the multicultural flavour and the ideas that are bought in .

We just need to do more to help the students to function and to settle in because parents will leave and go to Ontario, or places that have much stronger supports for their families, if they don't have the support here, because most of them have come for their children in the first place. I'm going to leave that subject, having made my plug for more funding, I think it is really important and there are many, many children who need it.

I wanted to ask you about, Imagine Our Schools, my primary concern here is to really flag an issue in my area. The HRSB did the Imagine Our Schools program last year, which were consultants who came from Ontario and studied all the schools where there was declining enrolment, where there was increasing, and what the demands were, and I think it's working its way from their report through lists that ultimately come through to, I'd imagine, to your office. But I'm just a little impatient because it takes a long time for the school board list to become public and where their priorities are in terms of the physical buildings. That's what I'm really referring to, the buildings.

As the honourable member for Bedford-Birch Cove said, we are in growth areas where there are a lot of students, and Park West School was opened in 2000, and it was one of the last P3 schools opened. The Liberals had started that program of over 30 schools and I make no apologies for it. I see a look from one of my neighbours here but I'm not sure that you had any problem with it. I think it was a wonderful thing that we were able to build schools at a time when there was not enough money. I've heard the minister talk about the fact that, once again, we're in a period of time where money is tight and that was a mechanism to fund schools. It certainly has provided for our neighbourhood, otherwise, if that school had not been built, I can promise you, the area would have been built up with houses and there would have been no space for a school.

Anyway, when it was opened, they were stretching it and made it P to Grade 9 because we didn't have the students in place. That's something that the minister might want to look at when you look at the requirements for a new schools, because they want the students to be in the neighbourhood before a school is planned and built. There is never any anticipation of a growth in a neighbourhood. So what happened was, they built the school and we needed it, but they built the school, and stretched the grade level that it covered,

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because really, in fact, there weren't enough in the P to Grade 6, so they made it P to Grade 9.

What has happened in the meantime, all the growth took place, and the school is now at 140 per cent capacity. It has to be one of the highest, if not the absolute highest, I should know, in all of HRM. But the figure given was 140 per cent of capacity. Of course, the junior high lost all of its specialist rooms, there is no Home Economics, no Technical Education, the music room, and so on, are all gone for classrooms. There are three portables on the site, even though there was some difficulty around it being a P3 school, but that has been worked out, the contracts can be changed, and we have three portables.

But the recommendation that the Imagine Our Schools team made, and I just wanted to make the minister aware of it, was that this would be a perfect location to add a modular addition to the school. The Nova Scotia Community College on Leeds Street, which the minister may have visited, actually has such an addition on the back of that older building, and they expanded it by - I think it's about 10,000 square feet - putting a modular addition which cost less than $1 million. It was about $0.5 million to add that extra square footage. There were quite a few companies - the one they used for the Leeds Street school was in Alberta and they're, as I say, a very economical way rather than having separate portables, which I believe cost about $75,000 a year to get in place, or I think that's the cost I was given for Park West.

So I'm putting a plug with the minister that we look at the priorities and maybe using different building technologies in order to meet expanding needs like the one at Park West School, rather than looking at full additions to the school, which I believe would take years and years to approve, design, and get built, and would disrupt the student body a lot more. If we could get, I guess, a position from the Department of Education that you like those ideas - they can be long-term, they can be put on, some buildings have had them on for 20-plus years, but when you don't need them anymore, you can close them off again.

What they do is they provide a common corridor to attach to the building. The same air and heat circulates through the whole building and the modular addition and, as I say, when you don't need it, you can remove it. So I think it has tremendous advantages, and I'm putting a plug in today so that the minister will be aware of that when indeed that list finally works its way through to your desk or to your department. I'm assuming you have not yet heard of any of these recommendations, but maybe you could just speak to that briefly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would just remind the members that we're about four minutes away from the moment of interruption.

The honourable Minister of Education.

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MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the number of points that the honourable member has made. I'm certainly interested in other cost-effective ways of expanding the academic use of school facilities. So that's something we're certainly aware - I believe there are six packs, as they're sometimes called, in other parts of the province. So it's not an unknown concept to the department, it's just new to me as the new minister. I believe the portables have sort of a one-time cost except for the operating expenses of about $75,000, and then once they're purchased, they're placed on site.

I want to go back to your opening statement about the Imagine Our Schools process. I was very involved with Phase I of that process, because it impacted on the schools in the Dartmouth area. At the time I was very interested to hear what people were saying and to see how it was delivered. So I attended, I think, all but one of the meetings on the Dartmouth side of the harbour and found it very fascinating, both in terms of how it was structured but also in terms of the comments and input from the parents, the school advisory council members, and from politicians - I would suggest from all levels of government. Certainly it's an attempt by the Halifax Regional School Board to rationalize its space requirements so that they can ensure to both the electorate that they represent and to the Department of Education and the electorate, whose tax dollars we're accountable for, that the money is being spent in the most effective way possible.

It's interesting in the metro area - and certainly as a former councillor, I know the honourable member is very familiar with sort of the visioning and restructuring of the planning process that has happened in HRM - I think what's not a surprise to anyone is the fact that there is so much physical infrastructure available in HRM that developers and new homeowners have to be encouraged to move to where the infrastructure is. Otherwise, we're spending a lot of taxpayers' dollars on building, you know, new buildings, new streets, new sewers, new waterlines, new everything, and somehow, when money is especially tight, as it is now, we have to better match the need for expanded residential areas with the current infrastructure that we have so we're able to go in and fix and upgrade the old infrastructure.

So I'm just - getting back to the Imagine Our Schools process, this is one way that the school board is attempting to make sure that the educational dollars they have are being put to the best use and supporting children in their communities. I know the honourable member and many others on the other side who represent constituencies within HRM are probably even better informed on these issues than I am because of their municipal experience.

It's a balancing act, and sometimes you have to ask a philosophical question. If people choose to move to an area, do they necessarily immediately get all the new - do we meet the standards that they would have had if they lived in an older, more structured area that had the benefits of that infrastructure? I know I have some expanding areas in my own constituency, and people immediately, as soon as they move in, want to have the same

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standard of service. It's difficult to explain that sometimes you have to wait for the infrastructure to grow to meet their needs.

Certainly in some areas of the Halifax Regional School Board, a boundary review has redistributed some of the . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We've reached the moment of interruption. We will recess the Estimates of the Department of Education until 6:30 p.m.

[5:58 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[6:32 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Committee of the Whole House on Supply is called to order.

The honourable member for Bedford-Birch Cove. You have approximately seven minutes left.

MS. KELLY REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to clarify some remarks that we had yesterday around EPAs. Could you just clarify for me - I think you indicated that there were some boards that had indicated they thought they were overstaffed in the EPA area, and I was wondering if you could identify what boards those are for me, and also, within the money that you're transferring to each board, do you in fact send a certain amount for EPAs and educational assistants, or is it just sort of a lump sum?

HON. MARILYN MORE: Mr. Chairman, yes, in our earlier discussion about the teaching assistant support levels, I mentioned that the province invests about $125 million for special education. This would fund one TA for every 104 students, on average. Now, most of the boards choose to put additional money into teacher assistants, so often their ratios are much lower than the provincial average.

MS. REGAN: Yesterday, Mr. Chairman, I believe the minister indicated that there were some boards that thought they were overstaffed by EPAs - if you could please identify which ones those were?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, we don't have that breakdown here, but we can certainly make that information available. I wouldn't characterize it as overstaffing. I mean, boards know their student populations best, and so they allocate staffing resources according to their budgets and also according to the needs of particular schools, classes, and students. They have that flexibility within their core budget with the additional special education funding to make those local decisions.

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MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to be certain to point out that I was not the person who initially used the term "overstaffed." It was something that the minister said, so I just want to make sure that no one thinks that I think we're overstaffed for EPAs. I do believe that I did ask for a breakdown on what was spent per board on EPAs the other day, and I thought you had a chart that we asked to have tabled. Now, I could be wrong on that, but is there such a thing and, if so, could we have it tabled?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, that information was requested by the honourable member, and we are checking with each of the school boards to get that information and compiling that list. So as soon as it is available, we will table it in the committee.

MS. REGAN: Now I would like to move on to post-secondary education, and my first item is the memorandum of understanding. I would just like to have the minister explain why your government decided to prepay universities for the 2010-11 fiscal year?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I just want to clarify the question. Are you asking why the third year of the MOU was paid out early or are you asking about specific amounts?

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I'm asking why it was paid out early.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, it's interesting. When I met with some of the university presidents and also with the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents - CONSUP - there was actually some concern expressed about whether or not the new government would honour the commitment, the third-year commitment of the MOU.

Certainly one of the factors being considered, I think, in paying it out early was to relieve that anxiety, to ensure that that funding was in place, as well as making sure that there was protected university funding in each year of the budget. We also bought out the third year because we want to get back to making sure that budget decisions for that year, as much as possible, are included in that year's budget. That's not to say there couldn't be MOUs on other agreements or criteria or goals for the future or whatever, but we're saying that the financial commitments are most properly placed in the year of that budget.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cumberland South.

HON. MURRAY SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would begin by thanking the minister and her staff for the opportunity to ask some questions on behalf of my constituency, Cumberland South. I think the minister would agree that there have been a lot of challenges within education province-wide, and I think when you look at rural areas in this province, a lot of the challenges are more difficult to attempt to resolve - just the mere fact of distance, geography, terrain, the roads, the weather.

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I know that in my area there have been some real challenges particularly in regard to the smaller schools, with the declining numbers and the boards trying to balance their budgets versus the number of students and providing service and programs as determined by the province, the Department of Education. It is a huge challenge, and I appreciate that. I do want to begin by commending the Department of Education for it, because I will say that any time I have requests on behalf of my area, the schools and the people I represent, I usually get a very quick response, and I do appreciate that.

I just want to begin by asking the minister, one of the issues - and it seems every year it's an issue, but this past year the board at the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board - I think for the last two years they put additional money for EAs or TAs or whichever they're being called today. I've heard different acronyms being used, but in my area they're known as EAs. My understanding - I spoke to the superintendent, there was a huge issue in my area. I met with parents from my own community of Springhill, from Oxford, from Amherst, and they were very concerned, as the start of the school year approached, with the number of EAs that were going to be displaced. I think originally the number was 60-plus that Chignecto-Central would not be calling back, and I believe at the end of the day the number was 30-plus, and I think those were the correct numbers.

But I was also told in my discussions with the board and with the parents that they were told that, as a result of negotiations and a contract that was signed, EAs would be getting more hours, and I guess that meant more salary, which had an impact on the board's ability to hire EAs to cover all of the needs, I guess, across the board's jurisdiction.

I'm just wondering if the minister could explain to me, particularly in Chignecto-Central, if she is aware of the number of EAs that had actually been displaced this year, if in fact there are any? How did the board determine where there was a need for EAs? Because what I was told was that the board would basically guarantee that where there was a need for a child to have an EA or a teacher in the classroom, that EA would be there.

Now, my wife just retired after 30-plus years of teaching, and I watched, over the years, the changes in the classroom, the additional pressures put on teachers in regard to their responsibilities. I don't think it would take any convincing for the minister to realize and understand, and I guess appreciate and also agree with, the fact that as you put more responsibility on the teachers, it does require additional resources in the classroom. Again, I've watched that over the years, and I think that from the parents' perspective it's crucial that those resources are in place. From the teachers' perspective it certainly is. For the other children in the classroom, especially, I think it is as well, that additional resources are required in the classroom.

So I'm really curious as to how it's determined whether a classroom would actually have an EA present to provide those services to the teacher, how it's determined through the board from the Department of Education, if there are criteria province-wide or is it left to the

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board, and again, the funding. I'm really interested to hear, as well, how the dollars are divided to the board, and why the board then would be expected to take money out of their operating budget that maybe was intended for some other purpose or program - why they would then be expected to use it for EAs?

MS. MORE: I thank the honourable member for his question. I had the opportunity to discuss this very issue with his school board when I did my tour around the province to meet with each board. Certainly, the board was concerned as well. But there are so many different aspects to this, so if you can be patient, I'll try to give you a couple of different perspectives.

The provincial Department of Education contributes about $125 million to special education across the province. Some of that goes toward paying the wages of the teacher assistants. Many boards have chosen to take some of their per pupil enrolment funding and also add that to their special education costs. So back in 2002, there was a Special Education Implementation Review Committee, and they made a recommendation of one teacher assistant for approximately every 104 students, so that's the level of teaching assistants that is generally provided in the funding across all the boards in the province.

[6:45 p.m.]

Now, as I said, the boards have a lot of flexibility in reallocating the money, the funding that they get for various levels of staff. So in your board, for example, in 2008-09, there were 381 full-time equivalent teacher assistants at five hours a day, as the honourable member realizes and referenced earlier. So that created a total number of hours available as a teacher assistant for 1,905 hours. In this year's budget, there are 34 fewer TAs and there are 347 full-time equivalent teacher assistants at 5.5 hours a day, and that creates a total of 1,910 hours. So it actually increases the number of hours slightly, but it is fewer people paid over a longer period of time.

I think some of the early apprehension arose when there were, I think, three public information meetings held throughout the board area, and this was during the summer when the TA assignments had not been decided, and I don't think all of the TAs who were going to be rehired - you may realize that they're only hired for 10 months of the year, so everyone is laid off in June and the number who need to be rehired to fill those positions are rehired for September. So in the summer these meetings were held and there was a lot of publicity in the paper, a lot of word-of-mouth discussion in various communities. A number of parents contacted both the department and their school board members and the school board, expressing concern about the loss of TAs.

We have to keep in mind, as well, that every board is going through a period of declining enrolment. So boards are constantly adjusting their numbers to match the number

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of students that they actually have in classrooms and the number of schools that they have. So the fact that they're readjusting numbers is quite a common occurrence.

I know, certainly, the parents who contacted the department and who I spoke to, I encouraged them to wait until September and see what actually materialized for their particular son or daughter or ward, if they were a guardian. I also encouraged the MLAs in the areas to refer those cases to the school board, which in most situations they did. Many of the concerns never materialized. The TAs were in place in the school and life went on and the families were quite satisfied. There were a few situations where there was some impact, some change, and by working with their school board member and through school board officials they were able to reconcile the family's perception of what the student needed with the school board's analysis of where those TAs could be placed. As far as I understand, most of the situations were worked out to the mutual satisfaction of the families and the school board.

MR. SCOTT: I thank the minister for that, and I do appreciate it, and I know that there were many at first and I think those numbers - once the school year started, some of the problems were probably addressed. So if boards are taking dollars that were allocated to them for other services and reallocating for EAs, do you not think that may be jeopardizing some other programming that that money was allocated to them for in the first place?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, obviously, they're taking it from another potential use, but that ratio was the recommendation of the Special Education Implementation Review Committee and that seemed to be the best guideline for the provincial Department of Education of the government to use in funding that particular resource.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, the report recommended a number for how many? Was it 104 or 140? (Interruption) It was 104 to 1. So if there was a particular area of the province that had - if it averaged out that it was actually 3 out of the 104 - I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that I'm also hearing about some teaching positions that have been removed, as well, and I'm wondering if that is as a result of the board having to take some of their monies and putting it in for EAs, or for special needs children, and actually having to displace some classroom teachers.

The money has to come from somewhere and I think probably 80 to 85 per cent of most departments' budget are salaries. So that money that is being used for additional - if a formula doesn't work in a particular area, and the board is forced to take money from their own budget to put in to make that up, the money has got to come from somewhere. I'm just wondering if it is coming from classroom teachers who are being displaced as a result?

MS. MORE: As the honourable member probably realizes, because quite frankly, the Education budget is basically the budget that was presented by his Party when you were in

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government. I think there are $29 million extra this year for funding the school boards, for public education. Of course choices have to be made.

I remember 30 years ago when I was on the Dartmouth School Board, we had a certain envelope of money and we had to decide what the community's priorities were, and the school system's priorities, and try to match it up as best we could. Quite frankly, I don't know of any education system in the world that would claim it had sufficient money to meet all of the needs of the students they're trying to educate. So it's always checks and balances. We do the best we can with the revenue available to the province at this time.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I thank the minister for the answer. Would the minister then agree that - and I'll use my own area, Chignecto-Central Regional School Board jurisdiction - that a child, who was in a regular classroom, who requires special assistance or requires a resource person or a requires an EA, who meets the criteria, that child will have, in fact, that person in the classroom with him?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, that certainly would be an assessment done by the school boards. I just want to remind the honourable member that most of the TAs are in place to help meet the medical, personal-care needs of individual students, or if there are supports necessary for safety or behavior management. In some cases the TAs may appear to be assigned directly to a student but in many cases they serve the needs of several students in a class and are more of a support to the teacher in terms of enhancing the educational opportunities within that class and helping with classroom management, and that kind of thing.

But that's one of the reasons that we have another elected form of government in this province, the elected school boards, is that they do have the mandate and the authority to make those decisions. So we certainly give them, as you well know, as much money as we can and they make the choices and the decisions on how that's spent, for the most part, within their region.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I don't disagree with the minister but you're the Minister of Education and the boards may be mandated to deliver programs that are determined by the Department of Education to be delivered province-wide. My question is, do you, as the minister, agree that if a child in Nova Scotia has special needs and they are in a classroom and they meet the criteria as had been determined by the board, by their professional people, that child needs an EA, needs help, the teacher does and the other students in the classroom do, do you agree that resource has to be there?

MS. MORE: As I'm sure the honourable member appreciates, each board has professional staff who do assessments on the special needs of students in their system. Based on that assessment, they assign the appropriate staff. Now, certainly, what you might think is fair and expected might be different from what the family feels or the professionals. I don't

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micro-manage the school boards and we try to make as much money available to provide a variety of supports within the classroom to enhance their ability to learn and benefit from that situation.

My impression is, there is no entitlement or right of special education students to a certain specific service or program. The boards manage as best as they can and they have the experience and the knowledge of the local situation. They usually have a lot of expertise and understanding of the particular family and child, so they're best able to match the available resources to that particular situation.

MR. SCOTT: I thank the minister for not answering that, because clearly, it's not what I think or what the family wants. What I asked was, if the board determines through their professional people that a child in the classroom needs a resource person, does the minister agree that they should have it? It's not what I think or what the parents think, I agree, it's what the child needs. If those professional people say that child needs a resource, I'm asking the minister, does the minister agree that resource should be there for that child?

MS. MORE: While I appreciate, I think, what the honourable member is trying to do here, just as you're suggesting that it's not your opinion and it's not the family or whatever, I don't have expertise as the Minister of Education in deciding what are the best services and programs available for children with special needs in the school system. So, enough money is provided to the school boards to provide a basic level of supports. I'm sorry, but that's as far as I can go. I'm not going to be in a position of judging decisions made by school boards nor micro-managing. So, if you have a particular situation you would like to bring to our attention, then we certainly would be prepared to review it and take a look in conjunction, and co-operation, with the school boards.

MR. SCOTT: To make it clear, I wasn't talking about a specific case. I have some cases that I can and will bring them to you, and I'll ask your department to look at them, but I was just asking generally - I don't know what Minister of Education wouldn't agree with what I just asked. I asked if professional people determined - and if the minister here doesn't know, I don't know who in Nova Scotia would know - I think any ordinary thinking person would say that if a child needs help, they probably should have it.

That's okay, we'll move on. I will tell you that EAs are very important in my area. People are very concerned about their children getting the proper resource help in classrooms. I've had parents come to me and they're very concerned about what they perceive as their children not receiving the additional resource they need. I will come back to the minister, if the minister is on for another few hours, another day, maybe we'll have a chance to come back with some names.

Just to move on, one simple question, is early childhood intervention under the Department of Education?

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[7:00 p.m.]

MS. MORE: The Department of Education is not involved in early intervention except there is a pilot project going on with the Strait board and it's called the EDI project. It's an early childhood assessment strategy, trying to assess children before they start school I would suspect that most of the early intervention initiatives are undertaken by either the Department of Community Services or possibly in partnership with the Department of Health. Thank you.

MR. SCOTT: I was just going to mention that there's an Early Childhood Intervention Program in Cumberland County. I met with them and they're very concerned with regard to children with special needs who are pre-school now and they are concerned, as well, with what's going to happen in the future with regard to EAs in classrooms. I'm sure it's an issue province-wide, but it is something that I've heard a lot about, particularly over the summer for some reason, in my own area. I know those parents are very interested to hear what you, as the minister, have planned for the future, for the boards, with regard to resources and what funding they can expect, particularly for those who will be coming into the public school system looking for additional resources.

I'm going to share some of my time with the honourable member for Hants West. I just have a few more short questions. These are around buildings, which I know the deputy's well aware of. First, I want to mention the Springhill High School project. It was announced, I guess, five or six years ago. At that time it was $3.65 million. It was put off and construction has just begun this year. The community is very excited about that renovation that's currently underway.

The previous minister, the previous government committed to increase that $3.65 million to $7 million, it has been announced. The first phase is completed and we're looking at another portion of that phase, hopefully this winter. They're trying to do the work while the children continue to use the building and trying to do some of the work on the weekends and evenings, which is great. We have a steering committee that's in place and they're very appreciative of the work being done there.

I'm wondering if you can tell me what future plans your department has with regard to Springhill High School, the renovation that's underway now, and what we can expect as far as timelines when that may be completed.

MS. MORE: It's an exciting project and I can understand the honourable member's interest in it. The information that I'm provided is that we did move $300,000 from next year into this year to make a strong start. That gives a total of $2.6 million for this year. Then there will be $1.7 million invested in 2010-11, $2.2 million invested in 2011-12 and $700,000 to finish off in 2012-13.

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There certainly has been some interest in an additional $500,000. It's something we're considering, there seems to be some good rationale or arguments for that and we'll see what we can accommodate into the future.

MR. SCOTT: Thank you, minister, for that. I will say that yesterday morning I attended a school steering committee and your department was well represented. I want to say publicly, and I said to them yesterday, they've done a tremendous job here with regard to moving this project forward and they deserve a lot of credit. I told them that yesterday and it's a pleasure to work with these people, they're fantastic, professional people and they represent the department well.

As was said yesterday at the meeting, this is a project that has been a long time coming, but it's a project that's - even my understanding is and I don't understand the tendering process as well as your department folks would, but even the next part would not have to be tendered, that it's already included in the first tender. So they could actually, if there were additional dollars available, be expended this year before the end of the year, and it's ready to move now. Really I believe, if I understand right, that it wouldn't require a whole lot of work to make it happen, and if that becomes a reality that would be welcome news there as well in that community and at that school.

The other one is the Oxford High School, which - again, I'm very appreciative of the fact the project is well underway. I believe it's due to open - it's a new P to Grade 12 in Oxford. I believe it's due to open January 1, 2011? I'm just wondering if the minister would have any information in regard to that project, whether it's on time and if that's still the expected opening date?

MS. MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the honourable member for the question. We're anticipating spending almost $10.5 million this year, and we're hoping that it will open in December of this year. We've also included another $1.1 million for next year just to tidy up some special projects on that. So it's certainly well underway and we foresee it opening on time.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, again, thank you to the minister for the answer. I know that community looks forward to that opening date as well. I'm glad that it's on time and I believe on budget as well, I understood, which is great. Just two other quick things, minister. One is - and I think the deputy would be disappointed if I didn't bring it here - the River Hebert school.

River Hebert, Madam Minister, may not be an area you're aware of, but it's something that has been debated for years. There was an attempt on several occasions to move the children from that facility to an adjoining facility, in fact in Amherst, and it was very much opposed by myself and by the community. We were successful in keeping the

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children there where the community wants them, where they want to be educated in their own school.

An announcement was made earlier this year that $6 million would be spent to close the elementary and to renovate the high school into a P to Grade 12 - I believe removing a part of the older portion and renovating what was left into a P to Grade 12. Again, an announcement was made to the community, six communities, and they're very excited about that, to think finally they had some security in regard to the future of their children with their educational opportunities at home. So I'm hoping the minister can tell me today that that plan is still in place and that we can expect to see that happen soon?

MS. MORE: Yes, I do have good news for the honourable member. As he can appreciate, we're going to renovate the old high school, close the elementary school, and it's anticipated that it's going to open in 2012.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, thank you to the minister. So you're saying it will be completed, the P to Grade 12 would be renovated and completed and opened in 2012. So when would you expect the renovation to actually take place? One thing I would like to ask, just so we have it on the record - I don't believe there's any need in the community for a school review process, is there, if the community is supportive of it? I thought we sought a legal opinion - I thought if it was something the community wanted and it was in fact not going to remove the children from the community, that in fact closing the elementary and renovating the high school to a P to Grade 12 meant no children would be transferred in the community - there was a belief that you didn't have to go through the review process, and I'm wondering if the minister might be able to substantiate whether that's fact or not and maybe to tell me when you expect to start the renovation on that school?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, we've put in $300,000 for this year and $2.3 million for 2010-11.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could the honourable minister please repeat?

MS. MORE: We've put in $300,000 for this year, $2.3 million for 2010-11, $1 million for 2011-12, and $2.4 million for 2012-13. I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the issue he's talking about, the students. Perhaps it's some information I can get and get back to you on that.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, and again, thank you to the minister. I probably should quit while I'm ahead, but I just have one more question and then I'll let you go. There was an announcement as well, in regard to the elementary schools in Springhill, there has been some debate in Springhill about what the future for elementary children should be in Springhill, and there was an announcement earlier this year, the same time that River Hebert was announced, in regard to $4 million for renovations to Springhill Elementary. I'm just

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wondering if the minister can tell me if that's still the plan with the department and maybe what year that would be, because I do believe it's an out-year but I'm not sure. Minister, maybe you could just tell me if that's still a plan of the department to move forward with that?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, well, the projections are certainly well into the future but the information I have now is we're waiting for the board to decide which of the two buildings they're going to use and we're projecting $1 million for 2012-13, $1.5 million for 2013-14, $1.2 million for 2014-15 and finishing with $1.217 million in 2015-16. I know the timeline is quite extended but that's the way the capital construction list works. I don't foresee any problems with meeting that projection.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, thank you to the minister and her staff again for tonight. I appreciate your candidness in regard to the questions and the answers and if I understood correctly what you just said, I believe there will be an opportunity for public consultation because it is a few years away and I know that the board hasn't determined, no more than the Department of Education has determined, where that $4 million could be spent. So, hopefully, there will be some public consultation to help determine where that money is going to be spent but, again, on behalf of the people in my area, I just want to say thank you very much for your answers tonight, I appreciate it, and good luck with the rest.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Hants West. The honourable member has approximately 25 to 26 minutes left.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to get involved in the debate on the estimates on Education this evening. I have a number of questions and I want to thank my honourable colleague for sharing his time with me and thank the minister for being here and allowing us to go through this bit of a process, and to your staff as well. I know how much fun it is, and they enjoy it here, maybe some more than others.

I'm going to start with my middle school, West Hants Middle School, which you may or may not be familiar with, and I'm sure the deputy is not surprised by this being brought up this evening. This has been an ongoing issue for some months now. Back in the Spring of this year, and maybe even a little bit before Spring, there seemed to be some environmental issues, or some that were being raised, people having allergies, or some environmental concerns and illness, the teachers and staff alike, and a number of them were off at different times. A number of studies were done, and different work, and analysis and so on.

There have been a few meetings and recently, I'm going to say three weeks ago now perhaps, there was a meeting at the Brooklyn Elementary School where we had some professionals out to speak to the issues. It was a very well attended meeting, of course,

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parents were very concerned, as were the students, with the issue of West Hants Middle School.

I'm just wondering, minister, if you're familiar with this project, one, and I'm assuming that you are, and what is the current status, because I know all summer went by and there was a plan. They pulled out of there a little bit early and I know this first-hand because my daughter goes there and she's now in Windsor but, anyway, they pulled out of there a bit early, in June, with a plan to renovate and things would be expedited. With no one there it would be easier than trying to renovate a piece, block it off and so on. That all makes sense. I don't think anybody is arguing that, but all summer goes by, and there's absolutely no activity going on at the West Hants Middle School. People are asking questions and wondering what exactly is the current status of this project and I'm wondering if you can just update us this evening on the status of this.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the honourable member's interest in the situation and I'm pleased to be able to say that was actually the very first school I visited once I became Minister of Education. I had a very interesting and extensive tour of the building, along with the principal and the superintendent of schools. I was accompanied by the deputy.

[7:15 p.m.]

I was very impressed with the renovations that had already taken place and some of the unique features of that educational facility. When it's finished, it's going to be a gem in terms of schools, especially for the middle school level.

One of the reasons there was a delay - I wanted to be sure that the illnesses reported by staff and students that were raising such a concern in the community - I wanted to assure myself that it wasn't a sick building and that we weren't just investing a lot of money into something that was never going to be a healthy building. We had a lot of expert advice and I am satisfied now that any problems were the result of the - I forget what they called it, but the cleaning up after the ongoing construction that was happening at relatively the same time that school was in.

Now those students are on split shifts with Avon View and while I realize that may be an awkward situation, I understand that the transition went extremely well and that both staffs are being very co-operative and students and families are coping extremely well and realize the reward for all of this is going to be a wonderfully new renovated building in their community.

I want to assure the honourable member that we're moving ahead, we've invested $5.365 million this year, another $500,000 in 2010-11. We realize there may have to be a little bit of additional money and we're going to look at various ways of how that might be

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provided. But it's a well-constructed, excellent building, it just needs to be upgraded with the new renovations. I think it will certainly be something the community and students can be very proud of. Thank you.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, minister, for that answer. I know that school well, I spent a few years there myself and it is a great building. The work, much needed, no question about that. It was a great commitment made to that school a number of years ago and unfortunately it has taken a very long time to be completed.

I'll come back to the Avon View split shift in a few minutes, but I want to ask another question about the West Hants Middle School and the commitment there financially, that's great, it's good to see this getting done and moving on. In your opinion, minister, from what you understand, do you see students back in that school this school year?

MS. MORE: Certainly the early indication - we were trying for December, but it looks more realistically that it's going to be March, next March. Thank you.

MR. PORTER: So in saying next March, minister, even that, you hear all different kinds of takes on this - is that realistic? Next March? The only reason I'm asking you that, you spoke to it a few minutes ago by way of commitments in 2009-10 and then 2010-11. So this is going to go on for awhile before every dollar is going to be spent to complete the renovation. If it were the end of March, and maybe it will and maybe it won't be, we'll see, but have you a guarantee from the contractor they're going to be finished there in March? I know that's a difficult question, but I am curious, given that date, if you have somewhat of a guarantee that's the case. I'll let you answer that one first.

MS. MORE: These are some of the questions that the board is looking into. If they have a more accurate projection, they'll get back to us. As you can appreciate, when you renovate an old building so significantly, you run into unexpected situations, and any contractor is going to say that they can't commit to a certain date because they don't know what they're going to find. Also, as part of the larger project, they're going to be looking at the septic field and that kind of work usually needs to be done over the summertime.

So there are some intangibles that we just can't confirm at this stage, but because of the problems before about the initial renovations going on at the same time the students were in, I'm sure the board is trying to err on the side of getting as much of the construction renovations done without the students in the building to prevent some of those sensitivities being triggered again.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I didn't think that you would have a yes or a no to a commitment on a date, it's just generally pretty hard to say how much longer that will take, and it has been a slow process. You mentioned the septic field there. There are issues, or seem to be issues, there with that and I would see this taking some time to complete. If it

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were say March, April, May, somewhere along there completed, would we actually take the time to move the students back in for the completion of the school year?

This was a question that was raised at this meeting where the experts were there and, of course, they didn't know what that would be, that would be a board decision, but interested in what the discussion has been with the board and whether we would move, something that will be probably fairly well oiled by the time March gets here if we continue at this pace, with the split shift and students into a routine, some in their Grade 9 year, and things like that, well, regardless of what year, they are coming on to the latter part of the year, they're now in a routine and they're looking toward completion or whatever, and they need exams, et cetera.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, certainly those are decisions that will be made by the board but I know there was some interest in having next year's graduating class graduate from their own stage and I think everyone is mindful of that, but at the same time we need to finish as much work as possible before the students move back into the building. So the board will balance out all those pressures, concerns and needs and I'm sure they'll give me the best advice possible. They'll move the students in when it's in their best interest. I understand the honourable member's concern but I can't project what's going to happen because there are so many unknowns.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I'll leave West Hants Middle School. I appreciate your time on that and your answers on that as well. Hopefully, that will move along as smoothly as possible and we would certainly like to see that project completed. March would be great, if we could do it by then. Some people are still of the belief that we'll be back in there in January, but given that there's not a whole lot happening, I can't see that, to be perfectly honest, and certainly with no commitment from a contractor because, as you say, it's fair, they don't know what they're going to run into in a building that old and I know that there are a number of things they're finding as they move along in that construction and the different phases.

I want to talk a little bit about some other schools that I have there. Hantsport had an announcement, the Hantsport school, I forget the exact date, but back in the early Spring, of a commitment from the previous government - a couple of million dollars or more toward renovation. This school is in rough shape. It's probably a school that's in the roughest shape and I'm not sure, minister, if you've visited that school or not, but there's much work that does need to be done in this school, like many others, and I appreciate that as well, but a financial commitment has been made to that school and I'm wondering about the current status of that commitment, whether the new government plans on keeping those commitments that were made or have some changes in mind.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, certainly we intend to keep that commitment and as the honourable member has suggested, it's projected some time out, we're looking at about

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$350,000 being spent in 2011-12 and $2.6 million the next year in 1213. So roughly about $3 million will be allocated to that school for the renovation.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, minister, for that update. Also, along with that was the Three Mile Plains District School which an announcement was made with regard to a new gym. Now, that was a couple of years out, I believe, but again I would like you to speak to that and the years that we're looking at if this commitment will still be honoured. Those questions, of course, have been asked since the changes in June and I certainly assured others that I would raise them here in this House with the minister so I would like your thoughts or your comments on the commitment to Three Mile Plains District School as well.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, yes, the Three Mile Plains District School is much further out in terms of capital expenditure projections. We're looking at approximately $4.6 million and it would be in the years 2014-15 and 2015-16, but it's very much a part of the alterations and additions list.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, now I want to come back to Avon View School - a beautiful school. A few questions with regard to the Avon View School and the split shifting. I just can't recall your words a few minutes ago, comfort maybe, or everybody is falling into some routine. I don't think that people are quite as happy in a number of ways. I know I hear from a lot of parents. I know they're calling the board, they're calling me, and we're trying to do our best. Basically my answer back to them has been at least we have a place to go and our children are getting an education. That is very important and they understand that, but they're not happy, I can tell you, and it's not the first time.

The deputy may recall a number of years back, we've had a split shift in our area before and we worked through it, and let's hope we don't have it again, but we tend to work through these challenges. This is a bit of a challenge and we're five weeks or so maybe in now, roughly, and I'm just curious, are you getting a regular update on how processes are working here or have you been briefed on this situation? I'm assuming someone in the department has and maybe there isn't a need to brief the minister, perhaps the deputy has been briefed regularly, but I would like to know the status and how regular those updates are - if there are any?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, certainly the deputy minister has had the most recent contact and I believe perhaps a week ago he met with the superintendent and director and they talked about some of the additional cost pressures that the double shift was creating for the board. I met with the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board a few weeks ago and I have to say that when this issue was raised, I seemed to be getting very positive feedback. I mean everyone agrees that there's a huge adjustment to be made by everyone because of the circumstances but I certainly got the impression from the school board members, not that things were necessarily going really smoothly but that the adjustments were being made and

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any difficulties were being worked through and that everyone realized that the end result was going to benefit everyone in that region. There just seemed to be a lot of goodwill and co-operation. So while I can empathize with, you know, probably not so minor inconveniences that staff, students and families are experiencing, I think the end result is going to perhaps be worth the pain and I just would encourage everyone to be as patient as possible and to work together to ensure that the renovations go forward.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, our board has done an exceptional job I think so far in dealing with this. I know Principal Landry has been exceptional in offering tours to students and families to get them orientated on a regular basis, and his vice-principals, and all staff at the Avon View School, as well as those who work at the middle school level, they've been absolutely fantastic and the board has been very good as well. Margo Tait has done a fine job I think of keeping folks up-to-date at these meetings although I think it's fair to say some really weren't thrilled with her answers, but she has in fact been keeping them up-to-date along with some of the experts that she has brought in to do the tests. Dr. Watson-Creed was out to the meeting I was at that evening and was very, very well informed. The people who were there certainly knew what she was talking about. People seemed to have a comfort level with that. It's probably fair to say there were few in that last meeting who left there feeling as though they weren't informed or didn't know what to expect in the weeks and months ahead.

[7:30 p.m.]

One of the biggest issues though, probably the most calls I've had, probably most members take calls, but this is specific to the hours with regard to the split shift. Of course you have the early morning bus and you have the later evening bus. Now that Fall is upon us and winter soon to be here, the daylight hours are much shorter. The safety concern of students who are making their way to and from the bus stops is becoming a bit of an issue now. Some are walking a fair distance, and we'll get into that policy in a little while, but is there any plan to do anything extra for the safety of students?

I know in the rural areas there are no sidewalks or lighting, they're walking on some routes like 215 and Highway 1 and Highway 14 et cetera, out there in the rural areas - heavy traffic areas, speed limits are 70 and 80 in certain areas. We've had that looked at as well for potential changes. There are always policies that say no, we can't do this or we can't do that.

There are probably two questions here - what are we doing to enhance safety during the hours of darkness, and it will be, soon, on both ends? Some of these children are younger, getting on in the mornings, Grade 7s just coming out of elementary school and moving up, and this is just one more challenge for them really. It's a big step from Grade 6 to Grade 7, going into the middle school, high school levels. That creates its own challenges, as we probably all remember back, but to have this now to deal with, the early hours, is one thing.

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I think they will adjust over time, but that daylight-darkness issue is certainly something at the forefront of the parents' minds.

Even the older kids, they're concerned with that because they are walking on these highways and I'm wondering about your thoughts on that, and I'll have a little bit more question-wise, but I'll give you the opportunity for now to speak to that part.

MS. MORE: I certainly appreciate the honourable member's concern about student safety. I guess the best response I could make is to suggest he get in touch directly with the school board and relay his concerns, and those of the parents in that area, because those are decisions that are being made by the school board. They can ask for advice and support from the department, but they're the closest decision makers to that specific situation. I would encourage him to speak personally to school board officials, but also recommend that parents express their concerns.

We do want to ensure the safety. When you're in split shifts you're going to have earlier and later bus routes and that school board is trying to accommodate two separate systems, doubling up. There obviously will be challenges so I think the school board would be the best level to work through some of those. Thank you.

MR. PORTER: I appreciate that, minister. We meet, in the Valley, I'm not sure what other areas do, but I know the members who represent the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board meet a couple of times annually to discuss a number of issues. This will probably be similar to other issues, where is the money going to come from? It will take money to enhance safety levels during certain times of the year. This year, mostly, it's not an issue generally speaking, but this year for our area, in the Avon View High School split shift example, I would see there being some kind of controls in place to ensure that safety.

I don't know what those are. Perhaps it's people out there watching at stops or some kind of enforcement there, but there needs to be some discussion, we need to be able to go back to parents with some sort of answer other than just call the school board. I don't think the parents who are concerned are getting their answers at the board and I think they expect a higher level, in all honesty, to make those decisions. Generally, once they've talked to me, they've probably already talked to their board rep, and because they haven't got the answer, or the satisfaction that they want there, they take it to the next step.

In over three years now, since I've been the member for Hants West, I get many calls in May and many calls in the Fall, just as school is ending, and just as it is coming back in, with regard to school bus stop issues. This just is enhanced with the changes and the scheduling and I appreciate, as do they - but the time travel, you know, it's late in the day, the darkness, there's a number of things there.

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So it's fine to go back to the board, but at the end of the day there's going to be a cost associated if you're really going to get out there and manage this for the year. I think to try to enhance whatever we're going to do for safety - whether that's people at stops, like crosswalk folks that we used to have and still have in some areas - throughout just the course of this year over the long winter days and months without a lot of daylight, and managing that to help these kids safely to and fro. I know that there's a responsibility issue once they get off the bus - whose responsibility once they're home and things like that, but I see that's going to be an ongoing issue this year, and I had another call as late as this afternoon. It was, you know, my kid has to walk a kilometre, it's going to be dark, and we're concerned about his safety. I'll allow you to comment on that, sure, go ahead.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention that when I referenced earlier the fact that the deputy minister had already been discussing some of these issues, it did include some discussion about additional transportation costs. I have to say that one of the - I don't know why I was surprised, but when I did the tour going around the province over a couple of months, meeting the various school boards, I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how supportive the school boards were in terms of recognizing that the deputy minister and senior officials at the department were always - you know, basically had an open-door policy in terms of boards going to them when they had unique or unusual or extraordinary things happen and asking the department to consider these additional costs.

I'm not saying that the money is there, but certainly the board knows that this is a very unusual circumstance. They've already started the discussion with the department through the deputy minister, and I'm sure that over time it will be resolved. So, you know, obviously it would be an over-expenditure, but students' safety is important not only to the parents, the students, and the school board, but also to the Department of Education. This is an unusual circumstance, so I would just encourage the honourable member to relay those concerns to the board, and they in time will be relayed to the department and we'll see what we can do.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, certainly I would agree that the department has been very helpful over at least my years, and I'm sure many years before that, to all members who have had issues around things like safety and such - have been responded to very quickly and certainly efficiently. I think if the parents understand that the Department of Education is doing everything they can, and they understand too that they work within a certain budget, and there's only so much money in that bucket and there are many things to cover, and they understand and appreciate that - but as I'm sure you can appreciate, minister, when it comes to one of their own children walking up the street, it always seems to be enhanced that much more, and I can certainly appreciate that. I know that in a Utopian world that every child would be let off as well at their own doorstep and that would be great too, but we know that that's not a reality.

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I want to get into - how much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman? I think that I may be getting close to my time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time is up.

MR. PORTER: My time is up, thank you very much. I'll come back a little bit later and look forward to some more questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Bedford-Birch Cove.

MS. KELLY REGAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Minister, the Minister of Finance has said the Tories' prepayment to the universities for the 2009-10 fiscal year left a situation that was "complex and confusing" - a justification this government is now using to do the same thing and prepay the 2010-11 sum to the universities this year. Can you please explain the complexities behind this decision?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I will attempt to answer the honourable member's question, keeping in mind that the decision to do the prepay was made as part of the budget preparation by the Department of Finance. Quite frankly, the Department of Education is only too delighted to get that money and be able to relieve the universities of their anxiety about whether or not they were actually going to get paid the third year of the Memorandum of Understanding, so it's good news for the Department of Education.

As I indicated earlier, this prepay does have some advantages for the universities. It's going to give them a little bit more flexibility, and quite frankly they and the department are delighted. They think this is a good news story. I'm not sure exactly what details the honourable member is looking for, and if she could be a little more specific, I will either answer the question or attempt to get the information from the Department of Finance. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I don't understand what is so "complex and confusing" about this payment. To me, it's very simple; it's just politics, so I don't understand why you would say, if the Tories did it it was wrong but when we do it it's okay. That, to me, is not complex, it's not confusing - it's political, it's hypocritical. My question is, please tell us what's "complex and confusing," because in my books two wrongs don't make a right.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, the Memorandum of Understanding with the universities essentially was a commitment by the previous government to try to stabilize university funding to the extent that it would allow tuition increases to stop. Our government felt that they wanted to start with a fresh slate, and so buying out the third year of the MOU by prepaying early enables us in future budgets to make an annual contribution in the year that the money is going to be spent. It cleans away the commitments from the previous

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government and allows our government to go forward on an annual basis in terms of financially supporting the post-secondary institutions.

[7:45 p.m.]

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, by that logic, you should just pay me up front for the next four years because we're not going to have an election for four years. It doesn't make sense. You also cited as a reason for doing this that it was to relieve the anxiety of universities over whether they were going to get paid in the third year. My question is, are we going to now start paying out everyone in advance who is anxious about getting their payments? In my riding we're anxious about whether we're going to get funding for a school, so do we pay that out early because we're anxious? I don't think citing the anxiety of universities makes sense.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member makes a good point. Certainly, that was one of the results, it was a very minor secondary reason for doing the prepayment. The main 99 per cent of the reason was to clean the slate, to start fresh, and to honour the commitment that the former government made to the universities, and that's what we did.

We can continue on in this vein, but it was not a decision made by my department, and if you'd like to get on to some other issues over which I have some authority, or some knowledge, I would be pleased to continue with the Budget Estimates. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, while I appreciate the minister's desire to move off this subject, I don't quite feel ready yet. I am, quite frankly, confused about this need to clear off this item when your government paid $100,000 for a report, not an audit, but a report. That report by Deloitte & Touche says, "A prudent financial management practice for recurring assistance payments, like those made to universities under the MOU, would be to avoid one time or pre-payments." So what did we do? We prepaid and we made one payment, we didn't make quarterly payments, we did it all at once. It goes on to say, "Once such a pattern is broken, new financial planning is required to resume the recurring expenditure in the multi-year forecasts." They're advising you to stop this, and so for $100,000 worth of advice, we then turn around and prepay the universities. I simply do not understand the rationale nor, I suspect, do most people.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I wonder if the honourable member would table the document that she quoted from, please. Thank you.

The honourable Minister of Education.

MS. MORE: Honourable member, I have no more to say on this subject, so if you would like to get your opinions on table, then present them, and I'll certainly listen respectfully, but those recommendations were made to the Department of Finance. I've

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explained it in terms of what I know, how it relates to the Department of Education. I appreciate your point of view, I differ with your point of view, but I don't feel that Budget Estimates is the opportunity to get into a debate on that issue. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, this is called Budget Estimates, and this is in the budget, so this is exactly the right place to have this conversation, exactly the right place. Has a new agreement with the amendment, allowing for the 2010-11 prepayment, been signed?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, thank you for your patience. No, it hasn't been signed. I mean, obviously we have to wait until the budget is passed, and then we'll enter into discussions with the universities in terms of signing that prepayment. It's not going to happen until the end of March 2010, and so we have plenty of time to work out those details. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Can you explain why the 2010-11 MOU prepayment was for $341 million rather than the $348 million outlined in the original 2008 agreement?

MS. MORE: The difference is the $7 million allocated to the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. That college is a government entity, so its books are consolidated with the provincial government and a prepayment is not possible.

MS. REGAN: Nova Scotia universities have received two prepayments of the MOU for the past two fiscal years. Given that the MOU was not followed as set out by the initial 2008 agreement, what are your government's plans when it expires in 2011? Will you renegotiate another MOU with the universities?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, we haven't made a decision on whether or not we're going to enter into another MOU, whether it be a one or two or three-year agreement. The intent, as I mentioned earlier, of the previous two agreements was to stabilize university funding to put a freeze or lower university tuition, and certainly that remains a goal of this government and so we'll work toward that. Certainly this year, tuition for the college system, the Nova Scotia Community College - those tuitions did not rise at all.

I believe there is actually - the university students will be paying less, and then next year I believe the university students from outside Nova Scotia will be paying less. The MOUs have achieved considerable success in lowering tuition fees, and we'll certainly be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the MOU process with the universities over the next several months. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: I'm curious - if your government is going to sign an agreement for two years or three years or whatever, are you going to make these sort of prepayments - bulk

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payments, whatever you call them - with those too, or are you going to actually adhere to the agreement?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Finance has certainly indicated that it's the intention of the government to make sure that the annual contributions happen in the year that they're going to be spent. I guess all I'm saying is that we're open to discussions with the universities. There are other issues that might be covered in an MOU. Certainly there is a lot of concern from all universities about the declining student enrolment base. It may be that an MOU might look at a joint strategy on how to attract more students to all our universities in Nova Scotia, so there are other issues that might be included in that agreement. All I'm suggesting is that I'm anxious to hear what the universities see as the next steps and knowing that we will not be committing, over the next few years at least, to multiple year funding commitments. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: I'd like to move on now, as much as I hate to leave the subject of the MOU, to the Special Payments, a line item on Page 7.2 of the Nova Scotia Estimates Supplementary Detail, Special Payments. I'm wondering if the minister could please outline what those special payments were for and itemize them and give us the dollar amounts?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your patience. We'll have to get more detail but it includes such things as the NSCAD mortgage but we don't have a further breakdown. We can get that information and table it. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I note that there's an increase from last year of about - actually, I'm not sure how much the increase was from last year for these Special Payments so perhaps when you are giving us that information you could indicate what those payments were last year and where the increase comes in.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, we're going to try to identify that before the end of the evening so I expect to be able to get back to you fairly quickly. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: I'd like to actually quote here from an article from April 16, 2000: Free tuition is not a pipedream. It was from a contender for the provincial NDP leadership. Free tuition is not a pipedream, Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage MLA Kevin Deveaux said Saturday in Halifax. It's time we started thinking of a post-secondary education as a right, not a privilege. Mr. Deveaux outlined his plan for free post-secondary education in Nova Scotia to supporters, et cetera.

I'm just wondering, what's your stance on tuition? Should post-secondary education be free for all students?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask the honourable member to table the document that she quoted, as soon as you're done. Thank you very much, honourable member.

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MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, I was a little preoccupied. Are you asking for my personal view on this or my government's view?

MS. REGAN: Both.

MS. MORE: I'm not sure that in recent years the NDP have taken a position on this. Certainly my personal view is that many years down the road I'd love to see post-secondary education available to as many Nova Scotians as possible.

[8:00 p.m.]

Statistics Canada seems to be indicating that approximately 70 per cent of new jobs are going to require some level of post-secondary education. I think eventually we're going to be in a real world where post-secondary education will have to be a given just as we're aiming to get as many students graduated from Grade 12. So post-secondary graduation may become the equivalent of Grade 12 graduation and certainly more people from all ages could benefit if tuition fees were lower and certainly that's the direction we'd like to go in.

I know as more and more bursaries and scholarships and up front grants are available, the question of what role the family plays in supporting students going on to post-secondary education is interesting because as we reduce the tuition, it almost turns post-secondary education into a universal program.

Those are broad social questions that I think Nova Scotians will debate in the years to come but I don't foresee any immediate change in terms of that question. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Bearing in mind your desire to have the cost of tuition reduced, I'd like to know what your government is doing to work towards reducing the cost?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I want to start by obviously giving credit to the former government who is responsible for many of these initiatives. As I've said over and over again during the Budget Estimates that the majority of the Education budget this Fall is the result of their deliberations and their decision making, so I do want to give credit for those achievements to the former Progressive Conservative Government. They have created the Nova Scotia University Student Bursary Trust, which is expected to approach $72 million and those bursaries will be disbursed, distributed to Nova Scotian students studying at Nova Scotia universities beginning in 2008 over the next three years and they will start benefiting out-of-province students studying at Nova Scotia universities in 2010-11.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. Order, please. There seems to be a lot of chatter in the Chamber tonight and the honourable members are having trouble hearing the minister. I would please ask the members to take your chatter outside the Chamber so we can conduct government business.

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The honourable Minister of Education.

MS. MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also, the honourable member may be interested in knowing that there was a one-time bursary of $440 for full-time students and $220 for part-time students issued to Nova Scotian students back in 2006-07 through the Canada Nova Scotia Student Bursary. Also, in 2007-08 there was a one-time $500 tuition reduction issued to lower fees for Nova Scotia students studying in Nova Scotia.

Coming into the current situation, the former government established, as I mentioned earlier, the Nova Scotia University Student Bursary Trust; it was approved by Cabinet in March 2008. The principal amount in the trust is $65.9 million and the trustees are the members of the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents. The purpose of the trust is to meet the previous Premier's commitment to reduce tuition to the national average by 2010-11. In 2009-10 that will realize $1,022 per Nova Scotian student who is the beneficiary and in 2010-11 that will increase to $1,283 and it will also, for the first time, benefit the out-of-province students attending Nova Scotia universities to the amount of $261.

As has been discussed in this Chamber many times, my own government has brought in a student tax credit - we've actually introduced it a year earlier than projected in order to replace the previous government's program. This will create tax benefits to a maximum of $15,000 for university graduates and $7,500 for community college graduates. Whereas it's not a strategy that necessarily will increase access on the front end, it certainly will be a retention strategy and hopefully encourage students, from across Canada but also more especially within Nova Scotia, to remain here or to move here to start their careers and to raise their families in Nova Scotia.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, actually I think you slightly misunderstood my question - my question was what was your government going to do to help students access post-secondary education in Nova Scotia, not what the previous government did. In fact, when I look through your election platform, I can't find anything that committed more money to improve access to education. You cannot say that your Graduate Tax Credit is going to help students access the system - in fact it should be under the Department of Labour and Workforce Development. It's about keeping people here; it's not about opening up the system to people who need it. So my question is what will your government do to help students access post-secondary education in Nova Scotia?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, a couple of actions. We have reaffirmed the commitment to make sure that university tuition is at the national average by 2010; we supported the move, the decision of the community college system, not to increase tuition fees for the community college this year; and we're certainly working very closely with the universities - that was part of the prepayment to stabilize funding so that lessens the financial pressures on their end to raise university tuition.

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MS. REGAN: I know that there was some concern expressed about the anxiety that the universities have surrounding their future funding and that was some of the justification for the MOU. Earlier this summer when I wrote to you about the infrastructure program and whether universities were going to be able to participate in that, you wrote back to me to say: I want to assure you that it is the intention of the government to ensure that our universities and the Nova Scotia Community College are able to proceed with the projects approved by Industry Canada under the Knowledge Infrastructure Program and that the required matching funds from the province and the institutions are in place. The exact sources of these funds will be determined as the 2009-10 budget is developed over the next several weeks. I'm just wondering, what are the exact sources of these funds?

MS. MORE: I'm going to ask for some clarification, but first of all, I do have that information for the earlier question and I'd like to read that into the record. The Special Payments are grants to universities and there's the Knowledge Infrastructure Program of $18,094,000 in federal money; the provincial, $18, 500,000; the NSCAD mortgage of $1.919 million and scholarships of $18,000 for a total of $38,531,000.

I just want to clarify on your most immediate question, are you asking the source of funding that the department is using for its share, or the province is using for its share of the KIP funding, or the total distribution?

MS. REGAN: I'm asking for the provincial share, where that's coming from, where it's going.

MS. MORE: The information that I just read into the record, with the federal and provincial KIP money, that's where it shows up in the budget.(Interruption) Okay, I do have that information as well.

There's a lot of detail here and I can table this and make sure the member gets a copy or I could read it out if she would prefer to have the information directly. Okay, let me table this. I just want to clarify, the federal funding is over two years, the Department of Education provincial grant is one year, just to clarify that difference in the final figures. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Now, even with these infrastructure projects, the fact remains that Nova Scotia's universities face an infrastructure deficit amounting to more than $500 million. I'm just wondering what your government is doing to address this particular issue over the long term?

[8:15 a.m.]

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member is correct, there is a considerable backlog of deferred maintenance, I think approximately $500 million, and the previous government did some one-time catch-up through their Crown trusts and certainly we're

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attempting through this budget to provide a provincial contribution to help in the situation and I'm currently getting some details on that that I can share with you very shortly.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, while we're waiting for that, maybe I could just move on to the Graduate Tax Credit and both the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations and the Canadian Federation of Students have expressed their concern about this tax credit. It's back-end funding and it does nothing to help those who really need to access post-secondary education. Now, Manitoba and New Brunswick combined have spent approximately $100 million on graduate tax credits and retention rates stayed the same. There are no appreciable results as a result of this program. My question is, we're going to go ahead with this tax credit and why would we do that in the face of the lack of results in other provinces that have done the same thing?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, yes, we're going ahead with the Graduate Retention Rebate. In fact, we're starting it a year earlier than we had expected. It is of some interest, I can't begin to count the number of inquiries we've had. In fact, there was a lot of disappointment expressed when initially we thought perhaps we wouldn't be able to start it until next year. While I appreciate the concerns, I've met with one of the university student associations, and I'm meeting with the second one early tomorrow morning, and I certainly will be interested again in hearing their particular point of view, but we have to keep in mind that the Graduate Retention Rebate is one of a number of tools or strategies that our government sees as necessary to help over the long term.

There is some interest by many people in seeing this implemented and, as with any program or initiative in the province, I think every government regularly reviews the impact and, you know, it may be more successful than we anticipate, there may be some additional costs down the road. If it turns out that it's not achieving our purposes, we will certainly revise the rebate and just see what we can do, but it has a purpose, it was a commitment, and we certainly will be going forward with it.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I really need to protest the characterization of this program as it being a way to help students access education because I don't feel it has anything to do with accessing education. What it does, this should be under Labour and Workforce Development, it does not have anything to do with helping students get into the system or stay in the system. It helps them once they're out of the system, once they're working, and so I really feel that it's not in the right place.

Earlier on we talked, yesterday I think it was, and I mentioned that it seemed to me that we had a whole lot of pilot projects all over the place in the P to 12 system, and your response to me was, you know, we like to do things on evidence-based projects, we want to know that things work before we expand them. My question is, knowing that there has been no appreciable retention improvement in the two provinces that have already tried this program, why would we go ahead if, in fact, there is no evidence that this works?

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MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I don't believe I've characterized it as an access support and, in fact, the Graduate Retention Rebate shows up as a budget line in the Department of Finance's budget, not the Department of Education's budget. One of the provinces that has piloted this rebate is Manitoba, and I haven't seen all the research, but Manitoba has been very successful in attracting new residents to that province and has shown considerable progress. I'm not sure whether they've analyzed exactly what has pulled them, I'm sure it has been a variety of factors, but it's very encouraging to see that another New Democrat-run province has had such success when bringing in new citizens, and I'll be very interested to see if some of their strategies might work very well in Nova Scotia.

Certainly that's a province that we compare ourselves to in terms of population size, and I am optimistic that we will see some positive results from the rebate, but it is not an initiative of the Department of Education. It's something that's being done through the Department of Finance, and it's actually going to be administered by the Canada Revenue Agency. So it has been recognized, you know, that it's a tax rebate and not necessarily something that's going to increase the number of students entering universities in Nova Scotia.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, I might point out that during the election campaign it was listed under Education and not any other part of the Party platform. It was listed under Education and, in fact, while Manitoba may be attracting all kinds of new residents, we don't know if they're new graduates, if they're immigrants, or whatever. So to say that the fact that Manitoba's immigration rate, or that they have more people coming into their province, is proof - I'm sorry, it just doesn't wash.

Maybe we'll move on now to student financial aid. The first 20 per cent of a Nova Scotia student loan is a non-repayable grant. Is your government planning to increase this amount?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member may realize that this is a fairly recent proposal initiated by the former government, and we certainly are still reviewing how effective it has been. That's one of the topics of discussion that I'm having with the various university student associations and, as I mentioned earlier, I'm meeting with another one of the groups early tomorrow morning. So we'll be getting input from people who have been impacted by this program, studying its effectiveness, and then making a decision.

MS. REGAN: Does your department have any plans to increase the bursary trust?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, no increase is reflected in this budget but, as the honourable member realizes, we'll be starting our consultations and deliberations on next year's budget as soon as this one is finished and, you know, we'll be considering a number of different initiatives and making those decisions at that time.

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MS. REGAN: You work towards increasing the bursary for out-of-province students and decreasing the differential between what out-of-province students pay and what in-province students pay?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned earlier, there's no increase beyond the budgeted amount in this year's budget, but certainly we're working toward a $261 decrease for both Nova Scotian students attending Nova Scotia universities and out-of-province students attending Nova Scotian universities in the coming year, but those decisions will be made in due time.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, a few years ago the Department of Education did a review of student financial aid and among the recommendations was an outreach program that needed to be established through which students and families would get knowledge of the combined impact of their education and debt. It also said that there was a need to improve the ability to navigate through the student assistance process, from the initial applications to transition from students to borrowers, and then throughout repayment. I'm just wondering what your government has done to address this recommendation - the Student Financial Aid Review I believe is what it was called.

MS. MORE: The outreach program that the honourable member is talking about has been designed but we have not committed funding to implement it at this stage.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, it has been designed, I understand, could we get some details of the design so we have an idea of what's coming?

MS. MORE: Yes, we could arrange to have that information tabled at a later date.

MS. REGAN: Another one of the recommendations from the review is that under-represented groups would need specific programs to improve their participation in post-secondary education. I believe these would include Mi'kmaq students and students from families that would not normally have considered post-secondary education. The review indicated that these programs should be primarily in the form of non-repayable assistance. I'm just wondering how your government is planning to reach out to under-represented groups to ensure there are programs in place to encourage all to attend post-secondary education.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I do have information on some of that. Certainly there have been some upgrades, or revisions, to the Canada student assistance to recognize some of those marginalized populations who may have access and financial need challenges in attending universities, so we'll track that information down and table it as well.

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[8:30 p.m.]

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations is asking the government to commit to doing a full review of post-secondary education. Will the government commit to a full review?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, no decision has been made about a review. Certainly, in my discussions, when I'm meeting with the university presidents, sometimes this topic comes up. Every program and funding mechanism in the province is viewed on a semi-regular basis, so I'm not saying that it will never happen, but usually when a review is done there is some expectation that a lot of additional money is available to smooth out that process and to meet some of the challenges that are identified.

I don't foresee the province being in a position to make those commitments over the next couple of years, but I will be consulting with the universities, my colleagues and making decisions around that. I certainly would welcome the input from any student organization or members of this Chamber as to the advisability of moving ahead in that area. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: I would like to read now and ask the minister to comment, it's a letter from the Nova Scotia Community College president and she says:

Colleagues, Today as I write to you I am deeply saddened. I am still working diligently to try and prevent a strike at the Nova Scotia Community College but, as of today, I have been unable to find a solution and I am increasingly concerned. The college now finds itself in a very difficult place without a resolution in sight. The options presented to the union are now public in the news and I am sure you are all aware of the details. I cannot talk to you about the fairness and rightness of the Union's position, nor can I comment on the government's commitment to restrain public funding in order to bring Nova Scotia back to fiscal health. What I can comment on, is that in the middle of these two fundamental positions, 2,022 employees and the 26,000 students we serve stand to lose. We have already experienced a cut in our 2009-10 operating budget; further, the province will not be providing us with additional monies to resolve our collective bargaining beyond the current options. I know also that the NSTU has made it clear that it believes deeply in its position of equity and fairness. As a result, we are now planning for the strong possibility of a strike. As you know the union will be meeting on Thursday to set a strike date. At this time I have no insights into that date or when it will be announced. In the meantime, we are doing what we must, and readying the organization and our students for the very real possibility of a strike. If there was ever a time to remember our values of Student Success, Accessibility, Respect, Service, Collaboration, Innovation, Diversity and Public Accountability, it is now. I know some of you are angry. I know some

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of you are afraid. I know students are worried about their education. In the days to come I know that each one of you will continue to focus on our learners and the 26,000 lives that we change every year.

She goes on to say that she fervently hopes a strike can be averted and if it does happen, she urges each of them to hold to what they believe.

Mr. Chairman, I will provide the House with a copy of this e-mail to table. My question to the minister is, what is she doing to avert a strike?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, as I've said time after time in this Chamber, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the process that is taking place. I fervently pray and hope that they do come to a settlement. I also received that e-mail message from the president of the community college system. I'm fully aware of the impact on the community college as well as the students, their families, the faculty and professional staff. I just repeat that I trust that reasonable people will come back to the table and settle their differences at the table. Certainly, conciliation services are offered anytime, 24/7, by the Department of Labour and Workforce Development. We all appreciate that disruption of service would be very difficult for the students and the community college. I just, again, plead that people come back to the table and continue to talk, there's some hope that they can reach a settlement that both sides can live with. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, going back to the table won't do any good if the government only has 1 per cent and isn't willing to budge, so I fail to see how going back to the table is going to help. Perhaps you are right and perhaps what we need is prayer.

In the meantime I would like to address the growing waiting lists at Nova Scotia Community College. NSCC had to turn away 2,000 fully qualified applicants in September 2008, which is enough learners to fill 67 additional classrooms at its largest metro campus. Waiting lists exist at all 13 campuses and NSCC had advocated for a plan that serves the province in the long term.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time has expired for the honourable member. I would remind the honourable member to make sure she tables that information when you get it from the Blackberry. Thank you.

The honourable member for Hants West.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I'll pick up where I left off a while ago, with a few more questions. I'm not sure if I'll complete the hour and I'll hand off perhaps to my colleague.

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I wanted to start a little bit, I know you don't talk - from what I've heard so far - a whole lot in detail with regard to the collective bargaining process, but I'm wondering if you'd speak to the bus drivers and custodians. I know on the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board there are some issues there, there has been a long-term contract there, I should say a contract that has been expired for quite a while, I think it has been over two years now. I'm interested in the current status of this bargaining and whether there is some bargaining going on or is everything at a stalemate right now?

MS. MORE: We had a chance to discuss this a little earlier as well. As everyone knows, the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board is the lead table for the provincial negotiations for CUPE, but is that the one you're discussing? They went back to the table, I believe last week, and have asked for conciliation, and that is probably as much detail as I'm able to give you at this stage.

MR. PORTER: You had mentioned earlier that you met with the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board a couple weeks ago or so, earlier on anyway, and I would be interested to know what transpired at the meeting by way of what challenges did the board raise? I know, as I said earlier, we, as members for the Valley area, meet a couple of times a year with the board. We haven't had that yet this year but I would be interested in knowing what challenges they raised with you, as minister, for the foreseeable future at least?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I'm sure the honourable member appreciates the fact that session was held in camera but what I can say is that there were some common themes among all the board meetings. Of course, they're concerned about future funding. They detailed some of their concerns around construction and the capital construction budget. I have to say, a fair amount of time, quite frankly, was spent by each board member highlighting some of the things that have been achieved by the board and some of the success stories that they've had. I found that very helpful in getting a sense of various schools and communities within the board and it created a very positive atmosphere.

These meetings were held in camera, basically, to develop a positive working relationship. So I wanted them to be free to share whatever they wanted to with me, to be as frank as they chose and I was able to speak in the same manner. So that's the format we used around the province and I can't say that there was anything particularly unique or different about my meeting with the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, a couple of things on that one, I would wonder, will there be meetings that would be public, or at least not in camera, with the minister and the board in the future? Thank you, okay, I'll take that as a yes I guess. But on some of the challenges, you know, every school board has challenges, there's no question about that, and I think every board probably has their successes as well. The Annapolis Valley Regional School Board has worked very hard over the years and it has been a pleasure working with them in the last number of years. I look forward to future years and continuing our good

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debate that we do have and funding is, and probably will always be, an issue, regardless of who's in government or what year, there will always be more needs.

There are some things though that I find vary between boards and I'm not sure why. It's with regard to policy and I'm going to come back to the school bus issue we talked about a little while ago. I know that we have dealt, and I know the deputy has probably been involved in some cases, with regard to school bus stops. We have this wonderful policy that says, I believe, 1.6 kilometres, three stops, and I know there are a whole lot of variables, transportation gets involved and they measure sight distance and all of these things. But sometimes there are things that seem to be fairly common sense, as some parents and others would put it, and changes could be made, and sometimes are made, to the stops.

Many times there is not much room for negotiation. It's just pretty much no, there's no way we can do that. Parents, of course, again I said earlier, would love to have their child picked up right at their doorstep and every driveway would have a bus stop. We know that's not reasonable either due to some of those reasons I just mentioned with regard to sight distance and lights flashing and all of those rules. I think most people generally understand that. The 1.6 kilometres though, I know there were - I'm trying to think of the name, there was a study done with regard to . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The chatter is getting a little high and it's hard to hear the member.

The honourable member for Hants West has the floor.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Carrying on there and trying to pick up my train of thought, there was a study done on the walking distance and we have some areas, as I spoke of earlier as well, like Falmouth where there are no sidewalks, there are no street lights, and it's an issue where traffic moves right along. We've had it assessed for a number of things, speed being one of them, stop signs, and trying to find a better way around that particular school to make travel to and from there safer for the students, but this policy with regard to the 1.6 kilometres and the three stops, it may be written, but I'm not sure it's adhered to all of the time. There doesn't seem to be consistency across the boards. I won't get into naming boards and names, but I can tell you we see things done in some places that we don't see done in others. Is there room to re-evaluate this policy?

[8:45 p.m.]

I'm no expert, I'll be the first to admit that, but I would be looking for people that are. I know we have good transportation folks at - Rob Sweet comes into play a lot of time out there, he's the transportation authority, or whatever the right term for him is, and he does a great job analyzing all of these stops. But 1.6 kilometres - how did we get to that? I know the deputy's been around a while - he may have had some input in that over the years - but I'd

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like to know. The 1.6 seems to be a real sticking point, and how you calculate that 1.6, depending on the day, can be done - I'll get into that more - multiple ways to make it work. That's my question to you.

MS. MORE: There are a couple of issues here. The number of bus stops within a certain distance is actually a regulation of the Utility and Review Board. The department would not be in a position to second guess or question those regulations. However, your discussion on walking distances, you're quite right. There was a report done on student walking distances; a review was done back in 2007. There hasn't been consensus among the boards in terms of all of the recommendations. There also is significant - if some of them are accepted - there is significant financial impact.

So there hasn't been a response from the department on this as yet. One of the issues I raised a little earlier, that boards have very strong opinions on, is the recommendation that courtesy busing and courtesy stops only be approved when required for safety reasons. There are a lot of boards that have expanded their courtesy busing. They feel that if a half-empty bus is passing stops where students are walking, it just makes sense to pick them up.

I'm not sure where you want to go. Certainly, a number of the school boards have the right - are mandated - to create individual school board policy to cover a lot of these issues that you've raised. If many of the recommendations of this review are accepted, it might standardize some of those policies across the province, but we're not at that point yet. Thank you.

MR. PORTER: That walking one is a prime example. We spent a lot of time, effort, and money on such a study, but yet we seem to hand it off to the boards to implement or not, and you get this consistency that exists between boards. To me, a student in Colchester County, for example, is no different than a student in Windsor when it comes to safe transportation or the distance walking to school and such like that. I'm just not sure why we take the time to do these things and we're not willing to implement them.

It comes back to us provincially. You can talk about the board all you want, and the board does a great job, the people working out there every day in the school bus garages and trying to supervise this whole situation are doing what they can, yet here we are with a grey area. There seems to be an awful lot of grey area, and it's the boards, it's the boards. You can do what you want within the boards, but the people don't seem to understand, well, the board's not co-operating, we are the taxpayers, the province answers to this, it's part of the Department of Education. They don't understand when you tell them, well, they just pass it back to the boards, so they feel like they're out of luck and they have nowhere to go.

As a new minister, and having a look at this for the first time or second time now, I realize and appreciate you've only been there a short time, but is this something that you plan to leave - you've talked a lot tonight that I've been here and listening to, a lot goes back to

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the board and it's going to stay at the board and there doesn't seem to be - maybe you're happy with that. You're going to leave this much or all the power in the board's hands to pretty much run the schools. There doesn't seem to be a lot of provincial impact.

You're overseeing, I know that, I understand that, but really, who is monitoring? The school board seems to be out there on their own. Again, they're doing what they can, but the policies are not consistent across the board, and I honestly think that the boards would like to see some consistent application, so they at least wouldn't be saying well, we do it like they do it and this discrepancy always seems to exist. When you cross over lines like the East-West Hants or Lunenburg County line for that matter, children are being treated differently in the way busing could take place, as one example, or walking could take place. Your comments on that, please.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I think one of the reasons that the former government delayed making a response, or implementing the recommendations, is that the recommendations almost have to be accepted as a package to make sense and the boards, when they reviewed the report, were requesting more time to see how it impacted on their particular board. It's a real catch-22 situation. I know from my own personal experience on a school board that when you get directives from the Department of Education, it impacts on every school board and every neighbourhood school in a different way.

I think one of the reasons that we have the school board level of government is because those members best understand the impact of these decisions, the considerations that need to go into making them; they're the community experts. So some of these recommendations affecting a possible provincial standard for walking distances might work very differently in a community in HRM that has sidewalks and pathways and whatever, and the honourable member has already talked about the fact that many municipalities don't have sidewalks. Even within the school board itself, there is going to be a lot of variation. So, when you have such a wide range of impact, you've got to move more slowly.

There is no sense in mandating something and have boards come back and say that it's impossible to implement. That's not to say that we don't take these issues very seriously, but we want to work alongside the boards and make sure that this is in the student's best interest. So while I appreciate the honourable member's concerns, we will continue to consult with the boards and we will work toward meeting the recommendations, as many of the package as possible, to move forward on the intent of the review.

Certainly, I would be pleased to sit down with the honourable member and go over some of the details, so he may explain some of the particular situations in the area that he represents and also, perhaps, we could involve school board members to make sure that they're fully in line with what he is suggesting. It's an important issue and certainly parents raise it all the time. We want to make walking to school as safe an exercise as possible for students, but at the same time, how we operationalize that is very important as well.

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MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, you're correct, it's a very important issue to parents especially, and there are as many different parents as there are ideas. I think the board does everything that they can with what they have to work with. It is a bit of a commonsense factor that most are looking for and I think most of the time that prevails. There are a few occasions when people are frustrated, when nothing can be done, unfortunately, but I'll leave that. I have a couple of other things that I want to cover.

Educational assistants, I've heard a little bit about that as well, I know that you have answered some questions on that. These folks are generally unionized employees, is that correct? Unionized employees, all the EAs, educational assistants, are they all unionized employees?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I suspect most of them are, but we would have to research that. I can't say 100 per cent are, on the floor of the committee room, sorry.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, the reason I ask that question is the example that I'm going to give. I believe most of them are unionized members. Recently, I know of a case where I would think that if there were layoffs or shortages of work - I know that doesn't happen a lot in the world of EAs, but if there was one through normal bumping procedures, seniority would prevail. Would that not be the case as well in any unionized environment, especially one where - regarding educational assistants, would this prevail? Would seniority always prevail in this situation?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I think the honourable member is right that, with the majority of them, seniority would impact, but there may be some particular situations where they have specialized training that would have to be recognized through that exercise.

MR. PORTER: There was a case recently in my area where that wasn't the case, where there was an EA who was bumped for whatever reason, and from what I understand - I'm not going to get into names here, I don't believe in that particularly - there was a case where this lady was laid off, I guess for lack of a better term, due to shortage of work, call it what you will, but was qualified to take a position. I'll bring that to your attention outside of this Chamber, minister, and we can talk about that individual and see where that goes, because I know there is an issue there.

Still on the educational assistants - I'm not too sure how many times there would be a shortage of this need. Unfortunately, there seems to be great need regardless of where you go around the province, and my area is no exception. We have quite a few educational assistants, and I know the work that they do through multiple ways - not only visiting the school, my sister has been an EA for many years, and certainly families and friends who use that service.

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Travelling - there are EAs that travel around from school to school and manage one or more students. Some travel on buses, it's my understanding, depending on the students' needs. Is that correct?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, it's certainly my understanding that there are some EAs who act as bus attendants when there are special needs children requiring their support while travelling by bus.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, with that, does the funding remain constant, or does that change year to year? The needs are probably, I would think, fairly constant for a number of years. How often would that funding change, or would it change annually based on your department's budget?

MS. MORE: Certainly, as I've mentioned several times before, the Education budget reflects your government - the former government's expenditures and priorities. The $125 million that your government put into special education is the figure that is in this current budget, and as I've mentioned before, many boards choose to allocate more money to funding special education. In 2002, there was a Special Education Implementation Review committee, and a recommendation was made for a ratio of approximately 1 teacher assistant to approximately 104 students, and that the special education funding reflects their recommendation, and this is something that would have been implemented under the previous government.

[9:00 p.m.]

Now, a lot of boards, like I said, add additional money, and so their ratios are much lower than that amount. With declining enrolment, which is approximately 3 per cent a year, boards continually readjust their staffing allocations, whether it is teachers, teaching assistants, resource staff, maintenance staff, all the way through. So that's an ongoing exercise of school boards, to adjust their staffing allocations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would remind the honourable member for Hants West that he has about 12 minutes left.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Times flies when you're having fun they say. Minister, if I heard you right, you said 1 to 104, is that the correct ratio that you used?

MS. MORE: That's correct. The $125 million dedicated to special education allows for a teacher assistant for every 104 students and that's the ratio that was recommended by the Special Education Implementation Review Committee.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I can't think of anywhere right off the top of my head where there is a 1 to 104 ratio going on, and maybe there is somewhere, but I guess I'm only

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thinking a lot of one-on-one is what I see in our local school system. Maybe in other boards that does exist, but I'm not familiar, in any of my schools, where there is not almost one to one and maybe it's because the need of the student is increased. Maybe we're on the wrong page here, Madam Minister, I'm going to give you an opportunity to speak to that, thank you.

MS. MORE: I just want to clarify. That is 104 students out of the entire population, not special needs. So the boards allocate them to support the special needs students. So it's the entire student population within that board that is used in developing the ratio.

MR. PORTER: Thank you for that point of clarity. We've only got a few minutes left and I want to try get through some of these other things. I think you mentioned earlier, maybe when my colleague was questioning you on the IB program, plus or minus, have the numbers changed this year? I believe there may be one change. I just wanted to clarify that in one of my local schools.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, the 13 schools that provide International Baccalaureate remains the same, we have added more money to the budget for that and there are more students taking the program. There is one school that you may be familiar with, there are five students remaining taking the IB program and they are being supported in that, but because there wasn't enough interest in creating a full class, the program was dropped by the school board. I think there is some interest in seeing if another school might want to pick it up within that same school board.

MR. PORTER: Thank you Mr. Chairman, I'm just curious, minister, any idea - and I know there are only five - why the drop, or why is the interest not there? I know it's difficult, some students will tell you that it's very difficult to go through that program, but from the department's point of view, would you comment on why, unfortunately we're going to lose that at Avon View, and it's too bad.

MS. MORE: I'm just guessing, and this might be a question that you want to discuss with the school board but that school is very close to King's-Edgehill, which also has an IB program, and that may be having an impact on the public school IB program.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I wish there was a way they could work together on that with those five, or whatever is left, and maybe at some point that is something that could be discussed or worked on, I don't know. I know one is a private school and one isn't, but it's a shame to lose that program at Avon View.

There is just one more question on the educational assistants. Their level of education required to do what they do - because I know oftentimes these folks are dealing with some interesting circumstances. The age groups vary, so do the needs, and so do the strength of some of these kids who are going to school and being taught, very able, some of them. I'm

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just wondering what kind of training we have and what are the required or basic needs for someone to be come an educational assistant in the Province of Nova Scotia?

MS. MORE: I believe the standards were raised for educational or teacher assistants a few years ago. Now, high school plus two years post-secondary education is required. Often the applicants have, for example, human resource or child care programs from the community college. I personally know a few who have been nursing aides in the past and they've moved into that line of work. So it's high school plus two years post-secondary.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, that would be for new employees coming in. I think others that I'm aware of would probably only have only Grade 12, I say only, that's more than enough, but who have only the Grade 12 certificate at this point and would have been in the system for some number of years now. So, thank you for that.

Madam minister, on the school reviews, I think our area went through a review a couple of years ago, and maybe the deputy could refresh both of our memories, and I'm wondering what the plans are by way of our school review and if there are any changes? I know that we have a number of schools in my constituency, eight or nine schools there, and the population is dropping in some of those areas, like it is in many areas around rural Nova Scotia, unfortunately, and I'm just wondering what your department sees for the future for the Hants West area and the schools that fall within it?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I thank the honourable member for the question. Yes, in 2006 his government did an extensive consultation and review of school review policy and I remember actually appearing at one of the consultations for the metro area that was held at Dartmouth High School. I have to say that I was very impressed by the format of the meeting and the excellent presentation done by the two co-chairs.

The two boards that have used the revised policy the most have been the Halifax Regional School Board and the South Shore Regional School Board. So representatives from those two boards, as well as other stakeholders, and including the two co-chairs of that former committee, were brought together very recently in Halifax for a focus group to discuss how the policy has been working out and whether there is any sort of minor tweaking that should be made. So, in due course, if those changes are recommended, we will be moving with that. But generally, the new policy has been very well received and has worked well in a variety of situations within, particularly, those two school boards.

MR. PORTER: So, Mr. Chairman, is there no next date already chosen for review again there? We'll just continue to monitor what this focus group is putting forward and student populations to be reviewed, or whatever else may indicate potential changes for the school, because there are some who would probably believe that the right thing to do is really have a serious look at a couple of schools with small numbers in them and there would be

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others that I would absolutely hate to see such facilities ever close, regardless of how big or small the numbers are.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, what I was referring to was the provincial school review policy that all boards now operate under.

Just to refresh the honourable member's memory. Each school board is operating under the following timeline: by April 1^st, they should have done an initial assessment of all the schools in their board region and make public a list of schools that need to be reviewed and they direct the school board staff to develop what we're calling a comprehensive school review report. Then by May 31^st, the school board receives that school review report and it would be released to the public within two weeks of acceptance by the board.

By November 30^th, the study committee submits a response to the school board report that if a school is under review, it is encouraged that the school advisory council be an important or integral part of that school review process, and then the following March 31^st a final decision is made by the school board, by that date, as to whether or not the school will be closed or transformed in some way into another use.

MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I know that our time is running short. I did want to get a question in on adult high schools. We have an adult high school in our area and it seems like it's always struggling. There's great need, unfortunately, for the adult high school that we have. I'm wondering what level of funding is going to be provided to help this great asset remain in our area?

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, before I answer that, I would like to table some information that had been asked for earlier.

In terms of the adult high schools, certainly, there is no change.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time allotted for estimates for today has expired. When we pick up on the next day, there will be 26 minutes for the Progressive Conservative Party.

The honourable Deputy Government House Leader.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Mr. Chairman, I would move that the Committee of the Whole House on Supply now report to the House on its progress and beg leave to sit again on a future day.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is carried.

[The committee adjourned at 9:13 p.m.]