HALIFAX, FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

12:20 P.M.

CHAIR

Hon. Ben Jessome

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. GEOFF MACLELLAN: Mr. Chair, we will continue with Resolution E39, the Estimates of the Department of Transportation and Active Transit.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Dartmouth North.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I promised the minister that I would ask him about the Lancaster intersection today. When I started campaigning in 2017 to take this place, the Lancaster intersection was rife with accidents, hard-to-see left turns, and high speeds zooming through the intersection coming off of Highway No. 118 and Dartmouth Crossing.

Here we are almost four years later, and there have been some improvements. There have been large 60-kilometre-an-hour signs put up, which are helpful, I think. There is now an HRM digital speed sign, but after you get through the intersection, when you’re on your way down Woodland Avenue.

Over the last four years, I have talked about this issue with staff at TIR and with the minister during the Estimates process and in Question Period. I know that my colleague, Sam Austin, who’s the councillor for the area, has been working very hard on his end.

My understanding is that where this situation has been left is that the province is willing to hand over that little bit of road and land to the city with a little bit money to go with it, and then the city would build a roundabout there. It has been decided that a roundabout is the safest and best option for that area, from all the different engineers and planners. Because the Province has so many other priorities, basically, it would never see the light of day if it was the Province to do it, but the city could do it in short order. All we need is for the Province and the city to come to an agreement about how that handover would happen.

I guess, Mr. Chair, what I’m wondering from the minister is if he can provide an update. I believe Mr. Hackett is with him, and Mr. Hackett did call me before the House went in, and we have not connected yet. I would love to hear an update of what’s going on with the Lancaster intersection.

LLOYD HINES: I think the early days - it must be two years ago - the mayor and a councillor met with me regarding this intersection and there was a mutual agreement at that point in time to begin the process that would lead, essentially, at that time, to the transfer of the intersection to HRM. Two of the approaches to the intersection are owned by TAAT: that’s Highway No. 118 and a short portion of Woodland Avenue; and two approaches are owned by HRM: that’s Micmac Boulevard and Lancaster Drive. The traffic signals are owned and operated by HRM. There is a mutual relationship there at this intersection that has existed for some period of time.

As the member is aware, there was a joint study done by EXP Services Inc., doing an operational review at the intersection and that is in hand. The current status of the action that will be taken there, Mr. Chair, is that the design is well under way, currently, for a significant roundabout there, which is expected to be completed by early Summer. At that point in time, from the design will follow the estimates of the cost, and the continued discussions with HRM will be ongoing once we have the design in place and we have some solid numbers to talk about as to what way this could be tackled, either as the member has suggested that HRM build it, or we build it.

Once we have the design, we’ll be in a better position to know which way to proceed and I’m happy to report that the design will soon be in hand.

SUSAN LEBLANC: That is great news. If I am still the MLA for Dartmouth North in June of this year - because who knows what’s going to happen between now and then - I would love to be notified when that design is ready and to be given updates as this goes on because it is a significant issue. There are tons of development happening at that area now. There’s a new church going up as we speak. There are also a bunch of other developments slated to happen, so pressure on that intersection is going to get bigger and bigger and the time is now to address it.

I also wanted to ask another Dartmouth-related question. We MLAs in Dartmouth were told that the guardrail on the sidewalk over Highway No. 111 at Portland Street would be replaced, as the current version is outdated and unsafe and doesn’t conform to current standards. I’m wondering if the minister can give us a timeline on that project.

[12:30 p.m.]

LLOYD HINES: We do have a commitment to repair that guardrail. There were some meetings last Fall concerning it and it’s in our internal plan. That will be kicked off shortly and we’ll get to replacing it. It’s a little bit of a unique piece of infrastructure, so they’re taking some time with the design, but it will be done this year.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I would like to ask a couple of questions about infrastructure. I understand that the rearrangement of the infrastructure portion of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal means that the responsibility for large public health and education infrastructure is no longer in this department, but as the minister who has been formerly responsible for the large multi-year projects, I’m hoping that the minister would be able to answer a couple of questions about their history and the decisions that have been made to date. I will endeavour to direct any future-related questions to the new minister and budget-related questions to the new minister in the coming years.

My first question is about the announcement of the new CSAP school on the Halifax peninsula. Can the minster talk about the process that led to the selection of that site, and how the communities were consulted on the site?

LLOYD HINES: I thank the member for the question. Actually, I’m glad she brought it up, because it gives me an opportunity to describe how that came about. As the member may be aware, that was the former location for the regional RCMP headquarters in Nova Scotia, and once they moved and built the new facility, I believe in Dartmouth, then Canada Lands, who owns it and is the real estate arm of the federal government, who manages their land holdings across the country, they declared that surplus. The way that works is that they offer the property to provincial governments on a default basis. If the province doesn’t want it, it’s made available to municipal governments. If the municipal governments don’t want it, it’s offered to private sector clients.

In our consideration - and when I say our, I mean recommendation from our department but a decision by our government - we’re always looking for significantly large footprints of property on the peninsula. It could be for any type of public usage, and that was the only caveat in the acquisition, that it had to be used for a public purpose. Our staff negotiated with Canada Lands and came to a mutually accepted purchase price. Then we made a presentation to the Department of Finance and Treasury Board and made the case for acquiring the property for future public use. The Department of Finance and Treasury Board agreed that it was a valuable acquisition for government, and we then executed the closing and acquired the property.

On the second part of your question, once it comes into inventory for the government, then it’s up to the government to decide what they want to do with it. Beyond acquiring the property, our department didn’t have any input into what it was going to be used for beyond the fact that we had acquired the property. I’m not privy to the decisions around when the decision was made or what consultations were involved.

SUSAN LEBLANC: It’s interesting to hear the minister talk about how the province is always looking for property on the peninsula because it’s high value, so it begs the question: How come the province didn’t buy the Bloomfield site from Halifax to build affordable housing? That was always supposed to be the plan and now it’s not. Disappointing.

I’m wondering if the minister can talk about if there are plans or progress toward a French-language high school on the peninsula. École Secondaire Mosaïque just opened in Dartmouth North, part of Dartmouth Crossing Burnside. I’m wondering if there are plans for a high school for the CSAP on the peninsula.

LLOYD HINES: That would be a question that I can’t answer. That would have to be directed towards the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I’m wondering if COVID‑19 has had impacts on the timeline for the QEII redevelopment.

LLOYD HINES: Like most of the activities during the pandemic, there was impact. Our physical construction projects were impacted somewhat, not very significantly. I think in particular about the Dartmouth General Hospital construction. We did have to delay for maybe a couple of months, I think, on that particular project. The new developments that are not under construction, that are in the development phase, there was no apparent impact to the scheduling in that particular area.

SUSAN LEBLANC: From that answer, can I assume that the same is true for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality health care redevelopment? Were there any delays on that project?

LLOYD HINES: Certainly, up to the point in time that my department had responsibility for the CBRM rebuild, there was no impact because most of the activity that was associated with that was in the design. We were designing and planning, which, of course, takes a great deal of time and effort before we move to the fiscal part. Then the installations of some of the footings that went in at the regional hospital were exempt, so there was no holdup there. Up to the point that we had it, it was not an issue.

SUSAN LEBLANC: At a recent Public Accounts Committee meeting, the department provided the long-requested business case for proceeding with the P3 model for the QEII redevelopment project. The Auditor General had recommended that that analysis be revisited in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m just wondering if the analysis, the business case for the P3 model, has been revisited and if the minister could comment on that.

LLOYD HINES: I have to say that, of course, now with the new Department of Infrastructure and Housing, I’m not in a position to offer any knowledgeable comment on that particular question.

SUSAN LEBLANC: The minister will know that there has been public criticism of the decision to construct a parkade on Summer Street as part of the QEII redevelopment project. One of the criticisms is that the government failed to adequately consult with the public on the use of the site. I’m wondering if consultation has, in fact, taken place and what is the final cost of that parkade.

LLOYD HINES: Unfortunately, again, I am unable to respond with any authority or knowledge because I’ve been away from the file now for quite some time and I’m not sure what the current status is of that particular construction.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I’m now going to pass the rest of my time on to the member for Cape Breton-Richmond.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cape Breton-Richmond.

ALANA PAON: I thank my colleague from across the floor for ceding some time to me. Minister, it’s a pleasure to be able to ask you some questions with regard to some transportation issues, of which there are many in my constituency of Cape Breton-Richmond.

I was listening to Estimates yesterday - I know we have only a short period of time here - I understand that Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services takes care of looking at and reviewing and deciding upon vehicle claims for damage to vehicles. That would be pertaining to roads that would be in poor condition or bridges or any other kind of transportation infrastructure.

However, I do understand, as well - because I do have a letter in front of me here from one constituent, which, in fact, is a letter from the Province of Nova Scotia, and it is stating in here that while it’s unfortunate that they are not approving this claim, and while the Crown sympathizes, of course, with the personal expense and inconvenience that my constituent has suffered - and there are many who have suffered vehicle damage within my constituency because of poor road conditions - it is stating here that in order to approve a claim for compensation that TIR must have notice of the issue either from the general public or TIR road patrols prior to your incident date and have exceeded the service standard to attend the location and effect necessary measures as such. They are saying there is nothing to indicate that there was any negligence on the part of TIR. Although it’s an Internal Services issue, TIR is obviously directly related because you are giving the information to Internal Services.

[12:45 p.m.]

I guess I’m asking the minister - because I drive these roads all the time. I’m thankful that I have access to a Jeep that gets beaten up just like everybody else’s vehicle going through these roads. There was a Department of Transportation and Active Transit piece of heavy equipment that got stuck, bogged down, on this exact same road only a few days prior to this gentleman getting damage to his vehicle. Is the minister telling me the Department of Transportation and Active Transit is telling the Department of Internal Services that they have no record that there was a problem on this road? One would think there would be a problem on a road if a piece of heavy equipment gets stuck, causes damage to the road, and then this gentleman goes over the road and it actually damages the undercarriage of his vehicle because of that.

Can the minister please respond to this?

LLOYD HINES: This is a specific instance that the member is talking about and, of course, we do not have the details on it. If she would like to supply me with the detail that she has access to, we will certainly investigate the circumstances around this particular claim.

ALANA PAON: I will be following up with that. I will have permission from the constituent to do so, and I will be sending you information.

Again, it makes it very difficult for me to understand a) how, when a Department of Transportation and Active Transit piece of heavy equipment gets stuck on this road only days previous and then this gentleman drives over the road and damages his car, that the Department of Transportation and Active Transit does not have any record of the piece of equipment getting stuck there in the first place, and thus would be talking about the condition of the road.

Secondly, I would also just like to point out that I’m not sure when it is that it has been downloaded on the general public, and even myself as an MLA, because I’ve spent literally Sundays, Saturdays, whole weekends just looking at road conditions around the constituency. Very recently, I went out with one of the local councillors. We spent eight hours on a Sunday, driving the roads, taking a look at all the culverts and the issues with bridges, potholes, conditions of paving. You name it, we looked at all of it.

As much as I don’t mind doing this as part of what I do as an MLA, I’m curious as to why it is that I and the general public are being basically told that because nobody from the general public has called us to let us know that the road is in such deplorable condition - I’m pretty sure I remember rising from my seat in this House and being in other Estimates and speaking to you before about the deplorable conditions that have not changed in Cape Breton-Richmond - how is the department not aware of these road conditions and therefore not giving compensation to these people, my constituents, who are asking for compensation for their cars being damaged? My point being is that the Department of Transportation and Active Transit staff should be on the roads, checking these roads out on an ongoing basis. There should be some sort of a survey being kept. I shouldn’t have to call, and my constituents, especially, should not have to call to tell the Department of Transportation and Active Transit what kind of condition their roads are in. Downloading, basically, on the people who are paying their taxes and should be able to access safe road conditions, safe bridge conditions.

The second thing I want to ask the minister about is more funding, basically. We are so behind in catching up with trying to maintain current infrastructure. I’ll be honest with you, Minister, I’m not sure how it is that we’re ever going to catch up. We fix one section of road, and then a section of road that was maybe fixed five or six years ago is already falling apart. I don’t know if it’s the quality of pavement. The paint on the road lines doesn’t stay on for more than a couple of seasons, if that.

Can the minister please tell me: Is the quality of pavement that we are receiving today, which is so expensive, the same quality of pavement that we would have received 20 years ago? Is there are a reason why the pavement is not lasting as long? If there’s actually a problem with the pavement, are we actually doing all that we can to make certain that we’re following up with the warranties that are associated with the contractors who are doing our paving projects?

LLOYD HINES: There are a couple of things that are in the question there from the member. Let me deal with the budget issue first. When I came into this department in 2017, the road budget, as it were, was $215 million. In this most recent budget, combining the last two seasons, was over a billion dollars. This budget we’re on here is obviously $554 million. We have turned our attention to the road system in a significant way, from a budgetary point of view.

With regard to how we surveil the roads, we have people on the road. We have 2,250 employees across the province, all of whom are interested in the conditions. We have the operating supervisors in the various communities who patrol the roads and look for those kinds of problems. In actuality, one of our greatest sources is our citizens, who genuinely observe issues and report them to us through our call centre system, which was initiated about five years ago. It is an organized way of tracking complaints and each complaint that comes in is issued a tracking number and is followed up on as we go forward.

We have 22,000 kilometres of highways and roads and over 4,000 structures, bridges, and overpasses. It is a large responsibility, but we use all those methods to find out where the problems are. Inevitably, there will be some things that will be missed. We can’t be everywhere at one time, but I must say that our staff does a sincere job of trying to monitor conditions and get to solving the problems.

With regard to asphalt quality, we have a rigorous testing program that is involved, and we are also constantly monitoring the quality of the materials that go into the asphalt mix. We work with laboratories at Dalhousie and in New Brunswick at UNB to determine what the optimum mix is for our climate, which, as the member understands, is changing quite noticeably, requiring that we have to reassess our formulas as we go forward. The quality of the asphalt is of major concern to us and is something we’re monitoring constantly.

ALANA PAON: I would say that, as much as the minister does mention quite a bit in his responses that there is half a billion dollars going into roads, there is a lot of money going into redoing the Trans‑Canada Highway right now, which is a very important thing, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that we have rural roads, we have gravel roads, paved and gravel roads, in rural Nova Scotia that are in deplorable conditions.

Loch Lomond Road ‑ I’ve been talking about this since I was elected. We have the road from L’Ardoise to Fourchu - part of the Fleur-de-lis Trail, for goodness’ sake, Mr. Speaker, that has not been given any attention for 20-some years. Basically, it was paved back in the 1990s and forgotten about, for the most part.

We need an overall plan in the area for not just roads, but we need to look at this, as well, from an economic development point of view and the Department of Transportation and Active Transit needs to be a partner in that.

I want to bring your attention again to the Fleur-de-lis Trail, to the Loch Lomond Road, as well as to the bridge situation that we have over in Port Royal which is - it’s out, basically. We are having to take, still, an alternate route.

All these matters need to be addressed, Mr. Chair, and I would ask the minister to please make certain that he keeps these in mind when he is going forward with making decisions with regard to future projects.

[1:00 p.m.]

THE CHAIR: Thank you to the member for Cape Breton-Richmond for those questions.

The honourable member for Inverness.

ALLAN MACMASTER: We had a brief stint last night, and I wanted to carry on with our conversation about the new roundabout in Port Hastings. We were talking about consultation. You did mention that there’d be an effort made to consult, particularly with the . . .

LLOYD HINES: Mr. Chair, I can’t hear the member.

THE CHAIR: Can the honourable member try to adjust his headset?

ALLAN MACMASTER: Can you hear me now?

THE CHAIR: It is muffled.

ALLAN MACMASTER: Perhaps I’ll let my colleague take my place at this time.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg.

BRIAN COMER: My first question, minister, is with regard to the Rural Impact Mitigation fund, better known as RIM. I know that in your conversations earlier with my colleague from Pictou Centre, you referenced the fact that there have been recent increases to the RIM budget. I’m just wondering if you could explain to me the current RIM budget for the Eastern Zone and how that’s allocated.

LLOYD HINES: In the RIM budget, such things as paving, pavement patching, shoulder gravel, brush clearing, ditching, guardrails and shoreline protection are all targeted for funding in the RIM budget.

In the current budget year in the Eastern region, we’ve got $1,505,600 targeted for pavement preservation - that’s capital - and with those other categories added in that we talked about, there’s another $3,049,800 targeted, for an approximate total of $4.5 million out of the total $17 million that the RIM budget represents for the province.

BRIAN COMER: Just with regard specifically to coastal communities, minister: on Easter weekend, I’m sure you’re aware, there was a road collapse in my constituency in the Louisbourg-Main-à-Dieu area. The gentleman’s, quite frankly, lucky to be alive, to be honest with you, how things transpired. That situation was the result, to my understanding, of a failing culvert. I know there was some extreme weather that weekend as well. I know this government has had a significant focus so far on climate change and mitigation, but I find, myself, it’s very difficult to get funding for culverts throughout the communities that really need them right now. I’m just wondering: Does this focus change as situations change? This culvert probably should have been replaced a number of years ago. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are about that.

LLOYD HINES: I thank the member for what’s really a very important question. A couple of things that I want to say about that. Obviously, we are recognizing that, particularly in our coastal areas, things are changing. In that regard, internally, we have created a new budget line item that we will be funding to address the unbudgeted demand that occasions like that warrant. I can’t comment on the condition of the culvert there, but that was quite a big rain event that we had that was felt strongly in Cape Breton, I think, perhaps even more so than in the Southwest Nova part of the province in particular.

Like the question I had yesterday around the federal Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, our first job is to get these highways repaired so that they’re passable and safe. Then we’ll take a step back and look at what full mitigation costs are, and if those costs reach the level to qualify under disaster mitigation, then we would be submitting that to the federal government - I think the threshold is $3 million of cumulative - to be able to get some able assistance in making those repairs, which would, of course, not impact our normal maintenance budget.

I think that, generally, in the department we have a commitment to repair these roads, to get them back in shape. We’re seeing more and more unusual weather events that do have an impact. We are changing internally to create our profile so that we can respond to these in a prudent financial way and that we have some money earmarked for these kinds of events so that we don’t have to go fretting around as to where we’re going to get the money to do it. We’ll get it fixed and then we’ll figure out what we do for dollars afterwards.

BRIAN COMER: I just have a couple of specific questions based on our time constraints here. The senior staff in the department were kind enough to come and do a constituency tour with me back in November. I’m just going to list a couple of roads here. I know they all saw them and kind of agreed with my assessment that they needed some work as soon as possible.

I guess Tower Road would be the first place. My understanding, based on the information from my constituents, is that the last work done in that area was around 1947. I just want to know if you could clarify that for me.

LLOYD HINES: We certainly won’t dispute the 1947 date because without digging into the archives here, we wouldn’t be able to say with any finality that that was the last time it was paved. We rely on the good advice of the community and I’m sure they tend to know these things for sure.

[1:15 p.m.]

The local road, which this would fall under, where that particular repair is, it’s in our capital program and we will be making every effort to get to it, if not this season then next season. I do want to thank the member for entertaining our staff when they were down to visit you, but more importantly, for taking the time to come into the department here and raise your road concerns. That’s very important. Thank you for doing that. You did bring this particular road up at that meeting. Duly noted and it’s in our action list.

BRIAN COMER: I guess my point is if it’s not found in the archives, it’s probably not a good sign. That’s a road that probably needs some work. Just moving along here. There’s a culvert here in Fatima Drive in Sydney River. I know the deputy and staff looked at it with me. The flooding has gotten so bad in this neighbourhood that the homeowners can’t even get flooding insurance on their homes. I know it was pretty much agreed upon at that time that the culvert needs to be replaced, but I’m getting a new message that they don’t have that in the funding. People can’t get insurance on their homes now and it’s a central here in Sydney River. I’m just wondering: Is there any way we can get that culvert fixed?

LLOYD HINES: The review that you’re talking about happened in November, so obviously it’s the end of the construction season, and it is our intention to find some funds and make that repair in this season.

BRIAN COMER: Just to follow up with the minister: By this season, do you mean this Spring or Summer? When will that occur?

LLOYD HINES: We’re talking about the 2021-2022 construction season.

BRIAN COMER: Just to clarify with the minister: Is this on a written document somewhere that I can show constituents, or is this just anecdotally being said right now?

LLOYD HINES: We would be looking for our field staff, our local staff, to create an estimate for this work and then we would fit it into our program, fit it into our work schedule for this season. Of course, we always can rely on Hansard for what was said.

BRIAN COMER: Just a question in regard to some paving based in Bateston, Mira Bay Drive into Main-à-Dieu. I think I was referring to the staff. From the flashing light in Bateston as you drive into Main-à-Dieu, the road there is in pretty desperate need of a repair. I’m just wondering if that’s going to be slated to be done in any of the maintenance budget or repairs for the next year or two.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. We’ll get the honourable minister to respond to that. We are now going to take our 15-minute scheduled recess. We’ll be back shortly before 1:35 p.m.

[1:20 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[1:35 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The honourable Minister of Transportation and Active Transit.

LLOYD HINES: I believe the question was about some work on the Main-à-Dieu road, from the lights in. That particular job is an operational issue, so I would encourage the member to speak directly to the district director, Mr. Chisholm, and in the meantime we’ll follow up on this end to make sure that something happens from an operational point of view to make some repairs.

While I do have the member here, I want to give him some additional good news that I thought he might be asking about, and that is the Mira Gut bridge, which will shortly be going out to tender. The ad has been signed off and the completion date is for November of this year. So that longstanding issue, which is a replacement that we are estimating in the several millions of dollars, will be done in this construction season.

BRIAN COMER: I have to pass along my thanks to the department who actually helped me facilitate a very successful educational town hall last week in regard to the Mira Gut bridge, so pass on my thank you to the department for that.

On that note, Madam Chair, I am going to pass things over to my colleague, the MLA for Inverness. Thank you.

THE CHAIR: The honorable member for Inverness.

ALLAN MACMASTER: Thank you, Madam Chair and Minister. I trust you can hear me now.

LLOYD HINES: Loud and clear, sir.

ALLAN MACMASTER: Great. I had a headset issue there. I wanted to continue on with a question I was asking about the new roundabout for Port Hastings. You’d mentioned last night that there would be some consultation and we had talked about the volunteer fire service there. Can you give me some indication of what consultation could happen? Is it something where the department could reach out to the chief of the local fire station to do that? Also, maybe something for local residents, at least for those two groups, who are some of the most affected by this.

LLOYD HINES: You know, we are very anxious to get going on this significant improvement to replace that rotary with an improved system. It will include a roundabout, which will be a big improvement because they are also constructing a holding lane, which will increase the capacity of cars that can get closer to the swing bridge without having to back up through the rotary. That should allow traffic to be able to go down Route 19, which, of course, now you can’t really do.

On the longer term - much longer term - we’d be looking at complete grade separation, and also replacement of the swing bridge, which has been in there since 1955, with a bridge that opens vertically - that bascule bridge. That’s certainly down the road. In the meantime, we’re very confident that the rotary design will help alleviate the congestion that occurs when that bridge is open.

The communications piece of the consultation will be handed by our folks at Communications Nova Scotia and guided by our people in the department here. As I mentioned yesterday, the form of the consultation will be through a website and will be online. The individual stakeholders, such as the fire department, will be reached out to individually by our departmental people to receive input from them. The plan is to stimulate the public discourse through the website by providing some significant notice and advertising in The Inverness Oran and in The Reporter to direct people to the website. That will be starting fairly soon, I think. Probably in the next six to eight weeks we’ll be working on that consultation.

ALLAN MACMASTER: I want to thank the department for making the extra effort to look at a storage lane for that project. I think that’s going to make a big difference. It’s a huge issue for people who live in this immediate area when that bridge opens. I know we’re not that used to traffic here [Laughs] but this one can be tricky because you have people trying to get to the hospital in Antigonish, you have people - jams caused by the Newfoundland traffic. Then when people do get back on the road and get moving again, people can be taking chances on the highway towards Antigonish or towards Baddeck, depending on which way they’re going. Getting the on-island traffic to continue to move while the wait is happening will be a help to everybody.
 

If that storage lane proves that it’s not quite sufficient, will the department look at other options, like adding a storage lane along Route 19, and perhaps a storage lane towards Port Hawkesbury, coming towards the roundabout on that side of the roundabout, and also one on Highway No.104? I know that you already have two lanes coming from Whycocomagh on Highway No. 104 towards the roundabout. You have two lanes coming from Port Hawkesbury, at least pretty close to the roundabout.

Would the department look at some other measures if this storage lane is not enough, based on what we experience once it’s put in?

LLOYD HINES: Yes, I’m very familiar with the implications of extensive backup due to the choke point that the current swing bridge represents in creating the congestion that occurs, especially in the summertime. It certainly is a vexation.

[1:45 p.m.]

What we’re doing, of course, at this time, is taking our best shot at solving the congestion problem, as we see it, on an ongoing basis. Once we get the design in that we’re talking about, with the storage lane after the roundabout, we’ll see if that’s effective.

Of course, if we find that we haven’t got the improvement that we were looking for, then we’ll have to put our engineers back to work to come up with some other option to solve the problem, short of an extremely costly grade separation. That eventually, however, will probably be the solution that’s required in that area, but that’s going to be down the road.

ALLAN MACMASTER: I’ll just move to another one here. I think it’s one I asked about last year. As you near Cheticamp, when you’re driving through St. Joseph du Moine and Grand Étang, there are often very high winds there. We had a transfer truck blow over, I think it was a couple of years back now.

What I’m asking - I know the department has put some signage in place to warn motorists of the high winds, but they can be significant enough that I believe it may warrant a more robust measure. I know with the causeway there are flashing lights on signage that I think can be manually operated. I know these things cost money, but there can be dangerous situations when the winds are high near Cheticamp.

I’m just wondering if the department would consider putting more robust signage in. I know the locations that have been recommended by locals are that a sign be put at the Knights of Columbus in Point Cross and at the other end, at the northern end, at the Cap LeMoine lookoff. Those are sort of - in between those two points is generally where the highest winds are. I’ll let the minister answer.

LLOYD HINES: The area that the member describes is one that I am very familiar with because a long time ago - and you might even remember Charlie Phillips, who operated the Esso station right there, probably before your time a bit - we could never keep a sign at that location because of the wind. That location was the site of the first wind turbine in Nova Scotia, that Nova Scotia Power erected quite a long time ago. The wind was so intense that it overpowered the turbine and it never did work out for them. There’s no question about the velocity of the wind that exists in that particular area.

You are correct. The lights at the causeway are operated manually and it’s easy for us to do that because we have the available staff nearby there. However, we’ll undertake to see what kind of solution we could come up with. I think that’s a reasonable suggestion, to provide some enhanced warning there in that particular section. It’s got to be the windiest spot, certainly in Cape Breton, but in the province, I would think.

We will undertake to work with our local staff to see if we can come up with some sort of a solution. I’m sure there are automated processes that we could use rather than having to dispatch somebody up to turn the wind monitor on. I’m sure there are other ways we could do that. We’ll see if we can take a look at it and come up with something that will be along the lines of what the member is suggesting.

ALLAN MACMASTER: The next question I have is sort of a special one too, and perhaps something that the department might need to provide some extra resources to the local operations. This is a situation just north of Inverness. As you’re leaving the community of Inverness, there’s a steep hill that you go down. If you look to your left, you can actually see the new Cabot Cliffs Golf Course. On this hill, there is a dip in the road. I know they have made some efforts to fix it, but some of the knowledge in the community suggests that it might be a sinkhole related to mining activity of the past. To properly fix it might require some special resources, some special engineering work to determine what’s actually down there. I’m wondering if that’s something that the department could ensure they keep on their radar and, if possible in this year coming, could include that in their analysis work and to try to come up with a solution that’s safe and longstanding for that issue.

LLOYD HINES: I really appreciate the member bringing that to our attention. We can’t respond to that just now because we don’t have the information at this level. We will direct our field staff to investigate that and determine what sort of problem we have there. It could be an old mine. It could be natural. It could be gypsum underneath there. We will take a sharp look at it because we’re very concerned about safety and wouldn’t want to see anything happen to the roadbed there that could put our motoring public in jeopardy. We’ll undertake to take a look at that, and we’ll let the member know what we find.

ALLAN MACMASTER: Minister, with respect to Winter maintenance operations - snow clearing and whatnot - have there been any changes for the upcoming budget year to recognize areas of the province that might have a little bit harsher weather conditions? I’m thinking particularly about my own constituency here. We do have some pretty harsh conditions here and that may warrant, perhaps, a little more resources to safely maintain the roads. Have there been any changes in this budget for that?

LLOYD HINES: A couple of things with regard to the answer there. We’re constantly internally measuring the various regions as to what the demand is and trying to adjust internally. We had a very rare event this year in that we were able to come in on budget for our Winter budget at approximately $60 million, which is down 10 per cent from the year before. It’s quite a number of years that we haven’t overspent on the Winter budget. We do adjust internally to try and compensate for that, but of course, it takes the budget a year to tell us what we really should be doing.

Some good news - which I’m sure will affect the member’s constituency - is that we had a significant increase in our new equipment purchases this year. We spent about $21 million on new equipment versus an average year of $6 million or $7 million. That would include some graders that could be used for snow removal. In all probability, there’ll be one of those heading into the fleet in the member’s riding.

In the overall picture, we do try to adjust internally to spend our Winter budget where we get the most snow. I’m well aware of the snow removal demands in the member’s constituency. Fortunately, Parks Canada does French Mountain to North Mountain, so we’re not stuck with the additional expense associated with keeping those two sections of road open.

ALLAN MACMASTER: I’d like to share the remainder of my time with the member for Cumberland North.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cumberland North.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Thank you so much. I look forward to asking the minister some questions.

First of all, I want to say thank you to the minister and everyone who works in his department. We have incredible staff that work here through the Department of Transportation and Active Transit here in Cumberland North. The area manager here, as well as your regional manager, are very responsive, very attentive to the needs here. I know I have written the minister, so it’s documented, and the minister did respond.

[2:00 p.m.]

I’m wondering if the minister could share with me once again if there is still no desire on the behalf of the department to put Malagash and Wallace, which are part of Cumberland County, back under the management under Cumberland County.

As the minister is aware, for some reason it got switched to the management of Colchester County, and although the area manager there is a very nice person, I do think that he is overworked. He’s wearing many hats. He’s the third area manager that I’ve had for Malagash and Wallace in three and a half years, and that area is definitely not getting the attention that the rest of Cumberland North gets. In the rest of my area, the needs are very well responded to, but the area of Malagash, it is the number one problem that I have there.

There’s one road that I’ve been told is on the plan to be paved the last three Summers, and every year it gets bumped. The residents there are very upset. They feel very neglected, and I think every gravel road that I have right now in my list of road complaints is in the area that’s being under management with Colchester.

There’s a definite discrepancy in the level of management and attention between those two managed areas. I’m wondering if the minister has any comments about that.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. It appears that the minister is responding to the question. We are confused as to whether he is on mute and responding or if he’s still conversing with his staff. Can the minister just let me know what’s happening?

LLOYD HINES: I’m showing that I’m talking to you.

THE CHAIR: We’ve missed your response. You were on mute, I guess. Could you start that response over again?

LLOYD HINES: I wasn’t on mute, but I can do that. [Interruption.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The honourable member for Cumberland North.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I heard his response. I’m not sure, but I think everyone else did as well. Maybe not yourself, but I did.

LLOYD HINES: Madam Chair, I just want to finish that off to say that we’re well into the review and that we will reach out to the member this Spring to bring her up to date on what the findings are.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much, minister. Unfortunately, we are going to have to ask you to repeat the answer. It won’t be on the record because we did not hear it in the Chamber.

LLOYD HINES: I’ll see if I can recall what I said. I started off by saying that in 2010, there was a general reorganization of boundaries within the department. This particular change was one of those changes which was the best available information at the time. It was designed to respond to efficiencies, as it were.

Like everything that we do, we’re reviewing that currently. That particular one for the Malagash and Wallace area is one that is under review. We expect to be in a position to make an utterance this Spring. We will be in contact with the member directly regarding what the outcome of the consultation is.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Minister, I’ll look forward to receiving that update, and I know my constituents will as well. Thank you for that.

I have a question for the minister regarding a bridge where the tender was cancelled last summer. I was told that was because it came in double over budget. When I had my Fall review with the staff, unfortunately, it wasn’t on the plan. They were going to look into it. I just hadn’t heard.

I’m wondering if the minister might be able to, if not today, then in the future, just get me an update. It was regarding the Wallace Harbour Ferry Road bridge. Again, I understand that the tender came in double the budget, but I do want to just make sure that that bridge repair is still going to be scheduled and will be completed.

LLOYD HINES: Yes, that was scheduled for a repair, and it still is in the system, scheduled for next year. I would suggest that the member contact our chief engineer and have a discussion about the circumstances around how it got moved operationally.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I would like to bring up a couple of very timely issues with the minister, knowing that - I guess my expectations, based on what has happened over the last year, are not high that anything will be done to change them. On behalf of my constituents, I do need to raise these concerns.

That is the current setup right on the Trans-Canada Highway for the Nova Scotia border checks. My understanding is that the Department of Transportation and Active Transit is part of the physical setup and structure but that the Department of Environment and Climate Change is responsible for the operations and staffing of it. I have had conversations with people within the department. Again, very professional, very good people to work with, but unfortunately we did not have our concerns addressed.

When I say “we,” I am referring to not only the Mayor of Amherst but also the Mayor of Cumberland County, who is a former Speaker and a former Minister of Transportation in the Nova Scotia Legislature. We shared our concerns of the safety of the physical structure and checkpoint being set up right on the Trans-Canada Highway with the normal speed limit of 100 or 110 kilometres an hour.

Yesterday, for some reason, the province decided that everyone who has been exempt to cross for the last 13 months - somebody decided that it would be a good idea to have all of those people - 4,000 crossed yesterday, just to give you a bit of an idea - who work back and forth cross-border - yesterday they had to prove that they are exempt, including our ENT surgeon, our respiratory techs, our obstetricians, our teachers. To say that yesterday was another stressful day here at the Nova Scotia border is a complete understatement.

Our mayors of both the county and the Town of Amherst made what I thought was a very reasonable and acceptable plan. That was to open Exit 1 and move traffic off the highway for a checkpoint in either the Visitor Information Centre or in a very large pull-off area off LaPlanche Street. Literally only 100 yards up the road, there is an entrance back onto the Trans-Canada Highway, so anyone wanting to go back onto the Trans-Canada Highway could do so, but anyone wanting to access businesses on LaPlanche Street or downtown Amherst or Amherst in general would be able to go into town.

Unfortunately, there was a decision made to leave what is believed to be an unsafe checkpoint on the Trans-Canada Highway and keep Exit 1 closed, ignoring the concerns of both mayors and myself and the people who live here.

I was contacted yesterday by some law enforcement, urging me to continue in my efforts to have that Trans-Canada Highway checkpoint removed, due to their safety concerns. That came from law enforcement.

I just want to assure you that this continues to be a problem, and I would be remiss if I did not bring these concerns forward on behalf of people I represent and other leaders here in my area. Again, my expectation is that probably nothing will still be done, but I did want to bring it up to the minister and share our concerns and offer if he had any comments.

LLOYD HINES: I thank the member for resurfacing this matter, which she has done previously. The controlling department there is the Department of Environment and Climate Change, who are charged with the inspection and the control. The setup there that we facilitate is one that they are recommending. I would suggest that you might speak to that department or that minister, who I believe is going to appear later on today at some point.

[2:15 p.m.]

With regard to changing the criteria around exemptions, our department has absolutely nothing to do with that. That has to do with Public Health and the Department of Environment and Climate Change in particular who probably set out that criteria.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I would like to ask the minister a few questions about the Cobequid Pass. I know the Western Alignment Corporation is one of his favourite topics. I have a couple of specific questions about financials and then just a couple of general comments.

The first question I have - it seems like I have a friend with the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. He assured me that he agrees that the tolls should be removed. My question to the minister is: How does he justify . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time has elapsed for the PC caucus.

The honourable member for Dartmouth North.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I am happy to cede the rest of our time to the PC caucus.

THE CHAIR: Thank you to the member for Dartmouth North.

The honourable member for Cumberland North.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: My question to the minister is: How does the minister justify keeping tolls on the Cobequid Pass as the Province builds new twinned highways throughout the rest of the province?

LLOYD HINES: I thank the member for the question. I guess there is a distinct difference between the main envelope funding that we use to construct our highways and twin our highways and the particular agency that was set up - a legislated agency, Western Alignment Corporation - to construct, operate, and maintain the Cobequid Pass.

I think the member would agree, and we have had this conversation before, about the fact that the Cobequid Pass, we are estimating, has saved in excess of 40 lives over its history, which is exactly why we are twinning highways across the province. We know that twinned highways save lives, but we have that empirical evidence that is available to us from our experience at the Cobequid Pass.

The Cobequid Pass particular piece of highway is financed, maintained, and operated by tolls. The rest of the highway system in the province ‑ the budget is subsidized by the gasoline tax and Registry of Motor Vehicles fees, which do not totally provide the funding for the maintenance and capital of the highways.

In actuality, from the money that is collected in gas tax and RMV, we’re short $200 million annually for this process. In other words, we are collecting from those two revenue sources $200 million less in this budget year than what we collect in gas tax. The general revenues pick up the deficit there, with the exception of the Cobequid Pass, which is designed and paid for by the tolls.

For several years, I travelled the former road through there and through the Valley and witnessed a lot of accidents that were occurring. The decision was made around the mid‑1990s to take action and put the twinned highway in. At that point there was no capital funding available for the bypass for the Cobequid Pass, and the method that was chosen was tolling.

That is the history of how that works. It is not really a comparison of apples to apples in terms of justifying the highway-twinning program. There are different sources of funding and we want to continue our march towards reducing the fatality rates on Nova Scotia highways by providing twinned highways.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Can the minister tell me who the current CEO of the Western Alignment Corporation is?

LLOYD HINES: That would be our chief engineer, Mr. Peter Hackett.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Is Mr. Hackett’s salary paid from the Western Alignment Corporation, and if yes, what is that salary?

LLOYD HINES: For the chief engineer, that’s a volunteer position. He receives no extra remuneration for the position that he holds with Western Alignment Corporation.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: The CEO of the Western Alignment Corporation - there are no booked expenses for his salary in the financials?

LLOYD HINES: That is correct.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Can the minister tell me who the chair of the board of the Western Alignment Corporation is?

LLOYD HINES: That would be the chief engineer, Mr. Peter Hackett.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: So the board chair and the CEO are the same person, just to clarify?

LLOYD HINES: That is correct.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Interesting governance structure. Who are the board members for the Western Alignment Corporation?

LLOYD HINES: The structure of the Western Alignment Corporation is that of a typical Crown organization. The board consists of Mr. Peter Hackett and the corporation is . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Minister, we have lost your sound again in the Chamber. Could you start again?

LLOYD HINES: Yes, the Western Alignment Corporation is a typical Crown corporation. There is one board member, Mr. Peter Hackett, and there is one shareholder, who is the sitting Minister of Transportation and Active Transit.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Just to clarify, the corporate board structure for the Western Alignment Corporation is that the chairman of the board is the same person who is the board CEO, and there’s only one other board member?

LLOYD HINES: No, there is no other board member. There is one shareholder in the corporation, who is the sitting Minister of Transportation and Active Transit.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: So there are zero board members for the Western Alignment Corporation. Am I correct?

LLOYD HINES: No, that is not correct. There is one board member, who is Peter Hackett.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Can the minister tell me, under the financials for the latest year for the corporation, what are the wages for - I just want to clarify that there are no CEO wages booked in the Western Alignment Corporation for 2020.

LLOYD HINES: That is correct.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Currently, their long-term debt is showing at around $24 million, and restricted assets are showing at over $84 million. Can the minister tell me, what are the plans for this government to do with the surplus cash once - I’m assuming they will follow legislation in 2026 and close the Cobequid Pass tolls and close this corporation.

[2:30 p.m.]

If there’s already $60 million in excess - the difference between long-term debt that’s owed and cash that’s sitting there - there’s going to be a larger amount by 2026. Where’s that money going to be going?

LLOYD HINES: I just want to note that the legislation that governs the Cobequid Pass makes a proviso that the tolls will continue as long as there is a certain range of costs that are identified in the legislation, including maintenance, which will be ongoing. The question that comes back to government is: Does that mean perpetual tolling? It would be a decision of policy that some government would make.

With regard to any particular surplus that might be available, there are ongoing significant capital costs associated with the highway - such things as culverts, bridges, pavings, and rebuilding bridges that, of course, over time require replacement. That would be part of the fund, plus a 10-year maintenance plan for the bridge itself.

As an example, we’re well down the road on establishing two rest stops, one east and one west, which will be paid for out of the Western Alignment funds. They’re being designed currently. We don’t have the capital cost yet on those, but they will come out of that picture.

It’s hard to say just where we might be in 2026. At our best estimate right now, this year we’ve lost close to $5 million in revenue associated with the pandemic. That’s a significant hit to us with regard to how we’re going to have to manage this piece of infrastructure which will become part of our road system. The burden of maintenance and capital repair would shift to general revenues if the tolls were removed.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. We will now take our 15-minute break. We will return at 2:52 p.m. Thank you very much.

[2:37 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[2:52 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. We will continue our questioning of the Minister of Transportation and Active Transit with the honourable member for Cumberland North.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Just a couple of comments that I’ll make on some of the things the minister said. The Highway 104 Western Alignment Act clearly states that the tolls will be removed when the liabilities related to it cease. Although it does say “operation and maintenance,” it has always been under the assumption that once the debt has been paid - and that’s always been what this government has said, and what has been said all along: that once the debt has been finished, retired, for the cost, the tolls would be removed. What the minister is saying is that he’s not committed to that, that he’s committed to continuing to keep those tolls on. He has shared that with me in the past.

It’s my responsibility to speak on behalf of the people I represent, and it is a thorn in their side, because whether it’s a business that’s exporting lumber, lobster, blueberries, salt, or any other item, they have to pay an extra tax that no one else in the province has to pay to get their goods to market. They’re already paying the gas tax. They’re already paying motor vehicle fees. It’s unfair, and I have the responsibility to be their voice on that, and it hasn’t changed.

I would like the minister and his department, if they are going to choose to keep these tolls on, to consider providing a transponder or some device to all the people who I represent - really, anyone who lives north of the Pass - to allow them, whether it’s long-haul trucks, short-haul trucks, or residential vehicles - the residents of Nova Scotia who have to pay that toll in my constituency and surrounding constituencies should not have to. If this government is going to insist on keeping those tolls on, then they should be removing that extra tax for the people north of the pass. It’s a real thorn in the side. They feel very unfairly treated.

My last question is really a financial one. I like to study financials, so I just have a question. In the 2020 financials, wages are listed under expenses. I think there’s around $732,000 in wages booked for 2020. The reason I was asking about how the CEO is paid was because there is a fee under Facility Operator Management Fee of $265,000, as well as other administrative costs of $78,000, in addition to other costs that are separate from the wages.

I was just wondering if the minister can share what the operator management fee is and who that is being paid to.

LLOYD HINES: I can understand her questions regarding the CEO and board chairman earlier in view of the costs in the statements associated with administrative costs and salary costs. Essentially, those are the HR costs associated with actually running the facility. There is an on-site manager who manages the overall business of the tolls, and that manager has an executive assistant, and then there is an on-site comptroller who looks after the, controls the financial situation. Then there is in excess of $2 million in payroll connected with the 53 jobs that are supported by the tolls - pretty well split evenly between Colchester and Cumberland County - jobs that would be threatened, obviously, if the tolls were removed abruptly from the Pass.

[3:00 p.m.]

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I notice the minister didn’t make any response to my request to remove the expense for the residents that I represent, both residential seniors and business owners who are paying millions of dollars extra in tax than other people in the province.

My last comment, and I’ll pass it over to my colleague from Cumberland South, is right now the people in my area can’t go to the north. The New Brunswick government had them shut off and then to the south, they have our own government, they feel, being cut off by the Pass. They feel absolutely being unfairly treated by this Nova Scotia government when you continue to keep tolls on a highway with $60 million excess, after the debt would be paid, sitting there in a slush fund. Continuing to accumulate that cash off the backs of hard-working people in Cumberland North is wrong.

On that note, I will pass it over to my colleague in Cumberland South.

LLOYD HINES: I do feel I have to respond to those statements, which are inaccurate, Madam Chair. We actually monitor the origin of the users of the Pass, and in the most recent fiscal, 13 per cent of the car revenue in Nova Scotia came from Cumberland County; interestingly enough, 52 per cent of it came from Halifax County. The folks in Cumberland County are not shut off in the south, because they have an alternative route that they’re entitled to take.

Also, the folks in Cumberland County, like anybody else in Nova Scotia, can go to a MACPASS on the tolls for their car vehicle and pay $2 instead of $4, and as I had tabled earlier for the member, and the report from the CAA on a per kilometre basis, taking the Cobequid Pass saves money for both truckers and for car motorists.

Those are the facts, and the facts are what matter, Madam Chair.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cumberland South.

TORY RUSHTON: Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon to the minister and his staff.

Just a little comment. I’ve been listening to this exchange on the toll highway, and I want to make two comments. One, the minister may not change his complete mind if he were to live in Cumberland County, but he may change some of his ideas if he were to live in Cumberland County, on some of the statements he just made. That’s not what I’m here to debate about today.

The other comment I do want to make about the toll plaza is prior to coming into this House, I was fire chief for 12 years. Many of those first years, we saw a very good relationship with the toll plaza, if you will. The first part of my being fire chief, there was a regular donation that would come in to any fire department from that toll plaza to the fire department on a regular basis. That would support them because they don’t collect taxes for responding to the calls on that portion of the highway. Then it went from “well, you need to send us a request,” to “well, you need to send us an invoice for services and call volume,” to an almost non-existence.

Since we have the whole board and the CEO - or CEA, whatever it is - sitting with the minister today, I just want to put that out there. Food for thought. There’s a lot of volunteer services going into that toll plaza. Yes, I agree with the comment that we are saving lives because of this toll plaza. I actually communicated with Joe MacDonald regularly in Antigonish and came down to a few of his meetings, long before I got involved with politics, and advocated that twinning does save lives. But putting in tolls between a county in a province does take money out of the expenses of not just our pockets in Cumberland County but also out of the pockets of volunteer services on it. That’s just a comment about that, Minister, and I appreciate you taking it back for discussion possibly at a future date.

One of my main questions, and I’m going to try and keep it short so others can get in some time here today as well before we end with Transportation and Active Transit - one of the issues I’ve asked about the last three budgets, I believe it is, that I have been here for, is Highway No. 104, the connector between Highway No. 104 and the old town mines of Springhill. The connector is what it’s locally known as here in Springhill. I’ve asked time and time again, I’ve talked to local staff, the area supervisor, but the guardrails are almost lying on the side of the road. They have been for the last couple of years and I keep getting the answer at the end of the fiscal year that there was just no budget available for it. I want to throw that out to the management staff today.

LLOYD HINES: I appreciate the two things from the member. I appreciate the question, but I also appreciate the fact that he did take the time to come in and meet with our folks to talk about issues in his riding. This wasn’t one of them that was brought up at that meeting, but that doesn’t make any difference. We will undertake to take another look at it. You brought it up with the local folks and we will follow up with that and see if we can find some funding to improve that guardrail situation there where you are talking about.

TORY RUSHTON: I do want to point out as well the very good working relationship with the area manager and supervisors up here. It’s a regular conversation that we have weekly and update each other with what is going on. I have no complaints at all with the communications we have with the staff up here and if you get the chance, give them a pat on the back for me as well. I share that with them all the time.

One of the issues that we do have is there was a washout of a dyke in Eatonville going to - it’s part of the geopark area - it is being worked on now. I understand that as soon as the road is open that their staff are going to be on that as well. But there has also been a washout on Route No. 209 in Fraserville, between Parrsboro and Advocate Harbour, to give you a little bit of the geographical area.

There have been Jersey barriers or pylons, something there at different times, different spaces but it’s a real safety concern in that area. This is one of the issues that I do talk to the area supervisor about regularly. There has really been no direction from anybody where we’re going to go with this. This is well over a year, I believe, that this has been washed out and we’re certainly looking for answers and an estimated time for repair on that.

LLOYD HINES: Thank the member for surfacing this particular matter. We are doing a section of Highway No. 209 this year. I don’t know if it’s the section he’s talking about. I think it may not be. We will undertake to review the piece with the local folk and see what we can do to improve that. It sounds like there’s been some washout and some Jersey barriers that have been there for awhile and it hasn’t gotten fixed and the member would like to have it repaired, so we’ll certainly check into that and see what we can do.

TORY RUSHTON: I don’t believe the area that is going to get taken care of this year includes this area. I appreciate the interest, and I know if you or your staff reach out to the area manager, he’ll know exactly where the area is and hopefully give some guidance as to how we’re going to fix that.

If we come down a little bit further into the shore, I actually presented a petition about a road at the end of the session, 12 months ago, and that was Ramshead River Road in the Port Greville-Diligent River area. This road is actually deteriorating even worse, and it’s not just utilized by residents, it’s utilized by a huge group of the blueberry growers and some forestry. I actually went on this road a few weeks ago, and it’s not just springtime issues. These have been issues that have been deteriorating over a few years. Just wondering if there’s anything on the books to have a look at that.

LLOYD HINES: I believe that it is a chip seal road, which normally we try to avoid with any sort of industrial style traffic because the chip seal simply won’t stand the wear. We will take a look at this, and it may be that it could be a candidate for the Gravel Road Program if it has deteriorated to the point where that’s the best treatment that we could offer. If there’s any amount of forestry traffic on it, the chip seal generally won’t stand up. I appreciate the member bringing it up, and we will definitely talk to the local area manager to give us a recommendation on what should happen there.

[3:15 p.m.]

TORY RUSHTON: Just a last comment on that road. It’s deteriorated so badly, we’re not even sure if it was chip seal or asphalt or what it was. I appreciate the minister is going to be reaching out for that.

I know the minister and his staff, and I always to take this opportunity to list a few of the roads that I usually do talk about with area managers or in my annual meeting that I do have with the engineers and such in November. Just a few of them that I’ve been talking about for the last three years: Newville Road, Old Halifax Road, Lower Cove Road, Highway No. 204 in the Victoria area - it would have been an extension from another five kilometres that were done a few years ago - and Wentworth Collingwood Road. Those are just a few that I like to name and just highlight again where I have the chance and the audience of the staff and the minister.

The last conversation I’d like to have with the minister is the Aboiteau Bridge again in Parrsboro. One of the last times I had conversations with some of the staff, there was indication that after this bridge was taken off the five-year plan two years ago, there was some indication because we realized that the sea levels are rising, and Two Islands Road is going to need to be built up to the bridge replaced.

I recognize also that the aboiteau is not the responsibility of the Province. I recognize that right off the bat. Actually, I met with the mayor this afternoon and briefly spoke about that.

Is there a conversation that was indicated possibly going on with the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Environment, and the Department of Transportation on this bridge? Maybe what was indicated last year or two years ago from staff - it might have been two years ago prior to COVID-19 - about maybe the deputy minister and the engineer coming up to have a visit with myself and the local municipality to have a look at the bridge.

LLOYD HINES: It is a bit of a complicated situation. At the time the discussions were going on, the Town of Parrsboro still existed. Of course, they dissolved and are now part of the greater Municipality of Cumberland County.

The problem there is with the aboiteau. It’s not with the bridge. The bridge continues to meet our yearly inspection standards. It’s up, I think, to the folks who are responsible for the aboiteau to decide what they want to do there.

This is not localized to this area. There are other areas in the province where aboiteaux were built and ended up used either at the time when they were made or later, roads were built over them. It creates a bit of a spaghetti on jurisdictional matters.

The intent is for senior staff to come up to Cumberland County to spend some time with the member. That is probably going to happen - I can’t give a date for sure, but in the next month or two - and get a feel for exactly what the circumstance is with this particular matter that the member has surfaced and anything else that would benefit from having an actual site visit by our senior people. That is in the plan from the deputy and the chief engineer.

TORY RUSHTON: Just a quick couple of comments. I’ll certainly reach out to the minister’s staff and deputy following the Legislature. I know he couldn’t commit to a date. He might give away a possible date for an election maybe. All joking aside, I look forward to that meeting. It’s very important. I’m not an engineer. I can’t tell whether the bridge is safe or not. I do know a fact that we have a lot of roads that are washing out on a regular basis. We see the tides over top of this road at least monthly when the high tides are in. I don’t know if we could schedule it so there’s a high tide there so staff could see it or not. I appreciate the fact that there’s commitment to come up, carry on the conversations, get this bridge back on the five-year plan, and have a safe road for residents and businesses alike.

I appreciate the conversation back and forth with the minister. I will turn my time over to the member for Victoria-The Lakes. Thank you very much to the minister.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Victoria-The Lakes.

KEITH BAIN: I’m glad to take a few minutes to have a chat with the minister. I knew that he knew he wasn’t going to get away without me appearing before him.

First of all, minister, I want to express my thanks to the people in our area, the district director, Jamie Chisholm, the area managers Steve Macdonald and Cody Roland, the Operations Supervisors Sheldon Fiander, Joey Parker, Mark Greene, Nelson Dixon. They are all so very co-operative and always answer my calls or emails. We work well together - I think, anyway. I also wanted to thank the department for the many paving projects and gravel road projects that took place in the last season. I’m quite sure that you’re not going to get away with just leaving it at that.

Just a few things, Minister. This is one I bring up every year and it’s concerning maintenance budgets for the area managers. I know that Victoria County and Inverness North, which are together, they have a higher Winter budget, and rightfully so, I guess, because of the mountain ranges and - just Kellys Mountain, Smokey itself is going to increase their budget. As a result of that, their Summer budget is lower because they get the bigger piece of the pie in the wintertime. So what happens is normally there’s no preventive maintenance taking place because there’s not enough money to do that. Then all of a sudden, those little jobs that could have been done are turned into big jobs that are going to cost money.

I would like to get the minister’s comments on that. I’m wondering if the Summer maintenance budget for my area could be increased.

LLOYD HINES: I thank the member for the question. I particularly appreciate his kind words about our very hardworking staff, which certainly applies across the province and certainly in Victoria-The Lakes.

On the question of the Summer versus Winter budget, the budget is distributed proportionately, based on the number of kilometres in the county and the type of road that it is designated as. We obviously could have local roads and gravel roads and 100-Series Highways over Kellys Mountain, in Victoria County, so there isn’t much flexibility in that without significantly changing the maintenance budget number, which I’d love to be able to tell you that I could do but it’s not likely to happen. We were able to increase it by a couple of million dollars three years ago, but it remains static in the present budget.

However, as I mentioned earlier to one of the folks, internally we are assessing the impacts of washouts. I know Victoria had quite a bit of rain also in that last event. We are channelling some dollars into a fund that we will administer internally that is designed to treat some of these occurrences that are relating to washouts - guardrail degradation - to be able to provide for that kind of impact that we’re seeing more regularly, I believe due to climate change.

Really at this point, that’s all I can offer the member in terms of some hope that we might be able to address some of his needs there.

KEITH BAIN: I appreciate that, minister, and I would assume that any extra money for something like this would probably be based on the same formula. Maybe he can answer that.

I’m just going to go a little bit further and ask if there’s any word, indication or possibility that Ottawa might provide more infrastructure funding, with COVID-19 still going on?

[3:30 p.m.]

LLOYD HINES: I appreciate the question from the member. I can assure him that we - and that’s a collective “we” here - we’ve got some pretty sharp senior staff who are handling the infrastructure funding, and though that has now shifted out of our department directly, it’s obviously still available to us. As the member insinuated there, I think some of the work we did on the Cabot Trail did get some federal subsidy. We have exhausted that at the present time, but we feel that it’s probably likely that that will pop up again in terms of the various pots of money.

One of them, of course, that we availed ourselves of, to the tune of $90 million, was the National Trade Corridors Fund, which has helped subsidize the Highway No. 104 twinning between Antigonish and New Glasgow, which I know the member drives on a weekly basis, as do I.

The feds have been fairly good at providing opportunities for sharing with the provinces, and we’ve taken advantage of that at every opportunity that we can. I’m sure the new Infrastructure and Housing department will continue to do that.

THE CHAIR: Before I recognize the member for Victoria-The Lakes, I’ll just make note that the time for the NDP that was ceded to the PCs has elapsed, and now we’re back onto the PC time. It doesn’t make any difference in reality, but I will say that we will be ending at 3:52 p.m. So I just wanted to ask the minister about how many minutes he would like for closing remarks and to read his resolution.

The honourable Minister of Transportation and Active Transit.

LLOYD HINES: I would say five minutes, Madam Chair.

THE CHAIR: You got it.

The honourable member for Victoria-The Lakes.

KEITH BAIN: I know there are others behind me, so I’ll try to make this quick.

The reason I asked about the infrastructure money, minister, was one road in particular - the Trans Canada Highway from Exit 10 at Baddeck to the Englishtown turnoff at Exit 12 - is just in terrible shape, and we’re talking about the Trans Canada Highway.

Anyway, the first road I’m going to talk about is one that you’d be very familiar with, and it’s Dingwall Road. I know that you’ve been hearing about it. I’ve been in touch with the district director, the area manager, the engineer. I know that there’s going to be a section of the Cabot Trail down from Effies Brook to Bay St. Lawrence Road, and there was indication that Dingwall Road might be included in that same tender.

I’m just wondering if the minister can confirm that?

LLOYD HINES: I’ve been aware of the Dingwall Road for a while. Our plan at this point in time is to look at doing some enhanced maintenance this year and to speak with the district director about putting it on the capital program for the following year. We’re going to be in that area doing some work, and that will be cost-effective for us to do it at that time. We just ask for a little bit more patience, and we’re contemplating strongly putting it on the 2022-2023 Capital Plan.

KEITH BAIN: I’m sure the residents will be glad to hear that. I think the enhanced maintenance this year is going to eliminate some of the problems that they’ve been dealing with on a constant basis.

Like the member from Cumberland South, I have a list of roads, but I’m not going to name them off because it would take too much of my colleague’s time - and I know I’ve been doing that - but I’ll send a list of these roads that I have to your department to the deputy and the chief engineer, two people that I neglected to mention before when I was giving thanks. The deputy and the chief engineer have been very cooperative through all this too. It’s much appreciated - always return my calls, again, and I couldn’t ask for anything better than that. With that, minister and Madam Chair, I’ll share the rest of my time with the honourable member for Kings North.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Kings North.

JOHN LOHR: It is a pleasure again for our few brief moments to do Estimates with you, minister. I don’t want to take too much time saying it, but you know I appreciate your staff here in Kings County; they do have hard-working staff and our relationship with the department - we have a great relationship.

As the minister knows, one of the major issues is just generally potholes in Kings County. We’ve gone over this a number of times in the past number of years, but the question I would have is, one solution which really did make a big difference was having two crews out of the New Minas branch to do potholes for Kings North and Kings South - not that it was one crew for each, just wherever they happened to go. Will there be two crews on potholes again this year?

LLOYD HINES: We intend to maintain that status quo at this point.

JOHN LOHR: I appreciate that very much. I didn’t actually hear when this minister needed to start his closing remarks, at what time?

THE CHAIR: You have seven minutes. He is going to start at 3:48 p.m.

JOHN LOHR: Okay. Minister, I would just like to ask about the Hillaton bridge. It was on the Five Year Highway Plan. It’s a heavily used bridge on Highway No. 358 and the entrance into Canning. It’s not on the Five Year Highway Plan now and I’m just wondering what the plans are for the Hillaton bridge.

LLOYD HINES: We have it in our system, and it will be going out for consultant design in this year. The design will be completed next year and will be built in the year 2023. In the meantime, the bridge is safe, it has been inspected and it is in the system for replacement.

JOHN LOHR: I appreciate that answer. I do want to say, minister, the Kentville bridge which has been done has been very well received by the community - an excellent structure.

Minister, I realize I have four minutes left and I have a list of roads to talk to you about that is way too long. I promised a constituent I would ask about two roads, about getting on the gravel road repair plan. They are Baseline Road and Russia Road. They are on the border of Kings North. Really they are in Kings West, but I just wanted to ask for that person. There was apparently a problem with school buses getting through there - they were so muddy. Will Baseline Road and Russia Road be on the gravel road repair plan?

[3:45 p.m.]

LLOYD HINES: We do have Russia Road in our system. There is some work to be done on that, I believe. I can’t say whereabouts on it today, but I know there’s a large culvert replacement that is in the plan.

The Baseline Road we don’t seem to have in the capture here, but having the member bring them up here as possible candidates for the Gravel Road Program, we will make sure that they become candidates.

A technique that I use, Madam Chair and through you to the member, is it helps if the local municipality can support the improvement on these gravel roads by getting involved. I speak to the municipalities in my constituency because they often know high-priority gravel roads. There’s quite a menu of roads that we could choose to spend the gravel road money on, so it helps if the municipality states what their preferences might be also. I just leave the member with that and thank you very much.

THE CHAIR: I will invite you now to make some closing remarks, and when you are finished with that, ask you to read the resolution.

LLOYD HINES: The first thing I want to say is for the member for Kings North, who I thought might ask about the B-train farm vehicles that he brought up some time ago with the department. I did want to tell him that we have moved on that. I just have a draft agreement in front of me which is being sent out to the Federation of Agriculture. We’re waiting for a response. It’s called the Farm Combination Vehicle Pilot Program, and it moves towards accommodating some of the things that the member brought up to support the farming community across the province, so I did want to mention that that’s something that we are working with the Federation on. If we can get the stamp on the pilot program we will be implementing that, after we get the approval of the Federation of Agriculture.

I want to thank all the folks who participated in the Estimates here for our department. I’m really pleased at the unanimous consensus that was expressed by all the presenters and all the questioners about our staff. Not just our staff here in head office who I get a chance to work with and observe 3 or 4 days a week, but the folks who are out there as the working face of the Department of Transportation and Active Transit in Nova Scotia - the people who we depend on to execute and use their good judgement as to the various duties that they have to execute.

You know, driving a 50-ton snow plow through a blizzard requires a certain amount of courage. If you’re an Operations Supervisor and you’re standing in front of an irate resident whose culvert has just been washed out and they’ve maybe got some water in their basement, managing those kinds of situations calls for a certain type of individual who can handle that sort of thing.

I would say that generally across the province, our yellow trucks and our employees have got the confidence of our citizens. There are times when people get angry, but generally speaking, we are very proud of the people that we have representing us out there in the field.

I also just want to highlight the dispatch centre that we have set up in Glace Bay. That is, we see the numbers there growing year to year and that’s good because people are starting to get faith in that system that they can call. It’s an organized manner and a way that we can keep track of the kinds of maintenance issues that happen, and give people some semblance that there’s somebody at the end of the line who is waiting - who’s going to help them - and it’s something that can be tracked. We’re very happy about that.

I also want to thank the members from all Parties in the House who work with our departmental people. The roads are an ongoing issue. I heard comments today which are very, very accurate about the importance of our highway system and our road system in the rural parts of the province as economic drivers. I believe that completely. I wish we had more funding so that we could do more, but I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve got that budget up over $500 million. I’m hoping that we’re able to keep it there for the next foreseeable future.

There’s also a little bit of a situation with confusion that exists as to whose responsibilities are in various parts of the province, but we work with all our municipalities to iron that out.

So, Madam Chair, with that I would be prepared to read the resolution.

THE CHAIR: Shall Resolution E39 stand?

Resolution E39 stands.

Thank you very much.

We will now take our 15-minute break, and when we return, we will be hearing the Estimates of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. See you soon.

[3:54 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[4:04 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please.

The honourable Deputy Government House Leader.

HON. DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: Mr. Chair, would you please call the Estimates for the Department of Environment and Climate Change.

Resolution E6 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $44,379,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Environment and Climate Change, pursuant to the Estimate.

THE CHAIR: The honourable Minister of Environment and Climate Change, to make some opening remarks.

HON. KEITH IRVING: It’s a pleasure to join everyone here this afternoon to share what’s been happening at the Department of Environment and Climate Change and to take questions.

I am pleased to provide opening remarks on this year’s budget for the Department of Environment and Climate Change, and here today with me virtually are Julie Towers, deputy minister for the department, and Milica Kunovac, Manager of Financial Services.

As you know, I’ve been on the job for eight weeks, and I want to answer your questions as fully as possible, and to do that I’ve asked some of our exceptional staff to stay close at hand. Although you won’t see them, I’d like to introduce Jason Hollett, our associate deputy minister and lead on climate change; Lorrie Roberts, Executive Director of Policy; Andrew Murphy, Executive Director of our Sustainability and Applied Science branch; Adrian Fuller, Executive Director of Inspection, Compliance and Enforcement; and John Somers, Executive Lead on the Coastal Protection Act. I will work with them to answer your questions as fully as I can.

Our job at the Department of Environment and Climate Change is to protect the Nova Scotia environment, protect human health, and oversee the welfare of farm animals. In this role, the department is also at the centre of our response to the climate crisis, now reflected in the new name for the department. Throughout Canada and around the world, we are witnessing a period of extraordinary momentum by governments and corporations to move forward on policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and our carbon footprint as we transition to a carbon-neutral economy.

You’ll hear today about the work we are undertaking at the department to ensure Nova Scotia is at the forefront of this transition. Before discussing our work on climate change, I want to highlight the responsibilities that are perhaps the face of the department: our role as regulator.

One of the earliest impressions I have developed of the 390 staff serving throughout the province for the Department of Environment and Climate Change is the breadth of expertise working in the interest of Nova Scotians as conservation officers, public health inspectors, and environment inspectors. During the pandemic, we turned to this expertise to respond to the extraordinary and unprecedented situation we faced. Since March 23, 2020, our regulatory staff have been at Nova Scotia’s land border, our airports, and our ferries, making sure that people coming into this province know what rules to follow in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.

They have been making sure that travellers fill out the Nova Scotia Safe Check-In form so their automated system can follow up daily to make sure people are following the rules. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for this work, which has played a vital role in Nova Scotia’s success at managing the pandemic.

[4:15 p.m.]

Our staff have also continued their regular work across the province. They investigate complaints about air quality and environmental violations. They oversee food safety, helping to ensure that restaurants, food trucks, and lunch counters are aware of the new requirements under the Public Health order and are preparing foods safely for Nova Scotians. They patrol trails.

Environment and Climate Change staff also work to identify and protect areas of special natural interests, so we can reach our land protection goal. Our staff grant permits for wetland alterations and water withdrawals. They review environmental assessment applications and industrial approval packages. They enforce 35 pieces of legislation and more than 80 sets of regulations, and they develop policies to protect the environment and reduce solid waste.

It has been my privilege to become familiar with the scope of the exceptional work carried out by the Department of Environment and Climate Change and I want to thank staff for their work in helping me take on the responsibilities as a new minister.

Mr. Chair, climate change is the challenge of our time. My introduction to climate change occurred 20 years ago when I was living and working in the Arctic. Traditional Winter travel routes over lakes and sea ice were no longer safe because of unprecedented changes in ice conditions. Inuit reported dramatic shifts in temperatures and more intense storms, and we began seeing birds in January that had never overwintered. That was in the 1990s.

Now in basically every corner of the world and here in Nova Scotia, we are all witnessing more extreme weather events with more intense storms and changing weather patterns that directly impact our marine and land resources and our agricultural sector. As we see with climate plans in other jurisdictions, we must approach the climate crisis in Nova Scotia with an eye to mitigating the impact of the climate change that is already occurring, while at the same time moving forward on steps to transform our transportation systems, our energy systems, and our buildings, so we can move beyond carbon, towards a carbon neutral economy.

Under our Premier, this government is accelerating our work on climate change and we have increased our ambitions. We have committed to phasing out coal for energy use by 2030. This is 10 years earlier than planned. We will mandate 80 per cent renewable electricity by 2030. All our provincial government offices will use renewable energy by 2025.

Last month, we announced a provincial rebate program on new and used electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and e-bikes. We are finalizing our public engagement plans for our Climate Change Plan for Clean Growth, working with Clean Foundation to host online interactive discussions. We will work to engage Mi’kmaq, African Nova Scotians, and others to ensure that we have a diversity of perspective.

We are also moving forward to seek public input on the regulations for the Sustainable Development Goals Act. This act passed in 2019 with unanimous support from all parts. Later this Spring, we will begin public engagement on our Climate Change Plan for Clean Growth.

Recently, I announced the appointment of the Round Table on Environment and Sustainable Prosperity to provide expert advice to the Premier and myself on the protection of the environment and pathways to address the climate crisis in the context of strengthening our economy and supporting our social goals.

We know that our response to the climate crisis must build on the leadership that we see at the federal level and include a mix of programs to promote actions on climate change. To this end, I have had a productive discussion with Minister Jonathan Wilkinson at Environment and Climate Change Canada, imagining the pathways to a carbon neutral future.

We will require leadership from all Nova Scotians, including the incoming generation of leaders. One program that has been the cornerstone of building the next generation of climate leaders is our Clean Leadership program, a summer internship program that offers opportunities for young people to work in positions related to clean energy solutions and climate action across the province. The Clean Leadership program was established in 1988 and has been delivered by the Clean Foundation since 2011.

Our youth are among the most passionate and committed environmental advocates and they are looking for opportunities to work in the exciting and growing field. Over the past five years, the program has hired between 60 and 80 young people each Summer and the demand for internships is increasing. Our provincial Department of Environment and Climate Change is providing base funding over five years of $750,000 to administer this program, along with $2 million from our Green Fund. This Summer, 105 students will get valuable job experience as Clean Leadership interns.

Mr. Chair, we also know that leadership on moving towards a carbon neutral future must also come from within government and the Department of Environment and Climate Change is active on this front. Our staff are working with other departments and their industry partners through the Climate Adaptation Leadership Program. This year our province will spend $561,000 on this important work.

Department staff are working closely with other departments and their respective sectors to assess future risks related to climate change and to support mitigation strategies. We are committed to a whole-of-government approach to climate change. Climate adaptation specialists are working with industry and community partners in the beef industry, with Christmas tree growers, with archeologists, and with the horticulture sector. This program is designed and run by our department and co‑funded by the province and Natural Resources Canada.

Risk assessment is a critical aspect of government planning around climate change. Our last climate change risk assessment was completed in 2005 and needs updating. I am pleased to report that work is well under way on this important aspect of climate change planning. Through a combination of $360,000 from our Green Fund, along with federal funding, we are updating our climate risk assessment so that we can provide Nova Scotians with current and informed analysis of risks associated with climate change.

We have engaged consultants to help us better understand the full spectrum of climate risk, including, for the first time, studying what is most important to Nova Scotians’ well-being. We also know that good planning requires good data, and this is where our work with the creation of the first Atlantic climate data centre will help guide future directions and decisions. We are investing just under $550,000 over three years for this project. That money comes from our Green Fund, and the other Atlantic provinces will contribute the same amount. The centre will help provide provinces, researchers, industries, and communities. It will help them interpret and use existing climate data and identify what data are needed in the future.

A Request for Proposals was issued in December to determine which organization will lead the Atlantic climate data centre, and the successful bidder will be announced this Spring. These two investments - updating our risk assessment data and collaborating with other Atlantic provinces in the Atlantic climate data centre - are all about getting the information we need to make smart decisions.

Up to now, I have been speaking about what we are doing to equip ourselves with better data around climate change and how we can inform mitigation and adaptation strategies. The other large piece of a climate plan is our effort to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and build a cleaner economy.

Key to our effort here is the cap-and-trade program. You will recall that in 2016 the federal government told provinces to put a price on carbon. We could either choose a way to do it ourselves, or we could allow Ottawa to do it for us. We designed a cap-and-trade program that gives companies an incentive to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions each year, but also protects Nova Scotia consumers. Money raised by auctioning off allowances goes to our Green Fund, and that money goes to our programs designed to protect the environment, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and adapt to climate change.

Last year, we held our first two auctions under Nova Scotia’s cap-and-trade program. Those auctions raised a total of $28.7 million for the Green Fund. We invested over half of that money, $16.2 million, in programs that will help low-income Nova Scotians save money on their energy bills. We invested $11.45 million in the Affordable Multi-Family Housing program. This program offers incentives for energy efficiency upgrades in affordable housing projects. We also invested $4.75 million in the HomeWarming program, which offers energy efficiency upgrades like draft-proofing, insulation, and other upgrades to low-income homeowners.

Other Green Fund investments include the SolarHomes program, which offers rebates for homeowners installing solar panels; a Small Business and Not-For-Profit Energy Solutions program, which helps with energy efficiency upgrades for those sectors; our climate change risk assessment and Climate Adaptation Leadership Program; and the Clean Leadership program that I spoke about earlier.

The other aspect of these investments that I want to stress are the impact they are having on building a new generation of businesses focused on clean energy technology. For example, there are more than 300 local businesses that work on Efficiency Nova Scotia projects. They employ about 2,500 Nova Scotians. So far, we are pleased with how our cap-and-trade program has worked, and we anticipate new investments this year.

Mr. Chair, Nova Scotia has over 13,000 kilometres of beautiful coastline. We also have, in the context of climate change, more and more extreme weather events that make our coastline vulnerable to erosion, sea-level rise, and storm surge. In 2019, we passed the Coastal Protection Act, the first piece of legislation of its kind in Canada. This legislation will set out clear rules for future construction, what can and can’t be done when building along our coastlines. It will also ensure that new development in our coastal protection zones takes what we know about climate change into account in the planning stage.

You can see the value of our strength and effort on data collection analysis and risk assessment, how important that is for coastal protection planning. It will help us protect our salt marshes, dunes, and other important coastal features. Since the Act was passed, our staff have been hard at work on the regulations. Legislation like this can’t be a one-size-fits-all approach. These regulations need to be tailored to geology, geography, and specific local conditions. We are developing mapping resources to assist the public on where the Act applies.

We are also about to complete work on a coastal erosion risk assessment tool that will determine horizontal setbacks. These will be based on the combination and severity of erosion factors on a specific property. We are also working on a system of vertical setbacks based on the latest projections from Natural Resources Canada to make new developments safer from sea-level rise.

Our staff have been in regular touch with stakeholder groups such as municipal planners, surveyors, geologists, real estate agents, and others to inform them on the work that we are doing. When we introduced this legislation in 2019, we undertook an initial round of public consultations on the Act. We will now be reaching out to Nova Scotians again on the regulations being proposed.

The COVID‑19 pandemic has made us appreciate Nova Scotia’s parks and protected areas more than ever. Nova Scotia has protected more provincial Crown land than other jurisdictions in Canada. In February, we were pleased to announce an additional 20 sites for protection. When designated, they will bring us to our 13 per cent land protection goal. This batch includes some beautiful and valuable sites, including the expansion of the Medway Lakes Wilderness Area in Annapolis County, Dunns Beach Provincial Park in Antigonish County, an expansion of the Middle River-Framboise Wilderness Area in CBRM, and the Cherry Hill Beach Nature Reserve in Lunenburg County.

[4:30 p.m.]

Designating a site involves a great deal of work and research. There’s detailed land surveying work that needs to be completed, as well as consultations with Nova Scotians for 60 days before we make a final decision on designation. Reaching 13 per cent is an important milestone, and I’d like to thank all the staff who’ve worked tirelessly to get us there.

My mandate letter has directed me to move the province now to 14 per cent protected land by designating some additional lands from the 2013 Parks and Protected Areas Plan and other lands that have been purchased since 2013. This year, we will be working in partnership with the Department of Lands and Forestry to develop a framework for identifying more areas of ecological significance. These will include areas of importance identified by our Mi’kmaw communities. This work will also include areas that enable our wildlife populations to connect with each other.

Mr. Chair, in this work on protected areas, we have a willing partner in the federal government, and many committed non-governmental partners such as the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and the Ecology Action Centre. We will also consult with Mi’kmaw communities across the province. Our plan is to use the $14.3 million over four years from the Target 1 Challenge fund to achieve our new protection goal of 14 per cent.

In the coming decade, it is my expectation that the urgencies of the climate crisis will bring unprecedented pressures on government to respond with both mitigation and adaptation measures, and investments to transform our transportation, energy, and building systems. In my remarks today, I’ve outlined some of the key measures the department is taking to lay a foundation for responding to the climate crisis, measures such as investments in data collection and risk assessment, investments in developing the next generation of climate leaders, and in the key legislative and regulatory measures that we must put in place to achieve our goals on climate action and environmental protection.

We will continue to ensure that the department’s key role as regulator has the expertise to protect the environment, human health, and the welfare of farm animals. On behalf of Nova Scotians, I’d like to reiterate my thanks and appreciation to the Environment and Climate Change staff who have made unprecedented adaptations this year to keep our borders safe and to ensure the application of the evolving Public Health measures in the areas that they oversee.

The work expected of the department this past year continued from the dining room tables and the basements of our distributed workforce, and for this I offer my most sincere thanks.

I would be happy now to take your questions.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much.

The honourable member for Sackville-Beaver Bank.

BRAD JOHNS: Mr. Minister, I’d like to begin my remarks by extending a sincere congratulations to you as you take over this new portfolio. I do look forward, based on our working relationships in the past, to be able to work with you as we all in this House work toward addressing the concerns of climate change and the environment. I know from our past working experience together, it’s something that I look forward to doing as we all work forward.

I have some good news and some bad news. Well, actually, bad and bad news, Mr. Minister. I have all my notes here today, which is the bad news. I had them all sorted out nice and neatly and sent them to the printer out in the hallway and they never got there, so they’re not as ordered as I would like. That’s also the bad news. I know that you have very capable staff there, so with that, we can work through this.

I also want to make a note - I do appreciate the recognition through the name change of the department to include climate change. I think it’s significant to note that but, as I said in past budgets and I’ll say again this time, I would, at some point in time, really like to see that perhaps the department was split.

I do recognize that two‑thirds of the Department of Environment and Climate Change currently is looking after animal welfare and restaurant inspections and stuff like that. I really do think that the needs for environment are significant enough that it could probably have its own mandate and let the other part of it, perhaps, go to Health or somewhere it might be better suited.

Mr. Minister, I do also want to thank you in ‑ we brought up in the Human Resources Committee in regard to the Minister’s Round Table on Environment and Sustainable Prosperity. We brought up concerns because that committee had been sitting vacant for a number of months, almost a year. With you taking over the portfolio, I do note that appointments came forward very quickly to that department and I do believe that round table is now full. I extend sincere thanks to you for that as well. Getting into that, I would like to start the questions today specifically around the round table.

I would like to ask the minister: I am looking for an update or some type of a status report to the round table in regard to their annual report, which I know having just been created, but I’m looking to try to see when we can anticipate seeing some kind of an annual report coming forward from that round table, Minister.

THE CHAIR: Before I recognize the honourable Minister of Environment and Climate Change, I will just remind the members to address the minister and vice versa through the Chair and refrain from using “you” and rather use third person when we are having these discussions.

The honourable Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

KEITH IRVING: First of all, thank you for the comments from my colleague from Sackville‑Beaver Bank. As the critic for the Department of Environment and Climate Change, I am looking forward to working with you and I certainly, through the last few years in the House, have appreciated your interest in climate change and I will look forward to your input and ideas as we move forward on this work.

With respect to the round table, my understanding is that there was a report submitted for 2017‑2019. The committee was not active in 2020, obviously, with the pandemic being the focus of the work throughout the province. It is anticipated, as the Sustainable Development Goals Act comes into force, that there will be annual reporting on progress on the sustainable development goals.

BRAD JOHNS: Madam Chair, I’m wondering if the minister would ‑ one of the criticisms that I did have in regard to the Sustainable Development Goals Act was around the regulations and the fact that this piece of legislation did not have regulations included. I’m wondering if the minister would be able to provide an update regarding the regulations and when they anticipate those being ready.

KEITH IRVING: Madam Chair, as with almost every piece of legislation we pass through the House, regulations usually follow and provide more detail. As you know, the round table had recommended that we put parts of our goals into regulations so we could be more flexible as we move forward. Those regulations - we will be going out on consultation with, we hope quite soon. I’ve been working quite hard with John Somers and the rest of our climate change staff to be putting together our consultation plan, both on the Sustainable Development Goals Act, which will produce our regulations, as well as our Climate Change Plan for Clean Growth.

I’m really looking forward to that. Clean Nova Scotia will be involved. They’ve got a great reputation, and I think we’ve got some sound ideas here on how we reach out in a variety of ways to Nova Scotians. I know there’s a keen interest out there on these issues. Clearly, you don’t have 10,000 folks, many young people, in the streets and not recognize that this is important to Nova Scotians. I’m really looking forward to hearing from them through our consultation process, and they will help us put forward, I hope, some ambitious but achievable goals in our Sustainable Development Goals Act.

BRAD JOHNS: I’m wondering if the minister could confirm - my hope is that other caucuses in the House will be consulted with regard to the regulations, in addition to the other consultations that take place throughout the province. Would the minister be able to confirm that other caucuses will be consulted?

KEITH IRVING: Yes, certainly. We want to reach all Nova Scotians, and any help that you as an MLA, in terms of encouraging people to participate. We can, I’m sure, reach out specifically to your caucus. One of the ideas, as part of our consultation, is to provide a tool kit to kind of guide a discussion, and that may be something your caucus or the NDP caucus may want to use. Obviously, you don’t have to if it doesn’t seem to work for you, but we’re trying different tools. This one might be a good way for groups such as a caucus or a church group or a high school class to have a productive discussion and provide some advice to myself and my colleagues here at Environment and Climate Change as we move forward on our ambitious work on addressing the issues of climate change.

THE CHAIR: I will just remind everyone, the minister and members who are asking questions, to please address the opposite person through the Chair.

BRAD JOHNS: Madam Chair, I know that is the House rule. I’m okay if the minister addresses me because I know that we’re all working for the best for Nova Scotians and this is part of the process, and I don’t see the budget, at all, as adversarial.

Having said that, I recognize there are so many questions, I know some of which the NDP caucus will be asking as well. There are some very specific questions in this particular budget that I’d like to delve into that may not necessarily be questions that I’ve asked in the past or normal questions that would come forward, but I do want to try to get these in.

[4:45 p.m.]

In specific, would be with regard to contaminated sites throughout the province. I’m wondering if the minister would be able to provide me with the actual cost the province has paid out on contaminated sites this year. Also, I was looking but I couldn’t find - I’m looking for a number for 2018-19 and 2019-20 as well, what we’ve paid out to remediate contaminated sites.

KEITH IRVING: First of all, I would like to indicate that I did not mean to speak directly to the member opposite. As a former Deputy Speaker, I should know better, but anyway, my apologies.

To your question, it is actually not taken care of by and is not in the budget of the Department of Environment and Climate Change. Individual departments responsible for those contaminated sites are the ones that carry those figures in their budgets and the Finance and Treasury Board office collates those figures. It is something I am sure we could get to you but unfortunately it doesn’t rest with the Department of Environment and Climate Change.

BRAD JOHNS: For clarification, remediation of Boat Harbour, Madam Chair - I’m wondering if that falls in this department.

KEITH IRVING: It is Nova Scotia Lands Inc. that is responsible for that. They carry the overall budget for Boat Harbour, although they do flow through some funds. In this part year, it was $281,000 for staff in our department to work on that project and in the upcoming budget there is $976,000 that is supposed through our budget for that project.

BRAD JOHNS: The decommissioning plan that has been put forward, which I think has not come forward yet, I’m curious to know - I do believe Environment is responsible for that plan. I’m wondering whether or not Northern Pulp has actually submitted a decommissioning plan yet.

KEITH IRVING: Again, it’s Nova Scotia Lands that has the project for decommissioning. At Environment, we’re actually the regulator, so they would bring forward their plan to us and we would, as regulator, review that plan.

BRAD JOHNS: I guess my question to the minister is: Has that decommissioning plan come forward yet?

KEITH IRVING: Sorry, it’s a one-word answer: no.

BRAD JOHNS: Does the minister see any necessary changes to the existing environmental assessment process?

KEITH IRVING: We were a little confused with your question. I think you’re asking about the environmental assessment for the Boat Harbour cleanup. That would be a federal assessment. We would contribute to that process, but it’s in the hands of the federal Department of Environment.

BRAD JOHNS: I thank the minister for the patience with the Boat Harbour questions. Moving on to climate change, I did recognize in the minister’s opening remarks that he mentioned the government had pledged to remove coal by 2030, which is 10 years prior to what was previously looked at. I’m curious to know - Nova Scotia Power and how they’re dealing with - how the government is dealing with Nova Scotia Power. It has not explicitly stated that they will end their use of coal by 2030, particularly in Cape Breton.

Would the minister be able to state for the record today whether or not he and the department believe that 100 per cent end of use by 2030 is really doable without Nova Scotia Power coming on side?

KEITH IRVING: Obviously, it’s an ambitious goal, which we are wholeheartedly getting behind. We will be, obviously, having many conversations with the federal government as energy generation are long-term projects. We’ve got nine years to work on that. Our main role here, with respect to Nova Scotia Power, is as a regulator. We can as a regulator stipulate to Nova Scotia Power when they need to be off coal.

BRAD JOHNS: I guess this feeds into, somewhat, to the answer. I’m curious to know, if Nova Scotia Power does not have the necessary resources to remove coal from their operations, what the department will do to make sure that the emission goals are met then?

KEITH IRVING: As a regulator, we already have a cap on GHG emissions with Nova Scotia Power and that is declining going forward. They also participate in our cap-and-trade program.

In terms of how we’re going to get there, we’ll be working with our federal partners on this. That was a bit of my discussion with the federal minister. With respect to the Atlantic Loop, that may become a big part of the solution. Obviously, a significant - we’re talking a $3 billion project or something like that. It’s really just initially scoped out and will have many, many more conversations to actually become a real project, but it is something that was in the federal Throne Speech and is mentioned, as well, in the National Climate Change Plan. We’re also having discussions about other parts of the electricity system that will help us move to no coal.

We are looking forward to getting more wind online in the very near future. That is going to take us to 80 per cent renewables, and with working with our partners in the Department of Energy and Mines, and some of the legislation that you’ve seen go through the House. We have more opportunities with solar. Solar will not be as big a part of the whole energy mix, but it is still something that can contribute and is a renewable that is getting cheaper and cheaper each year.

One of the newest technologies that has great potential to really help us as we reconstruct our energy mix is battery storage. There are some interesting projects going on in Canada and some projects being discussed here in Nova Scotia with large battery storage, which, again, is an exciting project. Some of our large industrial customers, such as Michelin, are very concerned about dependability and the quality of the electricity, and they are very interested in battery storage, as well, as something that would help them in their business.

Again, we are always trying to attract and maintain our large employers in the province, and anything that we can do to make their lives better as industrial customers of our power system is something that we want to pursue. It’s a lot of work, but a very exciting opportunity, with the interest by the federal government, the technology changes in the renewable system, and new innovations with respect to battery storage.

I’ll also add that there is opportunity to move to gas. That’s a debatable conversation on whether that can be an interim step. I think, personally - and I’m no expert in energy - I’m hoping we can skip the gas phase and get right off coal and to renewable energies tapping into Muskrat Falls, obviously, and hydro from Quebec mixed with our homemade energy with renewables.

BRAD JOHNS: I do recognize that trying to electrify the transportation sector is a move forward and I know that there was a commitment of significant funds - I think it was approximately $19 million - that was made here a number of weeks ago. I am curious to know ‑ I know that there are some rebates that are being offered to those who are fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of those programs and look at purchasing EV‑type vehicles.

My question for the minister is: Will there be any rebates planned to help with lower- and middle-income household individuals so that they too can purchase low-emission vehicles and can help, as well?

KEITH IRVING: I’m really, really happy the member asked this question because I know there were some comments made in the House about the affordability of electric cars. There is no question it is in the upper range of a car and, obviously, some exceed our limit of $55,000. One point I’ll make is the inclusion of a rebate for a used car brings down those costs considerably. When we made the announcement, the Premier and myself were on a used car lot of electric vehicles and there were some there for $32,000. Again, that may be more in reach to middle-income Nova Scotians.

[5:00 p.m.]

The other thing I think that is really important to understand why we need to bring this program in is that we need to transition Nova Scotia to electrify our transportation. If we look at what’s happening between Canada, it’s the provinces that have had provincial rebates that is where the cars are appearing on lots to be sold. Up until now, there have not been many electric cars to buy, whether you have $55,000 or not, because the market for electric cars is going to where the rebates are, and that has been Quebec and B.C. Because of those rebates, now 10 per cent of cars in B.C. that are sold off a lot are electric. If we want to catch up, if we don’t want to be the last to electrify our system, we have to incentivize folks to try electric cars, show electric cars work for their driving habits, and make it more mainstream.

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In parallel with that, if we don’t have electric cars on the roads, no one will be installing the infrastructure to charge those electric cars. We’ve got a chicken-and-egg situation: if we don’t have cars on the roads, we’re not going to have the infrastructure, we’re not going to transition our transportation sector. These rebates are the beginning of that transition and, I think, a very helpful step to get us in the game, to get our car dealers to get more electric cars available to Nova Scotians.

There are other options with the electrification of the transit system that are being looked at very seriously, and that, of course, is public transit. I know HRM is very interested in electric buses and have been talking to the province about that. That will be taking the electrification of our transportation system and doing that for low-income Nova Scotians who use public transit.

And, of course, our work on active transit and bike lanes throughout the province. Again, part of that announcement - and it was $9.5 million - on the electrification end of that announcement also had e-bikes, which is, again, an affordable transportation method, particularly in urban and small-town environments. Again, more affordable, healthier transportation, and, again, electrifying it. Exciting.

We’ve really reached the era right now where this is the beginning of the end of the combustion engine and our efforts to get started on that, I think, are quite exciting.

BRAD JOHNS: Considering the time today, I’ll try to wrap up with regard to the topic we’re on now. I certainly recognize the need for, and agree with, incentives to try to encourage people to move to electric vehicles. The biggest stumbling block I’m seeing, and the minister did touch on this, is the infrastructure. I don’t really currently see the infrastructure in place that is going to make electric vehicles viable for everyone. I’m wondering if he would be able to elaborate on whether the province and the department have any specific goals or ideas that they’re going to be putting in place, and when we would start seeing that, to increase the infrastructure and, perhaps, power stations and things like that.

KEITH IRVING: I don’t have anything to report on that, specifically, at this time. As we work through the development of our Climate Change Plan on Clean Growth, that may become an element of that plan in terms of using taxpayer dollars to get more charging stations out there. I think the federal government is certainly interested in perhaps funding some of that as well.

One of the points I would like to make is that electric cars, because their range is changing and getting so much better - I went to my local dealer about a month ago, after becoming minister, to test drive an electric car, just to see what it was like and to understand the economics of it and what it would mean to me and my transportation needs. The cars now that are coming out, that are in that kind of $40,000 to $43,000 range, have a range now of 415 kilometres. For someone like me, who has a 92-kilometre commute, it becomes very feasible for me to use that vehicle to commute back and forth to Halifax without even having to find a charger in Halifax. Certainly, for my wife, an electric car would make a lot of sense because she doesn’t jump in the car and drive 400 kilometres on a day-to-day basis - that I know of, anyway.

Buy an electric car, get a home charging station, and I think many Nova Scotians may discover that, again, because of the increased range, an electric car could meet your transportation needs extremely well. Obviously, for the travelling salesman, we do have to move to getting more electric chargers throughout the province. We have about 100 of them right now and we have 500 electric cars.

That goes back to my point earlier about how we need to get more cars, more charging stations. More cars, more charging stations. That’s how we will make this transition. There’s a lot of good information at evassist.ca on the program and on e-bikes and e-cars. Maybe I’ll leave it at that.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Sackville-Beaver Bank, with about 40 seconds.

BRAD JOHNS: I can’t ask very much in 40 seconds, but I would suggest, and I recognize that the SolarHomes program, I believe, falls under the Department of Energy and Mines, but I have said in this House before that I think solar panels and solar homes and EV vehicles do go hand in hand, and I think they break the paradigm. I do know that there have been some programs. I certainly hope that any incentive programs for solar homes are continued. People break a paradigm. They get a lawn mower that’s electric. They have a car that’s electric, and they’re generating electricity for their own homes . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time allotted for the consideration of Supply today has elapsed.

The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. GEOFF MACLELLAN: Madam Chair, I move that you do now rise and report progress and beg leave to sit again.

THE CHAIR: The motion is carried.

The committee will now rise and report its business to the House.

[The committee adjourned at 5:08 p.m.]