HALIFAX, MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2024

 

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

 

2:54 P.M.

 

CHAIR

Nolan Young

 

 

THE CHAIR: Order. The Committee of the Whole House on Supply will come to order.

 

Before we get into the Estimates for today, I do have a Chair’s ruling from March 8^th. This ruling relates to two points of order that were raised on March 8, 2024, on the Budget Resolutions relating to the honourable Premier being considered by the Committee of the Whole House on Supply.

 

The first, raised by the honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party, asserted that the Premier had questioned her integrity, which is unparliamentary, by calling her the type of person who uses dog whistle politics. The Premier replied that he was speaking in general terms and not referring to the honourable member specifically. The actual comments made by the Premier are as follows:

 

It’s the mentioning of her name, I believe, that was meant to elicit a response. Is that called dog whistle politics, Chair? I think that’s a turn of phrase that refers to people who do those types of things. Right. Let’s say this and try to elicit some response.

 

The Premier did not call the Leader of the NDP the type of person who uses dog whistle politics, and I do not read anything said in this passage as questioning the integrity of the Leader of the New Democratic Party. Accordingly, I dismiss the first point of order.

 

The second point of order, which was raised by the honourable member for Dartmouth North in relation to comments made by the Premier while defending his actions in relation to the first point of order, the member from Dartmouth North asserted that the Premier said that there was a pattern of misrepresentation, which to her, suggested that people in the House who were participating in the pattern of misrepresentation are misleading this House, and that stating such a thing is unparliamentary.

 

After I took that under advisement, the Premier redacted the reference of misrepresentation. Accordingly, as the unparliamentary remark has been withdrawn, the point is moot.

 

The honourable Government House Leader.

 

HON. KIM MASLAND: Would you please call the Estimates for the Premier: Resolutions No. E19, E23, and E35.

 

THE CHAIR: The debate continues with Resolutions.

 

The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party with three minutes remaining.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: With only three minutes, we’re going to conclude our questioning for this round and hand it over to the Official Opposition, and we’ll be back after their hour.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

 

HON. ZACH CHURCHILL: My question to the Premier is: In the FMA, there are a number of Acts - the FMA has turned into an omnibus bill - that, if passed, are pretty consequential and serious to Nova Scotians. I’d like to bring the Premier’s attention to one: Part 15 of the FMA, subsection 110, requiring custodians and classes of custodians to disclose personal health information to the minister or person acting on behalf of the minister. This is a substantial change from health care policy and privacy policy in Nova Scotia, requiring doctors and their staff to disclose individuals’ health records to the minister or someone acting on behalf of the minister. This was also concealed on Page 33 of 37 of the FMA.

 

This change was not part of the bill briefing on the FMA. My question to the Premier is: Considering this is such a significant change and involves people’s personal health information and doctors’ requirement to pass that on to the minister or designate, can the Premier please tell us why the public wasn’t informed of this change?

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable Premier.

 

HON. TIM HOUSTON (The Premier): I just want to be very clear with Nova Scotians that, as we continue along the journey to manage the system, we need data with which to manage the system. In terms of the change in the FMA here, I want Nova Scotians to know this is all aggregate data; it’s not personal data. There’s no move to take somebody’s personal data and do anything with it, but we do need to manage the system. If we go back and think about the election in 2021 and our promise to Nova Scotians to fix the health care system, to make sure people could have access to the health care they need - when they need it, where they need it - there are a number of things that have to happen.

[3:00 p.m.]

 

Of course, we talk about the health care human resources - the people aspect of it - and Nova Scotians would know we passed a very significant Act here in this Legislature. It didn’t have all-party support. It was called the Patient Access to Care Act. There was a lot of discussion on this particular Act. I think the member opposite and his colleagues talked about that bill at length, and used a number of tactics to slow down the passage of the bill and maybe bring attention to the bill. I’m not too sure. They definitely used a number of tactics to hold the bill in this Chamber, and then ultimately voted in favour of the bill, because despite the politics of the back and forth, I think that even they themselves in the end could realize that this was a good bill.

 

I think I’d be fair to say that was a recorded vote, and not all members of the Official Opposition were present for that vote. Some actually just kind of didn’t vote on that bill. It’s a matter of public record on the recorded vote.

 

Needless to say, the Patient Access to Care Act is a significant piece of legislation that I’m proud to have voted for. The reason we put that bill forward is, really, the focus was on common sense credentialling. So a doctor in the U.K. in good standing - good enough for the U.K., good enough for Nova Scotia.

 

We identified a number of jurisdictions, and I think the nurse’s college - I have to tip my hat, they’ve been very progressive on this piece of legislation. When we first tabled the bill, we had about 1,500 nursing vacancies in the province. After the passage of that bill, I think the college is now processing somewhere in the range of 19,000 applications from nurses in other pre-approved jurisdictions like the Philippines, like different parts of India, the United States, other parts of Canada, and the U.K.

 

The common-sense credentialling part was really significant - that’s on the health care human resources aspect of it. A really significant, important piece of that legislation along the journey to fixing health care is data. We know that we need data to manage the health care system. There was a real lack of data with which to manage the system when we took it up, and I was quite surprised at the lack of data.

 

In fact, in thinking about these issues, I often say to the team: “Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment, would you capture it, or would you let it slip by?” I know the answer, in terms of the member opposite, because the member opposite let the opportunity slip by. The member opposite was the Minister of Health and Wellness and didn’t take the actions that we’re taking, especially around data. I was pretty surprised to learn of how the bed management process was being run. Really, this was the case that . . . (interruption).

 

THE CHAIR: Order. My apologies. Please, there’s no yelling across the room. If the Opposition - either of them - asks questions, I ask that they respect the time and listen to what the answers are. Thank you.

 

The honourable Premier.

 

THE PREMIER: It wasn’t even the case that if somebody was being admitted to one of our health care facilities and they needed to find a bed, they would literally have to call through the facility - call the second floor: Hey, do you have a bed opening? No? Okay. Call the third floor: Do you have a bed? No? Okay. Fourth floor, and so on and so forth.

 

That’s why we put in place a command centre where we actually put everyone involved in the same room. I’m a big fan of getting people at the same table and talking about this, and they have a massive screen on the wall where they can look at the bed utilization, admissions, waiting, whatever the case may be. This command centre is an incredible advancement.

 

I know when CEO Oldfield was here at committee for one of the various times she has been here, she invited members opposite to come and see the command centre, see the advancements, see the good things that are happening. I was surprised that not a single member opposite has taken her up on that - not one. No member opposite has gone to see the command centre to understand these incredible advancements that are happening.

 

In terms of technology, people will know that we came out with an app. I know there has been some jest made about the app, but the reality is that technology is the way of the future. It wasn’t that long ago that a doctor would saddle up, mount up, and go to somebody’s house to see them at their house, but that’s not the world now. The world is different. I know when the members opposite don’t like the app. Maybe they want to go back to the house calls with horse and carriage, but it is not happening. We are moving forward.

 

Part 1 of the features of the app is the ability for people to see their own health care records in the app. This is a pilot that’s happening right now. We announced this pilot. There are somewhere in the range of 10,000 Nova Scotians who can see portions of their medical records through the app. This is really important because I believe patients have the right to expect that they have the information.

 

I have been clear in discussions with Doctors Nova Scotia. I don’t care if a doctor writes in their file that Tim Houston is overweight, and he needs - I don’t care about that. That’s not what I am interested in. What I’m interested in is if a doctor is billing the system and says Tim Houston came to see me and is billing the system, then I want Nova Scotians to have access to that.

 

THE CHAIR: Order. You can’t refer to your own name.

 

The honourable Premier.

 

THE PREMIER: Okay. Thank you. We want Nova Scotians to have access to the records, so we have right now a pilot where 10,000 Nova Scotians have access to their records. This is things like their prescriptions, their vaccine records, and their interactions with the health care system. What the member is referring to is that there is a pilot happening right now. It would be our hope that not just 10,000 Nova Scotians have access to their own personal information, but that all Nova Scotians do.

 

This is something we are working through with Doctors Nova Scotia and obviously maintaining the confidentiality of patient visits. We heard from, in certain - your personal health information is private and sensitive, especially in situations where you might be dealing with a psychologist, psychiatrist, or something. Obviously, we understand that sensitivity, but to manage the system, we need to know what’s happening in the system, particularly around patient visits.

 

The work that has happened under the Minister of Health and Wellness and the government is pretty remarkable. This is a statistic that’s been shared in this Chamber many times. I am going to share it again because I don’t think it is fully absorbed by people.

 

In terms of opening up of access to care points under the new Access to Care that we have opened up, pharmacy clinics - also part of the Patient Access to Care, full scope of practice - allowing pharmacists to do what they are trained to do. We say if somebody is trained to do something, they want to do it, and they can do it, then they should be allowed to do it. I use the example of a plumber. Imagine a plumber moving to Nova Scotia and somebody saying, “Yes, you could be a plumber here. We are happy to have you, but don’t work on sinks.” This is kind of what was happening with nurse practitioners, pharmacists and stuff. So in the Patient Access to care, if we open up the scope of practice of the things they are trained to do, they can deliver that service to Nova Scotians.

 

Between the pharmacy plus clinics, which have a nurse practitioner and can do a little bit more, especially in chronic conditions, and the mobile clinics, which is an idea brought forth by a doctor - between all these various things, this is the important stat that I think is a shocking stat that makes Nova Scotia the envy of so many other jurisdictions: There are 60,000 more primary care appointments available to Nova Scotians each month. Every single month, there are 60,000 new appointment opportunities in this province through these various channels.

 

If you annualize that, you can see what an impact that has on a person’s ability to get into the system and to get the care they need in the right place at the right time. That’s more, faster. As we manage the system, and a lot of work - we negotiated a new agreement with Doctors Nova Scotia, nurses and paramedics - people would see that our record on the collective bargaining process is that we bargain in good faith. We bargain tough on behalf of the taxpayers, but we bargain in good faith. As we continue to move forward, part of the thing under the Doctors Nova Scotia agreement was we really had two types of family physicians. We had fee for service and an alternative payment plan - kind of like a salary, if you would.

 

With the former Minister of Health and Wellness, under his purview, under his management of the file, there was very little accountability in there. With somebody who’s on a salary, the deal is that they have a certain number of patients, they work a certain number of weeks a year, and they spend a certain number of hours a week seeing patients. Nobody was checking, nobody was monitoring, nobody was paying any attention to that. That’s why you hear people say, “We have enough doctors, why can’t people get in?” All these things because of a government that wasn’t focused on making sure Nova Scotians can access care.

 

Those days are over. Now there’s a government that is 100 per cent focused on making sure that Nova Scotians can access care. Part of that is allowing them to see the unseen, to allow them to have some insight into their own records. The day we announced the pilot there was a physician there who told me that that very day he’d had a patient in and asked the patient about their vaccine status, whether they’d they had a certain type of vaccine. Well, that’s a tough question. I don’t know. Who knows, right? This doctor said to the patient right on the spot, “Do you have the YourHealthNS app?” “Yes, I do.” “Can you open it up and look?” The whole list was there, and she said, “Wow. In real time I got information that helped me provide care.” That’s the power of the app.

 

That’s the information we want patients to have about their own health records. There are a multitude of pluses, but there is no shortage in this world of opportunities to scare people. I want people to know that in this case it’s about making sure that Nova Scotians have the information they need so that they can get the best possible care in a timely fashion in the place. We will continue to open up access points, but I think we need to understand that we have a collective responsibility. Unless our goal is to revert back to horse and buggy and try to take things backwards, then we have to move forward.

 

I kind of had a chance to speak with Donald Sobey about his view of business at one time and he said, “In business you are either going forward or you are going backward. There is no standing still. Standing still is going backward.” In terms of health innovation and health care technology, we need to go forward. That’s an obvious statement to the rest of the world and certainly to Nova Scotians, that we are committed to going forward.

 

The next iteration of that is allowing people to have access to their own records so that they can see. This is just good governance in so many ways. It’s actually a big benefit to doctors too. Right now, doctors should be using their time on doctoring, not paperwork. Since we came into government, we’ve removed over 250,000 hours of red tape.

 

[3:15 p.m.]

 

At one of the first health care summits I had with health care leaders - Doctors Nova Scotia - I asked what are the challenges? What are the hurdles? Doctors Nova Scotia said there is 400,000 hours of red tape that is eating up doctors’ time. We said that’s ridiculous, let’s get rid of that. When we really dug into it, some of that time was for billing. Well, billing, I don’t think, is red tape. It’s kind of a necessary evil. You’ve got to bill, but a lot of it was red tape. We’ve removed 250,000 hours so far and a lot of this would be forms.

 

In one department - I think the deputy was part of this project - there was somewhere in the range of 20 forms that a physician would have to fill out for one government department. Twenty different forms for different things. We said that’s not right, so we consolidated that to one form. You can imagine that, right?

 

Then we’re working with insurance companies. A lot of forms that doctors fill out would be for insurance companies. We’re saying we’re not going to have insurance company X have their own form and insurance company Y have theirs, and so on and so forth. We are going to have one form. I think that is the type of work - 250,000 hours we’ve put back into the system from physicians who are already here, giving them more time to do what they are trained to do. Nobody goes to medical school to specialize in paperwork. They go to medical school to specialize in providing care. So we’re putting that back in their hands. When I talk about 60,000 additional appointment opportunities every single month in a province of a little more than a million people, 60,000 appointments is significant.

 

I think the average Canadian, on average, would see the doctor - I don’t have the exact stat, but it is order of magnitude a couple times - one point something times per year. Think about this now. Just from these changes, 60,000 more in a province of a million. That’s a lot of appointments. I raise that in a context of our needing to be fair and frank about what it is we are trying to accomplish, and I think Nova Scotians should have access to their health care records. That’s the goal. As we start to latch on to these things for political purposes and shake the confidence of Nova Scotians in what’s happening, it becomes a very slippery slope.

 

I will tell you that in my travels around the province, a number of health care professionals often stop me and offer some words of encouragement. They say things are getting better for sure. There’s more to be done. Keep going. There is more to be done. When I first came in, it was not that at all. They had been pretty demoralized for a number of years - eight years - but now they see the hope. They’re moving forward, and they’re working with us. Not everyone is happy, but they are working with us on balance.

 

At the same time that they’re seeing the positive improvements in the system and supporting them by adding their voices, they are optimistic. When they are optimistic, I’m optimistic, because that’s the first stage. We been very frank with them. We do the health care summit quarterly, and that is a good, frank discussion. We issued a challenge to health care professionals to submit an idea of what is a - for lack of a better word - silly thing that’s in your way that could be fixed and that you would like us to fix. The response was unbelievable. We just activated this, and it was unbelievable.

 

I know the members opposite made fun of that particular initiative, but it has been unbelievable, the feedback we got. We don’t make fun of people raising their voices. We take that very seriously. I just want to say that as often as they stop me and say, “Keep going. There’s more to be done but thank you. Keep going,” they often talk, as well, about the negative environments that sometimes emanate from this Chamber, and certainly in other things, and how demoralizing that can be to them.

 

Imagine if you were a health care professional and there is a negative outcome; you are feeling bad about that as it is, and then you hear some politician somewhere going off about it. This is a real thing that has a real impact. In fact, I was not surprised, but I was interested to see the letter from the Soldiers Memorial Hospital Foundation. The members opposite will be aware of this. It talked about the negativity and how demoralizing it is for their staff. I’ll just read something from this, and then I’ll table it. This was in particular reference to their MLA who happens to be a Liberal member. They said:

 

Your negative and political messaging has been a detriment to morale at Soldiers Memorial Hospital, to the point where we couldn’t invite you to events this past Summer, so as not to offend our health care professionals that attended these functions.

 

That’s a difficult thing to read. Then it went on to say, which was even kind of, I guess, a little bit more shocking:

 

Unfortunately, you chose to attend one of our African cultural events without an invitation, as you were not invited.

 

Imagine you’re a health care professional doing the very best you can at providing care, and in picking up the paper, and hearing your politician weighing in on your abilities and dedication, to the point that the foundation says: We can’t even invite our elected representative to our events, because it’s too demoralizing for our team.

 

This is a world where in this environment we live in, nobody wants to go to their MLA or to their politician. Honestly, when people come to us, it’s their worst day. It means that they couldn’t fix it themselves. Their friends and family couldn’t help them, and now they have to go and talk to a politician. It’s our job, when those people come, to advocate for them and to support them, but imagine being so turned off by your MLA’s comments that you can’t even do that. Not only can you not do that, but you also can’t seek out your MLA and have a discussion. You don’t even want to be in the same room as them. We need to be very careful. I get that it’s an interesting opportunity to wave this flag - the government wants your information - but the reality is that what we want is better health care, and what we want is Nova Scotians to have access to certain elements of their files.

 

Under the pilot project, there are 10,000 Nova Scotians who have access to parts of their medical record. Not the whole thing, parts of it, essentially limited to their interactions: You were in this emergency department on this day five years ago; you saw this family doctor three years ago, or whatever. It’s those elements of it, without a lot of description around it, but the interaction is categorized. When did I take my son to the emergency department because he broke his collarbone? Like, I don’t know. If I needed to know that - I don’t know, right. I can give you a rough thing, but if I take my app out, does it help you to know it was on March 2, 2021 - I don’t know, but we want to make sure that Nova Scotians have the access they need.

 

I believe in terms of the red tape and the paperwork discussion about the billing, a lot of billing is done in arrears, and sometimes for some, doctors could be a couple of months because they’re kind of busy doctoring. The other side of that, the opportunity for doctors, is that if we’re capturing that and telling people when they saw a doctor, well, it actually means that they saw a doctor. Maybe we could get to a point where we actually can automate their billing for them.

 

This is an opportunity. It’s something we’re talking about with Doctors Nova Scotia. You go to a restaurant today, you put your Visa down tomorrow or tonight when they run, and the bank will put money right into that person’s account. Why couldn’t we get that? Why couldn’t we offer that service to doctors where it’s real-time billing? Then I think that maybe we could do away with the audits that frustrate doctors, because if it says I saw a doctor and I’m looking at my record and I didn’t seem him, I’m going to flag that right away. It would kind of be a constant audit.

 

It’s like with Airbnbs and things. In the old days, somebody would go to a hotel, and they would rate the hotel. They would write up a report and say that this is the standard of that hotel - which I think you still need if you want five stars, platinum, and stuff like that. But the rest of the time those reviews are happening in real time, because as soon as you check out or while you’re still there, you can go on their website and offer your review about how you feel. So it’s a real-time world, and the question around people having access to their record? I think they should. There might be others in this Chamber who think that they shouldn’t, but I think they should.

 

I’ve had constituents call me and say: I have to spend $150 to get my health care record. It’s in storage, because my doctor retired a couple of years ago. Should I spend the $150 to get it out of storage? What do you think? I say: Well, look, it’s most likely the case that if you get a new doctor, they’re probably going to sit down and do an intake discussion with you and probably run some tests if they think they’re necessary. I don’t know a lot of doctors who would have time to read that record. It just takes all of that out of the equation because the important parts of my health care record would be on my app.

 

This is an advancement. This is moving things forward. It’s all part of engaging people in their own health care. It’s all part of informing people. It’s all part of working with those delivering the care - doctors, nurse practitioners, and other health care professionals - so we put the patient at the centre. I don’t know what would be more at the centre than the information about their interactions.

 

The pilot project is out there. That would not be a surprise to anyone. The parameters of the pilot project - it’s interactions - there are three or four criteria. It’s not the notes. It’s not anything along those lines. It’s important information that’s necessary to manage the system. I do think that as we have more data - again, the data doesn’t have anyone’s names on it. It’s just aggregated data. We’re getting to a point where we want to be proactive in engaging people about their health care.

 

Right now, if you receive a difficult diagnosis, you’ll get that diagnosis, and probably by the time you get home and speak to some loved ones, you’re probably on Google. You’re probably trying to understand. With a difficult diagnosis, you’re probably trying to look for some experimental treatment or some program or clinical trial that’s going on. That process is very personal. It’s not well-defined, let’s say.

 

Imagine if we get to the point where we have the information on the health care system and we could, through the app, send a message to that Nova Scotian, saying: For your diagnosis and demographic profile, there is a clinical trial going on. You could potentially be an ideal candidate for this clinical trial. Would you like us to give your name to the proponent of the clinical trial? Then they could say they don’t want that - or, yes, they want that.

 

Imagine the comfort that would bring to the Nova Scotian - that somebody is kind of considering this. Somebody is trying to help me find different pathways to treatment. We’d do that in conjunction with the physicians, of course. We would continue to do that. But if you don’t have the information, then you can’t even dream about that. You can’t even consider that that would be a possible outcome. I talked last week about Siemens Healthineers and their supercomputer, and the health thing. Same concept, right?

 

We need to get to a stage where we can proactively engage Nova Scotians and really deliver what they need at that point in time. There are a lot of things happening in the app. There are a couple hundred thousand downloads now. You can obviously go on there and book X-rays, book blood tests, and check wait times. You can do a couple things.

 

The thing I really like about it is the “get care” function that opens. You go through the chatbot. By the way, the next iteration will probably be some sort of artificial intelligence that’s more than just to find pathways on the chatbot, but actually some interaction with the computer to get you to the right place.

 

It will go through your symptoms and say, “Did you know you could go to a pharmacy for this?” “I wasn’t aware of that.” “Would you like to do that?” “Yes, I would.” “Okay. There’s a pharmacy 4.8 kilometres from you. They’re open until 10 o’clock tonight. Do you want to book an appointment?” “Yes, I do.” That might be just what that person needs - or maybe it’s not. Then we’ll offer another access point such as a mobile clinic or to hold on the line for virtual care.

 

[3:30 p.m.]

 

As we have these pathways, as we have data about common symptoms, common outcomes, we can offer better solutions. All of this is designed, I think, to really put the patient at the centre, and you can’t have the patient at the centre unless you are kind of frank with them about their interactions with the health care system.

 

It’s very limited right now, the sharing of data. I think that’s appropriate given the stage of development - limited sharing of data with the patient. We did start with the pilot, for sure, and we’ll get a full debrief on the pilot. I think the enabling legislation in the Financial Measures Act is important so that if the pilot is fine, we can have a pathway to move forward.

 

The language of the FMA is one thing, but of course there will be a number of regulations that go along with it. There will be lots of discussion on the regulations in making provisions and more consultation, including with patients who were in the 10,000 pilot, and including family physicians who were in the 10,000 pilot. I won’t say that these things are always - it’s not all people on one side. There’s diversity of thought there. We have heard from family doctors who are in the pilot saying, I really wish you’d give more information - you should be providing more.

 

We certainly hear from some who say this is just right, this is just what the doctor ordered, but we’ll have those discussions. If we don’t set the path today, then maybe the next time we have the chance might be in the Fall. That’s a passage of time. I know the former Minister of Health and Wellness had his approach to doing these things, which was very much “Let’s not do anything.” We have a different approach. I think the pilot wraps up on June 30^th, I think, or sometime toward the end of June. Then we’ll do a bit of a debrief and, if it’s appropriate to move forward, we’ll be ready to move forward. That’s the process of that.

 

The member mentioned that this was not part of the bill debrief. That’s not true. In the bill briefing package, this was Slide 16. I’m happy to table that for the benefit of the member, but I did want to just clarify that. I didn’t want to let that stand.

 

I think it’s really important that as we have these types of discussions, we stick to the facts about what’s possible. There’s lots to talk about, even with the facts, but I think it’s the type of statement that to say it wasn’t part of the bill briefing leads people to draw a conclusion that maybe it was intentionally left out, that maybe there’s something going on here. It’s dangerous if we go down those paths. If we can just keep it stuck on the facts, and if the member wanted to say that this didn’t show up in the bill briefing until Slide 16, okay, that would be a fact, and maybe he could draw some inferences from that, but it is in the bill briefing. It is something that we’ve been very up front with Nova Scotians about, including having a full-on press conference about the pilot. We did that up at the Innovation Hub that day. As I say, there was a quite a big crowd of people there to hear about this next step on the development of the engagement of Nova Scotians in their own health care.

 

I think this is a good thing. We don’t get these things perfect every time. We strive for perfection. We don’t always get that, but we do always get action. When we see that one shot to move things forward, we don’t let it slip by. We actually act on it. We will . . . (interruption).

 

THE CHAIR: Order. I’ve been here for two and a half years. Everybody knows that I like to not have chatter in the room. I do not want to give an acoustic lesson, but up in the gallery there seems to be an ongoing conversation that, for some reason, I can hear. I ask that the conversation either be lowered, taken out of the room or stopped, please. Thank you.

 

The honourable Premier.

 

THE PREMIER: This is why I’m so happy that the member asked the question about this aspect of the FMA, because it is an important step along the journey. I think that when you have an opportunity to consider steps and additional steps along a journey, it’s not a terrible thing to look back at where we’ve come from. There’s definitely work to be done, for sure, but I also think that it’s important to look at how far we’ve come.

 

As much as what happens in this Chamber is, I guess by its nature, designed to shake the confidence of Nova Scotians in government, that’s why we go through this: We try to shake people on their confidence in the government. We want people to know that we haven’t lost sight of the commitment to fix the health care system. On that journey, sharing records will be a step that we’ll continue to add to.

 

On the journey that we’ve come from - I mentioned the 60,000 additional appointments per month. That’s remarkable. On that journey, some of those appointments, in January - I’m sure we could get the data on the other ones - that was 1,353 visits to mobile primary care clinics. That’s to the mobile clinics, which are something new that came forward. Dr. John Ross came forward with the mobile clinics and said that they were something that should be tried, and we said, Let’s try it. In just that month of January, 1,353 people visited a mobile clinic. That’s really remarkable.

 

In January alone, there were 5,385 visits to urgent treatment centres - in one month. Again, this wasn’t even something that existed. There were none of those before we came into government. In VirtualCareNS, there were 8,857 visits in one month - just in January.

 

People will know that everyone who’s on the Need a Family Doctor list has access to virtual care as much as they may need. We’ve also offered that for those who are otherwise attached but are maybe having difficulty getting in to see their primary care provider. They also get two virtual care appointments a year. It’s an incredible peace of mind for people, and they’re using it. What we’ve found is that when the person who’s providing the care virtually determines that it’s necessary to see somebody - “Hey, I’d really like for you to see somebody in person” - we can get them very quickly into one of our clinics around the province. It’s usually a matter of days, I think. The minister would have the full number.

 

Then there’s 5,751 visits to primary care clinics, and more than 13,600 visits at community pharmacy primary care clinics. These are all access points that are new under this government. Certainly, in respect of the various pharmacy clinics, our pharmacists have some of the largest scopes of practice in the country right now. It might not be the largest, but it’s certainly one of them.

 

There was an interesting article - I don’t have it on hand, but I could certainly point the members to it - written in kind of a pharmacy magazine. The title of the article was along the lines of “Nova Scotia, the little province that could and did.”

 

Leading health care professionals across the country are really noticing what’s happening here in Nova Scotia in a very positive way. I would encourage the members opposite to maybe take a pause now and again and say, yes, there’s work to be done and, yes, we wish this or we wish that, but just a little bit of acknowledgement would mean a lot to Nova Scotians. In the absence of the ability to make at least an acknowledgement of the forward progress, you get situations where you have MLAs who can’t even be invited to a health care event because it is too demoralizing to the health care professionals who are there. So we want to avoid that.

 

I just think that there is a lot to be proud of with the work that’s happened here in Nova Scotia. Yes, there is more work to be done and we will do that too. We’re committed to that, but as we move along on in this journey, I think we’re at the point now where we can be frank with Nova Scotians about their interactions with the health care system and provide them with those forms of records for the obvious benefits that exist.

 

I think this is a good thing. It would be limited in scope, at least initially, and that would be in the regs. We can speak clearly about that if it would help alleviate some anxiety on behalf of some people. These are sensitive issues, for sure, and we don’t want to cause additional anxiety. We want to cause comfort and confidence in the system.

 

I hope that answers the member’s question about the records clause in the FMA.

 

THE CHAIR: I ask that the honourable Premier table those two documents. Thank you.

 

The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

 

HON. ZACH CHURCHILL: We heard a lot from the Premier there. One of the first answers the Premier gave to the question about the line in the FMA that is now requiring custodians and classes of custodians to disclose health information to the minister was that this was aggregated data only - that it would not be, and I quote “people’s personal health information.” I do want to bring the Premier’s attention to the language of the Act. Part 15 of the FMA is entitled the Personal Health Information Act, and in the subsection, the language of the change - I’ll read it verbatim: “requiring custodians and classes of custodians to disclose personal health information to the Minister or a person acting on behalf of the Minister. . .” This is not an indication . . . (interruption).

 

THE CHAIR: Excuse me. Order. This question is out of order. You are talking about a bill that is on the order paper, and that is to be discussed during the discussion on the bill, so I will ask you to find another question.

 

The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

 

ZACH CHURCHILL: The Premier was certainly allowed to speak to this ad nauseam, for almost the complete duration of the time on the same topic, so I’ll speak precisely to the Premier’s comments in Estimates and not the language of the bill. I’ll table the language of the bill.

 

The Premier then went on to say - again, after saying this was aggregated data, not people’s personal health information - that then they would be able to use this information to inform a patient if there is a clinical trial coming up related to their health issue. That’s an indication to me that it is people’s personal health information. Again, this is according to the Premier’s own words in this exchange in Estimates.

 

We have a bill that’s before the House where the language is very explicit. We also have the Premier’s own comments here in the House stating that this could be used for clinical trials based on people’s personal health information. They could be proactively informed of that. They cannot be informed of that, of course, if this is aggregated health information but only if it’s personal health information. This wasn’t something that’s been broadly communicated to the public. We have not seen a risk analysis of this policy change. We do not know if the Privacy Commissioner has been involved in this. We do not know what doctors themselves are saying. We are certainly hearing that Doctors Nova Scotia may not be in favour of this change, and that there may be concerns on the medical side with this. We certainly have not heard from patients on this. I do not believe patients have been broadly consulted. There’s good reason to be concerned about this because we know what the government’s record is with people’s personal information.

 

[3:45 p.m.]

 

We saw a major data breach already under this government, where over 100,000 current and past Nova Scotia Health Authority, IWK, and Public Service employees had their payroll information stolen in a data breach. Over 100,000 current and former employees of Nova Scotia Health Authority, the IWK, and Public Services, had their payroll information stolen, including their social insurance numbers, addresses, and banking information.

 

We know that around the world people’s personal health information has also been stolen in other circumstances in other jurisdictions, and that it’s been used to ransom money from individuals. Yet we have this piece of legislation that is buried in the FMA - Pages 33 to 37 - that has not had broad-based public consultation, and where we don’t know if there’s been a proper risk assessment done. We don’t know what the medical community is saying about it. The Premier himself hasn’t kept his story straight on this. It’s aggregated data, and then he gives an example of how this can be applied, which is very personalized in nature. I certainly think that there are reasons to be concerned about this.

 

The Nova Scotia Information and Privacy Commissioner is currently investigating the Fall cybersecurity breach. I will table this information as well: “Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has launched an investigation into the theft of personal information from a file-transfer system used by the provincial government.” Again, this is a big deal. It is obviously the exact opposite of where the Province has been with treating priority to privacy protection for people’s personal health information that not everybody, I don’t think, would want the Minister of Health and Wellness to have direct access to.

 

Again, we don’t have a clear message from the Premier on why this is happening, what steps have been taken. Has there been any risk analysis done? Was the Information and Privacy Commissioner consulted? Was Doctors Nova Scotia consulted? Again, in light of the largest data breach in Nova Scotia history happening under this government, you’d think that the Premier would be a little sensitive to this issue, and actually answer the questions, instead of the meandering response that we saw where the Premier is again more prone to attacking Opposition members than actually answering questions; where we hear the bombast very clearly displayed in the House; where there are all kinds of conversations about moving forward, “more, faster,” and how much he’s hearing from people that things are better; and how important data is - including, according to the Premier, people’s personal health information.

 

There’s data that the Premier doesn’t talk about in this conversation that is very important - how many more people don’t have a family doctor being key among them. The Premier can lambaste past governments all he wants, and accuse current Opposition parties of not being responsible with our criticisms toward this government’s health care policies. I wonder if the Premier remembers his career in Opposition, which was entirely built around a brand criticizing health care, telling everybody it was a crisis - again, when things were half as bad in some circumstances.

 

The number of people who had a family doctor - 70,000, I think, when the Premier assumed government through election, a fair election - that number is now over double: 153,000 people. The Premier, just in his comments, talked in a positive lens about how many Nova Scotians were using the mobile health care clinics. Look at how many people using these things. Look at how many people using urgent care clinics. Do you know why they’re using that? Because they don’t have a family doctor. Those mobile clinics are for people who don’t have a family doctor. They are a stopgap to help people who are not accessing timely primary care because they don’t have a family physician. This is a band-aid. This is not a solution.

 

Furthermore, on the mobile health care clinics, the pay model as such is actually pulling doctors out of family practice because they can make more money doing mobile health care clinics. There’s no overhead, as the health authority pays for that. We’ve actually heard from doctors who have left family practice to do mobile health care clinics. Is that a policy that’s working? I would argue that it’s not. The fact that there are so many people who need the mobile health care clinic, I think, is evidence in itself.

 

The Premier can be very selective with what data he believes is important. Again, you’ll notice, and I think the House will continually notice, that it is not the data that the Premier uses to explain how the improvements are happening in health care. It’s not data.

 

He doesn’t table data and say there are this many people now without a family doctor or this many people who have a family doctor, because the data is really bad. It is anecdotal evidence that he speaks to. He heard this from one person and somebody else said that. That’s not data-driven decision-making.

 

If we look at some of the data points that really matter to understanding whether people are accessing health care or not, it’s how many people have a family doctor. Again, that number has more than doubled. I think it’s tripled here in Halifax since the government cut the family physician incentive that was in place. Finally, I think, two years later they brought it back because, again, they realized their mistake and the situation in Halifax had gotten worse.

 

We have seen wait times to see specialists reach double the national average. Wait times are going up for MRIs. Again, a big part of this increase in wait times is directly linked to the Premier’s health care policies. While a pharmacist is very good at diagnosing strep throat - again, this was something that was started under the previous government, the pilot to expand the scope of practice for pharmacists.

 

People are now using pharmacists for more complex health care issues that a pharmacist can deal with. They can deal with strep throat. They diagnose it and write the prescription. It’s great for that. It’s perfect for that. I’ve used it for that for myself. We’ve congratulated the government on this. But when a pharmacist is being asked to deal with other issues that are outside of their scope, what happens is they get referred to specialists. They get referred to procedures. That is actually driving up - objectively so, you can look at the wait times - wait times across the board for people. So people are having slower access to critical meetings with health care specialists, for MRIs, for CAT scans, for all these sorts of things.

 

We are not seeing improvements on this. There are more people dying in our emergency rooms. Off-load wait times are now a problem. For people who don’t know what that is, because it’s health care jargon, it’s moving patients out of ambulance into emergency rooms. That is now a problem in every single emergency department across the province. The Premier inherited a situation where there was a problem in the two emergency departments that were the most heavily used, the QEII and Dartmouth General Hospital. That is now a problem everywhere and those wait times are going up.

 

Honestly, the Premier can evade questions all he wants on this issue. When he’s speaking to what he believes improvements are in the health care system, he only talks about spending, what actions the government has taken, and about what he’s hearing. He cannot point to many data points that actually matter.

 

Back to the initial question here: How is this personal health information being used? Who was consulted on this? Does this decision to require physicians and their offices to provide and disclose personal health information to the minister have the support of the medical community, mainly through their representative bodies, Doctors Nova Scotia or at least the College of Physicians and Surgeons?

 

Have the appropriate privacy information commissioners been consulted? Has there been a risk analysis done on this - considering the biggest data breach ever in our province’s history happened under this government, affecting over 100,000 public sector employees, including the majority of MLAs. Are people’s health care data safe as a result of this?

 

I certainly think we need to see that analysis tabled in this House. We certainly need to know what the risks are. We certainly need to know if this is something the doctors are asking for. It’s certainly something that I think needs to be promoted more to Nova Scotians so they know this. In the FMA, there is buried a clause that requires their doctors and the record keepers in their local offices to provide health care information to the Minister of Health and Wellness or a minister’s designate.

 

Furthermore, the Premier has talked a lot about the health care app, the price of which now is putting the ArriveCAN app into perspective, I would say. We certainly hope to be able to ask the Premier more questions on that - close to $50 million in untendered contracts to Think Research Corporation. We do not know what the return has been. We do not know why there haven’t been tenders on that project. We do not know if that could have been done more cheaply internally. We’re hearing from people who deal in this space that it could. Hopefully we’ll be able to get to more questions with the Premier and certainly . . .

 

THE CHAIR: Order. The time for the Official Opposition is over. I would like to remind the honourable Leader of the Official Opposition to table that document.

 

The honourable Leader of the NDP.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: Okay, let’s start over. I am hoping I can ask a few questions - the operative clause being “a few.” I’m going to start with a simple one. We know that the Premier is meeting with the wine sector tonight. We know that through a Communications Nova Scotia release. There is a question we continue to ask the Premier. Last day, we talked a bit about the Premier’s conversations with commercial bottlers, but there’s a really simple question: Has that program started? Have cheques been issued?

 

THE PREMIER: This is an important question, for sure. What I would say is that we know how we got here. Maybe some people don’t know how we got here, so it will be useful, for the benefit of the House, to just kind of talk that through.

 

Australia issued a trade challenge and said basically that the treatment of Nova Scotia wines was unfair - it gave Nova Scotia wine an unfair advantage to the markup system that existed. That’s a policy that would have come into place under a prior government. When the trade process went through the investigations, the hearings, it was determined that there was an issue with the markup system that was causing some trade concerns for other jurisdictions, namely Australia, who raised it.

 

As part of the - I guess I’d call it the agreement to resolve the trade issue, Nova Scotia agreed to change the way it was doing it. This was on the advice of reputable trade lawyers, and also working with the Government of Canada on some of these things.

 

The international trade obligations we have as a province, as a country, are very significant. The ramifications can go far and wide. We know with softwood lumber - very significant possible trade impacts. We know on something like our seafood, and our lobster exports in particular, trade obligations are very important - cheese, dairy, all these things are kind of sensitive trade. We have national trade obligations, and we have to respond to those trade obligations.

 

[4:00 p.m.]

 

As part of the process of, on the one hand, having these international trade agreements - which we, of course, have to respect - we as a government have to be upfront and law-abiding, as we have to respect the law as it stands, but we also know that we have to look for ways to support various industries in the province, and we do that. We try to support and be respectful of the trade obligations, but support industries. We’re always trying to find the ways - what honours our trade obligation, but helps support economic development across sectors, and this is no different in this situation.

 

We have to respond, and in fact, in June, Australia will get to have their say on whether they’re happy and content with what is happening in Nova Scotia. Now this is coming. This is a looming deadline that will come in front of us. I don’t know what they will say, and certainly the very public, political, otherwise discussion around this issue has certainly - they’re watching, and they’re probably enjoying it, to be honest. I think the initial trade challenge actually developed out of what I understand was a Question Period exchange right on this very floor, and then was followed up in a Public Accounts Committee discussion, a very public format, where somebody was watching and said, Wait a second, did you just hear that? Ultimately, that led to the basis of a trade challenge in which they were successful.

 

We look for ways to try to be supportive of economic development in various sectors, and the wine industry is certainly one that we have been supportive of as a government. We believe it adds value to our province. We’re fans of what it does for our economy, not only in the wine production side but in the tourism side, and I guess, the kind of cool factor that it has when you can take a short drive from the city and be in this beautiful part of our province. We’re believers in that, and we’re trying to balance with the trade obligations.

 

As we kind of work through with the lawyers what’s possible, what the balance is that we can strike here, we came to a couple of different programs which have been discussed with industry. One of the programs has gotten a lot of attention, for sure - a lot of public discussion over it. There are other programs as well, which haven’t received the same public discussion. I guess what I would say is that as we look for opportunities to respect our trade obligations, and also invest in economic development, we’ll try to kind of thread that needle.

 

I will be meeting tonight with a couple of colleagues, I guess, who have responsibility for the file, and some of the industry stakeholders. It would be my wish that it’s a broad representation of stakeholders so we can all get in the room and have a discussion about what the concerns might be, what opportunities might be, what’s a path forward. We’ll go in with an open mind, as we do to these things, and have a discussion. There will be various parts to the discussion, for sure. I have, in discussions just over the last few days and certainly over the week with individual participants in the industry, raised different concerns. One of the concerns that’s raised is just around the relationship with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation. Again, that’s unique to Nova Scotia. There are others that have similar things, but again, in some of the other jurisdictions it’s unique.

 

We do have the Liquor Corporation, right? Some people have raised elements of their relationship with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation that they would like to maybe see addressed, like product placement and advertising. Obviously, the markup is changing, but we are very open-minded to finding a way to better promote within our trade obligations. These are elements. We want to try to get everyone in the same room and say, Look, what’s the opportunity here? What are the concerns, and what’s a good way forward?

 

I would say that for us, as a province, we are proud of our Nova Scotia wines. This pride has been demonstrated time and again, not just by saying it in pretty much every speech I’ve given but also by the investment that our government and the prior government have made in supporting and growing the industry. This is in the range of a $36 million investment through the farm-wine programs, polar vortex support, and wine authority. There are different elements to the support, but I would say the support is evidenced by real money.

 

Much of the support is focused on the grape-growing - getting things in the ground that can grow - but there are other segments to the industry. I’ve seen this in other jurisdictions, as well.

 

We want to have a discussion about how we find that balance with the trade obligations. It’s obviously really important for several reasons. I think it’s in the range of 33 or 34 licensed farm wineries in Nova Scotia; 24 grape wineries and nine non-grape wineries would be the split on that.

 

The sales at the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation for 2022-23 were in the range of $27 million. That’s an increase over the prior year. We have a number of wines that have earned numerous local, national, and international awards. There’s incredible potential there. Nobody wants to go backwards. We just had a chat earlier about the desire to move forward. We want to move forward. We want to find more opportunities, not less.

 

Prime Minister Mulroney one time said to me - this was a quote that he had from somebody else, so I can’t remember whom he attributed it to. The sentiment of the quote, which is not exact, kind of stuck on me. He said that as Premiers, as Prime Ministers, as presidents, as leaders, we have a responsibility to try to peek around the corner and look to the future just a little bit while being mindful of the past. We are always looking for that opportunity to peek around that corner and see what is possible. Politics is the art of the possible, so we are always looking for opportunities where we can do that.

The member prior talked about when I was pontificating about what might be possible in the future - about positive, proactive interactions with the health care system - there may be a time when a diagnosis leads to the government proactively saying there is a clinical study there. I want to be very clear, when that is put out there somewhere else on social media or something, I’m talking down the road - obviously patient consent - a number of things. I’m saying that we’re trying to always peek around and see what’s possible. A lot of times, what’s possible is already there; it just exists in other jurisdictions.

 

We’re a small province. We’re a growing province, and we’re a mighty province, but we’re still small. We have to recognize and have the courage to realize that a lot of the challenges we’re facing are faced elsewhere or have been faced elsewhere. We don’t need to always create the wheel; we just need to find the best wheel and bring it here. We try to do that in health care. We try to do that on economic development on a number of fronts. We’ll continue to do that.

 

That doesn’t mean that we will always get it perfect, but I think we have the humility to accept when we haven’t got it perfect. We’ve shown that in the past. Members may remember the plan we had to tax non-residents a little more for the coffers. You may remember that. We heard some feedback on that, and we changed course on that, but the intention of the policy was from the heart. It was good. When we do these things, it’s always with the best interest, but we have to acknowledge if we’ve got it wrong, and we’ll continue to do that.

 

In the case of the wine discussion, I will say that, in speaking with other jurisdictions about their own wine industry - and I’m not limiting this discussion to Canada. I’m talking about other jurisdictions when we talk about different things: Do you guys do that? Do you do this? Oftentimes, with the sensitivities around trade, they say: Yes, we do that, but we don’t talk about it on the floor of the Legislature. We work with our farms, we work with our producers, to find the best things. I think it has been, I’m going to say, a dangerous discussion. Whether it will be detrimental, that remains to be seen.

 

Australia will have their say shortly, for sure. We are where we are, and we’re willing to listen with an open mind as to what is possible, and we’ll continue to do that. I know the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and the Minister of Agriculture have been constantly in discussions. I think the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board has been clear that it’s June when Australia will, you know - but between now and then, we’ll try to get it right, try to get as close to perfection as we can to what’s possible in the trade law situation that we live with.

 

I just want to say that we know the challenges that agriculture can face in our climate in certain areas. Other areas, you know, are thriving pretty well, but certainly in farming and grape-growing and stuff, it’s not easy. It’s not easy. The polar vortex and other issues have shown it’s not easy, and we respect those who work hard there. I did have a chance on the weekend to go to a bull thickness sale, it was called. This was a remarkable event. Fifty-seven bulls were auctioned off. Incredible crowd there - lots of energy from Nova Scotia producers, for sure, but also I was struck by the number of people from Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and other areas who had travelled here for this sale.

 

[4:15 p.m.]

 

I was actually standing beside a gentleman as things got going, and I asked him where he was from. He had a little list he’d gone through, and he’d spent a couple of days here. He’d been at this farm for a couple days, looking at each bull, assessing each bull, and he had them all marked down. There was a whole catalogue you could see of all the bulls. I didn’t know there would be a discussion about bull in this Chamber today, but maybe I could have assumed. He had catalogued all the bulls, and I asked him where he was from. He actually said, “I’m from Saskatchewan.” I said, “Isn’t that something - here you are in rural Nova Scotia for a bull sale. Are there no sales at home today?” He said, “As a matter of fact, today there are 15 sales between Saskatchewan and Alberta, in that general area.” I said, “But yet you’re here.” He said, “Yes, I’m here, and I’ve been here for the last few years for this sale, and it’s a good sale and the quality and the genetics are impressive, and good things are happening here in Nova Scotia.”

 

When they brought the first bull out, the auctioneer was going pretty quick, and the gentleman beside me was in - I could see he was in. He had these signals, and he said, “Should I keep going?” “It was at 33,” is what they said. I said, “I’d go to 35,” and he kind of laughed. He ended up getting the bull at 42.5. I thought they were talking $3,300, but it was $33,000. This first bull was $42,000, the next bull was in the $30,000 range.

 

There is a lot that’s happening that is good in agriculture in this province. That was quite a day. I was quite proud of it, and I’m certainly proud of our Nova Scotia wines and our grape production. I think the potential in this area is very significant.

 

I do believe that the climate of the world is changing. Our climate’s changing. There’s no denying that, for sure, and certainly in a coastal province like Nova Scotia, we’ve been seeing that for a long time and dealing with it, in many ways, for a long time. Most Nova Scotians are environmentalists at their core.

 

Talk to the lobster fishermen on stock conservation. I know the fishermen in my area voluntarily reduced their trap numbers. They’re allowed to fish a certain number of traps, and they brought them in because their conservationists and because they care about the environment. They care about future generations.

 

The climate is changing. One of the things that I’ve been told is that the way the climate is changing - polar vortex and storms and stuff aside, as a general concept - could actually be very good for our grape quality. Our grape quality can really increase.

 

It’s very detrimental to other areas. I don’t know if people were following what’s happening in B.C. There are major, major concerns about their grapes this year. It’s the same in northern California. They’re worried about the long-term situation for their grape quality - and France as well.

 

I do think that there is a tremendous potential for our grape-growing year. We want to be part of the solution to realize that potential. We’ll have a meeting tonight to talk about what’s possible on that, and hopefully have a frank discussion about that.

 

They say the most dangerous words in the English language are, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” They say those are the most dangerous words in the English language. We understand that those who are working every day and growing grapes and stuff, they’re the experts. We come up with policy here. The intention of the policy is to always support, grow and be positive. We’re a little off track, but that’s okay. We listen carefully.

 

We’ll listen carefully, and hopefully get to a spot where everyone - government, growers, wine producers, and the Liquor Corporation team - can all feel good and positive about it. This is a good, positive industry, and we all want to feel good about it. We’ll continue to have those discussions.

 

I think that it’s on par with the potential to put our province in a positive light. It’s part of the visitor experience. The quality of the wine is one thing - it’s incredible and second to none - but the visitor experience part is a major part of this discussion. We have the opportunity as a province to promote and sell incredible visitor experiences through our tourism initiatives.

 

This is why some people said to me, I don’t understand why you support the film industry. I always say it’s because it promotes our province in a positive light. We try to get behind things like that. People will remember the situation a few years ago with the film industry and the issues that it caused. We don’t want to be part of a situation like that. We can’t have that in this province. The film industry now, and the reason we believe in it, is because it promotes our province in such a positive way.

 

I saw that time and time again with The Curse of Oak Island. There are so many believers in the curse of Oak Island. I don’t know if the treasure is still there. I do believe it was there at some point. We’ll have to maybe need a few more seasons to see that. One thing that I’ve seen is that the show has four million viewers a week - four million viewers per episode. You can buy a ticket to tour Oak Island. Of course, it’s around the site - around the island - but you can’t interfere with the filming when they’re filming.

 

I think it’s 5,000 tickets that they sell for people to tour Oak Island and really get there, see the money pit, and kind of be part of it all. They told me - this really blew me away, in a positive sense. They told me that when they flick the switch and say that tickets are on sale - which they do online, as the world kind of goes forward with innovation and stuff - within minutes, something in the range of 120,000 people hit that website and try to buy one of those 5,000 tickets.

 

Those are not people who are coming to Nova Scotia for an afternoon to see Oak Island. Those are people - they were predominantly from Germany, I think, and certainly in Europe - who are coming to Nova Scotia for a week or 10 days, all anchored around this. I think that’s a good thing. The Curse of Oak Island - I think it’s Season 10 at this stage - filmed mostly in the Martins River area. A hundred days a year or 115 days a year, filming would take place, all in Nova Scotia. It’s not some fictional name of some island somewhere. It’s actually Oak Island, Nova Scotia - to the extent that people want to come to Nova Scotia to see it. They spend - just on that, in filming a year - their local spend would be $11 million or $12 million. That’s their spend in the local community. You’d be familiar with that, Chair.

 

The reach of four million people per episode watching - a lot of these are families. A lot of people sit with their families, different generations, and watch it and talk about the science aspect of it, and the research aspect of it. It’s a good thing.

 

I had a cameo on The Curse of Oak Island, and I was quite - I was on a trade mission in the U.K., and I was waiting for a train. You know when you see somebody looking at you, and they keep looking, and you’re thinking, “What are they looking at?” Finally, this gentleman walked over and said, “Did I see you on The Curse of Oak Island?” I know that it’s promoting Nova Scotia in such a positive way.

 

The wine industry also promotes the province in such a positive way. We’ll work through the trade issues. The polar vortex threw a curve at the industry, but we’re trying to work through with Perennia as a partner on that, and deliver multi-year programs that will help the wine and other fruit growers who were impacted. It’s not just wine. It’s other fruits, as well, that were . . .

 

THE CHAIR: Order. I ask if the member has a point of order.

 

The honourable Leader of the NDP.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: Not a point of order - just a question. I asked a yes or no question. I took two minutes. I’m wondering if the Premier is required in any way to answer that question or at least to address the topic I raised.

 

THE CHAIR: Where there is no point of order, I thank you for sitting down.

 

The honourable Premier.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I just gave you a point of order, Chair.

 

THE CHAIR: You started the statement off with you don’t have a point of order. The honourable Premier has the floor.

 

The honourable Premier.

 

THE PREMIER: I think the point that’s being made - I do want to assure the member that I’m happy to - I’ll probably be here all week answering questions. There will be plenty of time to answer questions. I want to assure the member that we’ll be here to answer questions. I’m totally good with that. We did four hours on Friday before. We’ll do our four hours today. We’ll just keep going all week. There will be plenty of time to ask questions.

 

I think this is such an important question that I want to give a fulsome response to it. It speaks to the economic development opportunities of our province. Certainly, we would see the wine industry as an economic driver of rural economies. There are other economic drivers, as well, that are kind of in that same vein. We need to be conscious of that.

 

Speaking about the film industry and the economic activity that it has driven in the province, which is similar in many ways to visiting the Valley - it’s incredible. From downtown Halifax, where there’s so much happening and such a vibrant urban centre right now, in a couple hours’ drive you can be down in the Valley and it’s beautiful. A couple of hours another way, you can be on the coastline - incredible, picturesque fishing villages. We have such a value proposition. That’s not even talking about going a couple of hours another way and being on literally one of the world’s best golf courses. I see this all tied together.

 

As we promote these value propositions that we have as a province, we need to do it in a trade-compliant fashion. These are discussions that take place between governments, between industry stakeholders and industry producers, especially around agriculture. There’s so much potential there. We need to be conscious of working together in a collaborative fashion. Where it gets a little bit off track and the collaboration seems to be broken, we try to get that back together because we all truly want the same thing.

 

In terms of the question about the meeting tonight, we’ll try to get everyone in the same room and try to get everyone back on the same page - the Bluenoser spirit of what’s possible, the Bluenoser spirit that we often talk about in here.

 

It’s the same thing we did with the film industry. The circumstances were a little different but - I was in Opposition at that time, when there were dramatic changes proposed to the film industry, which did have a detrimental impact. As an Opposition member, I prided myself on really trying to understand the issue and, with that understanding, develop policy to move forward.

 

Now the industry is building back. I talked about The Curse of Oak Island and, of course, Sullivan’s Crossing. I think Sullivan’s Crossing is the highest-rated show in its network. It’s a well-loved show, produced here in Nova Scotia, and looking to move that production forward from Season 2, produced here, filmed mostly in Beaver Bank and Dartmouth, I think. There’s lots happening in that sector and all part of the broader discussion of how we best promote the province.

 

When it comes to the wine sector, we’ll work with them to find a trade-compliant way to make sure that we’re realizing on that incredible potential that exists. We’re big fans of the sector. We will continue to roll out programs that are trade-compliant.

 

[4:30 p.m.]

 

Earlier this year, we rolled out the first year of what will be an annual Wine and Grape Industry Development Program. The goal of the Wine and Grape Industry Development Program would be to support the sustainability of the wine industry itself. We already have a program that we’re rolling out. We want to work with the producers. This year I think the focus - it’s an annual program - would be on providing grape growers and wineries with support to further prepare for climate change, and prepare for the event of reduced production costs. We know that production costs can be very significant. We’ll continue to do that.

 

I guess one of the final points I would like to make on this topic - I have a few more that I would like to make, but I do think it’s important that we recognize that this coming Spring, we’ll be consulting on the establishment of the Nova Scotia Wine Authority, and an implementation of quality standards. The Minister of Agriculture can add more clarity. This is really, really important. This is something that industry has been asking about for a long time.

 

We’ve started those discussions with them. You know, the wine authority is an important thing because they need to look at the percentage of local grapes that are required to call yourself a Nova Scotia wine. Right now, there’s a certain percentage, and in speaking with folks in the industry, I thought, you know, maybe that’s something that should be reviewed. Should it go higher? Should it go lower? That will be a question for the wine authority. I initially thought, well, if you want to call yourself a Nova Scotia wine, it should be higher, but they asked, Well, what happens in years where we have a polar vortex or something? We still have to make our products, but anyways, I raise that in the context that you need to really listen to those who are in the industry to kind of do that.

 

We’ll do some of that listening tonight, for sure. We’ll continue to do that listening as we go forward in the days and weeks ahead with the goal of economic development for sure, trade compliance for sure, but making sure that this wonderful industry that we have in this province reaches its full potential. I hope that answers the member’s question.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: That does not, in any way, answer my question. I had one question about the commercial bottlers program. Has it been rolled out? Have cheques been issued - when, and to who?

 

THE PREMIER: I want to be careful on the trade issues here. I don’t want to be somebody who kind of runs afoul. I’ll leave that to others. There are a couple of programs, as I stated. The farm wine program is a program. The commercial wine program is a separate program. Both of these programs have been in existence for quite some time, but both of these programs, as a result of the trade ruling, needed to be looked at to see how we maintain trade compliance.

 

Through that process, the discussions of: What can we do with these programs? What’s a way that we can support the industry? Look for economic development opportunities within the industry to add more and different opportunities within the industry to grow the industry. We had discussions with industry stakeholders. I think there have been a number of meetings where they kind of rolled out what these plans will look like and when they would start. Yes, both of those new plans have started. They did start.

 

I would say, as we work towards the June deadline where Australia is going to weigh in on whether or not they’re content that Nova Scotia is meeting its trade obligations - in June, they’ll have that say. I think there’s an element of the trade stuff. There is an element of commercial sensitivity as well. We have the international trade sensitivities. We have the commercial sensitivities. I would say that the investment the Province has made over the last few years - I use the figure $30 million-plus - that would have gone to a number of vineyards for polar vortex or whatever. There would be different things there. We try to be respectful with them on the commercial sensitivity of those programs. They’re all competitors. They’re unified on some things but they’re competitors on others. I think there’s a commercial sensitivity there that I want to be respectful of as the Premier of the province. There are international trade obligations that I certainly want to be respectful of as the Premier of the province.

 

The programs did start. That was a well-known thing. One of the programs, the commercial wine program, has got a lot of discussion. There is another program, for sure, for the farm wines that has not received the same degree of discussion. I would say that the new, trade-compliant programs did take effect. We had a certain amount of time, until June, but this had been going for a while and we wanted to get things out there. It did take effect.

 

We will continue to work with industry stakeholders and trade lawyers, and legal advice that the Province gets to make sure that we don’t run afoul and have another trade challenge. Who knows what will happen? Certainly, I would say that the public discussion has increased the possibilities of that. We’ll deal with that as it comes.

 

As a general discussion of the importance of trade, I mentioned different segments of - and we have trade obligations, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that Nova Scotia truly has a global reach. We have goods and services that are created here, produced here, sold in every region of the world. Plus, we have international students and tourists that I talked about, and new immigrants who are coming here and moving here from all over the world, contributing to the rich and colourful quilt that is Nova Scotia.

 

These are all big-picture items. They’re not things that we want to put off-balance. We need to think very carefully as a government. I want to be very respectful of those relationships. It may surprise some people to know that just in 2022, Nova Scotia exported products to 158 international markets. It’s a big world and Nova Scotia products are finding their way out there. We are leaders in Atlantic Canada, in geographical reach, for sure.

 

I will say that even being in Boston last week at the seafood show - and there are other, bigger seafood shows. It was initially on my calendar to attend the one in Seoul, which is pretty big. There’s a big one in Spain as well. The Boston one is a significant one, but it’s not the biggest. I was actually talking to some people down there and wondering if we should be trying to get a Nova Scotia international seafood show. Could we do that here?

 

In the convention centre in Boston, you enter at street level, and it goes down - massive high ceilings. When you stand at the top of this escalator and look out over the convention floor, you see the banner from Norway seafood, Spanish seafood, Canadian seafood, and inside Canada it’s Nova Scotia. It really reminds you how competitive the world is, which can be a little unnerving. But we can compete. We have the best seafood. We can compete. I believe in our ability to compete, and it’s already happening. We’re already competing in 158 international markets. We’re already exporting $6.6 billion to these international markets. That was the 2022 number - $6.6 billion of exports from Nova Scotia internationally. That, by the way, was a record year - 2022. It was the highest level on record.

 

The value of the goods that are exported - the $6.6 billion was a record. It was actually an increase of almost 7 per cent over the 2021 year. Some markets, when you look at all the products that are in that market, had incredible growth. Absolutely incredible - 7 per cent overall, compared to 2021. The U.S. was 9 per cent. That’s a pretty good growth for our major trading partner. Imagine growing it by 9 per cent in one year. That’s a concerted effort to get the name “Nova Scotia” out there, to promote us in a positive way. France was 18 per cent, the U.K., 29 per cent, Vietnam, 157 per cent. This is a way of saying that it’s a big, competitive world. We can compete. We need to identify our opportunities, and we need to go to seize them.

 

I was meant to be - the members would know - in Hamburg, Germany today, supporting local proponents who are over there. I’ve heard quite a few of them are pretty excited about what they see as a demand for their green hydrogen offtake agreements. I was meant to be there with Minister Wilkinson, but I had to tell him on the weekend that I wouldn’t be able to make it. He was quite disappointed about that, for sure. I certainly understood that. I was disappointed that I couldn’t be there to support those Nova Scotia proponents, because it does mean something when the Premier of the province is there supporting. We were supposed to be there for that. I did see one of the members opposite say that they thought that this was some kind of a charade or something - the Premier doesn’t have to go, the Premier can send somebody else.

 

We have very capable people working in the civil service, but there are times where the presence of the Premier sends a message about the belief in the province - the belief in the ability to compete. Somebody who says otherwise just doesn’t get it. I will say that a number of the seafood producers who were in Boston at the show also told me: Thank you for being here, because it sends a message when the Premier is here. The Premier shows up, the minister shows up, representatives from Nova Scotia - it actually means something.

 

We have incredible trade opportunities before us, across a number of areas. Energy is one of them, seafood is another, tires are one, but wine is as well. We need to make sure that we do it in a way that is compliant with international trade law, that doesn’t unnecessarily antagonize other jurisdictions.

 

There’s a lot of time to disagree in the world of politics, but I believe there are certain things that should unify us as community leaders, as elected leaders, as Nova Scotians. We should really get together on those and kind of say: Well, this is something that we support each other on, because we support our province and we believe in our province. There are other things that people will look for - a political advantage or some type of opportunity, I guess, for self-interest - but there are times where we have to put the province forward, right?

 

The discussions about the programs - I think what we’ll do is have those discussions with the industry stakeholders, continue those discussions with them, and then try to come up with programs that we can be proud of, that promote our industry and support our industry in ways that are trade-compliant. Hopefully, Australia agrees that we’ve done our part, and hopefully nobody else says, Well, here are a couple of quotes from some politician in Nova Scotia that maybe we want to make another challenge. I think that’s a disservice. We’ll have those discussions internally.

 

I do want to say that we talked a little bit last week about responsibilities of governing. We never really want to do anything where somebody says, I didn’t see that one coming, that’s out of left field. That’s back to the values discussion that we have. I think that even though we don’t always get it right, people, if they looked at it, would say, I get that, I know what they’re trying to do - because it’s consistent with their values.

 

In this file here - and there’ll be much discussion that comes - I will say that the core values that I hold, that the PC Party holds, that the government holds, are around personal responsibility, around accountability, but also around entrepreneurship. We’re always looking to support entrepreneurs. We’re always looking for ways that those who are working to create jobs, to employ people, to produce products that they can get and maybe export and be one of those 158 international markets that are looking to grow.

 

[4:45 p.m.]

 

We’re trying to say: What’s possible? What’s the idea? We have, obviously, Invest Nova Scotia, we have Build Nova Scotia, lots of economic development folks. If we think about those opportunities - and they are numerous - some of them we’ve done very well at with $6.6 billion of exports. We’ve done very well in a number of areas.

 

Think about the impact of the manufacturing sector, including rubber products - of course, people would be familiar with Michelin - but in manufacturing rubber products, seafood processing, electronics, textiles, forest products. There’s significant intellectual capital in the province around aerospace as well. These are export-intensive industries, and there’s room to grow those.

 

When somebody comes forward through Invest Nova Scotia, through Build Nova Scotia, through a Chamber of Commerce or something, and says they want to build on these export opportunities, we listen to that. The reason we listen to that is because it creates jobs. It creates jobs and helps our communities grow. Record exports in 2022 of $6 billion - and I mentioned that was up by 7 per cent the year before, but that’s the highest. We’ll continue to build on that.

 

If you go back five years, we wouldn’t be at record exports, but we had strong exports. In 2018 alone, the exporting industries of Nova Scotia employed more than 35,000 people and supported more than 48,000 workers in the province. These are significant opportunities for Nova Scotians.

 

We want Nova Scotians to have more opportunities, not fewer. We wouldn’t try to do a policy that would roll that back. We want to grow. We want to move forward. I can go down the breakthrough of the different industries and where those jobs are coming from, but the bottom line is that we want Nova Scotians, no matter where they live in the province, to see opportunities for themselves to make a life here. We want them to see those opportunities.

 

It’s happening. It’s absolutely happening. There are challenges that we face. Many of the challenges we face are the challenges of growth. We have seen the challenges of decline. You don’t have to go back too far to when we’ve seen schools closing, businesses closing. We’ve seen those, but right now we have the challenges of growth because we’re growing.

 

As government, we want to nudge that along. We don’t want to roll it back. I know that there may be some who do, but we don’t. We want to move and go forward and create opportunities as we go forward. This is so important for people to see opportunities for themselves in the province, particularly young people. Not exclusively, for sure; we want opportunities for everyone.

 

We really want young people to see an opportunity for themselves. That’s why we have policies like the MOST program. I know the members opposite had some negative thoughts on the MOST program. They were very vocal in their negative thoughts on that. It’s a program that helps young people and encourages them to stay in this province, and it’s working. It will catch momentum and it will continue to go.

 

As we see the growth, Nova Scotia had the - I believe that it’s accurate to say - largest decrease in average age in almost 100 years. The average age of a person living in Nova Scotia went, in the past year, from 44.9 years old to 44.2. I’ve heard people go, Oh, that’s not much, but 0.7 of a year on a million people means a lot of younger people stayed here or moved here. Those are the opportunities that we want them to see. We want them to see them. We want them to grab those opportunities. Some of those younger people - some of those Nova Scotians - are creating their own jobs. They’re starting their own companies. That’s the entrepreneurial spirit we want to support as well.

 

Yes, the program - the most recent iteration of the program has started. Yes, we will continue to work with stakeholders to make sure that we have it trade-compliant. Yes, we will continue to look for opportunities to grow the economy of this province - new industries, and other opportunities in other new industries as well.

 

This last week, I had a chance to meet with two international companies that both have a footprint in Nova Scotia. One has a footprint somewhere in the range of 100 people, and they want to grow that. They want to grow their presence here. The other has a footprint of over 1,000. They had zero a couple of years ago, but working with them through different initiatives, they have over a thousand right now, and they want to double that. The company that has over 1,000 told me that across their international operations, they do staff satisfaction surveys. You may not get it from some of the discussion that happens in this Chamber or in this building or in some of the things you read in the media, but people working here and living here, these survey results that this international company had, they told me Nova Scotia ranks the highest. Of satisfaction across their international - Nova Scotia ranks the highest. We live in a pretty good province with a sense of community that people gravitate towards.

 

I asked the other company: What’s been your experience? You’re growing in Nova Scotia. What are you hearing? They said that they had been pretty blown away - I don’t know that they had the formal survey structure or they had their own structure. They were blown away by the feedback they’re getting from people who moved here to this province of the sense of community. They said they’re talking on their internal networks about, Well, this weekend a bunch of us from work went and did this community activity - collecting garbage, I think, was one of them. Co-workers being part of a community, because that’s what this province is all about. When we have tough times, we get together. That’s the Bluenoser spirit. It was pretty encouraging for me to hear from these international companies that their people who are moving here are feeling it right away and experiencing it right away. That’s a good thing.

 

The point is that as we look for ways to grow and support each other, support our industries, it’s not always a smooth road. Sometimes there are a few bumps on that road, but we have to have the courage to work together to get over those bumps to a better place.

 

That’s the path we’re on with the wine industry, with a kind of June deadline, I would say, to get to a place where we can breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve done it in a trade-compliant manner. We’ll continue to go along that road.

 

I hope that answers the member’s question.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: It doesn’t.

 

Sorry, go ahead.

 

THE CHAIR: Before I recognize the Leader of the NDP, I ask that the side conversations be kept down low. It’s very distracting.

 

The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: Thank you. My specific question was: Has the program been started? The Premier has said yes - thank you - among 5,000 other words. My second question was: How much? There was some allusion to being sensitive to commercial issues. We know that there are two companies that fit the current definition of that program. We know that the Premier met with those companies in advance of rolling out the program. So unless he is worried about playing favourites with these two commercial bottlers, it should be a simple enough question to answer.

 

The Premier, a little while ago, appealed in his answer to the people of Nova Scotia who are watching. I know that there are a lot of farm wineries watching, and the question that they are asking is: How much have the cheques been worth that are going to the commercial bottlers? The next question that they’re asking, which maybe we’ll come back to if I can ever get a word in edgewise, is: Why isn’t the program for the farm wineries going through the Department of Agriculture like it does everywhere else?

 

If the Premier wants to take the last 30 seconds and tell me if the two commercial bottlers have been issued cheques, I’d appreciate that.

 

THE PREMIER: No. I won’t break it out in this format on the floor of the Legislature. Of course, to do that I’d have to break it out for the farm wineries and the bottlers. There are different programs there. I think it would be more appropriate to have those discussions directly with the group. I have a meeting tonight.

 

As much as the members seem to think that this trade thing is not a legit thing, I want to assure them that we got here because somebody challenged it, and there was a finding that we had to change, so we’re changing it.

 

THE CHAIR: Order. The time for the NDP has now elapsed.

 

The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

 

HON. ZACH CHURCHILL: I do want to pick up this conversation because there certainly has been no evidence presented when it comes to the Premier’s decision to provide equivalent subsidies to wine bottlers and to the same degree as the folks who are doing the grape-growing in farm wine. There has been no evidence tabled that this is a trade issue. You are welcome to see. In fact, in reading the World Trade Organization decision, there is nothing in it that’s prescriptive. There is nothing in it that states any of the jurisdictions implicated in this trade dispute have to subsidize the importation of - or the companies that import cheap juice that’s manufactured or grown in other jurisdictions across the world. Nothing in that has been prescribed in this World Trade Organization decision. There has been no evidence tabled by the Premier or the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board indicating that this is, in fact, a trade issue.

 

The bottlers were not even implicated in the trade decision. Again, in every other jurisdiction in Canada that was implicated - Ontario, B.C., and the federal government - in none of those situations did those jurisdictions decide to provide subsidy to companies that weren’t growing grapes and producing their own wine in their provinces.

 

The reason for that is pretty obvious. There is already a marketing benefit that those companies have because it’s cheaper to import juice in bladders that is produced, farmed and manufactured elsewhere into our province, put it in a bottle, slap a Nova Scotia wine label on it, and send it out the door. You can go into the liquor store and see the price discrepancies there already, where the two companies that bottle here, as opposed to growing and farming the grapes, are selling their product for cheaper. They do it because it’s cheaper to do that - to bottle than it is to farm and grow grapes.

 

The concern from the farm wine industry is pretty obvious. Why subsidize our competitors who aren’t producing local product, who do not have dollars invested in the soil, who certainly don’t create the same amount of jobs, who certainly don’t have the same impact on the tourism economy that farm wineries have? Why would one subsidize those two companies that already have a competitive advantage with price?

 

It’s been reported, first from the industry itself, that this was done because of personal relationships that the Premier had - a personal friendship with someone who fundraises money for the PCs, has allegedly fundraised quite a bit of money for the PCs, and who is going to potentially get millions out of this, and maybe has gotten it already.

 

[5:00 p.m.]

 

When the Premier was asked about that relationship, he was very evasive: “I love all Nova Scotians.” I know that’s not true, because I don’t think the Premier has much love for me or members of the Opposition. When pressed on it, the Premier’s response was, “Well, are we friends?” A question asked to the reporter. There was no direct answer to that question. When asked if this individual fundraised for the party, the Premier said, “Possibly - that’s a matter of public record.” That is not a matter of public record. The Premier would have to disclose that. But he did not deny it.

 

The real concern here is that there is favouritism being played to the economic detriment of our farm wine sector. Again, because they will not be able to compete, particularly with an inflationary period we’re experiencing now - the cost of everything going up, and those price points really do matter. Again, the fact that this government decided to move the support for the farm wines into the Department of Finance and Treasury Board actually creates more trade risks. That created trade risks to this.

 

If subsidies or support were provided through the Department of Agriculture, as is the case in other jurisdictions, that actually creates some protection from trade challenges. I think it does need to be stated for the record that to this point in time, the Premier has not been able to articulate why this is a trade issue. It’s certainly not articulated in the World Trade Organization decision, and he’s not answered the questions about why this has happened.

 

Again, the stories change: “It’s a trade issue”;“Actually, it’s about economic development”;“Actually, it’s about both.” The story hasn’t been consistent here. We have not had answers from either the Department of Finance and Treasury Board or the Premier on whether directives were given, and where those directives came from - whether they came from the Premier’s Office, whether it came from the Department of Trade, whether it came from the NSLC. I certainly have my own suspicions about that.

 

This is a consequential decision that could potentially have devasting impacts on an industry that we’re very proud of here in Nova Scotia, that the Premier himself has said he’s very proud of. Again, the numbers aren’t adding up. This is not a good investment in the economy, because bottling imported juice does not have the same economic impact when a few people or half a dozen people can run a whole bottling factory and bottle thousands of bottles.

 

You compare the job impact to a farm winery and vineyard that actually has to have people farming, planting, seeding and watering. They have to have scientists who know how to do these sorts of things. It does not make any sense from an economic perspective. I think the evidence suggests this is not a trade issue. I think it’s being used as cover. I think that’s very obvious to anybody with any know-how on this. The Premier can question my trade credentials all he wants. I’m not the only person saying this.

 

There’s been no economic analysis presented that this is, indeed, beneficial to the economy overall. Again, we could become a bottling capital of the world, and bottle wine produced in other parts of South America, Canada and Europe all we want. That will still not replace the real economic impact of having grapes produced here, grown here, wine manufactured here, and the $250 million that industry is now worth, and the 1,100 jobs that have been created by that sector.

 

Again, no trade information presented to date. Maybe the Premier will change that for us. All the evidence suggests that this is not related to a trade issue and this whole program has been moved into Finance to create the illusion that it’s a trade issue, maybe even increase the risk of trade challenges - and no economic analysis presented. In fact, all the evidence available to the public right now suggests this could be really devastating to our rural economy, our farm-based wines, and our tourism sector. We are hearing that from people. Without the Premier being able to answer, or with the Premier evading certain questions around why this was done, and if it was based on personal connections or support for individuals who supported him - again, the Premier has been evasive on that.

 

I do think this is a problem. I am concerned that this is a tendency of the Premier when it comes to decision-making, where the outcomes are not properly evaluated, where there are big decisions being made, large sums of money being spent not linked to achieving outcomes for people in this province - in fact, maybe even having the opposite impact. I think we’re seeing that in the wine sector.

 

We’re also seeing it with health care spending, where this government has spent billions more in health care. So what has happened? The situation has gotten obviously worse in the areas that really matter. Having a family doctor - again, twice as many people now without a family doctor, more than twice as many people than when the Premier assumed his position after the last general election. Wait times, again as I mentioned, increasing. To my knowledge, the vacancies have been shuffled around but we still have incredible vacancies and procedures being cancelled because of this.

 

We’ve got literally an absolute disaster in almost every single emergency department in this province. Those are not indications of a system that’s moving forward. In fact, the stats show that we are moving backwards in real, key ways. I think that, again, we see the decision-making with the wine sector. I think we still see the same decision-making with health care where there’s not much thought or foresight being put into what these large sums of money are going to do, and there’s tons of untendered contracts going out.

 

We see this with the app to fix all health care woes that the government certainly is very vocal about promoting, has spent taxpayers’ money promoting with images of the Premier being sent to every single doorstep in the province. Again, this is something that is worth looking into.

 

I have a lot of questions here. I do want to get all my questions out. I know I will need to get them all out in probably one fell swoop here if I am going to have a chance to ask them all.

 

Another example here would be looking at the almost $50 million contract to Think Research Corporation. I believe this is linked to the YourHealthNS app - $50 million associated with the development of an app, potentially. We’ve heard the executives of this company are staying at the Muir Hotel, which again is owned by another official friend and ally of the Premier and billing these expenses to the taxpayer. I think this is the most expensive hotel to stay at in the city. We’ve heard that. I’d like the Premier to address that, and if those expenses are included in the $50 million.

 

We also saw that the Premier is staying there too. Again, was this tendered? I have a hard time believing that the best bang for your buck was in that hotel. It’s a very expensive hotel. Again, owned and built by a fundraiser and someone very closely linked to the Premier. This app - large sums of money, tens of millions precisely, close to $50 million - in untendered contracts to this one company.

 

Questions to the Premier: Did the department consider doing this work in-house, or hiring another app developer to do the work? Why didn’t any of this work go to tender?

 

Again, I’m hearing from app developers who say it’s absolutely ludicrous. Even with the $10 million that was announced to the public - the money for the development of this app - that doesn’t even make any sense. Again, what this app primarily does is link people to websites that are already developed. You can go on your phone and you get to go to all the other annoying, outdated government websites that have been in place for 10 to 20 years. Are we getting value for dollars here? I think the evidence is mounting up that the answer to that question, on a whole bunch of fronts, is no - and this has been, in a very understandable way, articulated by the Auditor General.

 

Again, I know the Premier has certainly brought up the Auditor General’s report directed at the Liberal Party, and I’ve got no problem talking about that. I know the Premier will certainly take every opportunity to. I actually think it is important to talk about it, because we certainly don’t want what happened to the Liberal Party to happen to any other party or to happen to any other organization, for that matter. Also, I think the fact that the Premier is so focused on this, shows where his focus is, and that it might be on the wrong thing.

 

Again, when the Premier brought this up in the last round of Estimates, we had a very scathing report from the Auditor General, without question. I certainly wasn’t happy with it. It was troubling. It is linked to a large sum of money that was misappropriated by a former staff person from the association to the individual. It was money that was misappropriated by a staff person from the association in the amount of over $100,000 - pretty substantial. That was discovered, there was an investigation that ensued, which involved an outside independent auditor who was brought in along with legal counsel, and the situation was resolved with the individual. The investigation was concluded, and that sum of money was given back to the Liberal Association.

 

Where the discrepancy is with the Auditor General is when that was reported. The report happened publicly on this issue in 2021, at the time that the investigation was concluded. Again, this is in response to the Premier’s previous comments on this. It was reported when the investigation was concluded. That’s where the Auditor General has a discrepancy with the decision that was made by past party leadership. Not political leadership of the party, but corporate leadership - president and board level.

 

The Auditor General’s advice was for the Association to refer to the RCMP - and we did. I did it the day after. I did it the day after I met with the Auditor General. I said, fine, if there’s a discrepancy there, we’ll deal with it. We have reached out to the RCMP to look at this and provide us feedback if the timing on the reporting of those misappropriated funds is in breach of any criminal code. Again, the reporting was in line with the advice of the independent auditor, Deloitte; the normal auditor of the party, Shupe & Company; and in line with legal counsel as well. But if the Auditor General disagrees with that, that’s fine.

 

This has been something that the Premier has been absolutely obsessed with. Just to demonstrate the scale of the Auditor General’s concerns with the government, I think, is really important. Sure, I appreciate the political opportunity that that report presents to the Premier. He can have at it and talk about it all he wants. Again, I have no issue talking about it.

 

I want to talk about the most recent Auditor General reports around government spending. Again, the Premier is obsessed with an Auditor General report about the party that impacted around $100,000 worth of funds that, again, were recouped and repaid. The Auditor General’s report on Hogan Court - again, this is something I believe is going to cost over $80 million, at this point.

 

The AG’s report on Hogan Court was pretty concerning: a very “unusual” purchase. There was - these are just the highlights - an inadequate review. Government spent $34.5 million without “adequate due diligence in order to obtain value for money.” There was no public tender. Again, this is quoting from the Auditor General’s Report on Hogan Court - no public tender. Construction work on the project was solely sourced instead of being publicly tendered, which I believe is against the rules on public tenders in Nova Scotia. There were no cost estimates - a “$15 million conversion budget approved without detailed cost estimates.” The capacity was reduced for this building. Design limitations resulted in a reduction of the number of beds from 80 to 68. The government bypassed protocols. Untendered $81 million contracts didn’t comply with current procurement protocols.

 

[5:15 p.m.]

 

Is that not concerning to the Premier? Is this not more concerning than a misappropriation of funds of $100,000? This is $81 million in untendered contracts on a questionable purchase that did not follow protocols, that was sole-sourced, where due diligence didn’t happen to find value and ensure value for money, and where they couldn’t even build the number of beds in that facility that they thought they could, because none of this due diligence happened.

 

Yet when it comes to the recommendations of the Auditor General, none of them were followed by the government. On one hand, when it’s politically useful to the Premier to attack the Opposition, he cares a lot about the Auditor General’s words and reports. When it comes to taking constructive feedback from the Auditor General on his government’s own willingness to bypass proper protocol and procedures, and spend, at this point, $81 million - it’s probably going to be more - on a building that wasn’t even suitable, according to the public officials who evaluated it and according to a document that was leaked, he won’t move forward at all on these Auditor General Reports, which said: “We recommend the Department of Public Works, as subject matter experts, in consultation with the Department of Finance and Treasury Board, develop a government-wide direction/policy for approving the acquisition of land and buildings . . .” I’m not aware of that happening.

 

“We recommend the Department of Public Works and Build Nova Scotia sign contracts with private sector partners prior to work commencing.” Those are straightforward recommendations - again, related to the budget of $81 million to date, and again, not something the Premier seems very interested in.

 

We’ve become increasingly concerned with the amount of money that is spent over the budget in Nova Scotia as well. “Additional appropriations” would be the official term, but for folks who aren’t aware of that language, what this is - “additional appropriations” is spending outside of the budget that’s approved in this Chamber by the duly elected House of Assembly. Most of the money that’s been spent out of any government in additional appropriations and over-budget spending - I believe close to half - has been in the last two years. Billions of dollars. It first makes a legislative question: What are we even doing in here? What’s the point of passing a provincial budget when it doesn’t really matter, because Cabinet will spend whatever they want to outside of it, without any limitations?

 

Again, this did happen previously. It did happen in our previous government, during COVID - during a global pandemic. There are times when it does seem appropriate to do this, during moments of crisis, but this government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, not on responses to the crises that we face - some of the money has gone towards that - but hundreds of millions of dollars spent in areas that are more aligned with, I think, capturing headlines than moving forward with what the government says their agenda is.

 

The Auditor General looked at this specifically. She didn’t look at all the expenses outside of the budget. She looked at $432.7 million worth of over-budget spending. I think there’s been close to $2 billion at this point in over-budget spending in two years - $2.6 billion in two years of over-budget spending.

 

The report highlights value for money of over-budget spending. The Auditor General was specifically looking at the value for money on this government’s over-budget spending in particular. Her findings: No accountability. Over-budget spending processes are not accountable or transparent through the Legislature. Over-budget spending is also on the rise. In the two years that this PC government was in power, $2.6 billion in over-budget spending happened. (Interruption)

 

THE CHAIR: Order. I recognize the . . .

 

THE PREMIER: I don’t want to interrupt the member’s incredible, fascinating flow there, but would it be okay if I took a quick bathroom break?

 

THE CHAIR: Yes. We will take a five-minute recess.

 

[5:21 p.m. The committee recessed.]

 

[5:24 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

 

ZACH CHURCHILL: The findings of the Auditor General’s report on this government’s incredible amount of over-budget spending are very concerning. Just to recap: No accountability. Over-budget spending processes not accountable or transparent through the Legislature. It’s on the rise - $2.6 billion in over-budget spending in just two years. No need to spend. This is where - which brings me back to my original point - I think I’m most concerned about. The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars, literally - potentially billions - in areas where there’s no indication that there’s a need for spending, or that there are going to be positive outcomes for people or the province.

 

I’ll quote the Auditor General’s report: “In 100 per cent of transactions tested, the Province prematurely spent $432.7 million.” That would fund, by the way, the HST cut that we’ve been proposing. The $432.7 million plus Hogan Court would fund the HST cut, and the Premier says he doesn’t have enough money to do it.

 

There were no cost estimates. The government spent $280 million of the $432.7 million that the Auditor General looked at without cost estimates in the past two years. Government refuses to implement the AG’s recommendations to address the spending.

 

Again, the key recommendations on this report were for the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board to amend the Finance Act to align with the additional appropriations process, and with legislative practices elsewhere in Canada, and provide accountability and transparency over the spending of all public funds. The member for Bedford South pointed this out very eloquently in his arguments presented in Supply today: the fact that the government will still be able to pass this.

 

We got called back for an emergency session of the Legislature for the Premier to freeze MLA salaries - which wouldn’t have cost that much to the taxpayers - but the Premier is not willing to bring over-budget spending that’s in the amount of $2.6 billion to the House to debate.

 

Again, what’s going on here? The proportionality of the Premier’s responses is highly questionable. It does beg one, like myself, to argue that the actions of spending are more performative than outcome-oriented. It’s more about perception than achieving things.

 

The Auditor General also recommended that the Department of Finance and Treasury Board, in consultation with the Executive Council Office, strengthen the approval process where government priorities are being advanced and require additional appropriations. These are pretty straightforward, fairly benign recommendations that the government has refused to pursue.

 

The recommendation on the one Auditor General report that the Premier cares about - the one involving the Liberal Party - the one recommendation that involved us was to go to the RCMP. That’s a pretty consequential recommendation, and we did it. We reached out to them the day after. It took me a day to do that. Yet when it comes to the accountability and protection of public funds, ensuring that there’s value for money that’s being spent, the Premier will not act on the recommendations of the Auditor General.

 

As the Auditor General explained, Nova Scotia is an outlier when it comes to over-budget spending. “It’s like a blank cheque,” she said. All funds were approved through an expedited process, and many of them lacked key supporting elements one would expect to see, given the large amounts involved. That’s concerning.

 

The Auditor General said it very clearly, I think, in some of her public comments: “Other jurisdictions in Canada require budget overspends to return to the floor of the House for debate and approval, but not here in Nova Scotia.” It’s at an all-time high. The Auditor General said that the practice of government overspending hit an all-time high in 2022-23, when more than 10 per cent of the entire $14 billion budget, was spent outside of the approved budget.

 

She goes on to say that she finds it terribly disappointing for the Nova Scotia taxpayer. “In my view, they should expect the same level of accountability and transparency when it comes to budget overspending as happens in every other province in this country, as well as the federal level.”

 

[5:30 p.m.]

 

Why have the budget and the original budget process and the appropriations process when you can overspend to that extent? Past governments did it, but not to the same extent at all. I think half of the money that’s been spent in the last two years is over-budget spending. Those happened in moments of very acute crisis, mainly the pandemic. Certainly, that hasn’t happened - hundreds of millions of dollars, expenses that the government has put forward - has not been driven by crisis or a need to do this.

 

I think the reason why this is important is because it’s having serious consequences to the financial situation of Nova Scotia. If there were clear objectives that were being achieved for people, and if life was getting better and more affordable, if health care was getting fixed and wait times weren’t going up, if the economic indicators weren’t weakening, it’d probably be a different story. If there’s a clear demonstration that there’s value for money, I do think it’s a different conversation for the House and for the public. The fact that the Auditor General is highlighting that there is not value for money in these large spends - that is where I think we have to be concerned.

 

This Province, this Premier, is driving our debt up pretty substantially, which means we are going to be spending more in interest payments. I believe we are spending more on our interest payments to service our debt than we are on all but a few government departments. That means Nova Scotians are paying more in interest than they are in the Department of Public Works - the department responsible for building all of our infrastructure, for our roads, fixing our potholes. We’re spending more on our interest payments.

 

This is something that I can speak on with some credibility because I was part of a government that actually took our fiscal responsibility seriously. We came into a deficit position and had to make very difficult decisions to protect the public purse and protect future generations from debt. At the same time, if you look at every single budget - and that’s all on the public record - there was increased spending in health care in every single budget. Again, less spending but outcomes were better. You can decide what you want from that. I’d advise the minister not to throw stones when she lives in a glass house on this.

 

It’s one thing to talk about how much money is being spent; it’s quite something different to talk about what outcomes are being improved as a result of that. As I mentioned earlier, the outcomes just aren’t there, and the Auditor General is pointing that out. The House doesn’t even have to take my word for it. In certain circumstances, the Premier seems to care very much about what the Auditor General says. The Auditor General is saying there is not value for money, and there are untendered contracts going out that are questionable. These stats are evidence of what the Auditor General is saying.

 

Argue about the stats all you want. The problem overall is that the Premier and this government are spending a lot of money, spending billions outside of their own budget, adding to the debt and the interest payments of this province, and not achieving the results that they promised Nova Scotians or that Nova Scotians deserve, as a result of their money being spent this way.

 

It’s not just me saying this. We see commentary presented publicly on this:

 

Free spending Nova Scotia budget gets failing grade . . . The government has doubled down on what was already a free-spending approach to provincial finances by promising a deficit this coming year . . .

 

This was published February 29, 2024:

 

. . . deficits to at least 2027/28, rapidly rising debt, and no plan for a return to budget balance. Specifically, the government projects a deficit of $467.4 million in 2024/2025, with additional deficits in the three following years totalling over $1.5 billion. Net debt is projected to rise by more than $6 billion during that same time period, as the government combines yearly operating deficits with historically-high levels of capital spending. This approach to spending can only be described as reckless.

 

I’m reading excerpts from this. I’m not reading the entire article:

 

. . . provincial net debt is projected to rise from 33.3 per cent this year to 38.4 per cent by 2027/28, a level not seen since large deficits run by the Darrell Dexter government produced a sharp increase in debt in the mid-2020s. Over the next four years, net debt will grow an average of 7.2 per cent per year. Outside of the anomaly of a COVID year, that level of increase has not been seen since at least the mid- to late-1990s.

 

I think it’s important to talk about why that’s important to people and why it should matter to Nova Scotians, and why the previous government actually took the fiscal responsibility very seriously, and managed to increase spending in areas that the government now takes credit for, but when they were in Opposition voted against. We were able to bring in one of the most significant social programs of a generation to Nova Scotia - pre-Primary. It cost $50 million to do that. There was a demonstrable need to have that because only one in four preschool-aged kids were able to access early learning.

 

We’ve demonstrated in this province that you can be fiscally responsible, care about the taxpayers’ money and treat it with respect, while at the same time increasing investments in health and social programming that have incredible impacts on outcomes for people. I haven’t seen the numbers since COVID - and that certainly would have had a negative impact on learning trajectories for our kids - but we started to see in the first year of pre-Primary cohorts, them doing better academically and with social behaviour and emotional self-regulation than non-pre-Primary cohorts. They actually started seeing the outcomes improve.

 

Even though I know the Premier at the time said he wouldn’t invest in pre-Primary, or that he wouldn’t have, but I know he wouldn’t change it because it is so critical, not just for our kids and their trajectory for learning and development, but also for working families - 75 percent of whom didn’t have access to it. Clear, demonstrable value for money and a return on investment - this government is not showing that on the big-ticket items that they’re spending money on.

 

It’s increasing the debt in the province at a fairly alarming rate - an increase in the debt we haven’t seen since the NDP ran. Very similar to the Tory governments of the 1980s. A lot of similarities, I’d say, between the current government and that government on a number of fronts. The reason this needs to matter to people - because most people certainly aren’t paying attention to debt levels or deficits of the provincial government, but here’s how it impacts them.

 

We’re paying more and more in interest payments. That’s money that is not going to pay for government services. That’s money that’s not going to housing. We are paying more on our interest payments right now than we are in housing programming in Nova Scotia, or in public works, or in advanced education and skilled trades at a time that we have a labour shortage. Think about that. I think that puts it into an acute perspective for people.

 

We’ve got a labour shortage. We’ve got a housing shortage. We’re spending more in interest payments now as a result of this government than we are on those two departments, and there’s no plan to change that. Don’t take my word for it. According to the Auditor General, on at least close to half or over a half a billion dollars of the money that is being spent, we are not seeing a return. There hasn’t been a need that’s been demonstrated by the government to even do that.

 

We see, I think, more performative measures in this budget. Again, there are some good things in the budget. I have no problem telling the Premier that, and I have no problem saying that publicly. The best things in this budget, coincidentally, all came from the Opposition party advocacy on them, which the government is now taking credit for. That’s fine, because at the end of the day, all that matters is the impact on people’s lives. The universal lunch program, again, is something being pushed by both Opposition parties. Indexing income tax to inflation - something we’ve been pushing for two years. The funding of the glucose monitors for diabetics in Nova Scotia. These are all very important investments that I think you will see a return on investment for.

 

Again, the government doesn’t give other people credit for these ideas, but all these ideas came from the Opposition. Sometimes I feel like I have more influence over this government than I did on the previous government, of which I was a member. Fascinating thing. The fact is that on big sums of money we are not seeing returns on investments.

 

In other areas, particularly around the tax break that was trumpeted by the Premier as being the largest tax break in Nova Scotia history, we also know that it is not enough for people. This is going to save people, I think in 2025, between $69 and $259 a year. We know that’s not enough, and so to trumpet this as the biggest tax cut in history, I think, is not accurate.

 

Again, it is something we have advocated for. We’ve advocated for that along with other tax cuts, namely the HST, which would save people between $1,350 and probably $1,750 a year. Again, a much bigger savings. So for the Premier to say this is a big tax cut I do not think is accurate because it is not a tax cut. It simply doesn’t tax people more and bump them up to a new tax bracket as a result of inflation, which is fair, and every other province does this. But it’s also not changing the picture for tax competitiveness in Nova Scotia. This has also been stated publicly, not just by me, but by members of the public and the media. I quote: “Houston government trumpets ‘largest tax cut’ in provincial history - without cutting taxes.” That’s the reality of the situation.

 

THE CHAIR: Order. You are not allowed to call out a member, so I would ask you to rephrase that. I ask that you refer to members by their proper names.

 

The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

 

ZACH CHURCHILL: Of course, Chair. Thank you very much for reminding me. “The [PC] government trumpets largest tax cuts without cutting taxes. While it’s certainly welcome news, it’s not a tax cut and does not meaningfully change Nova Scotia’s overall tax problem.” Again, these are statements by other individuals other than me:

 

Looking at the bigger picture, the budget from the Premier’s government did not meaningfully address Nova Scotia’s overall tax problem. According to the government, indexation is expecting to save individuals $69 to $259 per person in the 2025-26 year. However, workers in Nova Scotia who earn between $60,000 and $100,000 per year pay between $6,416 and $13,142 per year in provincial income taxes. Clearly, the workers in this province would have welcomed a true tax cut.

 

This individual gives the McNeil government, as well as the MacDonald government, credit for adjusting tax brackets. However, we still have a very uncompetitive tax regime here in Nova Scotia. We see examples of the Premier being more focused on the optics of the situation than the reality, where he trumpeted this as the biggest tax cut ever - even though it is in line with what other governments have done in the past, and definitely what has been advocated by us for two years, but it does not change affordability in the province for people. Two $259 a year in savings is literally a drop in the bucket for working people who are struggling to make ends meet:

 

[5:45 p.m.]

 

. . . the Houston government made this move during a time of runaway spending, ongoing deficits and rising debt, which helps to ensure that more substantial tax relief is a long way off for Nova Scotians . . . With this budget, the government had an opportunity to restrain spending and improve the province’s finances and position itself for serious tax relief going forward. It failed to take advantage of that opportunity, which is the government’s prerogative. However, trumpeting the ‘largest tax cut in Nova Scotia’s history’ when it’s neither historic nor a true tax cut is quite a stretch, particularly given that the true problem remains unsolved.

 

This is the concern that we have. I began the conversation on the wine sector where we are told this is going to lead to trade compliance and economic development opportunities. I think the evidence suggests that’s not the case. We see this with large sums of spending in health that are not improving results for people.

 

Again, there are good things happening. I can’t disparage every move that this government has made on health care. I’ve got no problem giving credit where credit’s due. They have made some decisions that are helping, but again, they’re primarily on the band-aid side. They’re not fixing some of the root issues that will continue to plague the health care system overall.

 

We don’t know what the return on investment is on the app. Again, there was close to $50 million of untendered money that went to Think Research Corporation. Is that improving our ERs? Is it improving how many people have a family doctor? To date, it certainly hasn’t been. We are seeing it with the purchase of Hogan Court, where there was clearly not value for money applied to that decision. We’re seeing it with hundreds of millions of dollars, close to half a billion, that’s spent outside of the government’s own budget, where the Auditor General not only pointed out that there was no accountability, that there was no need to spend this money, no cost estimates, and no return on investment.

 

We’re seeing it in other programs that the government trumpets - the MOST program. Again, our issue with the program has nothing to do with our dislike of the program or providing tax incentives to skilled trade workers. Our issue with the MOST program is that it’s not working right now. We are not addressing the skilled trade deficit and labour shortage with this program because there was a terrible uptake.

 

We’ve provided suggestions to the government to improve this, one in particular being the age threshold. We’ve got a lot of people who are older, who want to upgrade their skills, who might be inclined to pick up this tax incentive to change their careers. To date, the government has not moved on our suggestion to do that, but again, that’s another thing I would recommend the government to do on the MOST program - to get rid of the age threshold or at least increase it. There are a lot of working-age people in their 40s, 50s, maybe even beyond, who certainly might want to get involved in the skilled trades because there are incredible opportunities there at the moment.

 

There are some final questions I have, and I’m sure the Premier has been keeping track of these questions. Where is the economic analysis for wine? Why wasn’t the $50 million that was given to Think Research Corporation tendered? Why are we not getting a return on investment for the over-dollar spending that the government is doing that’s being pointed out by the AG? Why isn’t the Premier considering increasing the age threshold for the MOST program?

 

I do want to add a couple of more questions before I hand it over to the Premier. The Better Pay Cheque Guarantee: This government was elected on a promise to fix health care, but also to give Nova Scotians a better pay cheque. They were explicit with how they were going to do that. There were going to be government subsidies to the private sector for companies that increased the wages or salaries for their staff. To date, we have not seen that come through. That is another broken promise by the government. We would like to know why they’re not moving forward on that - if the program wasn’t tenable or if there’s a plan to move forward on it.

 

Also, back to a smaller item but one that I do think needs an answer. It relates to all the money in untendered contracts that are going out, which according to the Auditor General is against provincial protocol, against the rules.

 

The Premier does have a Suburban vehicle that is provided to him. I believe the RCMP drive him in that, and I’m sure it’s well-protected from potential threats. My question is: Was that tendered? What’s the process for that? How much does that cost the taxpayer? Has the Premier purchased a new vehicle? Was that put out to tender?

 

I hope the Premier can take some time to answer some of these critical questions relating to the FMA and beyond.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable Premier, with a note that there are only eight minutes and 40 seconds.

 

THE PREMIER: I appreciate the member’s speech that he gave. I actually find it quite fascinating. The member is not taking the opportunity to ask questions of the Ministers of Health and Wellness, Community Services, or Public Works. Instead, the member will probably go out of here and say the Premier doesn’t answer any questions. He has an hour to ask questions and he decides that he is going to talk. It’s a great strategy. I think it’s indicative of the rudderlessness of the Liberal Party at the moment. They don’t quite know what to do.

 

I did appreciate - I was able to catch a little bit - that the member committed to trying to rewrite history around the Auditor General’s report of the theft of public money. I’m hopeful that we get a chance to come back to that because I think there’s a lot in there to unpack. He said he called the police the day after he met with the Auditor General. The only problem is that it’s about six months after he would have known.

 

I think it will be interesting to really unpack that. I know he referred to at one time that he just inherited this. I wonder whom he inherited it from. Maybe it’s the colleague who happens to sit beside him most days. It’s really going to be interesting to have that discussion.

 

In all of the questions that were asked, I think the question that the member was most serious about and most sincere about was when he asked, Well, what are we doing here then? I actually think that’s a sincere question from the member.

 

There are a couple of things I want to address that I think are important. The whole discussion on the wine industry and the legal advice. Obviously the member may be aware, or he may not be aware, when you have legal advice, as soon as you talk about that legal advice in the public realm, you have waived privilege to that legal advice. I don’t think it’s a wise move for a government that is trying to resolve a trade dispute to waive privilege on advice.

 

I know the member is committed to his commentary that he actually has better legal trade advice than the trade lawyers, but I still stand by my statement from your data. We’ll go with the trade lawyers on that one.

 

I do want to correct something that is just simply not true. Possibly the member knows this. Maybe the member doesn’t know it. I wouldn’t try to guess what he may or may not know. He constantly refers to the fact that somebody would bring juice here, and bottle here, and slap a Nova Scotia label on it. That’s just simply not true. That is absolutely not true. There are all kinds of standards - how much local grape quantity would need to be in there to be able to be called a Nova Scotia wine. I think that’s a really important thing.

 

The other comment I would make on this is a continuation of the theme that the government department that’s involved has some sort of deeper meaning for trade. It does not. Government is government. That’s the way it is viewed on the international trade stage. That’s important to clarify the record on that.

 

The third thing is - and this would go back to something my colleague, the Leader of the NDP, raised - the farm wine program and the commercial wine program are long-standing programs. The fact that they’ve been amended or tweaked - however you want to describe it - they are long-standing programs. The commercial wineries were receiving support, certainly, under the prior governments. In fact, I think the prior Liberal government put that commercial wine program in place in 2015. So the indication that this is some sort of new thing is not accurate. I want to correct the record on those things right away.

 

A couple things in there - some of them were so small-minded as to not warrant a response, so I will not on those. I know the member has advanced the position that the $500 million HST cut he’s advocating is some simple thing and that we could just do that. What I would say to the member is that we will not harm the education or the safety of our children just to meet some misguided political promise. We will not harm the future of this province. Those are actually not my words. Those are the words of former Premier Stephen McNeil, who in his 2013 Liberal Party platform says: “We will not harm the education and safety of our children to meet misguided political promises as the NDP has done for four years.”

 

I think that was sage advice, to not harm Nova Scotians just to meet some misguided political promise. Of course we want lower taxes, just like Stephen McNeil did, but he was very clear in his platform, and I would say I agree with him. He says: “Not until we reach sufficient budget surplus will we reduce the HST.” This is not some new thing of wanting to reduce the HST. It’s something that has been discussed for a long time. Prior Liberal Party leaders have recognized that timing is everything on these things. The current leader doesn’t, but that’s okay. What I would say to Nova Scotians is that we understand, and we share the desire to lower taxes. We absolutely do share that desire, but it has to happen at the appropriate time.

 

The member talked about the deficits, and I just point out a couple things. Number 1, we were upfront with Nova Scotians during the 2021 campaign that there would be deficits for a number of years - because this is the time to invest in Nova Scotians. We were upfront on that. They understood that the prior approach to governing - it did what it did to health care. It did what it did to infrastructure deficits in so many ways. They had an approach to governing. We, in our campaign, were very clear that our approach was that we were going to invest in Nova Scotians, and if we made the right investments in Nova Scotians - in the health care system and in economic development - we would be better off for it. Nova Scotians said they agreed with that.

 

I think they surprised the government of the day by just telling them to get out of the way; we need a new government that is willing to invest in Nova Scotians and that is willing to move this province forward. That’s what they said then. They continue to say it today. I would say to the member that, on the issue of HST cuts and tax cuts, I agree with Premier McNeil. That’s whom I agree with on that.

 

[6:00 p.m.]

 

I’ll save the rest for the next couple of days in Estimates, but I do have some comments on those other comments.

 

THE CHAIR: Order. The time allotted for the Official Opposition has now expired. I do remind the honourable Leader of the Official Opposition to table the documents they quoted from. Perfect. Thank you.

 

The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party.

 

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I don’t actually quite know what’s going on here. The Premier keeps talking about being here for days more and answering questions when, in fact, the Premier is not answering questions.

 

The Premier is chastising us for filibustering when, in fact, he came into the Chamber and, after I asked him a single question, spoke for 27 minutes, I think, talking about bulls and film and everything but the question that I asked him, which is his right in this Chamber. What we’re here to do is to debate the budget. In his purview as Premier, and being here as part of the Premier’s Office, I’m not clear why the Premier is so reluctant to answer simple questions.

 

What we heard recently from the Auditor General is that there is a big problem with the way that this government does business. There is a big problem with the way that this government spends money. There is a lack of oversight.

 

There’s a lack of oversight of spending in the budget process, outside of the budget process, with tendering, and with the Hogan Court scandal. Yet when we ask questions, we’re told that we’re putting the economy of the province at risk. When we present our challenges with the positions put forward by government, we’re told that we’re demoralizing people.

 

It feels like we’re a little bit in Upside-Down World, because it is literally our job to ask questions of the government. That is why we’re here, and it’s true, the government could put out a program that gave everyone a free rainbow and a bouquet of flowers for the rest of their lives, and we would probably come up with a problem with it. We would ask questions, because we would do that on behalf of people who told us that there was an issue. It’s literally our job. In return, what we expect is the government to explain what they’re doing and answer our questions. Yet we cannot get those answers ever in this room.

 

There’s a long-standing tradition in Question Period that we don’t get those answers, but sometimes we’re hopeful that we can walk in here and that we can get answers. My hope is almost exhausted, but I do think it’s really important.

 

We’re not going to be here for days more. We’re going to be here for a handful of days more. We won’t be asking the Premier questions. We’ll be asking the Minister of Health and Wellness questions. We’ll be asking questions of ministers who hopefully will refer to policy manuals, budget documents, and their deputies, and do their best to answer the questions. That’s not what we’re getting here.

 

When I met with the farm wineries, something that someone said struck me, and I suspect the Premier might hear this tonight. He said, Look, this is a playbook. It’s happened all across the country, that there is a commercial aspect to winemaking. These folks have deep pockets and lots of influence. They want to come in and they want to consolidate the sector, and they want to expand their bottling capacity and do what they do.

 

The difference is that in every other province that it’s happened in, government immediately took the side of the local producers of the farm wineries and did whatever they could to help that provincial sector. The thing that the Premier said about it earlier was that they have a “cool factor.” Aside from having a cool factor, I would say they also employ something like 1,100 Nova Scotians. They also support huge pieces of our rural economy.

 

What he said was that the only difference is how quickly this Premier caved. We know, and I tabled these documents last day, that the Premier met with the only two commercial bottlers who are eligible currently. We all know the Premier thinks everyone else can ramp up, but until anyone else ramps up, there’s only these two who are eligible. We know the Premier met with them and then, lo and behold, they get what is being described by the folks who stand to lose their shirts over it, as a sweetheart deal.

 

The farm wineries were also very clear when we met with them that they’re not asking for more money. They understand, as the Premier has said, that they have support from this government. This government has supported them in growing. It’s not that they want more money. It’s that they see the way this new program has been rolled out through the Department of Finance to their sector, with no consultation to speak of, in their view, as creating a huge amount of uncertainty and peril in their sector.

 

One other farm winery owner has already said he’s not putting any more vines in the ground this year. He had expansion plans; he’s cancelled them. Someone else said they were going to two different trade shows in Europe - cancelled. This is the immediate impact of this program. Hopefully, the Premier is going to go and meet with these folks, and he’ll hear this all from them and maybe he’ll have a different view on the other side of it, but I think it’s really important that we get answers somehow.

 

We now have a situation in which nothing the government does really has to go in the budget. As the Premier has pointed out, that has technically been the case - that you can have unallocated spending through two other governments - but never to anything close to the amount that we’ve seen from this government. Not even close. Given that, coupled with the scathing remarks of the Auditor General in two successive reports, we have to try to get answers, and it’s harder and harder to get those answers.

 

In my last hour of questioning, I was able to ask two questions - the same two questions: Has the program started for commercial bottlers? Have the cheques been cut? How much? I guess that’s three questions. The Premier refused to answer that last question. How much money has this government - us - how much money have we, collectively as Bluenosers, spent to subsidize the commercial bottlers who, in the view of the farm wine industry, are imperilling 1,100 local jobs and an entire sector? The fact that I can’t get an answer to that question, when we know the Premier met with these two gentlemen together prior to the announcement of the program - clearly the three of them are on good terms, since they all met together - is evidence of a pattern that we see.

 

If we ask questions, we’re putting our economy at risk. If we criticize, we’re demoralizing. If we suggest the Premier might want to keep his promise around strengthening the order-making powers or meeting the budget requests of the Information and Privacy Officer, we can’t possibly do it because of all the fishing expeditions that were going on. I think the reality is that we have a government that increasingly, despite - I know that, in the Premier’s view, we’re going quickly, we’re always moving forward, and Donald Sobey and Brian Mulroney are in his ear propelling us ever onward.

 

What we see is that we’re going back. We’re going back to the days of patronage. We’re going back to the days of backroom deals. We’re going back to the days when it was who you knew, how close they were to you, and what their access was to the Premier’s Office. The sad part is that the Premier has done nothing to refute this. Even this whole trip to Germany confusion that we’re currently in - the Premier was going to go to Germany, then he wasn’t going to go to Germany. There was an issue with travel. There was an issue with the strike. The federal minister said it was because the Premier needed to be in the House. The Premier said that’s not the reason; it was because he maybe wasn’t going to be able to get out of Germany to get to a funeral on Friday, which seems a little far-fetched to me. But you know, this is a moment when we are talking about the future of a whole sector of the rural economy. We have Nova Scotians facing huge cost of living issues. We have a health care system that no matter how much the Premier tells us is better, isn’t. There was a young boy in Dartmouth who died of strep A a couple of days ago. You know, we have huge challenges here.

 

The Premier said, and I kind of couldn’t believe it - it sends a message when the Premier is here. In the vast period of time when he was not answering questions in the last hour, he gave several examples of where it made a difference, how it sends a message when the Premier is here. He didn’t seem to care when he made the plans for this trip during one of our few limited sessions in this place - the message it sent that the Premier was here. He didn’t seem to care when he made this deal with commercial bottlers what message it would send to the farm wine industry that the Premier wasn’t there.

 

I’m not quite sure where the priorities lie. I think it’s frustrating for Nova Scotians who look to us as Opposition MLAs to fight for them, to bring their questions and their concerns. Sometimes those concerns can easily be answered and met. Sometimes they can’t. The fact that we can’t get answers, that we only get long-winded speeches about bulls, is confusing. I do want to go back. Again, this is the Premier who sued the government for not disclosing the management fee around the Yarmouth ferry because it was a sensitive commercial issue. That was the reason that the government gave, why they weren’t releasing it. Then the Premier decided to sue, to take the government to court.

 

In this case we have a little program. There are only two commercial bottlers that are eligible for the program. It’s our money being spent, and the Premier won’t tell us how much money he’s spending or when, and so I want to give him another opportunity to do that.

 

THE PREMIER: I thank the member for the opportunity to provide some thoughts on a number of issues. The member raised a number of issues, and I want to take my time and respond to them.

 

The first thing I want to say is - and this is in reference to the member saying, Well, you know, Donald Sobey and Brian Mulroney may be in his ear and isn’t that great. The reality is they’re not. We lost both of those gentlemen, two incredible people. One was obviously a titan of business in Nova Scotia who created a lot of opportunity for a lot of supplier companies and businesses that employed a lot of people. Of course, in Brian Mulroney we lost an incredible Prime Minister for this country. The story of both of those men is remarkable. I am very blessed to have had the opportunity to know them, to speak to them, to seek counsel from them, and, yes, consider them friends. I know the Opposition thinks “friends” is a dirty word, and that’s kind of one of their things that they do, but I don’t.

 

Yes, I had planned to be in Germany. Yes, I would like to have been there. Yes, there are labour disputes at certain airports. There was one at Hamburg. It’s a rotating strike. I didn’t want to get caught over there and miss Brian Mulroney’s funeral. That was important to me. It’s not important to the member, but it’s important to me. I will take my place here in Estimates, four-hour blocks at a time. The members opposite made a choice. They prioritized calling the Premier. They thought that was an important priority for them, and I’m respecting that. We did four hours on Friday before March Break. We’ll do four hours today. The Premier will be here for four hours at a time, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, until Estimates are up, to give the members opposite the time to ask their questions. They are very concerned about their opportunities to ask questions.

 

[6:15 p.m.]

 

They want to do that directed at the Premier, as opposed to the Minister of Health and Wellness, as opposed to the Department of Community Services, as opposed to the Department of Public Works. They have prioritized the Premier, and the Premier will respect and recognize that. I will be here to answer questions. I know the member says that they’re not getting any answers. That’s just not true. They don’t like the answers, but they’re answers. They ask the question and I give the answer. They don’t like it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t answer it.

 

We’ll continue with this for as many hours as it takes for them to be satisfied. I don’t know that there’s ever been a Premier who’s been this willing to answer questions. In this Chamber, in Estimates, it’ll be a record number of hours. It’ll be a record number of hours for the Premier in Estimates, for sure. It probably already is. I make myself available to Nova Scotians through telephone town halls. Nova Scotians can actually just get a phone call, pick it up and answer it, and it’s the Premier there, and they can ask their - so very accessible to answer questions, and we’ll continue to do so.

 

The reality - and this is the political world we live in - is that the NDP is a very negative party. They are negative about Nova Scotians. They are negative about policy. That’s not me, Chair, that’s just the way it is. Very, very negative about Nova Scotians who step up to help their communities. Very negative about government policy and initiative. We can’t concern ourselves with that level of negativity. We can only concern ourselves with governing the province, and that’s what we will continue to do.

 

It’s easy to get answers from this government. It’s easy to get answers from the Premier. You ask a question and you get an answer. You might not like it, but you get one. It doesn’t mean you didn’t get one. We’ll continue to do that. I think the whole discussion about Nova Scotians that step up - I’m happy to revisit that discussion. I kind of made my thoughts known on that.

 

There’s no better example than the example that was presented the Friday when we were here, where in their desire to be negative about people, the Leader of the NDP literally said that a person was a chief of staff for a Progressive Conservative, and therefore must have had some closer connection to me, when in fact that was absolutely not true. This particular individual had been a chief of staff for a Liberal, which I think is the same as being a chief of staff for the NDP, because the Liberals and the NDP, we all know, are just one party at the moment here now that work together on things. So you might as well have said “NDP chief of staff” and then tried to paint them as a Conservative chief of staff.

 

The NDP will continue as a party to create these negative environments, and we can’t subscribe to that. We can only talk about what’s possible, and where this province is going. The potential for this province is absolutely incredible. There is so much potential for this province. We focus on that and we move forward.

 

I do want to, in the few minutes I have here, talk about a couple of issues that the NDP has raised. First off, yes, the wine industry is an important industry for a number of factors. Yes, the quote that was used was in the context of the value proposition of Nova Scotia as a tourism destination. It is a good tourism destination; it is a cool place to come. I hear that from people all the time. There are a number of things that make it cool.

 

Right here in this city, there’s a lot happening in this city right now. The restaurant scene, the nightlife scene, the vibrancy around that. There’s a lot happening here that’s kind of a cool factor. The film industry does bring a cool factor, for sure. Visiting the vineyards is a cool factor. So yes, there is, and I just don’t want to let that statement be turned into some kind of negative statement. It was not meant to be a negative statement. I know the NDP, that’s their thing - trying to make things negative - but that was not meant to be a negative statement.

 

In terms of Hogan Court, I think this is really important. Yes, there’s a big need for those Hogan Court beds. The process that’s been followed will deliver them much quicker than if a different process had been followed. Of course, we want to be, and are, accountable on the decisions we make. You talk about Hogan Court, you talk about additional appropriations, and if you were just tuning in from Mars and listening to the Opposition talk about additional appropriations, you’d think it was some secret thing. They’re not a secret thing. There are press releases, news conferences, usually a ribbon cut somewhere, the Auditor General, the fact that there’s reporting on them, they know that the media picks them up. This is just the management of government, and the reason that it’s in the law that there can be additional appropriations is that sometimes you’ve just got to manage. You just have to manage. The people elected us to manage with a very strong mandate, so they expect us to manage.

 

I think the Leader of the Liberal Party was actually advocating for an MLA raise in his comments, but he can talk about that. We recalled the Legislature to stop an MLA pay raise, and in fact, roll back the salary of the Premier. We took the Premier’s salary back. That seemed like a pretty straightforward thing. It had to be done through the Legislature. It couldn’t be done in Regulations; it couldn’t be done in any other thing.

 

To stop the MLA pay raise and roll back the salary of the Premier, we recalled the Legislature. I think we were here for over two or three weeks to do that. Now imagine in the face of a natural disaster trying to get a policy out the door to support Nova Scotians, recalling the Legislature and using three weeks of Opposition tactics to filibuster and delay. Sometimes we just have to govern.

 

I would challenge the Opposition to look at any of the additional appropriations and tell us which ones they wouldn’t do. Just tell us which ones you wouldn’t do. That would be an interesting thing. The concept of the need to govern is well-established, and every government has done it. For quite some time, this law has been on the books. There have been additional appropriations every year for at least the last 15 years, because sometimes you need to govern.

 

The Auditor General - I have great respect for the Auditor General, for sure - 100 per cent. But the Auditor General talked about the Hogan Court accountability. It’s a core belief of mine - it’s a core value of the PC Party - to be personally responsible, to be accountable, support entrepreneurship, patriotism. We talked about all of these things. It’s a core value of ours to be accountable, so of course. The Auditor General, with respect to the Hogan Court file, made six recommendations, and it was positioned here today that some of those recommendations had not been accepted. That’s the way I interpreted what I heard.

 

I just want Nova Scotians to know that’s absolutely not true. All six of those recommendations were accepted, but the Auditor General was focused, in that case, on value for money. Sometimes as government in this health care thing, we’ve got to look at value for money, yes, but value for patients, and there is incredible value for patients in speeding something up by two full years. I would suggest to the members of this House that when Hogan Court is opened, and there are 68 patients there recovering with the appropriate level of recovery supports, they’ll be very pleased that this government acted on that.

 

We’ll continue to do that: value for money, but value for patients. The acquisition of real property like that in this case - sometimes there are unique considerations around the acquisition of real property, particularly for health care facilities, particularly for those types of things - and education right now. We’ve heard the Opposition ask, Well, there will be new schools built in HRM. Where are they? It’s not enough we said we would build them. Where are they? Why won’t you tell us where they’re at?

 

The very practical response is that until we secure the land, we have to kind of keep some negotiating power in the hands of government. Imagine if we said we were going to build a school at the intersection of these two streets. Any idea what happens to the price point at that stage?

 

The same thing with Dartmouth General Hospital. We acquired some land around Dartmouth General Hospital for future expansion. These types of things are good things, and sometimes even government needs to keep a bit of powder in the pocket to protect the taxpayers.

 

I would say that with Hogan Court - the Auditor General’s commentary on that - we accept the recommendations, but we need to move fast and put patients first. Put the patients at the centre of this. We’ll continue to do that.

 

In terms of the most recent additional appropriations - and I believe the Auditor General mentioned these once - sometimes we get an Auditor General’s report and the Auditor General says we must go faster - go faster on wait times, go faster on this type of stuff. Sometimes you get one that says you must go slower. You must go slower. We don’t know that word, so we always go fast. We think Nova Scotians have the right to expect that their government feels the same urgency they feel, so we go fast.

 

Some of the issues that the Auditor General raised - the Auditor General looked at 11 expenditures, I think - $140 million for EfficiencyOne for off-oil programs. An additional appropriation of $140 million for EfficiencyOne for off-oil programs to be managed by EfficiencyOne to help Nova Scotians get off oil. I wonder if the members opposite would maybe have an issue with that. Maybe they want to stand in their place and say that’s not something that should have been done. That would be an interesting discussion to have on the floor of this Chamber. I think it’s a good thing to do to support Nova Scotians.

 

Another was $65 million in deferred maintenance for four universities. I wonder if the members opposite would stand in their place and say, “Sixty-five million dollars for deferred maintenance? No way.” I wonder if they would be against that or if they would be supportive of that. The Auditor General flagged a couple concerns with this. I think supporting our universities and their infrastructure is important and is not something to be delayed. You know why it’s deferred maintenance? It’s because everyone before us didn’t do it. They didn’t do it. We’re doing it. We are doing it.

 

I apologize to the Auditor General if the Auditor General thinks that’s not something we should have done or we should have slowed down on. No way. I would ask the members opposite if maybe they would clarify whether they’re against support for our universities for deferred maintenance, because it’s in the Auditor General’s report. Maybe they’re against that.

 

What about $58.9 million for CBU for a new medical school? Imagine that - a new medical school coming to Nova Scotia in Cape Breton. Isn’t that a good thing? In the situation we have, we’re trying to work with CBU to stand up that medical school and get what will be 30 doctors graduating each year. What will our province look like when there are 30 new doctors graduating every year, and who are committed to working in our province and delivering care to Nova Scotians? Who amongst us would say, You’re going too fast on that, folks, slow down? That is an additional appropriation.

 

If we’re against additional appropriations, then let’s be clear about which ones we’re at, because so far, I’m not sure if they’re against the EfficiencyOne off-oil programs, the deferred maintenance program for universities, or the $58.9 million for CBU for the medical school. I feel a sense of urgency on those things. We want to get going. We’ve got to manage. We’ve got to get going.

 

AN HON. MEMBER: They got awfully quiet over there.

 

THE PREMIER: Well, they’re quiet for the moment, but we’ll see.

 

Then, on additional appropriations - we’ve got a list here. These are the ones the Auditor General had a discussion about, let’s say, and the members feel, “Let’s have a bigger discussion about this. We should slow this down. We shouldn’t be doing these additional appropriations.”

 

[6:30 p.m.]

 

How about $50 million for EfficiencyOne to address energy poverty? We’ve heard the members opposite talk quite a bit about energy poverty and why we aren’t doing anything for energy poverty, and how dare you not do anything? Again, to say there’s nothing being done for energy poverty is just negative. On the one hand, you have the NDP that says nothing’s being done for energy poverty. On the other hand, you have the NDP saying how dare you with those additional appropriations of $50 million for energy poverty. You really can’t have it both ways.

 

When you’re elected to govern, to manage, and to move forward, you give it everything you have, and you move forward at a pace that Nova Scotians have a right to expect - I believe Nova Scotians have a right to expect. If the members opposite feel differently, then they’re free to stand in their place and suggest just that.

 

EfficiencyOne is a very reputable organization. To support them on a program initiative and say, Here, you guys take care of this, and you guys fund this - I’m very comfortable doing that. It’s not some fly-by-night thing out of - not some guys in somebody’s basement developing the ArriveCAN app. It’s not two guys in a basement trying to do this. It’s EfficiencyOne.

 

We’re sending this money - $140 million for off-oil, $50 million to help with energy poverty - to EfficiencyOne. If the members opposite feel that’s not a good use of taxpayer money, I’m absolutely happy to hear them say that, because that’s what they’re saying when they rail on additional appropriations.

 

There’s $37.4 million to StFX for health infrastructure. This is a really important investment in community health. It’s something that, again, we have to deal with today. We have to deal with the situation that we have today in health care.

 

As the government, we can’t just focus on today. We’ve got to look to tomorrow as well, and down the road. We’re trying to peek around that corner, to look forward and make sure we’re thinking about how we get out of the hole we’re in. We’re in a pretty big hole, for sure. Nova Scotians spoke loud and clear on that hole, and who they wanted to get us out of it - who they wanted to do the effort and roll up the sleeves to get the province out of it. We’re working on that, but we’re looking to the future as well. This investment with StFX around community health and research for rural health, different access to care, and different health outcomes or determinants of health - all these things. This is important work.

 

I don’t think that work should be slowed down. I don’t think that work should wait. Government has a way of slowing things down and getting afraid to make decisions. We’re not afraid to make decisions. We make them and we go. Then we come in here and we take our lumps. That’s all well and good. I’m okay with a good dose of negativity, because I know that we’re trying to move forward.

 

What about $25 million for data analytics for Saint Mary’s University and health information analysis and really understanding what’s happening there? What about $15 million to Screen Nova Scotia for the Content Creator Fund? That’s an additional appropriation - $15 million to Screen Nova Scotia for the Content Creator Fund. I think there are a lot of people in the film industry who would say thank you for not waiting any longer on that one. Thank you for getting going on that one. We’ll continue to do that.

 

Another $15 million went to Horticulture Nova Scotia for recovery from the polar vortex. We spend a lot of time talking about the wine industry and the supports to the industry. Guess what? That polar vortex funding that we’ve talked about was an additional appropriation. Can you imagine, with the deep freeze we had and the concern in the industry, if we said we’re interested in doing something, but we’ve got to wait until we do the next budget? That’s government-speak. Or we have to wait until we recall the Legislature so we can let everyone filibuster, ring the bells, and use delay tactics.

 

That’s an option, but we took a different path. We wanted to get it out there through that additional appropriation. If the members opposite don’t like that, then they can stand in their place and say they don’t agree with that - that they would have liked the opportunity to take that to the floor of the Legislature and debate whether a $15 million fund for the Polar Vortex Recovery is appropriate or not. That is what they are saying: You have the majority government, you’ve been elected to govern, but we need to have our say on these urgent issues like this. Sometimes you just gotta govern. Sometimes you just gotta govern. In the face of the polar vortex, that’s the case.

 

Thirteen million dollars to Halifax International Airport Authority for the Air Access Fund: We know that the significance of our trade routes, the significance of the air routes for passenger, for cargo - these are important things. Highway access, a port - all these things are critical for trade, and I hope we get a chance to have a meaningful discussion about trade opportunities like that. When the airport is trying to recover from COVID - I think the passenger counts are almost back to where they were pre-COVID. That’s a good thing. Incredible work being done out there by the Airport Authority and the team there, and when they come and say, Here’s a way that you can support us - a pretty reputable organization - I trust them to make things happen, so we do that.

 

There are a number of other ones, but what I would remind the members of is that when we use the negative assault on additional appropriations, it’s actually a negative assault on organizations. I’ve heard from a number of these organizations that say, I don’t understand why they are saying we’re not to be trusted or be worthy of it. I say, Well, they are not actually saying that - it’s political. But it has an impression upon them.

 

The member might not like that the comments of the NDP have an impression on people, but they do because they’re people. When they read about this stuff in the paper, they have to take it. We’re politicians; we’re conditioned to hear the negativity of it. But when you are just trying to get people off oil or you are just trying to address energy poverty or just trying to stand up a medical school, you are just trying to do good. We are trying to support them as a government, and we can support them through additional appropriations, and I would dare say we will continue to do so. It would be my wish for every government after us until the end of time that they also have the ability to govern in real time because it’s necessary.

 

That will happen, and as that happens there is still the fact that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board will sit down four times a year or more and very publicly report on the finances of the Province - where every single dollar went - and it will be very public. In addition to that, and possibly at the same time, there will be forecast updates. The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board will sit there and answer questions about the forecast - the financial situation of the Province - and it will all be transparent, open and accountable to the people - just the way it should be.

 

I think that’s really important. I do look forward to additional discussion on additional appropriations, but I think that type of - just adding a little bit of flavour around where they’re going, like: Who’s on the other end of these additional appropriations that we hear about? They’re reputable organizations that are on the other end of them. They’re organizations that have made a proposal to the Province and said, Here’s what we can do if there is some support available. Then there is a discussion about it. If we believe they’re reputable organizations, then we can work with them in good faith to try to get support into the hands of Nova Scotians.

 

The off-oil program - I guess that, in theory, is something that the department could have managed, but EfficiencyOne is there. They have a long track record, and I am good to work with them. The members opposite might not be. Maybe they want to say something about EfficiencyOne and whether or not they are worthy of it, and I look forward to that. But if the universities come and talk about some of the infrastructure investment that’s required to catch up on deferred maintenance, I trust them. Maybe the members opposite don’t trust universities, but I do. When they come with a proposal that says these are the investments that are required, this is what we will do with it - can you support us?, we do what we can. There is always more we wish we could do. I bet you the ask would be much more significant, but we do what we can. We always wish we could do a little more - that’s part of being a Bluenoser - but we do what we can.

 

I think there’s nowhere that’s truer than with the budget itself. The budget process is extensive. The amount of time that people working in the civil service - working for the Province and delivering services to Nova Scotians - the amount of time they spend on the budget process and understanding, planning and seeing what is possible is significant. I think it really starts in earnest in September. It’s months and months.

 

We tabled a budget with a deficit in the $400 million range. If we would have accepted every ask of every organization - and wow, wouldn’t you love to? I would just love to. They’re all worthy. They’re all wanting to do good things, but if we would have accepted every ask, the deficit would be $2 billion or something. There are a lot of tough decisions made in that process. When opportunities come where you can do something, my promise to Nova Scotians - and the members opposite might not like it, but I will promise this every single chance I get. The moment we can help, we will. The absolute moment we can help, we will. It might be called an additional appropriation, and that might be kind of put in some negative light in some Opposition parties, but it doesn’t matter. The moment we can help, we will. I think Nova Scotians have a right to expect that, so we will continue to do that.

 

The member mentioned the FOIPOP promise to give the order-making ability. This is something we talked about before, but I am happy to talk about it again and be frank on this. Yes, in Opposition we believed there was some information around the Yarmouth ferry that should have been public. Yes, the government of the day advanced the position that it would be commercially sensitive. We didn’t buy that. We did take them to court. The court did find that we were right - that it was not commercially sensitive - and it was released, as it should be.

 

Around that time, and certainly since, I was no different than any Leader of the Opposition before me and probably after. I’m sure the Leader of the Official Opposition probably says it now too: My goodness, the day I’m there, I’ll give that order-making authority. I believed that in my heart when I made that statement, just like I am sure the Leader of the Official Opposition probably makes it now and believes in it too. But a couple of things happened in the early days when we formed government that gave me a little pause for thought.

 

I’ve discussed this with the Commissioner. We’ve met on this, and we’ve been kind of frank with each other - tremendous meeting. I was actually very impressed with the Commissioner. When we assumed government after the election, a couple things happened right away. Way before the swearing in, we had to really just grab the reins and start to manage the Province. The former government literally just left - kind of like one of those movies where the papers are still on the desk and everyone was just gone. We were trying to deal with COVID and trying to deal with this and that, but we did it. We just said, Okay, this is it, then, we’ll take this - and we did.

 

Through that whole process, a couple of things came to us. One had to do with the security information and schematics around a youth detention centre. Somebody had sent in a FOIPOP - I think I know who it was, but I can’t say for certain - that wanted the schematics for a youth detention centre and the details around the security there. I was kind of like, “What possible public good can come from this information? A youth detention centre. What possible public good could come out of this being out in the public realm?” I made the determination that there was none. I don’t know if anyone in this Chamber would feel differently. Maybe they will, but I don’t know what possible public good can come of that.

 

[6:45 p.m.]

 

That was the first thing that gave me pause for thought, and there were a couple of other ones that made me say, Hold on, with great power comes great responsibility. I would still hope that through discussions and working together, we may get to a place where there is order-making authority. We’re not there today, and I’ve been pretty clear on that. It is because of reasons like this. It’s not just because we just said, Well, let’s say this and then we will change our mind. That’s not the way we operate.

 

I’m happy to acknowledge that this was something I said. It is something that I am not prepared to do at the moment because when you have more information, when you have better information, you should have the courage to make better decisions. That’s kind of where we’re at. We will continue to do that on a number of fronts. That will be the governing philosophy of ours. We will always look for additional information, and we will always use that additional information. We won’t ignore it. We will use it and if there is a better decision to be made, then we’ll make that better decision. The member mentioned the FOIPOP thing, so I just wanted to circle back to that.

 

The work of the commissioner is really important to the Province. We have great respect for the process of freedom of information and access to it, as evidenced by the fact that 90 per cent of the FOIPOP requests are dealt with within 30 days. I think that’s record numbers. I don’t know that any prior government - it’s very high - 90 per cent in 30 days.

 

When you think about it, there are other times when you just need a delay. You have to request an extension and say, We can’t do this in 30 days for this reason. It is just about a reason. Maybe the person whose records we need is off on vacation, who knows?, but whatever. There will be a number of acceptable reasons why an extension is required. Still, even in light of the fact that there are times when extensions are required, 90 per cent of the time the Province responds. The system just works. So we are talking about 10 per cent of the time.

 

The member talked about something along the lines of the FOIPOP request - some of them are fishing expeditions. That’s absolutely true. That is 100 per cent true. Just like 90 per cent of the time - a very high percentage of the time - we respond, and the system works fine. The 90 per cent is high in and of itself, but we’re actually seeing a record number of requests. We had over 3,000 FOIPOP requests to date this year, and the year is not over. We are seeing a record number of requests. We are dealing with a record number of them in a 30-day time frame. It is the case, and this might always be the case.

 

When we were in Opposition, we didn’t put in a lot of FOIPOP requests - and maybe shame on us, I guess. We tried to approach things a little differently. We weren’t really as focused as the current Opposition parties are on “gotcha” moments. We were actually interested in solutions, which is how we got to the Solutions for Nova Scotians campaign - because we wanted to put stuff out there and do it. We were tenacious on the things that we were interested in, but we were accurate in our research. We didn’t say things about people that weren’t true, like where they worked and stuff like this. We were tenacious, but we didn’t do a lot of FOIPOP requests.

 

That’s not the case now. The requester is confidential; you never know who the requester is. You often see in the media, eventually, who it was or something like that. There’s no question that there are a lot of fishing expeditions that the Opposition are just sending it in, sending it in, sending it in. Still, 90 per cent of those are just going out the door too, because we don’t know or care, but we just responded as quickly as we can.

 

I wanted to mention on the order-making request. FOIPOPs will continue to come in and we’ll continue to process them and respond to them. Again, if you go back to the core values of the party and me, accountability is important. It’s a core value of our party, just like personal responsibility, just like entrepreneurship, just like patriotism. These are things that really matter.

 

I think in the final few minutes I have for today, I do want to finish up with the investments in health care infrastructure, and the need to recognize that we can’t keep doing things the way we had done them before. I think what we’ve seen is the old ways of delivering care - it’s not sustainable. We need to do things a little differently. We need to build more beds in hospitals and long-term care, and also in between - at transition-type levels of care. We need more beds.

 

I think a situation like Hogan Court, which will open beds two years before what would have otherwise been the case - two years quicker - that’s a really important thing. That’s value for patients. Because it’s value for patients, it’s value for money.

 

Other people may have their own definition of value for money, but if it’s value for patients then it’s value for money. We will continue to do that because having people in the hospital beds who should be in a transition bed, that’s not free, either. There’s a huge opportunity cost to that - the financial costs of having them in a hospital, the social cost of slowing their recovery, I would say.

 

The Hogan Court beds, when they open two years quicker, will have a very positive impact on things like ambulance off-load times. Incidentally, I believe the Auditor General did a report on ambulance off-load times and said, You’ve got to go quicker, fix it. This is part of that. You can’t separate these things; they’re all tied together. When Hogan Court is all said and done, it will certainly help with some of the frustrations that paramedics feel around off-loads. It will definitely help address some of the frustrations that patients feel and of health care professionals who are working in these environments.

 

I think there have been a couple of words to describe that situation around the purchase - which, by the way, the alternative procurements, just like additional appropriations, are a necessary aspect of governing - but I think there were a couple of words used to describe Hogan Court, along the same theme that this is some nefarious thing. It’s not. It’s truly driven by the desire to get more beds open, and to get them open faster. More, faster - that’s the way we live. We’re not into the less, slower.

 

I think there’s a less, slower option, too. They’re sitting across from us. Those are the parties that would slow down money for EfficiencyOne. They’re the parties that would slow down addressing energy poverty. They’re the parties that would slow down addressing infrastructure requirements at universities - by the way, a bunch of which I’m sure is on accessibility. They’re the parties that would slow that down. We are not that party. We are the “More, faster” party. That’s the side we want to stay on.

 

I just want to assure the members that we have an incredible team who have done a lot to prepare the budget and make sure that we are making good decisions. It’s not just the elected arm. There’s a whole team of people working for the Province who are 100 per cent focused on value for Nova Scotians and providing services to Nova Scotians. They have worked very hard to prepare the budget. They have worked very hard to prepare for Estimates. It’s quite a thing to prepare for Estimates and be ready to answer questions that your minister may get asked.

 

We’ve got some of my team here today, ready to answer questions on the budget and stuff. We didn’t get a bunch, but I’m happy to talk about the way I see governing and the way I feel my responsibility to deliver for Nova Scotians. I’m happy to chat about that.

 

I’m happy to chat about any wide range of topics that the members want to talk about and answer their questions. I do feel a little bit bad for those teams from the Department of Health and Wellness who spent a lot of time preparing for actual health questions.

 

I do feel particularly bad for the team from the Department of Community Services who prepared to answer important questions about community services. We have a new minister in the Department of Community Services who has worked really hard to get up to speed and has made a tremendous positive impact on the department. He’s been an incredible addition to our team. I’m very pleased with that. He’s ready to answer questions in Estimates. The Department of Public Works teams are ready to answer questions in Estimates.

 

Through all those important discussions that are possible, the Opposition wants to focus on the Premier’s budget portion. I’m happy to do it. I think it’s great. I think there’s a lot they might be interested in with the other departments, but I’m flattered, to be honest.

 

I’m looking forward to continuing the opportunity to have the discussion back and forth in a free-flowing manner such as this. It’s a nice break from Question Period. You can take some time and give the question the proper respect, talk about perspective and issues, get a little deeper on other things, and really talk about government thoughts on some of those issues.

 

I appreciate the Leader of the New Democratic Party giving me this opportunity. I was prepared to read my resolution last Friday. I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m glad we can continue the discussion for the next few days. With those few words, I’ll take my seat.

 

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

 

The honourable Government House Leader.

 

HON. KIM MASLAND: I move that the committee do now rise and report progress, and beg leave to sit again on a future date.

 

THE CHAIR: The motion is carried. The committee will now rise and report its business to the House. We will have a short recess in order to prepare.

 

[The committee adjourned at 6:58 p.m.]