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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2004

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

1:47 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Mark Parent

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to call the Subcommittee of the Whole House on Supply to order.

Resolution E11 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $59,322,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Natural Resources, pursuant to the Estimate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time is 1:47 p.m. and we will start with opening remarks from the Minister of Natural Resources. If you could introduce your staff, we would appreciate that as well.

HON. RICHARD HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to present our 2004-05 Budget and Business Plan for the Department of Natural Resources. Before I do, I will introduce a few of my staff who are with me today and give a brief overview of the department's responsibilities.

The staff with me today are my Deputy Minister, Peter Underwood; Weldon Myers, Director of Finance Services, Resources CSU. Also, Mr. Chairman, I would like to inform the committee - as all of the members are aware - that my deputy and myself are fairly new to the department. I was appointed minister of the department in August of last year and my deputy has been in my department since January 1^st of this year. A special note of thanks goes to the staff working within the department for their ongoing dedication and commitment to advancing our goals, on behalf of Nova Scotians.

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The mission of our department is a clear one: to build a better future for Nova Scotians through the responsible management of our natural resources. As a result, the department is committed to the stewardship and the sustainability management of our natural resources and Crown lands using environmentally responsible approaches to resource management and planning for the future.

Our mission and mandate are supported by five strategic goals: to achieve sound natural resource stewardship; to conserve the diversity of Nova Scotia's natural environment; to support Nova Scotia's economy through the sustainable development of natural resources; to improve the quality of life in Nova Scotia; and to manage the department's financial, physical, human and information resources effectively and efficiently.

Six branches within DNR work to ensure that these goals are supported in all of our programs and activities. These branches are: Mineral Resources; Renewable Resources; Land Services; Regional Services; and the Planning Secretariat.

One of the most difficult and critical challenges we face as a department is the ability to provide a balanced approach to addressing the significant social, cultural, environmental and economic demands placed on our natural resources. Nova Scotia has a land base of 12 million acres. About 3.5 million acres are owned by the Crown, the second smallest provincial Crown land base in the country. We, as a department, are responsible for managing it. The demand on these lands continues to grow, often outweighing the supply. As a result, protection efforts are often in conflict with development efforts, recreational opportunities with harvesting.

Mr. Chairman, I am proud of the department's major accomplishments in the past year, and our plans for the fiscal year 2004-05. As part of our forest strategy, we completed the first phase of our province's code of practice. I'm trying to skim through this, I know the members are waiting to ask some really important questions here.

Mr. Chairman, 25 DNR firefighters helped their countrymen battle blazes in western Canada last summer. The decision to send staff was in response to a request for assistance from the National Fire Agency. The centre coordinates the sharing of critical forest fire resources in Canada. With wet weather conditions and a low fire risk in Nova Scotia, we were able to provide the support to Alberta and British Columbia. The cost associated with this assistance was fully recovered and did not impact Nova Scotia's firefighting budget. In return, staff gained valuable experience that can be used to fight large fires here at home. This Spring, as a result of the impact of Hurricane Juan, we have focused our forest fire and pest management activities on the increased fire, pest and disease risk in our forest stands in the central region of the province.

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Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to tell you that the province, through my department, has added more than 40,000 acres of woodland to Nova Scotia's Crown land base. We did so by purchasing land in northern Hants County from MacTara Limited. These woodlands are an important addition to our Crown land base. In this fiscal year, we will continue our work to acquire land, particularly sites with special values on behalf of Nova Scotians. We will do so by partnering with non-government conservation organizations and by acquiring land through our Tangible Capital Assets funding. The Land Services branch will improve public access to land information by making greater use of the Internet, by further integrating the department's information and by planning for the migration of the Crown lands into the Registry 2000 system.

Mr. Chairman, parks in the central region of the province were hit hard by Hurricane Juan, and we are continuing to move forward with the cleanup. It is our aim to have most of our parks open, as scheduled, this Spring. Throughout the year, we continue to support Nova Scotia's mineral industry and maintaining a coal industry in Cape Breton through private - and I emphasize the word, private - investment. Last July, the Cape Breton Development Corporation relinquished its coal lease from the Sydney coalfields. We have since issued a call for proposals for exploration, development and reclamation of coal resources in four areas in Cape Breton. They are now in their final stages of review.

We also issued a request for proposals for an expert consultant to assist in the tendering process of the Donkin coal resource. The proposals have been reviewed and we have announced the successful candidate. This coming year, we plan to prepare a new mineral development strategy for the province, which will include the assessment of any changes needed to legislation and regulations.

Mr. Chairman, two plants, a mammal and a reptile have been added to the province's Endangered Species Act. These species have joined 21 others now protected by law in Nova Scotia. This time last year, the department introduced Nova Scotia's species at risk licence plates. The cost is $71 per plate, with $50 to our Species at Risk Conservation Fund. The unique plate features the image of a piping plover, with the words, Conservation-Species at Risk along the bottom of the plate. I have one, and I encourage you to purchase one of these plates, as well. It is for a good cause.

Mr. Chairman, we will continue our efforts at conservation, conserving wildlife and wildlife habitat, as well as our endangered species recovery work. Through sustainable management, we are able to support the many competing demands placed on our natural resources. Our balanced approach supports sustainable economic growth, and it also enables us to still meet our protection and conservation-related responsibilities. The support will be focused on the department's programs and activities for the upcoming year. I would open for questions.

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MR. CHAIRMAN: We will now move to the Official Opposition. We will begin questioning at 1:55 p.m.

The honourable member for Hants East.

MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Mr. Minister, I want to congratulate you in your role as Minister of Natural Resources. I don't mind putting on the record, I envy you. I'll strive to see whether or not we can change the face of the minister some day.

MR. HURLBURT: Years out.

MR. MACDONELL: I didn't say improve - just change it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think he'd look good with a little moustache.

MR. MACDONELL: I hope there's been no doubt in your mind around issues that I've tried to bring forward as the Natural Resources Critic, and in particular sustainability of the forest is a big one for me, and I mean on the industrial side as much as anything. I am concerned about the jobs in the forest sector. I think we're going down a road that can't sustain them. Statistics would indicate that as our harvest has gone up, the number of people working in this sector has gone down. The jobs that we're presently creating can't really justify what I see as the damage to our forest.

I guess the first thing I want to ask is, and I'm not sure of the line item, but I would like to know - I think in previous years, there's been about $3 million set aside by your department for silviculture programs. I'm wondering, where do I find that line item?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you, I thank you for your opening remarks, and I believe that our department is making inroads with industry and with the general public, and it's by all three Parties working closely together. That has been my focus since I've been in the department, to have an open-door policy, and I will continue that as long as I'm in the department. I believe that I'm very fortunate to be the minister of one of the best departments in government. It's the grassroots department, and I believe that we all have a part to play in it. In saying that, it is on Page 14.5 in the Supplementary Detail, the second line.

MR. MACDONELL: Okay, I don't have that. What is the number you're allocating for silviculture on that line?

MR. HURLBURT: It's $3 million by our department, that's in conjunction with the industry and their contribution to it.

MR. MACDONELL: So that's $3 million of the department's . . .

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MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. MACDONELL: I don't think that's changed, then, from previous years.

MR. HURLBURT: No.

MR. MACDONELL: I made a copy here of something I will give to you. I don't expect you to have a chance to really look at this right now, but I will show you where I got that, it's from the Department of Lands and Forests' submission to the Royal Commission on Forestry, 1983. I've looked at this a couple of different times, and I find the information here really quite interesting. The reason I've gone to this is that on Page 180 in this book, it has scenario three, and what the department had done at that time, when they made their presentation to the Royal Commission on Forestry, they indicated three scenarios, and those scenarios were based on varying amounts of silviculture dollars.

[2:00 p.m.]

If you look at scenario three, it talks about a doubling of silviculture treatments as of that time, 1983. It says a doubling of silviculture treatments specified in scenario two would permit the harvest of softwood and hardwood in the next five-year period to be increased by 20 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. Beyond 1986 the continued and slightly expanded investment in silviculture would allow the annual harvest to be further increased to 5.5 million cubic metres or 2.5 million cords of softwood and about 1.1 million cords of hardwood by the year 2040.

Well, we haven't made that investment in silviculture in this province. As a matter of fact, when the federal cost-shared program evaporated, there wasn't really much money actually going into silviculture treatments, although the province has put in its $3 million, and tried to use that to lever more, I think the sustainability fund, I have heard numbers up to $13 million, with stewardship agreements for the most part, because there is really not much money going into the fund, and most of that $3 million - and you can verify that for me as we go through this - winds up in the hands of very few companies, mostly those doing work on Crown land.

In conjunction with that commission report, there's this Power Point presentation, and someone in your department, Jörg Beyeler out of Truro, made this presentation. I've really found this to be an interesting piece of work. It's the Nova Scotia Wood Supply Forecast for Nova Scotia 1996 to 2070. In this forecast of harvest demand 1996 to 2000, for softwood harvest of 5.4 million cubic metres, and in hardwood, about 600,000 cubic metres. Well, the hardwood is about half of what they say in this report we could harvest by 2040, but the softwood is quite a bit more. They're saying 2.5 million cords, and I want to tell the minister that we're right on target, I'd say a little ahead, we're 40 years ahead. In other

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words, we're at 2004 and we've been harvesting this amount, as much as I can see, since 1996. I think around 1999 there was a real spike in harvesting.

We haven't put the money into silviculture, and we're 40 years ahead of our harvest predictions from what the department had submitted to this Royal Commission in the 1980s. I would say that our present harvest levels are not sustainable based on this information. I'd like your reaction to that.

MR. HURLBURT: Our department has been working very closely with industry, the program that's in place now, its one-third government funded, two-thirds industry. That's administered through the Nova Scotia Forest Products Association. I think that's a great partnership for sustainable forest practices. It's a department of the government working with the industry. We have had some hits in our different communities, and maybe I can expand here for a moment. Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to meet the MLA for Digby-Annapolis, and we had to go to Digby Neck. I was looking at the forest there, and I think it was approximately five years ago that that had to be cut because of a disease that was infesting, going out to the islands. The new growth on that island in five years is unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was seeing in five years. I think that we have great practices here in this province. I think that we have industry working with government, and they are doing it very effectively and efficiently.

MR. MACDONELL: I appreciate that. In this document, it has the total forest changes to age class structure. This is talking about the total forest. Not just the operable forest. They refer to the operable forest as actually the forest we can harvest, the total forest, that includes parks or whatever, areas that we have kind of taken out and we are not going to harvest. There's basically no 100-plus-year-old forest in this province. There's 2 per cent, maybe 3 per cent, 80 to 100 years old. The 61- to 80-year-old forest makes up about 30 per cent of the forest, 32 per cent, and at our present harvest rate, we'll cut that 61- to 80-year-old forest in about 19 years. The only number that is not from your department is my own number, and I use an average of 30 cord to the acre across the province. When I did that, people have said that's well within the range of error.

So it would seem to me that the next youngest age is 41 to 60, which makes up about 38 per cent of the forest. In 19 years you can see that the oldest a forest can be is roughly 80 years. I know that you are not going to go and cut a particular age class when you go into a stand, you're not going to say we'll just take the 60- and 80-year-old trees out of here. I don't see that our present harvest level is sustainable, and there is nothing in your department to indicate an annual allowable cut. Until you actually place a limit on how much we can harvest, I don't see how we can consider this to be sustainable. Do you have a comment on that?

MR. HURLBURT: A comment that I would have is that the life expectancy of our forests here in Nova Scotia, I think they'd like to see them at 140 years. Before they start on the downhill trend, it's around 80 years. That's where they've been focusing their harvesting,

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on the 80-year and older forest growths in the Province of Nova Scotia. I must emphasize, the practices that industry and government have implemented in our province over the past number of years, and we're seeing today how those practices have strengthened our forest, our new growth today is growing at a much more rapid pace than it was in years gone by, because we are doing forest management programs.

MR. MACDONELL: I'll give you that. Two questions come from that. I can assume that younger trees will grow faster than older ones beyond a certain age. Beyond a certain point they will start to slow down. All of these things are related to species type, soil conditions, et cetera. There's a variety of conditions that would come into play. I think we both can agree that if we were to go in and space a thicket, that the trees left, once they get over the shock of spacing, that they would grow with less competition than if we didn't space them. I think this has been one of the cornerstones of silviculture work.

I have a neighbour who was a technician for the department many years ago. I've seen him do this in his own woodlot, when you cut off a cross-section of a tree, you can see where the rings are very close together before it was spaced, and then when you release those trees, then the growth rings are wider apart, so it is growing faster. I am certainly familiar with the impact of silviculture and different silviculture treatments on particular stands. I think that's a good thing. My concern is that I don't think that we're doing a lot of that.

Silviculture contractors in this province, there's fewer now than there used to be, so that means that they are not making any money or otherwise there would be more of them. I don't see that the silviculture side is getting the boost that it needs. I think actually having the mills control as much of the funding as they do around the money paid to silviculture contractors has been a problem and the contractors have identified that as a problem, but with that said, the biggest treatment I see as a silviculture treatment in this province is the planting of trees after a clear-cut and that's only in cases where they're needed.

In other words, if there's enough natural regeneration, then there's no planting of trees in any particular clear-cut, but it's the process of clear-cutting that I see to be one of the big flaws in forest policy in this province; 97 per cent of what we harvest in this province is through clear-cuts, and that's in the range of 100,000 to 110,000 acres a year. I can't believe that almost 100 per cent of what we harvest would require clear-cutting as the method. I could see that there would be stands that either for disease reasons, species type, like if it was a stand of fir, you know, that you might want to go in and clear-cut that stand, but I can't see that across this province that the major harvesting practice has to be clear-cutting.

I would say that there are two components to this. One is that we should set a limit on how much we harvest. We should determine how much we grow, and that would help us determine how much we can harvest, and stop clear-cutting for all the reasons. You just mentioned in your speech about two species that have been added to the endangered species list. (Interruption) Three species, well, that's even worse, three species that have been added

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to the endangered species list, and yet we've allowed clear-cutting to go on to destroy habitat and we don't seem to actually consider that our forest practices are actually contributing to the number of species that we put on our endangered species list. I know in your previous life, you know, and I think you actually told me you have a woodlot. So would you harvest your land the way land is harvested in Nova Scotia?

MR. HURLBURT: Well, Mr. Chairman, I guess we agree to disagree on a couple of issues here. I've asked the member, and I'm going to live up to my commitment I made to that member, is I'm going to get him out on some of the lots that have been harvested to show him the new growth of forest that we have, that's regenerating on its own, and in the areas that we have done planting. I do not use the terminology clear-cutting, I call it forest management. We're leaving buffer zones. We're leaving stands for the wildlife habitat.

I call that forest management, Mr. Chairman, and I invite the member again today, after we get time this summer, I definitely want to take him over some sites so maybe you would get a better view, you know, and maybe you'll have a different view on the forest practices that are in the province. There's nothing that's perfect in this world, but I think that the industry, along with our department, is managing the forests in this province very well.

MR. MACDONELL: Well, I would expect you to say that.

MR. HURLBURT: Well, I did.

[2:15 p.m.]

MR. MACDONELL: I want to say, I want to give the minister a little background, and I appreciate if a developer buys a piece of woodland and he wants to build a subdivision, he follows whatever municipal guidelines there are and there's not a lot said about the destruction of that forest. If farmers want to clear land to grow forages or crops, or whatever, there's probably not a lot said around that. All those things seem to be sensible. So it always appears that we tend to jump on those in the forest sector for cutting trees, you know, and I think to their benefit, it almost seems like we unjustly jump on them and we don't jump on the destruction of habitat from all these other areas, but the growing of trees is something that we see as actually so interrelated to habitat, ecosystems, et cetera.

I know you can take me around the province, actually I would appreciate that, if you have some sites you would like me to see. I think you would be hard bent to change my view on this. I grew up on a small farm, you know, worked in the woods with my father yarding logs with horses. I worked for three years for a couple of local contractors after my Science degree at Acadia and we did kind of a precursor to clear-cuts, I think, when at that time we used to cut in strips. I think the thinking at the time was that the strips you left standing would help seed the strips you cut and then you go back and cut those other strips so eventually it became a clear-cut and kind of in stages.

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So I've kind of seen, you know, the industry move in a couple of different directions. I have a brother who was a contractor for Ledwidge Lumber. So seeing this industry strong, healthy and sustainable is important to me on a lot of aspects and certainly, you know, for him. He has a young family and I know he's committed to making a living in this sector. So ensuring that people can have work there is very important. I want to say that I think that it's not necessary to harvest the way we do. I think we can maintain more of the components that we want to see in the forests, more of all of the components, and also do the protection things like you mentioned about leaving stands and so on, but I would find it difficult to believe that those stands actually have the habitat strength, that they offer the same kind of habitat to creatures that would live in the forests by leaving a few trees in a clear-cut, you know, some people say, you know, if they were in a clear-cut and they saw a hawk, they would say, well, that's great, there's wildlife here. They don't realize that hawks land in trees. They don't land on the ground.

I mean I think that there's a way to harvest and that is to harvest as a treatment, to look at a stand and say what would be the treatment that would improve this stand, go in and harvest it according to whatever treatment would be the best treatment, and still leave trees standing. Actually one of the contractors I used to work for, Everett Tanner in hardwood lands, he has gone on his own. He has got woodlots booked ahead that he can't even get to, I think, just because he has gone into a much more uneven aged stand management. He's almost resistant to clear-cutting and he has done a fair bit of it. I think the one thing you haven't addressed for me, I mean we can dicker back and forth on how great or not clear-cutting is, but the thing that nobody I find in the department is willing to address and that's the lack of an annual allowable cut, to actually determine how much we grow in a year and using that as the basis for how much we cut in a year. So what are your thoughts around that? Do you think that it's a necessary component to good forest management?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, absolutely, I think it's good forest practice to know the new growth and the new generation that we have in a given year and the cuts in a given year, but I still disagree, on good basis with the honourable member, to his terminology of clear-cutting. I still think it's good forest management and practices and it has been developed by industry with government. Those practices are working. They're working very effectively and efficiently for our woodlands in the province and the new growth in the cut areas, it's unbelievable the growth rate that they are gaining year by year, but it's by good forest management, that's what it is, and good forest practices.

Yes, when I was just a teenager, I used to work in the woods with my father and my grandfather and I saw the wood practices that we had back then. We never thought about the future, we cut, but today everybody is looking at the future. They're looking at tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after and the generations after and that's what our forest industry is working on today and that's what this government is working on with the industry. I firmly believe that we do have practices in this province that are sustainable, and it's for our future to come.

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MR. MACDONELL: I couldn't disagree with you more. I think that what we are doing is not sustainable. I think your government has been particularly lucky. I was expecting that by now, five years after your government went in, that we would have been hearing an awful lot more about the shortage of wood, maybe the softwood dispute with the United States may have affected volumes enough that we didn't get over the top. The representatives of the Woodlot Owners and Operators Association, Tom Miller and Wade Prest were before the Resources Committee about a month ago, and they indicated that wood was starting to get scarce.

My thoughts are that when this happens there is going to be a cannibalistic kind of approach by the industry. Mills that have deep enough pockets or have large enough wood supplies, fairly guaranteed wood supplies, will just cannibalize those mills that don't. When mills can't access enough wood then they're out of business. I would say that we'll definitely see a major downsizing in the industry, I'll put it this way, we'll see a reduction in the number of mills, number one. The mills that are left more than likely will be the larger mills and, likely, there will be fewer of them. I wouldn't expect the volume to change much, but I'm particularly concerned that this is not sustainable.

Do you have any notion of how much wood we can cut in this province every year and sustain it, year after year; do you have any notion of what that volume would be?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you, I appreciate the opening comments the member made. Since this government has come into effect - it's been good government, working with industry. That's why we have sustainable forest practices, and I thank you for that acknowledgement. I will see that the honourable member gets the annual reports - they are back at our office - and I'll see that the member gets that, the harvest for last year. Is that what the member is after?

MR. MACDONELL: Well, that would be helpful, it wasn't the answer to my question.

MR. HURLBURT: I answered the first part.

MR. MACDONELL: I think the minister was misled by my preamble. I think that I'm pointing to the fact that you've had good luck rather than good management. The sustainability fund, if my understanding of it is right, is a fund that was put together to address the projected wood supply shortage in the future, because it was thought that there was too much over-harvesting on private woodlots. You can tell me whether I am right or I am wrong. That would mean - and I know that the department tends to look at - we have Crown, large industrial and small private woodlots, and they said that the harvest on small private woodlots is not sustainable. The point I would like to make is that the actual operable forest that we harvest is made up of all three of those, so if you're deficient in one, you're deficient in all. If you're over-harvesting on the small private woodlot side, then that means you don't

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have enough wood, period, in the whole system. It would seem that the sustainability fund, which I would say for the most part looks like it is run by the mills under stewardship agreements, because I don't think anybody is putting a lot of money into the fund, and I think that they are supposed to do that by February of each year. Can you tell me how much money would have been given by mills or registered buyers to the sustainability fund as of February, do we know that?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the member, I do not have those numbers right here, but I will endeavour to have the numbers and I will make sure the member gets those numbers.

MR. MACDONELL: I remember, I think it was two years ago, asking the Honourable Ernest Fage that question, and as it turned out, there was $500, I think, in the sustainability fund. Considering that most of the registered buyers do stewardship agreements, that would attribute or account for the fact that there may not be a lot of money in the fund. Can you tell me, as a landowner, if I don't sell wood to a mill, can I still qualify for a stewardship agreement? In other words, can I go to one of my local mills and say I really don't have anything worth harvesting at this point but I'd like some funding to go toward management of my woodlot, is it possible to do that?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the member, I'm almost positive I have the right answer, but I would ask the member, that's three issues that I will endeavour to get the information for him, I'm pretty near positive I have the information, but I want to make sure before I make a statement, and it's maybe not quite the way it is.

MR. MACDONELL: Thank you, and I'll certainly let the minister provide that at a later date. It's one of the aspects of the sustainability fund or stewardship agreements, I should say that I don't fully understand and I've been curious to know how that works. I know that mills enter into stewardship agreements with landowners they buy wood from, and, I may be wrong, but I think it's around $6 a cord basically or $3 that goes into the fund. I know the mills, certainly one of the mills in my area, someone there had asked me, are you interested in any land you'd like to have in an agreement. I told him I'd think about it. I was curious as to how that worked.

In discussion with Jörg Beyeler of your department on this, and I talked to Jörg a fair little bit, as far as I understand, he was the one mostly responsible for crunching these numbers. In one of my last conversations, which was probably a year or so ago, I was raising the issue that the roughly 3 million cords that we harvest a year was not sustainable and he said, well, we grow about 3 million cords a year. That was interesting. If we grow about 3 million cords a year, and if we harvest about 3 million cords a year, we are in a pretty flush situation I thought. So then the question came to my mind, if we're growing 3 million cords a year and we're harvesting 3 million cords a year, then how can we be over-harvesting small private woodlots? Where is the over-harvesting occurring? What's the need for the

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sustainability fund? The whole impetus for the sustainability fund seemed to be the over-harvesting of small private woodlots. If we're growing 3 million cords and we're harvesting 3 million cords, then we are not over-harvesting. Does that make any sense?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, it makes a lot of sense in my estimation. What I would like to do is I'd like to invite the honourable member over to our office, I'd like for staff to give him a full briefing on it, and maybe we can make it a day, and I would invite the Liberal caucus to accompany us to some sites and see some of the forest practices that are in this province and how well it is working, also to give you an overview of the department and the sustainable forest management plans that we have intact right now, and how well they are working.

MR. MACDONELL: I would really appreciate that, I think that would be quite helpful. I wonder if the minister can tell me if he has read the GPI Atlantic Report on forestry in the province, I think that was a year or two years ago. Have you read that?

[2:30 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: I'm pretty positive I have, I've done a lot of reading since August, but I'm pretty near positive I had the briefing on that report.

MR. MACDONELL: I was going to say if you read it, you would know it because it's two volumes about that thick. I think the basis on the Genuine Progress Index is that there is a value in leaving trees standing. This can be around issues of retention of water. If municipalities, for example, are experiencing flooding because of clear-cutting and they're spending millions of dollars to mitigate the damage of flooding, that it would have been worth it to leave a few of those trees standing and not have to experience the damage due to not having anything to hold back water and, I just wonder, do you see any value in that?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the member, yes, that's why the forest practices have changed over the last number of years. The Environment Act has played an important role in this. We're leaving larger buffers around watercourses and we're leaving stands for habitat and we're leaving buffer zones on property lines. So, you know, I believe that the management has changed tremendously over the last number of years and that's why I go back, I feel that we have excellent sustainable forest practices in this province.

MR. MACDONELL: Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I have in front of me the Protection of Property Act. The reason I have this is the question, when I buy my hunting licence, there's a copy of the Act in the little booklet that you get with your licence. As a private landowner, I've always been a little bit dismayed because I don't really feel that the Act actually protects my property. There's a section here - No prosecution for recreational activity - Sections 15(1) and 15(2), but Section 15(2) says, "No person may be prosecuted for contravening any notice given pursuant to this Act prohibiting entry or

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prohibiting activity on forest land if that person is hunting as defined in the Wildlife Act, fishing, picnicking, camping, hiking, skiing or engaged in another recreational activity or engaged in a study of flora or fauna."

So it does say, "In this Section, 'forest land' means a wooded area, forest stand, tract covered by underbrush, barren ground, marsh or bog, but does not include (a) an area which is apparently a tree plantation area or a Christmas tree management area; (b) a special forestry study area; (c) the immediate area where any activity is apparently being carried out on woodlands for the purpose of harvesting a forest product; (d) a commercial berry growing area." It would seem to me that, as a private landowner, this Act pretty much tells people that they can do an awful lot on my land that's not one of these designated areas. In other words, if I just had woodland that I'm not managing, you know, I still own it, I pay taxes on it. It says above this - Civil remedy for trespass - "Nothing contained in this Act restricts or shall be deemed to restrict the availability of injunctive relief or any other civil remedy for trespass to property that is otherwise available."

I find these two things a little bit confusing and if I read Section 15(2), it says notice given pursuant to this Act. So you can't be charged under the Act to protect property, but it seems that you could be charged under civil trespass. So I would really like to see either Section 15(2) removed or at least to have it clarified in some way because if the intent of this Act is to tell people that they can carry out these other activities on private land, you know, I have a problem with that. I guess for me it's a little bit of clarification.

I think the little booklet that comes out has a lot of good information in it. I think actually, I have a power line that goes right through my property and it does indicate that power lines, unless they're owned by the company, but there's generally an easement and you have to have permission of the landowner to be there. Not everybody recognizes that. They think if there's a power line, it's public, or it's owned by the power company and that makes it public to them. So I just wonder if anybody has ever raised this with you and I would like to know what your reaction to this is?

MR. HURLBURT: Again, Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, no, no one has ever raised that with me, but I can only give you my own personal view that, you know, I own approximately 100 acres where my home is and I'm not really in favour of having hunters on my property. So I went in and I checked the Act and they told me that I had to post it, but I had to post it every so many metres apart, the signs saying that there was no hunting and no trespassing on the land. On my land I also have the main waterline from Lake George, it goes right through the centre of one of my fields and I had ATVs going through the centre of my field. Because it was the water main going through it has always been cut open by the town and I had to put up no trespassing signs on both ends of that. Now, in saying that, it hasn't stopped everybody, but it has stopped the majority of people, but I would say that is a good question for Justice, I think.

[Page 702]

MR. MACDONELL: I guess I find it interesting that the onus is on me to tell people where my land is or what activities I don't want them to participate in. It would seem that if somebody has a deed to their property and they leave their driveway, if they want to go hunting, or want to do whatever, they should pretty well know that the description of their property doesn't include my property. I'm not sure why the onus isn't placed on the people who want to access other people's land to get permission and do those things first if they're planning a day out for whatever activity. Actually one of the things I was glad to see in the report from Voluntary Planning on the ATV report or off-highway vehicles was this suggestion and recommendation of getting written permission from the landowner.

I think that finally there's some recognition that these people are just that, that we're property owners, and that if people want to access our property, they should actually come to your door and ask permission to do that because I'm quite sure they know that my property is not described on their deed, you know, and why it becomes my responsibility to post it, I'm not sure. If I was in a situation, if I had 500 acres 10 miles away from me in a completely wooded surrounding where there are no homes, whatever, I probably wouldn't be quite so concerned, but the fact that I live actually on my property makes it a little bit more of an issue for me.

I want to come back to the issue of harvesting and what I think is over-harvesting. There is a release, a news release I guess, May 8, 2001, according to the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, that clear-cutting claims 10 square kilometres of Nova Scotia forest every week in 1998 and the practice is needlessly destroying fish and wildlife habitat, causing erosion, ruining back country recreation, and generally just spoiling the Nova Scotia woods. This is the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. It would seem to me that that would include your predecessors - well, it would have been a Liberal back in 1998. So according to this council, they seem to agree with my view of clear-cutting, I think more so than yours. Do you have a comment about that reaction?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you, that's what I've been emphasizing here all afternoon so far, but I don't think the member is quite getting it, that the forest practices have changed in this province since 1998. We are leaving buffer zones in waterways. We're leaving buffer zones for habitat. We are doing forest plantations. We're doing natural regeneration, we're cutting in areas where the forest is on the downhill trend - if I may use that term - after a tree is 80 years old in this province, normally they are on the downhill trend. A lot of our forests do not even get to 80 years. I can tell you in my own area of Yarmouth, our forest lifespan is much shorter because of the acidity of the soil in southwest Nova. The forest practices have changed tremendously since 1998, as in the document that you are referring to.

MR. MACDONELL: Okay, well, I don't think they have; as a matter of fact we're still clear-cutting 100,000 acres a year in this province. We were clear-cutting 100,000 acres a year in 1998. Although you did bring in a requirement to leave stands of trees, there is a

[Page 703]

buffer along streams, but for the most part we are still clear-cutting, and that's what this is, Mr. Minister, clear-cutting claim, 10 square kilometres. I would say that basically forest practices haven't changed, and I would expect that if the minister was imposing anything particularly rigorous he would have heard from the industry and I think it's a problem because you've indicated the relationship of government with the industry on two or three occasions now.

I don't think this is a good thing for forest practices in the sense that we've seen on more than one occasion that to be a promoter and a regulator both is not really a good role for any department, because they are clashing roles. If you want to write regulation for how harvesting practices are done, that tends to interfere with the promotion side of your department. It probably would be better if the Department of Environment and Labour actually took a stronger role in the regulation side than they do. Certainly from what I have seen in my area - and I want to use an example of clear-cutting that was a necessity, and that's after Hurricane Juan, in my area there would be absolutely no other way that I could see that you could harvest those trees after that hurricane. It would be so dangerous to put men with power saws into some of those stands that were affected by that hurricane, and those contractors who run with machines, they were the most appropriate vehicles to harvest, but it was just about impossible to harvest those trees without clear-cutting.

I think for three years we've introduced a bill to ban clear-cutting in this province as the major harvesting practice, and the basis of that is we think the damage done by clear-cutting is too severe. We left an option that anyone who could prove that it would be an appropriate treatment for a particular stand, we would allow that to happen. For 100,000 acres, you'll have to go a long way, and I'd be really glad to go out someday - for you to try to make that argument that it would be the appropriate thing to do for 100,000 acres of Nova Scotia forest year in, year out. I just can't believe that that would seem to be the appropriate thing to do.

[2:45 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I firmly believe that a good government is an open and transparent government. I believe it's working with all levels of our population, and in our circumstance here it's working with the industry, it's working with private woodlot owners - I think that is open and transparent - and coming up with the regulation that is beneficial to all Nova Scotians. That is what our ultimate goal is here, sustainable forest practices in this province. I think that we are there, and we have done that by working with the industry and with private woodlot owners. It's not a dictatorship, it's working with the community, and I believe that is working.

MR. MACDONELL: Well, I think it's a good thing to work with the stakeholders, I think that's really important. I'd say that the members of the Woodlot Owners and Operators Association, who were at our Resources Committee recently, they certainly aren't

[Page 704]

getting that message. They seem to think - similarly to my view - that forest practices in this province are not sustainable. I think they would like to see us move to uneven-aged stand management, low-impact forestry. That's the direction they are going, that's how they are trying to educate their members. They are also raising the spectre of - we're going to run into a wood shortage very soon - actually they're saying we are there now, so that's a bullet you may not dodge yet.

In your opening comments you mentioned MacTara and the additional Crown land that you've added. Can you tell me the exact number of acres or hectares that was in that block that you bought?

MR. HURLBURT: I think it was approximately 41,500 acres, in that area, that we acquired; 99 per cent of the land is adjacent to existing Crown land.

MR. MACDONELL: Probably the Stanley block, it would be the existing Crown land?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes, but there are blocks all throughout, not only the Stanley block.

MR. MACDONELL: I know the Stanley block - if I'm right - is even a little bigger than that. Can you tell me how much of that block had been cut by MacTara?

MR. HURLBURT: I do not have that with me but, Mr. Chairman, through you, when the member is over in my office, I have a map and I will show the member the map of the Crown land that we have acquired from MacTara and the existing Crown land that we had, and I will have those numbers if I can possibly get them.

MR. MACDONELL: That would be great. It's my understanding that at some time before that agreement was made - and I'm not overtly negative to that agreement I would have to say. I'm very pro for the government to add to its Crown holdings, I think that's a very smart thing to do whenever you get an opportunity to do it, my concern is what you do with it after that, but the fact that you add to it, I think, is a good thing - I did have people raise the issue - and it would seem to me that if anyone else had bought that at that price in the private sector, we would have said that this is a company divesting itself of an asset to help shore up its ability to continue in business, and it would probably be seen as a relatively smart move on their part, so I didn't completely buy into criticism around the fact that the government bought it, but I would if I thought it was an outlandish price for that piece of land, and I have had nothing to indicate to me that it was - but can you give me the price on a per-acre basis?

[Page 705]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the member, the price per acre was approximately $338 per acre, which I really believe is value for dollar for the taxpayers of this province.

If I may go back a few years, when Bowater was relieving themselves of all the properties and holdings that they had in southwest Nova, I was adamant that the Crown acquire that property back then. The Crown never saw the bigger picture and they decided against it, and that went to another private company. I really wish today that that was in the Crown's hands right now. This was an excellent buy, it was value for dollar for the taxpayers of Nova Scotia, and it's adding to our Crown holdings. It was a perfect fit because it wraps right around the existing Crown land that we already had in our possession, I think it was value for dollar and, yes, you stay tuned and you will see what we are doing with the property.

MR. MACDONELL: I guess that brings me to my next question. I'm curious - along with the deal, did MacTara get exclusive rights to it, harvesting rights or anything, did that come with the package?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you - I'm really pleased that the member raised the question. We are very open and transparent. That deal is a land deal, and that's the end of the story. There were no clauses in it for MacTara to acquire the land or have the rights on the land. We bought that land for the taxpayers of this province at a very good value for dollar. There were no strings attached; it was a complete purchase and sale agreement.

MR. MACDONELL: Does MacTara have the rights to the land outside of the agreement?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely none.

MR. MACDONELL: Okay. It seems, if my memory is right, the province had at least loaned one lump sum of $3 million to MacTara, some people tell me too, $6 million - so can you confirm whether either of those numbers is right?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, if I may, through you to the honourable member. You would have to ask the Minister of Economic Development, that would be under his jurisdiction, not mine. Maybe we're mixing things here - I'm talking about a straight land transaction for the taxpayers of Nova Scotia; that's what we acquired. If there were loans or anything - that was through another department, it was not in my department.

MR. MACDONELL: That's good, I appreciate that. Where I'm going with this is whatever department, it's still taxpayers' money - and I'm just curious if, in this land deal, the province said you owe us $6 million, so we want $6 million off the purchase price for this, was that raised at all?

[Page 706]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I would suggest the member ask the Minister of Economic Development that, I'm not prepared to answer that today.

MR. MACDONELL: I'll assume that wasn't raised; I think that should have been raised.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I think the member is assuming something here right now. That's sometimes a little bit dangerous, not to put words in the member's mouth, but maybe he should bring that up with the minister responsible.

MR. MACDONELL: I'll assume from my previous assumption and the minister's statement that maybe I won't be so disappointed, but I will check with the Minister of Economic Development on that. There is a bit of a worry about how these deals are done, and I think the worry comes from the industry. I was approached by people who are in the industry, and I actually wish that people in the industry would be a little more vocal. I find they are not much for attacking other members in the industry, but if the arrangements made by the province give an unfair competitive advantage to a particular company, the other members in the industry recognize that, even though we tend to lump them as the industry and we seem to think that they speak with a relatively unified voice, but they are competitors in a market.

I think for some of them, they definitely felt that MacTara may have gotten a preferential deal on this, although it's not clear to me that that ever happened. If I thought I went up there and there wasn't a tree standing, I might think we paid a lot for 41,000 acres of stumps.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member has one minute left if he'd like to ask a question.

MR. MACDONELL: I think what I'll do is just say to the minister that I certainly look forward, in this regard, to talking to the Minister of Economic Development and to meeting with his staff at some point later, and if he decides we could do a tour someday, this would be a block that I would like to see. I have more concerns around the Stanley block as well, which is partly in my constituency.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I'll relinquish my time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like to respond to that?

MR. HURLBURT: Please, Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member. Absolutely, as I indicated earlier, the purchase and sale agreement that our department made with MacTara was a straight purchase and sale agreement. It was value for dollar for the taxpayers of this great province. There were no side deals - I don't know where his remarks

[Page 707]

are coming from, there were no side deals, no special treatment. This was value for dollar for the taxpayers of our province, and it's a great addition to Crown land in this province.

I have been speaking to industry, I have been to the Nova Scotia Forest Products Association meetings, I've been to MLB, I meet on a regular basis with all of the organizations in the forest industry and no one has ever told me that. They told me that it was great value for the taxpayers. There was no special deal or treatment for MacTara on this land transaction. I just want to make that clear and I want to make sure, Mr. Chairman, that it is on the record.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Victoria-The Lakes.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Welcome, Mr. Minister. I'll touch lightly on MacTara because it's here. I was aware of the $338 an acre, and the 41,400 acres that were purchased. What I'm gleaning from the conversation that was held by the honourable previous member and the minister himself, is down the road when this land purchase from MacTara is ready to be cut again in the future, then MacTara or any other logging company could probably tender to the province to cut that land, is that what would be done on Crown land, or would that be put up to never be cut again? I'm sure it would be reforested or something.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, what our practices are - we put everything out on a tendering process, and if there is land there that our staff feel is ready to be harvested, then it will be put out on a tendering process. There will not be any special treatment to any one firm.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: No, but it would be available for any and all companies to tender on for it to be recut?

MR. HURLBURT: That's right, absolutely.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: The concern that was brought forward to me was that was that value for the dollar - spending $338 an acre for land that was already cut? But like I said, it's a garden for the future, when it comes up to be cut again.

Mr. Chairman, another question I'd like to ask the honourable minister is how much is being spent on firefighting services through his department? I know that the Department of Natural Resources has always been active with fire protection in the wooded areas all around the province, is there an increase in the firefighting component of the department or is there a decrease? Where does that stand?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I guess what I need is clarity here. Is the member asking what is in our 2004-05 annual budget for fighting forest fires or the infrastructure that we're adding to our fleet? There are two components here.

[Page 708]

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: The basic infrastructure that you are adding to your fleet, is that on the increase, or has it been stalemated, or is it on the decrease?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely, the infrastructure is definitely on the increase. We have in our budget for a new helicopter for this year to add to our fleet. Our annual budget, it's lumped in, but it's approximately $2 million for forest protection, plus we are upgrading our fleet. I know that there was a new fire truck out for tender and, as I said we're adding to our fleet, upgrading our helicopters, we are always trying to enhance our fleet for forest protection.

[3:00 p.m.]

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: That jumps me way ahead to Page 2, when you mentioned helicopter. You were saying you were open and transparent and there's nothing any more open and transparent than a helicopter, which I am going to assume that you are going to take me for a ride in so I can view the forests from the air and get a real bird's-eye view of all these good things you're telling me about that are happening in the forest industry. I would love to view it from the air. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and, in a short period of time, we could cover a lot more than sitting at a table reading books and asking questions. When you view it from the air, it would also give me a perspective of how valuable or how rich or how alive certain portions are, how other portions, when you view them from the air, look like they're ready to be cut, if they're not cut they'll die. That leads me to the practice of spraying, which was a hot topic a few years ago, but it seems to have died off. Is there any continued practice of spraying areas of the forest? I haven't heard that in the news, and it usually creates quite a controversy.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, there were two questions there, and I invite the honourable member - I think it would be a full day event, the members from both Parties come into our office and have a general overview of the forest practices. If you want information on the forest protection area, we would love to give you that, too. We can then do a tour. I absolutely agree that you will have a better view if you can see it first-hand.

The second part of your question was, I'm sorry . . .

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: It was about spraying. It seems the media has died down, but is there still a practice of spraying certain areas of the forest each year?

MR. HURLBURT: The practice is still being used in the province. It is not as great as it was in the past, but they have to have all the permits and the right wind conditions and everything to acquire the permit to do aerial spraying.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Is the reason for the spraying to kill the hardwood . . .

[Page 709]

MR. HURLBURT: The vegetation around so the softwood will grow, yes.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Not to control the spruce budworm.

MR. HURLBURT: We have been spraying for insects in the past and we've been very fortunate in the last few years that we have had no outbursts of them. There is still aerial spraying - the answer is yes to your question - but it is very selective.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Nova Scotia hunters have an opportunity to apply for a moose licence in three seasons in 2004. I see there is an additional limited season in mid-December, and you've added a three-day Winter season from December 14^th to 16^th, in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Has the department taken stock of the moose available in order to have these three hunts?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, yes, that's why we've increased the hunt for 2004-05 because there was a danger to communities and the driving traffic, and that's why staff has indicated we can increase the hunt this year.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Is that hunt in the Highlands National Park just for the residents of that area or is that on a draw for everyone as the other hunts are?

MR. HURLBURT: It is designed basically for the residents of the area but it is also open.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: It is open for applicants?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Newfoundland's hunting and fishing regulations and their policies seem to be a tremendous financial resource for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I would like to ask how much money is generated, annually, in Nova Scotia from hunting and fishing?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, my deputy happened to be the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries for the province. Fisheries falls under Service Nova Scotia and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and they felt it was about an $80 million industry to fisheries. Revenue to our department through hunting was approximately $1 million.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: What I'm looking at is, if it's $80 million through fisheries, is that the sport fishery?

MR. HURLBURT: Sport fishery is approximately $550,000 licenced revenues.

[Page 710]

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: On a personal note, having been involved for a few years with fishing, hunting and all these things, and being in Newfoundland, I'm thinking that my next question is leading to enforcement, because of a crackdown on poaching. The word getting back to me from the people I know and the general consensus is that there's not much use in buying a deer licence anymore, there are no deer out there to shoot. Why should I pay x number of dollars for a partridge licence, there are no partridge out there to shoot.

What I'm thinking of, back when I did do a fair amount of hunting and fishing it was a common standard sight to see enforcement officers. It appears, over the last number of years, the best way to instantly get a return for money is to cut jobs. It appears that there may be two enforcement officers for 1,000 square kilometres or something. While they're travelling somewhere to launch a boat to try to check on somebody else, the rest of the hunting and fishing people are aware of that, and they can do their illegal hunting and fishing basically without fear of reprisal or the long arm of the law catching up to them. I was just wondering, are there any plans in your department to increase enforcement through more enforcement officers?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I feel that we have a great team in our department, and it's spread from one end of the province to the other. Our enforcement officers are doing their job and they're doing a very appropriate job for the citizens. In saying that, it's like the police force here at HRM, you can go for blocks and not see a police officer but you can go on other blocks - they can't be everywhere. We have a good variety of enforcement officers right across this province and they're doing a great job for the residents of this province.

Getting back to the harvest, the population was down a bit in 2003, but so was the harvest. The harvest was down in 2003. Sales for permits were down also for 2003, for hunting.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Has the minister's department ever considered the possibility of - I know of people who shoot first and check for antlers later, and it's not uncommon to hear the young fellows say, I nailed two deer and when I went over they were two doe, so we got out of there in a hurry. So rather than if the season was closed completely for a year, have you given the department that option to close the season for a full year to allow any and all species and male and female deer to procreate, rather than going with the buck law only and, like I said, the doe suffer the risk of getting shot, when they can't see the horns, the horns have to be two or three inches long or something before you can take it. It's pretty hard to see an antler on a deer that is three inches long when their ears are about five to six inches long, depending upon the size of the deer. That's where this shoot first and check later policy is coming into being. I'm just wondering, the $1 million from the hunting, would the province be willing to forego that and close the season for a full year as a test case or something, rather than trying to keep adjusting it, and revenues dropping, as they are?

[Page 711]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I'm getting mixed signals here today. I heard a resolution read in the House approximately two hours ago where they were asking for help because the deer population in Queens is on the incline. Maybe we're talking about one region, that the honourable member is talking about, and we would have to examine that one region. I don't think that's the case all across the province. I know in my community, the western zone, our deer population is very stable. In Lunenburg and area, the deer population is on the increase. Maybe it's the zones that we have to assess, and I can assure the member that our staff are looking at those issues as we speak.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Okay. We'll move into clear-cutting again, as was discussed previously. It appears to me that clear-cutting has become a standard practice for most companies - I guess it's the most economical for companies, get in and get out, with the largest amount of harvest. I have here that the forestry is worth over $1 billion to the Nova Scotia economy. You already talked about ensuring that there's enough trees. I remember a few years back, it was a standard procedure each and every summer, students were hired and they spent the whole Summer planting trees. Then there was news that the nursery in Strathlorne was going to be closed. I think it has survived that. Can you give me some information on tree growing and the practice of planting trees in the province?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I can assure the honourable member that we are expanding and working with our Strathlorne Nursery, and that is very efficient and cost-efficient for the industry in this province. We are very proud to have that in our great province, Strathlorne Nursery. That's providing jobs. Maybe the honourable member didn't notice but we just advertised for, I think, 20 part-time positions at Strathlorne.

I just had the great privilege of being at Strathlorne approximately a month ago, and meeting with staff and doing an inspection of the site. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, I'm so very proud that we have that here in our province. They are providing a service to Nova Scotians. Their orders, they're backlogged with orders. That nursery is doing extremely well, and it's helping the sustainability of our forestry here in Nova Scotia.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: That's why I asked the question, because I was aware that it was the first time that I had seen it advertised for student Summer jobs. It had kind of gone into a decline. When I was there a number of years back, it was as you described. I was very impressed with it, and I'm pleased to see that it's back where it was. Is that going to be a standard practice around the province? Is there more than one nursery, or is that nursery capable of providing enough trees for the whole province for the reforestation of our woodlands?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, to the honourable member, that is the only one that our department owns and manages in the province. There are private nurseries in the province, but there's a huge demand, as we speak, for the seedlings. I'm very pleased to see

[Page 712]

the business plan. It's a very positive business plan of the Strathlorne Nursery. They're doing a great job for this province.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: It's kind of a combination - I'm getting mixed messages myself. We're talking about natural reforestation after clear-cutting and how good and efficient that is. To me, that's the freebie end of it. There's no money invested there, and it naturally reforests itself. If that's successful, that's fine. Then there's the other one for the planting of the trees.

[3:15 p.m.]

My fears get aggravated more when I go to an area and I see that it's been clear-cut. Now if a contractor crosses a brook in an inappropriate manner, they're fined, they're taken to court, or whatever, or if there's a stream involved, not necessarily a brook, or they're alongside a lake, but if it's just land without a stream or a brook, they appear to go in there with an excavator or a forwarder or some gigantic piece of machinery and harvest what they can harvest. The land is not fit even to hunt deer on afterwards, because you have to be half mountain goat to get over the ruts that are left, the surface is driven down; you have your topsoil driven down at least close to three feet from these giant tires, the ruts that they leave, and everything is crushed and pushed.

I don't know how the land would ever come back to where it could be harvested again. By the time these machines go in and out, the land is basically almost impassable to traverse manually, by walking through it. These giant ruts and everything else just hold water. The land appears to be ruined, yet clear-cutting is the accepted practice. I'm just wondering, are there any penalties for a contractor, or is there any incentive for the contractor to have to leave the land as good as he's found it? Is there anything along those lines? I call it abuse of the land, when they harvest.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, the practices in this province, as we stand today, if somebody is crossing a brook or a wet piece of land, they have to get their permits and that from Fish Habitat, which is a federal jurisdiction, they have to go through the Department of Environment and Labour to get their permits to do any water crossing. I brought this up because it's been brought to my attention, the rutting on some of the lands. I can tell you that the majority of the industry, right now - the tracks that you're talking about going into the sites, they are back-blading those when they're finished up in their management forest plan.

I disagree with the terminology clear-cutting, I call it forest management. They are cleaning up behind them as they come out of the forest. The majority of them are doing that on their own, without having to have regulations. They're doing it because they know it's the right thing to do.

[Page 713]

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I'll site an area down in my riding that received a government employment program and put people in there to work over a period of time. It provided employment, and it was in an area of a listed road, but not maintained. The road had grown in, and it provided work over the Winter. These people went in and they cut that road out from one end of the island to the other. It had grown in in such a manner that it was just nice moss, and it was a beautiful road when they finished. They cut the stumps right down as close as they could to the ground. It was excellent for backpacking, for cross-country skiing, skidooing, anything at all.

In comes Mr. Contractor, goes through this road, harvests all the wood they could harvest, and that road now, unless you put a pair of hip waders on, is not wide enough in the centre for a skidoo or cross-country skiing or walking. The ruts are three-feet wide and two- and-a-half feet deep, full of water all the time. The residents are just totally disgusted. As I said, all the gentleman had to do was drop the blade when he was coming out and back-blade that and level that centre.

Now that is three years that I've been trying to get something done with that down in my area, because of who it is or what it is or because of politics or they're on the proper side of the government, I don't know what it is, but there's been nothing done. There's no enforcement. People get discouraged at that. If that person was made to go back in there with their forwarder, drop the blade, back-blade the thing out, it would take all of half an hour to do that, and then that road would eventually come back to where it was.

The way it is now, the land is ruined for anything. It connects one side of the island to the other; it was good even for the RCMP in the Wintertime to police - one side of the island has a tremendous number of cottages, and the other side is always available, so they could just unload a skidoo, shoot across the island to check out cottages, or do anything. It's a feeling of abuse by the contractor. In defence of the contractors and the people who work in the woods, they have to make a living, too, but at the same time the two have to go hand in hand, and because I have to make a living doesn't mean I can go in and rip and tear and leave an ungodly mess behind and expect you to say nothing about it, whether it's on your land or whether it's on private land.

That's why I brought that up - is there any penalty, do they have certain rules and regulations to follow? Like I said, a conscientious contractor would leave the land as good as he's found it, or to the best of his ability.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, in part of his opening preamble to this question he made a statement that I do not take lightly. Because an individual, regardless of their Party ties, one Party or the other, that carries no weight with me. We have regulations and rules in this province, and they're for everyone. I do not show favouritism to one over the other. If we have guidelines in this province, those are the guidelines we're going to adhere to. If that

[Page 714]

member would like to give me more specifics on this individual case, I can assure you that I will have one of our people assess the property.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I would really appreciate that, Mr. Minister, because what's good for one is good for the other . . .

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: That's the way it should be, and that's the way it should be held. I appreciate your stance on that.

The Department of Energy is responsible for issuing onshore oil exploration licences and I'm just wondering, does the Department of Energy have any role in considering onshore oil discovery? What I'm looking at is down in Boularderie Island, where I live, there has just been a series of drilling and exploration done for gas and oil on the land. If there was gas and oil discovered, would that come under Natural Resources or would that remain under the Department of Energy?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, we had the same circumstances up in the Springhill area. There may be natural gas in that area. They're still doing a study in Joggins, I believe it is, but that would fall under the portfolio of Energy.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: The reason I ask is I was wondering if there's any duplication of services between the Department of Energy and the Department of Natural Resources, that's all.

The province has chosen a consultant to assist with the tendering process for the mineral rights of the Donkin coal resource in Cape Breton. Pincock Allen & Holt of Lakewood, Colorado, was the successful proponent in the tender, which is valued at $77,000. Four proposals were received and they were reviewed on the basis of technical cost and merit, does the minister have the names of the other people who submitted proposals?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, no, I do not have that here. If the member wishes to have that information, I have no problem with that. I think there were four. If that information can be accessed, I will see that the member has that information.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I know biosolids has become a hot topic recently. What I was wondering is, I know biosolids is with the Department of Environment and Labour, but is the minister working with that department or doing anything to ensure that biosolids do not leach into our forests and woodlands? Is there co-operation or something between departments concerning biosolids, or is that being left totally to the Department of Environment and Labour?

[Page 715]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, biosolids are a very controversial area right now to go into. I can assure you that the Department of Environment and Labour is the lead department on that. There's always overlapping with other departments and jurisdictions. There are areas that maybe we have concerns with, and we will be expressing those with DEL.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Coal permits in Cape Breton. I'm just wondering, rules and regulations for the issuing of permits to extract coal in these rural areas - can the minister explain to me any rules and regulations for when they're doing this open-pit mining or strip-mining, whatever you call it, to make sure that the properties around those areas are not affected?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the guidelines are very, very strict and, again, they go hand in hand with the Department of Environment and Labour and our department. It's not strip-mining, it's reclamation mining, that's what we're doing in the Cape Breton area, the areas that we've identified and we have proposal calls out for. By all means what they get from our department is just the rights to the resource and then they have to go through the environmental assessment, whatever level the Department of Environment and Labour wants to put on, but they also have to have consent from the landowners - that's 100 per cent, the onus is on the contractor of whichever area you're speaking of.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: So whatever contractor does the reclamation mining on a site, then there are rules and regulations that the property must be returned to basically as good, if not better, than when they started, the tree cover and everything will be removed, the coal will be removed, then the cover is going to be put back down and seeded, or something like that?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, again through you to the member. What we're doing is reclamation mining, we have some unsightly areas, we have old, abandoned shafts, we have areas - but we have a natural resource there that we want to gain access to. In the master plan from the contractors, they have to provide information to our department of the way they plan to reclaim the land. That's the key component of the tendering process.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Silviculture was the buzzword a few years back. People were employed in silviculture. I get calls at my constituency office from people who were employed in silviculture who are now not employed and there's no job for them in the forest industry. Is there any increase or decrease, or has silviculture become not a preferred option now? There was a financial incentive when it came out, and I'm just wondering where that lies now. I know it came up at the Natural Resources meeting that the honourable member chairs.

[Page 716]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the silviculture program is very stable, and it's there. It's in conjunction with our government and industry. I know our contribution to it is $3 million this year, and the industry puts in two-thirds.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Two-thirds from the industry and one-third from government. I received some correspondence recently to put my support behind the certification of woodlot owners. I'm just wondering, the certification of small woodlot owners, can I get some information on that from you in regard to - is that a process that's being individually driven by the industry or is it also being driven by your department?

[3:30 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, we are working with the private woodlot owners and with the industry, and with our department, to come up with a certification, but there are some disagreements and we're trying to work through that. When the honourable member comes over to our department, I will definitely give him a briefing on that - both members when they're over.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Okay. I appreciate that, Mr. Minister.

Finewood Flooring of Middle River, down in my constituency - I referred to them the other day in the House - they produce a product that I would call Triple-A grade hardwood flooring, a super product, an excellent product, and they ship all over the world. They've been there for 20 years, and finally they've become a renowned, respectable, recognized company. In the building of local schools, the local school boards require some kind of an MFMA - or whatever symbol you want to put on it - which is a stamp that is only available in the U.S. When the question was brought up, it was, well, that's up to the Department of Education, the local school boards, they have to request something different.

What I'm wondering is, could your department look into that and create a Canadian stamp which would be equal to or better than this U.S. stamp, so that this industry could stamp their wood? Is there a special process to attain this, because gymnasiums are being built all around, with the new schools, and here's a local company that could provide the hardwood but, because they haven't got this special stamp, it must be purchased from the U.S.

There comes a time when you can't compete, but there's also the time when you can and should be able to compete, and you need a little help from your friends - your friends, when you look to the province for leadership. I'm just wondering if somebody in your department will take it upon themselves to look at whatever this stamp is - I'm sure I can get the numbers if I call Finewood Flooring on the telephone. I can find out from them, just see what's so special about this stamp that the school boards are insisting on getting this wood with this special graded stamp on it, that we couldn't create something of a high-performance

[Page 717]

nature that this wood has to be, a certain moisture content and a certain shrinkage and all the characteristics of wood that would go into a gymnasium floor.

That would help local companies. If they get busier, then they're going to have a few more jobs, and things like that. Would the minister undertake to instruct his department to look into that and get us a comparable stamp for our own, local - I mean, if we don't look after our own, who does? This company can't compete with the U.S. market, and it's pretty hard to stand by and watch the truck going by your door, delivering a U.S. product that you have right here, in stock. Will the minister commit to looking into that, and to help this local company out by seeing what qualifications are required to attain this stamp, and if it's available in Canada? If not, then we create our own Canadian stamp.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, as all members remember, last week I think it was, the honourable member raised that at Question Period, to the Minister of Education. The Minister of Education diverted it over to the Minister of Transportation and Public Works. I can assure the honourable member and all members that the Minister of Transportation and Public Works has taken this very seriously.

Our goal in our department is when we put proposal calls out, especially for hardwood stands in this province, a key component of that is value added for Nova Scotia. If there's anything we can do in any part of this province - especially in the rural parts of Nova Scotia - to enhance jobs and to have a finished product from our province, I will do everything I possibly can. I can assure the member here today, and all members, that I will work with the Minister of Transportation and Public Works and the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations to see what the problem is here and if we can do something to fix it.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I thank the minister for that. I don't want to be harping on this one company in particular, but two things - for information, that I would like to pass on to the ministers - are they'll use a piece of hardwood as small as four-feet long, and they can get as many as six different cuts out of a single hardwood tree. So that is value added beyond compare. The only thing they haven't been able to attain so far is to entice people to cut hardwood in the Wintertime. Nobody is willing to go out in four feet and six feet of snow to cut hardwood, but from what I understand, after being at one of their presentations, hardwood, in the Wintertime, with the sap gone down into the roots, is as white as you can get it. So the grade goes up. A stick of wood that they would pay $10 for in the middle of the Summer, they would pay $30 for in the middle of the Winter.

MR. HURLBURT: That's a good incentive.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: But yet nobody wants to do that. That's just as a point of information. So that's how far they are into the scientific and the technical end of the harvesting of their wood.

[Page 718]

Finally, Mr. Minister, just one thing on the ATVs. Of course you saw the out-of-control picture on the front, that was a picture taken of ATVs at a criss-cross, a sensitive bog down in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. There are over 100,000 ATVs in Nova Scotia; the industry is not going to go away, and the conflict with the landowner is not going to go away. I don't believe it's the whole industry by any stretch of the imagination, the same as it's not the whole industry that's crossing streams or leaving roads, like you say, without back-blading them when they leave, when they're harvesting their wood. I understand the deadline was extended for input. I'm just wondering if the minister has any information on that, prior to that coming to the front burner after the close of the extension date?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, that is with Voluntary Planning and, as the honourable member knows, it is a very hot issue right now. That is under the Honourable Ron Russell, I believe, the lead department on that. Yes, there was an extension until July, I believe it was, for input to the report from Voluntary Planning. I have no other information for the honourable member here today, just that the time has been extended, and they are receiving more input from users and from landowners.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I raise it with you because of the concern of damage to the forest . . .

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: . . . and the natural habitats. My input will be to try to expand on these listed, but not maintained, roads through the Honourable Mr. Russell, to maybe have a program to do that and extend that for the benefit of ATV users.

Mr. Minister, with that, I thank you very much, also for the invitation to view from the air, and to be educated in your department for a full day. With that, my honourable colleague next to me, the member for Richmond, will continue the questioning for the Liberal Party.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Richmond, with 18 minutes left.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Minister, I have some local questions I want to raise with you. As you may be aware, Richmond County is home to two provincial beaches, one in Martinique, the other in Point Michaud. Unfortunately, the infrastructure around those beaches has been there for quite some time. It's just your standard small boardwalk and then your changing rooms/washrooms, which are almost comparable to Third World. I think it's safe to say it's pretty much just a hole in the ground, and that's about all you have for a washroom.

[Page 719]

I'm curious about your department's plans, if any, or if there's any funding available through your department for any sort of upgrades to the provincial beaches, in this case the two that are in Richmond County?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, if I may, through you, to the honourable member, could you tell me the names of the parks again?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Yes, the two provincial beaches are Martinique, which is on Isle Madame, and Point Michaud, which is just off the community of L'Ardoise. They're both run by the Department of Natural Resources.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I can't give any specifics here today on the two issues, but I can assure the member that our parks director is out assessing all of our parks. I know that he's coming back with recommendations for me. I think my deputy has written it down, and I will get the information and get back to the member about the two parks he was talking about. You were specific about change rooms and boardwalks?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Change rooms and boardwalks. I can tell you, Point Michaud, I believe I've written you on that, and I think the Minister of Transportation and Public Works, because there were some concerns there about the parking area for Point Michaud. You haven't received that correspondence? I'm almost positive it was sent to you. This would have been about a month ago, I would say. I could certainly get the minister another copy.

Basically, Point Michaud is a great attraction, and the problem is there's not enough parking. There's enough land there, but I think there was some concern in the department about extending the parking area. The problem is that people are parking alongside the road, it's a bit of a winding area and it's a safety hazard, basically. Secondly, people would like to see some upgrades done to the beach. The beach goes for close to a half mile, if not a mile, of beautiful sand. There's a lot of people attracted to it. I will check again, if you haven't received that correspondence. It was asking your department to look at it.

Are there any discussions taking place between your department and the federal government toward the upgrades of any of the provincial facilities and whether there are any partnerships available or any funding through the federal government to upgrade some of the provincial beaches or parks that are under the jurisdiction of your department?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, there were two questions there. The first one is that I pride myself on responding - especially to all the sitting MLAs - when I get correspondence in. I cannot remember seeing a letter from you, honourable member. I'm going to check, and maybe you could just check to make sure it was sent out. I cannot remember seeing it. Anyhow, having said that, dealing with the federal government on provincial properties would be an extremely hard task to get them to do any

[Page 720]

cost sharing on provincial parks right now. We have ongoing issues with them, the longhorn beetle, other issues with Hurricane Juan. It's very difficult. In saying that, in all fairness to the federal government, their regulations are very strict. I know their procedures, it takes a lot longer to implement than maybe we can here in the province. To be more specific to your question, no.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: That was just a question, it wasn't that I had other information. Your predecessor, Mr. Olive, when he was in Natural Resources, one of the issues he was looking at was Battery Park in St. Peters, a provincially-run park. It's kind of unique because it runs right along the St. Peters Canal, which falls under Parks Canada. One of the issues that's been raised by the local community, it does have overnight camping facilities, yet the washroom facilities are, again, what I like to term as Third World-type facilities. They're very basic, there's no showers, running water or anything like that.

I know the minister - we had been in discussions - was looking for support to make upgrades to that facility. There was some discussion with the federal MP about whether the feds would be willing to kick in some form of funding for that. Is that still an active file in your department, upgrading that particular provincial park in light of the concerns raised around that facility?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, no, there's no cost-sharing with the federal government, to my knowledge, for Battery Park. I can assure the honourable member that our department had a three-year plan to upgrade that park and put proper facilities in there. We are now assessing, with the municipality, to tap into the water and sewer facility there now, and we're looking at cost comparisons. We have to look at it in the long range - what is it going to cost to put in a sewer system there today and what is the lifespan of it versus tapping into the local water and sewer.

[3:45 p.m.]

So that's what my staff are working on right now. That is definitely in the mix to be completed, but it will not be completed until next year. I'm sure the member knows that they started the infrastructure and some earth work last year. They're finishing up some earth work now, and the building, I'm pretty sure they're prefabbing the building in Truro - I believe that's what the parks director told me the other day and they will be mantling it on-site.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: So that's a new building facility they're bringing to the park itself?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

[Page 721]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: One of the others, and you may have seen the correspondence here, in the Municipality of Richmond, I think they passed a resolution about the Martinique Park, which is, again, in the - I gave you the wrong name for that beach. The beach I told you before, Martinique Beach, should have been Pondville Beach. I gave you the wrong name there. It's Pondville Beach and Point Michaud Beach. The other provincial park on Isle Madame is Martinique Park, which is a provincially-run park. There are currently no overnight facilities, no capabilities for anyone staying overnight, at dusk the gate is locked. There's a serious concern around accommodations and the availability of accommodations for tenters and campers. I know they should have sent some correspondence to you, because they did pass a resolution. Is your department open to exploring what could be done to make Martinique Park available for overnight facilities?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, you have me at a bit of a disadvantage because I'm not aware of this one particular park. I apologize for that. I try to make it a goal to get to every park in our province. I will assure the member that I will talk to my parks director, and I will get some information back to the member. I am not aware of it. To the honourable member, as early as two weeks ago I met with our parks director and we were going over our capital infrastructure for 2004-05, and there was an issue there with the Congres. I assure the member that I will get the information and I will get back to him as soon as I possibly can.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: One of the issues, even if there's not an ability to actually put some infrastructure in this year, I think one of the concerns was whether the department would look at temporary permits in light of the Congres, which is going to run for two or three weeks, and if there's an ability that the department would have staff available to remain at the park overnight, just for security purposes, but also allow some lots. I believe that the Department of Environment and Labour is being quite lenient, even some farm fields and different fields are being made available as temporary facilities in light of the fact of the amount of people. So I would certainly encourage you, if you could look into that for the Martinique Park, but you should be getting correspondence as to longer-range plans from the municipality on that also.

I would be remiss, on behalf of your employees in Richmond County, if I did not ask what the long-term plans are about your office in St. Peters. The building itself is quite old, there's been significant concerns raised about ventilation, the amount of space available and the fact that your staff and other government employees have pretty much outgrown the building. This was raised some years ago. There were some improvements made to the building, but I think it's safe to say the building has surpassed its lifespan. I know buildings usually fall under Transportation and Public Works, and I'm not asking the minister to ask specific questions, but I'm curious if he's aware of concerns from his staff and from the municipality about the building itself and the possibility of a replacement for that facility any time in the near future?

[Page 722]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I must say that I'm not aware of the situation that the member is bringing forth here today. I will assure the member that my deputy will look into that, and he will try to look into it as early as before the week is out to look at the status of that facility and see what is on the horizon for it.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: There should be some correspondence on that. This is not an issue from the last few months, it has been outstanding for some time, so you should be able to find something on that. I'm just curious to be able to let them know as to whether there are plans on having a new building.

In that same breath, there have been some concerns raised about the possible closure/relocation of either the Baddeck office or the St. Peters office with Sydney. I'm wondering if the minister can indicate whether that is being considered or if he can make a commitment that those offices will not be touched and that their future is in good shape where they are currently located.

MR. HURLBURT: Well, Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I can tell him that our business plan for 2004-05 is to not decrease any services in this province and to maintain all of our depots that we have in the province.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I think I only have a few minutes left but one of the other questions, as part of your business plan, one of the concerns that was raised is that there are a number of young officers with the Department of Natural Resources who have been with the department for some time yet they are still part-time status. They do not have full-time status. Their pay is quite significantly lower and they are not receiving the benefits that a full-time employee would. This is a sense of frustration. I am aware of a few in Richmond County who have left the department out of sheer frustration that they are not getting full time. They are not being bumped to full time and they just can't continue going on as part time.

I'm curious, as part of this year's business plan, are you looking at moving some of the part-time employees to full-time positions to try to address some of this concern? The sad part is, it would be terrible to lose some young, trained individuals who have gone to school specifically to be enforcement officers and conservation officers who are leaving just because of the situation with their pay. I'm curious if anything is being done on that as part of this upcoming budget?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I'm sure the member is well aware that our department has approximately 840 full-time employees and then in the peak season, we could ramp up to close to 1,200 employees. I am not privy to the examples that he is asking about here today but maybe it could be a union issue. I'm not sure what the issue is here. If they're just part-time employees - that's what they are now?

[Page 723]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: They're working almost on a full-time basis but still considered part time, so their pay is based on a part-time salary and the benefits are not in there because of the fact that they are part time.

MR. HURLBURT: They are seasonal.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: They are considered seasonal but they are pretty much working year-round, yet they still fall under the term of being seasonal employees and they are being called in at different times. So in essence, they are pretty much doing full-time work at part-time wages and part-time benefits, which is a problem in various businesses, industries and government. I'm certainly not trying to say it's something specific to your department but I'm just trying to say that I am aware of a number of young individuals who have joined the department with the hopes of getting full-time work who have been frustrated in that regard and they don't seem to be making any headway. I know a number of them, and at least one has recently contacted me to tell me he had left to look for other work just out of frustration, so I raise that with you.

You can check with your staff but it may not be an issue that they are comfortable in raising with you for fear that it might not be appropriate. But it is a concern, especially for young people coming out with student loans who have gone through the training and everything else. To start off part time is extremely difficult and a lot of them are having to leave the department, which is unfortunate, because I'm sure they bring a lot to the department.

One of the other issues I wanted to raise, your department, I believe, is dealing with issues around land clarification. That is a nightmare in rural Nova Scotia and the minister might be aware of that. In certain communities where people are not able to get certified title to their land they are having to apply to your department to get a Crown release on their land. I know in Richmond County we have several communities where it is extremely difficult and when people are trying to sell their properties, it's just not going well. I'm curious if you are aware of that specific division in your department. I'm not sure what the official title of it is but it falls under the Land Titles Clarification Act.

MR. HURLBURT: Land Services.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Right now, my last contact that I had on one file, it was approximately a five-year wait to have the release done through the Department of Natural Resources legal staff and the staff there. What efforts are being done to cut that wait time down and is there any hope or any relief in sight for landowners who are looking to your department to try to get clear title to their land?

[Page 724]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, absolutely, I know the backlog that we have in our department. I lost my executive director from Land Services. We have an acting executive director who, I may state here today, is doing an excellent job for the taxpayers of Nova Scotia. We do have approximately a 3,000- to 4,000-case backlog as we speak, but they have had some tremendous loads put on their shoulders in the last two years and I will give you a few examples.

The MacTara file, it took a lot of man hours to solidify that deal and make that happen. We are dealing with the coal fields in Cape Breton. We have new mine sites that are going up, like those down in the Argyle district. Those files take a lot of time and what we are looking at now is maybe contracting out some of the work to help get caught up on some of the backlog. I can assure the honourable member that our staff are working as efficiently as they possibly can and they are logging lots of hours to try to relieve some of the pressure on the backlogs that they have.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. The time for the Liberal caucus is finished. We will now move to the NDP, unless the government caucus has any questions. Not at this time. We will move to the NDP caucus.

The honourable member for Dartmouth East.

MS. JOAN MASSEY: Mr. Chairman, certainly it has been very informative so far for me. I have heard some interesting questions and interesting answers. I would like, today, to take a few minutes just to talk about our protected areas and just a little bit of background. Right now in Nova Scotia, 80 per cent of our Crown land has no protection and we have heard some people talk about this issue today. In fact, I believe it was in 1992 that a network was established which was supposed to represent 80 distinct natural regions in Nova Scotia and only a fraction have been represented in the province so far. How many protected areas do we have right now?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I think it's 31 or 32 but the honourable member, I am sure, is well aware that that falls under the jurisdiction of Environment and Labour.

MS. MASSEY: Well, I'm just wondering, is there any crossover at all between Environment and Labour and Natural Resources as far as coming across a process that would be involved in protecting areas, because if you are in charge of our forests, I would think that you would be in communication with those sorts of issues or upcoming announcements.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, our department works very closely with the Department of Environment and Labour. We have parks that have buffer zones probably onto protected wilderness. Our wildlife specialists have input into the protected wilderness. Our department has to work very closely with DEL but the protected wilderness areas are 100 per cent under the jurisdiction of DEL.

[Page 725]

MS. MASSEY: I want to move on to clear-cutting.

MR. HURLBURT: Forest management.

MS. MASSEY: Well, that is very interesting. I picked that up when you said that earlier and I thought that was really sort of a soft way of saying clear-cutting. I don't think I would use that terminology to describe clear-cutting as forest management. We know that - and my figures may not be as accurate as yours - 95 per cent of the wood harvested in Nova Scotia comes from clear-cutting. Is that around the right number?

MR. HURLBURT: Well, Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, again, I disagree with the honourable member and I stand firm that I do not believe that it's clear-cutting. We are doing forest management. We are having sustainable forest practices in this province and that is how we are getting the raw resources out of the forests and we are cutting forests that, after 80 years of life, the forest is starting on its decline and we are managing that. We are putting buffer zones and we are working very closely with Environment and Labour to make sure that we have the protected zones for habitat in our own department and with the DEL for watercourses.

MS. MASSEY: I guess we will agree to disagree on your description.

MR. HURLBURT: That's entirely your right.

MS. MASSEY: Is it true that we have doubled the timber cut in the last 20 years? Is that approximate?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I don't have those stats here at my fingertips. I have been in the department since August and I'm trying to get myself involved in every aspect of my department, but that specific question, I can't answer it here today, but I can definitely get the stats and provide them to the honourable member.

[4:00 p.m.]

MS. MASSEY: That would be great, Mr. Minister. We have doubled the area of clear-cut in the last 10 years, is that correct?

MR. HURLBURT: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.

MS. MASSEY: Have we doubled the area of clear-cut in the last 10 years, is that a fair statement?

MR. HURLBURT: That's your terminology and that's your estimate. That's not my estimate.

[Page 726]

MS. MASSEY: Could you give me your estimate?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I told the honourable member that I would have the stats for her and I will provide them to the honourable member as soon as we can get back to our office and acquire them.

MS. MASSEY: There's been some talk around the table here today about the way that the forestry industry operates in Nova Scotia. I've heard different conversations revolving around how many jobs are created in the forestry industry in Nova Scotia and is it true to say that the amount of jobs in the forestry industry continue to decline while the amount of wood harvested continues to increase?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I can tell the honourable member that the forestry sector in this province is the second largest industry in the province and the actual number of jobs, I do not have here right now, but I can definitely get them and they're produced by industry and by my department.

MS. MASSEY: I'm coming up with not a lot of answers today. Less than 1 per cent of the old-growth forests remain in Nova Scotia. How is your government going to support forestry operations that will promote more sustainable methods?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I believe in the last number of years forestry practices have improved tremendously. We have the first draft of the Code of Forest Practices. We have sustainable forest practices in the province. We are working hand in hand with industry, with landowners, to ensure all Nova Scotians that we will have an industry in years to come and in the next four or five generations to come and further out. That's what our focus is, is to work with industry, to ensure that we do have a sustainable forest.

MS. MASSEY: I'm not sure if you're aware, but I'm sure you are aware that recently the Ecology Action Centre and the Canadian Parks Wilderness Society released a poll in February 2004. The results showed that the majority of Nova Scotians do believe that more publicly-owned Crown land should be protected. Yet this government has not followed through on its promise to protect Gully Lake and Eigg Mountain. In fact, the Nova Scotia Public Lands Coalition proposed 18 hot-spot areas on public land that they would like to see protected. I know you're going to say perhaps that it's Environment and Labour, but is your department involved in discussions revolving around those areas of, say, Ship Harbour, Long Lake, and some areas in Cape Breton?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I can assure the member that this government made a commitment to Eigg Mountain and Gully Lake. The Department of Environment and Labour is the lead department on it and they are working with my department very closely on the parameters and the boundaries. There are

[Page 727]

ongoing discussions on Eigg Mountain and Gully Lake and that was a commitment made by this government.

MS. MASSEY: I would like to turn to the Supplement to the Public Accounts. On Page 105, and you have to forgive me because this is new to me, this is my first budget too, the same as with you, but I was just looking through some of the higher dollar figures there under Grants and Contributions. Some of them, Bowater Mersey Paper, J.D. Irving, MacTara and Stora Enso, they add up to a fair amount of dollars. Could you tell me, is that money provided to them so that they can do silviculture? If it isn't, or if it is, can you sort of elaborate on the money that's going to those corporations and what they would be doing with those funds?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, absolutely, that is our sustainable forest practices' process that we have and that's cost-shared, two-thirds with industry and one-third with government. As I answered the question twice earlier, you know, we provide $3 million and the industry puts in approximately $6 million into the silviculture program and that is our contribution. For example, the number for Bowater Mersey, that would be very close to $1 million with their contribution into it.

MS. MASSEY: Well, yes, I think they all add up to about $1.5 million.

MR. HURLBURT: No, but that one, our contribution was $300,925.66. Well, you have to add the two-thirds by industry onto that also.

MS. MASSEY: Okay, great.

MR. HURLBURT: So that's what I'm saying.

MS. MASSEY: Excellent.

MR. HURLBURT: For that $300,000, you're getting approximately $1 million worth of silviculture.

MS. MASSEY: I would like to just ask a few questions involving Stora Enso. I just received this recently, the Green Balance Report 2003, and they've printed some interesting results, they call them "key results" on Page 6, in the way that they manage, I guess, if you want to call it, their forest industry. (Interruption) Well, you're going to call it the forest management industry, clear-cutting.

They make it sound kind of nice and all these things that they're doing, housekeeping, tree clumps for wildlife, corridors' layout, boundary zones, woody debris, and they show little graphs here, and if I look at the one on corridors, for example, corridors are uncut ribbons of forest, a minimum of 50-metres wide that connectively is maintained through a managed

[Page 728]

forest. They're important for the genetic diversity of flora and fauna as well as helping to maintain healthy populations by providing access between important ecological areas. This 50-metre wide corridor, I'm presuming that's something that the province has set as a standard and they abide by that under the regulations. Is that true?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, would the honourable member repeat the question?

MS. MASSEY: In this document Stora is giving key results on how they've been doing with certain things that they do when they clear-cut.

MR. HURLBURT: Forest management.

MS. MASSEY: Forest management and one of them is corridors. So when they say they leave a minimum of 50-metres wide as a corridor, I'm assuming that's because they are regulated to do that? Is that true?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, we've been very fortunate in this province to have a firm such as Stora in our province, in the rural part of Nova Scotia, creating a number of jobs, and I can't tell you exactly what the jobs are, but their forest practices are state of the art. We're very fortunate to have them managing Crown land in this province. If you were to go out and see some of the results of their forest practices on Crown land, you would have to agree that their practices for sustainable forests are second to none.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Minister, but could you answer the question whether or not that's a regulation within our government that this 50-metre wide corridor has to be left? I'm sure it is.

MR. HURLBURT: It is not a regulation. It is a certification with the industry and with the company to maintain these quarters.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I just quickly highlighted a couple of the areas that they were referring to - woody debris. They're scoring themselves on these. They have a graph here and it says scores have been reduced in recent years on that one. Their overall scores, and they are scoring themselves, they say this year's score remains very similar to the previous two years and was maintained above the 90 per cent threshold. I guess what I'm getting at is, I really can't agree that your definition of clear-cutting is forest management.

I listened to the honourable member from the Liberal Party discussing his personal experiences in going to an area that was clear-cut and talking about how apparently our government has certain things that we do if there's a brook or a stream, but if there's no brook or stream, look out. We devastate these areas, so I guess that's a concern. I'm just wondering, is it a concern with you when you have people either living in the province or

[Page 729]

visiting the province and they are walking through a lovely area and all of a sudden they come across this moonscape of devastation?

I'm concerned that we're not providing areas where our wildlife can thrive, we're creating little tiny pockets and little corridors that you can't, I don't think, expect wildlife to say, well I'm going to go this way, as you know, they don't have a map. So, I'm just wondering, can we look forward to some improvements in the way that we deal with our forests in Nova Scotia?

MR. HURLBURT: By all means. This is not a dictatorship. I think what the honourable member is speaking about is private woodlot owners. We cannot go in and dictate to them, but we are trying to work with the private woodlot owners and with the industry. With the Code of Forest Practices, the preliminary report that's out right now and our sustainable forest practices in this province, we have come a long way. We have further to go, but I can assure the honourable member that we are working with the private woodlot owners to make changes - changes to the betterment of our environment and for more stringent, sustainable forest practices.

MS. MASSEY: I'm just going to wrap up. I'm going to say a couple of things and then pass it along to my colleague, the member for Hants East.

I think there is a bit of a conflict within a lot of the departments in the government, not just Natural Resources, because you're trying to promote and regulate something at the same time. I don't see how you can do it. You've got the same thing with Environment and Labour as far as some of the things they get involved in when mines want to open and this and that. They're trying to maybe try to improve the economy somewhere but then at the same time, it has an effect on the environment. The Department of Energy also with the seismic blasting that went on, so there are some conflicts. I hope the government looks at these conflicts and says maybe there's a better way that we can look after the people and families of Nova Scotia. Maybe some things need to be jigged around and changed so there's more protection given to our children, our families and the future of our environment in Nova Scotia.

I just want to leave it at that. To the Minister of Natural Resources, thank you for the time.

[4:15 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: I thank the honourable member for her questions. I still stand firm in the sand that we are not in a dictatorship, that we have to work very closely with industry and with private woodlot owners to secure a sustainable forest for futures to come. That's what this government is looking at and that's what this department is striving for. Yes, maybe there are some deficiencies, but we have to work forward and we have to work together

[Page 730]

collectively. All of us. Not because you're of one Party and I'm of another, we all have to work collectively. If we see deficiencies, let's work to see if we can improve the deficiencies. That's how we're going to make it a better place for our generations to come.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Hants East, continuing on with the question time for the Official Opposition. You have 40 minutes left.

The honourable member for Hants East.

MR. MACDONELL: Thank you. A couple of things I'll touch on. I guess number one is, how do you know or do you know that the present sustainability plan of the province, how do you know if it's working? Do you have any ideas or any way to measure if that's working?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I'm very proud of the staff that we have at DNR. We have a very, very dedicated staff and experts on forestry and the mining sector, the parks sector. These people are analysing and checking and doing cross-checks. They're very comfortable with the practices that we have in our province today. Absolutely, as I just related to the honourable member prior to this member, maybe there are some areas that we have to improve, I'm sure there is. Nothing is perfect, but we have to work together to create that environment and make sure that we do improve in the areas where maybe we are weak. But we have a very, very dedicated staff at DNR. We have scientific reports and I take those as the gospel on what's happening in our forests and the proof is out there. That's why I encourage the member to join me on a tour and I think maybe - I'm saying maybe - I'll convince him otherwise.

MR. MACDONELL: I'm willing to be convinced. I guess the concern I have is that most of what I see in terms of silviculture practices in this province is planting trees. I think someday we're going to wake up in the morning and most of this province, for all intents and purposes, will be clear-cut and it won't matter how many trees you plant. You're not going to have an industry for 60, 70 years, at least.

The minister keeps talking about harvesting at the 80-year level - we have no 80-year level anymore, 80- to 100-year-old trees is 2 per cent of the forest - that's all we have left in that age class. We have none of them to harvest, really, so I'm worried. The most common age group in our forests - about 38 per cent - is 40- to 60-years old. The next one, about 32 per cent, is 61- to 80-years old. So, anything over 80 years is pretty much gone.

The minister acknowledges that maybe we have some weaknesses but we can address those, but I'm not sure, Mr. Minister, how you determine what the weaknesses are. We're at a divide just in the terminology. You're not willing to use the term clear-cutting here and I'm not sure why. If you think it has no negative connotations, you should use the term. According to the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, they deem it to be. This practice is needlessly destroying fish and wildlife habitat, causing erosion, ruining backcountry recreation

[Page 731]

and general despoiling the Nova Scotia woods. So, when the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers says that - that was in 2001, and your government had a minister, I'm assuming, on that council, how do you identify a weakness to be addressed because you and I are certainly at a divide about what a weakness would be?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I've stated this, I know, seven times here today and I'll state it again that the forest practices in this province have changed dramatically since 1998. I'll use that for an example. We have different practices in our forest harvesting here, we have bigger and better buffer zones and our waterways - we have more restrictive guidelines for the foresters to harvest the wood. We're leaving buffer zones for habitat and the reforestation program is working in this province. Seeing is believing and that's exactly what I've been alluding to here today. Seeing is believing.

I saw in Digby Neck, as early as Saturday, the new forest growth there - it's beautiful to see and that's five-years old. I can take you on stands that were cut 10 years ago and I could show you trees there now approximately 20- to 30-feet tall. You're telling me that's not working? I believe it is working.

MR. MACDONELL: Mr. Chairman, I'm fully aware that we can grow trees in Nova Scotia. That point hasn't been lost on me. I can go back to the area that I worked in nearly 30 years ago and 30 years has made a big difference there. It could use some work - in other words, it could use some silviculture treatments there - but it certainly looks better than it did when I left it. I'm aware that if you go back to an area that was cut five years ago, you're probably going to see five years of growth. That only makes sense.

When you say our practices are working, I'm just wondering what measuring stick do you use to determine that? Nova Scotia's almost an island. We figured out, according to this, our operable forests and we figured out the harvest levels at a particular time. So we know how big the piece of land is, we know how many trees per acre - you can get anybody in your department to make a calculated guess on that and we know what our level of harvest is. So, this is not rocket science to determine how long it would take to cut this piece of land. The point I'm trying to make is, we're overharvesting it.

The Canadian Forest Service actually did a report - I couldn't find a number on Nova Scotia, but they said the Atlantic Region was being overharvested. They identified New Brunswick as overharvesting by one and one-half times. But they didn't give an indication for Nova Scotia. If the minister can make the case that what we're doing is working, I want to know what you're basing that on. To say that we're planting trees or whatever, doesn't tell me that in 25 years we're going to be able to meet the demand of the industry, for one thing, plus the fact that you're not willing to put any limit on how much we cut. It would only seem sensible to me that if we doubled the harvest today, that what you put in place for today's harvest isn't going to meet our need for wood in the future.

[Page 732]

I'll let you address that and I want to just mention something my colleague had asked you - are we cutting twice as much? Those papers that I gave you, when I first started, the first hour, Page 173 indicates then the industry requires an average of 3.3 million cubic metres or 1,500 cords. That's about half of what this document, 1996 to 2070 indicates as our present harvest level. In other words, the harvest level, according to this, has doubled since 1983, but I don't believe it doubled then. I believe it was closer to the early 1990s when it ramped up and the industry started to consume more and more wood. So, if you have a comment around my question about how do you know that what we're doing is working, that's really what I'd like to know.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, what I see is what I believe. I've seen the forests, I've seen the methods that have been used in the past. There have been methods that have not worked. There are methods that are working. Our new forest is being spaced and treated in a proper manner and the growth is much more rapid than it would be if it came back naturally.

Our new forestry sector is expanding in leaps and bounds to what it would if it had been done under Mother Nature.

MR. MACDONELL: Exactly.

MR. HURLBURT: I don't know if the member agrees with me or not, but I still believe that we are managing the forest in a very proper manner and we're looking out for sustainability for futures to come. That is my true belief and I'm sorry that the member and I disagree on this, but that is my belief.

MR. MACDONELL: Well, there is something the minister said that I do agree with and that is that it would do better than if we just left it on its own. In 1983, those were the actual three scenarios that your department - which was then called Lands and Forests - actually presented to the Royal Commission on Forestry. Scenario number one was in the absence of silviculture inputs - so, no silviculture - and they said the industry would be out of wood within a few years. Scenario number two was, at that present level of silviculture inputs based on the federal-provincial agreements that existed at that time and since then the federal government pulled out.

MR. HURLBURT: That's normal.

MR. MACDONELL: Scenario number three was a doubling of the silviculture inputs as of the 1983 time of those federal-provincial agreements. Scenario number three said we have to double what we're putting into silviculture in relation to those federal-provincial agreements. What happened since then is the federal agreement evaporated and I don't think we're putting in the silviculture component to that level even in 2004. What that said, with that third scenario, of doubling the silviculture inputs was that we could cut our present level

[Page 733]

of harvest in 2040. In other words, by doubling our silviculture inputs as of the 1980s, we could cut this level of harvest in 2040.

We're 40 years ahead of that. We're cutting that now, in 2004. We haven't doubled those inputs. As a matter of fact, we've reduced them. That's what's telling me that what we're doing is not sustainable, that we're going to run out of wood. I'm only going by what your department had put together for the Royal Commission on Forestry in the 1980s.

If you can tell me they were wrong, if you can tell me that you have numbers that indicate something completely different, I'd be willing to accept them, but you're going to have to make a pretty strong case in terms of this document from your department which was written in 1996, which I think is a pretty strong indicator.

[4:30 p.m.]

It was my understanding that every five years this was to be updated, another inventory would be done. We're in 2004, so it's been eight years since this was done, but I've never ever seen anything to indicate that the department has gone back to see how close we actually are coming to these projections as of 1996 to 2070.

MR. HURLBURT: Again, I do not want to answer a question and not have the full facts, but I will advise the member, in his briefing, he will have all the stats of the forestry, the status of the forest today, where we see it in the future and where it was back in 1988. Those stats are going to really help clear up some disagreements here. I will provide the member with all the stats that we have at our department. I'm advising the member now - with all the information that I want to provide to the honourable member - that I definitely want to do an overview on the forest sustainability program, our silviculture program, the industry's input into it and what our department is trying to do to regulate and change some regulations.

I really would love to have the input from the honourable member because I know he has a fear here. I want to relieve maybe some of the fears he has, but I also need to hear more input from the honourable member. I know that his heart's in the right area, he wants to ensure that our children and our children's children have a sustainable forest in the future. I encourage the member to book a whole day off.

If I may, it's in our business plan of 2004-05. The government is committed to producing a report on the state of Nova Scotia's forests. This report will consolidate many forms of data and information related to the province's forest resources to provide to the public an understanding of conditions, characteristics, uses and trends relating to the forest resource and its use. That's in our business plan for 2004-05.

MR. MACDONELL: Okay, do you have an idea of when in 2005 you'd have that put together?

[Page 734]

MR. HURLBURT: I can't be specific. It's in our business plan to have that completed during the 2004-05 business year.

MR. MACDONELL: So it's your intention to have it completed within the 2004-05 year?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely. Yes. That's on Page 8 of our business plan.

MR. MACDONELL: Thank you, Minister. I would really look forward to seeing that whenever it's available.

I'm going to switch gears here a little bit and crunch some numbers. I want to come back to my colleague, the member for Dartmouth East. Her questioning, I think, on Page 105, of some allocations under the heading - well, the only heading I see is on Page 102, Travel. I don't see another one, but anyway, there are a number of allocations to different mills. I think your response to her questions was that these were contributions, I guess, the third that the department paid in relation to the silviculture program and the mills were required to pay two-thirds. Can you tell me, what process is in place to make sure that actually is done? Do you contribute the money after the work is done or how is it that you know they contributed their two-thirds in order to get the one-third, or, that they actually did the three-thirds and paid for it all themselves and you contribute the other third?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. The industry does the work, then they submit their claims to our department. They have to do the full 100 per cent, then they present their invoices to us and it's one-third that's reimbursed to the industry. We have forest techs that inspect it.

MR. MACDONELL: That was going to be my other question. I wanted to know who actually inspects that.

It seems to me that if I were to look at the booklet, the last time I looked at the booklet of registered buyers, there were pages after pages after pages. It seems there would be a very small handful of mills that could eat up that $3 million and appear to eat up the $3 million so is that because those are the only mills on Crown land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, there are two segments of it. There's $3 million for private and $3 million for industry, cost shared.

MR. MACDONELL: So there's actually $6 million? Is that all on the same line? Is that the same line item in your estimates?

MR. HURLBURT: It's under Resource Management on Page 14.5.

[Page 735]

MR. MACDONELL: Oh, you have the supplement, don't you?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. MACDONELL: I don't have that.

MR. HURLBURT: And on Page 14.6 of the estimates, on the second line there's $3 million and the third line is $3 million.

MR. MACDONELL: That's in my Estimates Book. Where it says Operating Costs, there's $3 million in that $10.994 million. I guess I'm looking at $9.98 million. There's $3 million in there and then there's $3 million in the $3,727,000?

MR. HURLBURT: In the Grants and Contributions, yes.

MR. MACDONELL: Okay. So the only way that money can be accessed, you'd have to be a registered buyer?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. MACDONELL: Okay.

I want to come to Page 107 of Public Accounts. At the bottom of the page on the left-hand column, MD Helicopters Inc. - you may have been asked this before, I'm not sure - when I looked at the 2002 Public Accounts, that line said $14,000. But here, it's $1.2 million so can you tell me what's happening there? That's almost a 10 per cent increase in that line item.

MR. HURLBURT: Okay. That's the cost to replace one of the helicopters. Why it shot up that year is because we purchased a new helicopter that year.

MR. MACDONELL: Is all that cost one helicopter? How much is one helicopter?

MR. HURLBURT: It's approximately $1.2 million with the trade of the old helicopter. There's another one that's in the estimates for this year. Just to upgrade the fleet.

MR. MACDONELL: How many helicopters are in the fleet?

MR. HURLBURT: There's five.

MR. MACDONELL: So what's your plan? Will this be one a year for the next five years?

[Page 736]

MR. HURLBURT: Our plan is to keep our equipment up to date. Last year there was a new one and there's a new one in the budget for this year. That will pretty well bring our fleet up to - I think that will upgrade our fleet to today's standards.

MR. MACDONELL: Is there a reason you picked MD Helicopters Inc.? Did they provide the best tender or . . .

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, it was tendered. We have our trained technicians on-site. They're very familiar with the aircraft, our inventory of parts and accessories. But, they were the best price through the tendering process.

MR. MACDONELL: Can all or how many of our helicopters are designed so that we could use them in forest fires?

MR. HURLBURT: They're all trained.

MR. MACDONELL: They're all equipped?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes, the main use of our helicopter fleet is for forest protection.

MR. MACDONELL: I want to come back to an issue that the member for Victoria-The-Lakes had raised. The certification that he talked about with the hardwood flooring that the province was demanding and could only be filled by an American company with MFMA certification - I don't have what that acronym means, but I remember the question in Question Period. I would think that the province wouldn't necessarily have to change their procurement certification to match that. I think that, from my understanding, there's nothing wrong with our certification at this point, it's just the fact that the procurement policy demands that, for whatever reason. I think a change in the criteria on the procurement policy would address that. If schools in New Brunswick can access flooring from this mill and schools in Nova Scotia can't, then obviously the people in New Brunswick have no problem with it. I just want to bring that to your attention.

I want to thank the minister for his answers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage.

MR. KEVIN DEVEAUX: I want to thank my colleague, the member for Hants East, for giving me a chance to have a couple of minutes at the end of the time allotted.

[4:45 p.m.]

I wanted to start with a couple of smaller points that I know we've talked about unofficially, but I hope we can just get it on the record, around McCormack's Beach and

[Page 737]

Rainbow Haven, which are two parks in my riding. They both have boardwalks that were damaged by Hurricane Juan. Has tender already gone out for the rebuilding of the boardwalks in those two places?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I am almost positive that those tenders are out, but I will verify this - I'll have the information for you by tomorrow. I also want to get on the record that there may be sections that will not be 100 per cent ready for the May 21^st long weekend.

MR. DEVEAUX: Okay, because I'm not even sure how long it takes to rebuild one of these. In the case of McCormack's Beach which is probably the most accessed one on that side of the harbour - it's very well used by a lot of people in Dartmouth. With that, you end up getting a lot of economic spinoffs as well. But I don't know how long it takes to rebuild it and they haven't started doing any work yet. That's why I'm trying to get a sense then of when do you see it starting and when do you see it being completed?

MR. HURLBURT: Maybe you can help me out here, honourable member. The one next to Fisherman's Cove?

MR. DEVEAUX: Yes, that's McCormack's Beach.

MR. HURLBURT: It literally picked the boardwalk up and threw it 20, 30 metres off into the grassed area. So there is a lot of work to do there, that's why we're stating and we will be giving public notices that not all the boardwalk will be open for the long weekend in May, but we are doing everything in our power to have as much open as we possibly can in those two areas.

MR. DEVEAUX: Okay. But still, you're saying it's your department's objective to have it open, at least a good portion of it open, by the May 24^th Victoria Day weekend?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: Okay. And you're going to get back to me on the tender. I'm curious who actually is doing the work as well.

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely.

MR. DEVEAUX: I want to talk a bit more about Juan because I brought this up in a letter to you back in January. First I want to clarify, my understanding is - and please correct me if I'm wrong - that below the high-water mark in this province, that land is owned by your department. Is that correct?

MR. HURLBURT: It's from the mean high water.

[Page 738]

MR. DEVEAUX: Mean high water, you own that?

MR. HURLBURT: We own it.

MR. DEVEAUX: Yes, the Crown owns it. But it's your department that manages it. We fought hard in the past few years to get shore erosion along Shore Road in Eastern Passage and in a three-hour storm in September, a lot of that was damaged. It's damaged particularly below the mean high-water mark. I guess I'm trying to get a sense if your department has any position on its ability to assist in rebuilding below the high-water mark - the erosion, the armour rock or what have you, that would be required to rebuild it so people can continue to live along Shore Road?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, what has happened since the honourable member brought it to my attention, I spoke to my department and also to DOT to see if there were overlapping jurisdictions here, and somebody to please get back to me and I will endeavour to get that information and get back to the honourable member.

MR. DEVEAUX: McNabs Island, in the short time that I have left, last year when it was the other Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. Olive, at that point there was a - and I know Juan has thrown McNabs Island into a loop, it's not what it was, but there was discussion of a management plan with the McNabs Island Advisory Group and at that point last Spring he said that they were going to go back for more consultation in the Fall and then it would probably be introduced or approved - the management plan - by the Spring of this year. I understand Juan has changed that, but can you give me some timelines as to when you see - is there going to be another consultation with regard to the draft management plan? Let me start with that question.

MR. HURLBURT: To the honourable member, Hurricane Juan devastated MacNabs Island. There has to be a refocus on MacNabs, how we approach it and where we go for the long term, but we want to consult with the Friends of MacNabs and the community to see which direction is beneficial to all Nova Scotians, especially the people of that riding.

MR. DEVEAUX: So there was a draft management plan, it went out for consultation. I know a lot of people in my community, including myself, submitted comments on that. What do you see happening with that now? I'm just trying to clarify it. Is it going to go back out for consultation again, now that it's been revised?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, our focus on MacNabs is to make it safe so that people could visit and enjoy MacNabs Island. I think we have to refocus on the conditions and for the long term. I personally feel that we need new input and, not to delay the process, I think that we need the people who are involved, the Friends of MacNabs, to have more input, look at the devastation of Hurricane Juan, and how we go ahead with our long-term

[Page 739]

management plan. That's what I see. Not to make light of MacNabs, what my staff has been focusing on is the damage cleanup right now.

MR. DEVEAUX: Let me ask this then, let's call a spade a spade or let's be candid about this, are you telling me - I haven't been over there, I haven't seen it - the damage is so bad on the island that we're talking years before a management plan will be developed because of the damage?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, no, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is the southeast side is the side that had the worst impact of Hurricane Juan. That has to be addressed. We have to make sure that public safety is paramount here. I need input, I believe, from our department and from the community on how we go along to a long-term solution for MacNabs. I'm not saying to extend that out to the unforeseen future, I'm saying that we have to have more consultation and deal with it as fast as we can. But let's get focused on doing the cleanup so we can get the park opened.

MR. DEVEAUX: Does your department have some sense if the cleanup is six months, a year, two years?

MR. HURLBURT: Right now our focus, Mr. Chairman, is to have as much of the park open for the long weekend as we possibly can. There's going to be restrictions on the island, naturally, because of safety concerns. The other side of the island is what's going to take a considerable amount of time. We're still dealing with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. I sent a letter off as early as yesterday - an honourable member from your caucus will be getting a copy - to the Honourable Bob Speller stating that.

We have to come up with a program here on the infected area, which MacNabs is part of. I also sent a letter off to the Premier of the province, asking him if he would relay the message. I thought that the Prime Minister was going to be in our province this week, I guess that's gone by the wayside. I've asked the Premier of our province if he would please address this up the ranks. We have to get focused on this immediately.

MR. DEVEAUX: With the short time I have left, I just want to, as I do every year, I think, when I'm here - but you're new and I know your deputy minister is new to this department - MacNabs Island is part of the community of Eastern Passage, and I know personally the work that's being done by the Friends of MacNabs is very good work. They've taken it to the point where it's a park, and I have all the support I can for them. I want to make it clear that Eastern Passage sees this as their island, and if consultations are to occur in the next six months or whatever, beyond the Friends of MacNabs - because I know there's one person on the advisory council, Mr. Horne, from Eastern Passage - I think we would like to see more consultations within the community, as well, whether it's just a public meeting and who knows who shows up, but at least you can say you did it.

[Page 740]

I think the people in the community would be very interested in hearing about the devastation. Quite frankly, because it happened later in the Summer last year, I don't think most people in the community know, probably, how badly it was damaged. So something like that could go a long way to allowing people both to give input to you, because it's a place that's traditionally used by families and members of the community in Eastern Passage and Cow Bay, and it's one that I think we as a community want to ensure that we continue to have input.

I will make my last little pitch with regard to Wreck Cove, which is on the eastern side of the island. It is both for safety reasons and for other reasons a good place to build access. I'll be curious to see where the management plan goes in the next few months to a year, so that we have more input with regard to exactly where the focus will be on developing the island.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister, if you could answer the question, we'll then move to the Liberal caucus.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, I appreciate your concerns with MacNabs. I take that to heart, because I believe that people living in the community have a stronger input and a long-term view of what's needed in the area. I can assure the honourable member that I will keep him abreast of all the activities that are going on, and any public consultation we're having, to make sure that you have input in it, too.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Richmond.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Minister, I just want to go back, we were talking about the land clarification. You mentioned there was a 3,000- to 4,000-case backlog in the department. You seemed to indicate that your department might look to either contract out some of this work or get some outside help to clear up some of the backlog. What exactly did you mean by that?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, to the honourable member, I just signed off a process to hire a consultant to come in to help us out. I will give an example, the Sydney coalfields. There's a lot of work that has to be done in the Land Services Division to get all the boundaries, get all the land descriptions and everything, and that's where we're going. That will free up our staff to do the everyday operations that are there. My staff, it took a tremendous amount of man hours to do the MacTara file, and other special files that we have coming forth, that's where I'm trying to go. I already have signed off for the project, as I just mentioned, in the Sydney coalfields.

[Page 741]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: When you mentioned outside help, you mean outside help more to deal with these special projects, not the caseload, the backlog that's in the department right now?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, yes. That will free up the existing staff to work on the files that are there in the department now.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm curious, when you refer to staff, how many staff are in this division?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, there are 37 in Lands Services.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: When you say 37, of that 3,000- to 4,000-case backlog, how many of those 37 employees are dealing with those specific files?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, there are files in Land Services that have been there, and as you alluded to earlier, for three and four years. There is a tremendous backlog. All the staff in that branch are working to try to get some of these files closed off. To a lot of the staff members who are there, it takes a lot of man hours to process the lease arrangements, the surveying processes, the IRM reports. They're all working, basically, on the backlog that we have there in that department.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: How many of the 37 are lawyers?

[5:00 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, we only have two legal personnel in our whole department. They consult back and forth with the Land Services Division. I can't answer the honourable member, if they are part of the 37.3 members who are there or not.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: That's a bit surprising, I guess. If one of the 37 employees picks up a file today, how long is it going to take them to turn that file around? Has there been any performance or targets established? I know some of these are extremely complicated, they're enough to make lawyers pull their hair out of their heads, and I can only imagine what department staff must be going through. Can you give me an idea, once they pick up that file, what are we looking at as a turnover time for one file?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, to the honourable member, every file is very different and very unique, as I'm sure the honourable member would know with his professional background. Maybe it's a lease, or if it's a purchase, there are different scenarios. The IRM review is first and foremost, it has to go through that process. Then we have to have the descriptions, it has to be surveyed. You could be talking up to two years.

[Page 742]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Two years for one file?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I guess the question is - I'm just curious how these files are dealt with - does one employee hold several files, or do they just take one file at a time and keep that file until it's brought to completion?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the files, they're all ongoing. They were prioritized when they came into our department. There are some files that you have to wait for Environment and Labour, you have to wait for another department, for their reports back, our surveying team has to go out. If that individual is designated with that file, she requests the information she needs or he needs, and they have to wait for that information to come back to proceed with the file.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Have you been keeping track of how many files are dealt with on a yearly basis, or do you have a ballpark figure of how many files are being dealt with each year?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, yes, I have. I have those stats on my desk, because I asked Land Services for that information because I wanted to know about the backlog and how we could streamline the process, maybe to speed up the process, but we have to do due diligence and make sure that the process is followed properly. I do have those stats in my office, by all means.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I would be curious. You're telling us there's a 3,000- to 4,000-case backlog right now, and I'm curious how many are being dealt with each year. Secondly, how many are coming in per year? The question being, are we making any headway here, or are we just treading water, and these aren't being dealt with? What do you say, as minister, to the homeowner who comes to see us as MLAs and says they've been in this process for five years?

What possible reason could there be that one file would take - and in this case, let me make it clear, it's not a corporation or anything, it's a homeowner who's looking to get clear title of his house and land so that he could possibly sell it or remortgage, all stuff that can't be done now, until he has clear title to it. What would you, as the minister, advise me to tell someone who has been in the system for up to five years?

MR. HURLBURT: I would advise the honourable member, Mr. Chairman, to bring it to my attention. If one has been in the hopper - and I'll use the terminology "hopper" - for five years and it's not proceeding ahead, I would love to know about it.

[Page 743]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: No problem. I have a funny feeling I will have a few pieces of correspondence going out to you on that. How are they prioritized?

MR. HURLBURT: They're prioritized as they come into the department.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: So there's no moving of files?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, if I may, there are files, like the transaction with the federal government and MacNabs, that was a priority, Cape Split was a priority, MacTara was a priority, industry trying to open up is a priority. We try to have a balance, but there are some that have to have more of a priority over other files.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Let me be more specific, I've got a landowner in Sampsons Cove, Richmond County. They've just built a new house, they're looking to sell the old house, and found out after they built the new one and tried to sell the old one, there are title issues. It needs to go through your department to be clarified. They can't even put anyone in the house, because anyone who's looking to borrow money or anything to go in there can't get any money because it's not their title. Is there a means of moving that type of situation any faster than just simply putting them in and allowing it to follow behind these 3,000 to 4,000 files that are in there already?

MR. HURLBURT: To the member, there are circumstances that maybe only take three to six months to do a file. It's not as complicated as others. I'm sure the honourable member, with his legal background, knows with some there are land disputes or boundary disputes, a number of scenarios that will hold a file up. But if the honourable member has a specific file that he wants me to look at, I would be more than glad to do so.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I appreciate that, and I'll certainly bring it to the minister's attention. As for the 3,000 to 4,000, are you considering at all bringing in outside help to try to clear that up?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, as early as this morning I spoke to my acting executive director on this very important issue. I think it's a very important issue. We're going to have discussions with my deputy and the acting executive director to see what mechanisms we can put in place to maybe push some of these files ahead.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm pleased to hear that, and I would argue - and the minister may have made this argument already - that one could even argue it's an economic development issue, because in many ways it's people trying to clear up their land, whether it's to establish a business on it, whether it's to sell, whether it's to make improvements to their property, expansions. This is all being held up because of the fact - as the minister is well aware - the banks simply aren't going to lend you money if you can't present clear title. The

[Page 744]

old days of walking in with a piece of paper, all crumpled up, just doesn't work anymore, unfortunately, to many people's dismay, when they try to pull it off. It just doesn't work.

I'm pleased to hear that, and I can't encourage the minister enough if outside help is required to at least clear up this backlog, until a system can be put in place that's a bit more efficient. It's extremely difficult and there are different communities throughout the province, I know, that have been identified as being extremely problematic. I know my grandfather is 96 and they still come to see him to sign these declarations to show that their father and his father lived there. God love him, he's 96, I don't know how much longer he's going to be available to make any more of those declarations. It's a big concern in some communities, because once the older population starts to disappear, it creates even more legal nightmares. The faster that can be dealt with, certainly, the better.

I'm curious, you've made mention of the MacTara deal, and there have been some concerns regarding that. I'm wondering who approached who in regard to the purchase of that land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, before I answer the question on MacTara, I would like to go back and just let the honourable member and all members know that I'm very fortunate to have the dedicated staff that we have in DNR, in all aspects, from Sydney to Yarmouth. The Land Services Division, I must say those people do their job very professionally, they do not want to make mistakes, so they do their due diligence. They have a tremendous workload right now, and that's why we're looking at a mechanism to try to relieve some of the workload and streamline some of the files.

The honourable member is very correct in his statement that it is economic development, it is helping out rural communities, because 90 per cent of the land transactions are in the rural part of Nova Scotia. We are moving ahead there.

On the MacTara file, I'm told it was MacTara that approached us, that they were going to put it out for sale to the private industry and asked if the government was interested in the file.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Were you aware of the fact that MacTara was facing some financial difficulties during this time?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the financial difficulties, if there were any with MacTara, were between MacTara and another division. What my department did is we did a straight land transaction, and we got value for our dollar, as far as I'm concerned, for all Nova Scotians.

[Page 745]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Is there any correspondence between your department and any other department of government in regard to the specific transaction - in other words, NSBI, Economic Development or any division, the Premier's Office - regarding this deal, or was it strictly dealt with by Natural Resources and no other government department?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you, there were three departments, Economic Development was involved in the transaction, Finance was involved, Justice was involved. All departments were involved after the purchase and sale agreement was put in place, to help finalize the transaction.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Was Nova Scotia Business Inc. or the Office of Economic Development involved?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I can't answer about Nova Scotia Business Inc. - was that the question? - I can't answer if they were involved. To my knowledge they were not involved. Economic Development staff was involved with us, making this . . .

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm curious, why would Economic Development be involved in a land transaction with a lumber mill, if this was strictly only about land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, like all members of the Executive Council, I took it to the Executive Council for approval to move ahead with the file. All of the Executive Council was aware of the land transaction. I had to have approval from the Executive Council to make the transaction happen.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I have no doubt about that, but you specifically highlighted that the Office of Economic Development was involved in the MacTara transaction, which is why I'm curious, what would that department's specific involvement be if this had nothing to do with the actual finances of MacTara and the difficulties they may have been facing?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, if I may, if I misled the honourable member or any of the members, I'm sorry. What I meant to say is the purchase and sale agreement was signed after I had approval from the Executive Council. All members, the Minister of Economic Development, the Minister of Finance, all ministers were involved in the approval or disapproval of the transaction.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Do you have any correspondence that either came directly to you or to your department from Economic Development regarding this transaction?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, no, not to my knowledge.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Not to your knowledge, so there were no letters written from Economic Development?

[Page 746]

MR. HURLBURT: No.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Who determined the value of the land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, that was appraised by an independent appraiser.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Who was that independent appraiser?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, we don't actually have that file at our fingertips here today, but I can get that for the honourable member.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Did you purchase all the land that MacTara was putting up, that they were saying they were going to go to market with?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, there were approximately 41,500 acres, and at the end of the day it came in at 41,440.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: What was the total payment for that parcel of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Honourable member, I saw the cheque and I was nervous holding it in my hand for about 30 seconds - it was $338 an acre times the acreage.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Would I be off in using the figure of close to $16 million?

MR. HURLBURT: No, it wasn't that. Mr. Chairman, it was closer to $14 million.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Okay, I thought you were going to tell me it was $6 million or $7 million or something, that I was way off. Okay, so it was closer to $14 million. That was paid from whose department?

[5:15 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: That was paid through the Tangible Capital Assets program.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: That would be through Public Works?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you, that would be the Department of Finance, I'm pretty sure.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: If I'm not mistaken, when you said the Tangible Capital Assets program, that sounds like the same program the government has been using for bridge replacements, for school construction, for major highway construction. Is it safe to say that's coming out of that same envelope?

[Page 747]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to answer that question. I believe that would be a question for the Minister of Finance to answer.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: As far as you're aware, to your knowledge, did this money come out of this year's - is it showing in this year's budget? The reason I ask that is because if it comes from the Tangible Capital Assets program, if I'm not mistaken, that's the new program that was created where any funding coming from that goes directly on the debt, and it's not showing up on the books of the province, being it's a Tangible Capital Asset, which is where school construction, bridges, roads are now showing up. So it's not showing up on the books of the province, it's going directly on the debt.

I'm curious, to your knowledge, is that where this money came from, the $14 million, or can I go through one of these Finance documents here, the wonderful documents we have, and find that $14 million expenditure coming out of this budget?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, through you, again, I suggest the honourable member ask the Minister of Finance that question.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I take it it's safe to say you don't know the answer.

MR. HURLBURT: Again, Mr. Chairman, I think the member better ask the Minister of Finance.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm just puzzled, why should I ask the Minister of Finance if you know the answer?

MR. HURLBURT: Because, Mr. Chairman, that's under his department's jurisdiction, not mine.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Did you sign off on the deal? If I'm not mistaken, I think you said you held the cheque for $14 million.

MR. HURLBURT: I mentioned that I had the cheque that was delivered to my office from the Department of Finance to pass over to MacTara's lawyer.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Were you told what specific fund this money was coming from?

MR. HURLBURT: As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, I said that came from the Tangible Capital Assets account.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: What do you plan to do with this land?

[Page 748]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, there was a management plan in place with the property. It's to add to the inventory of the Crown property for the Province of Nova Scotia, and the boundaries of the property that we purchased from MacTara border existing Crown properties.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Had any work been done by MacTara on this actual land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, maybe the honourable member could expand on what he means by work?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Had they been cut, had they been cleared, has any silviculture taken place on this land, had they been doing any work on it, or was this land they hadn't touched yet?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I was asked the question earlier, and if I could tell him the percentage of land that's been cut and what has not been cut. I told him I did not have that information here today. I told the honourable member who asked the question that I would see that both Parties got that information. Yes, there's been silviculture done on the property, it's been under management, and there's a network of roads and so forth in there.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Was this all taken into consideration by your independent appraiser?

MR. HURLBURT: By all means.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: The independent appraiser had all that information?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: You indicated you don't recall who the independent appraiser was.

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, no, I can't tell you the exact name of the appraiser. We're very open and transparent, there's no secret here. It was a straight land transaction, it was value for dollar, and there was an appraisal done by an independent appraiser on the property.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Was there any negotiating back and forth, or did you both agree to use this independent appraiser and whatever figure they would come up with was the figure you were going to go with? Is the $14 million the figure you were given by the independent appraiser?

[Page 749]

MR. HURLBURT: I had an envelope to deal with the transaction, and we negotiated, naturally we negotiated back and forth, who paid for this or who paid for that, but, at the end of the day, it ended up at $338 an acre.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Do you actually have a report that you could provide us with from the independent appraiser as to what they recommended the Crown pay for this land, that would show the exact figures, what they felt the value was?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, our provincial appraiser, along with the independent appraisal that was done on the property, proved to us that we were getting value for dollar at $338 an acre for that property.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: My question was, can you provide us with the documentation that would show what figures you were given, both from your provincial appraiser and your independent appraiser?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I will endeavour to look into that to see if that information is public or not. If it's public, I definitely will provide the information to the honourable member.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm pleased to hear that, and I would certainly hope, following your statement that this was an open transaction, that we would be able to receive those documents. I have no idea why that would somehow not be something that would be open to the taxpayers. I'm curious, who led the negotiations on behalf of the government with MacTara?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, just to clarify, I don't know what the member is getting at, but this was an open and very transparent transaction, and it was value for dollar. The negotiations were between our legal department and MacTara's legal firm.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm not trying to get at anything. You've made the statement value for dollar and we're trying to figure out how it is value for dollar. Part of that would be to know what the appraisal was, because it's kind of difficult to sit here and have you tell us it's value for dollar when we don't know what the appraisal was or what figure you were given. I hope the minister appreciates that my questions are not out of line.

In trying to get to his statement that it's value for dollar, we just want to see exactly what the appraisal was and if we paid a fair price for it. You indicated there was some negotiating, you mentioned the lawyers for the government, but do you know exactly who it was who was doing the negotiating for the government? The legal department is quite big for the government, so I'm assuming there must have been a point person.

[Page 750]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, it was a team effort here by a number of branches of government that made this transaction happen.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Do you know the names of those who were on that team?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I can tell the honourable member, from our department, it was our two solicitors, Amy and Diane, but I can't tell you the names of the other individuals who were involved.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: There were people involved from other government departments, is that what you're indicating?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, there were a number of individuals who helped out on this file to bring it to a conclusion. There were people from Justice, there were people from other departments who helped. We had to consult, to get information. It was a team effort to get this deal finalized.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Was there anyone from the Treasury and Policy Board involved in negotiations?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I can't answer that here. I can't tell you.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: We signed off on a cheque for $14 million for people who negotiated for us, and you, as minister, are not sure who negotiated for us?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased with the outcome of the transaction. It was a team effort here, put forth to acquire - it's very seldom you get to acquire a tract of land such as this that's adjacent to existing Crown land for the dollar value. In my former years, being a private contractor, to acquire a piece of land like this for $338 an acre is real value for dollar. It was a team effort by everyone who helped to finalize the transaction. We have experts in our departments, I have my legal advice, I have my Land Services people, we have our surveying team; it was a team effort to finalize this deal.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Outside of your department, who else would have been involved on this negotiating team? Obviously you had legal experts, you had experts in your own department, which we would all expect you would have. I'm curious, who else would have been on this negotiating team outside of your own department?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the member is asking me questions, and I do not have the information here right now. I can't remember everybody's names. I will endeavour to get whatever information I can possibly get for the honourable member to ease his mind. It was value for dollar, that's what we have to focus on. It's value for dollar for all Nova Scotians.

[Page 751]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: That's exactly what we're trying to establish.

MR. HURLBURT: And that's where we are.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: We don't have the information in front of us that would lead us to be able to make the same conclusion, unfortunately, at this time. You've indicated that it's very rare that government has an ability to buy tracts of land like this. Do you have a standing offer asking for Nova Scotians to sell land to the Crown?

MR. HURLBURT: No. Mr. Chairman, we're always looking to enhance the Crown properties that we have in the province. Could the honourable member tell me, has he ever seen a tract of land like this come on the market? The last time I can remember was when Bowater sold off their assets in southwestern Nova Scotia and that was a number of years ago. Very seldom do you see a tract of land to this degree on the market, for sale.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Is there a standing request by your department to actually buy land for Crown purposes? Should Nova Scotians looking to sell large tracts of land be contacting your department to see whether there's interest in buying their land?

MR. HURLBURT: Any properties, Mr. Chairman, that are for sale that anybody wants to negotiate with the Crown, they should contact my department, if they have a tract of land they want to sell.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Prior to the MacTara deal, do you remember the last time your department purchased a large tract of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Cape Split is the one that comes to mind right off the bat.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Do you remember what was paid for Cape Split?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, it was approximately $5 million, I believe.

[5:30 p.m.]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Do you remember offhand how many acres Cape Split comprises?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, approximately 400 acres.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: And who was that purchased from?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the Joudreys - I'm trying to read lips here, but I'm pretty sure that's what the honourable member told me.

[Page 752]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: If the chairman keeps up like this, we might have to suggest he gets to Cabinet.

MR. HURLBURT: It happens to be in his riding, I think.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Did you ever meet with MacTara since you've been minister?

MR. HURLBURT: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I've been trying to get to all the mills in our province, and MacTara was one that I visited, I think it was last Fall.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Was this before the deal to purchase this tract of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, this was just after I was sworn into my department. I did a tour and my focus was to go to our educational centre that's in Musquodoboit. The honourable member from the area asked me if I wanted to visit MacTara, and I did that.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Just for the record, who is this honourable member from the area?

MR. HURLBURT: It would be the honourable Brooke Taylor.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Just for the record - I think I know the answer, but - you did meet with MacTara before this deal was done for this tract of land?

MR. HURLBURT: In 2003, I met with MacTara.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: That's when you were minister.

MR. HURLBURT: Yes.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: At that point had negotiations begun to purchase this tract of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely not. I was not even aware of the property and it was never, ever discussed with me.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: When you met with MacTara, did they express any concern as to their financial situation, with you, during your meeting?

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely not.

[Page 753]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Since the time you met with them until the time this deal was done, did you have any discussions, through department staff, or were you made aware that there were financial difficulties at MacTara?

MR. HURLBURT: I didn't quite get the question. You're asking if I talked to my staff?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Were you provided any briefing notes or advised, through anyone in government, that MacTara was in financial difficulty at any time before this deal was done?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I'm sure all members in this room can read newspapers and listen to the radio, and I hear the same as everyone hears what's going on. To be direct, no one told me or had been in my office about financial hardships of MacTara or anyone else.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: So you had no briefing notes or any other indication that there were financial troubles at that facility?

MR. HURLBURT: No.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: The honourable member you've made reference to, has he ever made any approach toward you as minister regarding MacTara or any financial problems they might be in?

MR. HURLBURT: Is the honourable member asking about the member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Yes.

MR. HURLBURT: What the honourable member brought to my attention is that they're a great employer in the community, and what he was showing me was the pellet plant they have across the street. That was the main focus of my trip. I had never seen it and I wanted to see the operation.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Again, I just asked you if the honourable member ever had discussions with you about any financial troubles at MacTara, or any discussions regarding this land deal that was eventually agreed upon?

MR. HURLBURT: Prior to the deal, are you asking?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Yes.

[Page 754]

MR. HURLBURT: Absolutely not.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: You toured that facility once. Have you been there since?

MR. HURLBURT: No.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Have you had any discussions with any of the representatives of MacTara, in between your visit and when the deal was done?

MR. HURLBURT: Would you state that question again?

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: From the time you first visited the facility to the time the deal was done, did you have any conversations or correspondence from representatives of MacTara?

MR. HURLBURT: Well, we had correspondence through my department and through my staff, basically with their legal firm, on the transaction. And on the day of the closing, the CEO of MacTara was at my office for the signing, at the closing.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: At any time prior to the deal being done were there any representations by MacTara about any financial difficulties they might be in, to you?

MR. HURLBURT: No.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Other than the Province of Nova Scotia, are you aware of anyone else who expressed an interest in purchasing this particular tract of land from MacTara?

MR. HURLBURT: Again, Mr. Chairman, it's hearsay but I heard that there was an American firm that showed an interest in the property.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: As part of those negotiations that your team led, were they provided with any other bids or proposals coming from outside parties for this specific piece of land?

MR. HURLBURT: No.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: So other than the Province of Nova Scotia, during this negotiation, there were no other parties expressing an interest in this piece of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Just what I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, that we heard that there was a firm or a company or something from across the border that expressed an interest in the property.

[Page 755]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: As part of the negotiations, did MacTara indicate that there were other parties interested in this piece of land, outside of the Crown?

MR. HURLBURT: No. Again, rumours are rumours, and that's what I heard, that there was an American firm.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: The reason I ask is if someone's offering something to me and I know, while I'm negotiating with them, that no one else is interested in it, it puts me in a great bargaining position with them. Knowing that no one else wants it and that they're ready to sell, it gives me an opportunity to get it for a really good price.

MR. HURLBURT: That's what we did.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Well, exactly. Unfortunately, we don't know, we don't see any of the appraisals or any of the documents saying what this land is worth. Certainly I'm not in a position to be able to say what a woodlot or what an acre is valued at these days, especially what shape it was in. It is your position that in light of the fact you were the only person expressing an interest and negotiating with MacTara that the taxpayers of this province got this tract of land for the best price possible under the circumstances. When you say we got value for dollar, is that part of your statement in saying value for dollar that as far as you're concerned there's no way we could have gotten this land any cheaper than $14 million, even though no one else was expressing an interest in it?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, again, going back in my background and being a land developer, somewhat, and knowing what raw land is worth, I can tell you at $338 an acre, it was a real bargain, for the dollar, for the taxpayers of Nova Scotia to acquire that land for $338 an acre. I know that land now, any raw piece of land, the very minimum you would ever get the land for is a minimum of $1,000 an acre.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: And this is backed up by what?

MR. HURLBURT: All you have to do is check with the real estate companies and find out what properties are going for. To acquire a tract of land of this magnitude is just unheard of in this province.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: And yet you're unable to tell us, at this point in time, out of the 41,400 acres, how much has been clear-cut or how much is under silviculture, how much has been replanted, or what's available for cutting at any time in the near future? We don't have that breakdown, do we?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I made the statement earlier and I will stand by my statement that I made earlier to the honourable member from the NDP that we have all those stats, and I will provide those stats. That was all in the evaluation of the appraisal.

[Page 756]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I'm just curious. You've continually told us we've gotten value for dollar and this is a wonderful tract of land. As minister, can you give us your knowledge of what kind of shape this land is actually in?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to the honourable member, I can assure you, and all taxpayers, that I have not walked 41,000 acres of land to check it all. I can advise the honourable member and all Nova Scotians that our staff did their due diligence on this land, they analyzed, they checked it, they've cross-referenced it and to everybody's opinion, we got a real bang for our dollar.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Let me ask a direct question. Mr. Minister, was there any political involvement with the decision to purchase this tract of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I have stated this on numerous occasions this afternoon. This was a straight land transaction, it came to my department to see if we were interested in purchasing the land from MacTara. We saw value for dollar, we saw a piece of property that was adjacent to Crown property, we wanted to add it to our inventory, and we made a deal for all Nova Scotians to acquire the property at a fair market value of $338 an acre.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Let me ask again, was there any direction or involvement from either the Premier's office, the Treasury and Policy Board, or any other political operatives in respect to the deal to purchase this tract of land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I will reiterate what I said earlier, there was a negotiation between MacTara and DNR to purchase this piece of property. I took a memo over to the Executive Council to see if the Executive Council would support me in the purchase of the property. I had an endorsement from the Executive Council to make the deal happen, if I possibly could, at a fair market price for the taxpayers of Nova Scotia. We went back and our negotiating team went to work and we purchased the property.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Did you at any time - either from your own staff or from any outside sources - receive an opinion that this was not a good deal and should not be proceeded with?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, the only time that I've heard this has not been a good deal was here, today. My full staff was very complimentary and they worked extra hours, they burned the candle at midnight, to make sure this land transaction happened, because they knew it was value for dollar for Nova Scotians.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Well, I guess until we see the appraisals and everything else only time will tell whether we got value for dollar or not.

[Page 757]

MR. HURLBURT: I guess maybe the honourable member does not really trust some of my staff. I'm telling the honourable member here that our staff did due diligence on this, they did their own in-house appraisal on the property, they cruised the land with our forest techs, everybody has done their job, they went 100 per cent over, to make sure that this was a good deal for Nova Scotians.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Apparently, once we see all the documentation we'll get to make that determination also. I haven't heard anyone here yet today say it was a bad deal. I've heard people ask questions about the deal, about information that the minister doesn't have readily available, that's not saying it's a bad deal. Mr. Minister, that's not saying, by asking if anyone gave you a negative opinion, that your department has somehow done anything wrong, it is simply asking whether there was someone with any dissent in this. I think the minister is being a bit creative in putting this spin he is putting on it.

I am curious as to what involvement has the minister had in the ongoing negotiations regarding native logging in the Province of Nova Scotia?

[5:45 p.m.]

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, that file was with Justice.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Well, it is with Justice but it's your department that will be directly impacted should there be any decisions regarding native logging on Crown land. Is it your statement that your department or you, as minister, has absolutely no involvement or no awareness of the negotiations that are taking place and the possible impacts to Crown land?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, I try to stay abreast of everything going on in my department. I will do everything humanly possible to stay abreast of every issue in my department, but that is now in the courts and it's with Justice. I will have a briefing on the file, there was a decision made just a week ago on the file.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Is there anyone in your department or have you given any instructions to staff to start putting together possible situations, in light of what's been happening in other provinces, and possible contingency plans so that the government is not caught flat-footed, should there be a decision from the courts with respect to native logging rights?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, my department is working very closely with Aboriginal Affairs and the Department of Justice and again, it's in the hands of the courts now and we have to wait for the courts to make a decision. My department is working very closely with Aboriginal Affairs to maybe put a mechanism in place that's fair for all citizens.

[Page 758]

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Can you provide this committee with any sort of memos or documentation showing what your department has actually been doing in preparation for the different scenarios, obviously, that it is faced with, in light of the ongoing court action?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, again, this file is with the courts, we're waiting for the outcome from the courts. We have had dialogue with Aboriginal Affairs and we are interveners in the court case. We will be waiting for the courts.

MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I guess that was my question, does the minister have any memos or documentation he can provide this committee with, where his department is preparing a contingency plan of various scenarios, obviously, that could come out of this court case so that the Government of Nova Scotia is prepared in the event of whatever the courts decide? Is there anything you can provide us to give us a sense of comfort that your department and the government is preparing for the different scenarios that exist, so if there is a court decision there will not be chaos in this province, but that your department will have an idea where it intends to go, depending on the possible outcomes? There are only so many possible outcomes, there aren't that many, so I'm just curious if you can give us anything to give us a sense that work is being done on this concretely, rather than waiting simply until the courts decide?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We've reached four hours of debate. The minister will answer the final question, a very short summation.

MR. HURLBURT: We are working with Aboriginal Affairs and waiting for the outcome of the courts. We are trying to be proactive to work with Aboriginal Affairs, Mr. Chairman, and hopefully the courts will decide. I will wait to see what the courts decide, but we are working with Aboriginal Affairs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like to make a very short closing statement?

MR. HURLBURT: Mr. Chairman, for my first estimates, it's been a good one. I have enjoyed the dialogue, there have been some very good questions posed to me, and I have tried to answer them. I assure members of all Parties that my view of DNR is that it is the grassroots department of government. I have an open-door policy and that has always been my way when I was with private industry and now with government. I need input from members of the other two Parties to help us move ahead and if we can find a better mechanism for managing our forests, or managing our minerals, working with Aboriginal Affairs, whatever the issue is, we need to work together. We have different political stripes but we're all elected here to do the job and the job is for all Nova Scotians. That's my ultimate goal, and that's where I am today and that's where I'll be tomorrow. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Resolution E11 stand?

[Page 759]

Resolution E11 stands.

Thank you. We will now take a motion that we've concluded our 40 hours of consideration of the estimates referred to us and we will report back to the House. Specifically, we've looked at the Departments of Agriculture and Fisheries; Energy; Environment and Labour; Finance; Human Resources; Justice; Natural Resources; and Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. We simply need a motion that we have concluded our 40 hours and will report that back to the House.

MR. JOHN CHATAWAY: Mr. Chairman, I so move.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.

[5:50 p.m. The subcommittee adjourned.]