HALIFAX, THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2010

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

1:17 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. David Wilson

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I would like to call the Subcommittee on Supply to order. We will continue the estimates of the Department of Justice.

The honourable member for Cumberland South.

HON. MURRAY SCOTT: At this time I'm going to turn the rest of my time for this particular hour over to my colleague for Dartmouth North.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Dartmouth North.

MR. TREVOR ZINCK: Again, I want to thank the member for Cumberland South for sharing some of his time. Mr. Minister, welcome again today. I want to go back again and address some of the comments that you finished up with the other day with, and I guess I was hoping that you wouldn't have taken offence to my asking for clarification on that, I just kind of wanted to get your version around the comment that you had made around the drug problem being a community issue and that was around the Boots on the Street program.

One of the things I want to inform you about is that back in 2006, the Boots on the Street program was actually announced in my constituency. Upon being elected, it ended up being my very first question to the House to the then minister and Attorney General, who at that time was Minister Scott from Cumberland South.

Upon asking that question, I informed the House that the announcement was made on one of the more affluent streets in my community and not in the area where we really needed to see a police presence to kind of help take us out of some of the situations around the drug trafficking that we have.

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At that time - and in regard to some of your comments the other day - I agree, co-operation is of the utmost importance. We are 52 MLAs in this House and we represent just under 1 million people and we have to co-operate.

At that point, the then minister made me an offer to come visit my community, upon his schedule. I'd like to extend that opportunity to you as well and I know some of your comments the other day, you made a statement that you drive through my community, you see some of the situations, some of the people on the street. I'd like to invite you when your schedule permits to visit my office, visit with perhaps my community constable, Mr. Randy Wood, take a tour, like Minister Scott had done.

I think it's important, in no means that it's a criticism on my part to say or suggest that the Boots on the Street funding isn't being used properly, or I want an expansion of it. I guess I'd like you to have the understanding that the community I represent, there's a large portion of individuals that are living well below the poverty line.

You made mention of supply and demand and around personal choice, and I agree with you. The unfortunate part that many folks in my community run up against, is the fact that they do, their lives are so marginalized and depressed that they, unfortunately, give in to weaknesses. Subsequent to that, what happens is that it becomes a predatory market, so drug dealers seem to find their way in. It is a very transient community, 60 per cent of the community live in multi-unit dwellings so, of course, the drug traffickers go to where the market is, absolutely.

One of the real interesting comments made recently by a member of the United Way team that's currently helping us do some changes in our community. He made mention to me in a meeting that we have to start getting folks in and around the Highfield Park, Pinecrest Drive, Brule Street area, more involved in community. He had a difficulty in understanding why those folks don't come out. I can tell you that quite plainly in 2006, and again in 2009, voter turnout in those areas, its disastrous. In 2006, it was 12 per cent and I believe in 2009, it wasn't much more above that.

What has happened is those individuals that find themselves in those situations, substandard housing, single parents, a lot of them, a lot of individuals dealing with addiction problems, they've given up not only on themselves, but the systems that are in place that are supposed to be there to help them. Again, it's not a criticism as to where you're directing the moneys, because I do agree, there are bigger factors that have to be looked into, the global drug industry and the Internet fraud. I guess my comments are only centred around the fact that, and I believe also that the member for Cumberland South shares the same opinion, we don't want to see the loss or maybe a detraction away from having a police presence in some of our communities.

I can honestly say, I don't believe that having a police officer on every corner is going to solve the problems. In the past I have stated that, we have to get at root causes. When I attend Neighbourhood Watch meetings and I hear, particularly the senior population in our communities talk about the amount of times they see a patrol car go through the community, or inadequacy in response time. Those are real issues that we just don't want to see lost on policing.

I also want to tell you today that I work quite closely with the community officers and the beat patrols. Our community has seen a benefit to the bike patrol individuals in our community, it has been a great asset. In years past, HRM has increased funding for that, that is very important because the drug traffickers come in and prey upon a community so marginalized like that, if they know there is a police presence, it does help and believe me, every day, I try to mobilize those individuals to rally around their community, stand up for themselves, but it is difficult at times.

The Community Constable Program, Chris Friis before was a great program, great asset to our community, in basically building bridges and contacts in the community before anything escalates that would actually have further policing involved. Chris did a great job in and around the schools, getting to know families in the community and some of our young, troubled teens. Again, upon his retirement, Randy Wood has come in and done a tremendous job, but what I've noticed in the last few years is that you hear a few folks kind of say, well, I don't see him around as much, or as much as Mr. Friis was around, I don't see him in the schools.

I can tell you that, unfortunately, a lot of times Randy is called out, he's doing undercover stuff, in and around drugs or prostitution, or he's called out to different sectors in Dartmouth on other issues. So, again, it's not about not wanting to address those other concerns that you've expressed, not just here, in this budget process, but in the Fall as well. I just want to express to you how important it is to our community.

School liaison officers is another situation, a wonderful program, but when I talk to some of the school liaison officers, they're at a point where they're dealing with eight, nine, maybe 10 schools. If you could have it centered around, or focused around, maybe four or five, they actually would have more time to spend with the kids in and around drug programs and bullying issues. These are some of the things I have heard in the last number of years.

I've also had an opportunity in each of the last two years to go in and speak to new recruits coming into the forces. Two months ago I went in to Northbrook, spoke to the new recruits that will come out in June, both myself and my assistant. A lot of what we talk about is dealing with inner-city communities, issues around poverty. When you come into these communities and you come into a situation with a badge and a gun, you have to understand you expect a level of respect, but there are so many circumstances when you go into situations where maybe you're going in to apprehend a child from some parents or a single parent, if you're going in and dealing with an individual, say, living on $750 a month when their rent is $600 and maybe they're intoxicated, maybe they have an issue and somebody has put a call in. Just getting the troops to understand, there is a level of respect that you have to give as well.

So, that being said, I heard your comments the other day, and in no means did I mean to suggest otherwise, that you had other ideas or motives. I just want you to understand that that program was very important to us. The funding was there, they followed up, HRM did as well. I would just, like I said, I don't want to move away from the community aspect of it and switch to focus more on a global thing. We do need balance and I agree with you on those comments.

I guess my first question, again, in relation to that, I think one of the more successful pieces of legislation in the last number of years we've actually brought into this House. I don't have the exact date and time when you sent out a press release, but there was some good news that came out of the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act and the organization that heads that up, back several months ago. Some of the successes, specifically in and around the Cape Breton area, but I know in my area as well, we've benefited in shutting down drug houses and crack houses, drug activity.

It has been a very successful program and I'm wondering if you can maybe give me a little update as to where that's at now and then maybe answer one of my concerns about the program. That concern would be the fact that I believe it's still a six-unit team and my concern would be around the possibility of expansion in that, maybe if the team's in Cape Breton working on an issue, they can't be in Dartmouth North or another part of the province. Based on the successes we've had with that, are we looking at the expansion of that?

MR. LANDRY: Well, you said a lot and before I answer that specific part of the question, I just want to recap and I want to just go back to the essence of a couple of key points. One is that I didn't find your question the other day offensive so I want to clarify that. I found that the issue needed some definition and some defining and some structure around it. From the recap, we did talk about the Boots in the Streets, the drug trafficking, the co-operation and the inviting in the community becoming a part of the solution.

[1:30 p.m.]

The poverty line, I did acknowledge and you outlined this. This is an issue with many of the clients that you're dealing with, is about the poverty. Without the poverty, if the social conditions were different, life in that community may be different. We're not living in a perfect world and we know that those issues are there and we've got to work in a co-operative and collaborative manner to do that. Good organizations such as the United Way and that you work with them, I was a very proud Board of Directors of a United Way and had much experience with the United Way.

You talked about single parents, addiction and the impact on seniors and the impression of the patrol car being around, and about community improvements in the school liaison and the inner-city aspect. You boiled that down to having respect. I want to assure you that the people that I work with within the Department of Justice and the people that I'm associated with in this House, that we give all citizens of Nova Scotia respect and admire the challenges and how successful people can be. There are pockets of where there is a bigger void in the system in the sense that there's not so much success, there's pain, there's suffering and what can we do differently?

I hear and see the compassion that you have on that issue and for the community in which you represent in Dartmouth North. You boiled the whole essence of the first part of your point down, that, implying that we need to look more at the local level versus the global level. I guess I didn't explain myself very well the other night. The critical element here is, if we're not looking at the global structure from the province, looking at the province as a whole and we isolate down and focus only on the one single area, then we will never succeed because there will always be another single area. We have to look at the root causes and that's through crime prevention, dealing with the prolific offenders, the organized crime structure and that's the way.

On the issue of social justice and social structure within the community, we need to work with all stakeholders, whether it's the Department of Community Services, to take down the stovepipes and work in that manner. There is a considerable amount of money and effort going into making the communities safer and better through the improvement of the housing facilities there, some of the social programs we did, our own recent budget reducing the taxation on clothing and other types of personal items for people that are most vulnerable in that area. So I think, as a government, we are very focused on trying to reduce that, even with the seniors or people that are getting the GST cheques back, is where they won't pay any provincial sales tax. There are a number of things that we're doing to try and do that - taking the taxation off of home electrical heating and electricity, to reduce that impact on the families.

I want to now switch and come into the primary part of the question you're asking here today about safer communities and are we expanding that program. Right now, we don't see an actual need to expand the program in this present structure. We feel that it's working very well. We have six positions, one is a director and five officers, and at present there's one vacancy. I do want to say that there were almost 600 cases over the time dealing with this since 2007 and there were 97 evictions and warning letters to 96. Part of what I see this SCAN organization doing is education and working with the community and trying to promote communities to take back ownership. They're seeing that we, as a government, as a Department of Justice, as a community, are saying no to drug dealers in our community. It also means that the community needs to be brought together to help send that message out as well - take back the corner so to say. So maybe there's some work to do there.

I know that you did ask one question there - would I come to your community? Absolutely, I would come to your community, I plan to travel more around Nova Scotia and look at the issues that we are faced with, not only from the community perspective, but when you mention the community policing officer, the impact on that officer and their ability to be there to provide that support and whether it's in the schools or whether it's in the community groups themselves and having that representation there.

I do want to caution people though, that if we're going to put a police officer in every school and in every area of social problems, I'm not sure that's the best utilization of the dollar. There are other services and expertise and people have certain skills that can help bring a community together and deal with some of the problems or gaps that may be in that community for them to be successful. So policing is one part of it and as a Department of Justice, I'm very proud to say that just on the Boots in the Streets in that department that we spent over $19-some million back into policing for an area that is predominantly the responsibility of the municipality but, as I said in my answer the other day, I see this, is that we have a direct partnership and we have to invest. There are some areas of policing that we're asking the municipalities to do that benefit the overall security of Nova Scotia and partners with our national and international partnerships. So we should be contributing to that overall costing and we do that very proudly and very soundly. So I'm comfortable in that.

MR. ZINCK: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the minister for those comments and again I agree, it is around balance. I guess my hope in being allotted this time in Justice is to maybe send a message, you know, to you to go back to your Cabinet colleagues because, as I've commented in the past, around the Department of Community Services, it's not a one department solves all solution. It's a collective effort for sure, you know, policing is just one aspect of it in my community. It's about identifying problems and finding resources. However, when there's a lack of resources, then unfortunately we have to ask those questions as to why.

I want to move on to one particular issue that I've been dealing with quite a lot lately and, again, it's in and around communities, you know, there is a poverty factor to it. I've recently had, probably in the last two months, half a dozen cases come to me where young men are coming out of the prison system, you know, maybe serving, I had one young fellow who served three years for a B&E in the Amherst Courthouse of all places. That gentleman was 21. Another gentleman, in particular, 22 years old, served two years in Springhill for, interestingly enough, assault and battery on his brother's drug dealer and the judge put him in for two years. They come out of the system and they come to Dartmouth North, the funding that's available to them is through the Department of Community Services where they find themselves - well, both individuals at the time, one was staying with a grandmother, one was staying with a stepfather, sleeping on a couch, $214 a month in their pocket. Again, these are comments you can take back to your Cabinet colleagues, but the real question that I have, and I'll move on to another community in Nova Scotia as well in relation to this is, they come to me wanting help.

They've made their efforts to try to find programs or employment - one individual I had been working with for two or three weeks and lining him up with job interviews, he was a week from having his probation finished and his probation officer didn't believe that he was making an effort and was going to throw him back in jail. That gentleman has a job today. I saw an opportunity, I put him in my car and I linked him up with a business in Burnside and he was very grateful - visibly shaken and brought to tears as we left that business because somebody reached out to him.

That doesn't happen all the time, unfortunately, and their question to me was, what is out there for me when I come out? I don't want to reoffend, Mr. Zinck. Is there anything provincially, programs that maybe I'm not aware of, a link that when inmates come out - I know the John Howard Society works with different inmates, male, and Elizabeth Fry works with females, but I'm really seeing a gap for young men, both Africa Nova Scotian and Caucasian. Is there any provincial programs that I should know about that I could maybe link them up with?

MR. LANDRY: Thank you for your question. I'm going to come to that but I just want to tighten up on comments that you made prior to the specific question.

I reiterate, you asked me to receive a message and to bring it back to my colleagues, that we have to do more in identifying that there are problems there and there's a lack of resources. Well, we know that, and the answer that I gave before, our budget tries to balance that. One reality, and we really need to understand this, is that we have a structural deficit, we have a severe deficit in Nova Scotia and we have a responsibility to balance interests and to address that issue.

So, this government is very cognizant of that while at the same time looking at the poverty issues and the impact on our social structure within society. We take that seriously and to heart.

Young men, coming out of jail, one of the big things that we want to look at before I come and say what we're doing about that, for those individuals that are affected now, is that I strongly believe we need to invest in earlier education, that we need to invest in parenting and in ensuring that young mothers have the nutrition and the support to nurture the child in the early years. We need to go in that direction, we need to ensure that a child has a learning opportunity and that their skills and their imagination can grow and develop.

What happens though, is that for many varied reasons, is that there are gaps in the systems, and for other reasons, and people end up in jail. I strongly believe there are some people that belong in jail and don't belong outside. I believe that there is a segment of society that really don't care, they just want to be a leech to society and find an easy route and take that on. Those are very few in our society and that's a good thing they're very few.

We need to separate that from the examples of the good people that you spoke with and gave the examples that were in jail and how important and enriching it is to have a job. In the example that you gave, the young man that had the job, my point is, if they're in jail and they're healthy and they're coming out, then get to work. If they're waiting for someone to give them a handout to get started, that's another issue. But you were kind enough to give them an access to a door and they got in the door.

There are programs in the system. As a government, we're helping with housing, with employment and with addiction services. We're looking to our crime prevention programs to try and focus on those areas to deal with those that are affected today. I think to reduce our cost on the province and to invest early. I'm very proud to be a part of a program such as the Adopt-a-Library to help young people with their reading and to give them a chance.

One of the biggest barriers I think today in the school system is, you've got to go school to get a job and what kind of job are you going to get. I think you need to go to school to get ideas and to develop your mind and to see hope, to have a vision. I keep going back to an analogy in some discussions that I have, I guess we never would have made it to the moon if we hadn't dreamed of sitting on it. The whole idea is that to a child, to have an imagination and to be put into an environment where we reduce family violence so that they feel safe and they can dream of good, positive thoughts and ideas that we may reduce the number of people in jail, if we build more jails. But we are going to build one, but if we build more, we will fill them.

One of my goals is, and I said in one of my answers the other day on the bracelet thing, is to keep people out, keep them in the community, to keep engaged with the people that love them and that know them and can associate with, that's critical. The issue that you're asking me here today, to help these people, comes right back to the partnerships. This government, and I'm excited to be a part of this government, and the people that were working in the public sector.

I know politically, the other Parties are giving a shot at the public sector and trying to give a shot at them - we don't want to reduce, we see the good services that the people in our public sector provide and it's important that we try and maintain while at the same time try to find deficiencies and reduce our staff appropriately, while at the same time being able to provide services to the people that you're identifying because they're the major cost on our system. That's vital, but it's not either/or. You cut the bottom out of the Public Service and then we're going to reduce our debt. It's that combination and balance and this government is looking to take down the stovepipes within government and within the bureaucracies, increase the lines of communication, broaden mediations so that we talk to people in conflict at the early stages, that we work with people to find constructive ways to find solutions to their problems rather than going to crime itself.

[1:45 p.m.]

I'm committed to it, I know my deputy and the department and staff are 100 per cent on board with that, and totally focused on trying to find ways to reduce the current problem that we have. If we don't look at it and take a holistic approach to the total issues around poverty, around crime, we won't solve it, we'll just help manage it and use it as an industry. We want to change it as that kind of an industry and make this a safe community, not unlike what we're doing in Energy and how we're going to make this province a green, healthy community, which will help individuals. When we change the attitude that we're a progressive, sightful province that believes in a clean, healthy environment and reduce our carbon footprint and it does have a direct connection to where we're at here, because if it's a dirty carbon product that we're burning, if it's a messy province, then people don't have pride and want to do better. It's a whole package. I'm committed to that, this government is committed to that and I hope it gives you some idea that your community and you alone working over there, you're not alone.

MR. ZINCK: I thank the minister for his comments and I guess I'll start off. We all know as a province where we're at financially. I made comments in and around that very fact that we have to get back to balance, we have to be frugal, let's say and look where we can cost-save and look at programs that may not be effective or efficient enough and maybe shift some of those monies to other things that are working.

That being said, it comes from a real direction and a will of government and again, it's not waving a magic wand to eliminate poverty, it's not about that. We merely go through a process over the next number of years to get back to balance and we leave individuals behind, each year or each day, it's going to be more difficult, it's going to increase crime in our communities and again, I'll go back to the comments. Two particular gentlemen, like I said, they had made the effort a month and a half out of jail but you run into obstacles when you're on your own, when you don't know who to reach out to, what organizations might be out there. Then you plop yourself down into a community, that 50 per cent of it is marginalized and there's crime activity.

I'll say this one thing in particular, I'll be making a call to the mayor as soon as this process is over and inviting him over to my neighbourhood. There was a shooting in Uniacke a couple of weeks ago and the mayor gets all up in arms and calls the community together, calls the police together and says we have to fix this. In my community, if there's a shooting on Pinecrest, or a shooting in Scotia Court, Nova Court, in the public housing area, we don't get those calls. For these individual young men coming out, they're at a loss and it's not always easy for them to go into a place of employment and yes, you can check on the application that you've been in the prison system, but you're looked down upon.

One individual gentleman, actually, again, a benefit to having a community constable, he was being racially profiled by the local police and we brought in the bike patrols and the community constable to sit down with that young gentleman to let him have his say about how he was feeling and the police to have their say. It was a great meeting and both parties left happy with the results of that. Again, it's individuals coming back into the community and not being able to find resources.

I'll go one step further, you put a child, a young offender into Waterville and they come out of Waterville, with or without a bracelet, they come back into the same social situation that they left. Maybe you have two parents, maybe you have a single parent, they can't identify the resources and that child ends up getting back in trouble. If those two particular young gentlemen didn't find my office, or didn't talk to somebody who said I might be able to help them, they're at risk in my community of not only hurting themselves, but other people.

I guess in and around specific programs, I know there's Second Chance, Second Chance has been a good program in this province. Unless these individuals know how to link themselves up to programs, we're going to be at a crisis point again and I'm just seeing more and more of it.

I'll go to a community like the Prestons and I absolutely agree with you, as I do with my own community, the community has to step up, we have to take back our corners and our communities. When you go into a community like the Prestons, as I have sat around community justice circles, and have offered up my resources and my support, use me as a white, individual male, elected official, use my power to bring in resources. You have young black men coming out of prison and you know what, for whatever reasons, whether it's prostituting or drugs, these individuals run into a wall and it's options or lack of options.

I guess, again, what I'm asking is, and I don't expect your department to solve it all, Mr. Minister, I don't, or any one department to solve it, but I guess I'm just trying to make you aware that there are a number of situations that come up on a regular basis in our communities throughout the province, not just in mine, not just in the Preston areas, but people can't identify the resources. As we get back to balance, there has been made mention that certain things are going to slide, unfortunately, or we can't commit to keeping certain programs going or expanding programs. I guess out of these comments I would like to know what resources do I have to say look, have you tried these folks, because I'd like to see the parole officers helping a lot more and I know that's not your jurisdiction, it's federal and I'm looking forward to having some meetings with those folks as well. It's unfortunate, Mr. Minister, because I'm seeing more folks come to our area because of the housing situation, somewhat economical to live there. Maybe, again, if you have any other programs that you can alert me to that would be great.

MR. LANDRY: Thank you for that question. There are a number of things you are saying. First off, there is an awful lot going on in your area that our department is heavily involved in. I want to just quickly give a solution to part of the issue. For example, we have a Lighthouses grants, for example, and maybe one of the things that your community could identify, is to bring a community group together to say that they're going to deal with identifying resources that are in the area, organize that and to communicate that out, and could you get a grant to do that. You would lay your business case out. I think that that's one of those options that may be available or one of the ways to get there, to get that type, but there are lots of programs out there.

No matter how we cut this discussion, and we can have a philosophical discussion, from many levels and it still boils down to the same foundation, early school education, that whole process. I can see your support team is coming along there and I'm looking forward to their questions. So I will end with yours very shortly here. I see that I've got a couple of minutes left. There are a lot of things, I just think we need something in place to organize it for you and that Lighthouses grants might be one of those options that you could look at, and if there's a one-off or something that we could do, that works in conjunction with the agencies there, it doesn't fall on your shoulders as the MLA. I see the role of the MLA as the person who goes out and recruits people in the community to take the leadership and to take on these tasks and then the MLA moves on to the next function, to get tied up in the individual cases, I see my role as an MLA somewhat differently. I don't like to get too involved in those individual, and it brings people together who are from the community and so that there's a lasting solution and the community has ownership to it and then move on because there are lots of issues in your area.

I do compliment you though for your compassion and your commitment to the area. We know that it's a high crime area and I want to come back to your point about the shootings. I can't speak for other government departments, I will speak for the Justice Department and whether there's a shooting in your neighbourhood or in my neighbourhood, or across the water, I don't care where it's at, a shooting is a shooting is a shooting and people are victimized from it. So this government, this Justice Department takes each and every one of those seriously and a life is a life is a life, whether it's in your neighbourhood or in the most affluent neighbourhood in this area.

MR. ZINCK: Thank you for that, Mr. Minister, and for those comments. I'm short on time, you know, I'm glad we had a chance to have this conversation and I do look forward to you taking the opportunity to come and do a tour. I think it's important that we get a real good understanding of all our communities as MLAs.

I want to ask you specifically about an announcement that was made over a year ago. It was a federal government announcement, $1.9 million, by Mr. Stockwell Day. What had happened, well, the benefit of that, that came to our province specifically, in turn, was a Youth Advocate Program. I believe it's a three-year program. The caseworkers that currently are in a number of HRM communities have a caseload of six individuals. There's no word on whether or not that's going to continue to receive federal funding but it has been successful. At any one point, I know it's hard to predict and you mentioned yesterday not having a crystal ball, would there be an interest for your department to receive some of that data back, around some of the successes that the youth advocate workers have had, and would the province be interested in maybe piggybacking with the federal government, if an opportunity like that came up when the contract is finished?

MR. LANDRY: I would see no reason why we wouldn't want to have the information or why we wouldn't want to look at it and discuss. Any partnerships that we can obtain, that help improve the community, are good things. I'm a firm believer that a federal dollar is a good dollar.

MR. ZINCK: And I would agree, we can't depend on it all the time, however, but yes, it is, it's well received. I'm going to finish, and again I'll go back and I want to agree with you again on the early intervention in education. My community was fortunate enough over the last number of years to have a program through Community Services, through the school board, where we had individuals in our family of schools, outreach workers, go in and when a child was having difficulties in the class they were identified and an outreach worker went out and they helped the individual families identify exactly what the problems were. A very successful program and it's currently under review, it was announced as part of the Our Kids are Worth It program, by the former Tory Government, part of what came out of the Nunn Commission Report in recommendations.

Again, it is identifying those individuals and I'll end by saying this, when the former Minister of Justice, back in 2006, did his tour with me, we went down to the Wallace Heights/Shannon Park area, we came up through Highfield Park, the Pinecrest Drive and Brule Street area. I stopped the car at the request of the then minister, the honourable member for Cumberland South, and he looked at the housing conditions, the boarded up buildings, and he said, you know, Trevor, do people live here? I said, well actually, yes, a lot of families do because this is all they can afford. The sad thing is that there are children that are going just down the street to these schools and this is the only world that they see, this is the only option that they know, so it was quite alarming. The minister said to me at that point, I didn't realize.

The previous MLA, Mr. Jerry Pye, had always talked passionately about his neighbourhood and the lack of options, because that's what it is, that's what we're dealing with in these communities, it's getting that fresh start, giving as much resources to that family as possible to raise those children.

It is about parenting, but what we've seen is, and I know your government realizes it and the Minister of Community Services definitely knows now, it's 10, 15 years of inconsistent funding, or no increases to places like family resource centres, who are dealing with more mental health issues or child protection issues. It is three-stage transition houses like the Freedom Foundation on Brule Street, that have consistently, every year, for the last eight or nine years, run short of funding, being prepared to allow staff to take a leave until that funding comes through. I know you're aware of it and I hear you say that.

[2:00 p.m.]

I just want to encourage you because the community needs this, not just my community. A lot of communities, rural Nova Scotia. Young men and women who have lost their way because there are no job opportunities, or maybe they don't know who to reach out to.

I will just end off by thanking you for giving me the time and encouraging you to come and visit me and I will co-operate with you. A lot of what I do as an MLA is very hands-on. We need more resources, but I have had success with many of the departments, many of the deputy ministers and staff at assisting me with issues, especially in and around housing. The $128 million is wonderful. Out of that $128 million, 180 units will be developed as affordable, a lot of it is going into refurbishing the public housing, which I think is great, which I hope those individuals will then have that sense of pride. I will finish off by saying yes, I encourage your government to invest and I will be watching very closely in the early intervention piece. Thank you for the time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, the time has expired for the member's questions. I don't believe there are any questions from the Liberal caucus, I believe there are some more questions from the Progressive Conservative caucus.

The honourable member for Cumberland South.

HON. MURRAY SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, welcome back to the minister, the deputy and staff. Just picking up from where I left off when we last spoke, I just wanted to go back. I know the minister had some closing comments the last time we had an opportunity to be discussing the estimates.

One thing I always tried to remember when I was in Cabinet, regardless of what portfolio it was, was to always have respect for other people, of course, staff, especially - as the member for Cumberland North just mentioned, I did try to take the opportunity to do some tours with MLAs because I felt that they know their ridings very well and they could point out where there were real needs in their constituencies. I always tried to remember that every decision that government makes - and I know with the Minister of Finance, I would certainly agree that there are a lot of tough decisions with government, no question about it - but every decision that's made does directly affect, sometimes it may only affect one person, sometimes it affects the whole community. I always try to remember to be one thing with those folks, to always be very humble and never think that the decisions I was making that were so far removed from a community maybe, that it doesn't really impact them in their daily lives. I would just hope that the minister would always remember that because even comments, and I'll be the first to admit, in the 12 years I've been here I've made comments in the House that weren't proper at the time and I've had to retract those statements and in the thrust of the debate in the House, probably said some things that in my normal life, particularly my previous career, would never have done, but you get caught up in all that and I think we all make mistakes in life and the main thing is to be able to admit to it.

I just would hope that the minister would always remember that everything he says, he's representing, the Attorney General of this province is a very important individual and the position is very well respected throughout Nova Scotia and in fact across this country in all jurisdictions. I know he's had the opportunity to meet with his federal counterpart and his other provincial and territorial counterparts and I would hope the minister would remember that every time, unfortunately, or fortunately, every time he speaks, he's actually speaking as the Attorney General, not as just an MLA or not even now as a police officer, but as the Attorney General. People in every community, people that hear the words that you say, minister, they will hang on to every word. Sometimes they may even take from those words something different than what you really intended.

Do you know where I'm coming from? I'm talking about a community where there was a commitment made, there is no doubt in my mind and I think I can prove it and there may be an opportunity to do that. I believe that I can justify how the people of my community feel about a decision of this government to actually take something from them that was actually promised to them. You have to understand that that is difficult in itself for a community, as I said to you earlier this week, you're talking about a community that has seen a lot of tragedies over the years, has seen men and boys being killed in the mines, people going down in the mines two and half miles every day to make a living, basically having not a whole lot of hope when that main opportunity to make a living for themselves, their families, was taken away, which has happened in Springhill. There have been several major disasters, hundreds of men and boys killed.

Over the years I worked very hard as an MLA to try to create some opportunities. We've had some, I think, very positive things in my community. There is a fairly new sewage treatment plant, there is a fairly new water treatment facility, we've got a community centre that's about a $6.5 million centre. Again, if you look at a town like that and I can tell you, in a small, metal-type arena, which is probably quite common around Nova Scotia, as luck would have it, in Springhill there was a hockey tournament of a bunch of young hockey players one Saturday morning. I think, my understanding was, there was around 100 people in that arena at that time, parents and children included, a lot of heavy snowfall on the roof and, again, as luck would have it for Springhill, Springhill would be the town that would end up with some sort of a tragedy, or in this case, fortunately avoiding a real tragedy.

A gentleman who works there, Bob Arsenault, the heavy snow on the roof and one of the guide wires from one of the girders at the back of the building actually snapped under the weight of the snow. Bob went down and had a look at it and not being an engineer, but I think he's the maintenance officer there, just thought it didn't seem quite right that one of these guide wires was snapping under the weight of that snow, he asked the parents to remove their kids and themselves from the rink.

I'll never forget the dentist in Springhill, Randy Ryan, who actually is who I rent my office space from, told me the story of being in this arena where the doors at the end of the arena, which would actually lead to the outside of the arena, as they had the doors open telling the kids to come off the ice these guide wires started to snap again under the weight of the snow and the girders started to fall like dominoes behind these kids coming off the ice.

Springhill has had fires, as I mentioned earlier, three major mine disasters and other times over the years where men have been killed in sometimes single, sometimes double minor accidents. This could have been a terrible tragedy, we could have lost all of these people in that building, but it just seems that it's a community that every time it seems to get a little bit of legs under itself, for some reason, it gets knocked out.

If you don't live there, if you don't live it, if you don't know the whole history of the community, it's hard to appreciate. I should try to remember this because I'm talking to people that maybe have their own types of issues in their own communities and they represent different areas and I should always try to remember that. I guess I'm trying to tell the minister that when you live and grow up in a community like that, that no matter how much everyone tries - including myself, former mayors and councillors - something always seems to happen that will put the community back.

After the new government came in place last June, I knew in very quick order that there was a decision made to review an announcement made by the previous government. I listened to the reasons why, I just had to question how much of it was actually politics. I'll give you an example, just happened two weeks ago in Cumberland County, actually up in Cumberland North. It's something I'd like the minister to think about.

Two weeks ago the member for Cumberland North, a member of the governing Party, made an announcement in an area called North Fork, where there's a bridge out, and in very bad shape and it needs to be replaced, no question about it. So the member for Cumberland North made a public statement and public announcement that this government intends on replacing that bridge and they're going to do it this year. I agree totally. That needs to happen and I applaud the member for being able to get the government to commit to doing that.

But there's no design done on that bridge. There's been no tender called, there's been no time lines other than an announcement from the government that it will happen this year. If, for example, tomorrow, the Minister of Transportation changed portfolios with another Cabinet Minister, and he came in, would it be fair for him to say they may have made that announcement but there was really no commitment to do it, there's no tender in place, there's no design, there's no time frame around replacing it.

The government sent a member of its own caucus there and made an announcement. In my mind, once you make that commitment, to me that's should be as good as gold to any one of us. I don't have to see a written contract, I don't have to see the Premier's name or the Minister of Transportation's name on the document. Obviously the government endorsed that announcement. The government allowed that member to go there and make that announcement to the community. Imagine how the community would feel three months from now, you change Transportation Ministers and the new guy came in and said, I'm sorry, look, we didn't send a letter to the municipality saying it was going to be done. We didn't sign an agreement, we didn't tender it, we didn't put a design out. We really didn't make a commitment.

I don't think this government would do that. That's exactly what's happening here with Springhill. If the minister would ever take the time to go back and review this from day one and I know I've heard him say in the House and I know he said it outside about the business plan and all that, does it take an actual signed document from the Premier to someone, or bulldozers on there clearing that land, or a sign to be put up, what would it have been that the government would then admit to a yes, there was a commitment made.

I'm tabling a document in the House here everyday. I know the Attorney General, in his former career as a police officer, I would hope he would agree with me and I know he will, credibility in a career is everything. Especially when you're in politics, if you're in policing or many other very admirable careers, but if you don't have your credibility, you really don't have a lot.

I'm going to tell you a little story about when I first got into politics. I was down in a place in River Hebert, a little seniors' home, I knocked on this lady's door. I was still a police officer at the time. I knocked on this lady's door and she was a younger lady - probably in her 80s - but a little, wee, short lady. She answered the door, I told her who I was and she said I know who you are, I've been reading about you in the paper. I asked her, do you have any questions for me? She said yes, I do.

She said, you're a police officer. I said yes. She said, can you tell me this? Why would you go from one side of the law to the other? I laughed too, minister, I did, I had a great chuckle. But she didn't laugh. And a few years ago we went through this Democracy 250 exercise where the province spent a lot of money trying to find out why people don't vote. We wanted to know why people were not getting engaged in the system.

I spoke to, and I want to talk to the Premier about this, I spoke to a Grade 10 student here awhile back in Oxford. I don't want to say his name because I don't have permission, but I'm sure if I talked to him he would, anyway, we were just talking generally about politics. The teacher asked me to come in and talk to them about credibility and keeping your word. But he asked me, can you tell me of any other career in life where you could accept the responsibilities of a job, you could be given hours a day or the scope of work you're going to do and show up on the first day and say, no, I changed my mind. I'm not going to come at 8:00 anymore, I'm coming at 9:00. Or, I'm not going to do that job anymore because it's too heavy, I didn't realize it was going to be that heavy so I don't think I'll do that for you today. And he had a lot of questions around that, but these young adults at Grade 10 - so they would be what? - 16 years old, they had a lot of real good questions, but their questions were around credibility.

I firmly believe - and I really mean this, and I've shared this with my colleagues on many occasions - I really believe that if you're going to put your name out for politics, especially if you want to be the Premier of this province, one of two things: you promise what you can commit to and, what you can't commit to, don't promise. It's just that simple.

If the Premier had said during the last campaign - he talked about a review, I'll give him that, he did talk about a review - that's why I would like to know what he told the member for Cumberland North, I know what he told the member for Cumberland South who resigned, the member for Cumberland South who was a candidate for the governing Party today, ended up being the president of the Cumberland South NDP Association and resigned, and there's a letter that he shared with the local media, I'm sure someone has read it but, anyway, if you haven't, you should read it because that's what it's all about - it's about making commitments and promises to people and getting their confidence and then turning your back on them, and if the Premier during his campaign last June had said we looked at this and we don't think we can build this correctional facility in Springhill, if we can't afford it we're going to build one somewhere in northern Nova Scotia, so if I become Premier, you won't get it, you know the outcome in Cumberland South I'm sure wouldn't have been any different other than I probably would have gotten some more support, but anyway we all know why those types of things aren't said, especially during campaigns, because it means that people are going to make decisions based on what they know is going to be carried out.

What people in one area I think were led to believe was that there was going to be a review, a review of where it would be in Cumberland County, whether it would be Springhill or not - in Cumberland, but maybe not Springhill. That's what the message was. But back to what I was saying about the youth in Oxford. Young people today listen to all of us, everybody listens to what the Attorney General says. If the Attorney General makes a statement outside this House today or down in his office, or whatever, people hang on to that - they expect people in positions like we're in to be telling them exactly what's going to happen, tell them the facts.

I think a lot of times things happen that are certainly not intentional - I really believe that. I don't think a lot of people go out of their way to intentionally mislead other folks, but I really believe that if you want to be the Premier, if you want to be an MLA, you should promise the people what you're sure you can carry through yourself .

[2:15 p.m.]

There's only one promise I ever made to anyone in any election in 12 years - to do the best I could, period. If people say to me - you know, the minister would have heard them, other MLAs would hear it - you would knock on somebody's door and it would be this road has been terrible for 15 years, if I vote for you, can you get it paved? I tell them I have no idea if I can do that; I can't promise you, as I have no idea if it will be done - I will certainly make sure it gets put on a list somewhere, but I cannot promise that it will happen.

The whole issue of the money spent on Democracy 250. We spent a lot of money to find out why people aren't going to the polls and I am thinking, go around and ask the young people - high school people are very, very smart and I don't think that we give our young people enough credit; I don't think we give them enough opportunity to really have input. They think differently than we do, sure they do - I remember during the campaign, a young guy, very smart when it comes to computers and Facebook and all this, which I know nothing about and I don't think I want to, too old for it, but he talked about, you know he had these ideas of things he wanted to do - his name is Daniel - and I said, Daniel, you can do it. I don't want to talk to you about it, you can't talk to me about it because I'll probably only discourage you, so you go ahead and do it. I think he set up a Facebook and within a very few weeks we had something like 600 or 700. They used to call my house every night and report and they tell me that's a large number - I don't know, maybe it's not, but anyway the point I'm trying to make is young people want to be engaged, but the only way they engage is if they know that their input is going to be valued.

These young people I spoke to, and I have spoken to many classes, but these young people particularly, this class in Oxford, were really concerned about people keeping their word, and that should mean a lot to all of us, and that's what leads me to this - the headline says: "Dexter says he'd keep Tory promises," and his words were, if they - myself and the former government - had made a commitment to a community, then we'll honour it. I don't know how much clearer it can be than that. You know, if he had said if they made a commitment to a community we're going to review it, and if it's the wrong decision it won't be done, if he had said that, do you know what? And I'd even have to accept the Premier stood in the House, or the minister did, and said yes, the commitment was made and we understand you made a commitment, we believe it, we've seen the designs, we've seen an acquisition of land, we've seen the survey that was done, we've seen all the money that was spent, we appreciate all that, but we're the government now and we're not doing it.

If you had said that, I still wouldn't be happy, but at least I would respect the fact that the government is being honest and up front in saying we've changed - but no, the government keeps saying about business plans and there was never really a commitment made. I've got it in my other book - but the Premier said, oh well there may have been a commitment, something to do with a little bit of land clearing or something. Where he ever come up with that I have no idea, but that just shows the lack of understanding of an issue.

I've said many times, Mr. Minister, and I'm going to say it again - no one has proven to me yet that you have taken the initiative to follow up with the federal government. If you don't answer in your comments when I'm done, one of the things I'm going to be asking you is to show me where you can discount the opportunity for savings on sharing with the federal government program services. There was something in Hansard the other day that you did mention about that - I think what you said was we looked at it but it wasn't very much. Well, I'd like to have a little more information; I'd like to see that detailed analysis, and if it's in the review that you did I'd like to know as well when we're going to see that review.

I understand you've said that you can't release that because you don't want to jeopardize the opportunity for acquiring land. I'll have to accept that; I may not agree with this part of it for that, but I'd really like to know what discussions were held with the federal government, what programs they were potential for - I've identified them many times. I identified them with the assistant commissioner in Moncton; I identified them three times - twice with the Minister Day, who is Public Safety, and Mr. Vic Toews, who is now the Minister of Public Safety. They're ministers, so I understand. I'm probably better off to have the deputy minister on my side than to have the minister, because I know who does the work. I know where the support in the department needs to come from. I know where the organization, I know where the emphasis, the management part, I understand that and I have a lot of respect for your staff, and I want to make sure that you understand that - I really do.

My issue is with the government. Back to what I just said a minute ago about Springhill. If you lived there, if you watched over the years all the things that have happened - and this community centre that was built to replace the arena that collapsed, we were told many times over again, you'll never raise that kind of money in a little town like that - $6.5 million dollars is a lot of money in Springhill when there's very little business.

To his credit, the former mayor who passed away, he was the former MLA for Cumberland South, the Liberal MLA, Guy Brown - whom a lot of people here would know - as the mayor took on a huge challenge to raise some private money. At the time, federal money was available, federal infrastructure money, a third, third and a third. The federal government, I think, put in $1.75 million, the province did, and the town had some insurance money, but it was that close to being a realization, it wasn't going to happen, but former Premier MacDonald, who was the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage at the time, stepped forward with an additional half million dollars to put that over the top and make that happen.

On one hand it's been a godsend for the town because it has really brought a town together that has seen a lot more downs than ups over the years. We have a new mayor and council who are doing everything they possibly can to try and encourage development, whether it's business, private, whether it's a subdivision type. The energy issue for Springhill is a big issue around geothermal - there's something very positive that could possibly be happening on the horizon that I'm really hopeful will happen. But I've learned, growing in this community, being there, you never want to get too secure in anything because, as I say, when you look at the history of the community.

When you consider all those things that I've said and you've listened - it may not be what you want to hear, however they are the facts. In my office today, I have those designs that were done; I've got I believe some things that will show a commitment was made - we've seen statements made publicly. Cabinet sent me, and the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal at the time, to that community to make the announcement. Now, I've heard in the House - or I've heard outside the House, I don't know if I heard it in the House - people say, oh well, they made an announcement on the eve of the election. There was only one group that knew there was an election coming at that time - and it wasn't us, it was the people who voted down the budget. We had no idea that there was an election coming. I was hoping that it would be at least another year possibly, maybe longer, but I was really hoping another year of a minority situation, that we'd get at least another year. The intention was to have one public hearing in Springhill that summer and to have the land started to be cleared by that Fall, tenders would have been out.

The excuse, to say well the government just did that because an election was on the way and they were just doing this because of an election - I mean, we had no idea, it was the Opposition Party that voted against the budget, brought the government down, who actually knew that an election was on the way. Really, I don't put a lot of faith in - what time did I start, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have until 3:00 p.m.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of other issues. Earlier I heard your closing comments to the member for Cumberland North and I heard the message, I get it. Up our way a lot of the guys like to say I'm silly, but I'm not stupid. I get it, your message to him about focusing on issues and moving on, and I heard what you said to me the other day.

I want to make it very clear, the other day when I had said to you that it wasn't over, it would never be over, what I was trying to tell you was, if you heard what I said to you about the history of Springhill, if that community ever gave up, if the people that were in those mines ever gave us, there wouldn't be people alive today. They won't give up and they don't want me to give up.

Yes, there are a thousand other issues in Cumberland South, River Hebert, Parrsboro and I'm trying to put as much effort as I can into helping those communities, and I will, but you have to understand that this was the one opportunity for Springhill on a very positive note to move forward and it got taken away. I feel a lot stronger than that about it and we heard in the House what was said, I made a mistake myself a couple of weeks ago and used words I shouldn't have, I won't say that today, but I can tell you, people up my way do use those stronger words, they truly believe that.

I'm tabling petitions in the House as you know every day, people have signed those petitions from Cumberland County. I think today we're up to 1,700 and there are quite a bit more to go yet. People are calling wondering where to get these petitions, where do we come, where do we sign these. I sat one night in my office over here by myself, it was quite late, and I was going through the petitions and reading some of the comments that people were saying and I know some of these people, and I'm amazed at what they're saying, the harsh words and what they truly believe.

It's frustrating, I understand what you've told me, it's not going to happen, I'll have to accept that, I don't agree with it, but I'll have to accept it, but I'll never stop fighting for what I believe was the right thing for Springhill. Mr. Minister, you would know as well - and I was going to use some words that were used to me by a former staff of the Department of Justice, but I won't - Cumberland County, because of its location it's like other things, we have the New Brunswick border to the north. That prevents us from having any opportunity for clients outside the county that way, to the north, because of New Brunswick. So that pretty well reduces the opportunity for the clientele for a correctional centre for Cumberland County down in the Colchester area.

When you start getting down to the Colchester area, then when you get within the geographic location that could be affected by Burnside or even by Antigonish, I know you're starting to eliminate an opportunity to have the numbers to make it work, at least financially, and I understand that. That's why at the time there was some effort put in to try to find a way to justify, both financially and for the number of clientele, no question about it, to justify keeping a correctional facility in Cumberland County because of the effect I believe it will have on the justice system, the lawyers, I believe it's going to have a huge impact on the sheriff's service, absolutely it's going to have an effect on the correctional facilities.

As I said the other day, I met a lady and she said to me, Murray, we're going to have to leave, we've got two choices here, my husband gives up his job and we move to wherever it's going to be, or I guess he could stay and travel, which she doesn't want him to do and I don't blame her because all you're doing is raising the risk then of some sort of other tragedy happening because you force them on the highways. Winter starts in Cumberland County a month ahead of down the Valley, we saw that with the Cobequid Pass, you'll remember that a while back. I hear stories like that but it seems that all that's being centred on here is one thing and that's the financial side of it. I understand that the Minister of Finance, that's his issue, his issue has to be finances, no question, it has to be, and he or the government has to make decisions based on that part of it.

I'll never forget the night when I met with the Premier and talked to him about this. My question was, I understand all of that, tell me when the people fit into the equation here? I'm asking myself this now, when do the people fit into the equation? I am very disappointed at the answer I got.

The justice system is more than about just the building and the money. Obviously it's about the people who are incarcerated there, how far they're going to be from their families. Are they going to have access to a lawyer, for example, they may want in Cumberland County? They're going to be faced with choosing someone outside the county. Obviously, the correctional officers themselves are making some career-altering choices here - do they just leave the service? I've got the list that was presented to me about a week ago and about half them will stay and half will go - I understand, maybe some will retire, and I'm not sure, but it looks like about half will go wherever it is. They're forced to, they have bills, they have mortgages, you know, they have families to feed. Some of them may be the only breadwinner in the home.

So really they don't have much choice, give up a good-paying job which, by the way, they are very few good- paying government jobs in Cumberland County. I think if you looked at it per capita around the province, that's one thing we probably couldn't be blamed about, holding down too many government jobs. There's that part of it. There are the lawyers who, you know, the lawyers when this started really came out strong against the correctional facility being in Springhill, I heard that loud and clear. In fact I spoke to one of them, kind of a representative of them and, you know, originally they were opposed to it being in Springhill because they wanted to keep it where it was, and after we had a good discussion about it they realized what happened here. They had no idea that it will be leaving Cumberland County at all - they thought the debate and decision was going to be where in Cumberland County it's going to be.

But, again, to justify building whatever it was going to be in Cumberland County, you need to partner - to make that work financially, to make that viable on the operating costs, because I understand, like the capital part is one thing , and the government can deal with the capital and your infrastructure monies whether it's jointly with the federal government or not, but it's the out years and the operating, I understand that.

But no one to this point, Mr. Minister, with all due respect, has proven to me that you have exhausted all opportunity to keep that facility in Cumberland County, save those jobs, have a negative impact on the justice system versus - I'll say positive versus negative - actually explored - and I don't want to ask this because you'll think it's your turn, but how many people know the difference between the temperature of groundwater and mine geothermal water? Anyway, maybe you might want to think about that. (Interruption) You'll have your turn.

[2:30 p.m.]

The Town of Springhill and the County of Cumberland are spending an exhaustive amount of revenue right now to try to come up with an energy strategy, and it's all based around geothermal water used from the Springhill coal mines. So I will tell you this for your information - it's approximately 15 per cent to 20 per cent, closer to 20 per cent, warmer than groundwater and there's tremendous interest in using that. But no one, Mr. Minister, with all due respect, has shown me any documents, proven on paper, and exhausted every opportunity to find some way, whether it's partnering with the Police Academy for training, which you said you spoke to Edgar MacLeod yourself - and I know I spoke to Edgar and he's very keen on doing some things together - no one has shown me what the federal government has said well, yes, maintenance or laundry or kitchen, whatever, these are the costs - these are costs provincially, can we find a way?

You have union issues, and I understand that, but if you really want to deal with it and you really want to take it on - and I was prepared to - has anyone actually sat down and documented and can show me where it's not viable?

When I met with the assistant commissioner in Moncton - in Springhill, you've been there so maybe you noticed this and maybe you didn't going in, but when you come into Springhill off the TransCanada Highway, off the connector highway, there's a large brick building right there. It's the armouries; it's the armouries building owned by the federal government. That building is probably used 5 per cent of the time; it's vacant most of the time. It's full of classrooms; it has a small gymnasium; and it has an underground range that hasn't been used in a number of years - and, no question about it, it would probably take an enormous amount of money to bring that up to today's standards, but when I talked to the assistant commissioner in Moncton, when I talked to Minister Day, and I talked about the assets they have, assets that the province has in the community college, the fact that today, no, not today because I don't think it's going on right now, the federal government has been doing their core training at the community centre I just talked to you about a minute ago that the town is very proud of - the federal government has been using the community centre to do core training because there's nowhere else to do it.

Is there an opportunity there? Sure there is, for training. There's an opportunity for some sort of a joint program, joint services arrangement - and I meant to bring it again with me today, and I've got it in my car - the agreement that we signed, I believe in 2006. Mr. Honsberger would have arranged that with the federal government, which allowed us to explore different things.

One thing that was mentioned to me was - and, again, there are other people in your department a lot more knowledgeable than I am - the federal government, one thing they raised when we had discussions with them, Mr. Honsberger did, that when federal inmates are brought back on nights or weekends, federally they apparently don't have the administrative people in place to process inmates. One thing they raised - I didn't - would there be a possibility of retaining so many beds - just like they do with the DVA in long-term care - could they possibly have an opportunity to have so many beds set aside in a new facility next to the federal institution where they could pay the province a per diem every day to house those inmates, and then have our people either process them or hold them and process them at the end of the weekend or whatever the time may be?

Again, Mr. Minister, I have not, until today, seen anything at all that shows that you've exhausted every opportunity to follow through on a commitment that we made, the government made, Premier MacDonald made - and that today's Premier said he would do. No one has come forward to say we looked at that, here's who we met with, here's what we discussed, here's the financial side of it - to this date, there has been none of that.

Now on the geothermal side, if you could think about this - what actually was Springhill's history, which was the coal mines, I believe could turn out to be its future. We probably have 12 or 14 facilities and businesses in Springhill today that are taking advantage of that geothermal, and the results are phenomenal. Ropak, for example, I think it is an 80,000- square-foot building, 40 per cent savings. The community centre that has been built, the new one, is taking advantage of that - I think it is one of, or it is the only one in North America that has the type of ice-cube machine that they're using there now. So the past of the community could be the future - this was going to be the future of that community.

So what you've done, what the government has done, the government has taken, again - not the government's fault past, but certainly it is this time - an opportunity for the community to finally move forward, to see something positive that could reflect the history and the heritage of the community, that could actually be used as something that was going to springboard into the future.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to finish here in a moment and let the minister respond, because I know he's quite anxious to. That's it for now and I'll relinquish the rest of my time because I know the minister has made some notes, which I appreciate, and I see he wants to respond, so thank you very much.

MR. LANDRY: Thank you member for Cumberland South. I want to first start off with an apology, that if, the other day in my comments when I said that it was over, it felt insensitive to you, that was not my intent. My intent is that it's time to move on and I didn't mean it in a derogatory manner or a disrespectful manner. I do mean though to ensure that I do respect all people in the House, and my journey through here to my experience now is there is a lot to learn and I'll probably make a number of errors over the time, but hopefully I learn from them.

As a government, we have to make tough decisions, and I want to assure the people of Cumberland South, and Cumberland overall, that the decision to move the facility from that area had nothing to do with the politics - it had to do with building one facility versus two and the overall costs associated with that, so that all taxpayers in Nova Scotia would benefit.

We have to make decisions, I believe, in the environment that we're in today that benefit the maximum of society and the community as a whole. I, too, value the Office of the Attorney General and know that it is different from the Department of Justice and as an MLA, and that there's a certain set of rules and decorum and mannerisms that need to be used. At no time sitting in that office do I want to be disrespectful to anyone. I do know that my staff have respect for you; I have never heard from anyone that they didn't respect you or value your contribution.

I do want to say on the arena, I knew about that story - and I do compliment your hockey team, though, because they keep beating Trenton every year, so maybe next year they'll give them a beating, but your team has done very well and it shows the spirit of the community and the tenacity because they do play as if they're on the edge in every game and every shift is the last shift, and I respect that. As a matter of fact, when I saw them playing I asked, does Murray Scott coach this team or have something to do with it? These guys don't seem to want to leave the puck alone, it's almost like yourself.

All joking aside, I want to come back to my point about my comment of saying it is over. I heard the comments you said to me before about the community and I've had the opportunity to read on the disaster and some of the things, especially back in the mine disaster of the late 1950s, and it was very moving.

I want to talk on the federal government. As of April 6^th our department has met with the Atlantic Police Academy, with federal officials within Corrections, that's ongoing, that was going from the time - and I think there's some confusion as to how we see that issue. Yes, I made comment that there's no written documentation there, and I did make a statement that our department is looking at that. Anything we could have done in Cumberland, we can do wherever the facility is being built.

One of the initial stages of getting at this issue was the conflict originally between Amherst and Springhill over the facility, and that said I really needed to look at this because there wasn't harmony in the community, we didn't have a consensus. I remember that when I first got in the office and said I want to read up and learn more, and so I took an interest very quickly in this issue and then realized from an overall government perspective that our needs within Corrections weren't going to be met and that we didn't have the funding to build two independent facilities. So I hope that sheds some light on that journey there.

You talk about the future of your community - and I want to be careful how I make my next statement because I'm not wanting to be disrespectful - and you're saying that the future of the community is dependent on this government and that we have taken that hope away. Well, the sky isn't falling; I'm very optimistic and very positive. Had I been in government for 12 years, maybe there would have been something different there, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. The situation I'm faced with - I haven't got 12 months in, and I've made some decisions.

I want to assure you and assure your community that at no time in this decision making was it as a backlash, as a disrespect, it had to do more and totally with what I believe is in the best interest of the taxpayer and the Province of Nova Scotia as a whole. No matter what decisions - and you did point out, tough decisions have an impact one way or the other - and if there was any way that I could have appeased your interest and that need of the community in this process, I would have.

I know that as an MLA you worked hard, you got the sewage, the water, the community centre - and I do compliment on that community centre, to get that done, because I know what it takes to try to raise pennies. I remember being a young fellow in Trenton, collecting pop bottles and having events go on and we'd put out money from our piggy banks with a group that we, as kids, got together with an older boy from the community, that we were going to get an arena. Well, eventually that dream came true - so pennies count, and communities coming together count.

I liked my trip down to Springhill - of course, it wasn't my first time there and I enjoyed my visit with you. I will go back there and I will meet with the people sometime down the road. There are a number of communities I have to go to, but I'm looking forward to going back there. Hopefully, as a government, we'll have a good news story that really helps further the community, whether it's Surrette Battery, whether it's the community college, whether it's some further relationships with the federal institution there, whether it's utilizing some other assets that the community has, I'm committed to supporting that within your community.

So I don't want to leave my questioning today with leaving you feeling in any way that I showed disrespect to you or to your community. What I did say, the other day, and I will change the words around, is that this decision has been made, I moved on from that. I'm not insensitive, or not aware of your concern, and the fact that your community has put forward a number of names, comments and feelings. One of the dangers I see in that, though, if you get caught in continually looking at the negative and trying to find fault and trying to build on that, as I mentioned the other day, a self-fulfilling prophecy is that if you continually say the sky is falling, or bad things are happening, bad things will happen.

So I want to try to look at how do we turn this situation, and how do we work together, to make it positive. I'm hoping - in fact I was sitting, you know, when you may have raised it today, I didn't have to say, I wonder if he's going to put the list forward, I knew that was coming. But as you did that, I couldn't help but think of how do we move forward? How do we bring success to the community? How do we work together and go on that journey, because the more successful Springhill is, the more successful Nova Scotia will be and, remember, the decision I made in regard to the jail was based on that. I hope that you take that in that vein and I do look forward to working with you on something in the future to improve the stability of your community.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I guess just as a point of interest, because it just struck me when you said about Amherst, there was never a chance that a new correctional facility would ever be built in Amherst. There was never a chance, because when you think about it, the last thing a government would do to a new member would be to move a facility out of the community. So it kind of supports what I've said all along, since I've been in the department, and said all along at Cabinet, that there was never an opportunity for that facility to be built in Amherst, because you couldn't justify it.

[2:45 p.m.]

You just said a minute ago that you can take advantage of the federal initiatives and programs, whatever, regardless of where you build it. Well, I don't agree with that and I'll tell you why. How could you have a sharing of kitchen services in two buildings co-located side by side within walking distance, really, of each other? You could share the kitchen services, I think the meals would be a little cold when they come from Pictou, or whatever, unless they're frozen dinners now, you know. (Interruption) No, I think I heard you say that but I'll look. I can dig some documents out here that mention New Glasgow, I think back in early July, 24^th, or July 9^th, I think it was. Anyway, I can get those out for you, maybe you haven't seen those.

Maintenance, for example, how could you have a facility outside of Cumberland County - and I'll give you that - and the federal one in Springhill, how could you share maintenance services? How could you have a laundry in a different county and share the service? You could do it because it's done with hospitals, but with a tremendous cost for transportation, but if they co-locate. Now, I'm not saying the province would provide it or the federal government would provide it. One would have to purchase it from the other and I know there are some union issues there. I knew that, I told people up home, there are union issues here, that's going to mean that the numbers may not be what they could be somewhere else, but what it means is efficiencies.

So it means the federal government maybe has an opportunity to save money; maybe they contracted the province to do all the laundry; maybe both of you, jointly, together, contract together. I go back to where I was originally, Mr. Minister, and I was really - you've been taking a lot of notes and I thought I was going to hear something from you. (Interruption) Well, I'm sorry, I did hear something from you, it wasn't what I wanted to hear. What I meant to say, I thought you were going to tell me how you did explore those opportunities and I thought you would say I'm going to show you where we looked at kitchen facilities, for example, and what the cost is in Springhill, what the cost will be in the new one that we're going to build. I thought you were going to show me how it wouldn't work. I thought you were going to say we looked at geothermal energy from Springhill using mine water. We've had the engineers - I had the engineers when I was in Transportation, I had them come to Springhill to look - the community centre I talked about, has an excess flow of geothermal water. They are dumping energy out and they're trying to find a way to utilize that.

I had engineers go up to see if they could pump it under the street, right across the street into the community college. Anyway, the engineers, for all kinds of reasons, the cost was way beyond what the savings would be, it would take a number of years to recoup it.

I thought you were going to say to me no, no, listen, I'll sit down and show you where we've brought in engineers, we've looked at buildings that size, we looked at the potential savings, the cost. I thought you were going to say I'll show you all that and I'll show you where what you were suggesting wouldn't work. That's what I expected to hear.

That's what I expected. To be honest with you, Mr. Minister, that's what I expected to hear all along, ever since June I thought, they're probably going to build a case here that I'll probably have a very difficult time to argue against. Somebody is going to say come on down, now we want to show you where you were wrong. But you know what? No one has done that.

I will tell you this, staff at the Public Safety office in Ottawa told us there was a meeting in September - I've got it written down somewhere - September 24^th I think it is, 2009. They say they were quite surprised the correctional issue, the things I've talked about, were never raised. Now I would have thought, minister, at least you yourself would have said, you know what? I'm going to show this guy he doesn't know what he's talking about - me - and I'm going to talk to the federal minister, I'm going to talk to his staff or the deputy, I'm going to Moncton and meet with the assistant - I want them to tell me this is not possible. Then you come back and tell me and how could I argue with that? I couldn't argue with that.

If you could prove to me on paper that what I've said all along won't work, it's pretty hard for me to argue against that. I mean I still will but still, you'd have a good case to say to me those things that you suggested are not possible.

I'd like to know who the engineers were that you hired to look at geothermal Springhill using mine water, who did all the comparison of all the facilities of Springhill right now that are using, taking the availability of new technology and how that would compare to traditional use of oil or electricity or whatever else would normally be used. Or, I would like to see the actual documentation of that consideration, I guess, of programs or services or training. Did anybody ask the federal government? The federal government, they're having a difficult time for their CORE programs. Did anybody say to the federal government, if we could provide space to CORE training, will you buy it from us? To me it is a pretty simple question. If they say no, well so much for that.

Did anybody say to them, you know considering there are union issues here, could we sell you a service, i.e. kitchen, or can you sell it to us, what is the cost per meal? How much does it cost a year? What is it going to cost the few facility per year?

So with all due respect, and I mean that, you have to understand, and you're right, this wasn't going to be the end of Springhill's - the difficult challenges that Springhill has faced, this wasn't going to end with this being built there. Do you know what was going to happen if, and I said this to the mayor and he and I talked about it a lot, if five people - now down here if you build five homes, and they probably have five built today by the time we came in here and left, every time I drive into Halifax I'm amazed at the developments going on. It is great and we need it in our capital city. There's no question that Nova Scotia's economy is driven by what happens in HRM. We all appreciate that and even they may not think it out in the rural areas but we do, I know I certainly do.

If this correctional facility had led to five homes, and keep in mind what the NDP's stand was during the campaign about the better deal for families and about support of rural Nova Scotia. I heard that quite a few times and I kind of really thought it was great. But if five people got a job or transferred in or transferred from the federal government or wherever, got a new job in a new facility, if five homes are built in Springhill, do you know the impact that would have on the Town of Springhill, the impact it has on the tax base for a community that is having a difficult time? The impact that it has on the school system if it was 10 more kids?

These small communities, there's many, many more Springhills throughout Nova Scotia and I understand that but I don't think there are many that have the history and the type of heritage that Springhill does, I really believe that. A lot of it is related to mining, some of it is and some of it isn't.

So it wasn't the fact that a correctional facility is going to be built in Springhill and then Springhill say phew, that's good, that's over with, we got that and now we're all set forever. That wasn't the idea at all. The idea was - the mayor of Amherst, we talked one day and one of the staff were there and they said you know when we look at what the actual benefit for the town is, wherever this is built, there's not a huge, huge benefit for the community that actually gets the building.

I said it's way more than that, it's the building, it's the jobs, it's all that as well but it's the whole attitude of a community that finally would look at life a little more positively in the future.

Anyway, minister, I don't know if you have any more comments before I finish my time, I'm almost done, but the opportunity for the citizens and for those who work there, who potentially could work there is one thing. The whole thought of an attitude change for the community as a result of this history is tremendous as well. There are communities, I've heard already, and you know I just stay out of this because I've heard already there's some communities that say we don't want a correctional facility in our midst. There are communities that don't have a correctional facility and don't really want one.

If you look across the country, traditionally, particularly federal institutions, wherever they place a federal institution that usually ends up being a correctional community, that's usually as far as a lot of the development goes. Now Truro is a good exception because Nova is a different type of a setting and it's also certainly a modern type and I would hope that the attitudes towards that would have changed, but there was never any question of that around Springhill.

I know there are other communities, I understand, I've read your comments, there are lots of other communities that put forth their case in regard to having in their midst a correctional facility and I can appreciate that, I really can. Everyone is trying to survive in this world today.

Mr. Minister, I'll just end off by saying that - I guess I'm almost done - five minutes? Anyway, I made a few notes about the things you said but I'll leave it at that. Anyway, I heard what you said the other day and I hear you today.

There is something I would like you to give some consideration to. You said it today and you said it again the other day, you know about working together and other opportunities. Well I'd like to hear what your suggestions are. Remember what I said again, it is fine to say that and it's great to say oh, you know, look on the bright side of things. That's wonderful but if you live it every day, if you live through this, if you live through the cross-border shopping that we've had a lot of debates in the House over, if you look at businesses of gas stations - I know another convenience that is closing. Then, on top of all that, we're going to get another rise in our taxes, HST, which is going to drive more people across the border. It is pretty hard for people to say oh well, that's got to happen but we're going to move on and we're going to remain positive.

You have to understand that when you get hit several times, it is pretty hard not to get knocked down. I will say, minister, that no one will ever convince me, and many other people feel the same way, no one will ever convince me that that was not a legitimate commitment of the community, with the expenditure of funds, the amount of resources spent, and I know there are those in one department who would actually say, I'll bet there are people who would say that project was 99 per cent on its way to actually moving equipment. So minister, no one will ever convince me that a commitment wasn't made to a community, nor convince me that a lot of resources were spent by this province to make that happen. No one will ever convince me that people in Nova Scotia know what they heard, and that was if a commitment was made to a community, if they have made a commitment to a community, then we all honour it.

I think you may not want to agree to this but, as a police officer, I know you would agree that when you give your word - and that's why I notice when you answer your questions, even here, you answer them the same as we both would, in a different setting. You answer what you are asked, normally. To me that says a lot. It means a lot to our young people, it means a lot to the community I represent and whatever you can do to help me and my communities in Cumberland South, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

MR. LANDRY: Thank you very much. Your word is your word, I agree and I think there's opportunity there. To suggest because we're in government that we possess all the answers or all the suggestions or decisions can come one way, no I didn't get into government believing that for a minute and I don't believe in that. If you come forward with something and we can work together on it, I look forward to that.

This decision, and I will reiterate and I'm not going to try and convince you because I don't think I'm going to be in this House long enough to be able to accomplish that, to convince you on the decision so I don't have that many years to be here. However, I hope to make them productive.

I'd like to comment on a few things, though. The cross-border shopping issue and all that, that's not something new, I understand, I hear you and I understand the politics of it, from your set of eyes, from the Party that you represent, of how you see the world and I understand the spin in the House to attack, to attack, but there are some things and at some points that you really need to change and look at the positive and move forward in a collaborative manner. If we are asking people in the community to work together, I'm putting the challenge out to you that we'll work together with you.

I stand by my decision, my conscience is clear on it, as I know that yours is from your perspective. As I say, we've been here 10 months, give us 10 years and you might have a couple of subdivisions in your neighbourhood. Anyway, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired for questioning from the Progressive Conservative caucus.

The honourable member for Clare.

HON. WAYNE GAUDET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next hour, the Liberal hour, we will be sharing our time with our honourable colleague, the member for Dartmouth North. He will begin. Unfortunately, our colleague, the member for Richmond, had to go home, he is not feeling well so we had to make some last-minute changes. I understand my colleague, the member for Halifax Clayton Park will be joining us very shortly, so I will pass the floor over to our honourable colleague from Dartmouth North. (Interruption)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we will take a five minute break.

[3:00 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[3:11 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. We are now going to call the subcommittee back to order.

The honourable member for Dartmouth North.

MR. TREVOR ZINCK: Mr. Chairman, I'll take the opportunity again to thank the Liberal caucus and the member for Clare for sharing his time. I believe I'm going to go for about 25 minutes so if I get close let me know.

I'm going to continue on kind of in relation to how I left off, in and around youth crime. The program that I talked about earlier in the Dartmouth family of schools, it's called the SchoolsPlus Program. Like I said, they have outreach workers that when a child is identified as having problems in the school for whatever reason, the outreach worker will go visit the family, find out what some of the difficulties are, some of the struggles are, subsequent to that, link them up with services, all in hopes of allowing that child to come back into the education system and have the proper experience that they deserve.

I want to talk about one particular situation that came about. Actually it was before last year's election but it's a situation that we hear and have heard of all too often. Last April I took the opportunity to go on vacation before the election, take the wife away and when I came back, the very first case I came into on Monday morning was a situation where a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old had stolen a vehicle, taken a joy ride, damaged several police vehicles. The 14-year-old who was being charged, who actually stole the vehicle and drove the vehicle, had at one point in his young life, at the age of 12, had been in the care of the province, in the child welfare system - mom had left the family, dad had some addiction issues that he had sought help for, so the province had actually taken this child into care.

While in care, through that period of time, the young fellow - when it became known to the public after the stolen car incident - had 75 charges at that point against him at the age of 14. You know, you go into a situation like this and your community is outraged, they want to know why. The individual's father at that point actually publicly came out and said, I can't care for this child, he has been damaged, it's beyond my control. Of course public outrage went against the parent.

The bigger question that my community had, and a lot of seniors obviously in the community, was centred around the fact that how does an individual, at that young an age, amass so many charges and then somehow go undetected and once again reoffends? I'm wondering if you can educate me to what your theory might be as to how that could happen.

[3:15 p.m.]

MR. LANDRY: I have lots of theories. Do you mean respect to youth and how you deal with . . .

MR. ZINCK: Well, the basic question that I received from the community was, how does a young person at the age of 14 amass 75 charges and still reoffend? At what point in the system does the system say enough is enough? Is it one, two, three, four? This young person at the age of 14 had 75 charges against him. The question the community has is, how bad does it have to get before somebody intervenes?

MR. LANDRY: Well you know you raise an excellent question and I think it goes back to some of the things we've talked about before; 75 charges, I doubt the kid is even a criminal. Some of the things he might have done are criminal but without addressing his overall social structure and family contribution of how he's being dealt with, I'm not sure the justice system is where that person ought to be.

If they happen to be a sociopath, if that's their genetic makeup, then that's a whole different issue, but if it's a kid who is crying out for help, if the community is not going to invest in its youth, then they have a problem.

One of the things, and I don't want to be prejudging your community, is that I think one of the solutions is to try and create some leadership, more leadership - not that there's not some there now, but to broaden the leadership structure within the community to address the overall problems.

I don't see this issue as an issue with one child because if he is the only child who is in the community who has that problem, then you don't have a lot to clean up, but if it's a symptom of many similar events in the community, then the community has a huge problem. The question is, whose responsibility is it? I think it's not a single responsibility, it's everyone's responsibility. It's even the 14-year-old's responsibility, more than anyone else, the 14-year-old is old enough to know right from wrong. Are there learning deficiencies? Are there barriers to that child learning? What steps are being put in there? Did anybody tell them that they care?

I mean, to ask me here tonight, I spent a lifetime dealing with wayward children in distress, children who were just programmed to be a criminal and that's the lifestyle they wanted to have, they don't want to conform to any rules and it really doesn't matter what interventions we do, there are people like that in the system. That's why we have jails and eventually that's where they end up and the sooner we get them there and get them off the street and make the community safer.

We also like to look and say that we have hope for all children. In principle that's true, we do. It's how you make the connection with the person but the first that that's got to touch was that the child has to make the connection with what do they want and what do they need to survive? If they're only going to crime and they don't have options, then what are they going to do for themselves, how do you get there? Well, where are their parents? Where are the community groups? I think there's lots of structure there.

Once again, I caution you as an MLA, and not that I should be giving much advice to anyone as an MLA, being 10 months in the seat, and of course you being more senior but a caution maybe from more experience from my other life, that if we get too involved in our jobs with the individual cases without recruiting people from the community, we will never really achieve the things we want to achieve. So it's a matter of building a team in the community and getting that leadership. I see my role as a facilitator.

I do see in your role, though, that in your personality and from what I'm hearing and observe that you're a hands-on person and I respect that, but I see more value in bringing people together who have the skills. Have you talked to the teachers? Have you talked to the parents? Have you talked to the local police officer? You have a community officer, you have a school liaison. Has somebody actually just sat down with the kid and had a Coca-Cola or a pizza with the kid and just asked him where they want to go, what they want to do, how they see their world? If there's no hope in their world, how do they see getting hope?

I'll bet you that nobody has really sat down and asked that individual. In most cases the foundations of mediation are simple, ask someone what they want, then start to build a foundation of how to achieve that and who has the part in it.

I still go back that if we don't, as a province, and I had the opportunity and you had the opportunity, I think you might have been there, maybe you weren't, when Dr. Hamm came in, the previous Premier of the province, and he spoke very passionately - I know Dr. Hamm quite well - about the youth and early intervention. I think if we can move our resources into that area to expand our social network, that we will reduce those 14-year-old cases. At 14 years old, that person has a choice to make. Somebody has to look them straight in the eye and say look, I'll work with you but what do you want and what are you going to do about it? I can talk for an hour on this but I think I've said enough on that issue.

MR. ZINCK: Mr. Minister, I heard a couple of good things in there that I definitely agree with. The individual, and I guess that's always a question I had, at some point there are many resources that are at any one point wrapped around the individual but has anyone actually asked that individual where they want to be, what their role in this is? That's a conversation I can tell you I have every day with every constituent who comes into my office. We all play a role in the direction our lives are going in. Once we admit that, we can proceed further.

I will also tell you that in my role as an MLA, yes, there's no question I am hands-on but I'll also make this point, I've always told my constituents in my community that as an MLA, I'm more of a navigator and a negotiator. When people come to me they have no sense of direction; by the time they leave my office, they know exactly where they're going. That's a huge, huge important piece.

The other part of that is I've spent the last four years in my role as an MLA, and your deputy knows this well because in my first year she was the Deputy Minister of Community Services, I have the utmost respect for the resources that exist currently and the civil service, who have assisted me in finding solutions to the problems that some of my constituents experience and in no way - I just want you to be clear on this - as far as a negotiator, what I do and what I've done and the successes I've achieved on behalf of individuals in my community has only come by bringing people around the table. That's important because that way the individual knows who is all in play and all those organizations that are trying to wrap around services know exactly what level they're on.

The important piece in this particular case and one that last week was in the media as well is that at the age of 12 this individual was actually in the care of the province and that's when some of the issues started. There's a case that just went before the courts again last week around a 17-year-old from Truro who was in the Dartmouth area and had stabbed an individual for their iPod, I believe. With that individual was another young child who had been in the care of the province for a number of years and they had found themselves again in trouble.

What I want to lead up to is the issue around the young offenders. When we send young offenders off to Waterville - and I can tell you, for a lot of individuals it's a great place to go, it's three square meals a day, they have exercise resources. Some of these kids find themselves either in care, in group homes, or living with families that aren't able or capable of taking care of them for whatever reason. They end up in Waterville and it's a comfort level but it's when they come out. So when they go into Waterville maybe they're in care of the province or maybe their family is dealing with Community Services but they go into the justice system once they get into Waterville.

Can you tell me what level of communication - if the individual is in the Department of Community Services, they get into trouble with the law, they go into Waterville, what kind of dialogue would take place between Justice and the Department of Community Services? I know what I've heard over the years is that once they are in the justice system, well it's broken off, but eventually that individual comes back out into society, the same situation, socially, that they came out of and they're back into the hands of Community Services.

Before you give me the reply, I just want to say very strongly that I currently represent Dartmouth North but I have owned businesses and resided in the Spryfield area, the Bayers Road area, I grew up and lived in the Peggy's Cove-West Dover area, St. Margaret's Bay and I lived in Sackville and youth crime is not merely a problem for marginalized, impoverished pockets of communities, it crosses over all boundaries.

I believe you honestly know that and point in case is in my previous role as the former president of a residents' association before the political world, I had the opportunity to bring Deputy Chief McNeil to a residents meeting to talk about youth crime. I applauded him for the courage that he showed in front of many people, filled the room, in talking directly about the issues he had with his daughter, so I just want to make that point, I don't raise these issues because of the effect that it has directly on my community because it's happening everywhere.

MR. LANDRY: How much time do we have?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We have until 4:10 p.m., with the Liberal caucus sharing time with the Independent member.

MR. LANDRY: Okay, so if I talked until 4:10 p.m. - no, just kidding, I have a short answer.

If I'm understanding your question clearly, there's a number of things that are occurring between Community Services and Justice, I mean dealing with youth who are coming out of a facility such as that. As a child, they're not left on their own, they have to have care so there's care there.

One of the things that being in an institution and being part of that process is that the child is, in a lot of cases, not feeling loved or appreciated or respected or valued and, no different than us as adults, I mean if children don't have that care, they don't grow healthy so there's a multitude of reasons, whether it's do they feel secure, do they feel valued, what is the purpose in life, where is their focus? We can talk for hours on that. There are processes in place and we can't cure every problem that's out there. We have to make the effort to try and make sure that our systems give everyone an opportunity. I know from Justice that since coming in - I have to be careful how I say this - I'm a big proponent of crime prevention, and the people I have the pleasure to work with within Justice, whether it is Restorative Justice Programs, whether it is crime prevention with Lighthouses or the one-offs or the overall working with the minority communities or other disadvantaged groups is that we have a very compassionate, caring Public Service and people who I am glad to partner with who are committed to that.

The problem in some cases may be outside of our personal reach where we actually touch the people and we don't feel maybe the emotion of somebody who is on the front line but I think the majority of people, in some cases, some of us are grandparents, some of us are parents and some of us are neighbours and friends and so on, are very concerned for the community. So there's no doubt in my mind that our staff and our department is committed. When I have the pleasure to talk to people here in the House, there's not a member here who isn't committed to what you're asking or what you're saying.

We can champion the children from Waterville, I think they've got a good facility there, they've got good services and it boils down in a lot of cases, especially when they're 14, if they're in that institution, they know that they have to make choices and in a lot of cases somebody is just not asking them what are you going to do with your life or what would you like to do. Once they get that figured out, then how do we go about supporting that?

You gave the example earlier about adults. I don't have a lot of sympathy for adults coming out of jail and saying what are you going to do for me to help me? Well, you get a job, and you're kind enough to find and have the opportunity to help some people get a job and maybe we could do more work in finding areas or industries where they will take people who are in that transition in life.

[3:30 p.m.]

One of the best things I think, though, is the early education and development. The other thing is to get rid of our deficit, make us a healthier province, more secure, create more jobs, create opportunity. If we're able to do that, we'll have more successes. The more people we can get off social assistance and who can earn a living that is an appropriate living standard for themselves, it saves the taxpayer and it adds to their own personal life and well-being.

There are many people in social services and I'm glad, as a province, that we're caring and that we're able to support people but there are some within the system who we need to provide opportunities for and when they get off they can earn a living and make it a stronger system. We have to find ways to reduce our costs and that is not at the expense of a child but everybody has to do their part.

I am confident in our system that we have with Waterville, our crime prevention programs that we're doing and going out in your community. I encourage you, as an MLA for Dartmouth North, that you look at some of the programs we have and if you need assistance, we can even hook you up with someone within Justice or you go through my Executive Assistant, Linda Skinner, and she will find someone to assist in putting in an application for - I'm not saying you're going to get it, you go through the process like everyone else but if they come up with the right notion or ideas, we'll do that.

As long as it is engaging the youth, and I see that Mr. Gosse is in the room, he's a good example of where a program that he has been involved with - I had the pleasure to be in Whitney Pier the other day and the energy and excitement of all these children, ranging from a young age group up to teenagers. I walked into that room and the energy and the excitement and what they have done there, it's good to sit down and talk with Mr. Gosse and just see the successes they have had with the facility, and then to talk to the police chief there, Myles Burke, and how the police department reduced their cost in calls and damage in the community. I think if you're having crime in your area - and it doesn't have to be children, it can be adults - and create something as fine as what they have there, so we invested in that program in the Pier and that was a good investment. Why can't we do that in Dartmouth North - get the people together, talk there.

I, as a minister, am not going to get hands-on and go down there and start to do that work, I'd be counterproductive. You, as an MLA, in the initial parts I would encourage you to get started in that event but to get others in the community to take that leadership, find someone in there who is a Gordie Gosse and can get that thing off the ground.

MR. ZINCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, over the past four years I have taken the opportunity to talk to Mr. Gosse and I know exactly what you are talking about. Obviously by the support he has in his community, he has done some good work.

The key thing for me here is, again, a lot of times we hear about these kids who get in trouble with the law, they are in the care of the province either at some point or currently. That's something that troubles me.

Before I end off, I want to ask you a question about maintenance enforcement. I had an opportunity last year to have a visit to my office from somebody from Maintenance Enforcement. I wish I could remember her name because she was so helpful. She left the department, she was retiring. She had been the person who coordinated and tried to rein in some of the outstanding issues there. She had done a really good job at coming into my office and giving me a better understanding of about how the program works.

I can't recall, and I apologize for this, but I can't recall the piece of legislation that was passed by the House, I think over a year ago. I believe it was centred around the criminal court judges being allowed to hear family court cases. Probably the biggest issue around maintenance enforcement that I hear is when there's a payer who has transitioned from jobs, when they've gone from having a court order and then maybe two or three years down the road maybe they're no longer in the same employment and they need their order changed. The problem that I see and that I've heard is the time it takes to get in front of a judge. What happens is you have two frustrated parties; the individual who was assessed at a previous place of employment and, unfortunately, usually the mother of the child that isn't in receipt of those monies.

Can you give me any sort of update as to that process, if you've seen some changes in the courts, as far as getting in front of the judges?

MR. LANDRY: I'm really glad you asked that question if there's ambiguity there because we appoint judges now in the court to deal with both the family and the provincial court. We're looking for people who have the skills and ability to do that. I'd like to think that the appointments we made last year fall in that vein.

Maintenance enforcement is an important issue to me. I just want to put a point out there because I see Ms. Whalen sitting there next to you, so I don't forget. This is not gender-based, although the predominant part of maintenance enforcement affects women disproportionately but it is equal for both sides. I didn't mention that the other day and I just want to put clarity because there was some discussion that it was a one-way, and it's joint. Not only is it - it affects the family and the structure and that causes a dysfunction in the community as a whole. It goes back to the other questions that you have asked, if there's not stability.

You've got to remember, though, that the parties are separated because they didn't get along in the first place, so there is conflict. I think that is the root of some of the problems, how do we mediate or resolve that? One of the things we can do is start to teach skills in schools on how to resolve problems through dialogue and so on like that.

I'm very satisfied with the direction we're going and, as a province of this size, to have two separate courts, I'd rather have a mental health court and expand that and appoint judges and so on who have the skills to deal with the family issues. I'd rather take some of the savings that we may make in the overall process and put it into dealing with domestic violence. That's an area of concern.

I have a lot of thoughts and emotions around the issue of social justice, dealing especially with poverty, with domestic violence, it's an issue. As a former police officer, I think for most police officers it's probably one of the most vulnerable moments in their day-to-day function, when they get called to a family dispute or those conflict situations because the emotion around those and the volatility is very high and the chance for injury or harm is high as well, so there's a lot of work to do in those areas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Member, I just want to advise you, if you're sharing time equally, you have about two minutes remaining for the half hour mark.

MR. ZINCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I thank the minister for his comments. If I do run over my time, I do have the permission of the member for Halifax Clayton Park.

I'll just end off by saying a couple of things, Mr. Minister. I agree with you, I think the province has made a solid effort in trying to rein in some of the issues over the past number of years around maintenance enforcement. As a result, my caseload addressing those issues has definitely gone down. I've seen a definite decrease so I think that's a good sign. For that individual to come in and do that work, it was much needed and I think she went away in retirement knowing that she did a good job there.

I just want to end, Mr. Chairman, by reading into the record, and I can table this document. I had the opportunity to debate the Community Services budget with the minister and I read this into the record as well. This is an important piece for me for the greater social justice community. It was a letter that came from Pamela Harrison on February 5^th directly to Premier Darrell Dexter.

Just to give you some background, Pamela was a long-time member, held key positions in the Party. I had actually, along with Pamela last year during the election, received an award from Elizabeth Fry, a Holly House Heroes Award. It was at that time, just shortly after, that Pamela called me up personally and said, you know I'm really pleased to see that our NDP Party is putting the transition funding as part of their platform.

In the Fall we went and saw that the NDP had actually moved that up from a second year agenda to the first year agenda, $500,000 coming to the transition homes in this budget. But somewhere along the way something happened. You know I heard the response from the Minister of Community Services and if you want to take time to respond, you can. I know the time has to go over to the member for Halifax Clayton Park but I just want to read this in because there is a strong message in it and I think it is important that people hear this. I'm just going to read two paragraphs. The first paragraph goes:

"I believed that the party's stated vision of 'a better deal for today's families' actually included those with mental health concerns, lesser ability in the areas of both physical and mental health, single moms and their children, the homeless and women experiencing violence and abuse in their lives. Wrong again . . . and how foolish I feel, to have imagined that the hundreds of resolutions passed at provincial council were actually more than an exercise in the creation of 'NDP Believers.'"

Here is the most important piece, and we talked about the budgets and being fiscally responsible and getting back to balance, here is the most important piece that hit home with me, Ms. Harrison goes on to say:

"Let me be clear. I am not talking about money. I am referring to a deliberate decision to keep those of us who work (both voluntarily and for pay) in the social justice community, from experiencing a different kind of process, a process whereby up front clear communication is the rule, not the exception, and collaboration and negotiation are the norm. You promised this, again and again and again, and you did not deliver."

I'll just end off by that, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to thank the Liberal caucus for allowing me this time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you and, honourable minister, a response to that?

MR. LANDRY: Thank you for sharing that with me, member for Dartmouth North. I want to comment on that, though. It's unfortunate that some people feel that with a change in government, the world changes overnight.

I'm very honoured and pleased to be part and party to starting to put in a structure and a foundation to deal with the very issues she is talking about in a very collaborative manner, whether it is dealing with the budget and going across the province and consulting with people, whether it is our ministers and the accessibility to them and to our members in the caucus and the support and direct contact with the members in their riding in bringing back ideas. If she felt that voluntarily giving time, and wants collaboration, we're all about that and giving. I would hope that she reflects over time with looking at our budget and what we had to work with and how compassionate we're trying to be with the very limited opportunity budget-wise.

I think anyone can come in here and spend whatever they want but we're living in a delusional world if anyone thinks we can spend, spend, spend, without addressing the financial situation that we're in.

I do know that the Opposition played very well, used that as a political opportunity and I see that you put it out here today to use that to say hey look, you're not doing enough. Well yes, there's never enough that we could do, we'd like to do more but I think we're putting together a structure and a foundation and an approach to address these issues in a very concrete way.

The first thing is to get rid of the deficit that we have. That debt is killing us and once we are able to get that under control, then we have more assets in which to invest and it is only through that.

Anyway, not that I want to dwell on any individual, I think we are a Party of vision and that it's a better deal for today's families and I'm convinced on that and we're working directly towards that end. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Thank you very much. I'm happy to rejoin the estimates today and have a few more questions around issues that affect the Justice Department or in which you have influence and opportunity to make changes.

[3:45 p.m.]

I would like to start in with the violence against women and I guess take issue with you on some of the terms that we use. I know you didn't say it specifically there but you wanted to make the point around maintenance enforcement that men are also, I guess, recipients of maintenance enforcement from their spouses. I think the figure is 96 per cent of your cases at maintenance enforcement are women. I really take exception when we try to water down women's issues by saying they are family issues or changing the vocabulary around this. I think we all understand that there are a few exceptions to the rule, that occasionally the shoe is on the other foot and that there is a father who is taking the time to raise his children or a mother who has walked out on a family and the father holds down the fort and needs support, but 96 per cent of your cases are women.

I think it is important that we make sure it is in the record that the lion's share of the cases are women. The same can be said around violence against women or domestic violence, it is violence against women again in the lion's share of cases. To try and rebrand it as family violence, I think it is a disservice to the public, it's a disservice to the people who are really involved, it waters down the issue. I realize that is more around the framing of this discussion but I really don't believe that we should try and suggest that in any large number of cases women are perpetrating the violence. I think there's a small number of cases in which that is the case. The only sense in which it can be called family violence is that children and other members of the family witness it and are impacted by it. By and large, it's women who are injured and women who are killed.

I think we have to look at it square in the face and that is an unpleasant part or a nasty part of our society that we need to try and change dramatically. We're only going to change it if we call it by the right words and really try to help the people who are perpetrating the violence and the people who are the victims of those violent acts.

To go to that in particular, and perhaps you'd like to respond to that. I do want to ask you about initiatives in your department around violence against women.

MR. LANDRY: First off, I really don't want to get into an argument with you because I agree with you in principle, we're on the same page. I think it's just some clarity on how we see some of these issues. You use words, and I'll just sort of capsulate what you've said about violence against women, women's issues versus - and I just put in a bracket I'm going to talk about men-bashing because I think it's an important part of this equation, family violence, changed to use the right words. I'm a firm believer that in order to change a culture or change a behaviour you have to change the language so we agree there and the perpetrator versus the victim.

I won't debate your figures or the fact that women are on the receiving end but if we look at this just on a gender base for the solution, we're going to lose because I put in brackets, men-bashing. I've been in a number of groups and this is an important issue to me, family violence. I made a commitment to the women's centres that I would champion women's issues. I made it a point shortly after getting elected to bring the Minister of Community Services around there. I brought the Premier to the community to address some of those issues and I was a voice, one voice speaking up to put money into women's centres. It's an issue that I think we both agree.

One of the things I want to look at, especially from my experience as a police officer, that I don't want to get tied up into who is responsible for the violence as much as what we need to do to change that. I believe in expanding - and some women's groups got mad at me when I said we've got to expand services to men to deal with anger. I had to sit down - I think of this one group and they were dead against me and we had a battle and I said let's hash it out here, sit down and get dirty with the issue, let's talk.

At the end of it I was hoping that they understood that if we don't start investing in men, some of the underlying causation, because remember, these men were little boys who were probably in homes where there was victimization in there and it is a cycle of violence as much as anything and are they responsible for the behaviour that they are in today? Well they are an adult, they definitely are, but are they responsible for how they got there initially? Probably not, they are an environmental condition, what could we do differently?

I think it's very important that we start to look at different parts and it's not unlike the answer I gave to the member for Dartmouth North about investing in our children young, investing in our young mothers to make sure they get the proper nutrition. I'm starting to sound like you, though. Those are comments that I heard you say so I'm kind of giving back your own language there. I respect that and value it so don't take it the wrong way. If they had the proper nutrition, and we had a discussion on breast-feeding and how does that all play a part to deal with violence? Well down the road, if the family structure, the family in its initial stage, doesn't have a good opportunity to start, yes, we get violence down the road.

If we start to look to solve this problem by putting men in jail, we're never going to solve this problem. The thing is, we don't want men to go to jail, we don't want men to be abusers and we don't want men to be angry and violent but there's many parts that need to come into that, so we need to invest in there, the same as we need some systems in place for women who need emergency care and help and transition into an independent environment if the family structure isn't going to work, so that's critical.

You're probably not going to get much opposition from me on this issue and I look forward to working with you and our department. I put this invitation out to you last year, that if at any time you have questions or notions or ideas you'd like to put forward, then I'm open to that and bringing that in to our department.

I know there's one piece of legislation that we put forward last Fall that was your initiative, and the grants and we can manoeuvre that into where it's going to make most care because we want the violence to stop but it's a journey to get there.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. Some of the things you said I certainly do agree with. I'm not opposed to programs for men's intervention and helping men to understand the root of their problem or violence or how they deal with anger, I think that's important but I do think the women's centres and other places that can help provide women with information and with developing their skills and helping them to be financially independent, all of those things are important because it gives women the power to make other decisions when they find themselves in an unsafe situation for themselves and their children.

We do need to do a lot more. I'm glad to see more money in the women's centres budget. I know it was the first raise in, I think, about 15 years or more. Certainly I think we need to give them more, I honestly do. I think they serve not only low-income women but really I think all women can benefit from a lot of the programs they put on. In the communities where they exist, they're very much a community centre, a place that is welcoming and open to all. I think there are programs on parenting and on nutrition and on just the skills that you need for a healthy life I think are really important and they can help women find a place where they might be able to express some of their concerns about things like domestic violence and maybe get advice so I'm very big on that.

What I would like to know, the deputy minister will remember that I had a bill before the House. I'm not sure if the minister would know about this because it was about three years ago, two years ago, it was a Domestic Violence Elimination Act. I had introduced it twice, on two separate occasions and it was actually being debated under the Progressive Conservatives and was in second reading, with some amendments, we had talked about lots of amendments to it. Nevertheless, its intent was to create a community and government cross-departmental committee that would actually map out a strategy to say what are the best practices, what can we do now, what is affordable, what do we need to do down the road? It had a suggestion on a broad cross-section of groups that would be represented, including men's intervention.

That bill was receiving support until some really petty politics took place here in which I did not support something at Law Amendments Committee for the then Justice Minister. The then Justice Minister wanted to slap my hands and say, I'm not supporting your bill anymore, we're pulling the plug on it because you haven't behaved. So really it was very petty and it was a sort of tit for tat kind of attitude. Anyway, the bill didn't see the light of day, didn't go past second reading although it had some discussion in the House.

The final outcome of that was that to save face, the Department of Justice put together a committee of its own and did invite community members to serve on that committee - people like Pamela Harrison and I can't think of all of them, people from Alice Housing and people from other women's and men's groups who did serve on that. The outcome was not a strategy, the outcome was some work was done, a report was written, it was rather than coming back to the Legislature, which my bill would have done, would have had a way to bring this issue to the floor of the Legislature, report back to all members of the House so that we could actually start to measure from year to year or from one term of government to the next, how we're doing. Are the incidents of domestic violence declining? Are we having any impact? Are these programs working?

Right now it's a problem that we may talk about here twice a year, if we have budgets twice a year, or not very often. I'm unhappy about the way that went down because I wanted it to come back to the Legislature where all members could actually have a look at it. There's not a riding in this province that isn't impacted by domestic violence. I don't care if you're in a neighbourhood with a lot of wealth or you're in a neighbourhood with a lot of needs, we know it's everywhere and every member should be interested and that's why I wanted it back to the Legislature.

Now my question is very specific in our last few minutes. I know you want the floor back. What I'd like to know is what measures are you taking so that this does see the light of day and action is taken and do I see anything in this budget that will actually back up a plan? Are there line items that I can look at? I did bring my Estimates Book with me. Can we see where there's going to be a commitment to doing anything? Right now again it has disappeared into the bowels of the bureaucracy, it has gone off somewhere and members don't know. There's no way we can know but your deputy ministers meet once a month and talk about how important it is. Okay, your turn.

MR. LANDRY: You know, I love you, you've got a spunk that I like. I'm going to guarantee something to you right now, you can take this to the bank, you write that down; I don't care what the previous government did or how they dealt with you but one thing I will not do to you is hold you hostage because you brought forth and played politics and saying you vote for this and I'll vote for that. Between you and I, that will never occur.

That's the nature of the politics of yesterday, we have the chance to change it. We talk in here about all our concerns for everybody else outside but we're still stabbing each other in here, one thing over another. Hopefully we'll change the language in here and change the culture so we're not doing that.

Let me just talk. Now I'm going to give kudos back to my predecessor, Mr. Clarke, and to the previous government. They put forth a committee that basically was the same as the legislation concerns that you put forward. I understand the politics, one Party, well, we won't give it to them - maybe in some ways we all do it but hopefully we'll change that and we'll work, but between you and me, that's not going to happen, I'll guarantee that.

There were over 100 recommendations put forward and we have a full-time person working to help with the implementation of that. In the Throne Speech, the first one that I sat in here and heard and the last one I just sat in and heard, we made specific reference to that. In addition, we put $100,000 in the line - we have it here in a document here - Intimate Violence Project, $100,000 on that very issue. So like I shared with you the other day, this is important, it's important to our government - I have staff that this is important to and have let me know that that's a priority to them and they have a green light to be creative and you have a green light and an invitation to come and put your ideas forward and to be shared within our department and I'll guarantee you that our department will read them and take them into consideration.

I do not want us to be adversarial or Liberal versus New Democrat or Progressive Conservative versus whatever. One of my goals is how do we take down some of those barriers? One way I'm going to work is I am going to go for a bike ride with the counterpart next to you for a week this summer and hopefully we'll make some transition there together, so I'll be working over the week to build that partnership, to take those barriers down.

We know the nature of the environment that we're in but anyway, the question that you're asking, that's where we're at right now and we're committed. Could we do more, should we do more? I'd love to.

MS. WHALEN: For the $100,000, can you say what that Intimate Violence Project is going to actually be doing this year? Are we still planning and studying? Have we got a pilot project? Have we got any particular idea that you're moving on?

[4:00 p.m.]

MR. LANDRY: It's a planning stage and I put an invitation out to you, as we do the planning if you want to have a consult with some of the people who are working on that, we can arrange that.

At the end of the day what I'm hoping we achieve is a reduction in violence, and we all save. I know that's the real goal. The political points, we'll get those down the road and we'll share them.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. I'd like to suggest, too, that at some point you find a way for the information on domestic violence to be translated or brought back to us at the Legislature. I wanted to shine a spotlight on it so that this isn't an issue that just gets worked on somewhere, as I say, in the recesses of government or that is ignored by government. We don't really even know what is going on so I may take you up on the consultation on what you see as priorities.

I know there were many recommendations made so I would like to know if we haven't been able to get to a point where we could pick off a few of those recommendations and start working on them, pick off ones that are affordable and can be piloted or tried somewhere. I just think that time is of the essence and I frankly just think we have to get moving on it, that's why I brought the bill forward on two separate occasions. I'm happy to have the information that you've got something going on it right now.

I have a couple of other questions, if I could, today. Going back to Victim Services, I'd like to know why we can't put more money directly in the compensation program and maybe look at what all those 28 FTEs are doing. I'm going back to that paper I showed you the other day, which was last year's breakdown of the Victim Services budget. I don't know if you have this year's budget for me yet but you did agree to give the House a look at this year's breakdown.

MR. LANDRY: Yes, we have it for you right here.

MS. WHALEN: That would be great, thank you. If you have a copy I would like one. I'd just like to know, even looking at last year's, the counselling awards are less than $300,000, the total budget is $3 million. I'm looking at the relative amount of money that gets directly into the hands of the people who need the counselling. That's the only help we're offering, really. We have some staff, I guess, who write victims' statements and give some court direction but by and large, our help, in terms of people coping, comes with the counselling program.

MR. LANDRY: One of the things our Finance Minister continually points out to us - and rightfully so, because we all have asks and we know that we've got a financial issue to address - his advice to me and to others is that if you're going to add money somewhere, where is it coming from?

I put that out to you, that I'm all for it and I think it would be nice if we could increase it, it's just where do we take it from? When we get that answer, then we can add it and I'll not oppose it. I don't put that out in an offensive way but one of the things that I'm kind of learning or observing when I'm in the House is all the asks; everything is important, everything is a priority, from The Cat to a coyote - we have lots of issues to deal with but everything is a cost. One of the difficulties that we're in is how do we balance out at the end of the day our costs and how do we stay within our financial means, how do we live within that?

If that's the most important issue for you, how do we find that? But if we get 10 others from the Opposition, which one do we choose? So how do we collaborate more because I, personally, would like to put a lot more in there, it's just where do I get it? One of the areas and one of the suggestions as you're looking through some of the recommendations or how we're progressing, if you come up with a good idea, it's welcomed.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you. Just to stick with the figures we have here, it says that there were 301 criminal injury counselling awards approved for 2009-10. Can any of your staff perhaps let you know, were they fully activated? Did the 310 people actually go forward, get counselling and participate in the program?

The reason I ask is I am concerned about the cap on those counselling awards because I believe a lot of times people have to have money to cost-share with the department in order to make that happen.

MR. LANDRY: What is interesting is that we have 310; roughly 26 - 11 were declined and 15 were dismissed. Now of the remaining ones how many actually did, it remains to be seen but they were approved so the opportunity was there. Hopefully people benefited from that program and were able to improve their life.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have approximately five minutes.

MS. WHALEN: Oh, very good, that's wonderful. What I would like to know is if the minister could agree to give us the figures for last year. I understand this year is still unfolding - maybe the 2009-10 you have. I don't know if you've got them wrapped up yet but if you could give me a relative number from whatever year you can capture it, to say this was the number we did the paperwork for and approved and this is the number that ultimately did.

I understand people will move or get over their trauma or not come forward but I'd like to know what the percentage is who don't take advantage of the program after going through those steps.

MR. LANDRY: Yes, that would be an interesting statistic to note and we'll get that.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, I appreciate that, that's wonderful, thank you very much.

MR. LANDRY: When she is finished, I'd like to have a five-minute break.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, thank you.

MS. WHALEN: Understood. I wondered if there was anything in the budget this year that might relate to the training of security guards and the work that you need to do upcoming, to have a curriculum for security guard training?

MR. LANDRY: Like I gave at the time of the announcement, that basically we don't want to put the cart before the horse. The first thing was to deal with the battle we had of getting the legislation put through. It has been in the works for over 15 years so therefore, we want the legislation to go through.

I made the commitment that we will work with stakeholders to build the regulations. I had the opportunity to speak to Mr. Bill Gosse in Cape Breton last week who runs a big security firm there. I assured him that we will give him an opportunity to participate.

The key here is that it has taken 15 years to get to this point, we want the legislation to get through and then work in a collaborative manner to build the regulations to put forth that piece of legislation. So when it comes to training, it's a matter of rather than re-inventing the wheel, if there are good programs out there or best practices, just utilize them, let's see how that is best served and how it is best administered, so we're going to be working on that as well. We're hoping within the next six months to have that well in hand.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much and just again by way of history, the minister knows I've introduced a number of bills that have justice aspects and I did introduce a bill on security training, for security guards and bouncers, that sort of thing. It was a much shorter bill, it didn't relate to a lot of the other sort of security-related businesses that are included in this current bill that you have before us.

I wanted to try and quickly address the fact that we have young people and others out there performing almost a policing service without any training to do so and people are getting hurt. I think it's a danger to them, as an occupational health and safety side, plus the public. As a parent, I have children who are now in their early 20s who are going to these public events where if all hell breaks loose they are not going to be safe because of the lack of proper security. so it was of interest to me.

I took the step to bring in a bill that was an amendment to the old bill. Again, we got to second reading and again we closed the House before it moved forward because you might have had 80 per cent of your problem dealt with already, had we done so.

My concern today is just to mention that the Canadian standards for training of security guards is in place for any guards who work on federal buildings and a lot of the groups like commissionaires train to that level already. I think if we were to choose that standard, we would avoid the cost of trying to reinvent the wheel for all the training that goes on of security guards.

I don't want to see us - and you're talking a lot about being fiscally responsible - I don't want to see us try to make an entirely different curriculum for Nova Scotia, is really what I'm saying. I don't think it makes sense. I heard you mention that if there's a good model out there that we should look at that. I'm hoping that you are and I wanted to make my point that I think perhaps dovetails with yours, that we need to try and do this in a cost-efficient way and use the training and the expertise that has already been put in place federally and perhaps in other provinces but certainly there's a federal standard.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, time for a very quick response, if you would.

MR. LANDRY: I agree with you and we're committed to doing that as well. I hope and trust that you'll be supporting the bill then when it goes through because we don't want to go through another 15 years where we talk a lot but do nothing, so we want to make sure that it goes through.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired for the Liberal caucus. We will take a five-minute recess.

[4:10 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[4:15 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll now resume the estimates.

The honourable member for Cape Breton North.

HON. CECIL CLARKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to join my colleagues in the estimates debate for the Department of Justice. Over the course of the next hour we hopefully will have some dialogue. We'll see to what extent it is.

I want to start off with the minister with something that was a key item and a priority and especially now, I would say in some ways more than ever. Where is the minister with his commitment for the Boots on the Street program?

MR. LANDRY: I'm still committed to the Boots on the Street. We've got 183 positions there. Nothing has changed from the last conversation we had in regard to Boots on the Street. It's an important matter to me, policing.

MR. CLARKE: So there's 183 of the 250 commitment - how many positions does the minister have for allocation this year?

MR. LANDRY: You mean over and above the 183?

MR. CLARKE: Yes.

MR. LANDRY: There's no increase. I was fighting to make sure they didn't take any away from me in this last budget turn.

MR. CLARKE: So minister, what was the number that you allocated last year again?

MR. LANDRY: Thirty-three.

MR. CLARKE: So the 33 officers, and they would have been predominantly the officers carried forward from the previous government's commitment?

MR. LANDRY: We made some changes. When you say carried over from the previous government, the numbers were there. We added the 33 in and we allocated them into areas that between discussions with the Chiefs of Police, Public Prosecution Service, Correctional Service, sheriffs, just the overall consultation we had with some of the pressure points on the justice system, the judges. A number of people gave us some advice and direction that we needed to deal with some pressure points on the justice system and how to best utilize those resources. If we were continually going to add officers to the front line, what is the impact and what investments are we making for the support mechanisms within the system to ensure that they can handle the workload.

MR. CLARKE: Mr. Minister, can you provide me with the breakdown of the changes that you've made of the 33? You've indicated changes, which positions, the number and the changes themselves.

MR. LANDRY: When you say changes - maybe I misused the word - it's not a matter of changes, I guess I should have said, we allocated the resources where we felt they would be most beneficial within the justice system.

MR. CLARKE: So what were the reallocations then?

MR. LANDRY: A drug recognition expert; a medical examiner investigator; a use of force manager; a SIM security analyst; an independent police investigator, they've got seven there; a crime prevention coordinator; Public Prosecution Service got three positions; Legal Aid got two; Civil Forfeiture Unit got one; and there were two tentatively for the SCAN program.

MR. CLARKE: In Pictou County, were there not two allocated for the RCMP, Community Policing, or did I miss that on your list?

MR. LANDRY: No, that was in last year's in the restructuring.

MR. CLARKE: When your Premier said that he would honour the commitments of the previous government and you made a choice then to not honour the commitment that was made to the New Glasgow Police Service, and you withdrew those two positions, they were directly reallocated for the two crime prevention positions, is that correct?

MR. LANDRY: First off, the language that you're using isn't correct to describe what occurred there and let me try to set the record straight. I think it's not appropriate - and that's just my opinion - for the previous Minister of Justice to dictate to the next Minister of Justice how resources will be allocated.

At the time - and I'll talk specifically on those two positions in Pictou County - one was designated in relation to the First Nations and consultation was done with the Chief of the First Nation community and other community people at the time as to what's the best use of that resource. In regard to that, the First Nation community felt it would be better to have the resource on the Reserve than in the school, considering that New Glasgow, I think, already had four positions given to them through this program, four or five, anyway.

Concerning the other high school in the community, they had zero positions and so you had two high schools of equal size with a very distinct disproportionate access to services within the same county. I went to the supervisor of schools and asked directly as to where they felt the best need for that resource would be and which school they preferred to have it in. They recommended that I put it into the Northumberland school, rather than the North Nova. Also, that resource would be made available to Pictou Academy, which is another community of over 4,000 people, so what we had was a community of 9,000, which I represent, getting over four or five police officers and were going to get an additional two, when there are other communities that had an equal need.

We know that with crime, one of the parts of the decision here, when you're dealing with crime - and I'll use the example, if you turn around and water a nice patch of land and everything else around it is brown, it doesn't improve the look of the community. What we tried to do was to fertilize the whole area and make everything green, in the sense of giving access to the other school.

As an MLA for that area, I did a number of phone calls to police officers, to community people, as to whether or not the people of Stellarton would like to have a resource and people from Westville, in the other high school which is serviced, the chairman of this committee here represents that area of Westville in the Northumberland school, where the students from there go. Leaders in that community were asking for support as the other school in North Nova had. One of the decisions, as an MLA, I look at is how to be fair and equitable to the community. How do we provide services to deal with social problems that are in the other high school? The people of Stellarton, and Westville, and Pictou said, that resource would be greatly appreciated.

What was also beneficial, that I found out from a number of other people and from students particularly, was how they valued this decision as they said it would give them the same type of opportunities and support. So when we talk about the positions where they would be best suited within the school, well the stakeholders, those people who had an investment, they told me loud and clear that the positions should be reallocated and so they were reallocated. In fact, I even spoke - I think the chief from New Glasgow even made a comment that he, too, supported in some way the need for resources in the other communities, so we did that, although he had a different opinion at the end of the day as it affected his school that he represented.

But in the overall security and fairness to the people of Pictou Centre and Pictou County, that was a better utilization of taxpayer dollars and more got to benefit from the program. We were able to accommodate that and the First Nation community. In fact, I heard when I was there last week how appreciative they are that they have this opportunity and how pleased they were that it would be better used right in the community.

Also in the discussion - and I had the opportunity during the announcement to talk to the RCMP commander there and how they were quite prepared to work with the other police departments and share those resources to ensure that like-minded ideas and so on are being shared and not being reinvented each time, so it was really a good investment, that move there.

MR. CLARKE: So, Mr. Minister, in making your decision and, of course, I don't think anyone would argue with the value of the policing positions or the rationale as they get allocated. I also recognize that the good members from the area would want to enhance that.

One of the questions that comes to mind is, if the commitment had been made and the allocation was put in place for two municipal, why wouldn't you just add two policing positions for the RCMP, which would be a total complement of four within the county, and make it a win-win scenario versus cancelling the municipal commitment that was made publicly to the community and received as well and have had probably the best positive outcome because you have that discretion?

MR. LANDRY: First off, it wasn't municipal versus RCMP, that's the first thing I want to get straight and clear on that point. In no way was this taken from municipal to give to the RCMP. As I said in my answer, I discussed with the community and got the community feedback right from the schools, from the Chief of the Reserve, from councillors in the community, also the Mayor and Council of New Glasgow are on record as supporting this decision. I had clear discussion and met with them and had dialogue with them in that regard and they knew that that decision was coming.

So I don't even want to go down that road of saying that something was taken from municipal, because in my role as Justice Minister and as Attorney General, I make no distinction, police officers are police officers and we're here to support the community. Now there are different roles and functions that each provide and I have a responsibility to the provincial police, I have a responsibility to municipal policing as well. When I talked about the Town of Pictou, they deserve equal access to services, irrelevant of who is policing in their community.

The councillors and police officers from Westville are saying they'd like to have that support and when I talked to the people of Stellarton, and the councillors and community leaders there, they tell me they want access. So this was the community telling me and as the MLA for there and as the Minister of Justice, I listened and I heard what they said. Therefore, this investment was made here.

The Town of New Glasgow, I can assure you from my dialogue with them, that the mayor is onboard with the decision and they recognize that sure, they would like to have more resources in their community, I would like to give them more, but it's a big province. We wanted to put positions into Cape Breton and I'm sure you wouldn't want to take positions from Cape Breton, we'd like to put more there if we could, but we put them there, we were able to make sure things happened in Cape Breton, just as an example because it's personal to both of us here and how important that is. So how do we balance?

I was also getting input from people around the province, other people who are wanting resources and asking me, how come you've got so much in your riding, in your county, and how do you balance that out? But as a government, our hands are tied whether we are able. I'd love to put another $5 million into the Justice Department, but I have to be balanced and I have to share and I have to look at how we're going to reduce our deficit, and what part am I doing as a minister to help contribute to that overall, maintaining the security and safety of this province. So I'm committed, but I want to reiterate for the third time, this has nothing to do with taking something from municipal to give to RCMP. I won't play that game.

MR. CLARKE: With all due respect to the minister, in terms of the interpretation, I hear from people within Pictou County as well and people who look at this dynamic. I remember touring at one point the New Glasgow Police Service and in terms of RCMP and municipal and there was an integrated service there and then all of a sudden, the RCMP didn't like it so they came and took their bat and ball and their equipment out of the municipal service, so there is some history in the county. You can say what you want, you can't diminish the fact that amongst municipal politicians, amongst citizens in the area, they've recognized who that would be.

I know as minister, previously, there was the call that all the RCMP should deal with policing services in areas and expand it and have a wider role and it was about balance between municipal and RCMP services. To suggest that there isn't some history there would be counter. I think it's regrettable that you would choose to pit one service against the other within Pictou County, when you, at your discretion, could have enhanced and built those relationships, could have said to New Glasgow - and I am aware of meetings and visits to the town hall there by yourself and as other citizens have witnessed, but at the same time, if you wanted a reconfiguration of that and to look at the best allocation, as you would deem, within your authority, that could have been done.

[4:30 p.m.]

There's a wound within the community, and even to give you the benefit of the doubt in terms of if it's perceived or reality, but oftentimes in public life perception is reality. I believe and know that there is a concern with regard to the loyalty on one side or another throughout the Province of Nova Scotia. Since the government didn't see fit to make any further investments this year for the Boots on the Street, at a time when it could have been of strategic value, I'm wondering, Mr. Minister, if you can explain to me why is it you were unable to get your colleagues to decide to invest in Boots on the Street this year?

MR. LANDRY: I actually didn't ask them to and the reason for that is there are a number of points that I would like to point out here. One is, as a province, we're 200 officers per 100,000, we're above the national average by three, which went up from the year before from 199. In all fairness, it's not more police officers on the street, we need, as the previous speakers said, some of the social programs and adjustment, whether it's in domestic violence, we need expertise in those areas.

There's the expansion of child care services for people with disabilities, whether it's autism or whatever. I also want to just make a clear point on those resources, the mayor and the chairman of the police board are onboard with the decision made and are supportive of that. My loyalty, I take exception that you would question. I spent 35-plus years as a police officer, both as a municipal and a federal. I respect and value each officer that puts on that uniform and steps outside the door, no matter what uniform they put on. I support each and every one of them and am committed as Justice Minister to that end.

I have the utmost respect for my community, the community I come from, but overwhelmingly, community leaders advised me and I had a wide section in consultation there. I didn't go to my Cabinet Ministers and say, let's add more officers on the street, especially when they're looking to do cuts. I said, we need to keep these resources and we're going to do our part to contribute to trying to have a balanced budget and look and fight and get resources elsewhere. Our department ended up getting an $8 million increase, well $10 million overall and we put $2 million back in where we found cuts, so we can do our part. We knew that there was a contract and reclassification of people that drove that cost up, I had to find that money from somewhere. Like the Minister of Finance said, if you're going to ask for something where are you going to get it, what recommendations are you making?

I'm focused on supporting police officers, but I recognize that we need to be more strategically focused in policing and go after the prolific offenders and look at the root causes, what patterns are out there and deal with those issues. I've been meeting with the Mayor of Halifax, the Chief of Police of Halifax, the Commander of the RCMP, and I've met with the other police chiefs and so on to get up to speed on this area. I'm 100 per cent committed to policing in Nova Scotia. As I said, I spent a lifetime, I put my life on the line as those officers do and I know the difficult job that they have and the support that they need to have and equipment. This government is committed to supporting police officers and we're committed to reducing crime in our society.

We see there are many things that we have to do, like address poverty. We need to address some of the domestic violence issues, and we're committed to those and working toward that and that's what our budget helps lay out, it lays out a sound foundation where we, as a government, have looked at the families and the structure and how can we make the best impact, especially when we have a deficit. We argue about whether the figures are there, but the figures don't lie at the end of the day. We know that there's that amount of money that we need to make up and so how are we going to get there? I'm hoping we'll get there together, rather than be adversarial on it, and move forward.

Anyway, I think I've said enough on that and one little point when we we're going to talk about history, you made a comment that the RCMP took their bat and ball and left, well actually the true fact on that issue is that because of the non-signed contract, the RCMP were outside of the legal authority in which to spend dollars. Under the Treasury Board rules, a commander cannot spend dollars without that being in place and that was where the issue was beyond that. I'm happy to say that the parties sat down and negotiated and worked that out and came to a very positive resolution and things are back there and healthy, and they were back to work there at that time.

So at times in partnerships there are differences of opinion. Between the federal bureaucracy, and the municipal or provincial bureaucracy, there are some hiccups. But all adults work that out and it had a very positive outcome.

MR. CLARKE: I understand the minister might take exception, but I'll even say there's probably three sides of the story, his perspective, mine, and probably what the public will interpret in between and I would also know clearly what we're hearing from the public.

I started off by asking if the minister was committed to the Boots on the Street and he said on the record here that yes, he was committed to the Boots on the Street and then I asked what allocation he would indicate for this year, which it's zero, not a single position.

I also heard from the minister that, of course, I'd like to see more positions in Cape Breton, that's true. I would have liked to have seen all the positions that were being offered to Cape Breton honoured, which they're not and that is a fact. As far as the Boots on the Street and not asking for that and yet telling me you have other issues to address in terms of addressing poverty, domestic violence, there are a number of initiatives and the department is consulting on that. So, Mr. Minister, if that's the case, yet obviously, the Minister of Natural Resources could have made a case for buying $100 million of dirt, swamps and bogs, whatever you want to call it. That $100 million was just thrown out there, the government was stumbling over themselves trying to get the cheques out the door, for what weren't priorities during an economic downturn, for what was not a matter of public priority - not to take away from the value of acquiring assets and land because there has been a good program in place.

Even if the minister would have taken maybe more of a balanced approach and looked at the other priorities because, as you know, during an economic downturn, things like domestic violence crime rates are a challenge because of the stress and the pressures that befall a society. I'm just wondering - and I heard it from your Premier and from the Minister of Finance - this time that we're going through, why wouldn't the government place an importance with regard to policing and supports, whether it's in any of those key areas, why didn't the government see fit to support the policing community, municipal, RCMP, or Department of Justice initiatives that would be the equivalent of reducing crime and impacts of crime?

MR. LANDRY: Let me just first off say that this government is 100 per cent behind supporting police in this province. Like I stated, we're above the national average. You talk about balance, also I had the opportunity to meet with the chiefs regularly and there is some restructuring that needs to occur in policing around the province and that's going to be left up to the police departments to determine how they make the best utilization of their resources, they deal with the operational concerns of their community.

Municipal policing is the responsibility of the municipality, but I'm very honoured and I compliment you and your government, and I made that comment before, for the initiative and partnership with the federal government at the time to put resources forward and bring this initiative of the Boots on the Street. At the time we were well below the national average, a long way from there, but now we're there.

The question is when you talk about a prudent approach and being methodical about how you go and resolve problems, is it better to put an extra $5 million, $10 million into policing? Where would you put it? I personally think putting money into land, as you call it, dirt and nature, there's a large part of the population out there that value having green space and the environmental difference. We're trying to change from being a carbon-consuming environment to saying that we are a province that believes in improving the environment, the quality of life and there are thousands of people who will get to utilize these spaces and that will help. That is as important to contributing to the overall well-being and health of the province as putting more officers.

We could put more officers on the street, that's not going to solve the crime problem. What's going to solve the crime problem is a multitude of different issues, taking the stove pipes down within government, dealing with social services to municipal affairs, to investing in crime prevention, earlier education and putting monies there. So philosophically, what I find kind of ironic on this issue with the land is that the previous government - as I understand the facts - put the initiative forward to get the land, but did nothing and said no, we got the idea there, we mean well and use that whenever it's politically convenient, but then when it comes time to doing something about it and going ahead - that's one of the things that I have observed here so far is that you had the right idea, if you had just had the leadership and courage to go ahead and put it forward. Yes, it's tough economic times, but it doesn't mean that we abrogate our responsibility to develop a holistic society and a province where we can have our natural resources, how we can look to reduce the shovels of coal in the hopper and make greener energy, and how we can make a healthier community.

We know right now that the world is going to cap and trade a lot of what we do. We know that people are going to not buy our products because of the carbon-based initiatives, so we're going to lose business. So how do you balance today to reduce the carbon?

I'm excited. One of the reasons I got involved in this Party was the leadership of our Leader, Darrell Dexter, and the Party initiative on looking at how we're going to reduce our carbon footprint so that we're competitive for the future and make a healthier environment, that is to be commended. I'm surprised you're not getting up across the hall there and saying - because you're good at doing, and I don't mean this in a critical way - but you're good at saying, well this was a Conservative initiative and I'm glad you guys carried it through. Well we took forward another Conservative initiative and carried it through and we did something about it even in these difficult times.

We could take that $100 million and put it into policing and not be further at the end of the day, where we're going to be a lot further ahead and we're going to be a lot richer province.

MR. CLARKE: The minister references the fact that the government was willing to make an offer but not move past that and he's right, we did and we wouldn't move past a certain price point because I was part of a Cabinet where I fought for money for Boots on the Street rather than money for land from Irving, when we didn't need to do it. So, I'm equally satisfied with some of the choices and the balance that had to be achieved, and achieved within a minority parliament setting versus a majority. As we know, it's just a matter of time before this process comes to an end and the minister will stand and look for all the votes and plow through a massive deficit budget and you will not have put a new officer on the street in the process.

Maybe you can talk to the Minister of Natural Resources or as we say, the minister of swamps and bogs, and maybe put a fence around all that land and because you didn't invest appropriately in corrections, we can put the prisoners there and whoever survives - a new version of Survivor - whoever actually comes out the other end can get a pardon because what are you going to do with all that land? Maybe that's what we need to do, we can get a new action show here in Nova Scotia because, again, an effort was made in sincerity, since we're talking land, and what we're trying to talk about right now is not the carbon footprint of government, and that may be great, I'm talking about the crime footprint on society and reducing that. That footprint is a bigger reduction that I know that my constituents are looking for and if you talk about balance and how to do that.

Again, the minister basically said he didn't make any effort whatsoever to look for money for Boots on the Street for this year and saw no priorities to deal with that, even though you've highlighted a number of areas where justice outcomes could be improved and yet there was no effort made, obviously, at the Cabinet Table to do that.

I understand that you had to satisfy the settlements that were made with Joan Jessome and Co. and the union bosses of the province, I can accept that. You had to find a way for your union buddies to get their payment dealt with, but I also know that there are justice outcomes that people are concerned about and aren't being appropriately dealt with. I'm just wondering, do you envision ever getting to the 250 officer level?

[4:45 p.m.]

MR. LANDRY: First off I want to correct the record. When I said that I didn't fight to add positions, you're right in part. I fought to make sure that we didn't lose any positions, but my view as Minister of Justice, in consultation with our staff, being above the national average - and I'm hoping you're not saying, let's spend money on officers just to spend money on officers and forget the rest of the justice system, I hope you're really not saying that. In my experience of 35 years of being a police officer on the street, that putting more police officers on the street isn't the answer, it's being more strategically focused, partnering with all police interests, the federal RCMP, our provincial police force and our municipal police force to look at what the priorities are, look at how reduced costs will increase efficiencies and deal with the specific organized structure of crime and its underlying causations and its patterns, and to refocus some of our resources to address that.

When we look at crime and you're saying that putting more police officers on is going to resolve the issue of crime, I think that you're right off your - well, I don't mean to be disrespectful, I don't want to say it that way . . .

MR. CLARKE: Go right ahead, put it on the record.

MR. LANDRY: I think you're off base because I firmly believe . . .

MR. CLARKE: I'm waiting for a . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please, no exchanges.

MR. LANDRY: I don't mean it that way, but what I'm really saying is that we need to invest in how we reduce crime, from dealing with the poverty issue, how we deal with early education, how we deal with the social structure of our community, investing in areas such as domestic violence and I mentioned this before about putting funding into women's centres to deal with issues there, putting money into anger management groups and clinics to deal with men's anger that happens in the community. There's one, New Leaf, in Pictou County there that deals with that very issue and I compliment the good work and how, from a policing perspective, dealing with that issue reduces the impact on police officers and domestic violence and that partnership there.

What I hear you saying is that if this government doesn't put more officers on the street then we're failing, we're not hard on crime. I say it's strictly the opposite, that we need to be more strategically focused in dealing with the problems that we face in society. One of them is putting the appropriate resources there.

I deal, I mention this quite often, with the Adopt-a-Library program and how we invest in these crime prevention initiatives to help people that, we use the logo, you read books and we'd rather have them in the libraries than in the jails, that's a better access and helping children to read is one avenue. There are many other programs, as I said, in Cape Breton - and I mentioned earlier here - being down at the Whitney Pier centre and having the pleasure to talk to Chief Burke there and how he said that this program alone reduced their calls so significantly that they were able to have a liaison officer sit out in the Pier and they've cut down the number of other officers they have to have there to do calls and that resource has moved somewhere else. So, that's good police work. That's good work there.

Just to simply make the argument that we didn't add to the 183 and that I don't care, that's absolutely false. I do care and when I got the message, if we're going to look at reducing our budget or if I want to spend money, where do I best put it? Well, we put $100,000 into domestic violence. We've increased our support in partnerships with the chiefs to look at how do we establish priorities and how do we make sure that we look at the violence in the community and how do we work together to address those specific issues? What do we need to focus on? So, we're looking at that total package. This government is committed to police officers, we're committed to reducing crime, to fighting it.

The Director of Public Prosecutions said the pressures that are on his department, can we put resources in there? We had the police coming to us and say, we want Civil Forfeitures to take away their assets, we put resources there and to destructure the criminal organization. I can go down the list and look at Legal Aid to give them support there that reduces on the system. We entered legislation recently to look at how, on the summary conviction, on the summary offence and how that helps the system. So, I'm committed and I think I come to this job with 35-plus years in policing and my view is we're doing the right thing here and the monies that we save and once we get our spending under control, then we will have more resources to invest in areas of need. Anyway, that's my answer.

MR. CLARKE: The minister, in terms of looking at the balance between the numbers, as he would look at it, I can only assume that he would think that I was off my rocker - I'll use that as a polite frame (Interruption) No, no look, give us three more years and I'll be able to give you a rocker to enjoy your retirement.

However, I find it interesting because truthfully we were all committed and I will say, I'm focused on one item now and will continue in our next hours to come on other areas and part of it will be, there are lots of areas for some kudos as well. But when it comes to a key priority and it should be a known priority of the government, so for the minister, likewise, to suggest that it's just, you're doing a numbers game and I do remember about being below the national average with policing. To say we would be above it and that's sufficient, I think is also ill-headed in the sense that we should be the leader in the country and that middle ground should not be sufficient when you're part of a government that has made spending choices in other areas that are not the people's priorities, but they were political priorities, and I accept that, that's what you do when you have the numbers to do that in other areas, but we're not seeing that investment materialize within the Department of Justice and I think that's regrettable for the justice delivery system here that could be leading this nation.

I think, Mr. Minister, you lost a great opportunity to further empower the women and men who work in the administration of justice, in the department, and the partners who are out there. You referenced everything from women's centres, I know of the youth centres, and I know and I give full marks to the honourable member for Cape Breton Nova who has done spectacular work and I think he has probably led this province, as the former director of the Whitney Pier Youth Centre.

I did have the privilege and the honour of working with the member on the YMCA initiative, we served on the board together. We came through difficult times there together and both he and I understood the process, when the YMCA was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and getting it back to the point that it would have over $1 million in reserve. At the same time, part of the outcomes for justice at a time like this and in an area, is that we have the YMCA trying to renew its infrastructure. What I always liked about the YMCA is that no child was left behind, no family was left behind. If they didn't have the resources, that door was never shut and every program was made available to them. Yet, your Minister of Health Promotion and Protection won't invest in the final dollars necessary to complete that project that affects justice outcomes.

I think there are a number of things within that area. When we talk about a youth attendance centre, having access, we know recreation is key. I've noticed some of the investments you've made and I encourage you and applaud you, every crime prevention grant you can give out in any area of this province is well worth the dollar invested, but it has to have a system that can support it. If you're talking about an interdisciplinary approach to that, I'm all in favour of that, but we're not seeing the connects with your other - you talked about the silos or the tubes that are in the way, yet your colleagues aren't responding to even support some of the very things that you're bringing forward. I've recognized the list that you read in terms of some of the modifications. Those modifications are in various areas, it's not just an officer on the beat, it's professionals who support policing and producing better outcomes.

I guess the question is, if the foundation was laid to be the best jurisdiction for policing in the country, why would you stall that?

MR. LANDRY: First off, we're not stalling anything, in fact, we're enhancing it and that's just a matter of perception. I don't see adding police officers on the street versus putting support services in dealing with domestic violence - expanding the support mechanisms for restorative justice, looking at how we expand our support within Correctional Services to deal with inmates who are in there and programs to help reduce recidivism rates, programs to look at how we deal with early education to deal with that. As I mentioned before, the Adopt-A-Library program, of which I am a big supporter and how that helps ensuring that there's an officer there, that access, and we now have that type of support in crime prevention across the whole province.

I think there needs to be more money in crime prevention. The question is, do we need to pay a highly-skilled police officer or can we find other support mechanisms within the justice system to support crime prevention programs and other community initiatives? Are there ways to put the restorative justice - and we're now going into the adult and expanding that to be a world leader. I see Nova Scotia as potentially being the safest province in Canada. There are best practices, when I look at Codiac and I read an article recently where it's the number one policing service in the country, where they have reduced crime. What are they doing there? What can we learn from that? How can we as a policing community work to develop our policing leaders to find new and innovative ways and work to support them in that regard, in the development of their younger officers to come and take over new management positions.

We may look at more training opportunities and use some of our dollars in that way within Justice to help support the leadership development. We've got an aging population and the police service is no exception, so what are we doing to invest there.

You mentioned the YMCA. I'm a proud member of the YMCA and I'm a volunteer instructor there when I'm not here. If the House wasn't sitting, I'd be in the YMCA several times a week teaching a class. I know the very fine work that they do and that we don't turn anybody away and the importance of that.

I'm not going to back away on the importance that when I see land, I think as a young child, having the opportunity to go out in the woods and to hike or to be in the Boy Scouts and to camp and to have access to nature to go on hikes. I think about when I take my granddaughter kayaking out to a park where there are lands and I can see nature and share that, that is equally as important to me as a physical building and to have that access or to go camping or to be able to utilize that land and resources.

My colleagues support what we're doing here, I support them. It's a unified team and a strong team. We see a direction where we want to go and take the province between where your world view is and our world view is, there's a difference. The important thing is, I hear you, I respect that you have your views. You had your turn, we're here now, we're going to do our turn and as you said - while I think it might be a little longer than four years but we'll see - the voter is never wrong and I respect that and if that is the way it is down the road, that's the way it is.

When it comes to how we, as a Justice Department - I want to talk just about the staff there - they are totally committed to showing leadership and taking pride in being a leader. We're forming good partnerships with our universities, to bring in ideas to exchange between the academic community. We're expanding our community with minority groups around the province, to get their ideas and to try and go back into the communities and engage with the communities for them to find solutions and be a part of the solution and we are a partner with them in that regard. I'm very honoured and proud to be part of that system, as I know you were when you were there.

MR. CLARKE: Mr. Chairman, again, and we can agree to disagree because we're going to have to because that is just the reality of our perspectives and it is also the reality of the parliamentary process and democracy. The minister is very right, the voters are never wrong, they will make their choices another day, based on the choices of the current government.

[5:00 p.m.]

We've come from when I asked about New Glasgow and that reconfiguration and the unwillingness to find a balance within the area and putting two RCMP-based positions there, but the minister also noted other priorities that he would receive from within the county and could have had the opportunity to further invest in that and other counties because I've heard from many others around the province. So to say that there isn't front-line policing priorities, to say that there are not communities that need more boots on the streets, or policing equivalent positions that the program could support because the minister knows there are some professional positions that are being put there that, as I say, it's not putting the cap and gun on your hip to support policing and achieve the outcomes of what the policing sector would do within the justice system.

For the department not to provide some of those supports and as the minister knows, there is no shortage or lack of interest in what the ICE units can do, in terms of enforcing the Internet child pornography and the mandatory reporting, doing the intelligence around that and dealing with what is a despicable situation that exists in society, that unit could use it.

I know criminal intelligence has been an issue and I heard the minister last year and I know some have been critical about some of the other aspects where criminal intelligence and intervention would be, in terms of the international impacts. I mean drugs come here from somewhere and very little of it is actually domestic, for the most part. Even resourcing those aspects at a higher level of policing that it does affect the front line. Those realities and why they wouldn't be priorities this year when you spoke so passionately last year, and you did, about that being a priority for you, but I haven't seen that materialize, in terms of the resources, other than the deals for the union buddies that were out there. Joan Jessome may be happy but I don't know if front-line police are on some of the aspects that we've seen.

Again, if you're looking at an all-encompassing or multi-faceted approach, you're right, the Adopt-A-Library, literacy, all those things improve outcomes, we recognize that. But the government has not connected the dots that you've talked about and I don't know why, since you've had that time to come in and to set that vision, you have not acted on it or resourced, doing the very things you've talked about doing here today and why the government wouldn't see fit, even in other areas.

The minister referenced getting more lands. Well, in some of the land blocks they have just bought, they are throwing families off of them that have had traditional camps there for recreational purposes. So if that is allowing more access, I don't know what it is because you're taking people who have had a longstanding interest and saying go do something else because we bought this land and it is supposed to be pristine and not used by people. So there wasn't an accommodation there, in terms of multi-use or multi-faceted aspects of things.

When we get into the other aspect again of policing, I regret that the government - not just the minister because you have a government that you are part of - that you have not seen fit to make a strategic investment in the Boots on the Street program because communities around Nova Scotia have seen that this stall is one that is causing great concern because you've talked about many other aspects but you haven't moved on those items to provide people with any sense of assurance that you are still committed to Boots on the Street. What I've heard is we've hit 183, good luck, I've got other priorities and we're not to see the fulfilment of the 250 commitment that was endorsed by municipalities, was endorsed by the entire policing community, regardless of jurisdiction, was put in place and communities that you know have a list of priorities and that will support many of these things you talk about.

I don't dispute the minister deciding to have a police resource officer in a school. We know that they don't necessarily have to have a gun on their hip to reduce crime or the impact of crime or violence and those things are very important. So I guess my question would be, minister, do you ever plan to fulfill the 250 commitment?

MR. LANDRY: The way that you frame the question, saying that that's the only answer to the issues that we're faced with, and once again, my experience as a police officer, I was out there on the street as a police officer just a little over a year ago and was very honoured to be there and serve a lifetime, I want to talk on a number of things, resourcing priorities. When you say about adding, you're focused on saying that if you add those positions that you've done good. I'm saying, as a government, if we reduced the debt, if we look at areas of domestic violence and other areas to reduce crime and support mechanisms there, we will do well. It is not just about police officers on the street.

The sheriffs, for example, I know when you were in my chair and prior to that, there is a process there and investments were there. When you talk about the union or Ms. Jessome, the process was there, which you were a part of, and actually put those raises and created that cost factor, so I'm not clear in mind saying that I have association. I believe in respecting the union, respecting its leadership and having a good relationship, the same as it is important to have a good relationship with all other aspects of the Justice Department, whether it is in corrections, in the sheriffs or whether it be the Chiefs of Police and the RCMP and that we work in a collaborative manner.

The Chiefs of Police, when you talk about adding there, they have identified what their priorities are and we have met, and what their needs are. They also understand the economic situation that we find ourselves in and everybody knows that they have to contribute but this isn't at the expense of crime. Our crime rate is actually going down so we're going to work hard to do that. When you take the issue like the MADD organization, dealing with impaired driving on the road, our ratings and success is going up. That doesn't come because we're in here for nine years, there was good work done there that is being carried on. I recognize that and am glad to be a part of it and you did a good job in those areas.

We do have a philosophical difference on how we got to a certain means to an end. In your mind, as I hear you speak, you firmly believe that if we add another 67 officers that we will be doing Nova Scotians a good deed. I would say we will cripple the justice system, we will cut the legs from under it. How do we pay for the prosecutors to deal with that? Where do we go for legal services? Where do we get the judges? How many courts will we need to build to handle those extra officers on the street?

As an officer I'll say, you put me on the street as an officer and I'll find something to do and Mr. Scott would probably share that same thing, we're going to find things to do which is going to tax the justice system. Are we strategically focusing? Are we dealing with the prolific offenders? By adding officers, do we do that?

I am going to fight for more resources for policing when we start to clear up some other areas and if we have a need in which to look at and to address that. So we will work very hard to accomplish that, but when it comes to dealing with - and I hear a tone and I heard it out on the floor there about a partnership with the unions, I don't see any benefit in getting into a conflictual dialogue with the leaders of the unions or the employees. I value the employees, I value and respect their elected representatives and I respect and value the management that we have in those places. Hopefully, maybe we can get another question in before you go.

MR. CLARKE: What's our time, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have a little over five minutes remaining.

MR. CLARKE: Okay, I thought it was just two. We'll move along then, my honourable colleague for Cumberland South might have a question or two to bring forward.

Mr. Minister, I know our time is drawing short on this, but I will say that what is difficult is for a priority of society and a government that doesn't match it up. I say that your Cabinet colleagues have made political choices and they had stakeholders apparently to appease, but when I hear of $100 million being spent in one area at a time when there is greater need in society - but obviously it was a checklist, someone has a checklist in the central bureau there and they said, this is more important than dealing with improving outcomes.

As you said, and I agree, that whether it is the crime prevention initiatives to support what the police are trying to do to have a greater integrated approach and an interdisciplinary, multi-faceted, whatever you want to call it, but what we haven't had is a sense or a direction or an indication from this government of where it's going to go with supporting those policing positions and seeing the 250 realized.

I've heard and I know you talk to people and that's the role the minister has to do in your role, but we hear from the people who aren't happy about the discussions that they're having and have other priorities. I think it's fair as well that if people are looking for policing resource then you've mentioned a good point, what are municipalities or other interested stakeholders bringing to the table to support this initiative, so that it's not just 100 per cent dollars on one aspect? You have to have the implementation, that's understood. What has been noted this year is the brakes were put on, there is no clarity from the government or the department through you, as minister, that this is a priority and it has created a lot of concern. Rather than, here's our plan, this year we're going to move and try to deal with, if you say there are silos, we're going to do that, here are the other positions as we go forward and laying out a framework.

I know the discussions with the policing community but it's difficult as well, we're only talking about Boots on the Street, I'm not talking about all the other aspects of the Department of Justice budget. In some ways you frame it in the manner that it's just police only, but police are important to deliver on other things, whether it's the policing community helping support and enforce conditions and our people at home and the like. There are all kinds of other aspects we can get into where the police play a role, other than sitting in a car driving around.

To suggest that if we have more police that they're going to create more burden on the system, well it will create a pressure, but the pressure is what people want and society wants and they're telling you, you can create that pressure if it means that the long-term benefit to the province is going to have a better social and fiscal and human outcome. But we haven't heard that, what I've heard is the Minister of Finance won't give me extra money because he doesn't want me to actually achieve something that was a good program to do.

I don't know, Mr. Minister, why you've isolated it in dollars and cents, versus recognizing that supporting police and the policing community is a very significant priority. Do I have a couple of minutes for the minister to respond?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, indeed, we have almost two and a half minutes remaining.

MR. CLARKE: Okay, so you won't talk the clock out.

MR. LANDRY: I'll be quick. I thank you very, very much for that point because you really put it down as that in your mind, as I understand it, you believe the officers being out there, that that's a pressure the system will take. Right now the system won't take it, that's the issue.

We need to make sure that our Crown attorneys and our major crime units have the skills and knowledge to deal with the complexities of crime. You mentioned here earlier about the pornography, the cyber-computer crimes, the ICE and it is critical that we take some of those dollars and invest in those areas.

The police departments have already told me they agree with this. It's not like something that I'm coming here and making this up or it is my idea. We asked them what the priorities are, I consulted with the courts, with the judges, with the prosecutors and with the police. So they see the long-term benefit to the system, we want to get people instead of having a year to get to court, we want a matter of a few months. You do the crime, you do the time. It is no different than with our children, it doesn't do you much good to come and scold them two days after they have done something wrong, it is right away. So why would the justice system think that it's more effective to deal with a criminal two years down the road?

People are complaining that the system is not efficient and effective enough. That is what we want to do, make the system more accountable, more streamlined and more efficient and effective. Adding police officers isn't the place to spend the dollars, when we're above the national average. Those areas in the province where there is a need for police service, where there's a gap, then we will look to readjust and put that support there. We will work completely with any community across this province to meet their needs, so we're committed to that.

On the point of saying the long-term benefits on the justice system is to make it more efficient, reduce the impact on its different parts and to make that more successful. Thank you. I'm going to take a couple of minutes break, if I can, before we start the next hour.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired. There will be a five-minute break.

MR. LANDRY: Three minutes is good enough, I just have to move around.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Three minutes would be better because we're running out of time, we have 16 more minutes left to get four hours today.

[5:15 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[5:23 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I'd like to call the Subcommittee on Supply back to order. We have quorum and we will continue. We have 16 minutes remaining available today.

The honourable member for Cumberland South.

HON. MURRAY SCOTT: I welcome the opportunity to have a few more minutes of discussion with the minister. I don't want to talk about the correctional facilities, just so you know, Mr. Minister.

I wanted to ask you about security around courthouses. I know security lately has been quite a topic. I watched Mr. Woodburn is it? The Crown Attorneys' Association and I watched him and heard some of the comments he made. I'm wondering if you could just update me as to what's happening with security for courthouses and if it's a province-wide program or review that you're doing or just the busier courthouses? Could you just tell me what's happening with the courthouse review around security?

HON. ROSS LANDRY: Well, you know security is always an issue and it's something that's continually in motion. You could have something in place today and somebody could breach the security so you're updating it tomorrow. That's the reality of it.

One of the things that we really need to look at here is the risk issue and to address some of the concerns. There are committees at each courthouse in each area and it's representative of those stakeholders that work in them to put forth the recommendations and ideas. There have been duress buttons put in place, we do risk assessments on certain cases and what the impact is there. We've bought a number of new wands, we have the portable station in Dartmouth, we have the permanent station in Halifax. We're evaluating whether or not to expand to a permanent place in Dartmouth, what that means, what the needs are, what benefit that would be.

One of the difficulties we're faced with here is that we have a number of courthouses that are aged and not well constructed for today's environment so it would be nice to have a new facility to do that, but that's a whole other issue to discuss. The sheriffs are on-site there, they do an excellent job. We've virtually had, in my opinion, and I had the opportunity to read a number of incidents that have occurred, they're below level.

There is some exploitation of the situation in Halifax. I think when they get 1,200 items or 1,600 or whatever the number exactly is, but everything from a fingernail file to somebody bringing in fingernail clippers to somebody actually bringing in an item. Almost all of them are returned, I think there's only been a couple of cases where it has actually been turned over to the police and action was taken because the item was in question.

When we look at security in the court office, overall, I'm basically satisfied with where we're at. But we need to be vigilant in the sense of always assessing and evaluating. When you take an incident such as the fight in Dartmouth there last month, you have to ask, would added security make a difference there or was that something that came from the community and people's behaviour, that they felt that was appropriate to do that, and was that a security issue and would that have made a difference. Well, that was a conflict between adversarial groups or families that were at each other.

Having a full security system there would not have made a difference in that situation and so you really have to think of where you're going to spend your security dollars and how you're going to spend them, and make sure that the judges are being consulted because they have particular views on how the court configuration should be and the Crown Prosecutors have a particular view. I will give you one example where one Crown Attorney felt really upset because somebody shouted at them. So we need to take that seriously, if the Crown Attorney is overworked, or if there are issues of stress that they're under, do we have support mechanisms in there to help them and if there's a legitimate concern for security, what steps are we taking? This process is in place there to address that, that you're familiar with, and that I'm quite satisfied right now.

MR. SCOTT: There are just several questions I was going to ask you, it's kind of all over the place, but I wanted to ask you, with the Crown Attorneys in Nova Scotia now, I'm thinking about their salaries and I believe I heard you say the other day you're either entering in or are in negotiations now, where do we fit nationally in comparison to other jurisdictions with the Crown Attorney salaries?

MR. LANDRY: We're at the middle range, we're not at the bottom and we're not at the top, and we're a long way from the top, but we're also a distance from the bottom.

MR. SCOTT: So, minister, do you think that that has any bearing on, you just mentioned about the stress level, obviously the caseload and whatnot, do you think the remuneration has anything to do with the frustration the Crown Attorneys are feeling right now?

MR. LANDRY: I don't think remuneration has anything to do with the workload. There are limited things that we can do in government, you know, the salary is the salary and we would like to pay people more but, for example, I've heard from across the floor by my counterparts there that they want to cut the public sector costs back. Well, that's part of the overall process. I believe in trying to maintain the salaries that they have. There's a formula in place and a process in place for them to get pay and to adjust their salary. I believe it's up right now, it's under review right now.

[5:30 p.m.]

I want to go on record as saying that the concerns and issues that the Crown Attorneys are raising and the job that they have, I'm interested in that. I'm also aware of the high demands that are placed on them in this environment and dealing with the criminal element. We're always trying to look at how do we make the conditions better for them and make the job a little bit more enjoyable. Other than that (Interruption) They have their struggle, I recognize the challenges that they have but that's what they decided to go into, is that field.

MR. SCOTT: I just want to go on the record, you said about members across the way, I never ever said that myself. So I wouldn't want anyone to think that I had said that because I actually - and I think I said when we first started talking a few days ago - I have the utmost respect for staff in all the departments.

In fact, you know, I often said that it's unfortunate that the public have this misconception that the government is bloated and that there are lots of people around with not a lot to do and that when you're looking at reductions or costs, that's where you should begin because there's nothing any further from the truth. In fact, you know, the three departments I had, actually four when you count the Speaker's Office across the road, but I think the opposite is true actually. I think, if anything, we expect more and more all the time from fewer and fewer people.

So that's kind of where I was heading when I asked you about the Crown Attorneys and I've watched over the last few years and I think, back to what we talked about a few days ago in B.C., when you put more police officers on the street they're going to create more work, it's only natural. That's what they're there to do. So they automatically create additional work and that puts pressure on the Crown Attorneys. That puts pressure on the courts themselves - probation, addictions, and just on and on and on.

That was why I guess the other day I asked you if there was any kind of an assessment being done and you answered the question. I was thinking about B.C. because I know that they told us that they actually had a formula that when you put one more police officer in the system you had to actually plug some other places with additional resource, that's one thing.

MR. LANDRY: I'll just answer that quickly. That's one of the things, when we talk about the Boots on the Street and the positions that are there, that's one of the pressure points that we're trying to address. When your partner is saying, are we looking to move things forward once we get this part of the system stabilized, that's an area that we could come back and look at adding resources. We've got pressures, you can talk to the Director of Public Prosecutions and he'll be very glad to tell you the pressure points that he's under.

MR. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, actually he has, many times over the years and I'm sure he's bringing those concerns and those issues to your attention as well. I think that we have to recognize the fact that you can't do one without impacting the other. Again, back to what I said earlier, I think unfortunately the public believe that there's opportunity there when you want to do cost reductions or whatever, there's a place in the Public Service to do it without having any impact on service and there's not. The same as if you put officers on the street, it has an impact on that side, if you start reducing people from the Public Service, whether it's the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, whether it's the Department of Justice, or wherever it is, it's going to have an impact on service that people have become accustomed to over the years so we have to be very careful when you're talking about reducing.

I think this government is saying 1,000 bodies or 1,000 positions over a period of time. For some people, that would sit well with them and they'd say that's great, but we have to understand that if you can reduce Public Service by 1,000 people, does that mean you didn't need them in the first place? I don't think it does. What it means is that the public are going to see a lesser service so they're going to have to get used to the fact they can't expect as much as they had before, those 1,000 people are gone.

I just want to ask your thoughts about youth violent crime. Do you support the federal government's initiatives federally to make youth more accountable in this country by changing the Youth Criminal Justice Act to reflect what seems like what the public want?

MR. LANDRY: I support a mechanism that holds anyone accountable and responsible. One of the difficulties with the youth issue is that I'm not a firm believer of putting people in jail. I think those that commit crimes, in some cases they need to do time so if you do the crime, do your time and let's move on. We have to find ways of how we look at some of the underlying causation and I think our budget and our approach to a lot of the issues is focused in trying to find that. Whether or not I support the Minister of Public Safety and Justice, that if they're going to move issues forward, what my concern is and my role is what impact does that have on our justice system? We know that some of the changes by the federal government, especially when the two for one and so on is going to have an impact, we've got to look at the cost, so when we go back and we talk about 183 positions, that there's going to be a cost this year too as we're starting to see some of that that will come out of the federal decisions. We have to have the funding and the process in place to deal and to adapt with that.

When it comes to youth we have to make some changes and I leave that to the federal government, they're responsible for doing that. As a Minister of Justice I have a say at different times throughout the year and in communication with our counterparts in Ottawa on that issue. I look forward to discussing that as we look at the proposals a little closer and what impact it has on Nova Scotia. I believe in holding young people accountable but giving them an opportunity to modify their behaviour and support them in that change.

MR. SCOTT: I would hope the minister would agree and I think I heard you say that. I hear often people talk about the root causes of crime and there's no question about it, if you can address the social issues that a lot of young people face earlier on in their lives when they're pre-teen, if you can address those at that time and affect how they're going to act as teenagers and so on in life, or adult life, there's no question, there's true value in that. But if you have a 16-year-old today who is committing violent crime and basically snubs his nose at the justice system, at the police, who is hurting other people - it reminds me of a classroom where you have 30 students and you have one who is totally out of control in that classroom, when does the 29 count as opposed to that one? It might be a crass way of saying it but I look at it that you can affect someone's life earlier on and I think the earlier the better, we've heard that in some of the studies, but when they're 16 years old and they have absolutely no respect for you, themselves, the police, the court, the prosecution, something has to be done, if nothing else but to protect.

You know there will always be prisons and there are always going to be people to go to prison. You're not going to be able to stop that. You certainly can affect some but somewhere along the line we have to - and that's the way I look at some of these issues the federal government is bringing forward. It may not be the answer to all the problems but I certainly think that some of their initiatives are good initiatives and I think that's what the public is looking for.

I just hope that as a province we continue to support those, in a lot of cases to protect the public good and the rest of the public society that are being terribly affected in a lot of violent ways by some very, very few. In my own community there's probably not six - I don't know how many in Halifax, probably not a whole lot, in relation to the number of children and youth but there are some that are totally out of control who have no respect at all and, unfortunately, have to be incarcerated, to protect the public if nothing else.

I know we're almost out of time, I don't know if you want to respond, minister.

MR. LANDRY: Okay, I'd like to respond quickly. We're on the same page when we talk about holding people accountable. I'm just not sure whether changing a law that has a negative impact on a broader part of the youth would be beneficial in what it does. Anyway, we'll examine that.

I can remember being a teenager and sitting right next to friends shooting drugs up in their arm, going out and doing break and enters. They would go and do that or do violent crimes, that I went to school with, and was associated with. They took a left turn, I took a right turn and that happens in life. They made a choice. We were both there in the same environment and I tried to stay away whenever they were doing that but teenagers end up in a spot and I had no part of that.

They made their choice, I made mine. There are some young people today but some of those same people are very good, productive people in the community today and I would have hated to see them spend their time in jail. They got straightened out and have been productive in life.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. At this time the time has elapsed for the Subcommittee on Supply and we will reconvene, I guess, tomorrow. At this stage the Progressive Conservatives are interested in continuing. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 5:40 p.m.]