HALIFAX, TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2011

 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

 

2:00 P.M.

 

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, members and staff of the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, we are prepared to resume where we left off last night. The Progressive Conservative caucus has 31 minutes remaining in the hour allocated to that caucus.

 

The honourable member for Hants West.

 

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, you touched on the Access Nova Scotia offices last night, you talked briefly about that. I got the impression from your answer that it was going in the opposite direction to maybe what was being asked. I'll give you my example; I have an Access Nova Scotia office in Windsor and it's open eight hours a week. For some time now I've been getting requests, can this thing get extended to more hours? That's how busy it is. It is two four-hour stints, I think, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Line-ups are long and it is one of those places where things are busy, but the impression I got last night was that you tend to be going maybe in the opposite direction. We would not foresee extended hours, but we would maybe see less hours or will it stay status quo?

 

HON. JOHN MACDONELL: I think the member's assessment is probably correct that we're going to less rather than more. The department does monitor the flow to see if, during peak hours, it does seem to be too much of a back-up. If he would like, I'd be glad to have staff do that in the Windsor location and just see whether or not it's meeting our target and if there is an issue. I'd be glad to share that with you, whatever we find. I guess for us, we'd have to keep the same staff and keep them longer because it's referred to as a part-time office so obviously that means more costs. The question of, are the additional numbers that we would be delivering - if you were going to be open, say, 16 hours rather than eight - are you doing twice as many people? Anyway, I'll give you a commitment that we would take a look at that and get back to you with what we find, okay?

 

117

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you, that's great. I did submit back some time ago - and if I had it all together, I would have brought it with me - some kind of data that was provided for me and the numbers. That was some time ago now and I think I even wrote a letter maybe and submitted it, but it has been awhile. I do get regular requests of can you get more time? People are waiting. I've been there myself and used it of course. I don't know what a long wait is anymore really. It's busy regardless of where you go. That assessment would be great. Let's have a look at it and that's fine.

 

In saying that, and just staying on the same vein for a minute, looking to get more on-line and the technology that's out there, I can appreciate that. Would that maybe at some point see a reduction in the number of staff that we have working now?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well I guess kind of a natural progression would be if the numbers of people who actually physically show up at an office reduces beyond a certain point, I would think probably it would be a reasonable expectation. I'm thinking that's more than likely not the case really at this stage. I mean, I think even in my own case, my wife does the registry for our vehicles, you know, licence and whatever, does that on-line. So I'm just not sure what the general pick-up across the population is and there's obviously more demand, a lot more people make use of it.

 

So I would think the normal expectation would be that at some point in time, if the numbers drop below a certain threshold, that would mean that either we have to offer some other service in the office in order to keep a person there, you know, who would kind of be a multi-tasker, but generally I think the trend would tell you whether you should have an office or not, depending on what flow of people would be there. So it's not necessarily what our intent is, it's just a question of what the public demand turns out to be I guess when you're offering any service.

 

MR. PORTER: I've got a lot of stuff I want to cover and a short time to do it in but I want to bounce around a bit here. The ignition interlock system, I know you're familiar with that. I know a few people that have been on it, but I hear similar stories and there's one gentleman that I've heard a lot of stories from, I see him regularly, who is less than happy.

 

Now, he signs on voluntarily, he gets on the system, but he has had I don't know how many different machines now because of failures in the system, something not working, different things setting it off, and then when he goes in and files his report, they say, oh, you blew over. Well, it's 7:00 a.m. and he's on his way to work, he goes out and starts his vehicle and blows over because he has had a drink of something, or brushed his teeth. I'm hearing all of these stories. I haven't seen any real data on what's what but it appears to be not quite as smooth running a system as it was presented.

 

Now, people do go into this voluntarily and besides that they pay big money to be on it. So every month, this guy was supposed to be off, as an example, some months ago but he's not because he keeps blowing over. Now, one might say, well, you're blowing over, you know, you have been through the system, you have been charged with impaired driving and you would just think, well, yes, I am maybe. If you looked at all the stuff though, the argument is probably a reasonable one that at certain times of day, you know, like getting up in the morning and going to work, and I do know this gentleman personally, it just seems odd that there are so many issues with the system as it is.

 

Are you aware, as the minister, of issues in the system, failures in the system, with the mechanism itself not reading accurately, reading things like certain spices and milk, juice, mints, and I've heard all of these things. I don't know what's accurate and what isn't but I've heard it from more than one so I'm kind of curious as to what you might be able to offer?

 

MR. MACDONELL: If the person wants to call us, we can take a look at the situation and see whether there are faults in the equipment or what might be the case. There are I think some glitches on occasion. Sometimes mouthwash maybe might turn out to cause a problem but that usually evaporates quite quickly and so, you know, a subsequent test a little later should be fine. Anyway, I would say a problem might occur, they're the exception rather than the rule, but we would be willing to take a look at the file to see if there's something that we can be helpful with.

 

MR. PORTER: That is exactly what has been happening and the only problem with that is it's fine that he blows in and it blows over and then it wings away, the mouthwash is a great example and, you know, in 15 minutes or 20 minutes he can blow in and be fine and drive away. The problem is when he takes his data in to show - like he's already over the time frame to be getting off of this and back driving, as an example, and the interlock system thing done, but he can't because when his report is read, it shows, oh, you blew over. So his argument is I'm blowing over on mouthwash, as an example, you know, in fact, and when the reports are read, well, no, we can't recommend that you get off yet.

 

There is no real accountability is how it seems. It's really up to that one person to say we believe you or we don't believe you. I'm not saying I believe or don't believe, I'm saying where's the accountability part of the system whereby there's got to be some measurable in here that says this was alcohol or this was this or it wasn't. That's all I'm asking, are we aware of these situations? It sounds like we are, what are we doing to help alleviate some of it? I'm a strong proponent of no drinking and driving, I'm sure you know that from my past life, but at the same time I guess I want people to be treated fairly. When people come in to me with these issues, they've been battling them for awhile and they're not getting any resolution. I just want to know what the next step is for this gentleman.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We can review the file. We can determine if it's mouthwash. If it's mouthwash, I think the staff here can determine, once it goes beyond a certain level, they're going to say that's not mouthwash. They're willing to take a look. If it needs a look to see if there's a problem there.

 

I haven't been the minister very long, this is the first time I've actually ever heard somebody have this problem with it, but I'm sure the longer I do this.

MR. PORTER: Yeah, I'm sure you will. The biggest issue people are finding with it, besides that they can't get off it, is it costs money every time somebody has to come out or there's a reset that takes place or that there's an issue with the machine, it costs the client money. This gentleman is now into thousands of dollars. In finding that there was an error, some things I'd like to see considered are that it won't cost you this time or something.

I don't know what that is but I think there is some room there, I wanted to make you aware and I'm going to set this gentleman up with your department, somebody else may be a higher level up to at least have a look at it on his behalf fairly to say - you know, if there's a belief or there's some kind of mechanism that says no, that's alcohol not mouthwash or something, I'm fine with that. Don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone getting off before their time or staying on any longer than they should be. I did want to bring that up.

 

I am going to jump around, as I said, and I want to move quickly on to oil inspections. I had a letter recently that these discount fuel companies no longer have to inspect the oil tank before they put oil in it. If you had an oil tank and you called a discount oil company to bring you a couple of hundred bucks worth of oil, they can come in, pump the oil in and they don't have an inspection. Where a - I don't want to call them certified, I guess they're all certified, but an Esso or Irving or an Oulton's or somebody comes in and says, we're not putting any oil in your tank until we inspect it and it meets all of the requirements; the age, condition of the tank and all of those things. I'm not sure of all the facts, only what I've seen in the letter. Is that accurate? There are certain oil companies out there, it appears they are the "discount" fuel companies that do not have to inspect that tank, or are not responsible if there's an issue.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Nobody has to inspect the tank.

 

MR. PORTER: Nobody has to inspect the tank?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Whoever is delivering the fuel, whether it's discount or not discount, there is no requirement through our rules that any of those deliverers inspect the tank.

 

The issue for them may be one of liability, if they fill the tank and there was a problem, that may blow back on them. That might be between them and their insurer, but certainly as far as our rules, there's no difference depending on who fills the tank.

 

MR. PORTER: There has been no change. That's why I wanted to clarify. This correspondence that I have received says there has been a change in this very simple thing. In fact, it's up to the oil company alone based on their insurance and their own liabilities to ensure what they're doing is safe, environmentally friendly, et cetera, whatever, on their own.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't think I have an answer for you, only in that I'm thinking you may want to ask the Minister of Environment in case the Department of Environment has changed some regulations in that regard. There might be something there but it's not through us.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you. Just jumping very quickly here, the Towns Task Force, minister, I met recently with my mayors and warden; mostly the mayors, of course, from the Towns of Hantsport and Windsor. Their claim is that the Towns Task Force is all but dead. There's nothing going on, there has been absolutely no movement here and they're anxious to see what's going to get going with this and looking for some results, given the situation that all these small towns in Nova Scotia are in. Can you bring us up to speed on where we are with this thing?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I can do that from zero to 60 pretty quick. Actually they were supposed to meet today but that has been moved off a week. That would be their first meeting and I think it's going to be more of an organizational meeting, if I'm not mistaken. I think it's going to be a meeting that's going to lay down some of the issues and concerns around some of the towns, particularly some of the smaller ones, and then kind of a road path as to where they are going to go, as the task force consults and meets.

 

MR. PORTER: I want to get in now a little bit about that word everybody hates - well, not everybody, but most of them - that is amalgamation and/or annexation. Has your department or yourself or anyone given any thought to any of this? I mean we have 55 municipal units - and I was a municipal councillor a few years back , in 2004, and I still hear it today, they're not afraid to talk about it, that's the funny part. I know most governments seem to be afraid to touch the subject but a lot of them, especially the town municipal units, will tell you perhaps we have too many municipal units. There are projects getting done locally in my area, wastewater is an example. There's a new treatment plant, the town has applied for one and the municipality has already granted that. It makes absolutely no sense, from a taxpayer cost perspective.

 

They are also running out of property, the town proper itself is running out of tax base is what it has come down to and a lot of it is growth. There's water, there's sewer outside of the town limits, as you know, but there's no room to grow. There's only a couple of ways and it's things like annexation, which we've seen attempted in the past. We've seen amalgamation - I guess depending on whether you are in Cape Breton or Halifax, you'd call it successful or not, but it does work, it has worked and I'm just curious as to whether or not the direction your government is going in, will there be any discussion with these municipal units, serious discussion on we have to have a look for the financial sustainability of your unit?

 

We have to consider some of these things because it makes sense, it's the right thing to do.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Look, in our discussions with municipalities we're open to talk about anything. Anything from regional services, some way to join if four towns are all paying for the same service, there might be a way for them to combine that service, do it cheaper and so on. Everything from that I think probably to amalgamation, if the municipalities raise it and want to talk about.

 

I want to be clear, we are not pushing for amalgamation for anybody but if they come to us and they want to talk about that, we're glad to talk to them.

 

MR. PORTER: Does the minister have an opinion on whether or not 55 municipal units are too many in the Province of Nova Scotia, or not enough?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well not in three months I don't. I haven't had a chance, really, to even get around to - I think I've only met four and then others just purely because of where I was, at various meetings I met members of other municipal units, so no, I don't have an opinion, I'm glad to get one at some point but right now I'm really trying to - there are a number of issues and we're soon going to be done with the CAP review, we have the Towns Task Force starting up right away. We promised or committed to a fiscal review looking at the whole envelope of services offered by the province and funding envelopes.

So, you know, I have to say I probably should keep my powder dry until some of these investigations really are complete and see what kind of input we get from the municipalities and if they indicate some directions where they would like to go, but I guess since there's so much of this kind of information gathering that has been committed to before I ever walked through the door, I would like to see those processes complete and then maybe after all that, I'll start to think about the number of municipal units but I'm certainly, you know, like I say, whatever they put on the table, we would probably be glad to discuss with them, but I don't think we're actually pushing anybody in any particular direction at this point.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to advise that there are 10 minutes remaining in the Progressive Conservative caucus time frame and you're certainly welcome to another hour after the Liberals have an hour. We'll continue, member.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, minister, and I wasn't trying, even if you might have felt, to handcuff you in any way. I was just curious about whether, you know, I know you've only been there a few months and it's important you get out and meet those municipal units as well, I know you know that, but you certainly have been in this game long enough that you know how these things work and how the municipal units work and some of the issues that are there with them, and not all of them by any means, but I think you'll be surprised to find that there are likely a number of municipalities that are open to the discussion who probably will raise it given the financial stress that they are going through.

 

It's very, very difficult, and I'll just use the Town of Windsor as an example, sitting right beside the Municipality of West Hants, you know, it's getting financially very, very difficult and I don't know how many more years they'll go before they're in, well, they already probably would tell you that they're in undue hardships right now and wondering what they're going to do without raising taxes in a town that has already got a very high tax rate to begin with.

 

I wonder also, is yourself or your department, or anyone in government, considering a new approach to the entire taxation bit? You know, we allow municipal units to set tax rates. I wonder in the Towns Task Force if there would be some discussion or whether it would be led through yourself, minister, or anyone in your department, the idea of a base tax right across the province and then - I don't want to call it fee for service but, you know, if you've got sidewalks, maybe there's an area rate; if you've got water and sewer, there's an area rate. I don't know but people leave towns and they move to municipalities because taxes are half and so are the services generally speaking but they still feel better about doing it in some ways.

 

Now, I'm just the opposite, I moved to town for water. Where I grew up, we had none, you know, you buy a load of water a week. If you do that today, you'll soon see that your water bill is nothing. It's the only bill I never complain about paying, you know, because it's there. There are reasons why we move in and out of towns I guess and services and so on but I was just kind of curious as to your thoughts on, ever any thought about considering an application of taxing in the municipal units. I know that they have their own MGA and all of these things, but the province is still the overseer. We heard talk last night about deficits and such and I'll get to that if I have more time, but just your thoughts on that, minister?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm going to try, I think there are a couple of questions there, as far as a base rate, I think we're not going down that road, you know, asking them to or forcing them to. I'll go back to one of your comments around amalgamation, you know, if there are units that think that it might be a positive thing, then they should talk to the respective unit they think they might work with.

 

I think because the needs in a particular municipality are somewhat different from the neighbouring municipality, the issue around delivery of service and what those services are probably pretty clearly defines their tax demand and how they want to deliver those. I can think of in my own case in the Municipality of East Hants where I pay an additional tax for the sidewalk in the village, I'm three miles from it, I don't walk on it all that much, but I do see it as a safety issue, you know, Highway No. 2 is quite a bit busier than it ever used to be. If you're wheeling a baby carriage down the shoulder of the road, I think that would probably not be the best scenario. I see some advantage. I don't mind paying. I think perhaps in some of the other districts, because of that councillor, if they built a sidewalk there they tax the residents slightly differently than they did in my district. Even within the one municipality you can see the application of taxes to be quite different.

 

The level of service being provided and how they do that varies so much from municipality to municipality that I think they like to have the flexibility to do what they deem to be necessary. They get to set the rate. I think it's on the same idea that even though there's a list of what municipalities can do that are outlined in the Municipal Government Act around by-laws they can write or whatever, one municipality might write a by-law on unsightly premises or dog control where another municipality didn't. They can write them but they haven't, but they didn't. It's not an issue.

 

I think we would still like to see them maintain whatever flexibility or autonomy they can under the Act but I think we're always willing to dialogue with them if there are changes in the Act that we think meet the interests of the municipalities and plus the direction the province is interested in seeing them go in.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you. I guess the reason I was going there at all, we talked last night when Alfie was asking questions about the deficit position towns are in, although they're not allowed to be in it. Do you know how many municipal units in the province are currently in that deficit position?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Maybe a couple but out of the 55, it's not many.

 

MR. PORTER: That's good to hear, although I guess from having sat there, you're almost always in a deficit because you always have loans outstanding that you're paying amortized . . .

MR. MACDONELL: That's debt.

 

MR. PORTER: Debt, deficit, depends on how you look at it. One affects the other, I guess, as to whether you're a have town or municipality or you're not. Your ability to manage, I guess, is what I'm thinking about there.

 

MR. MACDONELL: It's not the issue that they can't have a deficit, they can't budget for a deficit.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you, I think that's the piece that wasn't clear, you can't budget for a deficit and I would think there have probably been a lot of units over the years and probably more so in the years ahead that won't budget for it - hence the reason I was asking about the provincial government coming in and saying your department is saying what are we going to try to do to make this better as we move ahead? It's not getting better. Any mayor or warden will tell you it's by no means getting better.

 

There has to be some strategy worked out here and obviously hence the reason for the Towns Task Force, what are some of the ideas? I think you have to kick every single idea that there is from the general flat tax rate that I was talking about to God knows what. How are we going to manage and what responsibility does the province really have? Some people will say none. But they have it all, really. You are the overseer for every municipal unit out there.

 

Yes, you allow them to create their by-laws for noise and dogs and some other stuff, but at the end of the day, they are truly responsible to yourself and to the provincial government. I think there's a close relationship there that if it's not already close, it probably needs to get closer assistance-wise and helping them with guidance. Whether that's through members of your department in municipal relations, I don't know what that is but I do know from talking to my councils regularly that there are a lot of things on their minds and they're wondering how they're going to survive. They're going to be looking somewhere, whether it's more transfer payments from federal government.

 

Having said that, we know what's going on there with agreements. I think they're very worried by way of the MOU no longer going to be in place in a year and you're going to tell them whatever you'd like to tell them at that time. That's the feeling they have. When you talk to them, that's what they believe. You haven't been there yet maybe and you haven't heard from them but I know you will. I know you know you're going to hear from them. I'm sure it's going to be a lot more productive than that, at least I'm hopeful that it will and I hope there will be something better on the table and so do they. I think their minds are wide open toward that, but they are worried about it.

 

They were aware and they knew what was in their agreements and they knew what they had in the years out.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Member, that concludes the Progressive Conservative caucus time for now. Does the minister have a very quick comment?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes, I just want to say, the department has liaison individuals who actually work in certain districts, maybe five or six municipalities or whatever or an end of the province or part of the province that is their area. They work closely with the municipal units all the time and we do send staff out to various municipalities to help them with a number of issues. We have capacity to be helpful and usually the conditions that they deal with that they can't overcome - I think about the Town of Canso perhaps - that generally at some point directs what the future of that particular municipality might turn out to be. Anyway, we really put in a lot of effort and time and communication. We have quite open lines to work with municipalities.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We will go to the Liberal caucus for an hour. We will go to the member for Preston. Based on some of the questions last night relating to the budget, rather than just minister-member back and forth and so on, maybe we'll keep both microphones going, if we could notify the control room upstairs, which this is doing. I will give a little bit more freedom than you had last night so both microphones will be live when the answers are just sort of yes, no or maybe so.

 

The honourable member for Preston.

 

HON. KEITH COLWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That will, indeed, make it a lot easier and I'm sure you'll slap me on the fingers if I step out of line.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure I will.

MR. COLWELL: I want to first thank you for the information you provided me from last night. I realize you're just new at this job and it's a very difficult educational learning curve. I'm sure by this time next year you'll be up on all the questions. I do appreciate the efforts you've made to answer my questions.

 

Needless to say, you know I'm going to ask about the MOU so that's what I'm going to talk about now. I just want to talk about it in general to begin with. What consultation did you or your department have or the previous minister have with the municipalities before the decision was made to change the MOU with the municipalities and transferring the costs back to the province for the education and other functions that have been decided upon?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't want the member to think that we had some kind of sit-down consultation, you know - what do you think, here's where we're going. Because our numbers were connected to the provincial budget it made it pretty difficult to have a large dialogue around that. I know last Fall, the previous minister - Minister Jennex - indicated in her discussions with the UNSM that changes would be coming in the funding relationship between the province and the municipalities. I think in my first few days as the minister, I met with Mayor MacLean, the president of the UNSM and he indicated to me, he said, we expect that there is probably some change coming, we would really like to be assured of the one-year notice so we have time to budget any changes.

 

I told him I would try my best to ensure the one-year notice. I didn't commit that it was an absolute but I really committed to trying to do that - which we were able to do. So that basically I think was about all the consultation, was to say there's going to be change and as soon as I can let you know what that looks like, I will, and as much as I can give you the 12-month notice, I'm going to try to do that for you because I knew by the time we got through the budget process, getting to the end of the budget process for the province, the municipalities had done their budgets. They were past that stage, I know my own municipal unit certainly was, and I didn't really want to - and I think my colleagues agreed - to impose a change on them in this year after they had already had their budgets nailed down, it would just cause too much disruption for them and so, anyway, actually the 12-month notice I think is probably the biggest consultation piece because that gave them a whole 12-month period to plan their budgets into their next fiscal year when they would see some impact of the MOU and they're actually going to wind up in a better position than they were before the MOU but not perhaps as good as they would had the MOU carried through for the final year.

 

MR. COLWELL: I can understand with the budget in process it would be difficult to consult. Have the municipalities approached your department since the announcement was made in the budget that this is going to happen with the negative financial impact that they could foresee down the road with this?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I met with the UNSM to give them the news. I don't know that we've heard very much. (Interruption) No, there hasn't been very much, from a few councillors but nothing really from the standpoint of a single municipality or any particular municipality passed at a council meeting to get back to the province on this, we've heard very little.

 

MR. COLWELL: They seem to be talking to everybody else but not you, the person they should be talking to. I'm going to address some issues with HRM and some other councils but my colleague will either during my time, if that's okay, or after my time, talk about the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in more detail.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Sure.

 

MR. COLWELL: According to what HRM is indicating, the shortfall will be $1.2 million in the first year, it will be $9.6 million in the second year, it will be $14.4 million in the third year, $19.5 million in the fourth year, and they haven't looked beyond the fourth year at this point.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. COLWELL: So that is a substantial amount of money and the indication during the budget, it was my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong with this, the municipalities will only be about $50 million worse off with this change over the period of time but it's clear that HRM alone will be hit with almost $45 million in this process and they've already budgeted for the province providing this funding down the road. What are your comments on that? I mean it's different than what you've been saying and they've been saying different things outside of that. So I'm disappointed they haven't consulted with you, number one.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well, I don't know whether to say you're not correct or they're not correct but I'm pretty sure that they can't budget much more than a year ahead, like any other, you know, even like the government. They've been covering these costs. So these are not additional costs added on to them. You're kind of making the scenario that they've never borne these costs and we're adding some costs to them. They've been carrying these costs and what we're saying is you're going to continue to carry these costs, we're not taking them away from you as the MOU directed. They were going to be uploaded to the province and we said, no, we're not taking them. So they've already been budgeting these costs in their budgets year to year. So I think what they might be saying is we were going to get rid of that expense but now we're not. I reject the notion that they're being downloaded on. If these were all new costs that they had never seen before and we said, you're going to pay them, budget for them, I think they'd have an argument, but since they've been covering them now for some years, I don't think they have an argument. The fact that they are actually going to cover less than when they entered the MOU - and they've come out of this I think with a year's notice and a reduction in what is expected of them to pay - is better than going back to the pre-MOU stage when they would have paid quite a bit more, in particular for Corrections.

 

MR. COLWELL: It's my understanding that the arguments they're making is that the uniform assessment is trending towards 3 per cent. It's my understanding that calculations for this amount that is due to the province for these costs is tied to the total assessment in each municipality, is that correct?

 

MR. MACDONELL: That's usually how they collect their money, a rate based on their assessments.

 

MR. COLWELL: And with that being the case, what HRM is saying is that with the assessment going up, the amount they are going to have to pay is going up and because of that, they're going to pay more than they would have if this - well, in two ways: that the general assessment has gone up over that time, which means they have to pay more to the province as it goes on, even though it's frozen to the 2010-11rates - if I'm correct with that - and not only that, but the fact that they're not going to get the funding means that any project they would have had planned, assuming that that money would have been there because being a former councillor in HRM, HRM plans well out past a year, they have to for especially big projects, it is going to have a negative effect financially on them. I believe they are correct with that. The calculations they do, you may have a different calculation but I really do believe they are going to have some financial problems with it.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I have to disagree because you are saying as they apply the rate on the assessment and as their assessment goes up, then what they pay will go up. What they're not considering is that what they paid originally, what all municipalities paid was $17.5 million for Corrections and that went up by CPI, in pre-MOU. Now they're only going to pay $14 million and it's not indexed to CPI, it's a flat rate. So if their assessments go up, that amount doesn't go up.

 

The same with housing, it's only going to be $7 million to $7.5 million, which is the pre-MOU rate, and it's just going to continue with that rate. It's not going to change, it's a flat rate. So if their assessment goes up or their rate goes up for their taxpayer, that can't be driven up by this because Corrections is lower than it used to be and it's not indexed. It's a flat rate that is going to continue forward.

 

The MET is going to be held at the 2010-11 rate level and that's going forward at least to 2014-15, so even that is being held at the rate for last year, that's not going up. So how is it that they're saying that this is going to drive it upward?

 

MR. COLWELL: Maybe I need some clarification on this to make sure I fully understand it properly. Number one, I'm under the impression, rightly or wrongly, and correct me if I'm wrong because I really want to understand this, the old system where the municipalities had to pay for these services - education, Corrections, housing and anything else they had under this agreement, on this MOU, if the assessment went up - I'm going to ask this as a couple of different questions so I get it clear; so if the total assessment in that particular municipality increased, say if it went up 5 per cent of whatever it was, then it was my understanding, if I had have this right, that the portion that they would have to pay for these services back to the province would go up accordingly. Is that correct? I'll give you a specific example; let's say 5 per cent, for argument's sake. If the total assessment in that municipality was $100 million and went up 5 per cent to $105 million, don't they pay their proportion of that to these services of the province to start with?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think you're wrong. Let's take housing, for example. They were paying $7 million to $7.5 million prior to the MOU; that was province-wide. That was based on what the deficit was by their housing authorities. If there wasn't much deficit then it certainly couldn't go up. They only used the rate to collect money that they need. If they needed it, then it would show on the rate or be included in the rate on the assessment. If the amount they needed for housing was the same every year, the rate wouldn't go up and if it was less, the rate could go down or they probably didn't put it down because they have a little bit of a windfall to give them a little buffer. If the deficit for housing in their municipality actually turned out to be quite large, significantly larger than it had been in the previous year, then they would maybe add to the rate, increase the rate, to collect that. Just because they're paying this doesn't mean they necessarily have to add to the rate because the deficit might be smaller than it was in the previous year.

 

They only use the rate to collect the money they need so it really depends on what the size of the deficit would be and I'm just using housing as an example. Education, municipalities paid 14 to 15 per cent of the Department of Education budget and so the province would look at what the assessment would be across the province and they would have to apply a rate in order to get that and that was really how that was done.

 

Now, I would have to say that I would be very surprised if the Department of Education budget went down generally, but that's what we're trying to do right now. Corrections was indexed to CPI, so as the consumer price index went up year to year, what they contributed - let's say the municipalities collectively contributed $17.5 million to Corrections and then there would be a CPI increase on that year to year. There was a place that actually was a potential for a rate increase because it would go up by CPI if CPI was going up. A couple of years ago CPI was zero. What we've done in the MOU is we've reduced it from $17.5 million to $14 million, so we reduced what they have to pay to Corrections and we didn't index it so if CPI goes up, it doesn't go up. That means they shouldn't increase their rate, so anybody who is making the argument they need to increase their rates on the changes to the MOU is not correct.

 

MR. COLWELL: I'm not really talking about the change in the MOU; I'm talking about . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well you're saying the taxpayer would have to pay more because they have to collect more because the cost goes up for Corrections, housing and the MET and I'm telling you, it shouldn't go up.

 

MR. COLWELL: I still have to get this clear in my mind because every year that I can recall and according to HRM's figures that, indeed, it goes up. I'll use education for an example, it goes up every year. Now, is that because of the consumer price index or is that because the general tax base for the municipality on the assessment has gone up so therefore a portion of that assessment has to go towards education. Is that the way it works?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes. The question of the rate or the amount they take from their taxpayer would depend on, number one, what their assessment was and the rate they apply to that and whether or not the amount needed by the Department of Education had gone up.

 

Prior to the MOU, 14 to 15 per cent of the Department of Education's budget came from the municipalities through the MET. The way that was done, the total assessment across the province with a rate applied by the government, set through regulation, year to year, that rate could change. The province applied a rate to the assessment and collected it from the municipalities. That was generally for 14 to 15 per cent of the Department of Education's budget.

 

If the budget went up, that 14 or 15 per cent was a bigger number obviously; so if it was 14 per cent of $1 million or 14 per cent of $2 million, you were going to get a much bigger number out of the $2 million. Therefore, the rate would have to increase on the assessment depending on how high the assessment went. If the assessment was going through the roof, you might drop your rate and still collect your money. Some years maybe the rate wouldn't have to change.

 

I suspect when assessments weren't capped, that was probably the case. The rates didn't have to change very much because they were collecting the money based purely on the rise of assessment year to year.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, under the old assessment, way back when, it really was a numbers game and it was a sham because after five years it doubled anyway. If your property went from $100,000 to $200,000 this year, you applied the cap to it and in five years it was doubled anyway. It's just the way the numbers worked. It was a pretty neat numbers trick that the former government played. It really was, it was horrible. The cap now really does work to help with some protection for property owners. Hopefully you'll keep that in place.

 

Under the present conditions, even though the municipalities want free money and don't have to take accountability for raising taxes if they get the cap. I can tell you from being a councillor, when that old system was in place, it was pretty easy to not raise taxes and do all kinds of neat things. I can talk to you afterwards, how all that worked as far as the municipality was concerned. It was great when you were a councillor but in reality it didn't give the accountability to the taxpayers that were actually paying the taxes that they should have had.

 

I'm beginning to understand this coming from this. This is very important to me because I understand. I've got - which I will get copied and provide to the minister if you don't have it - I have an internal report here from HRM. Unfortunately I only have one copy but I will supply it to the minister. It's dated March 24, 2011, it's from the deputy chief administrative officer of HRM.

 

Being on council for many years, the reports they provide are pretty accurate. They do their homework, just like the staff in your department do, they do their homework. Maybe what I should do, if I could get this copied so you could have it to look at, it's not fair to quote from this and I'll talk about something else in the meantime. Maybe one of your staff won't mind copying this so you'll have it? I don't think this is fair to proceed with that.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Are there answers on those sheets too?

 

MR. COLWELL: I still believe that, based on the fact that the municipalities may have committed funding for other projects, as I say, typically in the regional municipality, they have no choice. They have to plan out maybe five, 10, 15, 20 years because some of the projects they do are pretty large and in order to fund them properly they need funding for more than one year to make it happen. I think it will have a negative impact, however you add it up.

 

They made a plan to save a few million dollars here or there, they might have planned to put that into a major sewer upgrade or water purity upgrade. Indeed, that is going to cause them some grief because they're going to have to try to go back and find the money to do this project now because the money they would have saved from the province isn't there. That's going to cause some problems.

 

As we go through this thing, I don't believe that it's going to be as small an impact as you think it will be. I really do believe from being on council before and being in your seat before on both sides and all sides of this thing, I think that this will have a negative impact on the taxpayers. When I say taxpayers - you say there's only one taxpayer; there are two taxpayers in this province - people who own property and people who don't. You want to make that separation in the two because indeed, when you look at the people who own property, I can tell you at the end of the year, as a property owner in this province, I pay a lot more tax than someone who makes the identical salary that I do who doesn't own property - a tremendous amount more in tax.

 

With the taxes increasing, especially in the Halifax Regional Municipality, I'm seeing more and more of my constituents coming in, with low incomes, who either have to sell their homes or don't eat. That's real, that is not those advertisements you see on TV, and I know those advertisements are real, they're making that choice.

 

Most of those people have worked all their lives to get their homes, I mean as pretty well everyone in this room has, anyone who owns a home. They have worked very hard and it's very difficult, particularly a senior who comes in, maybe a spouse has died, they have a very small income and they are faced with the fact that they can't pay the property taxes, even after you go to the municipality and to the province with a tax forgiveness program, they still can't afford to pay this.

 

We're talking about housing for seniors, to make sure they can stay in their homes as long as they can. Quite honestly, when you really look at the numbers, there is a difficulty for seniors staying in their homes, based on the tax rates that the municipalities are ever-increasing. For whatever reason, they make those decisions. You don't, I don't, but they make those decisions, and I think that to the point that I've had calls from constituents who say, how do we stop them? How is this stopped to get to that point?

 

Anything the province does to negatively impact on those families is going to make the problem worse for the people with low incomes. Those are the people that I feel we really need to protect and make sure they can stay in their homes while they are alive. Hopefully, when the day comes that they can't live in their homes because they are not well or because they can't afford it anymore - hopefully that's not the case - or they pass away, that their family will take it over and the taxes will go where they should be on a property after it's all forgiven. This is reality, this is what is happening today.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Before you go on, because I think you're going to go to these sheets so before we do that, I want to address the points you raised in getting here. I think I might have agreed with you around the notion that the municipality was planning for some big projects, kind of way out there, that if we picked up these costs from them it is obvious the only way they were going to have that money is they had to keep charging the same rate. In other words, they had to keep taxing their residents and keep the money, rather than pay it to the province. So the impact on the taxpayer wasn't going to change.

 

I keep hearing this, oh the taxpayer is going to have to pay more. Well what you just told me was the municipality was going to keep the money, so that meant they weren't lowering the tax rate because they had a little bit of a buffer there, they were going to keep collecting it and use it for these big projects out there somewhere.

 

I might have almost agreed with you, except for one point; these big projects, big money deals, they would never, I think, plan very far ahead that they would have that money because of one thing and that was because there was a clause in the MOU that said if the province couldn't afford it, the province could get out of the MOU. I don't think anyone at any municipal level was going to bank for a project that required a lot of money, based purely on the idea that they couldn't be sure that the MOU was going to stay in place, because of the way it was written.

 

Now, you've indicated the numbers that the HRM indicates that they would have kind of gleaned had this stayed in place, so I won't dicker with those, but if you look at the amount of dollars possibly that the province was going to relieve them of between 55 municipalities, I don't think it was going to work out to be great big dollars for municipalities generally anyway.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Member for Preston, you were signalling how much time was left. You're just at the halfway point of your hour, and so you might want to consider that for sharing time with the member for Glace Bay. You have about 31 minutes left in the hour allocation.

 

MR. COLWELL: My member opposite tells me he has a few questions, so I'll leave that at the end.

 

I don't agree with your analogy on that because, indeed, the municipalities weren't going to give credit back - I've never seen them do it yet - to the taxpayers, but it was money they could use, they didn't have to raise taxes. Now the fact that they've budgeted for these programs, they're going to have to . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't think they budgeted for them.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well, you can say that; I can't say that.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Not the way the MOU was written. There was a clause that gave the province a chance to get out if it was unsustainable. You wouldn't book a big project based on that; you couldn't.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well based on the fact that in good faith the work had been - in the past it happened. I'm sure that some of them, whether or not they should have done it or not, probably did it. If that's the case, they would have to raise taxes or do some other cost-cutting measure to make up for that money they had budgeted would have come with the MOU. I'm just going to leave it at that because there are some other issues I want to go to, so it's a disagreement between us and it will be interesting to see what the municipalities say about that. It will clarify whether or not we're correct.

 

MR. MACDONELL: It won't mean they're correct; it'll just mean they're different.

 

MR. COLWELL: I wonder if I could give my honourable member a few minutes here. I've got another topic I want to address, but this is the same topic he wants to talk about.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure, we were just about ready to get into a free-for-all there and I was going to let it go, but we'll go to a place where free-for-alls sometimes take place.

 

The honourable member for Glace Bay.

 

MR. GEOFF MACLELLAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, minister, for your time. I'll be extremely quick here, as it was touched on by the member for Hants West and now the member for Preston, my colleague. I guess I would join my colleague for Preston in disagreeing with your analysis of this. I know that the CBRM did, in fact, budget two years out. Again, it will be your department and you personally that will deal with the municipalities and the UNSM in terms of this stuff, of course. They're talking $3.4 million, so that's the number they're using and that's sort of what they figure. I completely respect the MOU and when you make those comments in the House about, well, we had sort of a clause that allows us to opt out, from a relative financial position I don't know how much worse it gets than the CBRM; they're in a pretty tough spot.

 

My question would have been would you consider it as being a reasonable exercise to budget that far out, and I think I probably know the answer to that so I'll ask you a similar one. When you mentioned that they're in a better position pre . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: Before the . . .

 

MR. MACLELLAN: Right. Can you just elaborate on that so I understand your point on it?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Sure. Prior to the MOU being signed and actually even in the first couple of years or three years of the MOU - because there was nothing picked up by the province - the municipalities paid funding toward Corrections, housing and education. For Corrections they paid about $17.5 million roughly and that was indexed to CPI, so every year as the Consumer Price Index went up, that $17.5 million went up by that amount. So it increased year to year for them. In housing it was about $7 million to $7.5 million and they really picked up the deficit in their housing authorities in their municipalities. So if the housing authority didn't have a deficit there was no pressure on them and, if there was some, they paid it.

 

The education tax - the province worked out its budget, which is part of the issue of why these things seem to happen so late in the fiscal year because they're getting their budget numbers, but generally year to year they expected the municipalities to cover 14 to 15 per cent of the Department of Education's budget. So the province would apply a rate to the assessment and then expect the municipalities to pay it, which went to the school boards.

 

What happened with the change to the MOU was that that $17.5 million that the municipalities paid for Corrections, we reduced that to $14 million and we didn't index it. The indexing would add about $400,000 every year on top of that $17.5 million. We reduced it by $3.5 million and then reduced it by another $400,000, so basically they're paying about $4 million less across the province.

 

The housing number - the $7.5 million - is about the same. It would depend, some municipalities may have a deficit in their housing authority and some won't, but that number will stay about the same. It's not indexed, so it's basically a flat rate.

 

The educational tax, which will be about the 14 to 15 per cent of the Department of Education budget, we're going to hold that - last year, the 2010-11 rate was .3048 on the MET and we're not going to allow that to increase. We're going to hold that at least until 2014-15 and hold it at the 2010-11 rate, so we're not going to allow that rate to go up. They can book that; they'll know that rate won't change. Really, the pressures on them are less than they were when they entered the MOU; they're just not going to be as affluent as they would have been at the end of the MOU.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: The number they use is $27 million. That would be $21 million in Corrections and housing, and then $6 million in education, give or take. Just based on your ballpark - and I'm certainly not a math whiz - you're figuring it's probably closer in the teens as opposed to $27 million over the - because they're saying the cost savings to the . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: To the end of the MOU?

 

MR. MACLELLAN: Yes.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Every municipality will be slightly different. I can only give you . . .

 

MR. MACLELLAN: The percentages, I understand. Just your general thoughts - and again this is just to understand how the department sort of rolled this out, and you did touch on this in one of your responses to the member for Hants West - why not sort of engage the municipalities in the consultation process? I know the 12 months is important and that lead time is for budgetary purposes, but just in terms of, okay, here's what we have to do, here are our numbers, the cupboards are open, take a look.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think you answered my question for me, because we actually knew the number we had to get - we needed $50 million. To look at it, how can we do this in the least painful way was really - and part of that was to give them the one year's notice. I mean, I consider that a big piece of consultation to say, look, we're going to do this to you next year; we're not doing it to you now so you have a chance to kind of plan your moves in your own individual municipalities. That's really the message I got from Mayor Maclean - he said they knew there were going to be some changes. He didn't really engage me to say we really want to sit down and figure out what those changes are; he said they would really like to have the one-year notice. That was the commitment I made to him - that I would try to do that.

 

I think he felt that - and like we felt - if we're going to ask school boards, health authorities, every department, I think the municipalities would think it would be quite unlikely that they wouldn't be asked to do something. I think that for us there was no wiggle room beyond this; in other words, to sit down and consult. We needed the $50 million - actually, we could have taken more, we could have pushed it back right to the start of the MOU, took the $17 million, kept indexing it, and we didn't do that. I think for them to bring them to a place that was better than when they started in the MOU and still get our $50 million and give them a year's notice, we thought that was about as good as we could make it.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: We have different interpretations, I guess, of the level of disconnect there is and, again, when you made your comments in the House, and here today, you seem to suggest that the municipalities are prepared for this and they could at least see is coming - right? I don't get that as much in terms of the conversations I've had - and it's not just CBRM, it is other municipalities.

 

Can you sort of address that a little bit in terms of why you figure it's just the numbers game?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't want to appear cavalier, that I don't really care about what they think, because we have quite a close relationship, I think, legally and morally - well, the member for Preston indicated there were two taxpayers, I was thinking there was one - I spoke to Mayor Kelly and I spoke to Mayor Morgan the day I made the announcement with the UNSM, and I didn't get the reaction I'm getting here. I guess that's one of the things that I have to carry with me, that when I proposed to them what we were doing and the announcement I had made, I didn't get as much negative feedback from them as perhaps I've gotten in Question Period in the House.

 

Maybe that's a question for them, but certainly I think there were other issues. I got the impression from Mayor MacLean that there were other issues around equalization and the whole fiscal envelope for municipalities that he felt was a much bigger thing that was of concern for him. Not that this wouldn't be, but certainly in that conversation it wasn't as much of a worry, I think, about the changes that were made. It certainly led me to believe that these were kind of doable. He would have preferred perhaps if the province didn't go there, but he understood the fiscal place where the province was and that CBRM could work within the confines of what they had to work with. There were just other issues, I think, that he would like to dialogue with me at some point in the future that he saw as bigger fish to fry, I think, maybe.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: I just have two more quick ones and . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: I meant Mayor Morgan - did I say Mayor MacLean?

 

MR. MACLELLAN: I assumed it was Mayor Morgan, yes.

 

You just touched on this one, and that will be my final question, but just a very quick one - in your discussions with Mayor MacLean was there any discussion about a municipal sort of auditor general?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR.MACLELLAN: There was.

MR. MACDONELL: I'm trying to think about, I knew it was part of the agreement under the MOU that the province was going to work to have, I don't know if necessarily a provincial auditor general but certainly I think the idea was that the books of municipalities would be audited and there would be, yes - "The responsibilities of the municipal auditor general would include looking at municipal accountability for financial stewardship and helping to achieve value for money in municipal operations."

 

So yes, that was a component. I think we are interested in still pursuing that with them because I think for everybody's purposes this would be a good thing. So we are still very keen to try to ensure that that service is available in a way that works well. I guess it doesn't apply to HRM, they have their own, but as far as the rest of the province goes, and some of those smaller municipalities. But that doesn't mean that those services can't be gotten in their immediate area.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: But there is an assigned - yes, that's part of the agreement. Okay.

 

Just finally - and again, you touched on this and then I will take my place - what is the future in terms of over the next, and I know you don't have a crystal ball, but just relatively, of the MOU, is it back on the table in a few years, and tied in, or is there any tie-in, to the equalization question? You mentioned that, so is that part and parcel from the UNSM's perspective - MOU and equalization?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I haven't had that discussion with UNSM. They've never raised it with me in my conversations with them. We're doing a fiscal review, and we're going to start right away, a fiscal review. That's to look at the whole package - equalization, grants, everything that we do in terms of that fiscal relationship with the municipalities.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: Okay, that's good.

 

MR. MACDONELL: That was the commitment actually the Premier had made back in the Fall to the municipalities. I would say that I don't see that as necessarily linked to the MOU or what we've done with the MOU.

 

Probably in kind of an odd stretch, here we are coming down the end of the road around the review of the CAP and here we are starting a fiscal review. I think, for sure, out to 2014-15, I think maybe we're interested in seeing the arrangement we have right now with the municipalities on the cost for Corrections and the MET and so on to kind of be where we'll be to the end of the time frame for the MOU which was 2012-13 to 2014-15. I was thinking it was five years, it started in 2007, but anyway, after that we'll re-evaluate.

 

If we can continue into the future and not burden municipalities any more than we would under the present agreement, I think we'd be keen to do that. I don't have a crystal ball, but if we could do that, I'd like to. One of the things I think members should think about, maybe I mentioned it in the debate, the relationship in other municipalities - in Alberta, I think they pay 38 per cent of the education costs. I don't think we have a desire to go there, but I think what we do want is there's no escaping a certain level of commitment funding-wise, so the question is: What is the service exchange that really works best for the municipalities and seems to be the most realistic for them and their citizens?

 

So I think that, at some point, is something we're going to have to have a re-look. I think under the Savage Government there was a service exchange done at that time. They took all the social housing and community service-type work. It seems like that's all we do is re-evaluate, so it may require more tweaking to kind of get the right mix.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: So it's not necessarily just the financial factor, there also is just the bones of the MOU itself.

 

MR. MACDONELL: By and large, it was financial. I mean we were looking for a certain level of money that we needed to bring the books to balance. The question was how could we get that and not impose a severe hardship on the municipalities - that was really what we were trying to do.

 

I think once we get the province's books into balance, I think that allows us a much broader dialogue of now what can we offer, what kind of enhanced programs can we offer municipalities? I think that's kind of the hope that as we move to that date - what is our potential? That will be yet to be seen.

 

MR. MACLELLAN: Thank you for the questions Mr. Minister, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to my colleague.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We have a little over 10 minutes remaining in the Liberal time frame. From a procedural point of view, if the member for Preston would mind giving the minister just a minute to read the resolution after your time frame. Is that acceptable?

 

We started at 2:00 p.m. today and I see the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage is ready to go, and if we were to change chairs very, very quickly we could get our four hours in by 6:00 p.m. right on the nose tonight. Without any breaks, we could keep moving. Is that okay with the member for Preston?

 

MR. COLWELL: I have probably more than 10 minutes worth of questions I'd like to ask, which I believe I can do.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's my understanding that you could, in fact, take another hour if you wanted. So if the Progressive Conservatives have given up the ghost in relation to this, you're welcome to stay here until 6:00 p.m. if you would like - that is my understanding at least.

 

MR. COLWELL: I won't be here until 6:00 p.m. - guaranteed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.

 

MR. COLWELL: I want to ask the minister some general questions about the fee increases, the user fees. I can't understand how he can raise fees 2 per cent right across the board and say it is cost recovery, because in some areas probably the costs have gone down and in other areas have probably gone up more than 2 per cent. My understanding is that it is supposed to be cost recovery in each cost section or unit - whatever you want to call it - so how can you explain you're putting 2 per cent across the board instead of doing a true evaluation and seeing what the cost is in each one, and saying this one goes up 5 per cent, this one goes down 1 per cent, and this one goes up 10 per cent and the other ones stay neutral?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well I expect there would be some impact from CPI although the 2 per cent doesn't recognize - CPI was more than 2 per cent. So then, by and large, I don't know if in all cases, but salary increases were 1 per cent, for sure, and probably if we look at the number of fees, I'm thinking if we did a careful analysis of each one of those, probably the cost of doing that would have chewed up more than a 2 per cent difference to analyze each one of those, to put people to work doing that.

 

So since we know that that's roughly the range that our costs have gone up, it's probably the cheapest way to apply it. I'm thinking we probably - it might be a better question for the Minister of Finance because it was his department that imposed the change on the fees that are delivered.

 

MR. COLWELL: It was a directive, I understand then, from the Minister of Finance and his department to change it by 2 per cent? It was a directive from the Department of Finance . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. COLWELL: . . . to change it to 2 per cent.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes, it was a directive from them. Basically the cost of living was 2 per cent - the cost of living went up by 2 per cent, so that's really the basis for the delivery of the service.

 

MR. COLWELL: Okay, let me back up - the department should know exactly what everything costs in the department; there shouldn't have to be a study done. If the costs in Vital Statistics go up, that should be recorded in the financial situation that the province is in or that department is in, so your staff should know immediately what it costs to do everything in every department. A 1 per cent wage increase, which I understand is correct - and it is probably 1.2 per cent actually the way this went up with overheads - so when you factor that in, it's not factoring in fixed costs such as rent and other costs like that.

 

I still think - and I think you already gave me the answer, the Department of Finance is 2 per cent - the Consumer Price Index has absolutely nothing to do with what it costs to run the department. Nothing. This is supposed to be based on actual costs and, as I said earlier, some departments may be down because they've streamlined or computerized or whatever, and that's good planning - and some might have gone up quite substantially because they've had to do some technological changes, they might have had to hire more staff to carry the workload - there could be all kinds of issues.

 

The point is the fees are supposed to be based on actual costs, and I'll leave my point at that because you did answer my question, the directive did come down from the Department of Finance and it's an easy way to do something that really should be accounted for properly. I know your staff are very, very capable and I guarantee you, if you would ask them they would probably tell you instantly what each one of these things cost.

 

MR. MACDONELL: That wasn't your original question, so we probably can get you what each of these things cost. The question was what was the increase in cost, and for the past number of years the increase in costs have been CPI, so for this it was a cost of living increase of 2 per cent is what got applied, and the cost of services is what generates part of your CPI costs.

 

You started out by telling me we should have figured out what each difference was, in case one was 1 per cent or one was 3 per cent, and then in your last comment you told me I shouldn't have to do that. So, yes, I think most everywhere businesses otherwise would probably have recognized the 2 per cent increase in their costs this year, so I think we're not out of the way for where the rest of the world is in the cost of delivering services to the people. That's certainly in the realm of possibilities - 2 per cent is pretty much on the mark.

 

MR. COLWELL: Maybe you misinterpreted what I was saying. What I really did say, to clarify it, is the staff you have are very capable. I know that from working with them in the past and I'm sure if the Department of Finance had come and asked your department what does it cost to register a motor vehicle, what does it cost to do this and this and this, very quickly they could have had all that information available. It appears as if they weren't asked; it appears that an arbitrary number of 2 per cent was put across the board, for whatever reason. That's not for me to judge, or you even, because the Department of Finance looks after that.

 

Indeed, when the costs do go up it should be accounted regularly, which I am sure it is, so you would know. So indeed if it does cost 5 per cent more to register a vehicle, you should know that, so you can recover that cost so it doesn't go on the general tax rate - and indeed, if it does go down, it should also go down, if that's the actual way you're going to do it.

 

If you're going to use the Consumer Price Index to correct this, whenever the Department of Finance decides to do that, that's a whole different issue, so I think it's a policy issue that we're talking about here. The policy had been in the past and, from what I understand it still is, that it's actual cost recovery. When you look at some of these things this may not be a cost recovery, this may just be a hidden tax in some cases - and in some cases it may not be. So that's the point I'm making.

 

MR. MACDONELL: It's the delivery of a service, so in society, inflation and other factors all go into what we all recognize as our cost to run our homes and whatever, so you can't separate the costs of government from any of the rest of that. So if those costs that we identify by that number, CPI, goes up by 2 per cent, that means that the government is required, if you're going to do cost recovery, to get that 2 per cent back, as our costs would have gone up, therefore that's what the 2 per cent represents.

 

MR. COLWELL: Okay, that's great. I'm going to ask you another in a different area, and what I want to talk about - and this has been a long-standing issue and a problem and it seems to be more so lately and maybe it is because of your MOU, I could use that for an example - it appears that the municipalities, at least in the area that I represent, and within HRM, it has gotten tougher and tougher collecting back taxes.

 

Now if someone can afford to pay those back taxes, that's fine, and if they're just not paying them they should be chased and there should be issues. I have several people now who are in a position that they cannot pay a back tax bill - and some of these bills are as low as $4,000. Now $4,000 to you and me, we probably could get a loan if we don't have the money, and pay it and pay the payments on the loan. In my area there are a lot of people who can't get the loan, a lot of people who can't pay the taxes and, indeed, their houses are going for sale. Now, can you imagine losing your home for $4,000 or even $10,000 or $15,000? That is happening and I'd be willing to talk to you in more detail about that, privately, about those situations.

 

 

I would just ask you if you could review this, and I can give you all kinds of information that I have on it that may help you and your staff. Maybe to work with something in the municipalities to see if there is some way we can prevent people in this situation - and I mean the legitimate ones, I don't mean people who just don't want to pay their taxes, that's a whole different thing - who can't pay their taxes, so they don't lose their homes.

 

I know there's a deferral program, a lot of people are not aware of that and they may not be eligible for it under the existing Act to do that. Maybe a regulation could be changed so the municipality would have more leeway in that regard. Maybe there's something that can be done. All I'm asking is could you and your staff review this situation, and again I would be very pleased to meet with you and your staff to outline what the problem is that I'm seeing - and I'm sure it's just not me it has got to be other people. I think, as your MOU gets in full gear and they need more money, that indeed they may get harder and harder on people who can least afford it.

 

I believe everyone should pay their property taxes, that's not the issue, the issue is how their collecting this and its really causing a lot of stress, particularly for some seniors. Now if someone's working and not paying their taxes that's a different issue, but if you have someone else on a fixed income, with no way of getting more income, they can't go and get a part-time job to pay these bills or they don't have a rich relative who can loan them at no-interest and pay them back, what do they do? What happens is it goes in the newspaper, so it's a total embarrassment to start and the whole neighbourhood knows that they house is going for a tax sale. Then, ultimately, some of them get sold and they are kicked out of their homes, a place they might have lived in since their parents built the home, in some cases.

 

All I'm really doing is asking. This is going to become a huge issue, I believe, over time as the cost of everything else in the province goes up. As you know the gasoline cost is going up, food prices are going up, and all these other things are going up, so as you see this happen, I think we're going to see more and more of this and there has got to be some way that we can, number one, protect municipalities so that their not scammed out of taxes - we don't want to ever see that happen because that would cost us all; number two, to protect the people that really need to be protected - and I don't think we would have to give grants to those people, I don't think that's what we're talking about. I think there is a way that they could stay in their home until such time, as I indicated before, that that person gets too ill to stay in their home or passes away - hopefully that's a long time - or something else happens. Someone, maybe a younger family member, moves into the house and takes over the responsibility for the home to get them through that period. There's got to be some way to do this.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Member, that concludes the hour allocated to the Liberal caucus. The Conservative caucus has indicated, and there is no one here from the Conservative caucus, that caucus is in fact finished. We will begin another round for the Liberal caucus and you have as much time as you need.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Can I answer?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: By all means, but the answer is in the second hour of the Liberal caucus.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We'd be glad to look at it. I'm not sure how long it takes to be arrears - is it three years? Three years.

 

MR. COLWELL: After three years the property has to be sold.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right, then you have a year to pay your back taxes.

 

MR. COLWELL: Sort of, but if you don't make a payment arrangement during that three-year period your house can be listed. Then sometimes we'll allow you to make a payment arrangement, but sometimes payment arrangements, to really get it caught up, aren't sufficient with the income people have. So for instance if you got to pay $500 a month and your income is $800 a month, you just can't do it, and in reality then you would never ever get it caught up.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Your property taxes would never be $500 month.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well, the arrears could be. The point is the arrears could be to catch up because, for instance, if you're in arrears for $10,000 - and I can give you an exact example of actually more than that where the municipality messed up sending out a bill, but now under the Act they've got to sell the house, and it actually went for sale and it didn't sell fortunately, but it's going to go again - to catch that one up, even with a lower property tax during the coming years, by the time they pay the interest and the penalties and all the stuff in between, they might have to pay $500 a month to catch it up - up to the three-year period.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR. COLWELL: So then they can start paying on that.

 

MR. MACDONELL: You know, like I say, we would be glad to look at that. My thought is that I think one of the reasons we put - or we didn't but the Progressive Conservatives did, but we encouraged them - the CAP was so that people weren't really taxed out of their homes. The other part of this is municipalities keep telling me time and time again they have a means test. One of the arguments about getting rid of the CAP from them is, well, if people's inability to pay their taxes is an issue, we have a means test and we can help them, you know, if they have a low income.

 

So I'm not sure if they say they have that, why that doesn't seem to work for somebody's individual circumstance. I'm not sure what we can do, but we would be glad to take a look at it to see what's a possibility - and I've got to tell you that this is not something in my meetings with the UNSM that they raise as an issue. From the people who are kind of running the ship, they're not seeing this as a big wave coming in the future that's going to be a problem.

 

MR. COLWELL: Typically the municipalities would do what the law says and follow through and sell it, so it's not an issue to them. It's an issue to me and probably some of the councillors who have to deal with people who are losing their homes this way. Doing the means test is fine, and they do have some property tax deferral programs which are good programs, and some property tax forgiveness programs through the municipality and the province, but the trouble is when they get in arrears, a lot of people aren't aware of some of these programs, sometimes the municipality won't let them use them because they're past the three-year period and the Act says you've got to sell the property within three years of being in arrears.

 

So it's something I would like to talk to you and your department about, and I'm not sure you can fix it but you might be able to put the tools in place so the municipalities have more leeway when they're dealing with this. And, again, I stress, I'm not talking about somebody who just decides they're not going to pay their taxes because I don't think we should have any pity on those people.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right, yes.

 

MR. COLWELL: But it's the people who honestly and legitimately cannot pay and when you look at all their income - and when we do this we actually get an income tax statement from them saying what their income was the year before, to make sure, and we forward that to the municipality. It's difficult and I'm seeing more and more of this. Four or five years ago we didn't see it, but as the cost of living increases it's going to get more difficult. So people are going to decide they're going to heat their house or are going to pay the property taxes - heat the house is immediate, property taxes aren't. So they'll make that decision and, right or wrong, they've made the decision and it's the decision they had to make.

 

So that's where I'm coming from on this, and it's not a lot of people but I think it will become more and more people as the population gets older and as people try to survive, particularly it's mostly, in my area anyway and probably in most people's areas, it's the person who traditionally had worked, and that's not the case today, the husband dies first, so the pension is reduced. So you have a widow who is trying to keep the home that they built together and raised their family in, and by the time they figured out that they can't afford it anymore, it's too late, and indeed they might have an opportunity, and maybe as simple as some minor changes that the municipality can do some other things to ensure that people stay there, because if we don't address this issue, the other problem is going to be the province is going to have some problems with housing.

 

So it means there are going to be more people looking for housing units that, again, the province is pretty well maxed out on occupancy - they're pretty well all full. There's going to be more and more demand for that, for affordable housing, and where there's a lot of talk about affordable housing and the less people who need those facilities, the less demand there is, so the less cost to the provincial taxpayer as compared to the municipal taxpayer.

 

I will again stress that there are two taxpayers - the ones who own property and the ones who don't. So everything the municipality does, the people who own the property pay for everything. The people, the majority of the people probably or at least over half the people, don't pay property taxes. So when something is downloaded on the municipality, or they decide to tax on it, it's that one taxpayer who's paying the bill, not everybody else. So I could go on about this, but this is a very, very important topic and I think it's something that you're going to see more and more of and I know you have great compassion for people who can't afford different things. We don't want to see people hurt in this way.

I don't know what the solution is at this point but it would take something from your department and yourself to correct it. I don't know what that is but I would be willing to sit down and talk to you and your staff about it and give you some examples, with the permission of the people in my constituency, to give you an idea what we're up against.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We can take a look at the MGA and determine if there's something we can do with the Act to give municipalities more flexibility, if that's what they think they need, in order to address that. It seems kind of ironic, it would seem to me that the people who can pay but refuse to pay, you might want to take their home but the others who can't pay, you know, you might want to do something different. So, anyway, yes, we'll get something set up. If you want to come in and see the staff and have a discussion with them around what the possibilities might be in the Act, we'll do a little review of the Act first to see what's there, and then invite you in to have a chat about it.

 

MR. COLWELL: You know, I want to be very clear on what I said - those people who don't want to pay are different than people who can't afford to pay.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. COLWELL: And we see that over and over and over in government so I don't want to be taking that out of context.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. COLWELL: We see more and more times that people are allowed things, that can't afford things, disabilities or whatever the case may be, and other people that maybe can afford to do things and they shouldn't be - people who can't pay shouldn't be penalized for people who can, let's put it that way.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right, yes.

 

MR. COLWELL: Anyway, that concludes my questions.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much to the Liberal caucus.

 

Shall Resolution E34 stand?

 

Resolution E34 stands.

 

If we could change the seats very quickly without any disruption in our time frame, it would be greatly appreciated. So I will keep talking until the minister comes forward to begin his remarks and that, of course, is the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

 

Resolution E2 - Resolved that a sum not exceeding $55,100,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, pursuant to the Estimate, and the business plan of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia be approved.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

 

HON. DAVID WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge some of the support staff I have with me during my estimates. We have the Deputy Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage, Laura Lee Langley who is with me. Also we have the Executive Director of Corporate Operations, David Ross. To my left we have Director of Finance, Joyce McDonald and I also have the Director of Communications, Mike Noonan. Also with Finance we have Shauna Wadden and also we have staff Stephen MacDonald from Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation and Bob MacKinnon who also is joining me for some support through this process.

 

I have some opening remarks that will outline the highlights of the 2011-12 budget for the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. It is a privilege to be the first minister of this new department, a department that brings a focus on communities in the broadest sense of that word. A community is more than a place name on a map. It can be any group that shares a set of beliefs, values or a common purpose. Communities are about people, their hopes and dreams for the future. In Nova Scotia, our rich and diverse culture and heritage are the foundation of many vibrant communities. The new department is dedicated to promoting that diversity and celebrating it with all Nova Scotians. Whether it is a local museum, support for an artist funding for a public library or the many programs that support our Acadian, African Nova Scotian or Gaelic cultures, this department is helping to make life better for Nova Scotia families.

 

It is a pleasure to speak to the committee today about the major initiatives and the activities for the department in this coming year. I'm proud to serve as the minister for a department which does so much to contribute to making life better for families in every region of our province. That contribution includes the support provided to regional libraries across the province through the Nova Scotia Provincial Library. With the leadership of staff and in co-operation with regional library boards in every part of Nova Scotia, we're ensuring that public libraries continue to support a culture that values lifelong learning. To do that, the provincial library works with its partners to explore ways to be more efficient in managing libraries' collections so that resources could be focused at the local level on programming.

 

Recognizing the Internet plays an important day-to-day role in the work of public libraries, the Nova Scotia Provincial Library has been covering the cost of Internet connection for regional libraries. That continues in the 2011-12 fiscal year with more than $300,000 being set aside for the support. Thanks to the work government is doing to live within its means, we are able to provide continued and stable funding operating grants to regional library boards this year. In 2011-12, the budget for these operating grants is being maintained at $14.1 million, the same as in the previous fiscal year. Staff of the provincial libraries and this government will continue to work with regional library boards across Nova Scotia to face the challenge of maintaining this vital service for our communities. I look forward to continuing dialogue with staff and volunteers who support our public libraries.

 

Just recently, on a personal note, I visited a library in Mulgrave just a couple of weeks ago and really it was a great experience for me as a new minister to recognize the important role that that library and that library system contributes and plays to a rural community. I was amazed at the distance that the Mulgrave library works in from heading up towards the highlands in through Canso and the Eastern Shore.

 

The creation of the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage brings a broader focus to protecting and celebrating Nova Scotia's diverse culture and heritage. The work of the offices of Acadian Affairs, African Nova Scotian Affairs and Gaelic Affairs ensures that these cultural communities are part of government's efforts to make life better for Nova Scotia families. I look forward to working with my colleagues, Minister Steele, Minister MacDonald and Minister Paris to ensure the voices of these communities are heard at the decision-making table in government. The new Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage will work to ensure that the contributions these communities have made to our history continue to be recognized and that they help to influence our province's future.

 

As we continue to transition to the new department during this fiscal year, I can assure Nova Scotians that it is business as usual for the Offices of Acadian Affairs, African Nova Scotian Affairs and Gaelic Affairs. The important work that they do to promote the interest of these cultural communities will be enhanced by the support that can come from aligned departments.

 

I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the staff at Communities, Culture and Heritage. Being part of this team is definitely an honour for me. I've been impressed with their commitment to supporting the arts and culture communities, our public libraries, the heritage sector and our distinct cultural communities throughout Nova Scotia.

 

I also want to thank the members of the culture and heritage sector and our regional libraries for contributing so much to the health and well-being of communities across the province. Along with government, they are helping to make life better for families in every region of our province. It is no secret our government is committed to living within our means but we are doing it within a balanced approach that seeks to reduce government spending while we look for ways to grow the economy and increase revenues.

 

Communities, Culture and Heritage is focused on helping government achieve those priorities because they are important to Nova Scotians. That means we will continue to make strategic choices about how we support our important sectors to ensure their long-term viability. We are making the right decisions to ensure that government lives within its means. We are being strategic about how we invest our valuable financial and material resources in support of making life better for people in Nova Scotia. Being strategic means working hard to be more efficient in our work while preserving continued and stable funding for the arts and culture sector, public libraries and community-run museums.

 

The Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage is estimating its first budget for 2011-12 to be $55,100,000. As I've mentioned, we've made strategic choices that contribute to government's effort to live within its means and we've made sure that funding supports artistic achievement and that valuable community resources like museums and public libraries is maintained. The savings realized in this year's budget do not impact our support to community-run museums or the arts and culture sector.

 

Mr. Chairman, the budget for operating grants to regional libraries has been maintained. The savings we're making were identified through increased efficiencies and reduction in administration expenses. We were able to make these savings because of the hard work and dedicated team of department staff. They enable us to be even more strategic in how we invest in our sectors while ensuring we are as efficient as possible. The sector supported by Communities, Culture and Heritage generate economic activity and provide the foundation for learning and strong communities. That advances our government's commitment to create good jobs and grow the economy for the benefit of Nova Scotians in all parts of this province.

 

Nova Scotia's artists, composers, craftspeople, performers, writers and musicians continue to represent the leading edge of creativity in our country and on the global stage. This government recognizes how important the contributions of the arts and culture community are to Nova Scotians.

 

In February, Premier Dexter and I announced a five-point plan to build our relationship with the sector and enhance the value of Nova Scotia's creative economy. This is part of the province's plan for change that makes life better for families. It is further evidence on how we're doing things differently. The five-point plan is based on the input received from nearly 1,000 Nova Scotians who participated in consultation in the Fall of 2010. It was influenced by the views of artists in the organizations that advocate for them. We've listened to the sector and are acting to ensure their voices play a role in guiding our support for the arts and culture in Nova Scotia.

 

The five-point plan includes: creating status of the artist legislation to recognize the importance of the arts to Nova Scotians; establishing Arts Nova Scotia, an independent body that will be responsible for decisions on funding to individual artists; forming the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council, an evolution of the Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council which provided advice to government on development of a culture strategy; strengthening communities with the sector, including an interactive Web site that will allow for dialogue and provide a place for artists to showcase and market their work; and establishing an interdepartmental committee to coordinate government efforts to support arts and culture and address the needs and concerns of the sector.

 

Mr. Chairman, there could be no mistake that arts and culture builds stronger communities throughout Nova Scotia; $1.2 billion in economic activity and 28,000 direct and indirect jobs are dependent on the arts and culture. Our investment in this important sector directly impacts government's commitment to make life better for all Nova Scotians through good jobs and economic growth.

 

Mr. Chairman, along with the staff of the department I'm looking forward to continuing to work with the arts and culture sector to implement our five-point plan over the coming year. Shortly we'll be announcing a panel of sector members who will develop the terms of reference for Arts Nova Scotia. As indicated in the Throne Speech it is our intention to have Arts Nova Scotia established by the end of the year.

 

Mr. Chairman, Nova Scotia's heritage resources make a valuable contribution to communities and support lifelong learning. Through the Nova Scotia Museum system and the efforts of local heritage groups and community museums, that heritage remains accessible to visitors and residents alike. The province's Heritage Strategy guides governments in the important job of preserving and interpreting heritage and supporting communities as they seek to benefit from the broad range of resources that are part of our legacy for current and future generations.

 

We're supporting the work of communities to preserve their history and tell their stories to Nova Scotians and visitors to our province. Even as government works hard to live within its means we're providing continued and stable funding to community-run museums through the Community Museum Assistance Program. In 2011-12 we will be providing $978,600 in grants to community museums, the same level as funding in 2010-11. We are also maintaining stable funding for grants through the department's Strategic Development Initiative which supports local heritage groups in their efforts to protect important pieces of our shared history. In the 2011-12 fiscal year $200,000 will be available through this program, the same as in 2010-11.

 

Mr. Chairman, an important piece of Nova Scotia's seafaring heritage is receiving a new lease on life as the restoration of the iconic Bluenose II in Lunenburg continues during the 2011-12 fiscal year. The estimated expenditure on the project in this fiscal year is $7.1 million and I'd like to take this opportunity to invite all members of the committee and the House to visit the site in Lunenburg, it's quite impressive the work that's being done in Lunenburg. Work on the high-profile project is in high gear on the Lunenburg waterfront, the eyes of the world are on Lunenburg thanks to the Internet. Images of the construction work are broadcast on the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The project is even attracting attention from as far away as Kuwait. This attention will benefit the consortium of Nova Scotia boat builders that is using a mixed tradition of modern and wooden boat building materials to complete this historic project.

The Lunenburg Shipyard Alliance, made up of Covey Island Boatworks, Lunenburg Industrial Foundry & Engineering and Snyder's Shipyard will be able to compete more effectively on the shipbuilding projects thanks to their involvement with the Bluenose II restoration. Working with these fine Nova Scotia companies mean the benefits of this major infrastructure investment are staying here in Nova Scotia, helping to make life better for families by creating good jobs.

 

This project shows how Nova Scotia companies can come together to promote our province's ability to be world leaders on such an important and large project like the refit of the Bluenose II. Not only does this project mean that good jobs are being created, it also secures the future of our famous sailing ambassador and the benefits it brings to Lunenburg and the province. As the project proceeds on the town's waterfront the public will have a front-row seat to this rare experience. A visitor centre located across the road from the construction site is offering guided tours to the public, a popular attraction for visitors coming to Nova Scotia this summer.

 

Working with the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society and the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic we're able to interpret this restoration, increase understanding and an appreciation for our seafaring heritage. As we do, this will draw attention to the importance of preservation, preserving links to our industrial past to encourage a future that advances the well-being of all Nova Scotians.

 

As I mentioned, the arts and culture sector also supports the socio and economic health of Nova Scotians. Working with members of the sector and the organizations that speak for them the department will continue to provide financial support to artistic and creative development. The budget for the Culture division is estimated to be $9,211,000 for 2011-12. I'm pleased to say that that funding program for artists and cultural organizations remains unchanged from 2010-11.

 

The division has identified $55,000 of savings in its administrative expenses which contributes to government efforts to live within its means. That means in the coming year the division will once again be able to invest $7.5 million to encourage artistic expression, creative excellence and the development of a Nova Scotia cultural industry. As government continues to try to keep its commitment to make life better we will work with all of our partners in the arts and culture sector to ensure that creativity and artistic excellence continues to define who we are as Nova Scotians.

 

Mr. Chairman, in a world where information is shared in the blink of an eye and people have infinite choices of media content, ensuring that our stories are heard and our distinct Nova Scotian identity is preserved can be daunting. That means our music, art, literature, fine craft and the people who bring creativity to light in the arts and culture sector are one of the most important assets for reaching the wider world with a unique Nova Scotia voice. They challenge our perceptions and encourage us to reach further and explore new ideas to make us stronger at every level.

 

Staff at the Culture division work very hard to ensure that the arts and culture sector receives the support and attention it deserves. Members of the sector are involved in the decision-making process surrounding funding programs which ensure the artistic merit and creativity are the benchmark for awarding funding. I extend my appreciation to them for their dedication to not only their own disciplines, but the sector as a whole.

 

I also want to acknowledge the contribution made by the members of the Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council which is evolving into the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council under the five-point arts and culture plan. They bring to the table points of view from a wide range of artistic and creative fields, along with their passion for ensuring Nova Scotia is a leader in the creative economy. I thank them for their dedication and I look forward to continuing to work with them in the year ahead.

 

Recently I announced government's new Responsible Gaming Strategy, building on research and analysis, best practices from other jurisdictions and lessons learned in Nova Scotia. The new strategy sets out a balanced, measured approach to our conduct and management of gaming in the province. The strategy takes seriously our responsibility to reduce the harm that problem gambling can cause by implementing a mandatory My-Play system for VLT use, a first in North America, moving to solely reduce the number of VLTs through attrition and sharpening the focus on research into problem gambling. We ensure Nova Scotians continue to lead on responsible gaming.

 

In the coming year I look forward to working with the staff of my department and the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation to transition them into a division of Communities, Culture and Heritage. An important aspect of the strategy, the transition will ensure that Nova Scotia will have a modern and efficient approach to the conduct and management of gaming.

 

Mr. Chairman, on a broader note our professional team of staff in the department will be working to enhance the relationships with our sectors and stakeholders as they pursue our plans for the coming year and I look forward to being part of that team. It is exciting to be part of a building of a vision for a strong and healthy community through this new department. I believe we've made a good start down the road to position us for success in the year ahead.

 

With that Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to take questions about the department's estimates.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. The Liberal caucus will have one hour until seven minutes after five.

 

The honourable member for Digby-Annapolis.

 

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Minister. I appreciate everything you just said in your speech and I appreciate how, since you've taken over this office, how you stayed in touch with me and I appreciate that very much.

I also appreciate the heritage and culture in this province because we're sitting in quite a place right now. You don't have to go far to find it, it's a beautiful place. The only problem is - and if I may complain to the Chair here - maybe we can get some air conditioning put in it someday, I don't know if that would change the heritage and culture part of it but certainly we have modern tables in it, I don't know why we couldn't have some modern air conditioning. I've been in this House in late Spring and early Fall and, the members who haven't been in here, it becomes a hot place, not with words or what's said, but the air in here but it is a beautiful building, it's a beautiful place.

 

I'd like to start off with just a few questions. The first question is why did the government feel the need to create this department away from Tourism and to put it separately? Maybe you could explain that a little minister.

 

MR. WILSON: I thank the member for his comment and I think both of us were here in July one time during budget estimates and definitely could have used some air conditioning then. I appreciate the question. No question, the government, when we've made our commitments in the past about living within our means, looking at the structure of government and the efficiencies that we have within departments was one of the key contributors to this creation of the new department. But the main focus was to acknowledge to Nova Scotians, to people within the culture and heritage sectors in Nova Scotia that as a government we appreciate and respect the work they've done over the years.

Truly we wanted to align similar offices, similar sectors and similar work that's being done within government to have one department oversee that. I think with the creation of Communities, Culture and Heritage we have taken the steps to bring in, for example, the Office of African Nova Scotia Affairs, the Office of Gaelic Affairs, the Office of Acadian Affairs, the provincial public libraries and all the current departments in sectors that were under the former Tourism, Culture and Heritage division. They really complement each other with the work they do, they try to promote our culture, they try to promote our heritage and we see by bringing those sectors together that we can assist each other in some of the initiatives that we take part in in the province.

 

For example, when the three offices that I just mentioned were created, I think they were created initially for good intentions but were kind of in their own silos, where they worked on independent projects, independent initiatives. But now with them under one roof we have a tremendous amount of skilled, professional individuals within the Culture and Heritage division that can assist them in some of the projects that they have had over the years.

 

So, I think truly what it does is it indicates to Nova Scotians that as a government we consider sectors that are under my department extremely important, especially around addressing the economy in Nova Scotia and hopefully we can build the creative economy so that it can have an even greater impact on the economy as a whole in our province.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Didn't you believe that to promote our heritage and culture, with tourism attached to it, didn't you think that attracting more people to this province by keeping tourism with heritage and culture would be of more benefit? Was that ever discussed when this was separated?

 

MR. WILSON: With the shift in some of the sectors that we saw with the creation of our new department, tourism definitely, when you look at the work they have done over the years, it is an extremely important part of bringing visitors to our province to experience our heritage, experience our culture. But we felt as a government that it was more in line to work with the Department of Economic and Rural Development, with what they do to try to bring new initiatives to the province, it made quite a bit of sense to align those departments together under one department and ensure that in our Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, that we have the programs in place and the supports in place to assist that department when new visitors come, that they have a great experience in our province.

 

We found it was better aligned with Economic and Rural Development, and I think it was the most appropriate place for them to be covered under.

 

MR. THERIAULT: What exactly is the department's goal for the next 10 years in this new department? Is there a goal set out? You must have a mandate.

 

MR. WILSON: As a department, we have had a statement of mandate and what we can do is provide one after our questioning here today, because it's quite lengthy, which I can appreciate. But part of the mandate of Communities, Culture and Heritage is responsible for contributing the well-being and prosperity of Nova Scotia's diverse and creative communities through the promotion, development, preservation and celebration of our culture, heritage, identity and language and providing leadership and expertise in innovation to our stakeholders. So that is kind of the mandate, we have a vision, we have a mission statement.

 

I would hope 10 years from now we could be still sitting here together; myself representing the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and we can show some of the initiatives that we have brought forward just in a short three months, like in my opening statement, around the five-point plan, the culture and heritage initiative that we're bringing forward, that the decisions that we made to date are the right decisions and that Nova Scotia is a much better place in 10 years.

 

I will provide you with a copy of that. There is a lot of information on there and it might be a little lengthy but I think we have a lot of ambition in the new department that we see ourselves as contributing to the success of Nova Scotia in the future.

 

MR. THERIAULT: When this department was separated, how does it work? Does the same staff that the Department of Culture and Heritage had simply move into this department? How is it separated from Tourism?

MR. WILSON: Definitely what has transpired is that the staff within the Tourism part, we had divisions under the old Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, there was a Tourism division, Culture division, Heritage division. With the Tourism division being moved out to the Department of Economic and Rural Development that staff goes to that department. Same as the offices that have come under our jurisdiction; the staff at the Office of Acadian Affairs, the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs and Gaelic Affairs will fall under our mandate.

 

In the Estimates Books we can identify the number of FTEs, for example, that have transitioned out, that went to the Department of Economic and Rural Development. Then we can also indicate and show the number of FTEs that have come in, plus the ones that have remained here that were with the Culture and Heritage division.

 

MR. THERIAULT: So anybody who worked with Tourism wasn't involved with Culture and Heritage at all - nothing overlapped there?

 

MR. WILSON: No question, they did, but they were their own division so 113 individuals worked in the division of Tourism. They moved over to fall under the Department of Economic and Rural Development. No question they worked together on initiatives and some of the support, but definitely this was one division and this was the other division. There were a number of divisions within the old department so that division moved to the Department of Economic and Rural Development.

 

MR. THERIAULT: So nobody was laid off?

 

MR. WILSON: No, not from my understanding. Those staff are going through a transition to be consumed under that department. Their location is still on our floor, but over the transition period over the next coming months - it could take up to a year - they will eventually move closer to that department. Because of leases and contractual obligations their location is still in the same spot, but they actually do work for and under the other department. The staff all move to wherever they represent or their division head landed after the shift in the departments.

 

MR. THERIAULT: How many are employed with the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage? How many employees are there? You said there were 113 in Tourism.

 

MR. WILSON: There are 130 employees in Heritage and 17 in Culture, but we also now have the numbers under the three offices that we have. Under Tourism, which transferred out, there were 113 full-time employees. Record Management transferred also because Record Management used to be under the old Tourism department; they transferred out and that was a number of 12 employees. Nova Scotia Provincial Libraries were added to our staff so 22 FTEs were added. Also, the Department of Acadian Affairs added six full-time employees to our department's number. African Nova Scotian Affairs added 10 employees; Gaelic Affairs added five employees and that would be it.

 

The difference is that we have 88 fewer full-time employees in our department compared to the old department, but we've had stuff moved in also.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Now this department is responsible for public libraries. Is there any plan to rebuild any of these libraries to upgrade the infrastructure of them? I know that in some places - I know in my riding in Weymouth there was just a new library built, but I have a lot of calls from other areas, smaller areas, that the infrastructure seems to be deteriorating a lot in the buildings they're using. Is there going to be any funding to rebuild the existing libraries and possibly build new ones? Is there going to be new funding any time for that?

 

MR. WILSON: Well, provincial libraries - we have staff in provincial libraries - they work with provincial library boards across the province. They work with them to identify where there may be the need for new libraries or infrastructure needs. Definitely we have some libraries coming on board in the near future. I believe Canso is one that they're working on now. Libraries are a collaborative kind of approach to libraries within the province with the board, with the municipalities and the province so there are several players at the table with that. I'm just trying to get a list of a couple of the new libraries that are going to be coming on stream in the next several months or within the year.

 

There are 13 boards and they're municipally controlled so what we do, as a government that oversees the provincial libraries, we work with those boards to see what initiatives we can be supportive in for funding, for infrastructure priorities throughout the province. We work with the 13 boards that are within all the municipalities of the province. There are new libraries open. I'll try to get you a list of the ones in the next few months that will come on line.

 

MR. THERIAULT: In February, your department announced the new plan to support arts and culture in Nova Scotia and I want to talk about the five-point plan that you announced a little earlier. Part of that five-point plan was to establish an independent arts council. When will this council be created?

 

MR. WILSON: Right now we're going through the transition of having - hopefully in the not distant future we'll announce our panel that will oversee some of the creation of the independent body for Arts Nova Scotia. We see the timeline on that to hopefully have that implemented by the end of this fiscal year to have that up and running so that we can address the needs of the arts grants or funding through arts grants in Nova Scotia. There are a few different aspects in the five-point plan. Do you want me to initiate a few of them?

 

MR. THERIAULT: Yes.

MR. WILSON: Through the consultation process that just finished up last Fall we had over 1,000 people across the province who contributed to that arts and culture consultation process so we've had a lot of input through it. When we came up with the five-point plan, one of the things that really stood out was the fact that as a government we wanted to ensure that we recognize the importance of artists in Nova Scotia. That's why in the five-point plan we have the status of the artist legislation and that will be, I think, a key component to our five-point plan and that we're hoping over the next year with consultation, with input from all stakeholders that status for legislation, once we look at other jurisdictions across the country on what they have in place in other provinces, that we'll be able to come forward with the most appropriate legislation. We're looking at that within the next year or so.

 

Also, in our five-point plan, we've decided to form the creation of the Nova Scotia Leadership Council. The Nova Scotia Leadership Council will play an important role on the status of the artist legislation also - will try to give their opinions, seek some support and initiatives from the sector to see what the sector would like to see in that legislation.

 

The Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council that was the council that we had that advised the minister for the arts and culture sector will be created into the new Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council. They're going to play a role in that and also continued support of initiatives within arts and culture in the province and also work on a cultural strategy, as I mentioned in my opening statement.

 

We're also going to create an interprovincial committee to coordinate government's efforts to support arts and culture development and address the needs and concerns of communities in a coordinated manner. So it's not just our department that is influencing some of the decisions that we make. We think many departments can play a role in addressing the creative economy, for example, addressing some of the concerns in the sector. We're also going to develop communications strategy for arts and culture which includes our Web site.

 

It's an area, I think, that can contribute to promoting artists in Nova Scotia, allowing them to have a pedestal or a stage to put some of their work on. That's just some of the initiatives over the next year. This is not going to change overnight. We want to make sure we're making the right decisions when it comes to the sector and ensuring we're addressing their needs and concerns. As I stated, a majority of the initiatives we have, I hopefully will have those implemented or addressed within the fiscal year.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Who will be on this council? How will they be chosen?

 

MR. WILSON: Right now, the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council has evolved into the Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council. We've asked the past council to be involved with Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council, they will be the advisory board. Are you talking actually about Arts Nova Scotia? Okay.

 

I maybe got the two mixed up a little bit. We're going to have a panel of artists that we're going to release hopefully within the next couple of weeks or within the month that will make recommendations on the terms of reference of the independent body. Then we'll move to create that body. They'll go out into the sector, ask who we should see on that Arts Nova Scotia, independent body, make some moves there. There will be a transition team in place to the makeup of it and the terms of reference for that independent body.

 

MR. THERIAULT: They will say who will be on this council and will there be any government representative on this council? Is that something the minister can say whether that happens or not? Would you have the power to do that?

 

MR. WILSON: There will be no government representatives on Arts Nova Scotia. That'll be an independent body. The panel that we'll be announcing soon will be the ones who will give the terms of reference for the makeup of Arts Nova Scotia. It's people within the sector who will determine who would be fit to be on Arts Nova Scotia to provide the leadership. While they're developing the terms of reference, they'll develop criteria of who should be sitting on that board.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Where does the funding come in? You would have the say as minister, they would recommend funding and you would have to okay that funding? Is that how that would work?

 

MR. WILSON: Currently, we provide the funding that goes towards the grants that are given to artists. When Arts Nova Scotia is established, the only contribution I would make or my department makes or whoever the minister is would make, would be that they would provide the budget to Arts Nova Scotia and it would be Arts Nova Scotia that will disburse those funds. The minister, for example, would not sign off on the individual funding grants.

 

MR. THERIAULT: The Premier announced there would be legislation coming forward called status of the artist legislation. What will this bill entail and what will be in it?

 

MR. WILSON: That is part of the process of the consultation that will happen over the coming months.

 

MR. THERIAULT: This will come from the council?

 

MR. WILSON: Yes, that's right. Not Arts Nova Scotia. Arts Nova Scotia is going to be created to disburse the funds and the grants for projects that are asking for support. We have created a Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council that gives recommendations for further funding for initiatives within the department. I'm trying to think of what the question was again, sorry.

 

MR. THERIAULT: What that will do is that will leave you free from making decisions for funding. That takes the responsibility from the minister. I know you give grants out now. We just received a couple of grants at home, signed off by you. Now, if there are any grants approved, they will be approved by this council and not by the minister of this department. Does that sound right?

 

MR. WILSON: Currently, for example, the artists who apply for funding for a project, that goes through a process where a jury or a peer group oversees the application and says, yes, this is a good project that we should fund and currently it would come to my desk and I would sign off on it. When we have Arts Nova Scotia created and it's up and running, that peer and jury system of awarding grants will be independent. We will give them an envelope of money, for example, and they will determine which projects are funded and which projects aren't funded. As the minister, I will no longer at the end of the day sign off on those individual grants to individual artists.

 

We as a department though will continue to provide funding for new initiatives within the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and the offices that we represent or new initiatives that we might see in the province that are worthwhile; larger organizations that might want to put on a big event in the province. We'll still have control of that to support them when they come to government.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Just recently New Brunswick cancelled their film tax credit. Is this department in position to try to go out and go after more people? Is the Nova Scotia department film tax going to be ongoing and is this department going after these people who may have set up in New Brunswick and now aren't going to? Is that going to be happening?

 

MR. WILSON: I'll be very careful in how to answer this. First, no, this department is not going to go after - just because the film tax credit falls under the Department of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism doesn't mean that through our Heritage division, through our Culture division, through our Office of Acadian Affairs, that we won't create an environment in Nova Scotia that would maybe entice those industries to come to Nova Scotia.

I'll give an example that was recently in the paper, I believe, after New Brunswick did cancel their film tax credit. There was a French language film company that decided to move their business to Nova Scotia. I think one contributor to that was definitely our film tax credit, which is under the other department, but I think most importantly it's due to some of our work that the Culture and Heritage division and the Office of Acadian Affairs have done over the years that promotes French language here in Nova Scotia. We have a great number of distinct francophone communities across this province. I think for any business, for example, in French films they look at Nova Scotia that it would be appealing to them.

 

We'll continue to work to make sure that the environment here in the province is something that is appealing to individuals when they look at expanding into Nova Scotia. That's just one example but the film tax credit will be under Economic and Rural Development and Tourism.

 

MR. THERIAULT: I asked that question because you did say in your opening statement that you were going to work to create jobs in Nova Scotia through this department, so I was just wondering exactly how you were going to go about this, and that would be one way. What other ways are you working on or are going to work on to create more jobs for the betterment of Nova Scotia?

 

MR. WILSON: One of the things that we'll continue to do through our department, through funding and through support, is to support emerging artists in industry. One of the things that we need to continue to do is ensure that our craft people and our artisans have the support of government through grants, for example, through support that maybe our department could lend them. The work that the divisions do is quite amazing when you have a new artist or a new craftsman or an artisan, especially an up and coming one, some of the support that we can lend them through just trying to give them the correct avenues of contact for example.

One example I'll use is recently I was at a crafts fair in Halifax, I met a young entrepreneur who lived in a rural community in Nova Scotia who, through a grant that was available through our department, was able to go to a trade show in Toronto and has expanded her business - and this is from a rural community. She was very appreciative of, really what I would consider, a small amount of money. I believe it was under $5,000 that we assisted this company with but yet it showcased them on a national level. It's just one of the stories that if we continue to support up and coming artists - there are so many artists, I categorize artist, crafts people and artisans - up and coming new initiatives, I think, is an important area where we'll continue to support.

 

We also support arts and culture organizations which actually employ dancers, actors, singers and musicians, we have a wide range of programs that are available for individuals or groups to apply to get support through grants that play an important role in ensuring that they can stay here in Nova Scotia, that they can make a living and that they can contribute to the economy.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Mr. Minister, in the budget context chart outlined in your department's mandate, last year estimates for the minister and deputy minister's expenses were $460,000 but the forecast came in well under $370,000, that's quite a huge difference of $90,000; why the huge difference?

 

MR. WILSON: I wish I could say it was due to great savings within the department, which is part of it, but as you recall, prior to my appointment to this department we had Minister Paris who was representing not only Tourism, Culture and Heritage but also had another department, so he was, if you could say, a part-time, he used the office on a part-time basis. His first initial office was Economic and Rural Development, so that was the reason why you see such a reduction in the minister's and deputy minister's office expenses. Also he had no executive assistant from the old Tourism, Culture and Heritage Department, he had one that followed him over from Economic and Rural Development so that wage for that executive assistant would come out of Economic and Rural Development budget not out of Tourism. There was basically a reduction in his use of the funds through the minister's and deputy minister's office budget.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Why is the estimate for next year almost the same as last year when the forecast for 2010 came in nearly $100,000 lower than estimated?

 

MR. WILSON: I'm glad to say because we have a full-time minister in the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage so I'll be here for the full year. I have an EA, an executive assistant, so that all the expenses that I would incur as a full-time minister would come out of that department where last year those funds came mostly out of Economic and Rural Development.

 

MR. THERIAULT: So for this year with that $90,000 decrease, is it going to harm any projects the communities may have out there, do you think?

 

MR. WILSON: No, not at all. That's solely funding that goes for the operation of the office itself so it's separate. The funding for all the programs and grants have remained the same from last year's fiscal year to this year, except for my office budget which we've had the reduction in.

 

MR. THERIAULT: The budget for the Nova Scotia Archives has decreased quite a lot. Can you tell us today why this is for the Nova Scotia Archives?

 

MR. WILSON: That's due to a transfer out of a portion of what they did there, the records management. There used to be a Public Archives and Records Management. Record management has been transferred out of our department so now we just have public archives under our department. That was the reason for the reduction, it was a transfer out of that section of the public archives, which used to be Public Archives and Records Management.

 

MR. THERIAULT: I'd like to touch on a situation in my riding, Digby-Annapolis. This is probably under African Nova Scotia, African culture. There's a culture centre down home in Weymouth Falls and somehow two or three years ago this centre closed. The community contacted me and I got hold of Tourism, Culture and Heritage and it seems like they can't get this centre opened again. They seem to be running into roadblock after roadblock. I'm not sure if you're aware of what's going on there, but it just seemed like the lawyers of the community or your department can't seem to get their heads together and get this straightened up for this community to open this community culture centre.

 

It's a black community, wonderful people, and they don't understand why it's not being opened. I believe a member of your staff was down to see and work with these people and I'm just wondering if that has gone ahead any to help these people out in the Weymouth Falls area for this centre?

 

MR. WILSON: Sadly, the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs has worked over the years with that organization, but sadly there's no strong community structure or organization that is up and running in that community right now. We would love to work with them and in the future if that structure is there, we would be willing to sit down with them and see what we could do to move into the future to ensure that distinct community is well represented in that part of the province.

 

Currently we're trying to get them up and running and registered as a group down there to try to evolve into an organization that we can work with and support them through initiatives or grants. It's definitely an area where we'd be willing to work with but we need to make sure that there's a strong community structure in place so that that area can be well served by support from the government plus a community structure.

 

MR. THERIAULT: I'd just like to touch on another thing and you brought it up in your opening speech and that's the Bluenose II. I'm a boat person, I like boats. My grandfather was a boatbuilder and I'm a boat sailor, I guess you could call me that. Anyway this $14.8 million project, when this was announced it was making heads spin from the boatbuilding industry, they couldn't believe that this boat would cost this much to build. I know I had one boatbuilder tell me he could build at least three of them for that much money. It has been fairly quiet and it's a great thing, we'll continue to have the Bluenose forever, I hope. If the next one comes along and the price keeps going up like that, I don't know, we might have to sell the province to get one built and all live on it. Instead of calling it refurbishing this boat for this much money, they only saved a handful of sticks off it and the spar, why didn't the province just go ahead and build a new boat, period, without trying to save things that probably cost them more money in the end.

 

It's just like I rebuilt a house here a few years back and when I got done tearing the house apart all I had was a few shingles left on the outside of some boards. I said that if I ever rebuilt another house again like that I would bulldoze it to the ground and never save a shingle off it because it costs more to do that. How did the province, how did the department - maybe this is the wrong question, you're not in Tourism - but I'd like to get your side of it, what you know of it of why they didn't build a new boat to begin with with that much money they had to use.

 

MR. WILSON: Actually the Bluenose II does fall under Heritage so it's under our department. I know there was maybe some confusion out there but it's definitely under Heritage. After we formed government in June 2009 we had looked at it, it was a commitment from the previous government that we should do a refit on the Bluenose II because of the brand equity of Bluenose II. It's world-renowned, it's our sailing ambassador, it's known around the world as something that we should be very proud of. After we became government we agreed with that so we decided that we were going to continue on with the refit of Bluenose II. Part of the due diligence that we did take was to hire a company to do a shadow bid on the Bluenose II and the refit that we were about to take part in. That shadow bid actually came in at a higher price tag than the tender that we had been provided with.

 

We decided that the Bluenose II was something that we needed to continue to market and have marketed for us, not only as a province but as a country because, of course, our partnership with the federal government on this project is extremely important. I'm not going to try and debate any standards of shipbuilding with someone of your stature and knowing your history but, no question, because of the construction and the material used, Transport Canada really set the stage and set the standards of what we had to build. Because of the sheer number of visitors that step on the Bluenose II those standards had to be met and they were high standards. We feel we are getting our value for our money with the refit of Bluenose II and I think we will be proud to have the Bluenose II sail for many years. I've been told we shouldn't have to do such an extensive refit for at least another 50 years so I'm hoping when I'm 90 that I'll be able to read in the paper that they're looking at a refit of Bluenose II. (Interruptions) I might need a refit when I'm 90.

 

I think we are getting value for money. I think everybody, yourself and all Parties, recognize what a sailing icon and ambassador that Bluenose II is for our province and for our country. I think it was the right decision. The former government was going down that road and we thought we would continue down that road because it was the most appropriate thing to do.

 

MR. THERIAULT: Who is monitoring this building? I know you mentioned Transport Canada, but I mean, when we have fishing boats built around this coast, we have Coast Guard inspectors. They would be from Transport Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We'd also have - if we're spending provincial money - inspectors from the Nova Scotia Fisheries and Loan Board or if we had money from the bank, the bank would have inspectors there making sure this boat was up to standard continuously and the right amount of money was going into the right parts of it. If I was building a boat myself I'd be there every day; there wouldn't be a nail or screw driven in my boat unless I saw it, as a fishing boat person.

 

Do you know what's going on with the inspections and who is watching where the money is going and how it's going and how much the screws cost and how much the corking costs? Can you give me some detail there on that?

 

MR. WILSON: Thank you for the question; it's an extremely important question. First of all, I'd like to say, on who is watching, everybody can watch because we do have access to the Internet 24 hours per day, seven days per week. It's amazing the response from that initiative; having people sending e-mails to the department, sending coffees to the builders from out West is another example of . . .

 

MR. THERIAULT: Who is watching the bills?

 

MR. WILSON: I know that, that's why I started with that and we'll get to that. It's amazing to see actually who is watching. I just had to take your lead since you used that term. No question, through this whole process, Transport Canada was extremely important and of course as this project moved forward, they were contacted on what standards and the inspections that needed to take place. Because in Canada we don't have a huge wooden boatbuilding industry, especially to this size, Transport Canada has the ABS, the American Bureau of Shipping, oversee the inspection of the build. That's the identity that actually oversees the inspection and it's exactly what you said; after so much is done they're inspecting how things are built, how the process is going. We also have a project manager who is on site who is overseeing the project for us.

 

MR. THERIAULT: From the province?

 

MR. WILSON: Exactly and then we also have someone from the department. It's MHPM Project Managers Inc.; they provide the project management services, including reimbursement for things like expenses incurred during travel, photocopying and all that kind of management stuff of the site. We also have an engineering company, Lengkeek Vessel Engineering Inc. They're the designers of the ship. Then also, of course, Lunenburg Shipyard Alliance is there with the three companies that are overseeing the build, but we also have someone designated full time who is on site every day from the department to oversee our interests in ensuring that timelines are met, that budgets are always at the forefront of concern throughout the build and that is continuing to monitor where we're at in the build and how much the build is costing.

 

MR. THERIAULT: What is the timeline? When is the date for completion? If they go over, are there any kind of penalties? The same as some contractors have with the province if something isn't built on time, are there any penalties at all for that? And, the finish date, the completion date, a bottle of wine over the bow date?

 

MR. WILSON: Thank you for that question. I'm extremely happy to say that by all indications we're on track to meet our deadline. I believe they have until June 2012 to finish and deliver the boat, the refit, back to us. But the timeline now is indicating that hopefully May 2012 the completion of the refit will be done.

 

I'm not sure if there is any penalty within the contract, but I'll find that out for you and provide you with that information. To date, things have been running relatively smoothly with the build and as I said, from all indications it's actually going to be delivered earlier than the date in June.

 

MR. THERIAULT: With any luck at all, maybe the minister could invite me to the champagne over the bow. I'd love to see that. Thank you very much.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings West.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: I'm pleased to join in the unexpected continuation of questioning here to me. I know mine will be specifically around the gambling issue. That's where I plan to spend some time.

 

I wanted to start off with what I think will become the major issue in the coming weeks and months, that is with regard to VLTs and the MyPlay card. On Page 101 of the Focal Research report it states, "Mandatory player registration is required for the system to be functionally effective . . ." Why did you not make the full version of MyPlay mandatory?

 

MR. WILSON: Definitely during the consultation process we had quite a number of submissions and while we were reviewing some of the concerns that we heard through the consultation process when we were creating this strategy, as a government we recognized the benefits the MyPlay system will have as a tool for responsible gaming.

 

I think noticing and recognizing the input in the consultation we received from all sectors - from people who were against VLTs, people who work with VLTs, retailers and individuals who use the VLTs themselves - I think we decided that we needed to take a balanced and measured approach to the MyPlay system. I must say, by making it mandatory - I'll make sure I clarify mandatory - as of April 1, 2012, it will be mandatory that anybody in the Province of Nova Scotia will be required to have a card to activate or utilize a VLT. It's going to be mandatory within the next year, by April of next year. We offered the two enrolments, one's a full enrolment, one's a light enrolment. I believe that's the question, why we chose to allow for the two options for the MyPlay system.

 

We recognize the impact that making and taking this decision will have on gaming in the province. We realize that early indications from research have indicated the possible benefits to the MyPlay system in the full enrolment from the My Play system. We recognized that we needed to take a balanced approach to minimize the confusion, minimize the perception that full enrolment would be a negative thing to have on the VLTs. So we recognized that by allowing the two options, what it will do is give us time to educate retailers, educate the users of VLTs of the benefits of the My Play system.

Really, the only difference between the two enrolments - the light and full enrolment - is that with the full enrolment you walk up to a retailer or a business that has VLTs, you ask for a card, you swipe a personal identification card and that software in it encrypts that information and then you swipe your card and put a PIN number in and you're off to use the machines.

 

The light enrolment, we're omitting the fact that you need to have that identification card because we heard through consultation that people were reluctant to give their personal information, even though that information is not given back to my department, for example; it's encrypted in the software.

 

I think we have some work to do over the coming months and years and in the future to show Nova Scotians that there is a benefit to this play. It really allows individuals to look at their history, look at their habits, look at how they play the VLTs. I think it will be an important part of the Gaming Strategy. I think it's an important tool and we've made the decision to have the two enrolments and I think it was the appropriate decision to make and I think it was the most balanced decision to make with concerns that we heard during the consultation process.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just a time acknowledgement, if I could. There is a little less than five minutes remaining in the Progressive Conservative first round, so you have until 5:07 p.m.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay, so that means an hour and five minutes. You said the Progressive Conservative hour. Are we passing it over?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have until 5:07 p.m. and you can come back for another hour after the Progressive Conservatives.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: But not today. The honourable member for Kings West.

 

MR. GLAVINE: The idea that there can be two versions of the card; one with the full complement of features and full registration and then the other, my understanding - and you could correct me - is that you can actually pick one up from a bartender on each occasion that you would go to play the VLTs. Is that correct?

 

MR. WILSON: Correct. Part of the issue around having the two-card system or part of the difference actually is that when you enroll fully you have the opportunity to put in those limits. For example, you can restrict your play, monitor your gaming history, look at trends and look on how much you have been gambling. If you lose that card, all you need to do is go back to that establishment or any establishment, show the identification card and swipe it and then you can retrieve all your information. With the light enrolment, that option won't be there. If an individual loses that card they lose the opportunity to regain their history of play. That's why I think we will continue to encourage and educate people on the benefits of full enrolment so that you can have that history, keep track of your habits when it comes to gaming, but definitely if you do lose that card you can go up to another establishment or that same one and receive an additional card and go through that process again of swiping it and putting identification into that card. You still get all the benefits, but unfortunately you'll lose the history that you had if you had an initial card.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Time for a very quick question and a quicker answer.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Well I guess this is the area I think that's most critical here so maybe just a comment then if we just have a short time. I'm sure the minister and his staff have talked to some of the same people that I have around this and the one thing they said at the beginning, the one thing they said during the middle part of our hour on this issue and the one thing they concluded with was that it's not very useful for getting the good data to work with, with developing possible changes during this five years, or needed changes, or the next five-year strategy. That you need a full and mandatory registration was the one absolute message that we were left with. I know there's still a lot of research to be done on this but it's interesting that that's what came out of the pilot project in the Hants area and it is what now the experts are also concluding.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much member. We will now turn the time over to the Progressive Conservative caucus. We have 53 minutes remaining in our four hours for today so we'll have a carry over for the Progressive Conservatives of seven minutes tomorrow.

 

The honourable member for Victoria-The Lakes.

 

MR. KEITH BAIN: First of all I want to congratulate the minister on assuming the lead of this new department and make it known to everyone here that he also has a very capable deputy who I know will keep him under control, so that's a good thing especially since the deputy is a Cape Bretoner.

 

Mr. Minister, I think what I'll do is first go to the total amount, the $55 million that's stated in the budget. I think if you remove the Tourism estimate from last year's estimates you're left with about $36 million. What's being included in the new department to show that it needs to have a budget of $55 million?

 

MR. WILSON: Thank you for those opening remarks. What I'll try to do - because there has been a shift - there were transfers out and then there were transfers in. What I'll do is maybe give you a couple of figures of what has transferred out from the old department and give you some of the figures there, some that transferred in when we created the new department. What transferred in to the department was the Nova Scotia Provincial Library and that budget is at $16,258,000. The other thing that transferred in was, of course, the three offices; so the Office of Acadian Affairs which was $2,105,000, Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs which transferred in at a budget of $1,390,000, also the third was the Office of Gaelic Affairs which is $532,000. The total for that, I'll do that math for you, $20,285,000 was transferred into the department. Do you want me to give you the numbers for Records Management and Tourism which transferred out?

 

MR. BAIN: No because there was a difference of about $19 million there, Mr. Chairman, and I think that pretty much explains everything. Thank you for that. We know that Gaelic Affairs, African Nova Scotian Affairs and Acadian Affairs are now under your department but they still maintain the former minister. My question will be two-fold; does that create a problem, first of all, and is there a plan to eventually have that staff that's in your department under your ministry?

 

MR. WILSON: To the contrary, I think it actually creates a benefit, definitely a benefit for those three offices and a benefit to the distinct communities that they represent. As I see it now, the communities of African Nova Scotian Affairs, the communities of Acadian Affairs, the communities of Gaelic Affairs now have two ministers at the decision table for them when it comes to funding and support from our government. I think that's a great step for them and I think it is going to be beneficial for those distinct communities throughout Nova Scotia to have two ministers - as you could say - fighting in their corner.

 

Definitely my responsibility as Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage is to oversee the administration of those three offices, so I will oversee the budget of those offices. Those employees fall under the mandate of the new department, but we recognize as a government the benefit of having Minister Paris, Minister Steele and Minister MacDonald as ambassadors, as spokespersons, as ministers who have had the portfolio for almost two years. We see the benefit in that and that's why the decision was made to really support those distinct communities to a greater extent than I think had been supported in the past.

 

I mentioned in the previous question from another member that I see these offices now under our department having access to a great number of professionals, a great number of individuals who are so passionate when it comes to culture and heritage initiatives in the province. Really when I think those offices were created they were somewhat in separate silos in the last number of years. They do an amazing amount of work in the community, especially when you look at the overall picture of budgets, for example. These three offices do an amazing amount of work for the money that they are allotted. What I want to see is every opportunity to leverage as much of the funding that goes through their department used to provide the services and meet the needs of those distinct communities that they represent. I think by having them fall under our department and aligned with similar initiatives that we see in culture and heritage, I see it as a benefit for them and I see even greater opportunity for us to lend those offices support in initiatives that they have.

 

I could sit here for hours and list off the initiatives in Cape Breton, in your riding, around the province that these three offices provide and take part in. I think it's a great opportunity for us to do even more for those communities and the people that they represent in the distinct communities that they represent. It's not only the distinct communities; all Nova Scotians benefit from ensuring that our heritage, our culture is promoted, is supported and I look forward to the coming year to work with not only the ministers responsible - as I mentioned before - but the employees from the Office of Gaelic Affairs, from the Office of Acadian Affairs and the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs. They're very passionate about the work they do and I look forward to working with them in the next year.

 

MR. BAIN: Under the Progressive Conservative Government, there was a review undertaken on the library system. In October 2009, the Minister of Education at the time told a provincial library conference in Yarmouth that she had to put the review on a shelf, 18 months ago. I guess my question to you would be, can you tell us of any significant plans you have or your department has for Nova Scotia's library system?

 

MR. WILSON: I believe that was in 2008 that report was done. No question, we're just over three months in to this new department for the libraries to be transitioned under our department. We're going to continue to take some time to ensure that transition is seamless, but we'll evaluate that report in the coming months and also ensure that we meet the needs of libraries throughout the province. We have 13 library boards across the province that do an amazing amount of work, of course, with the working relationship that we have with the boards, the municipalities, the communities and towns across this province to make sure that libraries continue to be a focal point of communities.

 

Many of them, especially in small rural communities, are the focal point of communities. We'll continue to look at what changes need to be done in either governance or initiatives and ensuring that they have the support of government. Through the transition to the new department is the need to look at legislation also that pertains to libraries. That will be an initiative that we're going to look at over the next coming months to ensure that we have up to date, accurate and true legislation that reflects what is going on in the province currently with legislation.

 

I mentioned earlier to a previous member, I had the opportunity early on, after being given this responsibility, to go to Mulgrave and have a talk and a tour of their library there and some of the work that they do. I was amazed at the distance they provide services for, simply even just the drivers who provide books to people deep into Cape Breton, which I thought would have maybe stayed on the mainland, but in Mulgrave they put some kilometres on their vehicles when they provide the services for rural residents. I think it really opened my eyes to the importance of the library system, but most importantly, to the rural library systems that we have in the province and the need to ensure our legislation is current, that policies and initiatives are current and best meet the needs of our residents who use the library system.

 

We'll continue to look at it and we will review some of the initiatives that have happened in the past and that may have been shelved for a little while.

 

MR. BAIN: I certainly have to agree with you. If you look at the Cape Breton Regional Library, it has two bookmobiles, that's what we call them, one that serves the Cape Breton County area and then one that covers most of the area, if not all, of Victoria County. They also have branches throughout Cape Breton as well. They have a branch in Baddeck and they have one in Ingonish.

 

I guess the challenges that face regional library boards are many, especially when you're serving such a large geographic area. I know over my short time as an MLA, that's one of the concerns that the library boards have, insufficient funding, I guess, to do the job they have to do. They go beyond just being a library, they provide Internet services to our tourists and everything else.

I guess my question would be, in this time of cutbacks, can you see an increase in funding for these, especially the more rural libraries?

 

MR. WILSON: No question, with the economy the way it is, with the initiatives my government is taking to ensure we get back to balance, I feel it was a win for me to ensure that we maintain funding this year from last year. That's exactly what we did. The overall funding for the libraries is exactly the same as last fiscal year.

 

I hear what you say about some of the concerns in the library system about funding. A lot of departments, a lot of sectors, a lot of organizations need and would like to see increases in their budget, but I think my ability and our government's ability to recognize the importance of libraries in the province, especially to rural communities, I think it reflects in the fact that we were able to maintain our budget this year compared to last year. I'll continue to work with my colleagues around the Cabinet Table to ensure they recognize some of the initiatives and some of the issues around libraries and funding to libraries.

 

One of the things that we're partnering with is new libraries, even though we're in this environment of getting back to balance we are seeing new libraries open up, we've partnered with the boards and municipalities on the construction of a new library in Halifax and a new library opening soon in Antigonish and I look forward to that opening. I know how important libraries are to communities and I've read in the past around how when you see a downturn in the economy you see an increase in users of libraries. Definitely all indications are showing that more people are using libraries now than ever and those numbers continue to increase.

 

You mentioned a bookmobile, even myself, growing up I remember the bookmobile in my community.

 

MR. BAIN: That was just time off school.

 

MR. WILSON: One of things I mentioned earlier about going down to Mulgrave was they don't have a bookmobile they have a little van, several vans - book mo-van, I don't know if that's a term they want me to use or not but it's a van.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's a new one.

 

MR. WILSON: You know what I mean though, everybody knows what I mean. They are utilizing that mode of transportation to get books out to rural communities but more importantly the program they have down there is to have these totes made up of a number of books or requests from people who really are shut-ins, who might not have the opportunity to have a vehicle or the means to get to a more populated area. What a great program to have to be able to ensure that those people continue to have the opportunity to have books delivered to their doorstep in rural communities. That's one thing that really opened my eyes when I had my tour at the library in Mulgrave was that initiative that they have there. We'll continue to work, I'll continue to work to ensure that I do what I can to maintain the budget, and as I said earlier, I was able to do that in this year's fiscal budget, the overall funding for libraries is the same as last year.

We'll continue to work on that and hopefully next year we can revisit what the environment is around the economy but, no question, they've been very good and I think the library systems have recognized where we're at in the economy and are playing an important role in ensuring that they live within their means and I appreciate the work that they've done to ensure that they do everything they can to save or reduce their costs while providing an important service.

 

MR. BAIN: Let's discuss the Art Gallery across the street. What's their total budget and is their budget just for the running of the gallery or do they have plans for this year?

 

MR. WILSON: They get a grant from the province of $2,046,000 and total revenue is estimated is $3,680,176. I don't know if there was an additional question in there, sorry.

 

MR. BAIN: I guess, Mr. Chairman, through you, is that the same amount as last year or has it increased?

 

MR. WILSON: It's a little more than last year but we announced several months ago, I believe it was in January, that we are funding a feasibility study in partnership with the federal government to look at the requirements of the current Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. I think that feasibility study will indicate to us and to the Art Gallery some of the areas that we need to look at in the future to address some of their concerns and to ensure that Nova Scotians have access to some of the amazing work that is displayed over there.

 

I had a great opportunity to have my daughter's class in the Legislature last week and I thought it was a great opportunity for me to get them away from the technology so I arranged for their class to head over to the Art Gallery. It was a great experience for them because some of the concerns of the Art Gallery staff that I've talked to is they've recognized it's harder and harder and there are fewer and fewer teenagers, younger people visiting the Art Gallery. I think it was a great exposure for them. If I can promote that as a minister, I think it would benefit the Art Gallery and I think we need to continue to do that to make sure that Nova Scotians know what we have across the street from this building and the potential down the road is great.

 

With that feasibility study, it will indicate some issues, some concerns and where we need to see some of the next steps that government and the board itself need to take to address future needs of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

 

MR. BAIN: What about the art gallery in Yarmouth. I didn't see any reference to it, maybe I didn't see it. I'm wondering if there's funding available to that gallery as well.

 

MR. WILSON: Definitely, yes, I think it's an important part of the Art Gallery to have that satellite office in Yarmouth. We'll continue on with that. We're looking to see if it's separated out, but it actually is rolled into the one funding.

 

MR. BAIN: Under the $2 million?

 

MR. WILSON: Under the heading, yes. But the funding for it is maintained similar to last year's. It's actually $140,128, which is maintained from last year. That's their expenses in Yarmouth and it's rolled into the operations of Art Gallery of Nova Scotia as a whole. They're not two separate identities, it's one identity with a satellite office in Yarmouth.

 

MR. BAIN: Just for clarification, that $140,000 is part of the $2 million that you mentioned?

 

MR. WILSON: Exactly, yes. We're also working with the community to ensure that there's good programming down in Yarmouth that's relevant to that area of the province. Hopefully ensuring that we're addressing their needs down there and their history, their culture, ensuring they have access to some of those works.

 

MR. BAIN: Under Programs and Services, you have $2.8 million to spend on four items - Administration, Policy, Communications and Information Management for the staff of 15. My question, minister, can you explain the workings of the Corporate Strategy and Operations?

 

MR. WILSON: It's the administrative function of the department. They take care of the leases, for example, of all our sites across the province. That's actually, probably the bulk of the money that goes to it is the leases that we have throughout the province. I'm not too sure of the exact number of actual facilities, but I can probably get you that number.

 

Also, information technology is kind of a component to our department and our communications staff is rolled into that heading of Corporate Strategy and Operations; "Responsible for corporate policy, planning, research, program evaluation, risk management, information management, and the coordination of departmental administrative functions." It's all kind of the FOIPOP information, if anybody has any FOIPOP requests it would go through our Corporate Strategy and Operations area of the department.

 

MR. BAIN: I want to talk about the Gaelic College in St. Anns. I know that the Gaelic College falls under Tourism, I stand to be corrected on that but it's under the Tourism blanket (Interruption) Oh, that's even better because now I can go after you for more money. Nobody was really sure, I guess, where it was, whether it was under Tourism or under Culture and Heritage but I'm glad to hear that it is under your department because it is a teaching institution as well, for the preservation and enhancement of the Gaelic culture. My question, now that I've gotten that answer, is how do you see your department becoming more involved in the operation of the Gaelic College and its purpose of education and promoting the Gaelic heritage, not only in Cape Breton but in Nova Scotia and through the world?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's an important question for the chairman and for the member for Inverness as well.

 

MR. WILSON: We've actually had someone in our department working with them over the last number of months, I think, if not a little longer on their strategic planning of the college, of reviewing their policies, trying to ensure efficiencies are there, that the governance of the college is the appropriate one. Our department is working with their board to address issues and concerns that come up. I know we've spoken in the past quickly about some of the recent concerns, that's why we've committed to supporting them with a feasibility study to review their governance through Grant Thornton in partnership with the federal government to oversee what changes or issues might come of that feasibility study. So we've committed to that just in the last month so hopefully with the completion of that study we can look at what initiatives and concerns need to be addressed for the Gaelic College.

 

MR. BAIN: I look forward to hearing that report as well. Mr. Chairman, just before I turn the rest of my time over to my colleague from Inverness I want to mention something about the Gaming Control Act. You're responsible for Part I of the Gaming Control Act and that looks after the Alcohol and Gaming Authority. We're received complaints from community organizations, especially Legion branches about the cookie jar tax they're charged. The cookie jar could be as much as $15,000 . . .

 

MR. WILSON: Actually that falls under Part II so I didn't want you to get too far in. The Alcohol and Gaming division falls under Part II which is under Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations.

 

MR. BAIN: Okay, I won't ask that question then.

 

MR. WILSON: Sorry about interrupting.

 

MR. BAIN: You just got yourself off the hook because I know that it's a revenue generator and I was going to ask you what you were going to do with that but I should have asked Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. So Mr. Chairman, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague from Inverness, thank you.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Inverness.

 

MR. ALLAN MACMASTER: Thank you, member, for turning over some of your time this afternoon. My questions today focus on my role as Gaelic Affairs Critic and I heard you mention in your discussion earlier that this is an area that touches on a number of government departments, but I think the most appropriate place, I believe - as we've discussed previously - would be to ask during this section of the estimates.

 

Maybe I'll just give you a little background of my involvement with Gaelic. I took Gaelic in school up until about Grade 2 and it disappeared. I was quite young at the time so I didn't ask too many questions. I later found myself at St. F.X. University and it was Frosh Week and of course we had a lot of activities for Frosh Week and I remember going to an April Wine concert one night and meeting a gentleman, a good friend of mine who was convincing me to take Gaelic the next day. The next day I was in the Bloomfield Centre at St. F.X and we were lining up to take courses and I was in this line-up to take English 100 and it was a long line-up. It had come to a point in the day where I was starting to lose my patience and I looked over at the Gaelic table and there was nobody there. I stepped over the rope and I made that decision on a whim to take Gaelic and I ended up taking three years of it at St. F.X. and I attained some proficiency in it. For something that was done on a whim, it has been a very important part of my life and the reason I'm telling you this is to try to frame up the importance of Gaelic for some people in this province.

 

I grew up not really knowing - although I grew up in a very traditional family with a lot of music - I never really knew a lot about the history of my people. Upon further investigation, I discovered that some of my ancestors fought in the last battle on soil in Great Britain and that was at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. I discovered my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and two of his brothers fought on that battlefield and I had a chance to visit it. That is very much part of my immigration story because as life began to decline for the Gaelic-speaking people of Scotland at that time they started looking elsewhere. Some of them moved to Australia, some of them moved down to North Carolina, some of them moved into Ontario and many of them came, by way of P.E.I. and through Pictou County, to Cape Breton where all of my people are from.

 

I think that a lot of people today who maybe come from this background, they don't have a lot of things that they can point to because they've grown up in a world where the colour of their skin is not necessarily different; they've not really found ways to identify themselves to the people who they belong to. I think the work that you're doing in your department and also in the Department of Education is very important because it's helping to provide a link back for the young people of our province, the people who, like me when I was in Grade 2, had a chance to take Gaelic. Today I'm hoping that children in Grade 2 get to keep taking it, get to stay exposed to it and get to learn more about their past because I think it's an important part of culture in our province and I'm sure you agree. I'll certainly give you a chance to comment.

 

My questions, as I say, most of them are related to the Department of Education and if I ask them today, if you can provide some context for how the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage can maybe provide support - I can appreciate if you don't have full answers - if this leads to some further discussion and things we can work on to help support Gaelic in the province, I'd be very satisfied leaving here today.

 

One of the things we've seen is there has been a lot of interest in Gaelic by young people in a number of schools. Just to give you an example of that, 100 per cent of core Gaelic students at a high school - I believe this one is in Antigonish County - who were in core Gaelic for Grade 9, they also signed up for core Gaelic in Grade 10. There was no loss; there was a sincere interest by the students in taking Gaelic and I want to make that point. I think it's probably because there's a strong - it's not just another course. These children are associating with part of who they are and they want to learn more about their past and more about the language that belonged to their people.

 

My first question is, I'll give you a little more background. One of the challenges that we've seen is a lot of the teaching positions for Gaelic in the schools don't seem to get firmed up until very late in the summer. It's causing a lot of uncertainty, it's causing some parents to question whether they should bother putting their children in Gaelic because if they don't know if the program is going to be there, it doesn't lend much confidence to the program. My first question is, looking at the estimates for this year, could we look this year or in future years about having a multi-year agreement that would lock in teaching positions for Gaelic to ensure there's stability for young people and their parents who want to take Gaelic in the school?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, before you respond, I just want to note that we used to be on the same side. My clan chief was out at Culloden as well and my forefathers, so maybe we'll be back together again. Thank you.

 

MR. MACMASTER: Unite the clans.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: My chief ended up in the Tower of London unfortunately, after Culloden, but we'll let you continue.

 

MR. WILSON: Thank you for your interaction, Mr. Chairman, in the estimates. I think all Nova Scotians and all members of the House recognize the contribution the Gaelic language has made to our culture and history and how it adds to the appeal of what we have to offer in the tourism sector, for example.

 

As everybody's talking personally about their Scottish history, as my mother, coming from Edinburgh and my grandmother came through Pier 21 many years ago, I've definitely been exposed to a Scottish background but also a French background because my grandmother coming from Scotland got on a train in Pier 21 and ended up in northern Quebec for 56 years. Here was a young lady who had a very thick Scottish accent speaking fluently in French. I appreciate everybody's ties to the Scottish heritage.

 

Of course, the work under the Office of Gaelic Affairs is extremely important. I know the member talked about the education part and the teacher's position. Those issues would fall under the Department of Education but that doesn't mean we can't have a conversation around some of the concerns you have and work with the department or the Office of Gaelic Affairs and my department to see what we can do. With the creation of our department and some of our mandate, one of the most important initiatives I think is the start of those relationships with other departments.

 

I've always talked about departments that have been in silos for too long in government and as my department moves forward, some of the initiatives that we've released already, there has been a strong emphasis on that interdepartmental co-operation. This issue and this initiative and the concerns you have around the appointing of a teacher or the work the teachers do, there is no reason we can't continue to have those dialogues.

 

One of the initiatives that we have supported and will continue to support is the Root and Branch master-apprentice program that we continue to support in the upcoming fiscal budget. In 2009, the fund was $391,000 and we're going to continue to work with the Office of Gaelic Affairs to ensure we continue to meet the needs of the distinct communities that are represented with the Gaelic language. We'll continue to work with other departments.

 

Definitely I would sit down with you, have a conversation about what we can do to further enhance and support the initiatives that have taken place up to now. As I mentioned in previous answers, with the Office of Gaelic Affairs coming under our new department I see that as a benefit for the community that it serves. Not only do we have the minister responsible, Minister MacDonald, but you have another minister in your corner, per se, to make sure that the initiatives and the concerns of the Gaelic communities across the province, in the office have a voice at the decision table.

I think we're going to continue to work through the transition period that we're going through now and work with the Office of Gaelic Affairs and the individuals that provide such great service. I know they're a small group of people but just working with them over the last little while I know they're mighty and they're passionate in their desire to ensure that we address the concerns that are there. We'll continue to work with them and we'll have that, hopefully, open dialogue with yourself, I know your passion around this issue and your history so I look forward to working with you in the future to see if we can continue to address the issues and concerns that you might have.

 

MR. MACMASTER: Thank you, minister, and I appreciate your interest in the matter and the comments you've just made. Perhaps something to take away from it today, sometimes I think there's a bit of a dynamic, sometimes people along the way that you need in the chain don't always buy into Gaelic because they might not have any exposure to it. I think that may be one of the real reasons why some of these measures that we've been trying to enact as this government and the government before, sometimes are slowing the progress down.

 

One of those areas is trying to get teachers in place for the school year so hopefully, as you mentioned, we can continue to work on that and might I suggest that maybe we should try to advance some kind of a multi-year agreement to education so that people know and the school boards know. Because sometimes what happens is you get some new young Gaelic teachers who don't want to push too much because they are new teachers and you've got school boards that might not know a lot about Gaelic and if they are being called upon to advocate with a Department of Education that, maybe for whatever reason, there might not be a lot of knowledge or history there. All of a sudden you get these initiatives they start to stall and I think that's what we've been seeing on the ground so I'd just like to make that point today. I don't think it's a point, I'm not trying to point the blame at anybody I'm just trying to highlight a dynamic that maybe we can fix so that the outcomes are better.

 

Another question - and this is really Education - but on the International Baccalaureate program, students in Nova Scotia, as I understand, can get this designation by taking courses and one of the courses they can take is language but Gaelic hasn't been recognized under the program. This is something, again, I don't expect you to come back with a detailed answer but there was a decision made, I believe it was in The Hague about languages that would fit under the International Baccalaureate Program and I don't believe Gaelic was chosen, there are only 56 languages. So this is an issue that has been holding Gaelic back because students have had to switch to French or other languages that are recognized under the IB program to maintain their designation when really they just want to keep going in Gaelic. Perhaps, unless you have some comments minister maybe I'll just leave that with you. That's an issue, I think, that would be valuable if we could advance progress on that. I think there have been some suggestions back and forth between the departments but nothing has come of it and maybe it needs a little bit of a push from yourself.

 

My last question here is if we look at the Department of Education there are services, there are African Canadian services, Mi'kmaq services, French second language services and these are all good services. But I guess it highlights the fact that there are organizations, there are people hired in the Education Department to make sure that whatever is happening - say in Acadian Affairs - if there are issues related to education that they are actually getting advanced through the Education Department. Maybe Gaelic Affairs comes under one of these services and I'm not suggesting we need to hire new people, unless we find that we need to. But I'm just trying to highlight the fact that maybe there's a bit of a disconnect between the Department of Gaelic Affairs and the Department of Education because there's not somebody dedicated there for Gaelic to ensure that the initiatives you're trying to advance under this budget and your responsibility for Gaelic Affairs under Culture, that they're not being advanced through the Department of Education. Could you offer some commentary on that?

 

MR. WILSON: No question, I hope you were able to ask those questions to the Minister of Education. I'm not sure if you were. I know her estimates are finished now. When we decided to create this new department and we looked at what would be the best fit for the department and what should fall under it, we looked at the Office of Gaelic Affairs, the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs and the Office of Acadian Affairs and recognized that we could support those offices in a greater capacity by bringing them under the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. Prior to the creation of the department, they were really stand-alone offices.

 

We had the Executive Director Lewis MacKinnon for Gaelic Affairs, of course the other offices had directors but they really had no voice at the deputy minister level or at the deputy ministers' table where they meet on a regular basis to discuss common issues, where they try to encourage their fellow colleagues to work together. I think by bringing them under our department, that's a benefit to the Office of Gaelic Affairs to have that opportunity for our deputy minister to bring forward initiatives, some issues, concerns from the Gaelic community, for example, as you mentioned or any of the other distinct communities in the offices that we have, that we as a government can start to address and really support them.

 

I mentioned earlier that when those offices were created they were really stand-alone offices that were kind of off on their own doing amazing work all over the province, but a lot of the time, some of the work that they were doing has been done in the past by some of the other offices where they address similar needs. Now I think with some of the experts and professional staff that we have under our Culture and Heritage Division, we can lend even more support to those offices, especially Gaelic Affairs as I know that's your concern.

 

I think by the creation of this new department, it allows for more opportunity for concerns that might come out of those distinct communities to get to a level that we may be able to see some positive changes or some initiatives or work to be done on some of those issues. I look forward to it and I think it's a positive step for the Office of Gaelic Affairs to have that opportunity, to have that voice at not only the Cabinet Table, but at deputy ministers' table as well.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is a little over five minutes remaining in our four hours for today. We will be finishing at 6:00 p.m. and we started at 2:00 p.m. right on without a break so we have five minutes remaining.

 

MR. MACMASTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, minister. I appreciate the time this afternoon. I would like to turn it over for the last few minutes to my colleague from Hants West.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Hants West.

 

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to have an opportunity for a few minutes before we close today. I want to start first of all by recognizing this fellow here as a minister and congratulate him on his position. Given where we come from in earlier days, we're a long way from there, but it's good to see you in that role. To say that I'm pleased and proud would be putting it mildly, to be quite honest with you, and good on you.

 

It's an interesting department that we have formed, kind of phasing out of some of the other things, but I'm really interested in what your focus is around the province, not just in maybe this sector or that sector, but it is something you're going to be travelling around a bit. You see a lot of the municipal units are looking at the museum piece. I'm sure your office, like everybody else's, is getting requests for money all the time. It's not new. We're certainly used to that. What's the plan? We've got a new department, people are wondering what that's all about. Are we going to see him out around? Is there a way that's easy access by way of the museum requests that come in every year for funds, whether it's $1,000 or $10,000, what do you have to offer?

 

MR. WILSON: Thank you for that question and thank you for the comments too, I appreciate that. It's exciting for me to be at the start of this new department. One of the things that is most important is ensuring that we meet the needs of communities, the needs of groups and organizations in our communities. Of course we're in session now but my goal, I've tried up to this date to get around to some of the communities around the province to see some of the organizations that fall under my mandate but once we're finished here in the session I'm going to ensure that I get around to all parts of the province to really see what our communities are all about. I've worked very hard over the last number of months to ensure that the funding in the budget that we have under our department was maintained. The museum funding is maintained and exactly the same as last year's funding. Our overall budget for libraries is exactly the same as last year, I think its $14.1 million, if I'm not mistaken. In our programs, especially our small grants that we provide individual artists, for example, or new initiatives, has been maintained.

 

One thing I realized pretty quickly after taking on this responsibility is how important some of those funding initiatives are and how organizations really use the funds that they get to their full potential. As you said, sometimes an organization is only asking for $1,500 and it's amazing the work they do with that $1,500. Museums, for example, and the libraries that fall under my mandate are really focal points to many communities, especially rural communities, they're the one thing over the years, with the downturn of the economy, that really has been constant in these communities.

We're going to work over the next months and hopefully years to ensure that we can promote and support initiatives to grow the creative economy. The one thing that I think we need to emphasize about supporting creative economy, for example, is that creative economy doesn't have to happen in downtown Halifax or downtown Sydney. It's amazing, some of these up and coming artists, artisans, or crafts people, where they are able to perform their skills and really thrive, it's a lot of small little communities. So we're going to continue to try and maintain the funding that we direct to those organizations, to those grants and also to some of those new initiatives that will address some of the concerns they've had over the years. But I'm looking forward to getting out into the communities this summer.

I think summer will be more of a busy time in my department with some of the festivals and some of the organizations that put on events, the summer will be quite busy so I'm looking forward to getting out and meeting Nova Scotians, meeting people in the sector who contribute so much to our economy here in Nova Scotia.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. There's time for a quick question and a quick answer please.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would just, I guess, knowing that we are coming to a close, wrap it up with it's kind of broad - Communities, Culture and Heritage. The Culture and Heritage parts seems to be fairly simple but when you say Communities, just what exactly is that and what does it mean? It's a very broad answer and I won't even get you to go there, I'll meet the time here just by saying a few other things; you're right, there are events across all summer long and festivals and if that's part of your mandate then you could go pretty steady, I would suggest, around them and we'd certainly welcome you down. I know you're familiar with my home in Windsor and Sam Slick - I guess what used to be Sam Slick Days is now called Summer Fest. Just a quick answer, minister, if you would and that is, am I understanding that Summer Fest used to apply for funds, there's generally funds of a few hundred bucks $1,000 or whatever it might be goes to all these festivals, that's then under your mandate now, is that correct?

 

MR. WILSON: Some of them are under our department but some under Tourism. The programs are still there that were under Culture or Heritage but some will be over in Tourism. Is my time up? Maybe we can finish on Thursday.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We finished Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations today. The time left for the Progressive Conservatives when we resume on Thursday for the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage will be seven minutes. Then we will go to the Liberal caucus and then we could come back for another hour with your caucus as well.

 

That completes our four hours for today and I thank the minister and his staff and all MLAs who have been participating here today.

 

[The subcommittee adjourned at 6:00 p.m.]