HALIFAX, FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2019

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

11:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Brendan Maguire

THE CHAIR: The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply will come to order. We’re going to call the Estimates for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

Resolution E10 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $21,536,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, pursuant to the Estimate.

THE CHAIR: The honourable Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

HON. KEITH COLWELL: Mr. Chair, it’s a pleasure to be here and talk about the great job that the industry is doing in Nova Scotia to help grow and maintain Nova Scotia’s economy. I want to start by thanking the men and women who work in the fishing industry, both on the boats, the processors, buyers, transporters - everybody who is connected with the industry.

I also want to thank my staff for working with the industry, marketing Nova Scotia seafood high-quality products to make us the number-one exporting seafood province in the country, four years in a row now.

Just to give you a little bit of background, when I took the portfolio five years ago our fisheries exports were under $1 billion and today our exports are $1.3 billion, a significant change. I believe we’ve moved from third place in exports in Canada to number one. Again, it was the collaborative work with the industry, our staff and indeed a lot of the work the Premier has done in marketing Nova Scotia.

To put it in context, we have the overall highest budget in history for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, and I want to thank my Cabinet colleagues and the Premier of Nova Scotia for making that happen, and recognizing how important the fishing industry is to Nova Scotia.

We have more than 70,600 people directly working in the seafood and fishing industry in the Province of Nova Scotia. I believe that is the biggest employer in Nova Scotia, especially if you consider the spinoff industries that are related indirectly to that. Indeed, it’s a huge number, way beyond the 70,600.

We now represent 35 per cent of the province’s total exports. That is quite an accomplishment. The value of Nova Scotia’s aquaculture industry this year has also doubled to over $116 million. This is securing the economic future for coastal communities and economic growth overall in Nova Scotia. It means more jobs for Nova Scotians so they can stay and build careers here, live here with their families, and have a future in Nova Scotia.

The key to the growth and better economic future is our exports - $2.3 billion; 2018 was up $42 million from 2017. I already indicated that we’re the number-one seafood exporter in Canada for four years in a row. I can recall when I first came to the portfolio that there was a report being done because lobster sales and prices at the wharf were down to $3 and boats were tied up. Today, the price is between $6 and $13 per pound, and indeed has put a lot of wealth into Nova Scotia’s rural communities that are suffering.

Our biggest customer is the U.S., still worth 48 per cent of our product lines, followed by China at 26 per cent. That 26 per cent - I don’t know the exact number at the time five years ago, but it was very low. The numbers were around $14 million in sales in China five years ago, and we’re approaching $600 million today, making them number two in our export, replacing the economic union in Europe as second place and they’re now third place in our exports - equally as important to all customers.

Our biggest exports are lobster, crab, scallops and shrimp, and there is a whole list of other products that are continually moving forward.

Trade agreements have really helped that the federal government put in place. CIDA came into effect in 2017, which removed tariffs on many products from Nova Scotia, which we’re very happy about. In 2018, the Trans-Pacific Partnership took effect. Both of these were after we became number-one exporter of seafoods in Canada.

We have a great opportunity to move our industry even further. The idea is to move it further. It’s not to catch more fish, but it’s to add value to the products that we do catch and provide a higher-quality product that is already a high-quality product, which can attract a higher price and, indeed, put more value and grow more wealth in Nova Scotia.

We’re now looking more and more to countries like Japan and Vietnam to sell our products. Both markets are very interested in buying our products and pay a premium price for our premium-quality product.

We are competing on the global market and we are winning markets. As we keep an eye on other trade negotiations in other parts of the world, I believe this will put us in an even stronger position.

I want to talk about aquaculture a little bit. An important economic tool throughout rural Nova Scotia coastal communities is aquaculture. As I indicated, we are now, last year, $116 million in total sales - that’s an increase of 67 per cent over 2016. I want to thank the industry for the great work they’re doing in growing that industry. Nova Scotia has one of the best sets of regulations of aquaculture in the world. That didn’t come by accident; we work very hard.

Our staff reviewed all the different aquaculture regulations, all the systems in the world, reviewed where they had difficulties and, indeed, tried to write our regulations so that they would be fair, accountable, consider communities and the environment, and make a reasonable situation and a solid set of standards that companies could work within, but still be held accountable. We have achieved that. We will continue to upgrade and improve our regulations to make the industry more accountable and more open as we move forward. This creates jobs while protecting the environment.

Also, the aquaculture industry has some of the best paid high-tech jobs that there are today in Nova Scotia. It’s not the day anymore of going out in a boat and throwing some fish on a fish pan or going to an oyster site and sort of looking at the oysters to see what they’re doing. It’s very high-tech. The fish are fed now from miles away in a room that looks like something you’d see on Star Trek, with a whole range of computer screens. The seat they sit in looks like a seat out of a high-end aircraft with a joystick and a keyboard, feeding fish sometimes hundreds of miles away while monitoring the whole thing. So, it’s gone high-tech which is really, really positive - and I have many more stories we can tell and talk about.

We started a couple of years ago, almost three years ago now, and put in place a lobster-handling course, and I’m one for always engaging the industry and the public wherever we possibly can to get their buy-in. This was an exception. I intentionally did not do that and, as a result of some heated discussions and some very tense moments that were created because of that, the industry has finally realized that these courses are to their benefit. Indeed, the biggest opponents to this today are the biggest supporters and have contributed substantially to the second-level lobster-handling course we’ve just introduced at the minister’s conference a few weeks ago, and I want to thank them for the great work they’ve done in that regard and the great respect they have for our very valuable resource of lobsters and how they can help make their industries get better.

We’ve amended our Fish Buyers' Licensing and Enforcement Regulations on August 17^th to make it more accountable and also to help our legitimate licence buyers work in a fair field.

We have many positive things that we’ve worked on over the years and this is probably one of the biggest changers we’ve done, this lobster handling course. Thus far, there are 1,279 people who are directly involved in handling lobsters, including every single one of my staff. It doesn’t matter what their job is. They have to take this course; it’s mandatory. Our fisheries loan board has to take it as well as the staff and anybody that we deal with, so they understand how sensitive and how carefully you have to deal with a lobster.

One of the points in the course is a lobster is an egg. You have to handle it as gently as you do an egg and, in some case, even more gently. We have had positive feedback and very, very good improvements in quality as we move forward, and that goes forward with our second set of courses we put in place and, again, these courses are going to be offered across the province now as we have through Université Sainte-Anne that has been a very good partner with their expertise in lobster, with us and our staff and the Nova Scotia Community College.

So, the second-level courses again, as I said earlier, started at the minister’s conference a few weeks ago. We’re very excited about that and we see many more people getting involved and we have interests from people who are associated with the industry wanting to take the course now, which is very positive. These courses are going to be offered in Level 1, Level 2,and Level 3 as time goes on, and be mandatory. You have to have all courses and it will be mandatory now that you take the courses. It’s going to be even more important as we move out with proper lobster-holding facilities which we intend to put in place in the next six months to a year.

Again, I want to talk about aquaculture and how important this is to rural communities in Nova Scotia. Again, we talked about one of the best regulations we’ve - just a second, I’m getting off track here, okay, sorry about that. I started talking about the lobster quality certification program. This is one that we’re working with the holders and the processors of the lobsters and buyers. We have come up with a world-quality standard for holding and handling lobsters and it all feeds into the handling program we have in place and this is the one that’s going to be put in place within six months to a year.

We’ve come up with a brand, Nova Scotia’s brand for seafood, and it will not be used beyond seafood - 45° North 63° West which is a latitude and longitude in Nova Scotia that we have identified as a brand. In central Nova Scotia is where we went - we didn’t want to identify a costal area because all of our coastal areas are so important to us. That brand is known worldwide now and will continue.

[11:15 a.m.]

We are developing a set of standards that are going to be strict standards for companies to use that on their product line and we have a lot of interest from many companies that want to use our brand. I believe one of my employees is wearing a tie with the brand on it today, which we will show you later.

This is all part of building the growth of our economy, building the quality of our product, high quality products, and ensuring that it gets to the customer no matter where they are in the world and in the best possible condition, ideally in the condition the same as if we went to the wharf and bought the lobsters and cooked them that day, and we are achieving that.

Also, I want to just briefly talk about the Atlantic Fish Fund. This is a program we have over the next several years. Over seven years, Nova Scotia is going to make a total investment of $38 million; 30 per cent of the program cost is ours and the rest of it is by DFO. The idea of this is to make sure that we get companies that can take advantage of this program to update their equipment and their technology, and do research. Indeed, it will be a game changer for Nova Scotia’s industries who are already the top industries in the country. It’s very exciting to see. We’ve had some industries that participate already and had funding and we’re looking for a lot more companies to have uptake in the program.

We have a few examples of companies that have already participated and are under way putting projects in place, as IMO Foods out of Yarmouth, which is doing an exceptionally good job of producing products and shipping them worldwide; Coldwater Lobster; Eel Lake Oyster Farm; and also, from the fishing industry, tuna fishers have access to the new Greenstick technology. Again, all that’s industry driven.

Also, we have a marketing element in this which will definitely help the industry as we grow more markets for Nova Scotia’s fishing industry.

We also have come up, the province has seen fit to give us a three-year, $9 million provincial investment - $3 million a year for agriculture, fishery and aquaculture to support create new products and new markets. This year we focused on establishing a Nova Scotia Centre for Excellence for quality lobster, which is really important - that project is well under way - and also to diversify seafood exports.

I already talked about Nova Scotia’s international seafood brand. We initially announced this brand as 45°N 63°W, and I wonder if my staff member could just come and show you the tie he has on right here. That’s our brand.

THE CHAIR: Did the minister bring free ties?

KEITH COLWELL: Afraid not, you have to earn the quality standard to get it.

We picked a spot in Nova Scotia that actually is a very historic site. It’s right in the middle of Nova Scotia and it just happened by chance but it’s in a place called Murchyville. It was the site of a gold mine operation for many, many years. There was a mine disaster there in the 1930s and the CBC reporters will be very familiar with this because it became the first live disaster in the world that was ever broadcast. It was done by the Canadian CBC on that site. So, we’re very proud to coincidentally have that location as our 45°N 63°W.

We wanted to showcase Nova Scotia’s solid seafood industry and have a brand that would work and be seen all over the world. In a visit to China, the Premier and I launched our brand, which was very well received. We are in the process of having some place to say registered trademark and in other places we’re getting trademarks all over the world for our seafood brand. We do have a line of companies that want to use this. It’s another tool we can use to promote Nova Scotia as high quality, highly sought-after products and we are also looking at using that brand for our wine industry and other industries that meet a very stringent quality standard - and those standards are being written as we speak.

I also want to talk about the ministers’ conference we had. It was the 21^st anniversary of this ministers’ conference - a conference I started in 1998 with the very few fishermen. I think there were 70 or 75 fishermen at the time there to talk about how we could work together to tackle the issues we had in the province and how would we deal jointly with DFO. I want to thank my colleagues in the other Parties for keeping that conference going. It is very important to us and I know one of my colleagues is sitting here now who kept that conference going - a former Minister of Fisheries.

This evolved into something different now and when I came back to the industry as minister five years ago, we had the first one I’d been back to since I was minister in 1999. I looked at the turnout and what we doing and I thought, in consultation with my staff, that we should make this into something more.

We decided to make it a trade show, bring in guest speakers, which we’ve done in the past, but broaden the base of it with a goal of getting 300 people at this show. We did that the first year. This year we were in excess of 400. We had presentations from experts from all over the world who talked about issues in the fishery including plastics in the water, MPAs, how you deal with the media from a processor-fisherman standpoint, and a lot of other things.

Also, it gave opportunities to some of the organizations to bring forward issues they had. In one instance, we made a workshop available for them to express concerns that they have with one issue that is happening in the province. I think that went very well and was very well-received.

We had 52 exhibitors this year; we had 40 the first year that we had exhibitors. And we already have interest from many people who weren’t there this year to come next year and be exhibitors and also work towards improving our fisheries and doing it together.

We invite everybody in the fishing industry. It was originally for harvesters, but now we bring processors, buyers, harvesters, the aquaculture industry, suppliers, equipment developers, everybody and it really is working well. Again, it is our most important industry, so we decided we are really going to celebrate it.

We presented awards of excellence for the second year in a row. This is an idea we came up with to really identify some of the companies and individuals that have significantly contributed to Nova Scotia’s economy in the fishing industry, and there are so many it was very difficult to decide.

This year we awarded presentations of excellence to Cedar Bay Grilling Company, a company that was a start-up company a number of years ago that has a special product and expanded the product line where you can get a salmon on a plank. You put it in your oven and you have a planked salmon and it’s excellent.

Riverside Lobster that set a new standard in processing lobster, providing many, many jobs in the area and new products we’ve gone to the marketplace with, which has really helped.

We also recognized the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association for the incredible job they have done bringing the voices of the fishermen and their fishermen and, indeed, contributing to the whole province input on the fishery, as well as nationally. We are very pleased to work with them.

Also, the Eastern Shore Fisherman’s Protective Association for the work they have done around improving the growth of lobsters in the grow op industry. For example, fishermen on the Eastern Shore would have a gross income of $12,000 to $35,000 a year before they started this program, and now they have anywhere from $125,000 to $250,000 or in excess of it. This is the organization that started the preservation of lobsters.

Also, Jim Kennedy from Louisbourg Seafood whose company has done an incredible job of employing people in Cape Breton and working with Cape Breton. Jim is a very mild-mannered, shy person when it comes to receiving awards. Other than that, he’s not, but he is a real gentleman and I convinced him to come and accept the award. That was an unusual thing for him to have to do, but he did, and I want to personally thank him for doing that.

We also honoured the late Dannie Hanson. I can’t say enough positive about Danny Hanson. He cared about this community. He cared about Cape Breton. He had one rule I didn’t always agree with, but he said, we only hire Cape Bretoners; when we possibly can, we want to hire Cape Bretoners. I think that was a great thing. He was a great man. He really helped us with the lobster-handling course. I appointed him Chair of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board, for which he did an exceptional job up until his death. It was wonderful to be able to recognize him.

We’re in the process of reviewing the buyers and processing licenses. This was at the request of the industry and this is something new. The industry over the years has not typically been really prone to working together too closely. I set up a ministers’ forum on this, which my staff had originally started to talk about things we need to review in the industry. They came to the conclusion we have to put a halt on licensing buyers and processors until we get the system right.

The system has all kinds of grandfathered sections in it that we actually found out recently aren’t legal. We’re not allowed to even do that. I should say, I did them in the 90s - grandfathered some things that every successive government before me at that time, and until today, did that. I haven’t done it since I’ve been minister this time, and thank goodness I didn’t because we did find out that it’s illegal. I knew it’s got a grandfathered licence, actually it’s not a legal licence.

While the review is going on, we put a freeze on, and it caused some interest from people that possibly thought they should get licensed at this point. When this is finished, it will be a fair, consistent, transparent licensing policy, and it will be done with full consultation, which we are doing on a regular basis with the processors and the buyers in the province. Presently, we have 210 processor licenses in place and 328 buyer licenses issued for 2019. Many organizations hold both.

The other very exciting thing we’ve been doing in the last five years, and it actually started before the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture got involved - in the Fall of 2016, we started participating in the West River Sheet Harbour Restoration Program. The West River Sheet Harbour was a river that was renowned for its fine salmon fishing. Unfortunately, up until recently, the population has been dwindling to a point you would never see a fish jump on the river.

Today, we’re improving those possibilities of salmon coming back. We’ve initiated this in part with the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. I want to thank them for the great job they’ve done and all the people who have volunteered their time and their money to this project.

Before I became the minister, there was no involvement from the province in this. But through successive meetings with my colleagues in the Department of Natural Resources - every minister agreeing with me, three ministers in a row - we finally came up with an agreement to use the Department of Lands and Forestry helicopters to lime the area at the upper part of the river. That did happen. We put $1.1 million investment in that, and that does not count the helicopter time, staff time, or anything else.

We’ve challenged the industry and the supporters of the salmon-fishing industry to match the dollars we put in for lime. We put a lime subsidy on, so they can move the lime to the site, so helicopters could easily access it.

From going from not wanting to participate in the program, the helicopter pilots are now the biggest supporters I’ve ever seen in any project that I’ve ever done. They’re excited. They’ve made suggestions. We made changes based on their suggestions. This has turned out to be the biggest helicopter liming project ever undertaken in North America. We are getting results from this, and also the lime dosers that are in the river.

Prior to the start, there was between 3,000 and 3,500 salmon smolts produced annually by the river. Since the liming started, we’re up to between 9,000 and 12,000 salmon smolts a year - a huge improvement. This work will be going on, plus there are two limers on the river, dosers on the river, that put lime in all the time. We’ve hired one of our staff to do that through Perennia, who works full time with the salmon association that volunteers in the community, and I can tell you how well this is happening.

[11:30 a.m.]

There are Mi’kmaq fishing rights in that river from residents of Sheet Harbour Mi’kmaq descent and one of the people who is working on the river is this gentleman. He went and picked up all the tags and he destroyed every one, so that those salmon would not be taken from that river and I want to thank him and for the dedication of all the volunteers in the community who are so involved in this. It’s very exciting to see this happen. Hopefully, we’ll have a salmon fishery opened again on that river in the not-too-distant future, creating lots of economic opportunity for the local community that’s desperately needed.

Sport fishing in one of the most important activities in Nova Scotia. It’s attracting around 80,000 participants each year, adding a tremendous amount of economic benefit to the province worth about $66.5 million according to a survey we did with Sport Fishing in Canada in 2015. This year, changes to our sport fishing licences resulted in an 18 per cent increase in the number of non-resident licences coming through Nova Scotia in 2018, which is very, very positive. In 2015, the percentage of active female anglers in Nova Scotia was 17 per cent, up from 9 per cent in 2010.

Youth enrolment in learn-to-fish programs is higher than it has ever been and, in 2018, the Learn 2 Fish program was delivered 51 times by volunteers I might add and some support from staff, reaching over 1,700 youth and approximately 16,700 since it started in 2006.

With those few words, I close my remarks.

THE CHAIR: We’ll start with Progressive Conservative caucus for one hour.

Mr. Bain.

KEITH BAIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and before I begin I’d like to make you aware that I’ll be sharing my time with a couple of my other colleagues as well.

First of all, let me thank the minister and staff for being here this morning and talking about the work that is taking place in his department in both fisheries and aquaculture.

The minister, near the end of his presentation, spoke of sport fishing in Nova Scotia and the revenue generated within that. We notice in the budget that for 2019-2020 there is $50,000 allocated to increase the number of non-resident anglers. I guess my question would be: How will the department use that $50,000 to promote sport fishing outside the area?

KEITH COLWELL: Yes, we’re doing some of the similar things we’ve done with our export sales. We’re developing a brand for Nova Scotia to get more people to come when they come to Nova Scotia to fish or specifically come to Nova Scotia to fish. We’re working with more advertisement to do some promotions in the U.S. and Europe and also working with our guide industry to get them to understand that there are a lot of individuals who will come to Nova Scotia and are already coming to some of the places in Cape Breton and paying a very extensive cost, or it costs them a great deal to come to Cape Breton and it would be nice if they could spend a day fishing while they’re here in Cape Breton - and would add more value to the communities that are involved and that’s just one example.

That’s why we’re trying to restore the salmon rivers, and the model we did on the West River Sheet Harbour is a model we hope to repeat in other public places in the province.

KEITH BAIN: I thank the minister. This Sportfish Habitat Fund - how much money was raised by that fund last year?

KEITH COLWELL: Last year we raised $205,000. I knew it was around $200,000 - it was $205,000 to be exact, and we leveraged that money to actually get $1.3 million.

KEITH BAIN: How was that fund disbursed? Who were the recipients from that fund?

KEITH COLWELL: We did a restoration of 124,708 square metres of stream habitat; 24 projects were approved under the fund. There were larger ones as well: 24 fish passage recommendation sites, and 23 road crossings were provided. We re-established 161 kilometres of fish passage, planted 3,740 stream site trees. We worked with 269 volunteers who donated 6,500 volunteer hours in addition to the $1.3 million that was raised. A large number of projects were done.

Also, there are projects done with the NSLC Adopt-a-Stream program, which provides $296,000.

KEITH BAIN: That information could be found on your departmental website, could it, minister?

KEITH COLWELL: I believe it is on our website but, if not, we can supply it to you. We get a list of all the different ones that are done here.

KEITH BAIN: Thank you, minister, for that. I’m going to be jumping around here because I’ve tried to cover a few bases and still allow time for my colleagues.

The seafood exporting marketing program stated that this coming year, $500,000 will be used to maintain and build on the existing export success of the Nova Scotia industry delivering premium-quality seafood around the world. I would like to ask the minister how that half-million dollars would be spent in seafood export marketing?

KEITH COLWELL: There are a lot of events that we participate in to promote Nova Scotia seafood. Some of the money is spent for professional services. When we travel outside the country, we need interpreters, we need people to work with us on-site, chefs to showcase Nova Scotia seafoods - which has been very, very successful. The chefs work with other chefs to promote the products, get the products in restaurants, and when they get in the restaurants, people go to the restaurant and want to buy the product besides. That’s one of the reasons we’ve been so very successful. There is a lot of promotional material, the website and all kinds of different things.

One of the things we did was the Boston seafood show this year, that we do every year, and we had 400 people, all from industry, attend our reception which really was well received and, indeed, there was a lot of purchasing done in Boston. In previous years in Boston they used to call it the “kick the tires show.” Everybody would come along, they’d talk to the industries and say, yes, we’ll follow up and follow up. That’s all the show was really about.

In the last two years, it’s turned into a buying show. People are coming and placing orders at the show. They are looking for long-term contracts and it really has turned into the show it used to be years ago.

Initially that show was set up actually by processors in Nova Scotia. They came up with the idea to set up this show and it was the biggest show in the world - now it’s the third biggest show with a show in China being the biggest in the world with 120,000 people who go through that, I believe, if my number is right. And Brussels has probably 45,000 - a minimum of 45,000 that go through that. The seafood show in Boston, I believe, is about 20,000 that go through that. That’s only for the trade. These are the types of shows we go to.

Typically, we come out of those shows with opportunities for businesses; we make some deals on the spot to promote Nova Scotia seafood and not only promote it, but sales. It has been very effective - that’s one reason we’ve moved our exports from under $1 billion to well over $2 billion.

KEITH BAIN: Probably about 10 years ago I attended the Boston seafood show and it was quite impressive then. Listening to what you’re saying now, it seems to me more of a marketing - I don’t want to call it a “scheme”, but it’s a way to get more marketing done for the product throughout our province.

Again, I apologize, but I’m going to jump over now to the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board. I stand to be corrected but I think that last year only $55 million in loans was realized. The estimate for this year expects that to grow by another $60 million - is that correct?

KEITH COLWELL: We did loan $50 million last year, correct, and we are estimating a minimum of $60 million this year, probably more, with the changes we’ve made. We’ve made changes in the loan board to make them more efficient. It used to take up to 45 days to get an approval. We’re putting new software in place which will be in place, I believe, in roughly six weeks time - six months - so the clients can actually use it and go on and check their loan in a secure atmosphere, which we did not have.

It’s going to save a tremendous amount of staff time, it’s going to make us more responsive, and the fact that the loan board now can loan up to $5 million without going to an Order in Council is very positive. They’ve asked for that for a long time. That will give faster turnaround times on this. We have a lot of young people wanting to buy licences and licences are now $1 million-plus and a boat is probably $1 million. That’s why we wanted to move this up to $5 million and it has attracted a lot more business for us.

KEITH BAIN: Thank you for that. So it’s really only an increase of $5 million over last year’s budget. Okay.

Writeoffs - I think last year it’s expected to write off about $1.15 million. That sort of seems to be an unexpected expense because it wasn’t in the Estimates for 2018-19. What was the writeoff for? It was $1.147 million actually?

KEITH COLWELL: Mostly that was one loan which I can’t give you the details on yet because it hasn’t been released. It goes back way beyond five years, the loan. It was budgeted for in the year that they realized it wasn’t going to be paid back, so it’s budgeted for that year, but just now it’s coming through the system. So it was budgeted in previous years.

KEITH BAIN: Does the loan board expect any writeoffs this coming year?

KEITH COLWELL: We anticipate every year there will be somebody who decides they’re not going to pay their bill or whatever the case may be, or it could be some illness - all kinds of reasons - but usually our loans are less than 2 per cent loss. We’re a lot lower than the commercial banks.

[11:45 a.m.]

KEITH BAIN: I am going to jump again. Earlier on, the minister mentioned about collaboration with other departments within government and referenced the Department of Natural Resources. I just want to make reference to a couple of things, if I could. One is an oyster farm. The minister spoke of oyster farms now being high tech. Over the years, there has been a lot about both private and government money invested to make sure that the industry is coming back, and it seems to be quite successful.

I know in South Harbour in my constituency, a lot of work has been put in by the owner. I know that you and I will be visiting his location at some point. One of the fears that these owners have is development around their property. There is going to supposedly be a large campground in the area that is going to be installing a large septic system. Of course, that fear is always there that all the investment that has been made into the oyster industry in South Harbour could possibly be in jeopardy if something should happen to that.

We have also been hearing about - and I’m sure every member of the House has heard about the concerns with Cooke Aquaculture, and the tourism concerns, the environment concerns and everything else. I guess my question is: How closely does your department work with - in these particular two cases - the Department of Environment, when it comes to protecting industry in the one case and industry and the citizens in the other?

KEITH COLWELL: Very good question. We of course work closely with the Department of Environment on enforcement, so I’ll start with that part of it first. With the new regulations we have, we have 45 pages of regulations around aquaculture. When I was minister before - between the time I was minister in the ’90s and that hadn’t changed until I was reappointed minister five years ago - it was one and a half pages saying you can pretty well do anything you wanted. That was the bottom line and that caused all kinds of grief.

It doesn’t matter if it’s shellfish or finfish or whatever the farm may be - every farm now has to present and follow an environmental farm plan. The environmental farm plan is a plan where they show how they can deal with every circumstance they could have happen. If the gear breaks up or if they have a disease issue, it’s all reportable. It all has to be approved by our department and the Department of Environment and other agencies to ensure that they cover all the things that they need to do to protect the industry, protect the local public, and do all these things. So that’s a new regulation.

Along with enforcement now, before if an organization doesn’t follow the rules, there was no recourse; they could just keep doing business. You could take them to court, you could do whatever you want, but you still couldn’t shut them down. The minister of the day - whoever that may be when I’m no longer here, in the future - will have the authority to take their licence back and shut them down. They all have to post a bond now for cleanup if there is an issue with cleanup that has to be done. That’s something new. There is a whole list of other things to hold them accountable.

I can tell you that as we look at aquaculture and look around the world at aquaculture, we see that we probably have the toughest regulations and the fairest regulations and the most environmentally sound regulations in the world. We looked all over the world before we changed this. We have been working on this steadily for two years to get the regulations in place and in the last two years we’ve been fine-tuning it. I’m going to go to Cabinet shortly with some other changes I’m going to make to the regulations to make the companies even more accountable. That’s well under way.

The Department of Environment does the enforcement. We then go to the site and look at fish health and if there are reportable levels in fish cases of disease or fish deaths, those all have to be recorded. You’ll see they are on our website now, as the incident happens and it’s an explanation of what happened. That’s going to become more prevalent as we move forward and we’re going to be more transparent and open than we’ve ever been.

To get a new site, you have to go through a regulatory board. Our first hearings are going to start shortly, so they will be very well in place. If they are misbehaving and are not properly doing the job they are supposed to be doing, we have teeth to make them do it.

On the side of the other one with individual concerns about water quality, it’s a really serious issue for us. We worry about that, not just an aquaculture site but on the clam flats that have been closed by DFO because they are not doing testing anymore. That’s a serious problem for us, so those are problems, too.

We do correspond with the Department of Environment all the time. We raise the issues on these things and we will continue to do that to make sure that we protect that very important resource as far as we’re concerned as we move forward. I can tell you right now oysters are a real hot commodity. We cannot grow enough oysters in Nova Scotia, there’s no such thing. If we put every square inch of water that we have in Nova Scotia into oysters, we still wouldn’t have enough oysters - they’re that good a quality and that’s what the markets are doing, so we’re very excited about that.

We have funded multiple projects with the oyster farm in South Harbour that they can talk to you about - we can’t talk about it here, but they will - to help them improve their operation and indeed they are a very important contributor to our fishery in the province. I will say they are great people and doing a great business. We want them to get bigger and better and everything we can do to do that we’re going to do it.

KEITH BAIN: I agree with the minister that the owners of the oyster farm in South Harbour are great people. I bring up that concern only because, well for the money that they have invested, but the money that the province has already invested in the operation as well. I think it’s important that the whole thing be protected and the oyster industry.

Mr. Chair, with your permission I’m going to turn the floor over to my colleague from Argyle-Barrington.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Argyle-Barrington.

HON. CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: Thank you, minister and staff. Thank you so much for being here. I’m going to maybe kick off a little bit where he was, being that I have Eel Lake Oysters and there’s a new possibility of course in the Roberts Island area. I’m just wondering about the relationship between your department and maybe Natural Resources because we seem to be running into a number of walls when it comes to getting approval from DNR for a number of things. Of course, in the lobster industry it’s trying to get the pipes into the water and those kinds of things.

I’m just wondering how the relationship is going and if you are talking with the other minister to make sure that some of these projects are at least expedited so that we can get in the water quicker and make sure that we’re doing a good job, but more specifically for the oyster farm that I think is going into Roberts Island.

KEITH COLWELL: We’re very anxious to have that oyster farm expanded as quickly as they can. Again, they’ve had the same problem, they have so much demand for their product and they just don’t have enough product. That’s not a good situation to be in because if you go that way too long someone else will fill that product line.

We do work very closely with the provincial government departments in all fields. We try to encourage them to come back with their answers as quickly as possible. Indeed, a lot of times they do, and they’ve been very helpful in almost all cases. We will pursue that one further, to be sure.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: Seeing this is sort of my transition into the other departments, some of these departments - mostly DNR or whatever it is called now - has had requests sitting on someone’s desk for close to six months, maybe not in the aquaculture side of things but for sure in the tankage. When people are trying to expand their tank houses and those kinds of things, we’ve hit a complete wall of trying to get these things approved through DNR. Every time we call in, they’d say that it’s on someone’s desk.

I’m going to maybe share a couple of those with you later on, but maybe if you could speak a little bit to that challenge especially when it comes to the lobster industry as it continues to expand to make up for those demands that continue to show up.

KEITH COLWELL: We’d only be too willing to work with you and see if we can get those problems resolved. Again, I can’t speak for another department but it’s important our industries are moved forward as quickly as possible. Anything we do to delay them could cause some severe financial stress. We don’t want that to happen.

I’ve got such a great respect and working relationship with the fishing industry overall both in the wild catch, harvest, and processing and the aquaculture industry. They are the lifeblood of rural Nova Scotia without question and anything we can do to do that is there.

I’ve just been handed a note here which I forgot about: It’s DFO that’s holding us up, not internally. Anything we can do jointly to get that fixed. I’d be interested in hearing your views on this to see if we can’t get that fixed. That’s a never-ending battle but, if you get any ideas in that area, please let me know from your past experiences working in the fishery.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: I will endeavour to help you out on that one. The trick is to get that nomination and win the election next year and I’ll be in Ottawa and I’ll be happy to help you out on that one. I’m more than doing my part there. (Interruption) Mr. Chair, thank you.

To the minister, let’s go to lobster for a minute and Argyle-Barrington - and with all apologies to Shediac, the lobster capital of Canada. What are the lobster landings today? How has this year shaped up? What kind of landed value are we exporting now in lobster?

KEITH COLWELL: As you know, the catches were down the first of the year a little bit. From we’ve heard, and we don’t get all the facts sort of as they happen, but from what we’ve seen so far, it looks like it’s back on par again for average for the year and our exports are about equal to what they were last year. It’s very positive.

We were concerned first of the year we might not have had enough to fill the market. I know I talked to one of the processors early this morning and he said he’s having a heck of a time getting lobsters to process at a reasonable price because they’re $9 a pound, and he can’t process them at $9 a pound.

That’s a good sign when it comes to our live exports, and we’ve also had a nine-per-cent growth in the exports so far this year overall. It’s still very valuable, going along very well and, as we’re opening and continue to work on opening new markets.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: What I’m getting at is that the total export value of lobster in this province is probably still in the $800-odd million-dollar range at this point. I would probably suggest probably a third is going to the United States, a third is going to Europe, and a third is going to China - or sort of in that range. I’m just wondering what the value of exports would be to China at this point.

[12:00 noon]

KEITH COLWELL: We’re just a little bit less than $550 million. We started with about $14 million five years ago. It’s a huge growth but they’ve become our second-biggest trader in seafood overall over Europe. It was the U.S. The U.S. has been pretty stable. We’re still the biggest exporter to the U.S. out of Nova Scotia behind Michelin Canada - or Michelin Canada is a little bit behind us. That is a good place for the industry to be in, but it’s also great to see that Michelin Tire is doing really well. They are around $1 billion, and we are around $1 billion to the U.S.; 48 per cent of our total going to the U.S., and 26 per cent to China. We are opening up new markets not just in China but also in other areas of Asia.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: So 26 per cent or so of our export value of lobster goes to China. We can maybe add up the other commodities that go there. My concern is, and I wonder what your thoughts are, the canola crisis that we are having now that China is no longer accepting Western canola.

Would we see the possibility of that border changing or closing to seafood exports? What are your thoughts around that?

KEITH COLWELL: We’re always concerned any time there is a trade squabble between countries, but to date, we have seen no sign of that. Actually, we met with one of the main companies that ships products to China - one of the companies that we have been working with on the quality program we have, which I talked about earlier. They are very excited about that, and they are implementing that as we talk. They see no slowdown in bringing products in, so our exports haven’t changed.

We try to stay out of the international politics. It was made very clear at the meeting we had with the gentleman - the Premier was with me at that meeting we had, and we have seen no letup. Canola - they are not telling the whole story on canola. I was in a meeting with a federal minister some time ago with one of the largest purchasers of canola and some other products from Canada in China. I can’t remember what it was they had identified - I don’t want to say what it was, anyway, even if I did know, if I could remember. There was some kind of a problem they had with the canola, some small thing they had put in place. I don’t know if that’s a trade issue that was created or that they weren’t happy with the canola. I don’t know which it is. In reality, to know the facts - everyone says it’s a trade issue, but it might be a little bit more than that.

In that vein, and regardless of the trade issues with China, we are expanding our markets into Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, U.S., and India. We are looking at a broad approach to our marketing, so that in case there is an issue, because there always will be in the world somewhere, we have a broad base of customers that we can ship to. Some of these countries we ship into can trans-ship our products into China. We are well aware of this, and we’re taking every precaution we can and building strong relationships and growing those relationships that we have, which is critical.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: I have two quick items before I cede my time to the member for Queens-Shelburne. One revolves around the issue of licensing. We have a moratorium on licensing, and we are about a year and a half into that moratorium. I’m just wondering how the minister is making out in figuring out what he is going to be doing with it.

KEITH COLWELL: As former minister, you would realize the issues around that. Things have changed in the last five years, since I have become minister - not because I became minister, but in the industry. The industry is behind this. They want to see a concise set of rules.

As I said earlier, the grandfathering that you probably put in place and I put in place years ago is all illegal, we found out. We didn’t know that till just recently. That has been transferred to most of the industry. We’re not acting on any of that at the moment, and we won’t until we get this review done.

The industry needs a solid set of rules. We have what they call a bingo card, as you would know, and everybody checks off everything they process whether they process it or not. That’s going to come to an end. They are going to have to prove they process what they actually say they are. We’re starting to get the processing numbers back from processors on a regular basis to feed that back into it.

Our lobster quality program is all aimed at this process. Under the modern regulations, we are going to try to promote value-added quality and ensure that there’s possibility if someone makes a huge investment. The biggest thing I have heard from the industry was, we have to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars getting our equipment and our buildings in place, and then we have to spend millions of dollars on marketing. We have to develop new products. What assurance do we have that somebody with deep pockets doesn’t just come in and, all of a sudden, put us out of business because they can get a license for $50? I agree with them. It’s a big investment.

We’re not trying to stop anyone from coming into Nova Scotia; that’s not the case at all. We want people to come, but we want to make sure that we have a structure in place so people can make investments with confidence and know if they make that investment - as long as they do their work properly and run their business properly - they can be there for many years to come. That’s what we need to do.

How we get to that, we’re still discussing, and we’re discussing it with the industry. Everything we do will be discussed with the industry. We will make changes slowly to make sure that it won’t affect the people who are in it.

We have already issued some licenses since the closure for added-value products, which we will do and continue to do, but it can’t be just gutted. That’s not adding value. If you take that fillet, we talked earlier about the company that does the cedar plank salmon - that’s real value-added. There are all the things we’re doing around this like our lobster handling course, which is mandatory. We’re going to make mandatory holding facilities to our new standard, that’s coming. In conjunction with that, we’re going to help finance it through the AFF so business can get up to date on it. That will give us less mortalities and a higher-quality product they can hold so they can market it year round. It all goes together to make it all happen.

We’re pretty enthusiastic about it. We’re going to come back to the industry with some ideas on regulations and stuff and suggestions they have made. They’re very engaged, and we will keep engaging them as we go through the process.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: We’re getting into the issue of competition and making sure that we’re providing an equal opportunity for everyone. I’m just hoping that review gets done in a timely manner and that we know what everybody is supposed to be adhering to.

My last issue revolves around ports. I know it’s not necessarily an issue for the provincial government, but I think we all need to be rowing in the right direction. We have one heck of a deficiency in port infrastructure in this province. We have lots of ports that have done well and have had expansions to a certain point, and then we have other ports that you can barely tie a lobster boat to anymore.

I’m wondering how your discussions are going with the federal government to ensure that these ports - which are the business parks of our rural areas - have the attention that they need to be safe harbours so that we can tie boats to them, and so we don’t worry so much about people falling overboard and/or losing the infrastructure that we have. I just wonder if there’s a thought around your FPT discussions.

KEITH COLWELL: As you are aware, the safety organization has done an incredible job around safety. If we can get everybody to wear lifejackets, hopefully we’ll have a lot less fatalities at sea and on the wharfs.

Infrastructure is a big problem, there’s no question about it at all. I don’t know what the answer is. I know if an aquaculture operation shows up, then they’ll build a wharf and make it available to the fishermen, no question. That is one advantage of having aquaculture available in the areas.

I know in the Digby area, there are a huge number of boats tied up at a wharf where one third of the boats that are there is probably the number that should be tied up to it, but they really have to tie up. It’s a major problem. As you well know, the Small Craft Harbours program will fund some of this, if everybody gets sort of their ducks all lined up and everything and pulls them in place. There’s never enough money for infrastructure on the wharves and, unfortunately, we don’t get involved in that. We simply cannot afford to do it. We don’t have enough money probably in the provincial budget overall of building infrastructure renewal on the wharves. Anything we can work together with the industry to help make it happen we’re only too glad to do it, but we just don’t have the money.

CHRISTOPHER D’ENTREMONT: The point is, the fishery has changed. In Argyle-Barrington, there are about 26 different ports - some of them small, some of them large. The smaller ones are falling into the ocean. The larger ones aren’t big enough because of the size of the vessels we’re having. The East Pubnico one just continue to be stuffed with these new vessels because the vessels have changed and all that in order to respond to the fishing needs of today.

The provincial government has to be our advocate to say to the federal government, this is important because they are the economic drivers of our small communities. It’s more of a request of you to go to your FPT partners, so that they understand there has to be investment in these structures. One the east side of Cape Island, we have wharves that are really being swamped every time we have a high tide now or an extra high tide and you can’t tie a 50-foot boat that’s 30-feet wide to them anymore. They know when there’s extra pressure on them they’re pulling the bits right out of the sides of the wharves.

There has to be some kind of appreciation for that by the federal government. I just hope that you advocate on our behalf as well.

KEITH COLWELL: Thank you and we have been doing that actually. I personally brought it up to three federal ministers now, and we’ll continue to do that. One other thing I didn’t mention earlier that a fish plant can get a loan from our fish loan board to improve the wharf. That will help in some cases. Not the cure, but at least it’s a small help.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Queens-Shelburne.

KIM MASLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the minister for this opportunity to speak today on aquaculture; that’ll be my focus. As you know, I have two sites, 1358 and 1359, in Shelburne Country. Then I have 1205 site in Liverpool Bay, which is now under an application to expand for two more sites and I just noticed a couple of hours ago that Cooke unveiled ambitious fish farm expansion in Nova Scotia in the media today that was the release they put out.

I guess my first question to you would be with the increase in fish-farm sites we’re seeing in our province and now this announcement today, which I’m sure you have been talking with Cooke in the past that they’re looking at expanding, what has the department done to allow for budget increases to ensure proper inspections are being done to hold these operations accountable?

KEITH COLWELL: The enforcement of these are regulations and new regulations done by the Department of Environment, but we work closely with the Department of Environment on enforcement and inspections. We have fish vets on staff, a complete fish vet that’s on staff. Since I became minister, we put a certified fish health disease lab in Truro; it’s the only one like it in eastern Canada, I believe. We have four fish vets and we have a professional staff and one of our chief fish vets is probably the most renown fish vet in the world, literally, here in Nova Scotia. Very well respected.

We work with our inspectors so that they’ll go out. We bought an all-weather aluminum boat. We had it built three years ago. We haven’t officially announced it yet, but we’ve been using it. We can go out to the site in all kinds of weather. Again, when I became minister, the problem was that you’d have to call up a company and say, we’re going to come, can you take us out? If they decided they didn’t want to take us out, there was nothing we could do about it. We have some small ones where we couldn’t go out into some of the sites.

[12:15 p.m.]

Now we have a boat that we can use. We have three boats. We have a full-time skipper that runs our biggest boat. The one we have is a 32-foot aluminum construction. It was built here in Nova Scotia, a quarter-of-a-million-dollar investment, if I remember right. It was some time ago.

We’ve also purchased an ROV. It can take samples on site anywhere out in the ocean. We can also do video surveillance out there. It’s got a GPS system on it, very well equipped. That was bought some time ago in preparation, and also to respond to concerns that some people had around aquaculture sites. It doesn’t matter what kind. We can go and check them and see if things are in place - anchors are in place properly or whatever the case may be. We’ve trained staff to do all that.

We also use Department of Natural Resources helicopters. We’ve sent them up several times to investigate complaints we’ve had from individuals. Sometimes the complaints weren’t legitimate. In one case, we investigated a complaint, and the complaint was just a sheer fantasy. We spent $15,000 doing that. We’re going to see if there’s some way - we’re working on a way to recuperate that kind of money. We want to respond and will respond every time to somebody that calls up and says or sends us mail or whatever they do, gets a hold of us in any way, to any reports to make sure the operator is doing everything is properly. We do that.

When we get consistent complaints from individuals, the same people over and over again, and you look at the complaints after a while - well, this can’t be real because it never has been in the past, but we still have to go look. That costs us a fortune. We can’t be doing that. We need to be going out and finding things that are wrong and get them corrected.

I will say in the last three years, the industry has really stepped up to the plate. They’re starting to get a lot a better in reporting stuff to the community. They’ve got to get a lot better yet, and I’m going to put some regulations in place very shortly to make that happen.

They respond very well to us. When we go out and we want to see things, there’s no issue. There never had been an issue, but it’s getting better and better all the time. If we see something that has happened, and we report it to them, they only have a short time to get it fixed. We have a bond we can draw down on if they don’t fix it.

Those things are all in place now, and they seem to be working very well. That’s the only industry in the province, in the ocean, which has to clean up their mess. I was down in Digby a couple of years ago at the Aquaculture Association of Nova Scotia. We cleaned up a beach in Digby. The place was a real mess. There was some aquaculture equipment there. The reason it hadn’t been removed was because the company went bankrupt and we couldn’t move the equipment until the receivers said we could take it. Finally, we got that opportunity.

It just also happened that we got the permission to do that just the day before I went down. We cleaned up, but we had 20-some tons of material off the beach, way less than one per cent of it was aquaculture. It was all commercial fishing stuff, every bit of it, except for the frames of cages.

During that time, we already made arrangements to have it taken away so the fishermen in the area asked, what are you going to do with that? I said, do you want it? And they said, yes, because we can make some shelters or something out of it. I didn’t know what they were going to do with it. I said, you take it, you’ve got it. It was gone the next day.

That was really the only thing on the beach, but there were nets, ropes, buoys, everything you can imagine, way up in the woods. It was a real mess. It took us most of the day. I want to thank the Mayor of Digby for coming down that day and helping us as well; she did a great job. Also, the fishermen - when they saw what they were doing, one guy brought his tractor, his ATV, his truck. Cooke Aquaculture was there with their truck and staff to help us clean up.

Another gentleman was there fixing their boat and they had to get it done before the tide went down, and they stopped working on the boat. I hope they got the boat fixed in time. They came out and helped us to clean it up. Clean Nova Scotia came and helped us. It was really a fantastic day; they brought equipment. The Aquaculture Association has done that and is doing it regularly now on beaches all over Nova Scotia.

Any community that wants to go in and do a clean-up in their area, give them a call, they will go down. They will also supply some mussels and stuff afterwards for a barbecue for the people who come, so it’s really a cooperative thing.

KIM MASLAND: Thank you to the minister for that response. We’ve had exchanges in the past about helicopter rides and walking on beaches and I hope we are not referring to site 1358 that we’ve talked about in the past because I did walk that beach and that was a mess that day. Eventually, it did get cleaned up, but that was a disaster.

My next question is concerning the AG report. The AG report in June 2015 refers to the frequency of visits to sites from April to December, and the lack of consistency for monthly visits. Sadly, this is not very reassuring to people in my constituency, Jordan Bay and now, of course, in Queens County.

I would like to ask the minister if he could explain how and what records are kept on the fish kept at those sites?

KEITH COLWELL: Under the farm plan, each company has to register and that is monitored on a regular basis, both by us and the Department of Environment. Typically, these sites go on without incident most of the time. Occasionally they’ll have some bad weather and you might have some fish die. Those are really the same as a farm. We have a lot of mortalities on farms on the land. It is basically the same as farming.

When there is an incident, they must report to us in a given length of time and it is a very short time. We would go and investigate that time and from time to time we will send our vets to the site. The Department of Environment will go out and their inspectors will check what’s going on now and then. Again, it is up to the inspectors and our vets to decide when that should be, but it’s on a regular basis and they are in contact continuously with the operator to talk about it.

We do regular visits to different sites. It’s like comparing - I know in my community, I represent some of the areas where they say, we never see an RCMP car there. The same people get a speeding ticket the next week. It’s all about effective monitoring in a timely manner to ensure the companies are doing the right thing. The more transparent we become with this, and we are getting more and more and it’s going to be mandated very shortly that the companies have to mandate.

For instance, we visited Tasmania recently with some fishermen where we went to a site and had interesting conversations with the company. They said that before they harvest, they go into the community, have a town hall session, bring some coffee and doughnuts, that sort of stuff. They invite everybody in the community to come and say, here is what we are going to be doing and in three weeks’ time we are going to harvest fish.

They talk to people and the people find out what’s going on, how long they are going to harvest, they tell them how many fish they are going to harvest, and they go through the whole routine. At one of the meetings they went to early on, they said, well, we’d really prefer if you don’t harvest on Sunday. They said, no problem. We are not going to harvest on Sunday from now on; that’s the kind of input.

You are going to see that in either regulations or policy very shortly. That is going to be very important to the accountability for the businesses. Then, from time to time, they actually go to the community and will have a meeting just to talk about what they are doing. If anything has changed, or if they have anything happen on the site, they automatically put it on their website. They automatically have a list that they would send a mass e-mail to. They have all kinds of interaction with the community and that is what we are going to mandate.

We are going to do that very shortly and it is all part as we evolve our system. That stops the false reporting, the misleading information that is continually pumped out there by people who have no knowledge of what is going on. It usually comes down to, well, there’s a problem with my property value. Indeed, we haven’t found that is actually the case, or talking about something they have no experience with, no knowledge of, or anything.

I don’t care about the complaints and that kind of activity, but the thing is that we really need to know when there’s a problem. If there’s something we don’t know, we want to know and we want to investigate. We will investigate, we will enforce, we will charge, we will fine, and we will even take sites away if people aren’t properly maintaining their facilities or running a safe fish health.

Fish health is very important to us - these things really, really are important to us. After anything happens, we need those kinds of reports back from people. We need to know they’re reliable or people think that, well, I shouldn’t say that. Well, people have a real, solid reason to believe something is strange here. You see a boat floating away or something like that.

In the Liverpool site, the first person to visit that very shortly after they had a problem there recently - our fish vet was the first person to visit to check fish health. Samples were taken of the fish back to our lab and tested. There was no disease, no problem with that at all. It was just rough weather and the fish were big for their size. The bigger fish don’t weather very well in really cold weather and a lot of wind and stuff after they get to a certain size. That was the cause of it and it was a number of fish but, percentagewise, a very small percentage of the fish in the pen.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Masland, five minutes.

KIM MASLAND: Oh my, five minutes, that’s all? Cooke Aquaculture, as you know, has made application to expand the Coffin Island site in Liverpool Bay from 14 to 20 cages with the addition of two new sites of the same size. If approved, I’m told this could result into approximately 1.8 million salmon being farmed in our Liverpool Bay.

This has created a lot of concern in Queens County to the point that there has been a group formed of citizens called Protect Liverpool Bay that have become very active in collecting science and data and are very concerned about Liverpool Bay, about Beach Meadows. I walk that beach with my dog every weekend. I don’t like seeing those fish farms out there either, just the visual of them.

One of the questions I have been asked over and over is: Will the department release the findings of that technical review - I think you’re in a technical review now - to citizens in the community, and will they also release the public submissions that are made to the review board to the people of the community?

KEITH COLWELL: This whole process is the first test of our process here. As we go through the process, it will be interesting to see but the process works in a very structured manner. Any company that’s going to expand or grow fish or whatever they’re going to do in Nova Scotia or shellfish or whatever it may be and anything in aquaculture has a very structured system they have to go through. They have to hold a public meeting, at least one. They have to take into consideration all the information they’re received from the public. My responsibility to do this is ended when I give them permission to pursue an option. Then, it’s up to the company to do all their due diligence in the community because they are the ones in the community going to be working there if they get approved - and I stress if they get approved in the future, and hopefully for many years after that. So, it’s important they work with the community.

[12:30 p.m.]

There are requirements they have to meet. I know we’ve been getting a lot of e-mails and information from citizens and we’re sending them back a standard letter. The letter is always the same, that they have to provide that information to the proponent. We have a document we sent out to them that shows all the things they have to do to go through the process and what the proponent is responsible for doing. Once all that information is gathered and the proponent comes in, as we received one recently from Cooke Aquaculture, they want to proceed with the thing.

Now the only thing we have to do this, we don’t make any decisions on this, none. It goes to the independent review panel. They’ll make the final decisions, or whatever the decision is, yes, no or they need more information, whatever it is, that’s up to them to decide. It’s the company’s responsibility to convince the review panel that they’ve done the due diligence, they’ve done the science, they’ve okayed it with the community, they’ve checked all the information we’ve provided to them from our stakeholders, like all the different government departments that would come in, all that information we will supply to the review panel.

What information they will make public will be up to the review panel; it’s not our decision. They have the authority to do that. It’s semi-judicial, it’s almost like court, they go there, and they will make the decision what information is released to the public. Our opinion is in the department that the company should make as many things as possible available to the public.

You’ll notice our website now is totally changed. It’s going to change even more. We have health incidents or potential health one, that’s on our website. We also followed up and explained what happened. Good, bad, or indifferent, we want to be open and transparent to the public. That’s very important for us that we do this.

THE CHAIR: That concludes the time for the Progressive Conservative caucus. We now go to the NDP for an hour. Ms. Roberts.

LISA ROBERTS: Thanks for being here and for this opportunity. I’m going to get right to it because I know that the hour will go fast. Halibut stock has been increasing in recent years and so has the quota, but all that benefit has been going to the offshore fishery. The inshore fishery and recreational fishers have been advocating for a share of the halibut allocation from the federal government, without success.

Has the minister made any efforts to support inshore and recreational fishers in their efforts with the DFO?

KEITH COLWELL: Yes.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you for that answer - maybe the hour won’t go so fast. So yes, you’ve supported them. Would the minister support a resolution in the House calling on the DFO to allow for a recreational and food fishery for halibut in Nova Scotia?

KEITH COLWELL: A recreational fishery and quota are two different things, so I’ve got to be very clear about that. We have been lobbying the federal government for more quota for Nova Scotia, period, along with the inshore, offshore, it’s so important to our whole fishery.

I’m going to give you a little bit of history on this, something you really should know. A lot of the fishermen in the past and hopefully it doesn’t happen today, and I’m not say that it doesn’t - some fishermen don’t want to pay income tax. What they will do is, they will sell the fish to someone else for cash, which may be a big company, and they have no recorded record of history. The DFO looks at the history - how many halibut did you do before, what percentage of the total catch was it, and all those sorts of things.

This is not just happening, it happens in a lot of the industry. Hopefully the industry smartened up and is not doing that any more. Therefore, the people who actually caught it years ago didn’t get credit for it because they wanted to get around the income tax system and get cash. Now they are paying for it because they have no recorded landings. That’s a big problem. That’s on the commercial side of it.

That’s something most people aren’t aware of. The fishermen who have done that are very aware of it and realize now they made a big mistake, that they have no way to prove that they did indeed land the fish. I am confident that they did land the fish, when you talk to them. Having said that, on the recreational fishery I think there is a great opportunity there for a recreational fishery. However, the whole system isn’t structured for this now. I know it went to a meeting recently with the commercial fishermen and they voted it down for obvious reasons.

We’ve met with members of Queens County - our staff has this week, actually, about this topic and we are going to work with them to see what we can come up with. The possibility we suggested to them was - there are some quota holders who don’t actually fish their quotas. They sell their quota off to another harvester to fish for them because they don’t have enough quota or to have the expense of having a boat and going to travel the distance they have to travel.

We suggested to them maybe they could approach one of those small quota holders and see if they could buy some of their quota, especially if they are going to do a charter business or something like that. That would give us at least a chance, or those companies a chance, to get in business and, indeed, put another exciting charter together that would probably be more value per pound of halibut than it would if you just sell it on the market.

We are very aware of that and we are very keen to work with them and see if we can make that happen. We don’t want to get involved in the quota stuff because that’s a battle with DFO. We just want the biggest share we can possibly get.

Based on the information I gave you a little while ago, it’s a major problem for us. Basically, Nova Scotia caught most of the halibut over the years but didn’t record it properly and even the U.S. now is into it and Saint-Pierre et Miquelon. It’s a real mess and that is all because it wasn’t recorded properly. In saying all that, it is important to our economy. We did $73 million worth of halibut exports just in 2017. I’m sure 2018, when we get the numbers, it will be even higher.

I’m all for and our staff are all for getting maximum value. Value added to me would be a sports halibut fisher. That would be value added and that would mean that it’s not an export, but at least it brings more money into the local community, employs people at a time of the year when maybe they wouldn’t be employed - all the benefits you can imagine.

We are working with them and we will continue to work with them. I can tell you right up front that it’s going to be a real uphill battle, but we did manage to work with the tuna charters and get that in place and that’s been extremely successful. That’s a catch and release, in most cases. It’s there, it’s possible, and we are working with them.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you very much for the answer. Shifting slightly, you started out by talking about our export sales last year. I am interested in the economic impact associated with those export sales from the fishery. Last year in Estimates, you suggested exports have a 7:1 economic spinoff ratio, but I think you didn’t seem entirely clear or confident in that number.

I would like to ask the minister if there has been an actual study done to establish what the spinoff ratio is for seafood exports?

KEITH COLWELL: That number I gave you last year was actually - 7:1 is correct. That was the number given to me by External Affairs a number of years ago when I was exporting. They did a lot of research on it at that time. To extrapolate that, we are over almost $15 billion in benefit to Nova Scotia by the $2.3 billion we do in sales.

That includes all kinds of things. It includes the transportation of fish in Nova Scotia. It’s new money into the country and into the province that isn’t here now. Exports make a country and an area very, very rich and it’s always been the case. That’s why Japan is so rich, the exports. Everything is exported. That’s why China is so rich; they export everything. That’s why the Americans are so rich or have been because of the export and value added to these things. Those numbers may not be bang on, but they are darn close.

LISA ROBERTS: In your opening remarks you referred to the fisheries sector having 17,600 employees. I would like to ask the minister if he knows how many of those are temporary, foreign workers?

KEITH COLWELL: I would say very few of those in the fishing industry because most of the fishing industry is in harvesting. There would be some in processing. I know there would be some in the processing sectors. Some processes still don’t use temporary foreign workers. Some use quite a few.

The fishing industry has done a lot to ensure that they get local workers. There’s one company on the French Shore that actually goes to people’s homes an hour and a half away and picks them up in the morning, brings them to work, and has daycare that they pay for. The staff are there all day, and the staff are permitted to go see their children through the day - all kinds of benefits like that. Then they drive them home at night - to get local workers. They also use temporary foreign workers, and they also use workers through the immigration stream who come to the country and stay here, which is very important to us as well.

We do have a shortage of workers. Prince Edward Island uses more temporary foreign workers than we do, and we are the biggest fishing industry. This tells you we’re automating and doing all kinds of different things too, so we don’t have to get temporary foreign workers because it’s a very big expense.

LISA ROBERTS: I would be interested in actually getting a number, if your staff are supporting you. I believe last year we spoke, and you acknowledged that, yes, Nova Scotia does have a challenge with a shortage of workers.

I know from speaking with Victoria Co-op Fisheries that they bring in temporary foreign workers every year as well as Newfoundlanders, who are the original temporary foreign workers going back to pre-1949. I wonder if that $7-to-$1 ratio is accurate or has been adjusted to accommodate or reflect the impact of temporary foreign workers. Of course, when you’re here as a temporary foreign worker, you’re not actually spending money in the economy, to the very best of your ability. Most temporary foreign workers would be sending that money back home. They’re not purchasing homes. They’re not primarily consumers here. They’re consumers in their country of origin, where their family members are. I think that’s an economic analysis that we have to be aware of.

KEITH COLWELL: I’m going to talk first about the workers not adding anything back to the economy. We have one farm in Nova Scotia that has two monster trucks, and they take the buses and transport their staff together every weekend. I mean monster trucks. They’re five-ton trucks. It comes back full of stuff that temporary foreign workers buy to take home. They are spending money in Nova Scotia. They do send money home, and that’s fine, but they aren’t a drain on our health care system and our education system and all the other stuff.

If you’re going to talk about this, you have to take everything into consideration. The bottom line is, if we had enough workers in Nova Scotia, we wouldn’t need temporary foreign workers. The word is temporary. A lot of businesses now are trying to change temporary foreign workers to permanent workers. That’s happening, and that’s what we want to see because then they’ll stay in the community.

One of the fish plants we have dealt with, I was just talking to the gentlemen one day - it’s not far from Halifax here. He said, I hired this guy from the Philippines about 15 years ago. He decided he wanted to come and stay here with his family after working at the fish plant for a while. He came, and they helped him buy a house, so he got a house. He said, that guy will get up, and he’ll work all day in the fish plant. Before he comes to work, he’ll go to the neighbours and shovel the walkway off, help them get out, because the neighbours are elderly, and come back at night and help them again. There’s a lot more of that happening every day.

[12:45 p.m.]

The thing is, the wealth stays in the province when we do things, export things. If we don’t export things out of this province, you’ve got to understand the economy would come to a grinding halt. We’ve got the lowest unemployment in this province right now that we’ve had since the 1970s. The unemployment rate is incredibly low and there are jobs. The trouble is that people won’t take the jobs, that’s our problem. They just won’t work.

Your Party is always talking about the minimum wage and all this stuff - if you get a good employee, there’s nobody who is going to pay minimum wage in this province for a good employee. That’s the way it works. I’m a former employer and I can tell you that for a fact. When you’re talking to these fish plants, they pay well above the minimum wage.

We’ve done a lot of things. Recently I’ve had two conferences on labour recently, one in the agriculture industry and one in the fishing industry, to talk about labour issues. We’re going to continue that program. We’ve just set up student bursary program for students who work for a fishing business. We’re going to do the same thing in the farming business. If they work for a processor or a fisherman, we will make bursaries of $500 for high school and $1,000 for university, just for working for them for the summer, so to get them introduced to the businesses and they will be paid above minimum wage, everyone who does that and we’re working also with the industry. The industry is very interested in doing that.

The CBU is doing international student training for workers in the fisheries and local fisheries. Our problem has been, everybody thinks all the schools drive students to university and you drive the students to university to get a job at McDonalds. That’s what it’s about, the bachelor’s degree. Basically, that’s what happens to a lot of people unless they have some other skills. Those people oftentimes will go back to community college and get some other training and become very employable.

I think, and it’s important for young people to go to university, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s very important. Both my grandchildren are in university and I think it’s the best thing they ever did, but they chose a career when they went to university.

It’s too much time now spent, and we don’t have enough plumbers, electricians, carpenters in the province and as we grow our economy, we need to train these people. We’re finding more and more people come out of university and go back and take these courses they find they make more money than some of the traditional courses they had on other things. We’ve really got to start talking about careers, alternate careers. Individuals decide what they want to do in life and that’s critically important, but we don’t necessarily give them all the options.

The industry, our department, and the industry are in part to blame for this because it’s a fantastic opportunity to have a career in the fishing industry. We talk a lot about high tech and all that stuff - you go on a modern fishing boat, it’s all electronics, everything is electronics. There are huge marketing opportunities; that has become more obvious, we have to do that. There are engineering opportunities, there are all kinds of opportunities in food sciences and product development outside of the industry that is related to the industry. All those things, you take those things into consideration, they are the people who add value.

Have you any idea what a skipper makes on a lobster boat in southwestern Nova Scotia. Well, a good skipper in southwestern Nova Scotia will make $1 million a year. I think that’s a pretty darn good career opportunity for people. So, along those lines there’s all kinds of things that’s happening.

I know in the farming industry they’ve now come up with a program to make farm equipment, not just a mechanic thing any more, but a farm equipment technician and a Red Seal program for that. There are all kinds of other good things we need to work on jointly to make sure that we have young people interested in going to work in these very important career opportunities.

LISA ROBERTS: My last question and my next question are not about casting judgement on where people are from or whether we need them. Obviously we do. My question is about that $7-to-$1 economic spinoff ratio and whether the assumptions underneath that have been tested and updated, given our labour shortage. Also, I’m wondering how many of our buyers and processors and seafood export-related businesses in Nova Scotia are Nova Scotia-owned. You clearly identified when you were talking about the skipper of a lobster boat - we know that that wealth is actually staying in Nova Scotia. Is that true with our buyers, processors, and seafood export-related businesses?

KEITH COLWELL: Nova Scotia has a long history of people outside the province owning some of the processing facilities. The Americans have been here for years and years. They have been here for generations and owned some of the fish plants, but they do reinvest back into Nova Scotia.

There is concern by some of the industry about foreign ownership; that, we have to take into consideration. We really want to see Canadian citizens owning the processing facilities. All the companies have to be registered in Nova Scotia; they can’t be a non-registered-in-Nova Scotia company and operate here. Most of them are family-owned, fishing and buying and processing operations. For fishing in particular, you have to be a Canadian citizen to own a fishing license, and most of them are. You see the companies - many we talk about are owned locally, the majority.

LISA ROBERTS: Related to that, you referenced earlier in your comments the freeze on new seafood buyers licenses except for specific value-added cases. Can you give a timeline for when you expect that review to be finished? Then do you expect to lift the freeze?

KEITH COLWELL: I’m reluctant to put a time on it because I’m dependent upon the industry. We have been consulting with them widely, working more and more with them, and talking about some options and how we can do things. We’re working on it all the time. It’s a very delicate situation because we want to make sure that we get it right. Some of these regulations are 40 or 50 years old and even older. It really doesn’t represent the economic conditions or the technology of today. We have to get a clearer handle on who does what, and we’re doing that.

There’s so many interests in the industry, so many people with vested interests - let’s put it that way - who don’t necessarily see the benefit of changes that are being made. The industry has changed. I have seen an attitude change in the last five years since becoming minister, from when I first became minister until today.

We travelled recently with some fishermen, and they came to me afterwards because I didn’t know quite how to get a group of fishermen to represent - I have set up several committees, minister advisory groups, on all kinds of things. It’s the first thing that has ever really happened in the province at a scale that I’m doing it now. I didn’t know how to get to the fishermen themselves because they are fiercely independent. Each community is a little bit different. I’m not quite sure how to make sure we get to them each time.

When I was travelling with these gentlemen, they suggested that they set it up. My answer back to them was yes, definitely, for sure we will do that. Give me a list of names, but it has to represent the fishing industry all around the province. I was talking to a gentleman the day before yesterday. He was in to see me about another issue we’re working on, and he is going to provide me with some of that information, some of the names next week. I hope to get that set up. On the side of the processing, we already have it in place.

It really gives me a sounding board for what they’re thinking and how we can move forward together. We have the best working relationship with the industry we have ever had in history. We need that relationship to make sure we do this so that we get the most valuable exports. We get it so they can be, when they make an investment, that the investment is going to be solid, and there are ways to transfer the license better than there was.

I can give you an example. If I was in Halifax County and you were in Colchester County and we were this close together, we lived across the street from each other and I had a fishing license and you didn’t, I couldn’t transfer it to you because you lived out of the county. It was that ridiculous. We have since eliminated that, but I can do that without changing regulations.

Even family ownership, for instance. If a son or daughter wanted to buy a license or say the owner of the business died, they’d lose the license - they can’t get it, or they couldn’t get it. Or if a son or daughter came back and wanted to buy or take over the business, they couldn’t do it.

We’ve changed all that and that is all part of the reform, but we have to do it step by step and make sure we don’t make too many mistakes when we do it because no matter what we do, there will be somebody who will have a complaint with it.

We are also tightening down quality in the province because we have good quality products, but we are nowhere near where we should be, in some cases, on the international market. In other places, we are the best in the world.

It’s a complicated thing we have to get right. We have to have assurance and again go back to career opportunities. If someone has a career opportunity - let’s say someone who repairs equipment at a fish plant and he lives in a rural area - they want to know when they go into that career they are going to be there for a lifetime or have the opportunity to do that.

We need to set those and when we get those parameters in place and get it right, then all of a sudden our sector will grow and get stronger and stronger and stronger, and also ensure that we do everything we can to make sure local people are the ones who are going to get the most benefit from it, whatever that is - either owner of a plant, worker at the plant, worker or the only equipment that they, maybe they have a trucking company and move for the industry. Whatever the case may be.

Getting back to the seven-to-one ratio, you have labour expenses anyway and using foreign workers and then say that their seven-to-one ratio is lower is not correct because you have to pay workers anyway.

We get a little bit higher expenses with farm workers coming in than local workers. But again, they are here for a short period of time and don’t forget the other services they don’t get when they are here that we have to pay for every day. When you balance that all out, you’ll probably find it is about almost an unmeasurable difference.

LISA ROBERTS: I’ll push back slightly and say that while they may not have services, they also don’t get to serve on boards or councils and they don’t get to enroll their kids in school and they don’t get to serve as volunteer firefighters, you know. There are many reasons why we value Nova Scotians to be here and I don’t think it’s right to categorize anyone as an expense to the province because they also need health care.

I would be very interested to have an analysis, if the department has done an analysis. I will formally ask this because I believe I have the right to do that through the Budget Estimates process. What is the economic impact of that $2 billion in seafood exports? I think that would be a very interesting document to look at. That is my formal request for that.

Just one last thing related to the freeze on new seafood buyers licenses. I wonder if you can point in the Budget Estimates what funding is going towards that review? How much money and where is it coming from?

KEITH COLWELL: We are using all internal resources on that. There is no need to fund the whole pile of money to this. We are working closely with the industry and we have sufficient staff. We have workers who work on the wharves all the time, go see the fish plants. We have the resources internally to do it in conjunction with the industry. They have to also spend a lot of time and effort and they are the people who know the best, so they are putting their time and effort into it, we’re putting our time and effort into it and jointly so. You don’t always have to have a budget line to make something good happen.

[1:00 p.m.]

LISA ROBERTS: Moving on, and this is probably also not something directly associated with a budget line. Given the increase in seafood exports, can you talk to me about what sort of government support has been given to supporting the transportation of those exports?

I imagine that your department has played a role in that. I think of various facilities at the airport, maybe subsidies directly to the airport, and I am interested to know how much there has been in subsidies and what benefits we have seen.

KEITH COLWELL: Yes. We have no subsidies. I know that the federal government puts the money into upgrades for the airport in Halifax which will not only help the fishing industry but will help all of Nova Scotia and Eastern Canada. We don’t put subsidies on freight.

That’s the reason that these exports are so important; we don’t have to subsidize it. It is not subsidized. If a company can make enough money, they can do these things themselves. Once you start subsidizing a business, you’re on a slippery slope, and all of a sudden you are going to have a whole bunch of companies that don’t make any money, laying people off, and closing down.

We invest in technology, markets, and help the industries do that stuff but they go themselves and they do all these things and it’s important that they can make enough money to do these things and that’s what is happening now.

LISA ROBERTS: I’d like to be able to read the sticky notes myself, sometimes. We know that Nova Scotians have issues with food security and with access to healthy food themselves.

I would like to ask the minister: Is there any work happening within his department towards a goal of greater food security for Nova Scotians, looking at the seafood-fishing sector at all?

KEITH COLWELL: We are working on a program in agriculture that we talked about a little bit about yesterday called Select Nova Scotia, which includes seafood as well. That program is going to be totally revamped in the next month.

We were spending $1 million a year and not necessarily getting the results we had hoped to get people to buy local products. We are going to change that a bit. It was a good program when it started, and it was run, so we are going to make some changes in that because we are concerned about food security. In other words, enough food to eat that is produced locally that you can have food every day. That we take seriously, we want to move that number up, and we want to do that through the fishing industry and the agriculture industry.

The reality is, at the present time, we talk about farm products not being enough to feed a population, but if we put our fish and farm products together, we will get more than enough to feed Nova Scotians. But that’s not the goal. We want to get the farm industry so we can feed a high percentage of the population and then include the fishing industry to that, so we can get to a point where we have food security.

Food and water are going to be the next gold and oil in the world. If I remember right, I think by the year 2030 - I go through so many numbers every day - that our population is going go to 8.3 billion, and that’s very close. At that point we are going to be hard-pressed to feed the middle class in the world.

The UN has done some studies on this and indicate that within 20 to 50 years, we are not going to be able to feed the middle class in the world, never mind the third class in the world. And that’s if we put everything into production on land that we have now and catch every fish we can.

What has been indicated by the Secretary-General of the UN - and I have a quote somewhere here that I read the other day about that - is that the only real way, one of the real ways, they can do this is through aquaculture. The food conversion is the best, the greenhouses gasses are less, the water consumption is less, protein is some of the best protein in the world and the list goes on and on. I can give you all the details on that because it’s a very interesting story.

We’re seeing our wild stocks are more than fully exploited and, in some countries, have been wiped out. That’s why it’s good to have these quotas. The discussion we had earlier about the quota stuff is so important to Nova Scotia, to Canada and to the world - that we don’t overfish, like happened in the late 80s/early 90s, when the groundfish absolutely was destroyed. That wasn’t just Canada, that was from all shore countries. Everybody participated in that and it wasn’t good. We want to try to avoid that in the future.

We’ve got a seal population off Nova Scotia here that’s consuming more fish in a day than we can harvest probably in almost a year. It’s unbelievable how that’s gone and that’s a valuable resource we could harvest as a really high-quality protein. Seal meat is 100 per cent protein and zero fat so it’s really good, and the fat is very valuable.

We’ve got to look at different things if we’re going to start feeding the world and have a different thought pattern about how we get enough protein for the people in the world to eat. I mean, you look at Europe there were civil wars fought over a loaf of bread every day and that’s reality, and that’s in our generation. We have very high hopes in Canada and Nova Scotia. We are very, very lucky.

When you travel all of the world and you see how people have to live to survive and look back at the fantastic things we have here and all the opportunities. Anyone in Nova Scotia or Canada that wants to do something in their life, they have the opportunity to do it. Unfortunately, most countries don’t have that. We’re very, very lucky we have that, and so we need to make sure we look after ourselves.

We were looking at aquaculture as a strategy for sustainability for us and also for the rest of the world; we’ve got to do it right. We talked about seals, that’s a population we could harvest. It has a two-fold event: it means that it’s a really high protein, very healthy food; and also helps preserve our fish stocks. You do two things at once. The days of the tiny little white seal being clubbed are gone. That was not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination.

We have to do more things and look at new species that we can harvest sustainably, so that we can feed the world. There was a discussion about jellyfish and I’ve eaten jellyfish in China. Actually, they are very delicious, you wouldn’t even know they were jellyfish, they were almost like the meat on a piece of bacon, not the fat part, pretty crunchy. They are pretty tasty.

Sea cucumbers, when I was minister in the late 90s, they were trying to figure out what to do with them. I wish we had a million tonnes of them we could ship today, because we could sell every one and make a fortune with them, and the harvesters would too.

So, you never know what we can harvest. But that’s being done very sustainably in Nova Scotia, again, with quotas. It is the way that we can do all of this stuff. So, all this stuff is intertwined together; when we change one thing it changes the whole system, how it all works. We’re looking at marine plants now. They’re excellent opportunities for all kinds of things and that’s starting; actually, that would be aquaculture in the marine environment.

There are all kinds of opportunities and you have to think of the long term. We’ve got to make sure that number one, we look after the citizens of Nova Scotia, which I am very concerned about, as are you. I know you are, I’ve heard you speak about it many times. Make sure that people have food to eat and that they have a good place to live and all those things; make opportunities for them so that they can get out of that cycle too, get to work and make a big difference.

I’m going to tell you a story that you have to hear. This is a very important story. I was in Whycocomagh on a fish farm. I was talking to the Chief and he said, I have to tell you a story. I’m going to relay his story: He had a young lady in his community that had never worked in her life, on welfare, four kids, no husband. They worked with her and they trained her to become a fish plant worker with their operation, with their fish farm and other stuff they do. They set up a daycare to look after her children. They didn’t think too much of this and she went to work every day and was a great employee and everything you could imagine. Remember this young lady never had a job before in her life, never had the opportunity to have a job.

At the end of the season when they were closing the fish plant down - this is a very touching story - she came to the Chief in tears and said I do not want to go back on welfare; I want to stay working. Can I stay working? She didn’t understand about unemployment. She didn’t even know what it was. He said, you’ll go on Employment Insurance this winter, you’ll have more money than you had when you were on welfare. You’ll be able to look after your kids. She said, I want my kids to have things now that I can give them that I couldn’t give them before. He said you’re going to be the first one called back to work.

Now, that’s what we need to do in Nova Scotia. They weren’t paid minimum wage; she was well looked after when she was there. That’s changed that lady’s life forever, and her children’s lives forever, because the band at that time saw a vision of making sure that everybody in their community had a job. They make money doing it and they’re growing trout on a fin fish farm that made it all possible.

That’s a story that we need to tell everybody. That’s what I think being a politician is about; if we can help them expand their operation, employ more people in their community, have more success like this, this is what life should be like in Nova Scotia.

LISA ROBERTS: I have committed to only keeping you for an hour and I’m afraid I’m not going to get through my questions.

Did you make a reference to loans up to $5 million now being made by the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board without going to Order in Council? I believe you did. I just want to clarify that that is different from the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board, I believe.

Last year in Estimates you talked about the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board potentially expanding its operations to offer loans to processors as well as harvesters, and I’d like an update on that.

KEITH COLWELL: It’s accurate and actually this is something the industry asked for - they wanted to go to a $5 million limit. The farming and the fishing industry needed to go to a higher number at the loan board to shorten the approval times. The approval times were up to 45 days with the loan board, but you could walk into a bank with really good credit, the same person, and get a loan in two or three days. We weren’t competitive.

That’s one thing that we went to the $5 million on. Both loan boards got the exact same, $5 million each; same rules, same setup. Thanks to the lady that’s sitting here to my right - both loan boards wanted more technology because our technology was horrible in the departments, and I really give credit to the staff for the incredible job they did with what they had to work with. They were working with technology that was probably 30 - 40 years old so a lot of manual entries, double entries, and triple entries. Anyway, the list would go on.

We’re investing now just under $300,000 to buy banking software, the support and training for that and everything else. If we put it through the government system, it would have cost $10.4 million to do that. We didn’t have $10.4 million in our budget and shouldn’t be spending that kind of money on technology when we can buy it for $300,000.

It will allow a customer of either the farm loan board or fish loan board to go online if they want to use it online, and it’s strictly up to them, through a secure password system. They can go in and check on their loans like you do your internet banking, if you use internet banking on your phone or your computer at home. That’s a big bonus.

Also, and even more importantly than that, the loans officers can go in, if you call them up or visit them, they can give you a lowdown on the spot what your loan is, where it is, and work with you more quickly. It allows them to do one-point data entry and, indeed, move that forward so that the system is up and running a lot faster. Our approval times will go down substantially, which has been one thing that’s been a real annoyance for the whole industry for a long time. With the new technology and the loan limits, it will make a lot of difference in the system.

[1:15 p.m.]

LISA ROBERTS: Can you just confirm that you did expand to processors as well as harvesters? Yes, yeah, okay.

KEITH COLWELL: Yes, that is correct, and we also extended it to fish plants, too, for capital-type items so that we can get some assets to hold for security.

LISA ROBERTS: Moving on - the Marine and Coastal Services division assist in the development of the commercial fishery at the harvester and processor level, specifically related to maximizing the value of industry innovation and technology transfer, including through working or supporting the implementation of the Atlantic Fisheries Fund. Last year, it seems that it was underspent and understaffed. I would like to ask the minister if he can please explain why.

KEITH COLWELL: Yes. Actually, we restructured the department a little bit to make it more efficient. We weren’t getting the results that we should have got, and I put a new director in charge of it and put more staff in place to work on it. The gentleman beside me, Brennan Goreham, is now the new director responsible for the AF Fund; they’ve been doing a great job going out to the industry and talking to the industry and getting them interested in the program.

We have - I’ll just tell you how many active files we’re working on right now.

THE CHAIR: While the minister is gathering that information, just to let you know that we have about 15 minutes left for questions and I understand we are planning to wrap up Fisheries and Aquaculture in that next 15 minutes, so we are going to need some time for closing remarks and reading of the resolution.

The honourable Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

KEITH COLWELL: Yes, the answer to your question is that in the AF Fund we have 24 approved now; 32 in the works; and 50 more that are about to enter into the system. We have over 100 applications either approved, almost finished, or in the system and that is a big change from what we had last year.

LISA ROBERTS: I’m going to be switching again quickly as I try to use my 15 minutes to the max.

This is related to Cooke Aquaculture Inc. At a recent Queens Municipal Council meeting, all councillors indicated their opposition to the Cooke expansion proposal to add two new farms near Moose Harbour and Fralick Cove, and to increase their operation at Beach Meadows. They cited concerns about Cooke Aquaculture’s record on environmental issues and fish kills and stated that they were not confident that Nova Scotia’s regulations made aquaculture ecologically safe.

I would like to ask the minister: What do you say to those councillors?

KEITH COLWELL: Well, to start with, the information provided is not accurate. Queens council did not vote against aquaculture; they did not. It was brought up on the agenda, but they did not vote for it, so I would probably ask you to check your research again. That’s my answer.

LISA ROBERTS: For the record, I did not use the word vote. My notes have that they indicated their concerns or oppositions, but no, I didn’t say that they voted.

Given the limited time and that my colleague from the PC caucus asked several questions, I am going to move on.

What are the department’s plans regarding research and development in aquaculture? In Maine, in particular, there are huge land-based aquaculture facilities opening that will have a big impact on supply. I would like to ask the minister if the department is encouraging research and development for land-based aquaculture?

KEITH COLWELL: We are in favour of all types of aquaculture, particularly on land operations. We have several in the province - I don’t know how many we have right off the top of my head, but it’s a large number in Nova Scotia. We have 27 licenses, actually there are more of those than fin fish sites on the water licenses issued.

The problem with land-based is if you are doing a hatchery you can usually make money, if you run it very carefully. If you are going fish to a full size it gets almost impossible to make money because of the energy cost, and there’s no way around that. I’ve talked to several ministers in Iceland and they might be able to accomplish it when they have - they can generate power there for less than one cent per kilowatt hour. You might be able to do it there, but they are not sure they can even do it there.

So, you have to either get an aquaculture product, and we do have some very successful ones and we want to encourage more of them on-land. I think eventually it is going to have to be on-land and at sea. The product is slightly different when it comes out of a land-based facility than an ocean-based facility because an ocean-based facility is as close to the wild product as you can possibly get, so it’s a trade-off.

Also, too, in a land-based site, it’s not only the power costs but it takes longer to grow a salmon on a farm, if you’re talking about salmon - and trout as well - growing to full size in a land-based operation. It takes longer than it does at sea, so that also factors into the cost.

As far as diseases and stuff are concerned, the land-based ones are just as prone or more prone to problems than the ocean-based ones. They have high densities typically to give them any hope of making money. I know that one of the companies here in Nova Scotia lost their whole crop here about three or four years ago - except for maybe 200 or 300 fish. They all died, every single one, overnight.

The risks are very high on the land-based ones, just as high. We’ve seen for the first time ever a land-based operation get salmon disease, ISA, on a land-based operation. I don’t know how it got there. We’ve researched and researched and brought in experts from all over the world and we couldn’t track it down, and all the fish had to be destroyed.

Land-based is a great way to go. We’ve got a lot more technology that needs to be developed. We have to figure out how to get lower energy costs. Also, there’s a little bit different growing conditions and they have to manipulate the growing conditions to make sure you get a product that will go to the marketplace as a premium product. We do have one company that’s working very intently on that, it has a huge investment in it. I really hope they can become very successful because that would be a new standard for us.

We have some very successful ones, too, that grow out like supersize smolts; they grow salmon quite a bit before they put them out. Those are very successful. That’s going to be the next stage, so they are in the salt water a lot shorter time. There’re all kinds of technological advancements in this field. As we see this industry evolve, we’re going to see a lot of change.

I was in China and met with the company there - the big, huge shipyard in China. It made our Halifax Shipyard look like a little bump on a log compared to what it was. They were building one ship there that was sitting beside the dock, that they were finishing off, that was bigger than the whole Halifax Shipyard combined, a huge thing they were building. They built the offshore platforms for growing fish and offshore things, which is a new approach, too.

As this whole industry moves forward it is going to be interesting to see what is developed over the next 50 years.

LISA ROBERTS: Again, I am very aware of my ticking down time. I want to again make a formal request for some information.

In your opening remarks you referred to 17,600 employees; I would love to know the breakdown of where in the industry those individuals are being counted, as well, as I had indicated earlier, how many of those positions are temporary foreign workers.

It’s hard with just a couple of minutes. I asked last year about the implementation of the Doelle-Lahey recommendations and I do understand that the department has developed its regulatory regime now, which bears some resemblance but is not exactly the recommendations of that report.

I’m wondering if the minister can clarify what would look like the red zone for aquaculture that was described in those recommendations? Is there a red zone for aquaculture anywhere on Nova Scotia’s coastline?

THE CHAIR: Mr. Colwell. You also have six minutes to respond and your closing.

KEITH COLWELL: Am I closing?

THE CHAIR: Yes.

KEITH COLWELL: Okay. We took the independent report very seriously. They made some suggestions about different zones and those sorts of things. The reality is, science dictates that and that we are doing. We are following science, and we will follow science.

I believe we’ve got an even stronger regime in place. A lot of things that the independent report brought forward, some of the things weren’t practical to do. But at the end of the day, we believe we have the strongest regulatory framework, taking into consideration the companies - the companies are not number one, the environment as number one. Also, the ability to be open and transparent, which we’re going to continually work on and improve as we see deficiencies in our process now.

We’re looking at future developments in aquaculture that will attract companies that are world class companies that are transparent and open, to make sure that they have the right attitude with their businesses to operate in Nova Scotia.

Most of the time when you think about attracting a business to Nova Scotia in the past, it was how many jobs can you employ, how much money are you going to give them per job, and all this foolishness. We’re not interested in that. We’re not going to do that. Any company we try to get to come to Nova Scotia is going to have to make sure they can self-finance, they are going to have to prove to us that they’ve got the economic wherewithal to set up a business in aquaculture.

Even the existing ones in Nova Scotia, they have to have the economics so that they won’t have to come back to the province for bailouts. We’re not interested in any of that stuff anymore. That has gone by the board in my department. That’s not happening.

Could you give me the one-minute warning, Mr. Chair?

THE CHAIR: I will.

KEITH COLWELL: We’re not interested in people coming with hair-brained ideas and all they want is money from the province; that’s gone by the board. We don’t even meet with them anymore. We’re now serious about business, serious about growing Nova Scotia’s economy, serious about looking after our environment and looking after the people in the province, to make sure they have good, solid, long-term, well-paying jobs. That’s what we’re after. We’re looking for value added.

All of the things we could possibly do in the province to make this a more attractive place for people to live, people that want to immigrate here from other parts of the world; people who want to come back home; people who come from other parts of Canada who want to move into Nova Scotia. It’s all important to us. That’s how we can have our children and our grandchildren live in the province and know that they have a great opportunity to have a career, whatever their career choice is.

I think we’re setting that environment up and we’re a small part of that in our departments. I have one goal for my portfolios that I represent: to grow the Nova Scotia economy in a responsible and environmentally-friendly way. I feel we’re doing that; our exports show that. You can question the numbers, about the benefit. The truth of the matter is, no matter what the number is, it’s really a huge benefit to the province. If we don’t have exports, we cannot grow the Nova Scotian economy. It’s that simple.

There are two things that can grow the economy: You would displace imports, which we are working on, to have more food supply locally produced - as we’ve talked about and you are very supportive of - to make sure everyone has available fresh food and can have it reasonably priced, if we can get it there. We are going to try that the best we can, so everyone is able to look after their families here and take advantage of the great things we have in this province.

We have the highest population in the history of the province and that says that people want to come here and work. I go to places all the time and I see businesses and we have so many businesses there now that we talk to. I know I am diverting from the fishing industry a little bit, but in our wine industry - I was in Asia and at that company, 50 per cent of their staff either came back to Nova Scotia or they came to work here and live here.

THE CHAIR: Shall Resolution E10 stand?

Resolution E10 stands.

I’d like to thank the minister and his staff; some of you have been here for six hours, some of you have been here for two. Either way it’s pretty gruelling, so we want to thank all of you and for the great work that you are doing.

So, lets bring in the next group.

[1:32 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

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

THE CHAIR: Alrighty, here we go again. We’ve got an hour and a half left today. The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply will come to order.

I’m going to call the Estimates for the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage and the Department of Seniors.

Resolution E3 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $93,641,000 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.

I will now invite the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage and the Department of Seniors to make opening comments. You have 60 minutes.

HON. LEO GLAVINE: I’m pleased to be here with my colleagues this afternoon to deal with Communities, Culture and Heritage as well as the Department of Seniors.

Good afternoon, I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are in Mi’kma’ki, the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq people.

I’m pleased to be here today to highlight the work of Communities, Culture and Heritage and to speak about our priorities for the year ahead. Before I proceed, please allow me to introduce the members of my senior team who are joining me today. On my left is Deputy Minister Tracey Taweel; to my right is Rebecca Doucett, Manager of Financial Services. Behind me are Sherri Aikenhead, Acting Executive Director of Policy and Corporate Services; and Meredith Cowan, Director of Strategic Initiatives. I think that is our complement for today.

The mandate and work of Communities, Culture and Heritage is fundamentally about investing in the people of Nova Scotia. In their communities, their businesses, ideas, culture, heritage, health and well-being, and the ties that bind us together. Our goal is for Nova Scotia to be a place where cultural identity, expression and economy prosper. A place that is known for strong, empowered and vibrant communities and a strong creative economy, where more Nova Scotians have access to opportunities for healthy active living.

We are working to address systemic racism, advance cultural diversity, and increase initiatives to promote, preserve and celebrate our Mi’kmaq culture and heritage. Through our programming we are making important investments across the province.

In fiscal 2019-20, 72 per cent of the CCH budget will be invested directly into communities through our various programs. This represents about $67 million flowing to community libraries; museums; recreation facilities; arts and culture organizations; professional and aspiring artists; businesses who want to make their premises more accessible and welcoming; organizations that are working to reduce poverty; and, other areas that we’ll address through the questioning process.

Two years ago, my department launched Nova Scotia’s first Cultural Action Plan: Creativity and Community, which guides our decision making, our priorities, our investments and the actions we take every week. This plan has changed the way we look at culture and has expanded our understanding of what the term culture means and the possibilities it holds. It guides us as we work to build a reputation as a place where cultural identity, expression and economy flourish; a place where all people honour and embrace diversity and heritage and thrive through creativity and cultural cohesion.

Through the plan we are investing in culture to create jobs and drive exports, working with communities to address systemic racism, and promoting healthy living to help communities thrive. Two years after its launch, I’m proud to say that we have made significant progress in implementing many of the priorities identified in the Culture Action Plan.

We have collaborated with many stakeholders, organizations, and government departments to move actions forward and to make a meaningful impact across our province.

Some but not all our successes to date are: The Business ACCESS-Ability Program which we launched in late 2017, is continuing to help small businesses make accessibility-related improvements. As a province, we are working to remove barriers and provide equal opportunities for Nova Scotians. I am proud to say, through this program, we have invested more than $1 million and have helped 41 businesses in 2018-19.

Funding recipients include CarShare Atlantic. This was a very exciting announcement just a couple of weeks ago, and they received over $42,000 to make its fleet more accessible, thus giving people with disabilities more independence. The accessibility improvements include installing hand controls in three fleet vehicles and adding a fully convertible, accessible van.

My department also administers the Community ACCESS-Ability Program which provides $1 million to help local community groups make their facilities more accessible to the people they serve and those who work or volunteer within their organizations.

Key to the work of CCH is the advancement of cultural diversity and I am proud to be part of a government that is working hard to address systemic racism in Nova Scotia. To that end, we are advancing on our September 2017 commitment to help claimants in the communities of Lincolnville, Sunnyville, East Preston, Lake Loon, Cherrybrook, and North Preston get clear title to their land.

We recognize that for generations many residents in African Nova Scotian communities have faced barriers to seeking and attaining clear title to their lands. We have created a team of 60 departmental staff to focus specifically on assisting participants from the five communities, and I am pleased with the progress we have made so far.

We will continue our work to address systemic racism and support the office of African Nova Scotian Affairs (ANSA). The sad truth is that racism will continue to exist unless we intentionally act to eliminate its causes.

We will invest an additional $120,000 in the department to allow ANSA to extend its reach and address issues specific to the African Nova Scotian community as we work to eliminate systemic racism; there are about 50 communities in Nova Scotia that have a predominance of African Nova Scotians. This is in addition to the $1.18 million investments made through last year’s budget. Last year’s investment strengthened ANSA’s community programming through the addition of 2.4 FTEs, as well as additional funding for community programming.

All Nova Scotians deserve to be treated with dignity, equality, and respect and to have access to amazing opportunities that our province has to offer.

My department is also advancing initiatives to promote, preserve, and celebrate our Mi’kmaq culture and heritage. I am proud to say that Nova Scotia will host the 2020 North American Indigenous Games. These games will feature tremendous athleticism, but equally, if not more importantly, will allow us to continue to a dialogue on truth and reconciliation. A significant amount of work and investment will go toward community engagement and education about the beauty and history of the Mi’kmaq people.

All volunteers will receive cultural sensitivity training and the celebrations that will take place throughout the games will enrich our collective understanding about the ties that bind us all. In fact, this will truly be a cultural explosion of First Nations right across North America.

[1:45 p.m.]

Speaking of events, CCH launched a Nova Scotia Event Strategy last November - a proactive and strategic approach to the funding and development of events. Events generate new money, help our communities and community organizations build capacity, leave legacy infrastructure, provide learnings and best practices, and help attract first-time visitors to the province.

Over the next several years we will support several events which position Nova Scotia as a player on the national and international stage. For example, CCH is part of the successful bid to host the 2022 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Dartmouth which will bring over 2,000 participants from over 70 countries to Nova Scotia.

We are also investing in the home-grown events, including the first ever Atlantic Podcast Summit this May, featuring local podcast superstars from the Sickboy podcast. In addition, CCH is happy to support the Devour! Food Film Festival, which will welcome approximately 13,000 attendees to Wolfville this October.

It is also worth noting that last February, we proudly supported successful bids which brought the Scotties Tournament of Hearts to Cape Breton and the World Junior Curling Championships to Liverpool. These events provided an opportunity to attract new visitors to our province and afforded us a platform for our unique culture and heritage.

In addition, we are happy to work with Sport Nova Scotia and other key partners in supporting our young athletes as they represented our province at the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer. Nova Scotia brought home 11 medals across eight different sports. I believe that all of Team Nova Scotia’s athletes should be proud of how they represented their province and the competitive spirit they showed at the 2019 Games.

I would be remiss, Mr. Chair, if I did not mention the Special Olympics Summer Games held in Antigonish this past August. Communities, Culture and Heritage was honoured to support these Games which celebrate inclusive communities, showcase athletic accomplishment and highlight the power to sport to unite us.

The impact of the Special Olympics was significant. More than 900 volunteers helped during the games, building capacity to host major events in the local area. The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance conducted an estimated economic impact analysis and found that the games generated total net economic activity of $10.7 million in Nova Scotia and $8.7 million were for Antigonish. All these events served to remind us how important physical activity is to our well-being.

To that end, last November my department launched a five-year action plan to get Nova Scotians moving more and sitting less. Let’s Get Moving Nova Scotia will help to create more active, inclusive and healthier Nova Scotians through education, improved access to funding, and partnerships with the private and public sector. As a runner myself, it is my belief that through this program, more people in our province will experience the positive impact of physical activity. Those benefits include better general health, improved productivity, improved academic performance and conclusively, and better mental health.

Using Let’s Get Moving as our starting point, I am also proud to say that we have partnered with our colleagues in Education and Early Childhood Development to roll out a before and after school pre-Primary pilot program. This program was piloted in sites across the province this winter. As a former educator, I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to introduce young students to movement and active play so early in their development. I firmly believe, and research supports this - active children are better equipped to learn, grow and develop in the school setting and four-year olds can be mighty persuasive at home. It is my hope they can also get their families moving more.

Last December, the Communities, Culture and Heritage announced $2,750,000 in support for “The Link” arts centre. The Link Performing Arts Society will redevelop the former convention centre in HRM into a state-of-the-art performing arts hub for theatre, dance, film, television, and music, with additional space and programming for cultural entrepreneurs. This new cultural hub will be a major resource for the arts community here in Nova Scotia. It will strengthen small-business development, drive economic growth in the culture sector, and be a place for artists to gather and perform.

The Creative Industries Fund is continuing to promote growth in cultural businesses that are focused on global exporting. The Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage believes in supporting young people in their artistic pursuits. To that end, the province helped the Nova Scotia Talent Trust celebrate 75 years of operation. In addition to an annual grant of $100,000 provided through Arts Nova Scotia, my department - through Support4Culture - provided the Nova Scotia Talent Trust with an additional $50,000 for young Nova Scotians who are pursuing careers in theatre, film, new media, literary arts, dance, music, voice, circus arts, visual arts, and design.

The Nova Scotia Talent Trust is a registered charity that provides scholarships to Nova Scotians. It was established in 1944 to support the budding career of opera singer, Portia White. The scholarships were later extended to young Nova Scotians showing exceptional potential and commitment to an artistic career, and it has supported over 1,000 young Nova Scotians since then.

We are eagerly awaiting the soon-to-be-released social benefits of culture report by the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council and I’m excited to see how this document can further the growth and development of the culture sector in our province. In addition, just a couple of weeks ago, amendments were passed to the Nova Scotia Museum Act that will lay the groundwork for a more diverse and sustainable provincial museum system.

As I’m sure you would agree, Mr. Chair, museums are important institutions which contribute greatly to our social fabric. They ensure understanding and appreciation for various groups and cultures. They promote better appreciation of our collective heritage and they help foster curiosity. Furthermore, they serve to help future generations see and understand our history and recognize the achievements of those who came before them.

Modernized legislation would help Nova Scotians enjoy the buildings, vessels, and collections that make up the provincial museum system for years to come. The evidence would point to the fact that Nova Scotians are interested in more innovative exhibits.

In fact, last year, the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History set a new attendance record of over 94,000 visitors when it hosted the Body Worlds RX exhibit and, over the past few months, more than 45,000 visitors have enjoyed Dinosaurs Unearthed. It is also worth noting that last May marked the 150^th anniversary of the Nova Scotia Museum. We are proud to be home to one of Canada’s oldest provincial museums that has been preserving, sharing, celebrating Nova Scotia’s rich, natural, and human history for a century and a half.

The happiness, safety, and security of all Nova Scotians is vital to building strong, empowered communities in our province. To that end, my department continues to support Building Vibrant Communities Grant program which is a vital part of government’s poverty-reduction blueprint. These grants support collaborative, community-focused initiatives aimed at reducing poverty.

Last year, Building Vibrant Communities grant recipients included community organizations such as the East Hants Family Resource Centre, which received $1,900 to bring Mi’kmaw culture to children. The focus of this project is on children, families, and activities that promote strong mental health and increase self confidence, self awareness, and pride.

Also, just a few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of attending a play called Something’s in the Air at the Chester Playhouse. This was an incredible evening, featuring a joyous and moving performance by residents of Bonny Lea Farm. It is another example of a project my department was proud to support, with an investment of $4,600 dollars through the Building Vibrant Communities program.

Mr. Chair, I know it is important for Nova Scotians to have access to affordable, accessible, reliable transportation. This year the Community Transportation Assistance Program has moved to my department from the Department of Municipal Affairs. Here at CCH, we are committed to ensuring Nova Scotians in all areas of the province have access to community transportation that helps them stay connected to their jobs, their schools, their social events, and their health care services.

A great example is the recent purchase by CBRM of three buses to add to its existing public transportation fleet. Students at Cape Breton University, particularly international students, have increased the demand for public transportation. The purchase of these buses was supported with $250,000 provided through the Community Transportation Assistance Program. These buses will help students get to and from their classes and other university engagements.

These are just a few examples of the department’s work over the past 12 months. In the coming year, we will continue to implement the Culture Action Plan and to invest in communities. I want to take a moment to share some of our priorities for 2019-20.

I am especially excited about a new initiative that will provide our communities with the tools they need to support welcoming environments for new doctors and their families. This year, CCH is earmarking $200,000 of our Culture Innovation Fund to support communities and organizations in working with the Nova Scotia Health Authority on the welcoming and engaging of new physicians. The funding could also support Nova Scotia communities in developing and showcasing their unique features to potential physicians. We will define exactly how this funding will work in collaboration with community groups in the weeks ahead. I am very much looking forward to it.

The Building Vibrant Communities Program will continue in fiscal year 2019-20 with the goal to help build healthy communities and help Nova Scotians break the cycle of poverty. This year, $600,000 will be invested from CCH to support these community-focused initiatives across the province.

In addition, we are in the end stages of developing a plan to ensure the sustainability and continued relevance of our libraries. I know all of us value community libraries. They are a gateway to knowledge and are a gathering space for people in communities across the province. More than just books and computers, they are places where people gather to interact, explore, and imagine. In addition, library events and services are often free of charge, allowing people of any income level to attend.

However, with Nova Scotia’s shifting population, our current per capita-based library-funding model is not working. My department is working in partnership with libraries and other partners in finalizing a new funding model, which I am confident will reflect the best path forward for our libraries.

In the meantime, while this work is happening, we are ensuring that libraries have the operating budgets they require. We have maintained annual operating funding for libraries at $14.4 million, and this year, for the third year in succession, we have provided libraries with an additional $474,000 in funding. In addition, libraries can apply for funding from specific programs such as the Culture Innovation Fund. We are taking a leadership role to ensure Nova Scotians have a sustainable and dynamic library system that best meets their needs.

[2:00 p.m.]

Mr. Chair, my government believes that Nova Scotia-based businesses, non-profit organizations, and social enterprises operating in the creative industries hold great potential toward growing exports. In 2019-20, the Creative Industries Fund will invest $2 million in Nova Scotia registered cultural businesses, non-profit organizations, and social enterprises focused on the export development of the culture sector outside of our province.

We will continue our work to ensure Nova Scotians have access to sport and recreation opportunities. For example, we are working closely with the Department of Natural Resources and community trails associations to implement the trails strategy to ensure our citizens have a robust system that meets their needs. Nova Scotia has an excellent trails system which Nova Scotians use and enjoy, but there are still gaps. We know that trails enhance our quality of life, help people remain active, and build strong communities, so we will continue to invest in this area.

Another program which helps ensure Nova Scotians have access to sport and recreation opportunities is the very popular Recreation Facility Development Grant program. It provides funding to community groups, municipalities and other not-for-profit organizations to develop facilities in order to increase public participation in sport and physical recreation - facilities such as recreation centres and halls, pools, arenas, athletic fields, parks and playgrounds, trails and other facilities that promote sport and physical recreation.

In 2019-20, we will invest $1.7 million in community sport and recreation facilities through this program. Under Let’s Get Moving Nova Scotia, an active communities fund is also being created to make it easier for communities to apply for physical activity funding by rolling some existing programs, such as After the Bell and facility access into the new fund. This new grant program, which will total $879,000, will be open for applications in the very near future.

This year we will also continue to invest in community facilities that serve as venues for presenting our culture and creative works, because we recognize that culture is a key element in creating healthy, diverse, and vibrant communities. In 2019-20, funding to the Community Facilities Improvement Program amounts to just over $9,004. The Community Facilities Improvement Program invests in community projects initiated by local not- for-profit organizations which enhance public use of existing facilities.

Mr. Chair, investing in our arts and culture sectors is one of the key priorities of the department and there are several programs this sector can access. I believe, as do the staff at CCH, that the export opportunities in our province’s arts and culture sector are countless. Our artists, musicians, playwrights, authors, and publishers are some of our province’s richest resources, resources we will continue to invest in.

Last year I led a mission to China and Japan to explore business and export opportunities for Nova Scotia’s growing culture sector. This was Nova Scotia’s first culture sector mission to Asia and builds on the strong relationship the province has with China. Next month, I am excited to say we will embark on our next culture mission. I will share more details as the mission approaches. Our culture sector is already experiencing some success overseas and with the upcoming mission I am confident that success will continue to grow.

Our commitment to our arts and culture sector and Nova Scotia’s creative economy is evident in the work of Arts Nova Scotia. Through Arts Nova Scotia we support professional artists and, in doing so, we not only strengthen the arts sector and create jobs, we also help build strong and vibrant communities. Arts Nova Scotia oversees a budget of $2.8 million in public funding that goes directly to support programs for professional artists and arts organizations, art education programs, and several arts awards and prizes. They support such organizations as Symphony Nova Scotia, Neptune Theatre, Ship’s Company Theatre, and the Eye Level Gallery.

We also will continue to invest in the production of Nova Scotia film and television content. The Screenwriters Development Fund, which launched last year, will provide $262,000 to develop Nova Scotia filmmakers, writers and producers of local content and to encourage diversity and gender parity. In addition, we will continue to provide $238,0000 to Screen Nova Scotia in support of its role as the private sector lead entity for the film industry in our province.

Advancing cultural diversity is also a pillar of the Culture Action Plan. I want to acknowledge the staff who work at the province’s cultural offices, who work hard every day to make sure the voices of Acadians, the Gaelic community, African Nova Scotians and new Nova Scotians are heard and investments in their communities are making a difference. In the coming year, working with my colleagues Ministers Ince, Diab, and Delorey, we will continue to strengthen the offices of Acadian Affairs and Francophonie, Gaelic Affairs, and African Nova Scotian Affairs.

These are just a few examples of the work we will undertake this year to build strong, vibrant, inclusive, and healthy communities and to create jobs, grow Nova Scotia’s exports and strengthen our creative economy to combat systemic racism and to preserve, promote, celebrate, and leverage our province’s culture and heritage. We know that our investments are making a difference in the lives of Nova Scotians and are contributing to strengthen the economy.

Mr. Chair, our research tells us that our investments in the arts and culture sector, as well as in sport and the sports sector, is paying off and yielding great benefit for Nova Scotians. Culture and sport created $1.03 billion to the Nova Scotia economy in 2016. Culture and sport job numbers in Nova Scotia have grown over the same seven years, reaching just under 17,000 jobs in 2016. These sectors are economic drivers and give us tremendous opportunity for growth, especially in the areas of tourism and export.

In the coming year, we will continue to make strategic investments to strengthen these sectors, and in doing so ensure our province has strong and empowered communities which can meet the needs of our citizens through libraries, sport and recreation facilities, community spaces, museums, events, and festivals.

Mr. Chair, as I mentioned at the start of my remarks, 72 per cent of our 2019-2020 budget will be invested directly into Nova Scotia communities through our various programs. Our budget estimate for the fiscal year 2019-20 is $93,641,000. We know that our investments are making a difference in the lives of Nova Scotians and are contributing to strengthening our economy. Every investment we are making can be tied directly to priorities and objectives outlined in Nova Scotia’s Cultural Action Plan. Every investment is helping to bring people and communities together, promote healthy lifestyles and support economic growth.

I am proud to serve as the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage. Every day I witness firsthand the passion and commitment of the CCH staff and the hundreds of community organizations we work with. We share a common vision - we all want our communities to be strong, healthy, empowered, and vibrant, we all want a strong culture sector and creative economy, and we all want to ensure our communities are empowered to develop community-based solutions and initiatives that best meet their needs.

In closing, I want to say how proud I am of the CCH team. They are a passionate and committed team that is making a true difference in the lives of Nova Scotians through their work. I heard a great comment from one of the staff a couple of weeks ago as I wandered down through the department, “I want my work to jump off my desk and affect people in communities across the province.”

That’s the kind of thinking they take to their job. We are fortunate to work closely with arts, culture and sports organizations, heritage experts, libraries, museums, municipalities, and citizens who each bring great ideas to help build a stronger province. I want to thank them for their ongoing collaboration and partnership.

With that, I will move on to the Department of Seniors opening comments.

THE CHAIR: Yes absolutely, and before you move on, thank you to your department on their work.

LEO GLAVINE: As Minister of the Department of Seniors, I want to first say there is a demographic shift happening in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotians are living longer and are in better health than at any time in history. The first of the baby boomers have turned 70, and by 2030 more than one in four Nova Scotians will be aged 65 and older. Our population is aging, and Nova Scotia’s older adults are redefining what it means to age.

Community leaders, volunteers, business owners, mentors - older Nova Scotians are the backbone of our communities bringing valuable experience and knowledge to the workplace while enjoying longer, healthier, and more active lives. However, along with the good news comes challenges. Older Nova Scotians face ageism, burnout, and barriers to aging in place, like social isolation. Our government is leading the discussion to reframe how we think about aging by continuing to create and foster environments that help our older adults thrive. We are making progress, but there remains work to be done.

We are entering the third year of the implementation of SHIFT, Nova Scotia’s Action Plan for an Aging Population, announced by the Premier in May 2017. The vision of SHIFT is that all Nova Scotians value, support, and promote older Nova Scotians and their contributions to our province. The first of its kind in the province, SHIFT identified three areas for focus, a dozen priority items, and more than 50 specific actions, certainly ambitious.

SHIFT is a government-wide initiative. Deputy ministers and leaders across provincial government departments and provincial institutions are responsible for implementing the 50 actions outlined in the plan that embrace and celebrate the social and economic contributions of older adults, promote healthy, active lifestyles, and help Nova Scotians stay connected to their communities as they age at home.

The Department of Seniors continues to work with our government and community partners to implement all of these actions. An eighteen-month progress report was published in December 2018, and provides an update on what has been done to advance the SHIFT goals since the launch of the plan. An evaluation of the progress on SHIFT is currently under way.

In addition to its leadership role on SHIFT, the Department of Seniors has increased funding for age-friendly community grants that help make communities better places for Nova Scotians as they age. The grant program provides funding for up to $25,000 for projects in two categories: age-friendly community planning and community projects that lead to more age-friendly and inclusive communities. Last year, 82 applications were received representing an overall funding request of $1.8 million, the highest in the department’s history. This year, the department will invest $390,000 to continue to fund this important program.

Secondly, the department is expanding the Senior Safety Programs. We are helping older adults stay safe by expanding the Senior Safety Programs to more communities in Nova Scotia. In the last year, we implemented changes to the program to support multi-year funding agreements and we are working to expand the program to more communities.

[2:15 p.m.]

The Seniors’ Safety Program is a community-based program that addresses the concerns of older Nova Scotians by promoting education and awareness about abuse, crime prevention, safety, and health issues. Currently available in 13 communities, we will be adding Victoria and Colchester Counties in the program.

Third, we established Nova Scotia GovLab, government’s first social innovation lab. Focused on population aging, our social innovation lab offers a forum to bring people together from all walks of life to tackle complex problems in new, innovative ways creating a future inclusive of all Nova Scotians.

In its first year, Nova Scotia GovLab accepted 43 fellows into the first two cohorts. In the coming year, Nova Scotia GovLab will launch its third and fourth cohorts, engaging more citizens to finding new solutions to challenges faced by our aging population. What’s exciting is that the work is experimental. Fellows try things out and learn from doing. The lab offers a forum that empowers participants to develop skills to take an active role in positively impacting and co-creating the future.

So far, fellows have developed eight prototypes: a service to navigate various supports and services for older Nova Scotians that became a matching service between older Nova Scotians living in apartment buildings with community volunteers; a platform for community transportation service providers to reduce the challenges of booking and managing rides; a toolkit that increases the capacity of older food champions to host conversations and events about food in their communities; and an online tool that will support assessment to aging in place.

I would also like to highlight a program delivered in partnership with the Acadia Entrepreneurship Centre and Third Sector Enhancement. Twenty-five per cent of people between the ages of 65 and 69 are still in the workforce, and of those, 25 per cent are also self-employed.

The department has committed $30,000 for three years to help nurture this entrepreneurial spirit. The free program called Redefining Retirement helps older participants find purpose, passion, and opportunity. Workshops, coaching sessions, peer support help to expand entrepreneurial culture among older adults.

The first round was delivered last summer in St. Margaret’s Bay, Windsor, West Hants, and Yarmouth County. We plan to deliver more programs this coming year. In fact, registration is now open for workshops in Berwick, Liverpool, and Truro for April and May.

This year the department will publish the 29^th edition of the 2019-20 Positive Aging Directory. Another action outlined in SHIFT plan, the Positive Aging Directory, is a valuable resource to highlight community activities, programs, and services that support our aging population.

Each year, the directory is updated to provide older Nova Scotians quick and easy access to information on learning, socializing, volunteering, and being active. Topics range from information on finances, employment, and entrepreneurship, to care-giving and housing. Important phone numbers and contact information ensure information is just a call away.

Just this month, we launched an anti-ageism campaign that initially focuses on the economic contributions of older Nova Scotians. Elements include radio, print, and social media advertising featuring a video that has had over 46,000 views so far. The call to action was to the SHIFT website, which links to available programs and supports for workers and employers.

As Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage, there are several actions that we will be working on in support of SHIFT. We will be setting a clear vision for the voluntary sector in Nova Scotia. This will help keep seniors engaged, as well as provide services to seniors within the community by people who know the community best.

We know that transportation is important to making our communities age-friendly. As part of the Culture Action Plan’s mandate to strengthen communities, the Communities, Culture and Heritage Department has earmarked more than $2.3 million for community transportation this year for accessible and affordable transportation across the province.

The Department of Seniors will continue to lead coordinated efforts to ensure that the issues, opportunities, and contributions of older Nova Scotians are considered in government decision making by bring a senior’s lens to policy and programs.

Mr. Chair, I’d like to thank the staff of the departments across government who support these important programs every day. I am truly proud of the work our team - a small team - and of our colleagues across government as we continue to implement SHIFT.

Thank you, and we are certainly now open to start the questioning.

THE CHAIR: We will start with the Progressive Conservative caucus and just to let everyone know, the ending time today will be 3:06 p.m.

Ms. Adams.

BARBARA ADAMS: I would like to thank the minister for his report and I am sure I will echo everybody’s comments that the work of all the employees and all the volunteers from around the province who help make all these programs such a huge success is something we will never take for granted, but are most grateful for.

I have some questions first for Communities, Culture and Heritage and then, of course, we will move on to Seniors.

When I am going over the Budget Estimates, on the fourth line down, there is a line for Archives, Museums, and Libraries of Nova Scotia, with the budget estimate for 2019-20 on Page 5.2 that the budget is $32 million. It had previously been estimated at $35 million, so if I am reading this correctly, it is about a $2.5 million decrease for those three areas - archives, museums, and libraries of Nova Scotia.

During the minister’s opening remarks, he stated that there was increased funding for the libraries. I would like to ask the minister: Which of those other two is possibly losing funding - archives or museums?

LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much for the question. This year there is a new accounting process - a new section, if you wish - in a budget line and that is the decrease primarily relates to the transfer of amortization totalling $2,177,000 to the new division under CCH simply called Amortization. This transfer does not impact the operations of the archives, the museums, or the libraries in our province.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you very much. When we were discussing the Nova Scotia Museums Act in the Legislature, the minister reassured me that when the Act gave museums a greater opportunity to fundraise, that didn’t necessarily mean there was going to be a reduction in funding to the museums across the province.

I would like to ask the minister to clarify for me: In the upcoming year, are those museums getting the same amount of funding they got last year, less funding, or more funding?

LEO GLAVINE: There will be the same amount of funding for 2019-20 across the province for our museums. The purpose of the Act which really got soundings from Nova Scotians - the reason for the drop off in visitation to our museums is that they are really beckoning for some modernization, interactive stations, travelling quality exhibits that will move across the province.

We should have a very strong usership of our museums, especially from our school population, from our 118,000 students. There really should be also annual trips to our museums and we feel that a modernization approach through a new, larger, meeting- more- often board will start to give a future direction to our museum system. If Nova Scotians take time to enter some of our museums, there can be some real magical moments in capturing our very vibrant 13,000-plus year history when we speak about our Mi’kmaq population, over 400 years of European influence on our province, and we have some very, very wonderful and rich collections but, in some ways, they haven’t been dusted off to be presented I think in a stronger way - and that’s what this Act will now allow to happen over the next number of years. We want really a relevant and an iconic museum system.

We have a very large, extensive provincial museum system. We’re unlike any other province in Canada in that we have 28 museums, but many of them certainly need that updating to go on. I know there are members here who can speak about a particular museum in their riding or in their geography and I think last year was kind of a what I would have called moment in time or kind of a tipping point on our 150^th anniversary of our museum system where we said we do some great things at the Museum of Natural History, at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, our two most iconic but, you know, when you take children to a place like Ross Farm and to see the old ways of agriculture and let children get that first-hand experience in those physical tasks that were a daily part of life in Nova Scotia in a bygone era, or pop in to the Firefighters’ Museum in Yarmouth, or go to Highland Village.

I found that when I went to Highland Village last summer, which was actually my first visit there, you could literally feel and recapture some of those Scottish pioneers that traversed the mountains of Cape Breton and found a place they could easily call home because of the similarities with their native homeland. I think we can really do something that I don’t think we have done a good job on and that would go across perhaps this department and governments for many years - we haven’t marketed what we have. The treasures we have we have not marketed really well in this province and this is why I’m very confident that the new changes to the Nova Scotia Museum Act are going to definitely bring about a renewal to that system.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you for that story. I just want to ask a question back to the original question. I’m wondering if you could tell me when the last time was that the museums in Nova Scotia received any budget increase - I’m just looking for a year.

LEO GLAVINE: So, we’ll have to do a little bit of moving back here. I guess there would be a number of years in which there would certainly have been small increases to museums. This year there is $54,000 that will go to the Nova Scotia museum system. I guess that, more than anything, because we have, as I said, that older system of museums with 28 areas officially that are made up of course of our buildings, our vessels and the Museum of Industry in Stellarton, we have had to invest significantly in capital dollars for these museums.

[2:30 p.m.]

As we know, this year the capital forecasts for 2018-19 were $1,588,000 and of course that went into Acadia. We want to preserve the 104-year-old CSS Acadia, so we had to begin a very significant investment. We also had roofing issues in Stellarton at the Museum of Industry and we had to, again, do a significant amount of work there if we’re going to preserve the building that housed some very fascinating old equipment, especially as it relates to locomotives.

One of the areas that I know the member’s colleague has been very interested in is the redevelopment of Perkins House. Again, you know, a museum that’s part of our system that required a tremendous investment to get that probably 150-year-old building, using the methods of how it was built and the materials and to keep it from sinking and to establish a whole new foundation has been a pretty laborious project that now goes back several years, but is well under way.

Perkins House is going to be restored to much of its former grandeur and I know not only the people of Queens County - I’ll tell you, I met some unbelievably passionate people who wanted nothing less than a full restoration. They didn’t want little patches to the plaster and have it look okay; they want it to be there for the next 100 years. I applaud all of those, part of the Queens County Historical Society board and our Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal who said we will do a complete and thorough project with Perkins House.

Because it requires the workmanship and therefore the trades of a bygone era, there are only a small number of people who can actually execute some of the work. But we have those people now in place and I certainly look forward to going back to Perkins House, because the last time I was there I was shifting around scaffolding, I was ducking under boards, and I was worried about the next piece of plaster coming down, but we are in a very good place in regard to Perkins House.

One of the really exciting investments that the member again may be interested in and just really going out the door of our department is a $3.6 million project of which $1.2 million is coming from the province to bring the Scottish Highland Village to a much more prominent place. They are increasing their visitorship in leaps and bounds, again because of the growing cruise ship industry in Sydney, with busload after busload now going up to the Highland Village. So, we do have a lot of investment going on and I think our museum system, with a revitalization program, will be in a great place.

BARBARA ADAMS: Mr. Chair, I have to say that I am frustrated because I asked a very short question that should have taken maybe 30 seconds to answer and I feel like the minister used the time that I had for asking questions to give his speech, to extend his speech time, so I’m going to move on to another question.

Can the minister tell me how many physicians died, retired, or moved away last year?

LEO GLAVINE: I thank the member for the question. You know if my answers are a bit lengthy it’s because CCH has a very powerful story to tell here, at Province House, and to tell around the province.

What I know in terms of doctors is that we are absolutely moving in the right direction.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you for that answer. The reason I am asking that is according to the Budget Bulletin for this year, under Improving Access to Health Care, it says there’s $200,000 to support doctor recruitment in our communities as part of the Culture Innovation Fund. Is that $200,000 from your budget, or from the budget of the Department of Health and Wellness?

LEO GLAVINE; Thank you for that question. This $200,000 will come from CCH’s budget and it is around cultural innovation, if you wish, and moving strongly to the impact that communities can have on recruitment.

We all know that it is a real process for a doctor, and sometimes spouse and family, to go to a community, and to make that decision they need to explore and have an opportunity to work with local organizations and perhaps a team of people. In fact, there are still teams of people, such as we have in Digby, now emerging in a community in my riding of Berwick, where we’ve had significant retirements. They want to have the time and a bit of money to spend on exposing a doctor, and potentially their family, to for example a Valley experience, a South Shore experience, a Digby experience, and sometimes that does take a bit of investment.

When this was done in the past, in fact it took a local community to use municipal dollars to be able to have a doctor - and perhaps in many cases a spouse and family - to come into town and go through that exploration process. That’s the idea of this fund: that it becomes a welcoming and an embracive opportunity to explore with them what the community has to offer.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you for that answer. When I look on Page 5.1 of the Budget Book under Communities, Culture and Heritage, it describes what the responsibilities are of your department and at no place in that discussion does there involve recruitment of any health professional. So given the challenges that we’ve had with physician recruitment, which is our biggest challenge and our least successful ability where the Department of Health and Wellness isn’t able to tell us how many net physicians we have, I am at a loss to understand why a health recruitment strategy is being taken out of the Department of Health and Wellness. There are the community health teams who are used to managing funds, who could partner with your department but who would retain the ultimate responsibility to recruit physicians.

I guess I’m wondering, why are we diluting the recruitment strategy for physicians from the Department of Health and Wellness whose responsibility it actually is, and shifting it around to other departments?

LEO GLAVINE: I welcome that question from the member. This is really an add-on. We’re not in any way taking from the work or the financial commitment of the Department of Health and Wellness and the NSHA. This is simply in addition.

If there is one striking comment that we often hear from a doctor who comes into the province and is looking at settling here, making it their new home, it is often a reference to some of the cultural aspects and the richness of what our province has to offer. In many ways, our culture is what attracts doctors. In many ways, the 25 who have come in the past 12 months from the U.K. find a great deal of similarities, but also the newness of what we have to offer in Nova Scotia.

So, if we can expand that knowledge, information and experience of a doctor, there in fact can be part of the recruitment process. We are in no way taking on recruitment in our department. Dr. Bonnington has gone on a couple of our missions to the U.K. and to hear him speak about what Annapolis Royal and all it and this province offers him and his family - you talk about a selling feature, which is really an add-on to the recruitment experience.

If we can now deepen that work around the cultural highlights and experience - because it’s already attracting people here - I think it can be a wonderful addition to that whole experience.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you for that answer. You had just stated that you were in no way taking on doctor recruitment and yet the announcement says that it’s $200,000 to support doctor recruitment, so I’m still a little confused. I will still maintain that it would make more sense for it to be under the Department of Health and Wellness so that they, in fact, can be accountable for how many doctors we lose and gain over the time.

I’m going to move on to the Department of Seniors with the 20 minutes or so that I have left. Just looking at the budget on Page 21.2 in the Department of Seniors, we’re looking at the Grants and Contributions for 2018-19 and 2019-20. The amount that’s there is exactly the same as it was the year before. I’m just wondering, are the exact same people getting the exact same grants and funding, or are some people losing grants and funding and others gaining?

LEO GLAVINE: Thank you for the question. One of the very enlightening features that we have in the Department of Seniors around age-friendly community grants is, in fact, the range of grants, the range of activities and supports that we provide to communities. We would be giving these to different organizations and different groups that would have something to offer a particular group.

[2:45 p.m.]

Just to give a few examples, this year in Digby County we gave a grant to the Canadian Association for Community Living, in the Clare branch; in Dartmouth to the Family Centre; Dalhousie University College of Continuing Education; Directions Council of Nova Scotia; the Dr. Kingston Memorial Community Health Centre in Richmond County; Locke’s Island Players Society; and Main-à-Dieu Community Development Association. Each of these have very long explanations for the project that they’re going to be carrying out.

What I have found over my time as Minister of Seniors is, in fact, the great diversity of organizations, whether it’s a church, the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre that we gave $10,000 to this year, the aim of the project is to engage and include those urban Indigenous seniors who are isolated in their homes and do not have the capacity or funds to participate in any organized events.

Each year, we will get probably in the range of 80 or so applications and we will go through those and look again at the merits at this point in time of supporting these organizations. We also fund municipal plans for 4H-friendly communities as well. So, there is a great diversity and a great range of organizations that we support.

BARBARA ADAMS: I thank you for that answer. I know it probably wouldn’t happen, but what would be really nice, in addition to the list of all the things that are getting funded this year, would be an addendum or an attachment that showed which programs were no longer getting funding or getting their funding cut because it’s harder to find that out.

I want to move on to Page 21.3 in the Seniors budget section under Seniors’ Initiatives, Programs and Services. When you look at the 2018-19 estimate versus the 2019-20, it’s just slightly lower. I just want to ask about those seniors’ initiatives: Is the funding for adult protection going up or down this year?

LEO GLAVINE: In terms of senior protection, that’s not an area per se. What we have in terms of the Senior Safety Programs are - I think now we’re in about 16 of our 18 counties. What we are providing is both education, support to seniors in dealing with a range of issues that they feel impact or threaten their safety.

One of the big areas that they investigate and support seniors with are scams, which are in fact literally rampant across our country, and seniors are one of the major target areas.

Our Senior Safety officers are holding community gatherings and workshops to inform seniors but will also assist when there is an inquiry about a particular scam is one example. The Senior Safety officers will get calls about unusual traffic perhaps coming by their house or people on their property, but it’s not a protection per se, such as police would be offering. It’s really a great deal about how they can remain safe in their homes.

BARBARA ADAMS: I want to get this question in, so I am going to go here first. The Group of IX are a part of the Seniors Department, and I served on two of those boards in the past, so I know how valuable they are. One of the things that strikes me, though, when I look at the list of the Group of IX who advise the department, is that a lot of them are retired groups. These are not people who are actively working with seniors.

I do realize that one criterion to be part of it is to have a national body as well, so that sort of restricts any local group that might want to join, but I am wondering whether you have considered expanding the Group of IX to include professionals who are actively working with seniors - health care, long-term care organizations, transportation, poverty, housing organizations - so that we’re not just speaking with advisory groups who have already finished working in the workplace, especially where one of the mandates is to try to help keep seniors working longer?

LEO GLAVINE: I thank the member for the question. It is a good point that she is making. Obviously we have CARP and Community Links, and the Federation of Senior Citizens and Pensioners, so we have a wide variety of retired doctors, teachers, organizations.

We have nine different groups, but what I like that has happened under Deputy Minister d’Entremont’s time as Deputy Minister of Seniors is that they have engaged in tremendous learning opportunities. The groups that they invite in to present also give a very, very wide range of information on a whole lot of sectors. I know they’ve had housing, poverty issues, medical issues. They have a very, very wide range of presenters. For example, yesterday with the Group of IX, Janice Keefe of the Centre on Aging at Mount Saint Vincent, who has just completed a study around long-term care.

This is a group that is not just the voice of their particular retirement sector, but it is engaged in hearing from our 150,000-plus seniors in the province. I think they represent a pretty healthy cross-section of Nova Scotian seniors.

BARBARA ADAMS: The first two you mentioned were the two that I served on, and I agree - together they all have a ridiculously high amount of knowledge. But I will maintain that if it were me, I would include all of the other groups that I already mentioned. There is an awful lot of information that the IX that are part of it are not as up to date on as they could be. All of our caucuses have groups that come in to present to us, but it’s different calling somebody in once or twice a year to present versus a group that gets together so that they can hear each other. I think there is value in that.

As well, the Group of IX get some funding in your budget - not a whole lot, but I would like you to consider possibly expanding that.

I was looking at a previous year’s list of the Seniors’ Safety grants, and I printed off what I thought was 2018, but it’s 2017. I looked at the list of the grants, and from what I could tell from all of the areas that are covered, there was only one Seniors’ Safety grant for HRM, which was a $20,000 grant to the VON. I also used to be on their board, so I know they appreciated that when I was there, but since HRM makes up half of all of the province, I’m just wondering why in that particular year there were more Seniors’ Safety grants rurally than in metro, and whether it’s the same moving forward?

LEO GLAVINE: One of the driving factors that has influenced the Seniors’ Safety Program, which I certainly can speak very strongly about in my area - it’s one person who leads and orchestrates in Kings County, and the same in counties across the province. We’ve done it by having at least some geographic representation, and I know in our large counties, having a Seniors’ Safety officer has proven to be extremely valuable.

There are other projects that we also do work on, whether it’s in HRM or other parts of the province. We are just about complete in our first development. We started off with a small number of counties and we have been building over the last number of years. This year we will add Victoria and Colchester Counties to the list as part of the SHIFT development. It is a program that continues to expand. Do we need to have a few more people on the ground? We know that we needed to be first, 100 per cent, with somebody in each of our 18 counties.

BARBARA ADAMS: I am wondering, because transportation affects people of all ages, what the Department of Seniors might be doing with respect to transportation issues. Isolation, as we know, is a problem. I know companies like Callow buses, who used to provide seniors’ transportation for those with wheelchairs, stopped doing it this year.

I think I recall you mentioning, when you were talking about your Communities, Culture and Heritage portfolio, that that department had been working on and is now responsible for three buses, I believe, in Cape Breton.

I know the city is responsible for busing in HRM, but I would like to ask the minister how your two departments are working together on improving transportation for seniors in this province.

LEO GLAVINE: That’s a great question - a valuable question. For a number of years, we had four or five departments that were really trying to develop and work on a province-wide approach to community transportation.

As the former Health and Wellness Minister for the Province, and now in CCH and living in a rural area, I regard community transportation - and certainly even more profoundly hit as Minister of Seniors - that seniors who can use any kind of large-scale public transit or a shuttle service of getting people from out in small communities and rural areas into the small town where they go for services, medical appointments, church, social organizations makes a phenomenal difference in their lives.

Starting right around the time I became minister, I said, why not have the Department of Seniors and the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage be a co-lead, because if we are going to develop strong and vibrant communities in Nova Scotia, transportation is an essential ingredient to making that happen.

Deputy Minister d’Entremont and Bill Greenlaw from CCH actually went out around the province and asked what more existing carriers could do. How could they transform what they already do to make sure that they can expand routes across the province? We’ve had some very, very exciting announcements this year with the $2.4 million that we have from the Department of Seniors and total community transportation is $4,784,000, which moved over from the Department of Municipal Affairs. The total altogether now for community transportation is $7,174,000.

[3:00 p.m.]

This is literally a lot of this money is transformative dollars. Whether it’s Queens County Transit or whether it’s Pictou County transit, it will really make that significant difference. We wanted this to become a huge part of Department of Seniors and Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and, in fact, when we take it from the view and the perspective of seniors, it’s actually is the number-one issue that causes seniors to lose their independence. They are no longer able to drive. The keys have been taken away by a family member or a medical practitioner, let’s say, who very often is left with the onerous task of telling a senior.

This is an area we have finally invested right across Nova Scotia, will continue to invest down to helping these companies purchase appropriate-sized vehicles. If you can have a 20-passenger bus that can be pretty-well filled, what a difference. A few examples, if the member doesn’t mind. The Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and the Department of Seniors are investing $177,000 in Victoria County, $250,000 in Cape Breton. Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Community Transportation Network received $385,000 from Maritime Bus.

I know the member is wanting to get maybe another question or two in, so I will regard that request and stop there.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you very much. That’s all wonderful to hear; I’m very happy about that. I just have one last question. When we had first become critics for Community Services, Minister Regan had had us in for an orientation and gave us wonderful handouts with numbers and statistics and when I asked Mr. d’Entremont if I could meet with him and have an orientation, he wasn’t quite sure if that was appropriate. I’m wondering if you can give him permission to give me an orientation to the department.

LEO GLAVINE: One of the things I do know is that the Department of Seniors is, I always say, small but mighty. We’re very open to having members and community organizations know what the programs are and what we do. I know Minister d’Entremont actually gets around the province to support organizations that have requests around the programs we do offer. We have staff that assist even with applications for some of our programs, but I would say that something can be set up.

We were in a very difficult time and a bit of flux there because we were actually looking at moving the Department of Seniors. We had a little bit of state of wondering what we will do but, you know. We need to send out directories, which we’re going to do, to MLAs so they know the full extent and scope of the work the Department of Seniors does cover. I can assure you anytime you have a question of the deputy minister he’d be more than willing to support you.

BARBARA ADAMS: Thank you very much. Does the minister get time to make his closing remarks or is that on Monday?

THE CHAIR: No.

BARBARA ADAMS: Okay, all right, perfect, all right. I’m going to stop. I’m going to pass my time over to the New Democratic Party.

THE CHAIR: You have about a minute and a half. Ms. Leblanc.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I’m going to ask a very quick question. I will make some more opening comments on Monday, but I wanted to thank you for starting with land acknowledgement. I wanted to point out that in most places I go now, the land acknowledgement for the Mi’kmaq people and to acknowledge we’re in Mi’kma’ki says that we are in the unceded and ancestral land of the Mi’kmaq.

I notice the Nova Scotia Government, whenever there is an announcement or a use of land acknowledgement, the wording is traditional. I wondered if you might as a leader, because you are the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage, and as you say, your department sort of spans many departments and the work you do is about the . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, the time allotted for the consideration of Supply today has elapsed. Everybody have a great weekend.

[The subcommittee adjourned at 3:06 p.m.]