Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Ms Yvonne Jones, MHA for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, replaces Mr. Oliver Langdon, MHA for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in Room 5083.

CHAIR (Manning): Order, please!

I call the meeting to order and welcome the minister and his staff here.

Before we get into a couple of items, we need to adopt the minutes of the last meeting of the Government Services Committee, which was held on Monday, May 17, with the Department of Finance. Could I have a motion to adopt those minutes?

MR. ORAM: So moved.

CHAIR: So moved by Mr. Oram, seconded by Mr. Andersen.

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Motion carried.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: Everything is being recorded for Hansard. How the mikes work here is: You press talk and your red light will come on, and you press talk again when you are finished so you will not have interference from some other speaker. We ask that you identify yourself, if you are answering a question, for the record. Some people here are not familiar with the recorder, so identify yourself when you are answering a questions. Once I get the names straight, I will try to call you by your name, but just in case I miss you for some reason or another.

Once again, I would like to welcome the minister here. Maybe what we will do, Mr. Minister, before we start, is maybe go around the table and let people introduce themselves. It might be easier, everyone doing that.

Mr name is Fabian Manning, MHA for Placentia & St. Mary's. I am Chair of the Government Services Committee.

MR. ORAM: Paul Oram, MHA for Terra Nova.

MR. SKINNER: Shawn Skinner, MHA for St. John's Centre.

MS JOHNSON: Charlene Johnson, MHA for Trinity-Bay de Verde

MR. MOORES: Weldon Moores, ADM for Works, Transportation and Works.

MR. HEALEY: Keith Healey, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic & Corporate Services.

MR. OSMOND: Don Osmond, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Works.

MR. RIDEOUT: Tom Rideout, Minister of Transportation and Works, and Minister Responsible for Aboriginal Affairs.

MR. MERCER: Cluney Mercer, Assistant Deputy Minister, Transportation.

MR. DUTTON: Sean Dutton, Assistant Deputy Minister, Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs.

MR. SWEENEY: George Sweeney, MHA for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

MS JONES: Yvonne Jones, MHA for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MR. ANDERSEN: Wally Andersen, MHA for Torngat Mountains.

MR. TILLER: Gary Tiller, Director of Human Resources, Transportation and Works.

MS OATES: Lori Lee Oates, Director of Communications, Transportation and Works and Aboriginal Affairs.

MS HANRAHAN: Denise Hanrahan, Director of Finance, Transportation and Works.

MR. BYRNE: John Byrne, Manager of Budgeting, Transportation and Works.

CHAIR: I just advise the people at the back table, if there is a question that arises during the Committee meeting and you are required to answer a question, the minister will make his mike available for you to do so.

I ask the Clerk now to call the heads of the department.

CLERK: 1.1.01.

CHAIR: I guess what we will do, if it is okay with the Committee members, is that we will leave open the whole department so you do not have to follow just one head, and if there is a question anywhere within the department it might be easier, and then at the end of it we will just call all the heads together instead of taking one by one and going back and forth. Is that okay with everybody?

We will recognize the minister now. If the minister wants to make some opening comments, we will go from there.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and colleagues, members of the Committee.

First of all, let me say that we are pleased to be here to present the Estimates of the Department of Transportation and Works and Aboriginal Affairs this morning. We will do our best to answer whatever questions you have, and if we do not have the information we certainly will undertake to provide any detail that we can provide this morning to the Chair so that it can be disseminated to the Committee.

I will be very brief in my opening remarks on the Transportation and Works side of my responsibility. Of course, for people who have been involved with the department before, it is a huge department and it impacts every community and every person in the Province, from roads to public buildings to ferry services, you name it. Almost every day this department, in some way or another, is in your face, not always in a positive way but we are trying to do the best we can with the resources that are available to us.

We are pleased this year that we have an additional $7 million on the capital side in our provincial roads program. That will go some distance to helping improve the situation.

We are hoping that we will be able to come to an agreement with the federal government sooner rather than later on funding under the Infrastructure Program. There is still $24 million left in Round 1 funding under the Canada Infrastructure Program. We have made proposals to the federal government for the utilization of that $24 million. Of course that is fifty-fifty dollars, by and large, so it comes out to a program close to $48 million if you look at it from that perspective. We are proposing that $18 million of the $24 million left in Round 1 funding be spent on the Trans-Labrador Highway and the remaining $6 million be spent on major trunk roads in the Province. We made that proposal to the Government of Canada several months ago now and I have met with our regional minister, Mr. Effort, but we still don't have any commitment on sign-off. I am kind of hoping, with my fingers crossed, that it will happen before a federal election gets called, because if it doesn't it is not going to happen during. Nevertheless, we still don't have a commitment on sign-off, despite the fact that we have presented a detailed list of projects that we would like to do.

In addition to the Round 1 funding that is remaining in the Canada Infrastructure Program, there is about $50 million available to the Province in Round 2. We have also made detailed proposals to the Government of Canada in identifying projects that we would like to utilize that funding on. That is Transportation.

We have done a major restructuring of the department on the marine services side and we now have marine services under Transportation responsible to Cluney Mercer, who is the ADM for Transportation. We are optimistic that a number of the problems that were in existence in the marine services side, we will now have more capability to address them. We put the day-to-day routine management of the marine services sector out to the regions. Wayne Ricks, Regional Director in Grand Falls, for example, and his people are now responsible for marine services out in the central region, and so it goes around the Province. So, we are hopeful that day-to-day, hands-on management of the Marine Services division will have positive impacts on the operations.

Works were responsible for public buildings on the Works side. If other departments are into construction of hospitals and public buildings and so on, then we do that as a client basis for those departments.

In Aboriginal Affairs, this is quite an historic year from Aboriginal Affairs' perspective. We will have the LIA ratification vote on the twenty-sixth and, you know, there is a lot of optimism that, finally, after thirty-something years of negotiation, that there will be a ratification of the agreement with the Labrador Inuit Association, the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition to that, we are carrying on negotiations with the Innu Nation where we had begun negotiations with the Government of Canada for expansion of the Conne River Reserve, and we are prepared to enter into negotiations with the Labrador Metis Nation if their land claim application is accepted by the Government of Canada.

I think that is just a brief overview of the many facets that we are involved in, in those two departments. Perhaps I will leave it there and we can go into details when the Committee is ready.

CHAIR: Just for clarification with the Committee members, Transportation and Works and Aboriginal Affairs, do we want to leave it all open, any questions or do you want to take one part of it and do another, or do you just want to leave the whole thing open in regards to the entire department?

AN HON. MEMBER: Two separate issues.

CHAIR: Two separate issues. Which one do you want to deal with first?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Transportation? Okay, that is fine with everybody. So, we are going to deal with Transportation and Works.

Whoever wants to ask questions first, go ahead.

Mr. Andersen.

MR. ANDERSEN: To start off, subhead 1.1.01, Minister's Office: Under that particular subhead, just one question, Minister. There is a very small increase, but yet an increase, in Salaries under Minister's Office. One would think that at a time with reductions and so on, there would be a decrease. I know it is small, but why the increase?

CHAIR: Mr. Rideout.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The increase is due the annualization of prior years' salaries. There are salary increases that were built into everybody's salaries and annualized year over year. That accounts for the increase. The Minister, the Secretary to the Minister, the Executive Assistant to the Minister, those staff allocations have annualized increases, up to and including this year, built into them. That is what accounts for the increase.

MR. ANDERSEN: Under heading 1.2.01, General Administration, page 73, Employee Benefits have increased by $1,500. Why the increase?

MR. RIDEOUT: Keith?

MR. HEALEY: The budget is actually the same year over year. Last year, in fact, there was a saving there of $1,500 on the revised. We just didn't spend it, we saved it.

MR. ANDERSEN: Transportation and Communications have increased by $10,000. Why the increase?

OFFICIAL: That is 03, right?

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes.

MR. HEALEY: The same answer, that the budget year over year is the same, but in the year ended, March 2004, we in fact saved $10,000 in the budget for that year.

MR. RIDEOUT: And then added in the same amount as last year for this coming year. That is the explanation, Mr. Chairman.

MR. ANDERSEN: Purchased Services increased by $2,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, the same explanation. There was $2,500 budgeted last year, $500 was spent, and we are budgeting $2,500 again this year. Whether we spend it or not, we will let you know this time next year, but it is the same line item as last year.

MR. ANDERSEN: We will move on to page 74, 1.2.02. Again, Administrative Support. Minister, an increase in Salaries of $193,000. That would be 1.2.02.01.

MR. RIDEOUT: The estimates are up due to a reallocation of student funding. The student budget, I think, is $199,000.

MR. HEALEY: Part of the reason for that increase is that our student budget had been allocated to individual divisions throughout the department, and to manage that in a better way we consolidated that into this account and it is under our HR division.

MR. RIDEOUT: It is the same amount of money but regrouped in a different place rather than out over several subheads. Is that the -

MR. HEALEY: Yes. It is the exact same amount of money for students.

MR. RIDEOUT: You will notice as well that our Revised is down and that is due to retained vacant positions as a result of the hiring freeze.

MR. ANDERSEN: It is kind of interesting when the whole Revised would be down, yet Salaries are up.

MR. RIDEOUT: The explanation for Salaries being up is twofold. One is the annualization of increases that comes every year as a result of negotiated increases with the public sector. The second one is, as provided by Mr. Healey, ADM., in that we took all of the - in previous years, funding for student employment was spread out to different divisions in the department. This year, for administrative purposes, we put it under one subhead, which is here.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay. Then we will move to 02., under the same subhead. We are looking at a decrease of roughly $560,000 in Employee Benefits.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, that is due totally to increases in workers' compensation costs, benefits that we have to pay to workers, what is called Workplace and - the official name? I always call it workers' compensation, but I think we know what we are talking about, the Workplace, Health and Safety Commission. This is a cost that we have to pay to workers' compensation on behalf of employees who have been injured and are receiving therapy or drugs that are not covered by the ordinary drug plan, physio and that kind of thing. So, it is benefits paid to workers' compensation on behalf of injured employees.

MR. ANDERSEN: But the big decrease over last year?

MR. RIDEOUT: Pardon?

MR. ANDERSEN: There is a big decrease over last year?

MR. RIDEOUT: Decrease?

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: Go ahead, Keith.

MR. HEALEY: The decrease I think you are referring to is the fact that we retained last year's budget. We did not increase the budget, notwithstanding the Revised was up.

MR. RIDEOUT: Oh, I see what you mean.

MR. HEALEY: The budget is the same.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes. We budgeted the same amount, Mr. Andersen, in this fiscal year, $1.7 million, as we budgeted last year. However, in fact last year we spent, as you pointed out, an additional $500,000 in premiums to workers' compensation. I guess the whole idea is we have no way of knowing how many injuries or whatever that we are going to have in the course of a fiscal year. So we budgeted the same as we did last year, hoping for the best, and if the best does not happen and the worst happens, then we will have to find more money.

MR. ANDERSEN: The next item down, 03. Transportation and Communications increased by $36,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: Three eighty-three it reduced, right?

MR. HEALEY: Actually, the budget, in fact, has been reduced and that was done through a cost-savings on our cellphone plan. We evaluated all our cellphone plans in the department and found that, by rejigging the particular plan that individuals had, we were able to save $50,000, and we carried that out and therefore reduced our budget

MR. ANDERSEN: Again, it is not a decrease; it is a increase.

MR. HEALEY: Well, it was budgeted last year, Mr. Andersen, at $383,000. The Revised actually came in at $297,000. This year we are budgeting $333,000, which is a decrease in the amount budgeted of $50,000.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay, let's go down a little further to Purchased Services. Again, we see a big increase of $167,600.

MR. RIDEOUT: Again, it is matter of whether the glass is half empty or half full. Last year, the department budgeted $227,000 under this particular head. The actual spending, the Revised, was $182,000. This year we are budgeting $227,000, the same as last year. So the budget figures in the amount budgeted are the same. Whether the spending will be more or less will depend on how the year unfolds, but the budget figures year over year are the same.

MR. ANDERSEN: So all the ones that are increased, if it holds through from last year's budget, then I guess you will have a pretty good surplus at the end of the year, Minister.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, if you look at the bottom line, the total on Administrative Support, Mr. Andersen, you will see that last year the department budgeted $5.7 million for that vote. The Revised was actually $6.1 million, so there was a bit more spent than was actually budgeted. This year the total amount budgeted under this subhead is $5.5 million, so we are hoping to have some reductions in the overall amount spent under Administrative Support year over year.

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, under subhead 1.2.02., out of your overall projected budget there, do you have any idea how many people will be gone from just this branch of this department?

MR. RIDEOUT: Do you have that, Keith, or would Gary have it?

OFFICIAL: Four positions.

MR. RIDEOUT: Four management positions?

MR. HEALEY: There are actually four positions -

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. HEALEY: Oh, I am sorry! I was including the other one. In this area, there is only one position. It is indeed a management position and it is being done through retirement.

MR. ANDERSEN: I will move to item 12, Information Technology. That has decreased by almost $500,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: The estimates are down here due to reduced IT program allocations from the ITM Division. There has been a budgetary change. I think the previous government started this last year where you give account of your tangible assets in a different way than was done in previous guidelines. That is a technical thing that I don't profess to understand.

Keith, do you want to speak to that, please?

MR. HEALEY: I will try. In fact, I guess through the Comptroller's Office in Treasury Board they have made some changes as to how they are going to account for certain expenditures in an effort to better identify long-term assets. As a result of that, in this particular account, for example, there is $155,000 which last year would have been voted here as a current account but is now being voted separately - on the next page we will see it - as part of a capital account.

The total actually for the current year for IT is $577,600 as opposed to the $781,000. That is a normal year over year fluctuation in terms of need for system development and so on.

MR. ANDERSEN: We will move on to Policy Development and Planning, 1.2.03.

MR. RIDEOUT: Transportation and Communications?

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes, page 74, an increase again in Salaries.

MR. RIDEOUT: Salaries? So, it is 01 you are looking at, is it?

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes. Again, $20,000. In almost every subhead there seems to be an increase in Salaries.

MR. RIDEOUT: Last year, there was $381,000 budgeted and $410,000 actually spent, and this year we are projecting $402,000. The Estimates are up because there was a transfer of a salary funding from another activity, which is 2.2.02.

Keith, do you want to explain that?

MR. HEALEY: Yes -

MR. RIDEOUT: There is funding actually saved in 2.2.02. as a result of that, I understand.

MR. HEALEY: Yes, it is much like the student money that, in fact, there was a position in another division in the department that was actually working through this division so we just corrected the budget and transferred the money into here. That is the reason for it, but overall it is not an increase for the department.

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, I wish you would not give good answers like that because you took away my second question.

Let's go to Grants and Subsidies.

MR. RIDEOUT: Number 10., right?

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes, 10., decreased by $40,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: The Grants and Subsidies, there has been a reduction. It was $189,000 last year and we actually spent $189,000. We are proposing to spend $149,000 this year. I believe it was the Transportation Association conference here in St. John's last year and that was a one-time expenditure of $30,000 so we do not have to account for that this year.

OFFICIAL: It was $60,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: Sixty thousand dollars.

OFFICIAL: Going down to $30,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: It is going down to $30,000, right.

MR. ANDERSEN: Again, if we just move back a little further up to 03. under Transportation and Communications, there is an increase again.

MR. RIDEOUT: Again, it depends on what you want to say, whether the glass is half full or half empty. It was $45,000 budgeted last year; $27,000 actually got spent. We are budgeting $35,000 this year, which is actually $10,000 less than was budgeted last year. This is a reduction in the actual amount budgeted due to cost controls and expenditure reductions.

CHAIR: Excuse me, Mr. Andersen, but your time is up.

The opening speaker gets fifteen minutes and the remainder will get ten and ten, okay?

Mr. Sweeney.

MR. SWEENEY: Let's skip over to road construction, section three.

MR. RIDEOUT: What page are we on, George?

MR. SWEENEY: That would be page 81.

MR. RIDEOUT: Page 81?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes.

I would imagine, Wally, you would want to keep going on your section.

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes.

MR. SWEENEY: Minister, under 3.1.01., Administrative Support and Design, the Salaries there decreased by $219,500.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, there was an elimination of four staff positions under this subhead.

MR. MERCER: This is correct, there were four positions in the Highway Design Division. They were vacant positions. There were no people displaced. It was a reduction exercise associated with smaller capital programs.

MR. SWEENEY: So you say there were no people displaced?

MR. MERCER: No, these positions were actually vacant.

MR. SWEENEY: They were vacant all along?

MR. MERCER: Yes.

MR. SWEENEY: Under Transportation and Communications in the same subhead, $12,500, can you give me an explanation for that?

MR. RIDEOUT: Again, the Revised is down. Last year there was $88,000 budgeted and we actually spent $76,000, and we are budgeting the same amount this year, $88,000. The Revised was down due to expenditure controls that we put in place towards the end of the fiscal year.

MR. SWEENEY: Under the same heading, 04., Supplies, Supplies increased by $31,100. I find that rather strange when the Salaries were decreased in that particular section.

MR. RIDEOUT: Actually, Mr. Sweeney, Supplies were budgeted to be $120,000 for last year and we spent $89,000, so there was a saving. We are budgeting the same amount, $120,000, this year as was budgeted last year. So we, in fact, had a savings of close to $40,000, I guess, under that particular vote.

MR. SWEENEY: From last year.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes.

MR. SWEENEY: The point is, if the number of positions have been increased in that particular section, why would you budget Supplies to be the same amount as last year?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, Supplies - Cluney, I guess you could give the answer, but my view would be that the number of positions has nothing to do with the amount of supplies that you are using. This is the sign place you are talking about?

MR. MERCER: That is correct. The supplies are for the division. It is also for supplies that go out to field offices that look after capital projects as well as some things that are associated with pre design, design work, and those sorts of things in the design division. As a matter of fact, the positions that we eliminated were vacant. Nobody was there last year. That number would tend to fluctuate year over year, depending on the size of the projects that you have to do design work on.

MR. RIDEOUT: In other words, there is no correlation between the salary vote and the supply vote. Those salary positions were vacant last year. We still budgeted the same amount of monies as we are budgeting this year.

MR. SWEENEY: It sounds good.

3.1.02, Project Management and Design. Salaries again; salaries were decreased by $71,900.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, there was a transfer position from this particular vote to 2.2.03. That is the one we talked about earlier when we were responding to Mr. Andersen. This just reflects the - it is the same amount of money, Mr. Sweeney, but it is under another subhead. This position was transferred to a -

MR. SWEENEY: So, where did this one come from, this position?

MR. RIDEOUT: Can you speak to that?

MR. MERCER: This position was one which was involved with policy work on the Works side originally, and as we tried to consolidate ourselves around Policy and Planning it was felt that position should be located in our Policy and Planning group, so we did that. However, the salary vote remained where it was for awhile until we came to this current fiscal year. So, we took care of that matter this year and did the switch.

MR. RIDEOUT: Under the administrative thing, really. Right?

MR. SWEENEY: Okay. The same heading. Transportation and Communications increased by $29,000. Why would we have an increase there?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, again, I keep saying this glass is half empty or half full. We budgeted $59,500 last year - or the previous government did. The actual expenditure was $30,500. We are budgeting the same amount this year as was budgeted last year. Whether it will be spent or not remains to be seen. It was down last year because there was a reduction in moving expenses. So, we budgeted an amount, which is $59,000. Whether we spend it, or do not spend it, will depend on how much relocation and so on goes on this year, but we are budgeting the same amount as we budgeted last year.

MR. SWEENEY: We will have to wait until next year.

MR. RIDEOUT: We will have to wait until next year to see what the Revised is. It might be up, it might be down.

MR. SWEENEY: Okay. Let's move over to road construction, under Administrative Support. Salaries increased by $1,198,100. It seems like a large increase.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, and we expect that to be because there is going to be a greater Provincial Roads Program this year. The Provincial Roads Program is increased by $7 million. We have a $30 million provincial program, so therefore there will be a requirement for additional people in administrative support to carry out that program.

Do you want to add anything to that?

MR. MERCER: Yes. As a part of the $30 million program, approximately 10 per cent of that is associated with contract preparation and contract administration. If your program increases from, say $24 million last year to $30 million this year, then the support function for salaries and looking after projects out in the districts would go up proportionally. That is where the difference is.

MR. SWEENEY: Is it fair for me to assume then that to say the extra $7 million will not go to the roads, that the $1.198 million will come out of that $7 million?

MR. RIDEOUT: No, this is a current account figure. The $7 million will show up in its entirety in capital - I think, doesn't it?

MR. MERCER: The $30 million will go with the accrual accounting system. The road improvements that used to be capital, part of it now associated with resurfacing roads under this budget process is listed as current account. Any new tangible, capital assets that are put in place, through replacement or new construction, are actually classified now as capital. Part of the $30 million program, you will see here in the Budget, $26 million of it is actually current account now because of the accrual accounting process.

To administer that $26 million worth of work, a part of that is the engineering salaries that are paid out to survey staff, to engineering technicians, to project supervisors who are out supervising the capital work, or the road improvement work as it is being done. That is a part of the block funding associated with the program, and historically have been in the range of about 10 per cent.

MR. RIDEOUT: And that has always been the case.

MR. MERCER: That has always been the case.

MR. RIDEOUT: If you had a $23 million program last year, then about -

MR. SWEENEY: That is $2.3 million.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes.

MR. MERCER: Two point three million went to administer that program.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is right, a $30 million and about $3 million.

MR. SWEENEY: When you said $26 million from the $30 million, tell me the difference.

MR. MERCER: Because of accrual accounting and the way tangible assets are set up, $26 million of the $30 million would be related to improving existing assets, and $4 million would be associated with replacing or creating a new tangible asset. For example, if we replace a bridge then the new bridge is actually a capital.

MR. SWEENEY: So, new construction versus repairs?

MR. MERCER: New construction and replacement construction. If you replace an old bridge with a new bridge it is going to give you a new capital asset that has a life for, say, seventy-five years. That is actually a capital account item, as opposed to a current account item.

MR. SWEENEY: The $26 million minus the 10 per cent will be improvements, like resurfacing?

MR. MERCER: That is correct.

MR. SWEENEY: The $4 million, 10 per cent of that goes to office administration as well?

MR. MERCER: That would be administration as well, and that is no different than in past years. That would be to administer capital projects that involve either constructing or replacing a capital asset.

MR. SWEENEY: So, in actual fact, we are going to get $27 million on our highways?

MR. MERCER: We will have a $30 million program, just as we had a -

MR. SWEENEY: What will actually be laid down in tangible form, pavement or bridge repairs or whatnot?

MR. MERCER: Actually, the way tangible capital assets are determined, the actual administration costs and the design costs of putting that asset in place is also a part of the tangible asset.

MR. SWEENEY: What we will see - as Kelvin Parsons said, what Joe Chesterfield would actually see would be $26 million worth of work, the other $4 million being used up internally.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is the same as it always was.

MR. MERCER: It would be roughly 10 per cent, so it would actually be $3 million out of the $30 million. It is $27 million worth of physical work that you would see.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is the provincial roads program. In addition to that, of course, we have the cost-shared programs under some infrastructure program like the Goobies paving, the bridge by Norris Arm, the bridge on the West Coast. There are a number of those.

MR. SWEENEY: Ongoing stuff, yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, the stuff that was just tendered, but it was under the old remaining infrastructure program that we inherited from the previous administration. Those projects are going ahead now and mostly all of them are tendered, aren't they?

MR. MERCER: That is correct. There are a couple of more left. What the minister is referring to is some cost-shared projects that are under the Strategic Highway Improvement Program. You will see in the budget items there, there is a little better than $15 million associated with projects this year, some of which are ongoing now as well.

MR. SWEENEY: How much of that $26 million or $27 million is going to go into the Trans-Canada? Is that a separate fund again?

MR. RIDEOUT: This year -

MR. SWEENEY: I know in your preamble you said that you were hoping to get a federal roads agreement.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, there is an infrastructure pot of money there that we are hoping to get an agreement to tap into. We do not have to get the agreement to - we are not negotiating a new agreement. The pot of money is there, identified. The only haggle is, what are you going to do with it? We have suggested splitting off $18 million to go into the Trans-Labrador Highway and $6 million for projects on the Island.

To come back to your question, this year, in terms of the Trans-Canada, under the Strategic Highway Program that Cluney just referred to, the section from Goobies to Bellevue area, that has been done under that program. The overpass there in Long Harbour, that has been funded under that program. There is a bridge over - what is the name of the river out on the West Coast?

OFFICIAL: South Branch.

MR. RIDEOUT: - South Branch, that has been funded under that program, and there is a piece of road from Flat Bay to Fischells, that has been funded under that program, and the Penstock Bridge at Norris Arm has been funded under that program. That is about it for the Trans-Canada.

MR. MERCER: There were two other projects previously approved through the Cabinet process that were also completed last year under that program. That was the construction of an overpass at Port aux Basques, as well as the replacement of an overpass at Deer Lake on Route 430 going to the Northern Peninsula.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Sweeney. Your time for now has expired.

Mr. Skinner.

MR. SKINNER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Skinner.

Ms Jones.

MS JONES: Thank you.

Just a couple of questions. First of all, coming out of your preamble, Minister, you talked about the extra dollars under the federal-provincial agreement. I think you said there was something like $24 million left there.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is still in round one, yes.

MS JONES: Is there an expiry date on that funding?

MR. RIDEOUT: No, not that I am aware of; it is budgeted by the federal government. Is there an expiry date?

MR. MERCER: When the program was announced by the federal government, I believe, in the 2000 federal budget, it was identified as a ten-year program. They have since topped it up, and that is what the minister spoke to, in respect to part two. So, I think they are certainly looking at, at least, a ten-year time frame, maybe even a perpetual program that would be topped up from time to time.

MS JONES: Can you tell me what the name of that program was, the proper name of it?

MR. MERCER: It is the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund, or it is commonly referred to as CSIF.

MR. RIDEOUT: Under that program -

MS JONES: That was the same one that would have been used to do St. John's Harbour?

MR. MERCER: Yes, that is right.

MR. RIDEOUT: I was just going to add, before you did, actually, that under that program it is not just necessarily transportation infrastructure. There has been the harbour cleanup; there have been water problems in municipal affairs that have been addressed under that program. It is not specifically transportation, but we have historically gotten a share of it.

MS JONES: Okay. Why is there a problem accessing the remainder of the money?

MR. RIDEOUT: How do I address that? I do not want to be unkind or anything. At the political level in Ottawa, there does not appear to be a problem. I have met with Mr. Efford and he agrees with what we want to do, to split off eighteen for the Trans-Labrador Highway and six on the Island. Lawrence O'Brien agrees. Everybody agrees, at the political level. There seems to be resistance in the bureaucracy. The guidelines as they currently exist would not have money spent anywhere except for the Trans-Canada, not even the Trans-Labrador Highway or the Northern Peninsula Highway or the La Scie Highway, or the Argentia road. None of those, according to the guidelines in Ottawa, would qualify for funding. When Mr. Rock was minister and the previous government was in place, my understanding is that there was a wink and a nod between the two levels of governments that: Province, you go ahead and do what you want to do and we will not interfere.

We have tried to have the wink and the nod continue, but so far we do not have a sign of it. I do not know if you want to add to that, but that is my understanding.

MR. MERCER: Maybe I might say a little bit more as well, and certainly just clarify one point for the minister. The way the federal bureaucracy looks at this is in terms of the National Highway System, and they define that in our Province as being the Trans-Canada Highway and the Argentia Access Road.

Across the country there are other routes that are designated as part of the National Highway System which was agreed upon by a council of deputy ministers and endorsed by the ministers over, I guess, more than ten years ago. There have been ongoing attempts to update the National Highway System across the country. Thus far it has continually resulted in failure, primarily because the federal Department of Transport Canada is very concerned that the propositions being forwarded by the provinces do not fit what they feel would be the National - the national - Highway System. The guidelines that are there are fairly clear, and the provinces have been arguing for years that those guidelines prevent them, prevent the provinces, from targeting the money in ways that the provinces would wish to target it.

We are not alone in this. Many other provinces all feel the same way. The latest attempt, as late as a month ago, to bring more consensus to this took place in Ottawa in April. Once again, it failed. So there is an ongoing problem of trying to persuade Transport Canada that the National Highway System should fit around other provincial priorities.

MS JONES: Have all the other provinces accessed their Phase II funding, that are eligible under that program?

MR. RIDEOUT: I cannot answer that. I do not know.

MR. MERCER: I do not believe that they all have, no.

MS JONES: Okay, because I was under the understanding as well, a year ago, that this was a done deal pretty much and that monies would be transferred. When you said it still was not done, I was a little bit surprised at that.

MR. RIDEOUT: Just to elaborate for a second, if you do not mind. After we were sworn in as the government and were briefed on those matters, the Premier asked me to be the lead minister on this transportation strategic initiative fund. So I began the process by meeting with Mr. Valeri, and some time after that we began the process. Then Mr. Efford and the MPs - despite the fact that the letter and the list of projects that we would like to do is up there, we have had no communications from Mr. Valeri's office since the letter went up. So, we are, kind of, still hanging fire on it.

MS JONES: Also in your preamble you talked about the day-to-day management of Marine Services out of the regions of the Province. Now, I know that Mr. John Baker has been let go from your department, who was the previous Director of Marine Services. Is there a new Director of Marine Services within the department?

MR. RIDEOUT: First of all, Cluney Mercer has responsibility for all transportation modes, including Marine Services now. And you are right, John Baker was Executive Director of Marine. The position has now been - it is filled by Tom Prim. What is the style? How is it styled? Director of -

MR. MERCER: Mr. Prim's position is Director of Transportation Services.

MS JONES: So those were all modes of transportation, I would say.

MR. MERCER: No, just -

MR. RIDEOUT: Marine.

MR. MERCER: - just to Marine and the Air Services.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is right, the Marine and the Air Services.

MR. MERCER: The Air Services being a very small part.

MR. RIDEOUT: But the day-to-day management, Yvonne, of the marine services will now be run out of the regions.

MS JONES: Yes. Do you want to tell me about that? Are they new positions, new offices that you opened, or -

MR. RIDEOUT: No. For example, in Central, which is the one I am most familiar with, the manager on a day-today basis was Walter Pumphrey. He is still there. Here on the Avalon it is Ben Hammett. Harry Pardy in Labrador. Those positions were always there but they dealt directly with headquarters in the past with John Baker. So, what we are going to have them do now is deal directly - in the case of Walter Pumphrey, he answers directly to Wayne Ricks. In Labrador, they will answer to Dion Tee. We are hoping by that, we will have more of a hands on in the region, management approach, than everything ending up on somebody's desk here in St. John's. That is the idea behind it.

Cluney, do you want to elaborate on that?

MR. MERCER: Just to give you a little bit of history, I guess. Prior to 1997, the marine services on the Island then - because the marine services in Labrador was dealt with by Marine Atlantic, but the marine services were delivered through the four regional offices with the regional director being primarily responsible at the regional level with support staff, as the minister has indicated, like Mr. Pumphrey out in Central, Mr. Hammett here on the Avalon. So, basically, what we have done is taken marine and fitted it into the large structure that we have out there that deliver road programs, thereby having a lot more resources dedicated to providing a marine service.

MS JONES: Okay. So, basically what has happened, the same people are out there in the same regions. They will just answer to a different person. They will answer to their regional directors as opposed to a director within the department for the Province. That is my understanding.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is correct, yes, and that is the way it was back in the early 1990s.

MS JONES: I am not going to go through all the salary piece. There are an awful lot of positions in your department, but what I would ask is that - already this morning in questioning by my colleagues, the Member for Torngat Mountains and the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace, you guys outlined a number of vacancies that had not been filled, a number of positions that have been cut from the department. I would like to ask that you table for us a copy of all the positions that will be removed from your department; any positions that are budgeted for that are presently vacant and not been filled to date. I ask that this information be tabled to us before our final debate of concurrence on the Budget in the House of Assembly, which will be probably within the next week.

MR. RIDEOUT: That information is readily available and can be provided and will be provided to the Committee. I can say this, when you take out the vacant positions that were in the department I think we ended up with redundancies or layoffs of eighty-seven people. We are hiring back the maintenance supervisors in new positions, so the net effect for the department at the end of the day will be fourteen positions. That is what it was when we did it up, fourteen. That may change.

MS JONES: Fourteen positions or fourteen people who will be laid off?

MR. RIDEOUT: Fourteen people.

MS JONES: Okay, but how many positions will be redundant or cut altogether?

MR. RIDEOUT: I am leaving out the maintenance supervisors, but I know there are three or four in stores. If you know it, Keith -

MR. HEALEY: Yes, I can give you the global number without the -

MS JONES: Yes, because I would like to have it tendered so I can see the exact positions that have been cut.

MR. RIDEOUT: We will do that, yes.

MS JONES: Just in a whole number, if you would.

MR. HEALEY: We are talking in the range of ninety positions, seventy staff, and, as the Minister indicated, sixty-four of those are eligible to come back in other positions. Some of those will be seasonal.

MS JONES: Now, the maintenance supervisors, I understand, will not be automatically rehired from the ones who are laid off. I understand that the skill classifications that are required for the jobs have been changed. Is that true?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, there is a process here. Can we get Gary to come up, because the process if fairly complicated. I must say, I find it complicated myself. It involves the Public Service Commission.

MS JONES: Didn't you create it?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well no, I didn't create how we are dealing with it. There is a process here which involves the Public Service Commission and a clearing house and that kind of thing, that Gary is living with every day. Maybe he could enlighten all of us, including me.

MR. TILLER: We have had consultations with the Public Service Commission and there is going to be a three-stage process for filling these newly created positions.

The first stage is going to be a competition restricted to those individuals who were impacted by the Budget exercise, those being individuals directly related to the maintenance supervisor positions, engineering technician positions, and the superintendent of operations positions. Through the Public Service Commission those people will be eligible to apply for these new competitions and will be assessed for the positions. We are optimistic that through that process some of these new positions will be filled.

The second stage of the process will the Public Service Commission Job Clearing Center, in which the Public Service Commission will identify those people who are permanent employees through this exercise who are eligible for this new competition. They will also be assessed, and again we presume that some of those positions will be filled through the Clearing Centre. Any of those positions that are not filled through either of those exercises will then go to a regular internal government job competition that will be open to all employees of government as well as those on layoff status, those people impacted by this exercise, to apply. Hopefully, the remaining positions, if there are any at that time, will be filled through that internal job competition.

There is a potential for a fourth piece. If, after those three, all the jobs still are not filled, then there is a public competition which will be advertised through the provincial media and anybody is entitled to apply, and we hopefully will fill any balance, if there are any, through that.

MS JONES: That will take about a year, by the time you get all of that done, won't it? How long is that going to take? You have to go through four different stages to fill those positions.

MR. TILLER: Our plan is to have it completed by - well, with the exception, if there is a public competition, if there is a need for a public competition, that is -

MS JONES: The three stages.

MR. TILLER: The three stages, by the end of June.

MS JONES: Okay.

CHAIR: Ms Jones, your time has expired.

MS JONES: Yes.

CHAIR: Mr. Andersen.

MR. ANDERSEN: At this time, Mr. Chair, he is here filling in for Mr. Sweeney. While I do not agree with it, I will give up some of my time to let him ask a few questions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Under duress.

CHAIR: There are a lot of things Mr. Reid does that we do not agree with.

AN HON. MEMBER: Other than that, you are welcome, Gerry.

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is good to see that I get a better welcome from you than I do my colleague.

CHAIR: You never have to worry about your enemies, (inaudible) friends.

MR. REID: I want to first of all thank you, Minister, for allowing me the opportunity to ask some questions.

I noticed yesterday afternoon - late - that you sent out an advisory or a clip that you had the situation on Long Island settled. Does that mean that we - when I say we, Fogo Island and Change Islands - will get the Sound of Islay?

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, that is what it means. The Island Joiner is now on route to St. Brendan's.

MR. TILLER: She should have gotten there by around two this morning, (inaudible) arrival date.

MR. RIDEOUT: So the configuration that we hoped to have in place Sunday will hopefully be in place today and Fogo Island will have the Sound of Islay, and the Earl W. Windsor will start limping its way into St. John's. We have our fingers crossed that it is nothing more complicated than an oil seal, but we won't know until she gets out of the water.

MR. REID: Well, I hope so.

So, you haven't determined the schedule yet? Because we are just started into the peak of the processing season out there and it is very important. The Earl W. Windsor used to take six tractors. I think, combined on both of those, now we can take what, four? I think it is three or four on the Sound of Islay and one on the Hamilton Sound.

OFFICIAL:You can probably take two on the Hamilton Sound. It depends on the height, because you have some height restrictions, so two and three would be the maximum, provided they fit, of course.

MR. REID: We have had problems with the Hamilton Sound, depending on the tides and stuff, because, while they may fit, if the tide is low and she has to go up, she will hit. Hopefully, if we find there are backups in trucks not being able to get to the plant, or away from it, you might be able to rejig the schedule later on?

MR. RIDEOUT: We will do anything and everything to make it as practical as we can, as long as the traffic there will run, and -

MR. REID: Within reason.

MR. RIDEOUT: Within reason, yes.

MR. REID: If someone is deliberately going to miss a run or whatever, obviously, if it does not -

MR. RIDEOUT: We are saying the same thing to St. Brendan's. My colleague has already been in touch with me on that. If the traffic is there, we will run it, and hopefully this is short term rather than anything extensive.

MR. REID: I have heard from my district this week that, in the past, when someone has been ill or off, we have replaced those workers with call-ins. I have been told this week, that is no longer going to be the practice. Is that correct?

OFFICIAL: Which workers?

MR. REID: It could be any of them, as far as I know.

OFFICIAL: The ferry workers?

MR. REID: Yes, I am sorry.

OFFICIAL: Actually, we have to replace ferry workers if they are off sick. We are mandated under ship safety to have a minimum crew size.

MR. REID: That is right.

OFFICIAL: So there is certainly no initiative -

MR. REID: What if they take an unscheduled day off, for another reason? Are they still going to be replaced?

OFFICIAL: If they are off sick, if they call in sick, they will be replaced.

MR. REID: Yes, but if they take the day off, annual leave?

OFFICIAL: Annual leave? Well, that is even easier to handle because that is a scheduled thing.

MR. REID: So that is not true, which is good -

OFFICIAL: That is absolutely not true.

MR. REID: - because it affects the number of passengers you can take.

OFFICIAL: Absolutely.

MR. REID: Okay, that is good.

MR. RIDEOUT: It is amazing, really, as a brief comment, I suppose, the situation is so fluid that rumours fly everywhere. The other day, I had a call saying the rumour was that we were moving our Transportation headquarters from Grand Falls to Gander - never seen the radar screen, as far as I know, but yet it is out there floating around.

MR. REID: Well, I am glad that is not happening because with the smaller vessels (inaudible) we are not going to get the capacity. I know in the past we have run into it when you put a bus aboard, with eighty students on it, that we have had to try and hire extra employees to accommodate the number of people who have been on the vessel; because there is a restriction, like you said. Anyway, that is not (inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: The other thing we are looking at too, Gerry, in that regard, is trying to develop a casual call-in list of employees for our ferry operations. Right now it is a management nightmare, as you know, if somebody calls in close to a shift time, trying to scramble and find somebody. If we had a casual call-in list, something like substitute teachers, to use a comparison, you know, the list is there, they are trained, they are skilled, and they are probably available if they are not doing something else, we think that would help out the management who are out there.

MR. REID: We have some on Fogo Island, and we have lots more if you need them, who have the MED courses and all the rest of it.

MR. RIDEOUT: They could be good seasonal jobs.

MR. REID: Oh, definitely.

MR. RIDEOUT: We are actively pursuing that now. Cluney and I have had discussions on it and we are pursuing it.

MR. REID: On the rates, Yvonne said you created something there a while ago. I don't believe you created the mess we have with our rates this year. I think that was Dr. Death or someone. The Premier promised the people when he went to Fogo Island, and also in his Blue Book, that he was going to bring ferry rates in line with road transportation, which would mean from Fogo Island to Farewell, I suppose, $0.50 in any vehicle. Instead of having the rates eliminated, we have actually gotten what the Minister of Finance said, a 25 per cent increase in the next four years, starting with a 10 per cent increase this year. Obviously, everyone in my district is opposed to those rate increases.

The Minister of Finance said there was a 10 per cent increase this year. Can someone explain to me how he calculates that? I will give you two examples. The fare for an adult passenger on Fogo Island went from $5.50 to $6.50 this year, and by my calculations that is more than 10 per cent. It is more like 18 per cent. For our seniors, on the same trip, it went from $3.00 to $3.50 which is 16 per cent or 17 per cent. I don't know if that was another misquote that the Minister of Finance made on Budget Day or not, but he did say it.

MR. RIDEOUT: Let me say a couple of things on that, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the fare increases are a budgetary item and they were looked at in the context that, in terms of passengers and passenger vehicles, there had not been an increase in the provincial ferry rates since the early 1990s. In terms of commercial traffic there had not been an increase since the mid-1980s. Even though the cost of the service was continuing to increase, there had not been any corresponding increase in the tariffs.

In terms of the percentage, the percentage will at the end of the period be 25 per cent. It is 10 per cent and then it is rounded to the nearest quarter, I believe is the way it goes.

OFFICIAL: No, not the nearest quarter, it is rounded up to the highest quarter.

MR. RIDEOUT: To the next highest quarter. If that is 15 per cent or 16 per cent this year, what it means is that in the last year there will be no increase. It will be done so that the increase is 25 per cent over the period of time, but there could be a variance, Gerry, in year over year on that. That means the next year's one will be lower or some people will get no increase at all in the last year. That is the way we have calculated it out, isn't it?

OFFICIAL: That is correct.

MR. RIDEOUT: If I am wrong on that, you can -

OFFICIAL: That is correct. Just to clarify it, I guess part of the reason for that is that at the kiosk at each of the ferry terminals we do not have -

MR. REID: (Inaudible) change.

OFFICIAL: Right. Making change is difficult. We don't have debit machines and those sorts of things.

MR. REID: You should have rounded them down instead of up.

OFFICIAL: I guess we did what we did historically, we rounded up, and that is what we did this time.

MR. RIDEOUT: We are adamant in saying that the tariff increase will be 25 per cent. It won't be 27 per cent of 28 per cent of 29 per cent.

OFFICIAL: That is correct, and I will just use the example, Mr. Reid, of the $3.00 fare: 10 per cent of $3.00 is $3.30, so it got rounded up to $3.50. Next year a 5 per cent increase again, so it is a 15 per cent increase, and 15 per cent of $3.00 is $3.45. Rounded up it is $3.50. In fact, in 2005-2006, there will be no increase.

MR. REID: I never did understand how these ferry rates operate even when I was in government myself. I think Change Islands to Farewell is about the same distance as Bell Island to Portugal Cove. How do you calculate the difference between the rates for Change Islands and Bell Island? Is there distance involved?

OFFICIAL: Yes, I have done a little bit of research since I have been involved in marine, and in fact back in the mid-early 1990s when our proposed rate structure was put in place the distance was incorporated. You are correct, the return trip from Farewell to Change Islands is roughly five kilometres, approximately the same as Bell Island.

MR. REID: Yes. The rate for vehicle and a driver to Bell Island is $5.50 and it is $15.00.

OFFICIAL: Correct. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that when that rate structure was developed back in, I believe it was, 1994-1995, there were proposed rate increases for all of the ferry services. What happened is that some of the rate increases occurred in some locations, and in other locations they did not because of public lobbying and that sort of thing.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bell Island being one of them.

OFFICIAL: Bell Island being a prime example. I think Premier Wells -

MR. REID: Because they are closer to the Confederation Building, and I remember the demonstrations. That doesn't make it fair. Clyde didn't make it fair, and neither are we, or you.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is right, but I want to add to that. What we have decided to do - again, Cluney and I have had discussions on this and I have given instructions - we are doing a full review of our tariffs (inaudible), what factors should go into determining the fare. We are bringing in - I think we are looking for somebody outside - a consultant to look at the whole fare structure for us, Gerry, because, you are right, it is not fair. Bell Island can put 1,000 people around this building any day of the week and governments of the day listen to that, but Fogo Island cannot, and certainly Labrador cannot. As a result, when the last round of increases happened in the 1990s, pretty well all of them got done, I think, except Bell Island, wasn't it? Bell Island didn't get done, I know that, and the record shows that, and that is why there is this variance - so significant a variance - that you have identified between the trips of the same distance. I have instructed Cluney to get people to look at that for us and try to put some balance back into it.

MR. REID: Especially in light of the fact that they get twenty trips a day and the maximum we will get is five.

MR. RIDEOUT: Now, we also have to keep in mind, in fairness, that the Bell Island operation is, I guess, the only one, really, in the Province, that you could stall as a commuter operation. That is a factor that has to go into the balance as well.

MR. REID: I would appreciate, when you are doing that review, if you would look at the cost for transport trucks.

MR. RIDEOUT: We will look at it all, yes.

MR. REID: Because it is my understanding that some of the transport trucks that are going back and forth to Fogo Island are three times as long as a vehicle - a car or a truck, a pickup truck - and they are paying five to six to seven to eight times as much, and it is not based on weight; it is based on space on the ferry. We are putting companies out of business.

I have dealt with a couple of individuals who live on Fogo Island - you probably know them - fellows who operate a trucking company. One of them has eight vehicles, and with the fishing season on right now he has at least eight vehicles travelling back and forth there each day, and I think he is paying somewhere in the area of $160 a trip, or something, for a transport truck. That is a lot of money, especially with a 25 per cent increase on it, and everyone is going to feel the cost of that because obviously the price of goods on the Island will go up. Not on that, but it is having a negative competitive impact on the plants out there, because they have to pay the trucking or the ferry fees. Someone has to pick it up. It is not good in that light, so if you could have a look at that when you are reviewing it, it certainly would be appreciated.

I know there are a number of truckers who would like to have a chat with you about it, because I gave them a commitment that at least we would look at it.

MR. RIDEOUT: I had representation from, I don't know if it was the Independent Truckers' Association, but it was one of the associations anyway, about the rates; they wanted them rolled back or frozen. I said: Look, I can't give that commitment. This is a Budget item, it was announced in the Budget, and it is in place until the government, as a whole, decides to do something different. We will do this review of the tariff for the whole Province, our provincial ferry system, and see if, at the end of the day, we can't have something that is more consistent and more equitable than what we have right now.

MR. REID: I think Weldon has some information on my courthouse in Fogo.

MR. MOORES: While there are some offices closing in the building, we have no intention of closing that building. Certainly, that is where it sits at this point in time.

MR. REID: Good. Thank you.

The hospital on Fogo Island, you fellows own that, the Department of Works, don't you?

MR. RIDEOUT: We don't operate it. I suppose we did oversee the building of it, did we?.

MR. OSMOND: I would have to check to see if we actually own it, because there are different owners depending upon the circumstances sometimes.

MR. REID: Any idea when it is going to be ready for occupancy?

MR. OSMOND: That would be up to the Department of Health to determine.

MR. REID: The Department of Health. I cannot get an answer out of her.

MR. RIDEOUT: Weldon, are we the owners of the building, do you know?

MR. MOORES: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: Nobody knows. Don't you own all government buildings?

MR. RIDEOUT: No. Some board owned buildings and that we don't own.

MR. OSMOND: I should think that we do this one. I know when the land was purchased we purchased it, so I would think we probably have title to the property.

MR. REID: I suppose you are aware there is still an expropriation battle on that land, are you? That is a difficult one.

OFFICIAL: Once the hospital goes operational, it will be operated, unless they change the board structure, by the Central board. The Central board is the one that will make the determination of when it will be operating.

MR. REID: I imagine that everything in that was contracted, even the beds, right?

OFFICIAL: It was all brought by public tender.

MR. REID: It is a brand new facility. Apparently they came with twenty beds and set them up some time ago. Under the cloak of darkness the other night someone out of Gander came with a van, slunk into the hospital and stole ten of them. They were gone on the first boat off the island the next morning.

MR. RIDEOUT: Slunk, is that a good word?

MR. REID: I don't know, it sounds good. It sounds better than sneaked, snuck or snook. Anyway, they took ten of the beds and they are gone, but it won't happen again. There is an alarm system out there now set up on the island amongst its people.

The causeway, Minister, on Twillingate Island, we are still getting letters about that one.

MR. RIDEOUT: We are certainly going to be looking at capital repair work on the Elliot Causeway, Gerry, when I am putting my capital budget in place for this year. I know is it on the list that you submitted and it certainly will be considered. I haven't got it finalized yet, nor is it ready to go to Cabinet really. It has been delayed a bit, but we are hoping to have it done by around the end of the month.

MR. REID: The surface of that is such now that it is dangerous. Not just the guardrail, but the surface has gone such that people are swerving all over the place. If it were cold now we would probably have more casualties. Seriously, the surface has just disintegrated over the winter. That is it for me.

Oh, what about the Long Island causeway? Are you going ahead with that?

MR. RIDEOUT: It is deferred indefinitely.

MR. REID: Deferred indefinitely. Does that mean cancelled?

MR. RIDEOUT: I did not say that, but it is deferred indefinitely.

MR. REID: That is a good choice of words.

That is it for me.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Reid.

Welcome back, Mr. Sweeney.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, can we have a short little break?

CHAIR: How short is short, because you cannot figure out what deferred means?

MR. RIDEOUT: Is it short indefinitely?

CHAIR: Okay, we will give a short five minute recess. How is that?

CHAIR: Order, please!

I will call the meeting back to order. Mr. Andersen is up next.

MR. ANDERSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We will go back to page 75, under Mail Services. We see that Salaries has increased by $56,000. Why the increase?

MR. RIDEOUT: Actually, budget over budget, the Salaries increased from $412,000 to $434,000. So, it is not that amount, but if you are looking at the difference between $412,000 Budget last year and the $378,000 actually spent, again, the estimates are up due to the annualization of prior year salary increases. The Revised was down because of reduction in overtime expenditures. The reason it is up over $412,000 last year to $434,000 this year is prior year salary increases.

MR. ANDERSEN: Then if you go down to .06, Purchased Services, an increase of nearly $64,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: With all due respect, Mr. Andersen, the Budget figure last year was $179,000 and the Budget figure this year is $179,000. Now, there was a difference in the Budget last year and the Revised actually spent, and that was because there was a freeze on discretionary spending, and there was $40,000 for the new mail sorter which was not done. So that explains the difference in Budget and Revised, but budget over budget last year and this year are the same.

MR. ANDERSEN: So, if you look a lot of these subheads, which was the revised budget for last year as to what you are putting in this year, that if you do come in, basically, the same as last year at pretty much that you budgeted at, you will have a hell of a good surplus of money.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, we are not budgeting for that. I mean, there were certain discretionary items in a number of subheads that were not proceeded with last year. For example, like I mentioned, the mail sorter, which will very likely be proceeded with this year.

MR. ANDERSEN: We will move on to 1.2.05. If we look at Information Technology, $155,000, is that a new expenditure?

MR. RIDEOUT: No, this is that reclassification of tangible capital assets business again that Mr. Healey explained to us earlier. Keith, do you want to -

MR. HEALEY: Yes, that is correct.

MR. RIDEOUT: - elaborate on that because, like I said, I do not profess to understand it. It is not new money. It is the way present budgets are currently reclassified.

MR. HEALEY: That is correct, minister. In fact, that $155,000 under last year's accounting would have been shown in 1.2.02.12. As I explained before, that total then would have been $577,600 as compared to the $781,000 which we had last year. So, it is just a reclassification from current account to capital account, that $155,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: So, it is an accounting procedure?

MR. HEALEY: Yes.

MR. ANDERSEN: Again, that would be my next question. If we look at 1.2.05, an increase of $155,000, again (inaudible) I was going to revert to 1.2.02 where there was a decrease of almost half a million dollars. In 1.2.02.12, again, there was a decrease of $492,000 but then when you turn the page you see an increase of $155,000.

MR. HEALEY: Yes, that $155,000 offsets part of the $400,000 decrease. As I say, year over year the IT budget is not always the same. If we complete a project in one year, we do not get funding to develop it in the next year.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay. We will move on to 2.1.01, under Salaries we see a decrease of $558,000 and, at the same time, Purchased Services has increased by $395,000. Is this for layoffs or for contracting out?

MR. RIDEOUT: On 01, on Salaries, Mr. Andersen, the estimates are down due to expenditure reduction. There has been a consolidation of engineering support staff and the elimination of five superintendents of operations which is part of the announcement that we made a few weeks ago.

MR. ANDERSEN: You say five?

MR. RIDEOUT: Five superintendents of operations, yes. Our revised is up by $119,000. You notice in the budgeted there was $6.3 million, the revised is almost $6.6 million, and the revised is up due to severance payouts of $119,000 approximately. That is the explanation on the Salaries items.

Under 06, Purchased Services, the estimates are up to reflect funding for - we are putting in a new system called Road Weather Information System, RWIS, and the total program is $433,400, which we are cost-sharing fifty-fifty with the federal government through Transport Canada. That system enables us to have high-tech monitors in the roadbed that will tell us when is the optimum time to apply salt and other winter maintenance operations. The City of St. John's has been using this system now for the last two years and it has made tremendous progress. There are other provinces into it as well. We have made the decision this year to go forward with installing that system. We are negotiating now the final details of the agreement with Transport Canada. That is why there is this increase in the Purchased Services vote, to provide the money for installing this system throughout the Island and Labrador.

MR. ANDERSEN: Grant and Subsidies, under 2.1.01.10, decreased by almost $500,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is $240,000 budgeted and there was $750,000 spent?

MR. ANDERSEN: I am talking about 2.1.01.10.

MR. RIDEOUT: Grand and Subsidies.

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: Budgeted was $240,000, and the revised last year was $750,000. The government budgeted $240,000 and actually spent $750,000, and this year we are budgeting $300,000. There is an increase of $60,000 over the amounts budgeted, from last year of $240,000 to this year $300,000. The revised, the amount spent, is another matter, if you have questions on that.

MR. ANDERSEN: The question is: What is it for?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, in 2004-2005 the snowmobile trail grooming grants of $240,000 were paid to the development associations of Eagle River, White Bear, Battle Harbour, and the Towns of Makkovik, Rigolet, Postville, and there were local road grants of $60,000.

Revised is up due to a one-time purchase of graders for Northern Labrador. That is why the big increase in the Revised figure, Mr. Andersen. The grader for Postville was $133,200; Rigolet $144,500; and Hopedale $129,700.

MR. ANDERSEN: Didn't that money for these graders come out of the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund, which is totally separate from...?

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes - don't ask me to explain the accounting; Keith can - but there has to be a flow through of cash. We do it and then, I guess, the fund is paid back.

If you go down to the same subsection, Mr. Andersen, 02, you will see Revenue - Provincial $510,000 comes back, so when you get down to your bottom line that comes off; but, for accounting purposes, you have to put it out on one end and take it back on another, but you are right, it does end up eventually comes out of the LTIF.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay, because under 2.1.02.02., that was a question I had. Where is the $475,000 provincial revenue coming from?

MR. RIDEOUT: That is from the LTIF.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay.

Under 2.1.02., under Salaries we see a decrease again of roughly about $24,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: Sign Shop?

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: Again this was an expenditure reduction initiative. There was a position here, I believe, Cluney, a clerical position that was eliminated.

MR. ANDERSEN: Under 2.1.03., under Salaries, we see a decrease of pretty well over a million dollars. Why is this?

MR. RIDEOUT: Expenditure reduction initiatives, realignment of resources from salaries to operating accounts; this is where they allowed us to keep the salary money for road maintenance, wasn't it?

OFFICIAL: That is correct.

MR. RIDEOUT: We had a situation in our road maintenance program where we had all kinds of salary dollars - not all kinds, but significant salary dollars - and over the last number of years a situation developed where there was money for salaries but very little money for materials, so we had a bunch of people out there with no crushed stone and all those kinds of things to do maintenance on our roads. We reviewed that this year and offered to do some - we also had some imbalances in the system where you had more operators than you had labourers, or in some situations you had more labourers than you had operators, and operators will not do labourers work and vice versa.

We tried to bring some balance to the system where we would eliminate some of those salaried positions but requested to keep the savings to go into our maintenance operation so we would have more money for material, and Treasury Board and Cabinet allowed us to do that. As a result, there is a million dollar reduction in salaries but that million dollars turns up in this Budget in those figures in maintenance material program expansion.

Cluney, have I explained it properly?

MR. MERCER: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: I know that is the intent, and that is what happened.

If you go down to Supplies, Mr. Andersen, you will see that there is an additional million dollars in Supplies, and that is where the savings from the salary rejigging went. We saved money in Salaries but Treasury Board allowed us to keep it for materials and supplies so that we can hopefully do a bit better job maintaining road maintenance.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay. We will move on to 2.1.04.

MR. RIDEOUT: Under 2.1.04, Snow and Ice Control.

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes. Again, Salaries decreased by $125,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: Actually, last year the Budget amount was $10.6 million and the Revised, we actually spent $10.8 million, and we are budgeting this year $10.7 million, so our actual Budget figure has increased over last year, and again that is due to the annualization of prior year salary increases. We are not budgeting less money; we are budgeting more money than the previous budget year and our Revised, I guess, would reflect overtime and that kind of thing.

OFFICIAL: Severance payouts.

MR. RIDEOUT: And severance payouts. So the budget is actually slightly more, Mr. Andersen, than it was budgeted last year.

MR. ANDERSEN: But the actual amount of money that was spent last year, though, what you are forecasting this year is less.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, the Revised is less because there was $180,000 spent last year in severance payouts that we will not anticipate paying out this year.

MR. ANDERSEN: If you move down the line to Supplies, again, a tremendous decrease here. We are almost -

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, last year there was $11.7 million budgeted, actually $12.7 million spent, and this year we are budgeting $11.4 million, and that is explained due to expenditure reductions in the elimination of road maintenance on Class 4 cabin roads. Remember, that was in the Budget announcement? We announced that we were not going to do summer or winter maintenance after this spring on Class 4 cabin roads, so that accounts for the saving.

MR. ANDERSEN: If we move on to Purchased Services, we are looking at probably, I guess, from the revised last year to almost three-quarters of a million dollars. Does this mean that some road maintenance will not be maintained on some of our provincial roads?

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, it is the elimination of the winter road maintenance contract from Red Bay to Lodge Bay, $1.5 million. Remember it was announced in the Budget that for the next few seasons that road would not be kept open in the winter? That is the savings that would result from that, $1.5 million.

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, what is your plan for that road?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, the plan is to build a depot in where the trouble area is. That is the first part of the plan and that way you would not have to be moving equipment - how far is it, Cluney, to get into - perhaps you can give the technical details here.

MR. MERCER: Well, there is about eighty-three kilometres between Lodge Bay and Red Bay. The most difficult area consists of about a forty-three kilometre section in the middle. So, in the absence of not having facilities, a depot in that problematic area, a fair amount of time is spent, actually, travelling equipment in from both ends, from the Red Bay end and the Lodge Bay end each and every day. The terrain is very barren. There is no protection. The first sign of weather turning to the worst, then the crew or crews have to, for their own safety, head back out. So it is translating into an inefficient operation. So, to make it efficient, what is needed is a facility to have its men and equipment so that when conditions are conducive to working, then they are able to work in the tough area without having to travel up to thirty kilometres to get to it. If you are talking about travelling with a snowblower and a loader, I mean that is a little better than a walking pace. So, it takes quite a bit of time to traverse that -

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, I am sure that my colleague from Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair is going to ask questions but, again, what you have announced in the Budget that the road will be closed during the winter months for the next five or six years?

MR. RIDEOUT: I do not know if it will be five or six years. I mean, it is an item that would be revisited in the Budget on an annual basis, I would suspect, but we are progressing with plans to construct a depot and have men and equipment in the center of the problem area where they would not have all this travel back and forth that Mr. Mercer has mentioned.

We have two or three depots that have to be built as the Trans-Labrador Highway progresses in Labrador. Then the plan is to proceed with tender calls for, in this case, winter maintenance. We are planning to call tenders over a longer period of time so that contractors would have a longer period of time to amortize their costs and so on. So, that is the general long-term plan that we are working on.

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, as you are well aware, the road from Goose Bay to Cartwright was held up because of, I guess, concerns and talk of the alternate route.

MR. RIDEOUT: Right.

MR. ANDERSEN: A lot of people, I think, agree with the alternate route. Everybody will do it to help save the Sandwich Bay watershed and a lot of fish (inaudible). In the meantime, minister, don't you think it would be more appropriate for you and your government to sit down with the people in the riding of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair - after all the great difficulty that road has caused - to discuss the possibility of an alternate route? Because what people are saying is that maybe if there were a winter road further inland than the problems that we have in that section of road, which you are going to close - I can only say to you, minister, that for all the years they have lived in isolation, to come back out now after such a long wait to cut that road off, then I would compare it to taking the road around Goobies and destroying about two kilometers of the road and saying to the people of Newfoundland: Well, you carry on and do your business the best way you can. That is a similar thing.

Why wouldn't the government take the approach that - obviously, from all the concerns that we have - and I think all people realize it - that there are things we can do. Rather than wait, why wouldn't your government or your department take a role and work with the people in that area to discuss an alternate route, whether it be a winter road?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, there was some discussion on the winter road proposals back, I guess, first when we became the government. The advice which I received is that the professionals in the department did not think that the proposals would make much difference, if any, to the overall operation. That piece of road that was closed for sixty-six days last year, I think it was closed for seventy-two days the year before. So, it is not the fault of one government or the other. It is the fault of the elements. The traffic offering at the moment is very low but, obviously, that will increase when Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway is completed. Our plan is to try to use that time to have something in place that is of a more permanent nature that would do a better job of keeping that section of road open. It is always going to be difficult. I do not think anybody is going to try to get around that but we do think that with the capital improvements on the depot and new equipment contracts and so on, we can substantially improve it for the time when the traffic offering is going to be significantly higher than it is at the moment. So, that is the kind of thinking process that we have gone through.

Cluney?

MR. MERCER: Yes, I just want to add; in addition to the two things the minister just mentioned, we also have to look at - you know, some of the rock cuts are, indeed, giving us some trouble as far as filling in with snow because the rock cuts are six and seven metres deep. As the minister alluded to, last year there was a suggestion of going over the top of some of the rock cuts. When you are going to have two sections of road to maintain, maybe a better approach may be to, in fact, implode some of the rock cuts to widen them out so that the wind can come in and come back out again, from a technical perspective, as well as raising the grade up so the amount of depression that is going to fill in and the width of the depression is a lot larger. The wind can swoop in and swoop out and you would not have this problem that we have with rock cuts. I think to address the problems that are up there, so you can do it as most efficiently as possible, it is going to require, I guess, some action on a lot of fronts; not only the depot and not only the long-term contracts, but doing something with rock cuts as well. If, in fact, there are sections of the road, a certain number of kilometres that may need to get realigned, that may very well be the most economical way to go. What needs to happen is that, over the next little while there will be a detailed analysis done of that problem area with a view to, how do we deliver the service most economically? I think that is a challenge that we will face over the next short while.

MR. ANDERSEN: The last part that I will say on this is that, when you look at the upkeep of the road that has been there for years on the South Coast of Labrador, down as far as Red Bay, from my understanding they have never had any great difficulty over the years keeping that section of the road open. Except for the forty-three kilometres, the rest of the road from Port Hope Simpson on down right through to Cartwright, there is very little difficulty in keeping the road open. As a matter of fact, the road right from Happy Valley-Goose Bay right to the Quebec boarder, no problems whatsoever. Obviously, the Alaskan highway - again, it is a parcel of land here that is about forty-three kilometres. I do not think that anyone should have to wait for any long period of time to have that fixed because, Minister, it was there last year, it is there this year, and, regardless of when you come back, that is going to be there again. I think good consultation with the people down there, to me, I think there could be a far better resolution to the people than the one that is being proposed by your government.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, we are not abandoning the thing and doing nothing. As Cluney outlined, and as I outlined, we have a plan to address and correct as much as we can the problems that we are facing with that particular section of road. The location of the road itself is done now. There was a lot of debate before the road was actually built, about the route, whether is should go the coastal route or whether it should be further inland, I believe, in through the Pinware River Valley, but those decisions are taken now and the road is where it is and we have to try to do the best we can with the resources available to us to address it. There is not much point of having it closed for sixty-odd days this year and seventy-odd days last year. You have to try to address it, and we are going to be trying to address it in the ways that we have outlined, certainly in terms of advice from people in the area.

The Combined Councils have spoken on this matter a number of times that I have met with them, in the few months that I had been the minister, and they have offered their view as to possible solutions, and what should be done, and that kind of thing. We have heard advice from people who are familiar with the area, as well as our own people and the contractors in the area, so we propose to try to correct it over the next while.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Andersen.

Ms Jones.

MS JONES: Just to go back to a couple of sections that Wally was covering, on page 76, 2.1.0.1., you guys announced in the Budget the weather information system, $430,000 for a three-year project, that would total $1 million. Is that $1 million over the three years or is that $1 million annually and the other $570,000 would come from the federal government?

MR. RIDEOUT: I will ask Cluney to give the detail on that.

MR. MERCER: The program is actually a $1.2 million program over three years, and that is a total program cost of $1.2 million, 50 per cent of which would be shared revenue from the federal government, so it is a 50-50 shared program.

MS JONES: So the feds will actually put $600,000 into the program.

MR. MERCER: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is for equipment, isn't it?

MR. MERCER: That is for equipment and installation of the hardware.

MS JONES: Under 2.1.01.10. Grants and Subsidies, you said $240,000 of that will be for the snowmobile grants in the North Coast and South Coast of Labrador. Is that money clawed back from the Labrador Transportation Fund?

MR. RIDEOUT: I don't think so.

MS JONES: No?

MR. RIDEOUT: No?

MR. MERCER: No, it is not. As a matter of fact, just to clarify, actually, the $300,000 budgeted in 2004-2005 is the amount this year for snowmobile grants. If you recall, there was $60,000 that had been taken out for a grant to White Bear Development Association as a result of some repairs that had been done in a previous budget; that has been now restored again.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is put back, yes.

MS JONES: For this year?

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes.

MS JONES: So, they will actually get their grant this year?

MR. RIDEOUT: They will get the full amount this year because, as you know, there was an arrangement negotiated by -

MS JONES: Well, I was not aware, no, until the Combined Council meeting.

MR. RIDEOUT: Right. My understanding is that there was an agreement reached between certain parties, that is how it would be done for this past year, but that has passed now and this year we will go back to what the regular situation was.

MS JONES: So, the full funding will be restored to the original amounts for all the associations?

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, that is correct.

MS JONES: Okay.

The local roads grant there, the $60,000, who is eligible for that?

MR. RIDEOUT: Small isolated communities that have kind of a walking road. For example, on the Island what comes to mind is Southeast Bight. Yes, I know they have - I had a letter from them just recently. Generally they have a local roads committee or something, I think, don't they, Cluney, and we give them small amounts of money for local road maintenance? I will ask Cluney to speak to it a bit further.

MR. MERCER: Yes, that is correct. There is an actual list that we could actually provide, I guess, of the communities that receive, or have historically received, local roads grants. They are usually not large sums of money. They are, like, you know, $3,000 or $5,000 that they do to upgrade their walkways and that sort of thing. In your area, I believe Norman Bay may be one of the ones that receives that grant - I am not exactly sure - but those -

MS JONES: They didn't have a road until last year.

MR. MERCER: - those types of communities.

MR. RIDEOUT: Whether they had a road or not, they may have had bridges or walkways or trails or something that they (inaudible).

MS JONES: Well, they had a path.

MR. RIDEOUT: A path, yes. That is what we used to call it, too.

MS JONES: They have only had a road in the last year; the government built a road in this community. Yes, if you could table where those grants are going. Are decisions made this year on where the money is going to be spent?

MR. RIDEOUT: No.

MR. MERCER: No, they have not been made. I guess it has been historical in the past, that those who qualify have typically gotten, year over year over year, a certain designated amount of funding based on the number of kilometres a footpath or a local road that they have.

MS JONES: Okay. If you could provide me with the information, I would appreciate that.

MR. RIDEOUT: We will get that for you.

MS JONES: Section 2.1.03, I think it is, wherever we are. I want to make sure I am in the right place here. Purchased Services, 2.1.04, the winter road maintenance for Red Bay to Lodge Bay.

MR. RIDEOUT: That would be 06, right?

MS JONES: Yes, 06, Purchased Services.

MR. RIDEOUT: Purchased Services, yes.

MS JONES: A couple of questions, I guess, further to what my colleague for Torngat Mountains has already raised, and to say to you, Minister, that I am not at all pleased with your decision to not proceed with any effort, even, to snow clear the eighty-three kilometres of road between Red Bay and Lodge Bay within this fiscal year. It certainly does not sit well with my constituents by any means.

I represent a district where people have spent most of their lives in isolation of one another. It is only in recent years that we have had the privilege, we feel, to be able to have road connections between our communities. We feel that there has been no effort, and very little thought, put into your decision. I guess it is a chance for you, today, to tell me how much thought you did put into it, by first of all telling me who you consulted with before you made the decision to close the road, and where did you get the advice, where did the recommendation come from?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, I take responsibility for the decision, as minister. I consulted with my officials on this problem of the Red Bay-Lodge Bay road on numerous occasions, sometimes on a daily basis over the past winter. This piece of road was closed for sixty-six days this winter, and seventy-two days during your watch last year. It is not something that we are not aware of.

In terms of advice on how to approach it, I think we have outlined here this morning our long-term approach to this. We are going to construct a depot more in the center of the problem area, we are going to do a longer term tender, and we are going to perhaps widen the rock cuts and raise the grade. We do have a plan.

As I said, this will be done on a year to year basis. In the interim, with the present traffic offering on that piece of road, we think that this decision is warranted at the present time. It is not meant to be long term and it will not be long term, but in the interim we will be working to try to make improvements so that when we do get back to doing winter maintenance on that section of road, hopefully we will be more successful in having it open for longer periods of time or closed for shorter periods of time than it has been in the past.

That is the view that my officials have shared with me and with which I have concurred. Consequently, these are the decisions that have flown from that.

MS JONES: The announcement that was made in concurrence with the Budget that the section of road would be closed until Phase III of the highway is completed no longer stands. You are telling me -

MR. RIDEOUT: I do not remember what the wording of the Budget was now but whatever the wording of the Budget was, that is what it is, but we are not going to wait until the opening of Phase III before we start the process of trying to fix this. That process is underway at the moment and will carry on over the next few years.

MS JONES: You said that you have a plan, can I ask that you table the plan? I would like to have a copy of it and -

MR. RIDEOUT: What do you mean table the plan? The plan at the moment is discussion -

MS JONES: I would like for you to give me -

MR. RIDEOUT: Written notes of the plan, is that what you mean?

MS JONES: You just told me you have a plan. You just said: I have a plan to deal with that. I would like to have a copy of the plan.

MR. RIDEOUT: The plan is as we articulated it here this morning. Now, whether that is committed to a hard copy or not, I cannot say. I have not seen it. I mean, this is what we have talked about. This is what our plan is. This is what we are hoping to do. This is the plan.

MS JONES: Can you tell me the time frame in which you will move to implement it?

MR. RIDEOUT: I said that this will certainly happen over the course of the construction of Phase III. We are not going to wait until the end of the construction and the opening for this to happen, it will happen over the course of that.

MS JONES: Is there any money budgeted for this year to start addressing the problem?

MR. RIDEOUT: I cannot say that there is something particularly earmarked, can you?

MR. MERCER: No. Given that the section of highway is associated with the Trans-Labrador Highway, then it would only be reasonable that the Trans-Labrador Highway Initiative Fund be utilized to put depots in place as they were for other depots in Labrador and to carry out improvements to rock cuts and that sort of thing, I guess as was proposed under the previous Administration. So, there would be a request that would have to go forward to the LTIF Board for that to occur.

MS JONES: Minister, am I to assume that you do not think expenditures on this road should come out of the general revenues of the Province?

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, it will at the end of the day, as it will on every piece of road that has been constructed out of the Labrador Transportation Fund; as the fund will, in the very near future, run out, as you know. The whole road maintenance and ferry contracts will be the responsibility of the current account for the whole Province. So, that will happen. In the meantime, in terms of improving some of the capital assets that we will require in the future - like building depots - we are proceeding to determine how many, where they should be, and beginning the process of getting them built.

MR. MERCER: If I may, just for clarification, the road maintenance is actually a current account item now. The summer and winter maintenance of the roads are current account items, they are not taken out of the fund.

MR. RIDEOUT: They are not back billed.

MS JONES: I am aware of that, and that is why I was asking: Is the work that has to be done on that section - I am understanding from your comments that the only way these depots are going to get done, any rerouting is going to get done, or any of the rock cuts are going to get fixed is if the money comes out of the Labrador Transportation Fund.

MR. RIDEOUT: What you should be understanding, with all due respect, from our comments is that while the fund is in existence, capital improvements - like building new pieces of road, Phase III has been funded, the bridge across the Churchill River. While the fund exists, capital improvements will be billed back to the fund. Maintenance has not been billed to the fund now; it is being carried out, out of current account and general revenue. When the fund ceases to exist, then any capital improvements that are needed, when the fund is gone, will have to come out of the capital budget that is assigned to the department each year. Winter and summer maintenance will come out of our current account operations and be funded by the general revenue of the Province. While the fund exists, than the fund can be billed for new road construction, depots and that kind of thing. That has happened up until now.

MS JONES: What is going to be the closure dates on that road?

MR. RIDEOUT: The closure dates?

MS JONES: Yes. When will there no longer be any snow clearing? For example, when do your snow clearing contracts start? In November?

MR. RIDEOUT: In November, yes.

MR. MERCER: Yes, the snow clearing contracts run from November 1 through to the end of April.

MS JONES: What is the period when there will be no activity on that section of road? Will it be from November to April?

MR. RIDEOUT: That is the general idea, I think, isn't it?

OFFICIAL: Yes.

MS JONES: I think we all recognize that most of the problems on that road are in February and March, and very seldom - actually, I don't know if there is a year that we have actually had to see a full closure of the road before the end of January, other than maybe it might have been a day or two before they got it cleared. So, obviously I would like to see a commitment for snow clearing in November, December, January and April, in those four months, because there is absolutely no reason why it cannot be done in those four months. February and March, I know it has been trial and error. I will be the first to admit. I live there, I use the road on a regular basis, and I have flown over it hundreds of times when it has been blocked, and I know every single worker who works on that road, personally, and I have talked to all of them in trying to find a solution, in trying to look at options and so on. They will tell you, as well, that there are four months out of the year that there is absolutely no reason why you cannot keep that road open.

The ferry service will run, we know, until January 3; we are hoping until the middle of January, but I guess that is a decision you will have to make at a later date. There is no reason why we should not have access. If we get a snowfall in November, which is not unusual, to have a snowfall in November, that could block a section of that road, but in a day it can be cleared; but, if there is no one to clear it, it could be blocked for two weeks before it melts in the month of November. For people not to have access to it, that would be wrong.

I want to ask you, Minister, to reconsider your decision. I would like to ask you to reconsider your entire decision, but at the very least reconsider your decision to not provide the services for November, December, January and April, and I ask that you reinstate it for those months at a minimum.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, we certainly will undertake to look at the past and see what the historic situation has been. I take your view as your present it, that perhaps it does not get as difficult to handle until maybe the February month - and that was the situation this year, I agree with you. I mean, it was pretty well up to February by the first time we lost access -

MS JONES: For three years pretty well.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes - and then it just became everybody's nightmare after that, but we will certainly look at November, December, January and April and see what the historic patterns have been. I am not in any position to make a commitment today, but I certainly will have Cluney and his people look at it and give me advice as to what the possibilities might be.

MS JONES: Because you would, in essence, be cutting off all access into that area for goods and services, and that is not acceptable, definitely not acceptable. We have to get all of our stuff in by ferry across The Straits, and for us to have to get it as far as Red Bay and try and get it up by snowmobiles and all that kind of stuff, it is absolutely ludicrous, when it will only cost, in my estimation, probably just a few thousand dollars just to keep it open during those months. You would not be paying much more in November and December, I would not think, than you would be paying anywhere else on the Northern Peninsula or anywhere else to keep the road open during those months.

The tender call for winter maintenance, you are talking about having tender calls that would extend for a longer period of time. Will there be a tender call this spring for winter maintenance?

MR. RIDEOUT: Is the contract out now for winter maintenance?

OFFICIAL: Yes, the existing contracts up there have both been extended until the end of September. We will, in the next couple of weeks, be going to tender with one new contract for a longer period of time; or, it will give us the ability to extend for a longer period of time. It will have option years in there so that the contractor can finance equipment, capitalize it over a longer period of time, and hopefully translate into a better price for government.

MS JONES: I think right now they are tendered at three-year contracts?

OFFICIAL: That is correct.

MS JONES: So you are talking what, five years?

OFFICIAL: I would think, preferably, longer than five years. I would see, certainly, when Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway is completed, strategically you should be looking at ten-year contracts, five, with options for five. This time around, I think it would be prudent to look at a contract that would coincide with the expected completion of Phase III, so that when Phase III is completed you can look at the whole dynamics of that section of road from Red Bay all the way to Goose Bay and break it up into what would be appropriate contracts. You want your new contact to be, the one that we are going to call, to certainly be ending when Phase III is about to be opened.

MS JONES: So, any contract that will be called this summer, will it include the Red Bay to Lodge Bay section of road for winter maintenance?

OFFICIAL: It will not include Red Bay to Lodge Bay for winter maintenance. It will include it for summer maintenance, but that is not to say that it could not be done within the contract if government so decides to extend the service for months like you have asked for: November, December -

MR. RIDEOUT: It does not preclude that happening, the contract (inaudible).

MS JONES: Okay, that is what I wanted to know.

CHAIR: Ms Jones, your time has expired.

MS JONES: With the co-operation of my colleagues, may I continue until I finish this 2.1.04., Mr. Chairman?

CHAIR: That is fine with me, if your colleagues will go along with that on your side.

MS JONES: Does anybody have a problem?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible). Go for it.

CHAIR: There is support on that side; (inaudible) your own side.

MS JONES: I don't think I have any problem on this side.

CHAIR: They have no problem on that side.

AN HON. MEMBER: There is no problem on the other side yet.

CHAIR: Continue on.

AN HON. MEMBER: As long as I get my full ten minutes.

MR. RIDEOUT: It is not coming out of your time, right, George?

MR. SWEENEY: That is right.

MS JONES: You said that you had advice that told you not to proceed with winter roads on that section of highway. Can you tell me where the advice came from?

MR. RIDEOUT: From officials in the department.

MS JONES: In your department?

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes.

MS JONES: Did you get advice from the contracting company that has been clearing that section of road for the past three years?

MR. RIDEOUT: I did not personally. I do not know whether that was a factor in advice that officials gave to me, or not, but I did not personally speak to the contractor.

MS JONES: Minister, I do not expect you to answer for any of your other colleagues but I will ask the question.

The Member for Lake Melville has made statements in meetings in Labrador, and also at the Combined Councils of Labrador, in meeting with delegates to the convention, that the reason the road from Red Bay to Lodge Bay took the pattern of design that it did was influenced by myself, as a member, and that I had greatest control over the route that road took, and had a great deal of input into the engineering and the design. He said that his information was confirmed within your department.

I guess I am asking you, as the minister, your officials, any of them - I am sure they have been in the department for a long time, as long as I have been around here - to table for me any information within your department that solidifies his perspective and the view that he has expressed to people. If there are any letters, any correspondence, any proposals, any engineering plans I drafted myself, anything that is in your department that would solidify and verify the position that has been espoused by the Member for Lake Melville, I would like to have that tabled as soon as they possibly could get the information for me.

MR. RIDEOUT: As a general comment, of course, you are right; I am not going to be drawn into making comments on comments made by other members -

MS JONES: And I do not expect you to.

MR. RIDEOUT: - whether they are on my side of the House or the other side of the House; but, as a general view, I will say this - and I said it earlier this morning - when the highway was proposed, the original proposal, I think, from the department and some engineering companies and that at the time, was that the road should go up through the Pinware River Valley. It would be more sheltered and less difficult to keep open in the winter, and that type of thing, but there was representation made by local people, I understand, and I do not know about yourself, whether you were in politics even at the time, but I do understand from officials that there was representation made by people, groups, to bring the road closer to the coastal route, for obvious reasons. The connections to the communities would be shorter, and so on. That brought with it, of course, other problems that we have talked about here this morning.

I have never heard that discussed internally, since I have been the minister, in a way to lay blame. It has just been a factual matter of what, in fact, did take place, and consequently that is the situation that we end up with today. If there is anything in terms of correspondence or things of that nature, I have no problem with that being provided, but, as a general comment, that is what I understand to have taken place before my time, and perhaps even before your time. I do not know when the decision was actually made on the route, but that is what I understand to have transpired.

MS JONES: I would appreciate that. The only reason I raise the issue today is that it did become an issue of public debate. It was in the public airways in which I found myself having to defend my own position, and I take great exception to that when there has been no proof to verify or solidify the comments made by the member. The mere fact that it was noted that the information came from your department, Minister, is the reason why I am asking that it be tabled and that I have an opportunity to look at the same correspondence that anyone else would have looked at in terms of making that accusation or reference.

The other thing that I will say is that -

MR. RIDEOUT: Just before you go on, if you don't mind, just to be clear, officials in my department will readily say and back up that the intent for the route was something other than it is now. It was representations from people, individuals and maybe organizations, who wanted the route moved closer to the present route, to the Coast. We will readily admit that. Now, going any further than that and blaming it on an individual or a political representation or something, I cannot comment on. It certainly is well known in the department that the departmental route is not what ended up to be the route, and that happens quite often.

MS JONES: Yes, and quite often that will happen. We are seeing that happening on the Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway now where you have intervener groups for environmental, conservation or other reasons, who want to see a different access than that which has been designed by your department and your engineers. We have seen it in many sections of road across the Province, in Grand Falls, on the West Coast and in the Pasadena area. My district is no different. The difference here is that I have been looked at as being personally liable for this and I take great exception to it. I have no experience whatsoever with engineering and don't proclaim to have any.

I can only say to you that, at the time I was a member of the Opposition and if I could have that much influence over you now, Sir, as an Opposition member, as I was accused of having at that time, I would think that I am sitting pretty, I wouldn't have to be here talking about roads being closed, would I?

Anyway, if you could get that for me, I would appreciate it.

MR. RIDEOUT: As I said, we will do the search and if there is anything there we will certainly provide it.

MS JONES: All right. I am not going to move on to another section, I will turn it over to my colleague and come back to the other pieces after.

CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Jones.

Mr. Sweeney.

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Page 83, Minister, Road Construction, 3.2.04.48, Recharged to Other Projects, I notice that comes up there a few times throughout the details. What does that mean, Recharged to Other Projects?

MR. RIDEOUT: I will get Cluney to give you the details, Mr. Sweeney, but the Revised is up due to increase recharges for salary components of projects. That is the note that I have, but can you explain that in more understandable language, simpler terms?

MR. MERCER: Mr. Sweeney, this goes back to, I guess, what we talked about earlier with respect to the engineering, the administrative part of the roads program. The salaries there is $3 million. The salaries for road improvements goes into one big pot of money, if you will, and as that money is paid, it is charged through a journal voucher process to realign it with the proper project, individual contracts. So it is merely the recharging of engineering administrative salaries for the Roads Improvement Program to the appropriate project.

MR. RIDEOUT: So I take it to be - like, for example, if we were doing a million dollars worth of road work out in your district, and maybe it was in five projects, there are a couple of engineers and technicians and so on administratively assigned to make sure that work is done. The administrative cost of that would be charged off with the project that we are doing in Victoria, or the project that we are doing on Harbour Drive in Carbonear or whatever. Is that how it boils down?

MR. MERCER: That is correct, yes. That is the whole idea of recharge. It is coming out of a large pool of money being recharged to projects associated with that program.

MR. SWEENEY: So that, in fact, those practices do not show a deficit?

MR. MERCER: No, not at all.

MR. SWEENEY: That is accounts payable?

OFFICIAL: It is sort of like a receivable.

MR. MERCER: Yes, so it is coming out of one account really, going into another.

MR. SWEENEY: I have trouble keeping my Visa statement straight so -

MR. RIDEOUT: Don't go confusing him with $3 million.

MR. SWEENEY: Yes, that's right. Don't go throwing in that kind of money there on top.

There are a couple of questions I am going to ask - I notice that it is 11:35 a.m. I am going to ask these questions with regard to the Services Division. I notice there is a new name change on the department this year, it is Transportation and Works; Services is missing.

MR. RIDEOUT: Many of the services that we were doing are moved out. For example, Government Purchasing Agency has been reassigned to your old department of Government Services and Lands. The Queen's Printer has gone to that department. So a number of the services that we were doing have been reassigned to other departments. We are principally now a Department of Transportation and Works, which is public works really.

MR. SWEENEY: Is there any way that I can get a copy, or the Committee here can get a copy of the breakdown of what was transferred to where because we have been so used to Works, Services and Transportation that I just -

OFFICIAL: It is only two I think, isn't?

MR. RIDEOUT: That is the only two, is it?

OFFICIAL: Government Purchasing Agency, which was the big one of course. That was a fair size operation, as you know, and the Queen's Printer was the other one, wasn't it? We still have the mailroom and our public buildings, so it was just those two.

MR. SWEENEY: That is simple enough.

That budget was transferred over -

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, GPA is gone out of our budget now. I guess it appears in Government Services and Lands, and whatever the cost of the Queen's Printer is gone as well.

MR. SWEENEY: That is reflected in - certainly, it would not be reflected in this statement. That would come up under Government Services.

MR. RIDEOUT: For the new fiscal year it will be, because we had it - I suppose it stayed in ours until - what, the last of March, Keith?

MR. HEALEY: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: Then April 1 the new fiscal year will reflect it in the new department.

MR. OSMOND: If I may, minister. All of these statements have been changed to reflect as if it had always been that way. So you will not find revised and so forth for last year in here for those two entities that have been transferred out. You will find those now in -

MR. SWEENEY: As though it always happened?

OFFICIAL: Yes, as through it was there forever. Magic isn't it?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes, it is amazing how much you can do with numbers.

Projects that were approved last year, are they going ahead or -

MR. RIDEOUT: Under capital projects?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: If there are any carry-overs they are taken care of, aren't they? Are there any approved that were not tendered or anything?

MR. MERCER: There were a couple approved that were not tendered, but they were approved through a Cabinet process last year. So they are listed as a carry-over, even though they were not tendered. There is also about $2 million worth of expenditure associated with projects that got partially completed last year and will be fully completed this year.

MR. RIDEOUT: Do you have a particular project in mind?

MR. SWEENEY: No. There was one, minister, I have to say, that has been a source of frustration for me, and it is not a capital project. It is a very small project, but whatever seems to happen, Cluney it is regarding Freshwater. There is a turn in Freshwater, Ted Butt's Turn - and I hate to get parochial in these meetings but it has been a source of frustration. There was a press release sent out by I do not know but two previous ministers saying that was going to be done. I think, in one instance, the wrong place was done.

MR. RIDEOUT: The (inaudible ) turn.

MR. SWEENEY: Yes, but people just do not go away. You know what constituents are like, and they just keep coming back to me, but there is a turn there and the guy's house is getting washed out. All it takes is a little bit of asphalt to bank the turn, and that is what I am saying. It is not a capital project but is seems like it always gets to be a big deal somewhere along the way.

I will pursue that at a later date, but there are other ones. A colleague of mine asked me about another one on the West Coast, to mention it here today. As long as they are carried over, fine, that is no big deal.

The other thing I want to raise here is Harvey Street, Harbour Grace. Now that the bypass road is completed, what is the status or where will the status be on that? I do not expect an answer from you, Minister, right now, because obviously you have been on the job seven or eight months, but it was a topic, Cluney, some time ago, and I think there was a committee supposed to be in place to -

MR. MERCER: Just to give an update, I guess, for the minister's benefit as well, and those at the table, there were some discussions last year through the former Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, with representation from the Town of Harbour Grace, knowing that, I guess, the Town of Harbour Grace has been told a number of years back that when the bypass was completed the department would look at transferring the old part of Route 70 over to the town. They have a number of major issues with respect to water-sewer infrastructure, the road; it is getting to the point where it needs to be resurfaced, so there was a concerted effort being looked at to co-ordinate, I guess, the work that Municipal Affairs would fund along with the town as far as the underground infrastructure and getting the road resurfaced and then having the town take it over. There was, I believe, one meeting that I attended in that regard. There was some design work being done by the town's consultant, but since then there have been some engineering estimates completed by him, by the consultant. Other than that, there has not been a meeting since.

MR. SWEENEY: No, there is a bone of contention out there with the whole community, and about twice a day I get a call from different people who have had car damage or whatever from it.

Anyway, Minister, I will go back to this here now, Regional Roads-Transportation Initiative, 3.2.07.

MR. RIDEOUT: Which page are you on, Mr. Sweeney?

MR. SWEENEY: Subhead 3.2.07 is on page 84.

I understand there is a shortfall for this initiative of over $8 million, almost $9 million.

MR. RIDEOUT: Can you point me towards -

MR. SWEENEY: No, I am just talking in general terms of the initiative itself. Is that true? I have heard that there is a shortfall, and that we are waiting for more money from the feds to go into that.

MR. RIDEOUT: Can you explain what you mean by a bit more?

MR. SWEENEY: I think there was an agreement at some time to do some regional roads.

MR. RIDEOUT: Cluney, can you explain that?

MR. MERCER: Under the Roads for Rail Agreement - I will call it that - there were really two agreements. When the Province gave up the railway, there were two agreements. There was an agreement associated with the National Highway System, which was the Trans-Canada Highway and the Argentia Access, and there were projects identified under that agreement totalling $400 million, and then there was a Regional Trunk Roads Agreement which dealt with roads off the National Highway System, that enabled us to build roads like the CBN Bypass and the CBS Bypass. There were about a dozen or more specific projects identified within that agreement, with a block of money to go towards that project.

Some projects, of course, have progressed more over that fifteen-year life of that agreement. Some projects came in higher than the budget that was allocated, and there were some projects that came in under. For instance, the Conception Bay South Bypass was included to be completed all the way to Seal Cove. Unfortunately, because of other demands on other projects, and some money being moved around, and some projects coming in higher, that had been completed prior to the CBN Bypass work proceeding, when we concluded the agreement last year we did not have enough money to finish that last six kilometres. As far as any new money forthcoming under that agreement, I am not aware of any and I do not think the agreement provides any avenue for the Province to get any money under that agreement.

MR. SWEENEY: I guess the next question is: Is there an initiative in place that we are looking for more money under the regional roads?

MR. RIDEOUT: The Strategic Infrastructure Program, that I mentioned here this morning, there is $24 million left in round-one funding. We are trying to get approval on projects in that. We think our share of the second-round funding is around $50 million. We have sent up proposals on that, and that is the kind of initiatives we would be looking at addressing.

CHAIR: Mr. Sweeney, your time has expired.

MR. SWEENEY: My time is up? Amazing! There is nothing to ten minutes, is it?

CHAIR: It flies when you are having fun.

OFFICIAL: Just like down in the House, you are worrying about what you are going to say for twenty minutes and it is gone before you get a chance to say it.

MR. RIDEOUT: How can I ever spend twenty minutes on that, right?

OFFICIAL: That's right.

CHAIR: Just to advise Committee members, it is around a quarter to 12 now, we want to clue up at 12 o'clock, unless we want to make a decision on anything else that we want to do, but several people have commitments between 12 and 2.

MS JONES: When will we finish the Estimates then? Will we reschedule it for another time?

CHAIR: If you so desire, yes.

MS JONES: Well, we will have to. We have two whole sections that we have not gotten to yet.

CHAIR: Yes. I will have to consult the Government House Leader and the Opposition House Leader on a new date. I guess that might be the best advice to do with that. I am not in a position to give a date because there are other Estimates meetings ongoing. We will have to have a look at the schedule now and we will see.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, could I ask: Wally, how long do you think would be required for Aboriginal Affairs?

MR. ANDERSEN: Probably half an hour. How many questions do you have there?

MS JONES: I only have two or three questions, too.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, I guess that will have to be rescheduled for whenever we come back next then.

CHAIR: Do you have any idea how much longer we will be on Transportation and Works, a ballpark?

MS JONES: I am going to need at least an hour, I would think.

CHAIR: Okay. Well, we will not be doing that today.

MS JONES: I am doing all of section four, which is all the ferry services and terminals in the Province. I have not even gotten to that.

MR. ANDERSEN: Probably too, Mr. Chair, I guess maybe I should have realized, too, that for years when I was on a Committee -

CHAIR: Turn on your mike, Mr. Andersen.

MR. ANDERSEN: Sorry.

I should have known, too, that maybe when we rescheduled that, that we should have taken Transportation and Works for the evening session because every other time that it was done it usually went from 7 o'clock to pretty well 11:30, 12 o'clock. So, I should have known, too, that it would be very difficult to do it in three hours.

MR. RIDEOUT: If I could make a suggestion, perhaps the next time we meet we do Aboriginal Affairs first so that then we can have whatever time you want left over for Transportation and Works. Not that it matters but, I am sure, Sean has other things he could be gainfully doing. If we could do that first then he could leave.

CHAIR: That is not this Shawn here, just to make sure. He has to stay here.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Dutton, I should say.

CHAIR: With that, we have another ten-minute slot there now to bring us up to 12. Do you want to continue on some questioning and then -

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes, just briefly, and then I will turn the floor over to -

MS JONES: Well, you can take that ten minutes.

CHAIR: Okay, to finish up.

MR. ANDERSEN: Just go back to the snowmobile grants, and the comment was made -

MR. RIDEOUT: You had better give me the page again now, Mr. Andersen, please.

MR. ANDERSEN: Okay. It is under Road Maintenance. I guess it is 2.1.01. The conversation went on and it went back that, you know, the snowmobile grants will return to the original grant. Again, would that be to the $45,000 a year grant to each snowmobile organization?

MR. RIDEOUT: Is that what they were previously?

MR. MERCER: The previous grants to the three associations on the South Coast were $45,000. That is correct. Our budget has been restored to historic levels. I guess the final decision with respect to this year's grants, whether they go back up to $45,000 again, that has not been made, as far as I understand.

MR. RIDEOUT: But the funding is there to fund them at historic levels?

MR. MERCER: That is correct.

MR. ANDERSEN: That would include the North Coast as well? Because, Minister, very briefly, we were the last to get our snowmobile trails, and every year prior to that every grant was $45,000. The year that we got our grants, they were knocked down to $33,000. For the people on the North Coast of Labrador, as you are well aware, the region of Torngat Mountains covers more square miles than the entire Island, and with the high cost of maintenance and high cost of fuel on the North Coast we had to limit our trips as to what our groomers could do.

Again, I ask the question. When you say it is going to go back to the original grant, I am hoping it is $45,000 and that the three groups who will receive a grant on the North Coast of Labrador would be able to avail of the $45,000 a year, and not the $33,000.

MR. RIDEOUT: Who are the three groups, Mr. Andersen?

MR. ANDERSEN: That would be the community council of Postville, the community council of Makkovik -

MR. RIDEOUT: And Rigolet.

MR. ANDERSEN: - and Rigolet.

MR. RIDEOUT: Do you know the detail now or do we have to check it out? Because my understanding of it is - well, not my understanding - we can see from the figures that it has gone back up to what the original funding provided was. I do not have at my fingertips the breakdown. I know what it was for Yvonne's area, but for yours I do not.

OFFICIAL: My understanding is that the snowmobile grant for the three North Coast communities, in fact, was only established just two years ago. When that was established, it was $100,000 that was split three ways; so they, in fact, started receiving $33,333 apiece and at no time since the grant has been established for the North Coast have they ever received $45,000. I will confirm that, but that is my understanding.

MR. ANDERSEN: I was the member who fought very hard against my own government; but, as you were saying, I never got it.

Minister, again, I will say this: They pay more for fuel than anywhere else, and we have more miles to cover. It limited the amount of trips they could do.

MR. RIDEOUT: I will say this to you, Wally: We will do no worse than you did, in the amount of money. Hopefully, we will do better.

[Laughter]

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, I know that this is -

MR. RIDEOUT: It is meant to be a joke.

MR. ANDERSEN: - rightfully recorded, so I could go back and use that and say to the people that the minister referred to his department, that they will spend no less money. So I guess I can look forward to another $15 million for my riding this coming year. Thank you, Minister, for that confirmation.

Just before we go, Minister, I want to touch on the food subsidy program. Again, there is great difficulty in trying to keep up with - I know there were some amendments made, but I guess we had difficulty the last couple of years and again this past year. Further to a statement that your department made, where you were looking at closing the road on the South Coast of Labrador - in November there would be no winter maintenance - because, as you know, the Apollo runs across there until some time in January. All of the communities on the South Coast avail of their fresh fruit and vegetables; a lot of it comes across on the Apollo. Obviously, if the road is not going to be cleared, then as early as November, when the first snow fall comes, you are going to have all of these communities down there again that are going to need to avail of the airlift subsidy. Certainly, by not keeping the road open, it is going to add a bigger burden. Something is going to have to be done to address that problem as well.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, I understand your point. I think we will consider that in the context of the undertaking to give further consideration to the closure times for the piece of road in question. I guess one decision impacts on the other.

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, last year there were a couple of extensions done to the airstrips on the North Coast of Labrador, mainly Makkovik and Nain. Again, the reason why there is a waiting room up there, the airstrips are located about anywhere from one kilometre to two kilometres away from the communities. I think the waiting room was about twelve by twelve, and that included one washroom. There are two airlines that fly in there, and there were times when we had as many as three aircraft coming in the one time. We had seniors and young people who had to wait in the elements and, at times, winds gusting to thirty-five or forty kilometres an hour, a wind chill temperature of forty, as high as seventy-five or eighty with the wind chill temperature.

There was an extension done to Makkovik and Nain. I am hoping that your department will carry on and look at the other communities on the North Coast of Labrador as well, to do the same thing, because there are times when both airlines arrive the same time, many times in conjunction with the medevac plane or the mission plane that carries patients back and forth. So, basically what you have is, you have to take your bag in and weight it, and then go back out, whether it is pouring down rain or if it is drifting snow.

MR. RIDEOUT: So, you are talking about what, Rigolet and Postville?

MR. ANDERSEN: We would look at Rigolet, Postville and Hopedale. Makkovik and Nain were done.

MR. RIDEOUT: Makkovik and Nain are done, yes.

MR. ANDERSEN: Further to that too, Minister, I know that the federal government is responsible for the upkeep but, at the same time, there is no firefighting equipment whatsoever in the airstrips. I have approached the federal government numerous times and, God forbid, you have these planes going in there and there are no air traffic controllers. We do have the best pilots in the world. They have to go on doing medevacs in blinding snowstorms, trying to get in. There is not one piece of firefighting equipment at the airstrip for seven or eight months of the year. The only way they can get, I guess, a bit of - the volunteer fire brigade, just to hook up a Ski-Doo and try and get some equipment up there, with no water pump up there, none whatsoever, probably two miles away from the nearest pond. It is ludicrous.

I hope that you, as the minister, certainly would lobby the federal government the way that I did, but I hope you have better success, because certainly it is ludicrous.

MR. RIDEOUT: Has there been any response at all from Transport Canada?

MR. ANDERSEN: None. They go up there and, as you know, they do the upkeep, resurface every so many years.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, but in terms of firefighting capability?

MR. ANDERSEN: There is none.

MR. RIDEOUT: No response?

MR. ANDERSEN: None whatsoever, so I hope that will be looked at.

Minister, again, the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund. I mentioned to you before, and I will say it again, I know the Department of Works, Services and Transportation, probably these officials here, advertised for a boat for the North Coast of Labrador. There were two-tonners came back, one was the Astron and one was the Nada, which is now called the Trans Gulf. Really, either one is inadequate to provide the type of services that these people depend upon for a way of life.

Minister, we are paying out millions of dollars for a boat that is inadequate, and I know that we made that decision as a government; it was either or. Really, neither boat was suitable but we had no other choice. In order to get the freight to the North Coast we had to take the best choice that we thought was there. Minister, why don't we take probably $20 million that is in the Trans-Labrador fund, talk to the people on the North Coast of Labrador and build a boat with ice-breaking capabilities, one that can take probably fifty to sixty containers, a dozen vehicles and carry 100 passengers? The same as what they have on the Quebec North Shore, which provides a beautiful service. I have seen it myself.

Minister, I can assure you that there will be no highways built on the North Coast of Labrador in the next ten or fifteen years. I say that, not because we do not want it, but for the amount of money that it would take to build it to service 3,000 people. So, over a ten or fifteen year period, the amount of money that government will pay out for a boat to provide the freight services to the North Coast of Labrador, we could probably build it right here in our own Province. Over the number of years that the government will still be responsible for providing the Marine Services to the North Coast of Labrador, at the end of the day, being ten or fifteen years, that you would, no doubt, save money.

Again, Minister, I am sure that you will be getting correspondence from groups in Labrador because it was discussed at a previous meeting. I hope that you and your government will look at it. In a serious situation I am sure you will, because I do believe that we would provide the best service and, in the long run, government will save a lot of money.

MR. RIDEOUT: And, of course, in the interim we are stuck with the contract for Trans Gulf. I think it is what, three more years or four more years?

OFFICIAL: Two.

MR. RIDEOUT: Two more years.

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes, Minister. Imagine if we took that route, in two years' time we could have that boat ready to go on stream.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Andersen.

MR. ANDERSEN: Just one more thing before I go, because my Labrador watch says it is 28 minutes past 11.

CHAIR: It is 11:30, yes.

MR. ANDERSEN: There was one more thing I was going to mention. Again, the mail system - I guess I will discuss it somewhat in Aboriginal Affairs, but under Transportation. Minister, if you had three pairs of glasses and you shipped one to any community in the riding of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, certain ones there, or Labrador City-Goose Bay, you could ship it to Vancouver Island for less than one-third of the cost to ship it to the riding of Torngat Mountains. The people up there -

MR. RIDEOUT: That is a Canada Post issue, I assume.

MR. ANDERSEN: Well, it is, and I have approached Canada Post. Also, too, as the Minister of Transportation you are probably aware, but, minister, women have to order boots and stuff for their children and the fact is that it costs, through Canada Post, to ship it to the North Coast of Labrador, almost three times as much as to ship it anywhere else in Canada or to the Island, and that is a fact. When you have people who live on a fixed income, you know, for the sake of a Ski-doo belt that you can take today and ship from Goose Bay to Vancouver Island for $8, to take it and ship it from Goose Bay, which that fan belt is a necessity for the person on the North Coast (inaudible), that is the only form of transportation for eight months out of the year. Eight bucks to ship it to St. John's; from Vancouver Island, you are talking $22 to ship it to the North Coast. Again, that is a great concern and a burden to any family up there. So, I want to make you aware of that, as the minister, and I am sure we will get a chance to discuss that under Aboriginal Affairs as well.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Andersen.

I did not mean to cut you off there earlier. (Inaudible) moving on the time anyway.

I have been advised by the Clerk that there is an opening tomorrow morning.

MR. RIDEOUT: Tomorrow is Thursday, Cabinet day.

CHAIR: Oh, okay. Well, that takes care of tomorrow morning.

MS JONES: Tuesday morning.

CHAIR: Well, I will talk to the House Leader and he will talk to the Opposition House Leader. I am sure we will come up with a date that is suitable.

So, with that, I will ask -

MR. RIDEOUT: We are flexible but I cannot say I will miss a Cabinet meeting if there is a Cabinet meeting.

CHAIR: There are other Estimates tomorrow morning, that is why I asked that.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes.

CHAIR: But we will let the Government House Leader -

MR. RIDEOUT: Also, I would appreciate it if we could agree that we would do Aboriginal Affairs off the top the next time we meet so that we do not have to keep Sean around for an extended period of time.

CHAIR: No, that's fine.

MR. ANDERSEN: Mr. Minister, the only thing about this is, I am hoping that I can get to leave probably on Tuesday. Whereas we have the big vote on the twenty-sixth, I have been invited by the Labrador Inuit Association to do (inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Oh, right. We are in your hands.

CHAIR: Monday is a holiday, so we will leave that to (inaudible) straightened out.

Do we have a motion to adjourn?

MS JOHNSON: So moved.

CHAIR: Moved by Ms Johnson, seconded by Ms Jones.

On motion, Committee adjourned.