The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Welcome to the Minister and his staff and ladies and gentlemen of the media.

First, I would like to introduce to you the Members of the Social Services Estimates Committee: to my immediate left is the Member for Humber East, Ms. Lynn Verge; Mr. Arthur Reid, Member for Carbonear; the distinguished Member for St. John's East Extern, Mr. Kevin Parsons; next to Mr. Parsons is Mr. Aubrey Gover, the Member for Bonavista South; and Mr. Doug Oldford, M.H.A. for Trinity North. I would also like to introduce to you our Secretary, Miss Elizabeth Murhpy, Deputy Clerk of the House of Assembly.

Without any further ado I would turn it over to the Minister for an opening statement and perhaps the Minister would also like to introduce his staff.

Mr. Minister.

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

I would like to greet the Committee Members, staff and also the media present. I would like to take this opportunity to say how pleased I am with the work that has been accomplished by the Department of Environment and Lands in 1990 and the early stages of this year. I welcome the opportunity to briefly outline for the Committee the principle thrusts of our spending plans for 1991 and 1992.

As the Chairman suggested, I would like to introduce the people I have here with me, though not part of my delegation but in attendance is Mr. Claude Moreau my Executive Assistant who is sitting the next block over. The official present are: Mr. John Fleming, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Environment and Lands; Mr. Bob Winsor, Assistant Deputy Minister of Lands and Parks under our reorganization; in the front line Mr. Ken Dominie, Director, Civil and Sanitary Environmental Engineering; in the next row behind, Ms. Kay Mullins, Director of Human Resources; Mr. Frank Harris, Director of Financial and General Operations; Mr. Don Hustins, Director of Parks Division; and Mr. Jim Hancock, Director of Wildlife.

If I may before I get into my statement I would just like to make a comment. In the couple of years I have been Minister, in fact two days past two years now, I would like to comment on the great group that I have working with me in my Department. We have been able, despite budgetary restraints and so on, to roll with the punches to a degree and I think by dedication and professionalism of the staff we have been able to roll with the punches and absorb the things that have come to us from the point of view of fiscal restraint, downsizing and a variety of other requirements we had to face. I would personally like to thank everybody, the officials present, and the Department generally for an excellent job, in my opinion, that they have been carrying out since I have been the Minister and no doubt in the years prior to my coming here to the Portfolio, Mr. Chairman, and Committee Members.

The Government is committed to preserving and protecting our natural environment. We are maintaining all existing programmes in the Department of Environment and Lands and within the limitations of expenditure restraint undertaking some new initiatives. An additional $2.5 million in new funding is being provided so that the Government can enter into a joint programme with the Federal Government to clean up contaminated sites in the Province.

Funding is also provided by the operation of the Round Table on Environment and Economy. The Round Table was appointed last Fall and the first meeting has already been held. It consists of decision makers and leaders from private and public sectors in the Province. We look to the Round Table to provide leadership in building consensus between all sectors of our society of the integration of environmental protection with sustainable economic development.

Secretarial services for the Round Table will be provided by a new policy and planning division to be established in the Department of Environment and Lands. This new division will enable the Department to put increased emphasis on environmental policy development, especially in such areas as waste management and recycling.

I am pleased that we were able to provide for full operation of our park system. As I recently announced in the House of Assembly there will be changes to the fee structure for provincial park usage to give all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians equal access to our parks.

All wildlife management programs will be maintained and some increased funding is provided for field equipment and improved communications and safety equipment for wildlife protection staff.

Mr. Chairman, these are some of the highlights of our Department's plans for 1991-92. I would now like to give the Committee a brief overview of the Department's structure and operation following the format in the Estimates.

As a standard throughout Government our Departmental Estimates initially and provide for the operation of the Minister's office and the executive and administrative support functions. Beyond that the Estimates reflect the organization of the Department in three branches, environment, lands, parks and wildlife. Now, that has actually been re-adjusted, as I have indicated, in the fact that one of our executive positions is now no longer with us and we have at least temporarily organized where parks, wildlife and administrative had been a separate branch of the Department the parks and wildlife responsibility has been assigned to the existing two ADMs.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure the Committee is aware that our Department is reduced, and I just mentioned two or three, and the recent down sizing has caused us to do some reorganization, as I have just mentioned. The Parks Division is reporting to the Assistant Deputy Minister of Lands, Mr. Bob Winsor, and the Wildlife Division to the Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment, Mr. David Jeans, and the Human Resources and Financial Administration Division report to the Deputy Minister, Mr. John Fleming, and that is our reorganization in fairly brief terms.

I now briefly review the principal programs of the branches as shown in the Estimates. The Environment Branch consists of five technical divisions. The Environmental Investigations Division is responsible for monitoring commercial, municipal and hazardous wastes, and ensuring that they are disposed of in an environmentally acceptable manner. This division is also responsible for oil and chemical spill response, processing applications for fuel storage systems, and for processing environmental approvals for small scale developments.

The Civil Sanitary Environmental Engineering Division is responsible for the investigation and identification of environmental problems related to the design, construction and operation of municipal infrastructure systems. The Division also carries out an operator training program for operators of municipal water and sewer systems throughout the Province. The Industrial Environmental Engineering Division ensures that all industry in the Province complies with the requirements of legislative environmental standards including the evaluation of air quality in sensitive areas. A network of seven precipitation stations is operated to monitor and assess the impacts of acid rain in the Province.

The Water Resources Management Division is responsible for the implementation and evaluation of approved programmes relating to the conservation, development control, improvement and proper utilization of the water resources of our Province. The Water Investigations and Water Rights Section issues approval for stream alterations and water use authorizations.

Environmental Assessment Division administers the Environmental Assessment Act and the Pesticides Control Act. This Environmental Assessment Act provides for the protection of the environment of Newfoundland and Labrador by requiring the registration for possible assessment of all undertakings which may have a significant impact on the environment.

The significance of this function has been magnified recently through the Department's role in the preparation and implementation of the Environmental Protection Plan for the Hibernia GBS construction site. The EPP describes a specific environmental protection measure which will have to be taken throughout the life of the project from GBS construction through to site decommissioning.

The Government is working with Nodeco and the Hibernia Management and Development Company Limited on an ongoing basis in developing appropriate standards for the construction, operation and eventual rehabilitation or subsequent future use of the site.

In the Lands branch, the Crown Lands Branch is responsible for the administration and control of Crown Land; the Division processes Crown Land applications and issues Crown titles. This work is largely decentralized through regional offices in St. John's, Gander, Corner Brook and Goose Bay.

The Crown Lands Division is also responsible for maintaining the Crown Land registry, which houses all the official documents that deal with the granting leasing, licensing and transfer of Crown Land in the Province. Related to this, is the cadastre mapping section which is actively plotting all Crown titles on large scale mapping; the Division also operates a map and air-photo library where maps and photos can be viewed or purchased.

The Land Management Division is responsible for the orderly planning of the Province's Crown land resource. This Division, through the Interdepartmental Land Use Committee, reviews proposals which may impact on Crown Land; examples include draft legislation, municipal and regional plans, reserved draft regulations, waste disposal sites and silviculture plans. The Land Management Division prepares land-use plans and undertakes certain small scale developments; this year, $200,000 has been budgeted in the capital account for the development of cottage and residential lots in selected areas. All development under this programme are on a cost recovery basis.

The Surveys and Mapping Division has responsibility for the provincial geodetic survey and topographic mapping programmes. Funds have been budgeted to extend that network of geodetic stations to provide adequate coverage for reference of legal and engineering surveys to a common positional reference system.

Work will continue in the production of large scale maps for use in resource planning and property mapping. The surveys of Mapping Division provides support services to other departments and agencies of provincial Government in standards, specifications, contract inspections and consultation in the areas of legal surveys, mapping, air-photography and geographic information systems.

The Parks Division and the Parks and Wildlife are now separate, and as I have said The Parks Division is one of the major components of the Department and is responsible for all matters relating to the planning and management of our provincial parks system. We have a total of eighty provincial parks, thirteen ecological reserves and two wilderness reserves in the system of parks encompassing an area of 4,497 square kilometres. The largest of which, I guess as you know is roughly 3,500 square kilometres, the recently announced Bay d'Nord Middle Ridge.

Our system of provincial parks protects some of our Provinces most valuable resources. Government is continuing to preserve and protect these special natural areas while providing high quality standard services for the general public.

Several new initiatives are under way this year as part of the preplanning for new ecological reserves and waterways parks. Provisional ecological reserve status has been granted to four sites: Fortune Head, Baccalieu Island, Hawk Hills and West Brook red pine area. Once the planning and public consultation programmes are completed for these sites, I am hopeful they will be given full reserve status thereby increasing the amount of protected land in the Province.

In addition, park officials are preparing a management plan for Main River, Sop's Arm, the first river in the Province to be designated as part of the Canadian Heritage River system.

Now, the Wildlife Division is the agency which has responsibility for the management and protection of our provincial wildlife resources. I am pleased to report that our big game population has continued to thrive enabling us to increase hunting activity. On the Island a total of 29,227 moose licences are available for the 1991-1992 hunt. This is an increase of 5,369 licences or 22.5 per cent over the 1990 quotas. There are 2,640 caribou licences available which represents an increase of 195 licences or 8 per cent over the 1990 quotas. In Labrador 145 moose licences are available for the 1991-1992 season. An increase of fifteen licences or 11.5 per cent over last year. There are no quotas placed on caribou which may be taken from the George River herd in Labrador, of course, and this herd exceeds 600,000 animals.

My Department will take significant steps in the coming year to improve the wildlife conservation and protection efforts by providing additional equipment to our wildlife protection officers. That equipment will include a modern communications system to improve their efficiency and to increase officers safety.

I might add the training course now has been completed for all our regions. It has been very successful. We are receiving very positive input from the people themselves and others who have an interest in that particular thing.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my review of the general responsibilities of the Department of Environment and Lands. I trust the information that I have presented will help provide an accurate appreciation of the significance and diverse responsibilities of my Department.

Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for what I consider to be a very concise and interesting statement.

I now give the floor to the hon. Member for St. John's East Extern, Mr. Parsons.

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

Looking over the estimates for 1991 certainly I was surprised to see that overall your Department only increased, in a monetary way, by a little better than 3 per cent. I thought that to be a measly amount because on the first page the executive support expenditures this year would be for $148,000 more on the executive support staff than last year, and that was inclusive in the 3 per cent overall. I also did a little small bit of subtraction there and I found that on the increase you have, $452,000 of that 3 per cent was the increase in federal funding over last year's amount, so your Department had very little in excess of last year monetarily. My surprise was not in lands but on the environmental side of it. With the advent of Hibernia I thought there would be many more dollars allocated towards environmental issues and I was surprised to see that there was very, very little. As the Minister was reading his statement he certainly addressed all aspects of his Department. I noticed that he did mention Hibernia and the GBS construction in Bull Arm, and I wondered, and perhaps the Minister could address it, what structure is in place, or what offices do we have there? Do we have to ask the Minister of Environment and Lands to oversee, or to have a watchdog effect on what is happening in that structure out there while GBS is being built? I hope there will be nothing of a tragic nature happen as it pertains to the environment while Hibernia is being developed, as we have already seen in other phases, especially with the workforce out there and accidents. There are none of us infallible and certainly accidents will happen, especially where there are a lot of people working. I hope the environment does not suffer. Certainly, I think, I would be adverse to what I believe, in saying that anything should be done to hold up, or stymie the Hibernia project in any sense of the imagination. I believe it is good and it is going to be good for Newfoundland and Labrador. I think we certainly need it and I think, too, that we will have to be always conscious of what we are doing and how we are doing it. I think there is a mechanism in place whereby we could protect our environment and still do a real bang-up job as it pertains to the technical side of it. There are several things that I would like to bring up and relate to as it pertains to the Department of Environment, and perhaps a little bit, too, about the lands part of it. Over the last two or three months, and even longer than that, I believe it was once last fall, that you had applications to your Department as it pertains to hazardous waste.

We had one down in Robin Hood Bay Road down at Sugar Loaf Road, where you had an application and we all had an input in it for hazardous waste to be stored in the old Alcan building. It used to be the old Kento Place on Sugar Loaf Road and I must say that I think the Minister acted prudently in saying to them that they had to have much more information before they could get the go ahead to place that facility there.

I think that the day has come when we will have to address the hazardous waste and I think we will have to have some place where we can perhaps store it and isolate it from residential areas and I think that we do have plenty of areas that perhaps this facility could be built and to make sure that it would not be detrimental to any of our residents.

Only a few months ago you were called on again as it pertains to the septic sewerage, the septic waste at least that was being trucked in to Robin Hood Bay and as far away as Carbonear. Anyone who is familiar with septic systems - I am on a septic system, the trucks come along and every time you want to get it cleaned out, usually I do every two or three years, but it has to be trucked somewhere; it is a business type venture and those people come in with their equipment and it is much better than it used to be years ago, but still they have to find some place to dump this waste and it is being dumped in Robin Hood Bay.

We addressed it here in the House on several occasions but it is not going to go away and the only thing that worries me about it, is the sanitary fill at Robin Hood Bay. The fill itself is becoming exhausted and I think that the Department of Environment has to address it and has to do so quickly, because what we are getting there is, this waste will not pass through, once it is freed, through the earth which is there.

I think that most of the land fill out there is filled to capacity anyway and what we are getting now is a shaky bog effect, quicksand; you can throw what you like in it but it just does not absorb. The people in that area have been critical over the years, but at least they adhered to what was happening in that particular area and when that dump went there in Robin Hood Bay, there was not as great a number of citizens living there as what is there today and I think the Department should be cognizance of the fact that this did happen.

If we are going to put a dump or a dump site in some part of the Avalon, then we should be very, very leery and aware of what has happened in the past and certainly we should not have this type of adventure again in the future, but that is a prime concern of mine. I have been down there and looked at it and it is something that you just do not want to talk about, but, it must be brought out in the open.

Again, looking at the people from Logy Bay and in that general area, Sugar Loaf Road, they have been talking about this for years, that the dump should be moved. I know the Minister is aware as well as I am that at one particular time there was a dump site chosen, I think it was in the West End outside of Mount Pearl, Ruby Line, and there was such an outcry from the people that it just fell by the wayside. But I think we are going to have to put some effort behind it and perhaps we can go farther afield and exclude that area from any residential area. Now, I do not think we are going to have to go miles and miles because we are going to run into another problem, and that is to truck it there, or to find that it is going to be costly on the municipalities and whatever if that dump site is out a long distance. But I think there are areas and certainly the engineering part of Government should have the facts and figures before them to show us some locales from which one could be chosen that would perhaps facilitate the people in this area. The area has certainly grown over the years.

The other thing I have spoken to the Minister about is, I think perhaps 10 per cent or 12 per cent of material that goes into dump sites is paper and paper materials. I think if we had a good recycling programme ongoing, then I think we could at least cut that by 10 per cent or 15 per cent and that would be advantageous to any site because I do not think we are ever going to get a site big enough to absorb all of what is being dumped now. People will say what did we do years ago? It is nonsense. The material that is going to dumps now was never around years ago. It takes a number of years to fill up any dump site and I think we are at that point now. On behalf of all the people that I represent, especially in Logy Bay and those areas which are rat ridden, alive with rodents, and the people have been very quiet over the years. I think the time has come, we are in the 1990s now. People might say that well, when you were part of Government why did you not address it? I certainly addressed it on every occasion that I could. I have to be responsive to the constituents that I represent and in saying that I have seen it myself. It is hard to keep something like that in control especially in a residential area. Although it is not completely residential it is approximately surrounded by a residential area. So, I hope that the Minister's concerns are as grave as mine are in this respect.

The other thing I did mention some time ago, and I did not have any great feedback from it, but it is something that concerns me - and that is the dumping of offal. I am not sure ecologically what is really happening and I am not sure that anyone else knows either. This offal is being dumped at sea out in those bays and we have been only doing it to any great extent over the past number of years, especially on the Avalon. I am just wondering what it is doing to the fish, I am talking of specific things. I am thinking about lobster, crab and this type of thing where all this mass of old offal is being thrown down, I am wondering what it is going to do to the fishery. I am wondering if the Minister can address it and if he would give us some information on what the Department has found, if anything, and if this dumping has been addressed and if there is anything scientifically that we should know about it.

The other thing is the spawning grounds themselves, the 2J+3KL, where there is considerable effort especially on the northern cod stocks. I think it is somewhere from December to March where all this fish congregate and spawn. We know ourselves that the fishery is almost extinct in some areas in Newfoundland where not so many years ago it was plentiful. Certainly, the information that we have been given from the Department of Fisheries and other agencies does not relate to what has happened or never did relate to it. The only one I knew of who spoke about what is happening was Dr. Keats who was a Memorial University Professor. He addressed it and said that no one really knew what was happening out there. My concern and the concern of many other Newfoundlanders and Labradorians is that while the draggers are raping the spawning grounds, during the time those fish are gathered together, the result may be disastrous. I do not think that Newfoundland and Labrador can just go along with this with a blind eye and say hopefully this is not happening. I think there should be great concern. Especially, I think, it is an environmental issue. I think it has to be taken out of the Fisheries Department and placed as a major environmental issue. So, I would like for the Minister to have something to say on that. With that said, I think I will clue up I will be back later on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Parsons. Although your questions were broad I am sure the Minister would want to respond to some of them.

MR. KELLAND: I am not clear on your procedures. Would you wish that I respond at the end of each person's questioning in blocks so to speak, I am happy with that, so I will know where I am coming from?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Obviously, you may find a Member who would ask you a very direct and specific question in a given period of time. What we like to do is equalize the time to each Member of the Committee. Obviously, when the Minister has an opening statement then we would like to give the critic in the Opposition approximately the same time. I think the Member asked some general questions and I would suggest maybe the Minister might want to respond now to those general questions. Then we will move on to other Committee Members.

The Committee Members may want to direct questions one at a time and you can respond or they may want you to jot them down or whatever. So, we will take it and play it in that format.

MR. KELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I submit to your guidance and your decisions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point of order. Yes.

MR. HARRIS: I do not wish to stop you in flight, Mr. Minister, there is a history with this Committee of the procedure lurching along and then someone having to rein it in and see what is happening. We have a fairly lengthy and informative opening address and a fairly lengthy response. If the Chair wishes to have another rebuttal to that or a response to the response from the Minister, again I have no objection. I do not know if it was intended there be that length of exchange. If there is, fine. Then I hope that I will have the same amount of time to participate and do the same thing. I know the Chair is keeping track of the minutes and he will let me know, when I start, how much time I will have between myself and the Minister responding to do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To that point. I think the hon. Member makes a good point as such, but as you have already seen in three sessions of reviewing Estimates with Departments, the Chair is obviously very conciliatory, very fair, very balanced, and we will continue to be that way, of course, and I would like to tell the hon. Member that. However, I would like to give the Minister the opportunity. The Member for St. John's East can be assured that he will have equal time.

Mr. Minister.

MR. KELLAND: If I can say so, I have a group of officials here because I simple do not know everything and cannot keep every detail of the Department in my head. I can answer the general questions that the hon. Member asked. We have allocated, as I understand, three hours, but we are prepared to come back another three hours, and another three hours, if Committee Members do not have enough information, bounded by whatever the Chair's judgement is. We submit to your decisions in every case and would be happy to provide information. We want to be forthcoming, in other words. I am not interested in political confrontation. We are here to answer, or respond to enquiries from the Committee Members and we will do the best we can. If there is some information we do not readily have amongst our knowledge and expertise we will endeavour to get it as quickly as possible for all hon. Members.

If I can quickly respond then to the hon. Member for St. John's East Extern, my good friend and critic in the House of Assembly, I will try to be as brief as I can. There is only a slight increase in our departmental overall funding. I agree, I would love to see a lot more, to be quite frank about it. We always try for funding that would allow us to do more than we currently do, but as I mentioned in my opening remarks I am very please with what our officials in the Department are doing with our somewhat limited funding. We did have an increase, at least, and it was not a stay-even or a cutback, so from that point of view I am pleased. He mentioned the executive support staff, and I thought I covered that in my statement, but there is $140,000 in that increased funding which covers the policy and planning unit which I mentioned in my opening statement and which serves two roles. One is to provide secretarial services for the Round Table on the environment and the economy and the other role is to do simply what I said, policy and planning, a unit we have never had and which should allow us to make great strides in giving direction, establishing policy, and doing some of the planning we have not been capable of doing heretofore, relying mostly on technical people which we had to pull from other jobs. That is a good part of the $148,000 I just mentioned.

On the structure of the gravity based system, the Hibernia question, I am pleased that the hon. Member, my colleague, supports the concept of getting the project going, and I think he was referring to environmental accidents as opposed to accidents that we have heard discussed in the House which are of a different type. Our ADM of environment and wildlife chairs the Hibernia construction site monitoring committee, Mr. David Jeans is the Chair, so we are involved in that sense. That is a question you asked. We have a monitoring technician dedicated to the project and we will be also hiring a socio-economic co-ordinator who will work under that particular committee, so you know we are directly involved. You do know that the environmental protection plan, which was an absolute requirement when the exemption was given, the exemption was only given on the basis that an acceptable environmental protection plan would be provided. That has been submitted to our Department and is under review. I believe the deadline for public input is June 10 of this year following a period of ten or fifteen days in which we would reach a decision on whether or not the environmental protection plan is acceptable and one that we could put in practice. The requirement will be that the terms and conditions of that environmental protection plan are fully met and the monitoring structure that I already mentioned will be in place to make sure that is carried out. I know that will alleviate some of the worries the hon. Member has.

With respect to septic waste: I certainly do share, as I mentioned in the House, the concerns of the hon. Member. He has raised it with me in the House of Assembly and I give him credit for that because that is a topic of interest that should be considered by people certainly in the Northeast Avalon and general area who have a concern with that sort of thing. It is a problem, as the hon. Member mentioned. I think it was in 1974 there was a study undertaken and they did identify a site, Mr. Chairman, at the Ruby Line which was eventually turned down because of high public pressure.

We are in consultation with the City of St. John's and other municipalities and in correspondence with them and with the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to try to find ways and means of funding a study that would identify another site. It is not a simple thing to say: well Robin Hood Bay is now beyond what we can expect to do with septic waste for example and, therefore, we will pick spot (b), (c), (d) or (x) or whatever to put another one. We do need something to the tune I understand of $100,000 to $150,000 to adequately carry out that particular study. As I mentioned in the House some time ago, my colleague promised or gave the commitment to the cities that we met with a little while ago, the municipal representatives, that he would revisit the prospect of finding some funding to do that.

Quickly I will go to the other couple of items that he mentioned, Mr. Chairman. He mentioned the offal dumping. Even though that is under federal control we do have a concern. In recent times I have seen some information, it is not in great detail, but there is some work being done with perhaps eventually commercially, an operation which would combine offal with bark, sawdust and other materials, organic, which would be used to create a humus soil to be used in agriculture. I do not know how extensive that can be. But I understand Memorial may have done some work on that and I do know there is some entrepreneurial interest in that as well. That may be an opportunity to solve some of the problem but the actual control of offal dumping is federal. But we do have a concern and we consult with the federal authorities with respect to that.

On the spawning grounds or let us say the fishery generally speaking off the east coast of Canada and off our coast. I would like to inform the hon. Member that this past weekend I attended the Canadian Councils of Ministers of the Environment Conference and I again raised that issue which I take to be serious. I raised it before there. As Members may know in June of 1992 there is a United Nations Conference in Brazil on the environment and development. I have asked that item be given a very high priority by the Canadian delegation who will be, as I understand, lead by Mr. Jean Charest, the current Minister of Environment. And, we have been given a commitment that indeed, where it had not been considered on the federal list prior to our submissions, that they will now include it and raise that issue so that we can bring and focus some public attention on foreign overfishing in particular and get some world focus on the problems we are experiencing in the spawning grounds and so on.

It is not purely a Canadian abuse problem but rather a global problem where you see European and foreign overfishing. We have asked that this be raised in profile at the unsaid thing in June in Brazil and we have been given the commitment that such will be the case. I am very pleased to be able to report that to the hon. Member. I believe those were all the points you mentioned.

Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, very much, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: (Inaudible) financial questions for later on, but seeing my hon. colleague for St. John's East Extern started with general questions I just want to get a couple of brief comments from you. I would like to know, first of all, and I have heard so much about this Round Table on the environment and the economy right now, I would like to know exactly what you plan, what the long-term plans are for that particular Round Table, and what their mandate is, what you have set as a mandate? I would like a little bit of information on that one, and the other one is, there has been a lot of talk recently, especially out in my area, in the Long Harbour area, as well as on the southern tip of the Avalon area, about hazardous waste disposal. The question I have for you there is, and I hope I am not putting you on the spot here, Mr. Minister, but the question I do have for you is, how do you feel about that overall, about bringing hazardous waste, say, into the Province as it relates to the problem we had in Labrador last year, for example, with the burning of hazardous waste and this sort of thing? I do not know if I am putting you off what you came here to do tonight but I am interested because in the Long Harbour one, for example, I feel personally that there is some way we could accommodate some sort of industry out there that could deal with - and when I say hazardous waste I cannot elaborate on that, but we could deal with, in Newfoundland, certain waste products, and ultimately create employment and so on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. KELLAND: In brief terms I can describe the Round Table. We were the last jurisdiction in Canada to establish a Round Table on the environment and the economy and it took a while to do that. First of all there was the determination to do it, to find the funding, and then select a group of people who, through their knowledge and experience would be able to provide good advice. This Round Table Committee stepped far away from political considerations in its appointment. What we tried to do is get people with a broad range of knowledge and experience and not be representative of any particular group, but their association with various industries and activities would give them the knowledge and experience that we thought would be required to give us the very broad based group that we do have. I do not know if you could have appointed a better Committee. When you look at the overall makeup we have included people in industry, movers and shakers, decision makers, people who have gained experience and knowledge and expertise in a variety of fields including labour, women's issues, environmental issues, big business, big industry, and all those sort of things. That Committee reports to the Premier of the Province and not to the Minister of Environment and Lands. Their mandate in simple terms would be to advise the Premier, and ultimately the Government, on how we can have an integration of the environment and the economy so that there is not development at all cost, or at any cost, but rather development while we can still sustain what we have already have, and to advise us on ways and means of developing but also to be conscious of the environment so that generations after us will have the same opportunities, at least that we have now and perhaps even improved opportunities, because I suppose that is a brief reference to it.

On the other question the hon. Member asked, Mr. Chairman.

MR. REID: Would someone in that group then make recommendations - let us see if I can take an example, let us take the Corner Brook Mill as an example, if there was an environmental problem within the Province would that group have the authority to assess and make recommendations to the Premier on that particular problem?

MR. KELLAND: Well specific problems would be handled through the Environmental Assessment Act in our Department; in other words, a project that was about to start or some adjustments to an existing programme would require registration and permission of the Environmental Assessment Act.

This would be broader in the sense that the concept I guess, of what should happen in the pulp and paper industry and how that may impact on the environment or how it can live with the environment and the environment can be sustained while allowing certain levels of development, would be a broader policy issue that that particular committee could advise the Premier and help him formulate the direction Government would take with respect to a balance between the environment and the economy that would be closer to what I think the mandate is.

On the question of hazardous waste if I can say so, Mr. Chairman, our policy in Government is simply this. I may have stated it publicly before; we will not turn down any proposal out of hand. In other words, if someone says: we would like to import wastes and handle it in a certain place in Newfoundland or Labrador, we simply would not turn it down out of hand; we would allow or accept a description of the proposal; it would obviously require, I think, a personal opinion here perhaps, the full environmental assessment process to be followed, and then as a requirement in the legislation, that if you go to the full EIS route that Cabinet would make a decision, but it would make a decision, in my estimation based on the merits of the project.

If you consider that Newfoundland and Labrador has done and will yet do, an activity which ships some of our waste out of our Province, that would tend to make you believe that logically, we could not very well say: if we could ship hazardous waste out that under certain conditions, acceptable conditions that is after full assessment, that we may not take some in, so out of hand, we just simply would not turn down the project, but hear the description and judge it on its merits, subject it to full environmental assessment and ask Government to make a decision based on the merits of the thing.

You are talking about places like Trepassey for example and Long Harbour, and I can tell you that even though there has been a proposal put forward to the Town of Trepassey for example, and we have copies of that information; as far as I understand it at least up to Friday, the project has not been registered under environmental assessment, but it certainly will be required to be environmentally registered and it will go through the full process before any decisions are taken one way or the other.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms.Verge?

MS. VERGE: Thank you. I would like to ask the Minister a very general question to start.

What do the Minister and the Department of Environment, Lands, Wildlife and Parks, regard as the worst environmental problems in Newfoundland and Labrador, what are presently the worst problems or threats to our environment?

MR. KELLAND: I thank the hon. Member for her question, in a broad sense I guess, in a general sense, the biggest environmental problem we have is the broad issue of waste management in my opinion, which of course encompasses an awful lot.

Waste management is not what I would call, yet in a comprehensive form where we can say in this Province that we have an adequate and good waste management plan; we are not just talking recycling or septic waste in Robin Hood Bay, we are talking about the whole broad issue, so waste management I guess would be the broad, major concern of our Department, that we would address in a number of components but generally speaking in the whole context.

MS. VERGE: What are your present ideas for tackling that problem or the many problems associated with waste management?

MR. KELLAND: To be frank about it, Mr. Chairman - and I thank the hon. Member for the question again - we have been dealing with it in components, largely, in that we try to - we are doing some work now with respect to a recycling programme that will be Province-wide, for example. It has not received any sort of publication, it has not progressed beyond a fairly extensive consultation process. The question of solid waste and landfill sites have been addressed in another aspect. Our water resources and clean air and water have been addressed sort of in a component sense, that each problem has been addressed individually.

Part I would think of our planning and policy unit which we will soon have will give us a greater ability to address the problem in a broader sense. And we will intend to make us of that in conjunction with the use that the Round Table will make of the secretariat services, to be able to do a better planning job, to be quite frank about it, Mr. Chairman, to address the overall problem. I cannot be more specific at this time but it is something that is an ongoing concern of ours and we have been addressing it - I do not want to use the term "piecemeal" but componently, and we would like to address it in a broad sense. And I believe we will have a greater capability in the coming years to deal with that broad question by making use of our planning and policy unit we are about to establish.

MS. VERGE: Would the Minister say that the problems of waste management are greatest where the population is largest and most concentrated, i.e., in the St. John's and Corner Brook areas?

MR. KELLAND: Yes, that would probably be true. I think it is fair to say that, Mr. Chairman. Where there is a greater concentration of people there is more likely industrial and commercial developments of a greater scale than you would see in the smaller, more rural communities. And possibly the waste management then becomes a larger problem overall.

MS. VERGE: I gather the Minister and/or Department officials recently met with representatives of the three cities, St. John's, Corner Brook and Mount Pearl, to talk about ideas for the cities' recycling some types of garbage. From talking to a couple of councillors I have the impression that they cannot see how they can do anything. This is their perception. They cannot see how they can do anything in the way of municipal recycling without money from the Provincial Government and there has been no offer of Provincial funding thus far. Does the Minister share that perception? Do the municipalities really need extra funding from the Province to carry out recycling programmes? And if so, will the Provincial Government be responding by providing the necessary funding?

MR. KELLAND: Mr. Chairman, yes indeed, I will confirm that I met with them, or representatives, at least - all mayors were not there - of St. John's, Mount Pearl, and Corner Brook, and also the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Municipalities. I wanted to talk about recycling at that time but other issues were addressed such as Robin Hood Bay and some other concerns. Corner Brook Pulp and Paper was mentioned by the Mayor from Corner Brook, and so on.

But we were largely talking about recycling at the time. I am of the opinion - and it is probably one that perhaps all of us share -that the polluter should pay for pollution cleanup. Now, it might be hard to define who the polluter may be -

MS. VERGE: No, if I might interject. My question had to do with recycling.

MR. KELLAND: Yes.

MS. VERGE: For example, recycling newspapers, other papers, recycling cardboard -

MR. KELLAND: Yes, I am addressing that.

MS. VERGE: - recycling glass, aluminium and tin.

MR. KELLAND: Yes, I am responding to that, really.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

MR. KELLAND: And the question of recycling, the polluter pays. And the polluter in the question of recycling might be defined as those who put it into the system. That is to say, manufacturers, importers of glass, plastic, steel, aluminium, the creators of newspaper or newsprint, high-density plastic - whatever it happens to be; and/or those who throw it into the environment.

So to say that the Provincial Government should fund clean up as an entity or that a municipality or city should clean up as an entity, I am not sure that that should be the case. I believe those who create the problem should through legislation and regulation be required to pay at least a substantial part of the clean up. I have not done a lot of public speaking about the concept I had in mind but I guess I could say it in this way, Mr. Chairman, a deposit system may very well be a method by which a certain level of recycling can be attained. I do not mean a deposit system on returnable, reusable containers necessarily, I am not limiting this to soft drink containers by the way in my concept but rather any container. For example, what about the lube oil containers and the high density plastic, there is a commercial application for that in recycling through the superwood concept that we talked about in the House of Assembly before.

So, I am of the opinion that those who make their living from or introduce these things into the system, the manufactures, importers and so on should have some financial responsibility. Indeed, through Nova Recycling right now a number of companies are now contributing to that effort. I would like to make it more mandatory, more regulated and involve everybody in that process. People who then pollute, though they may not pay to drive a province-wide recycling system, those who offend the legislation once it is in place, in other words if someone breaks the law and continues to pollute - like our stock programme that we announced last year - penalties for people who toss things out. They should also be held responsible but not in the clean up sense but to be penalized for individual type of offences.

I do have a concept in mind which I have discussed with the municipalities which would eventually see a province-wide recycling programme if I get the approval of Government when we reach that stage. Currently, in consultation with municipalities the industry will be involving some NGOs and other agencies that may have an interest.

MS. VERGE: That role undoubtedly will take years to realize, in the meantime, will the Minister have the Government start by recycling cardboard, paper, plastic, tin and things that Nova Recycling are looking for?

MR. KELLAND: Do you mean province-wide?

MS. VERGE: Sure. The Provincial Government, I mean Departments in St. John's and Corner Brook.

MR. KELLAND: I can tell you that we do not have the financial ability to fund a province-wide recycling programme.

MS. VERGE: But all we need is a bit of leadership. All we need is to have collector bins in major provincial government public buildings to bring our used paper. We all throw out reams of paper in every one of our offices. We are throwing out cardboard, we are throwing from the CNIB cafeterias in this building, tin and plastic containers. Why can we not collect them and lead by example?

MR. KELLAND: Exactly right. I totally agree with the hon. Member, who in herself by statistics contributes about seventy-five kilograms of waste paper a year to the system.

MS. VERGE: Probably more, that is the average.

MR. KELLAND: You may be above or below.

MS. VERGE: I think I may be above average.

MR. KELLAND: However, we do have in the works, and we have not been able to announce yet until some of the fine points are worked out, a proposal of leadership by example, to institute a provincial government building recycling programme.

MS. VERGE: When do you expect to get that off the ground?

MR. KELLAND: I am not able to give you a date at this time. But it is actively being worked on.

MS. VERGE: I mean, could you sort of round it off to the nearest six months, when do you think it will be in place?

MR. KELLAND: During my present term.

MS. VERGE: Well, that is pretty vague. With all due respect, I do not accept that. I think that with just a little bit of effort that could be in place easily by September.

MR. KELLAND: Possibly so.

MS. VERGE: At any rate, how about ATVs, does the Minister think that the proliferation of ATVs throughout the woods and countryside is damaging our environment? If so, does the Government have any ideas about limiting the use of ATVs to lessen the harmful effect to the environment.

MR. KELLAND: Yes. If I could just in an aside indicate, I want to be forthcoming with any information that I give hon. Members, as I have said I am not interested in any political byplay, that is whatever Members decide to do themselves. But really I am concerned about recycling. And the hon. Member, formerly a Minister, is aware that sometimes details of activities under way which may be considered by Cabinet in some immediately future time or distant future time for that matter is very difficult for me to discuss prior to, say, Cabinet decisions being made. So there is some - I can assure her - and I cannot give her a time frame - that the recycling and leadership by example is certainly a consideration of mine.

With respect to the ATVs, yes, I am very aware that the indiscriminate or improper use of ATVs in the Province is causing very extensive ecologically environmental damage. If you can pay attention to the experts, and I guess you can, regeneration of some of the vegetation and habitat that is destroyed by indiscriminate use of ATVs may take as much as 200 or 300 years to regenerate. And that is really frightening. I agree with the concerns that the hon. Member - again, we have a number of reports filed with us and some active work is being done - I cannot be really more specific at this time - to regulate over and above the safety regulations which now apply to some of these vehicles under another Department, to come up with a comprehensive plan for the legitimate uses that ATVs may be held to. And I suppose in a broad sense we can talk about such things as wood roads or trails, perhaps the abandoned rail line in a recreational and other legitimate use for ATVs. But it is a complex problem that has existed for a great number of years. It is increasing. I do not have the figures right in front of me at this moment as to the number of ATVs in the Province but they are very substantial. Thousands and thousands and increasing on a regular basis.

We seek to limit and control their activities to legitimate uses and by that method protect the environment. Having said that, and once we get to the stage where proper legislation is in place, enforcement will become an ongoing and never-ending (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Are you looking at -?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I would want to distribute the time as suggested by the Member for St. John's East in a fair sense. But before I move on to another Member of the Committee I would ask that the minutes of May 6 that are distributed, be carried.

On motion, the minutes were carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have some general questions to ask. My colleague for Trinity North has advised me that he and I have the same questions to ask and he has asked me not to ask his questions. How we acquire proprietary interest in questions I will never know but I will have to defer. So I may not use the full ten minutes.

The first thing I would like to say is that in response to a question raised by my colleague for St. John's East Extern about the overfishing on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks - well, he specifically said 2J3KL - I am very happy to see that the Minister has raised that on the environmental wish list in Brazil. Because I think that is one way to drive home to the Europeans who are overfishing that this is a grave concern. In November of 1989, along with other Members of this Chamber, I happened to be privileged to be on a Federal-Provincial Parliamentary Committee which toured some of the European capitals, lobbying the European governments to reduce their overfishing and abide by the NAFO quotas on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks.

One of the things that struck me while I was in Europe is that some of the European capitals are lobbying the European Governments to reduce their overfishing and abide by the NAFO quotas on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks, but one of the things that struck me while I was in Europe was that, it is one thing to make an economic argument about overfishing on the Nose and Tail, but it is another thing to make an environmental argument and it seems like I guess, perhaps because it is an older society and a greater density of population, that environmental concerns have a higher profile in Europe than I would say they do in North America.

And when you make the argument along environmental lines that overfishing is detrimental to the stocks, you seem to strike a much more responsive chord with the Europeans, so I certainly do wish to commend the Minister for having put that issue on the agenda for Brazil in June.

It is certainly an issue of grave concern, not only to the Member for St. John's East Extern, but certainly to me, since the entire economy of my district depends upon both the inshore and offshore fishery; so just as a general comment I would like to commend the Minister on that particular effort.

Now with respect to some more specific questions concerning the Estimates, I notice that the Minister, under Capital 32.02, page 99, Cottage Land Developing, has allocated $200,000. I wonder, is that $200,000 actually going to be used to develop cottage sites around the Province, or is it for planning, or what is the $200,000 for?

MR. KELLAND: With the Chairman's permission, I would ask our ADM of Lands and Parks as he can give the more technical specifics, so I would like to ask Mr. Winsor to respond.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Winsor.

MR. WINSOR: The $200,000 is for actual expenditures, capital expenditures in development. The development would include surveys, access roads, that type of thing and it is budgeted on the basis that it is cost recoverable. The developed lots, we make them available to the public on a draw basis and we recover the cost that we put in, no more, hopefully no less.

MR. GOVER: Yes. The $200,000 that has been allocated, has that been allocated to any specific area of the Province for development?

MR: WINSOR: No specific area. We have several areas in mind for this year; we cannot guarantee which areas will go ahead because during the planning stage, we quite often run into a hitch.

The Department of Health may say no to an area; Highways may say no, you cannot have that because you cannot have access and there are several other reasons why different Departments may turn us down on a specific site.

We are, through our regular staff, not the $200,000 budgeted, actively planning areas and certainly some of those that are in the planning stage will go ahead and we do expect to be able to use that money this year.

MR. GOVER: Would you have any idea how many sites $200,000 generates?

MR. WINSOR: I guess on an average over the past three or four years, $2,000 might be a good average, a little more, so if we are talking $200,000 I guess you are talking about 100 sites.

MR. GOVER: And this money is recovered in total when the lots are sold to potential cabin owners?

MR: WINSOR: Yes. The lots are generally leased to them on a fifty-year lease basis, and the lessee is eligible for a grant after the lots are developed; the lease is for seventy-five dollars a year, but they pay the development costs up front, so the $2,000 per lot is recovered up front and they get a normal Crown Land lease.

MR. GOVER: When the lots are developed, let us say you developed twenty lots round a particular pond or in a particular site, how are these lots then allocated to the public?

MR. WINSOR: Any lots that we develop are allocated on a public draw.

MR. GOVER: On a public draw?

MR. WINSOR: We advertise them extensively in the media especially the print media I would say.

MR. GOVER: For a fixed price?

MR. WINSOR: No. We advertise a draw per cottage lots; we have had occasion where, say for thirty lots in a particular place, we might get 500 people who have put their names in for the draw; from that, we then would draw thirty names plus maybe another ten, to account for those people who would drop out. We then have a meeting with those forty people and explain what is involved in actually getting a lease and what they will have to pay.

Now in the ad they would have some idea of what they will have to pay, they would know the ballpark figure.

MR. GOVER: And is the ballpark figure based upon the development cost?

MR. WINSOR: Yes.

MR. GOVER: These lots are not auctioned off?

MR. WINSOR: No.

MR. GOVER: I have another question along the lines of capital there. I noticed in the Budget there is approximately $400,000 for park planning and development which is on Page 102, 4.1.06, and again with respect to that particular amount of capital $400,000, is that for the development of any particular park, or is it merely for planning new parks to be developed around the Province?

MR. WINSOR: It is not for new parks. It is for capital development in existing parks.

MR. KELLAND: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, certainly Don Hustins who is Director of Parks could provide the specifics for the hon. Member?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me. Could you make sure that red light is on before you identify yourself and respond. That gives you an indication that your microphone is activated.

MR. HUSTINS: Is there something here for me to turn on?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, it is done from upstairs. Just wait until it comes on and then you can respond.

MR. HUSTINS: Okay, there it is. Thank you.

The money we have in the capital program is primarily oriented towards a possible tourism historic resources agreement that is hopefully to be signed in the next few weeks for capital development in several parks. The other component of the $400,000 is related to the normal capital expenditures of park upgrading in most parks throughout the Province.

MR. GOVER: Thank you.

My final question, in these times of restraint the Minister has maintained an all park open policy and certainly I commend the Minister for having fought to have sufficient funds to maintain all parks open. I just wonder as to the amount of money which is currently being asked to be voted by the Legislature with respect to park operations, while all parks will remain open does this entail any reduced operating seasons for any of the parks in the Province?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. KELLAND: I was pleased to announce, in fact, an all parks open policy this year and essentially all the parks will be operated as they were in previous years. It is worth mentioning, however, that we did make some changes with respect to the fee structures which will be reflected in the overall budgetary considerations. We were really, quite frankly, faced with the prospect of closing, perhaps, for the current season, as many as ten or fifteen parks because of budgetary restraint. I preferred, and asked Government to opt for an all parks open policy and in order to generate -

Just as an interruption I should mention that Mr. Dominie, one of our officials, has to leave. His wife is currently getting close to deliver so he is certainly excused, and I wish him well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Committee wishes him well.

MR. KELLAND: Anyway, I am sorry for that digression. We are pleased he came anyway, and we understand that he now has to leave.

To opt for an all parks open policy, and to provide essentially the same service we have been giving in previous years, and in consideration of the financial restraints we are under, it was decided to have an no exemption rule with respect to park fees. That is to say that the seniors who had previously been admitted to parks free would now have to pay the same rate as everybody else. On balance we think that was the proper decision, in that you would be faced with still providing some seniors with that free access to the parks year round, or having fifteen less parks for them to avail themselves of that service, we decided to have an no exemption rule thereby allowing us to keep all the parks open. I must say the fees were really only nominally increased, and not by any great extent. For example, the standard park overnight rate which was $6.00 was increased to $7.00 but that $7.00 included the GST which we are now required to apply to our park fee charges. In other words it was not $7.00 plus GST but the GST was included in that final figure of $7.00. There are other rates applicable to different types of parks, but that was what we opted for and I am pleased to say all parks are open, they will be open, I think the standard number, on the May 24 weekend, which is a lot earlier than May 24 as you know. And will continue on in a regular fashion as in previous years up to the Labour Day weekend in September.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. I suppose it is nice to see the Federal Government having an opportunity to have some income on Provincial parks. It shows that we are contributing back. Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you. I want to say at the outset that I think the Minister's responsibilities are many and varied and most complex, and he has a big job on his hands, and I guess reflected in the number of officials that he has brought with him to discuss if necessary the diverse elements of your work.

One of the things that strikes me as being important is that we get beyond some of the platitudes that we so often hear. Things like 'sustainable economic development' and things like that. And I am a little worried that sometimes we get involved in sort of PR and not really make the tough decisions when they have to be made. And one of them I guess is one that the Member for Humber East brings up, and having to do with the recycling in Government itself and here in the Confederation Building. I know the House of Commons in Ottawa - the buildings associated with it, I was not there, it happened after I left - but the House itself decided to declare the House of Commons and environs to be an example or demonstration project and they decided to adopt it. And this was done fairly quickly. I mean, it did not take endless amounts of planning and bureaucracy and vague statements like the Minister is making such as: well, it will be done some point down the road.

Is the Minister concerned - and I am not blaming his officials - that we are not taking the bull by the horns, and we are letting too much planning or too much bureaucracy bog down some things like a recycling programme for this building and the one attached to it, for example, as a first example? Can we just start in stages and say: okay, look, let's do it here first, and do it that way. The big plan, yes, there is going to have to be thinking and planning. But can we start now in the immediate future with a plan that is a first step? Have you given any thought to that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Okay, well I will ask another question.

MR. KELLAND: (Inaudible) just let me finish my response. I thought I had already answered that. It is difficult to give you a time frame. And I was being, I suppose, partly facetious when I said those activities would occur some time during my term. I would hope that they would. But we have actually already started. Because to say: when are you going to start, sort of a thing, means that today I would start deciding how it might be accomplished. But actually that goes back a little ways over a period of time. I am just not in a position due to the procedures we have to live under to give you any exact detail.

But we do have a lot of information on the amount of... let's say waste that is produced in the Confederation Building complex, including hon. Members' offices - to some degree of accuracy - and all offices in the building. And you just cannot say: okay, let's start recycling tomorrow, if you know what I mean. This takes a little bit of time. And to say why not do it now - in fact we are in the process of doing it now and I would be able to provide - I cannot this evening, unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, and Members - but within a reasonable period of time I would be able to provide the information to the House of Assembly.

MR. HARRIS: If I may say, you can start immediately, in terms of at least sorting out the waste and having some collection process that collects fine papers in one bin and various others. And there may be some minimal cost associated with having these bins available and some processed. Actually, the actual recycling itself may take more. But I guess I disagree with the Minister's approach, if he is waiting to have it all figured out before he starts. So I wanted to suggest that maybe the Minister should think that the long range plan can go ahead and some time later we can hear it all, but that by starting the ball rolling maybe we could get it moving faster.

Another area that concerns me: You have talked about environmental assessment programme and one of the most significant parts of our environment in this Province is our forest. We have the forest divided into a number of management areas as the Minister knows. And each of these management areas is required to have an approved management plan in order to commence or continue a cutting programme, whether it be for firewood, lumber or pulp and paper. And I want to know, can the Minister tell us whether or not these forest management plans are subject to the full environmental review process? Because as the Minister I am sure will know, there are many aspects of consequences of these forest management plans outside of the sustainability of the wood harvesting, there is one of quality issues, there is the ecology of the forest issue, there are animal species that are involved, there is soil erosion and many other concerns that come into play and I wonder whether or not the Minister has any comments on that environmental process as it relates to forest management.

MR. KELLAND: Yes I do, Mr. Chairman, but first I would like to respond to the last remarks of the hon. Member with respect to his earlier question. I should tell him that, I guess prior to my time, there was a possibility that some funding was sought for Government recycling. In 1989-1990, which was our first year in, I guess some time constraints, but we did make an effort to get some money as there was a certain amount of money required.

You just cannot say recycle and sort and expect that there would be no cost, someone has to co-ordinate it. There has to be a variety of training and setting up of a system, it is not a simple thing. We did try in 1989 and 1990 to find the funding which was taken from the budget, or we did not get the allocation, we made another attempt the following year and were not again successful.

I believe now that having made those attempts through our budgetary process, we have to take a different approach. I cannot unfortunately, outline what the different approach is but we have actually started the process, but it is not something that will start tomorrow resulting from the issues raised here this evening; I just want to comment on that.

It is not quite as simple as the hon. Member says it is; now he may be able to do it or any individual may be able to do it in their own offices on a voluntary basis, that is a simple matter, but to have it incorporated in the Confederation Building, East and West block complex and subsequently all Provincial buildings requires a fair bit of effort so I just want to make that clear, but the thing is in process, I can tell him that and hopefully some meaningful announcements can be made in the relatively near future, but I cannot give a specific time frame because of the process.

With respect to forestry management plans, yes, and in the stricter sense of the word, these plans are required to be registered under the Environmental Assessment Act, however, there is a problem in that, that has never been done to my knowledge in the true sense of the word where these things were registered, they had gone through some environmental assessment process.

I guess at this point in time I could say that the final decision on the approach to take on these plans is not really made; it is an ongoing discussion between me and the responsible Minister and it may go back to the origin of the whole problem, in deciding whether or not really it is an environmental problem we are talking about, an environmental consideration or a management consideration with respect to the development of management plans.

I see the hon. Member shaking his head and I do as well, often, when faced with particular problems; again, it is not a simple thing to work out, but we are in active discussion and consultation with the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture to try to determine ways and means of alleviating that problem, and whether or not particular types of management plans should be subjected to the environmental assessment process, but no real final decisions as I understand it or could be confirmed by the Deputy has been reached at this point in time.

MR. HARRIS: So I gather what the Minister is saying is, yes, they are required to be but they are not, and we are working out as to whether they will or not. I mean I am very concerned with it I have to say, and this is why I was shaking my head, because obviously there are many conditions having to do with the sustainability of the forests, but surely, this is the very crux of what the Environment Department is supposed to do, to ensure that whatever is going on in the management area meets environmental safeguards for the rest of us who are not necessarily directly involved in the management aspect of it.

I do not really want to make a speech about it, but that is obviously where I am coming from on it and I would encourage the Minister to enforce his legislation even against the advice perhaps, of industry people who may or may not be agreed with by the Department.

The Minister said something I think is quite useful. He talked about deposits as a method of encouraging recycling programmes. Can I ask the Minister why he did not use that general concept in dealing with this issue of motor vehicles and motor vehicles being discarded or thrown in the woods or left or over cliffs or down over hills or whatever? The Minister has a very large and diverse Department. You spend $20 million, about $10 million on permanent employees, and perhaps more. And I do not mean to be sarcastic about this, but surely your Department and facilities have some better ideas than jacking up fines for people throwing cars in the woods. Can you not - and I want to say this seriously, not as a political confrontation - see a way of developing some deposit system based on the principles that the Minister has mentioned for a motor vehicle?

If I buy a new car tomorrow, if I am going to spend $15,000 or $20,000 for a new car, can I not be expected to throw in $50 or $75 to an environmental fund or a deposit fund? That when the time comes, or someone else has a car wreck that they want to get rid of, if they bring it to an approved dump, can they get $75 credit? And that would thereby encourage the people who are perhaps doing nothing right now, instead of throwing cars over the cliffs after scrapping them will maybe go around and collect them and bring them to approved dumps and thereby have a sustained fund that keeps the process going and helps clean up the environment and spreads a few dollars around. And it can be something creative perhaps as opposed to merely punitive.

And I am not saying you do not have the fines and you do not enforce the laws. But I am saying, can we have some creative ideas? Obviously it has to be thought out as to how it would work, and you have brilliant people in your Department who can figure out the details. But can we not come up with some ideas like that instead of just sort of saying: well, we will slap them with big fines?

MR. KELLAND: Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr. Minister.

MR. KELLAND: I thank the hon. Member for his comments and questions, I guess. It is hardly a new idea that a deposit be placed on new vehicle purchases. I can even bend over backwards and credit the former administration for having thought of that a time or two as far as I know. And it is one of the options that we considered in the current considerations. But again, like the recycling within the building or anywhere else, it is not simply a matter of saying: let's put a deposit on a new vehicle. It is a very complex matter, and we view it as almost an administrative nightmare.

What about the vehicles that a lot of our fellow Newfoundlanders go to Toronto and buy and bring back down? What about deposits with respect to that? How do you administer it? What paper trail would have to be created from a, let's say, $200 or $250 deposit on a $15,000 vehicle? I suppose it is not major, perhaps not for a person who has the income of an MHA in this House of Assembly. Probably insignificant, that $250, but maybe more significant to somebody else, and then somewhere down the road receive $75 or $100 back. It is not a bad concept in the initial stages. I just think that at this point in time, though the idea has been around for years, even perhaps for ten or fifteen years before the hon. Member was elected here, and it is certainly not new to me, but it was a consideration we took in our view. The administrative problems associated with that and the paper trail required to end up with the final owner getting say $75 or $100 back is very difficult.

What about vehicles, for example, that are deposited as wrecks and let's say a fellow purchases the vehicle purely to get some of the parts off it, and then part of it still goes into the environment? He would never get a full deposit back. I can foresee civil cases under way and just a nightmare. But it was taken under consideration, as was, by the way, for years, prior to my time, and including my time, perhaps a slight increase in the registration fee to establish a fund whereby existing wrecks could be taken out of the environment. The concept of having a minimum fine where there was no minimum and loss of a license is to act mainly as a deterrent for any future activities with respect to depositing car wrecks into the environment. As you notice, because of legislative requirements and so on, they have an adequate lead time up to January 1, 1992 which gives anybody with a grain of sense out there who has a wreck, or has deposited a vehicle that may be traced back to them, adequate time to take the necessary action, because once legislation goes through and conviction occurs there is a minimum fine of $1000 and loss of your driver's license for six months and that is a deterrent to anybody. I agree with the hon. Member that it does not address the problem that exists out there now, nor would a deposit system at this point address the problem of the thousands of vehicles that are out there right now. We are trying to find the ways and means of deriving a fund for that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

MR. HARRIS: Let me just say though that my suggestion of depositing is not related to an individual vehicle, that you would not have to trace down this vehicle as to when it was eventually thrown out, but that is a detail.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, very much.

I think it might be appropriate right now, before we go to Mr. Oldford's questions which are probably very well researched, to wait ten minutes and have a short break. There is coffee in the Government caucus room which is to my left, right straight through. I am sure the Minister will show his staff. We will have a ten minute break and reconvene at quarter to nine.

RECESS

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I am sure everybody enjoyed the short break and now as we come to order again I ask the Member for Trinity North if he has any questions of the Minister and his staff.

Mr. Oldford.

MR. OLDFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, concerning one of your answers given to the hon. Member for Bonavista South regarding the charge to senior citizens this year for entry into parks. Can you tell me how much revenue you are going to collect from senior citizens in this fiscal year?

MR. KELLAND: I do not know whether or not I mentioned it already, Mr. Chairman, but it is around $200,000 by our best estimate. It would be very difficulty to say exactly but we are contemplating $200,000.

MR. OLDFORD: Thank you.

Another question I wanted to ask you is regarding the caribou herd that used to be on the Bonavista Peninsula. Do you have any plans to replenish or rebuild that herd?

MR. KELLAND: Well, not specific plans, I suppose, Mr. Chairman, but for the hon. Member's information the concept of reseeding former herds and so on is something we support. We have done it on the Island part of the Province but we do not have to in Labrador. We just have to wait for them to come back on an annual basis. Nevertheless what it usually boils down to is, if we can find the appropriate funding, because there would be a cost involved with reseeding caribou herds, the habitat is there and they did exist there at one time and perhaps over killing got rid of them, but let us say we found the adequate resources to do it, I would think it would be a fairly extensive public relations exercise and we would have to be required to make sure that not only can we do it from a biological sense, but that our management chore would be somewhat less onerous if the public were aware of what we were trying to do. It is not beyond the realms of possibility in other words but currently though this year we would not have the funding for that type of operation, but it is the type of thing we can involve ourselves in. I will complement, if I can, just for a brief second the wildlife branch because it is through good management practices, and pretty good enforcement practices, actually, that we do have the thriving wildlife resource we do have in the Province. We are very proud of that within the Department and I am sure Government is as well.

MR. OLDFORD: My final question is this: You have brought in new procedures for obtaining moose licences -

MR. KELLAND: You did not get yours.

MR. OLDFORD: I did not get mine. What is the rationale behind the changes? Why did you make the changes and how much additional revenue do you expect to get from the changes in the fee structure?

MR. KELLAND: Well, there is a rationale behind it. You know the former procedure and there were some changes in that whereby a few years ago, I am not sure of the exact year, they added $5 to an application fee which was to be used for, I suppose, management enforcement and all that sort of thing. I am not sure if we were ever able to get that money back out directly to the Department in the same sense I suppose as the concept originally called for.

I just felt, and in consultation with the people in the Wildlife Branch, that we had a cumbersome method in place that cost the Government money, unnecessarily so. It is due mostly to the administrative costs of refunding licence fees to people who were unsuccessful in our computer draw. So we sat down and had some pretty lengthy discussions on this - I had a hands on thing in this as I do with a lot of things in the Department, of course - I wanted a more efficient system without loss of revenue and one that would perhaps do some administrative savings for us and that is exactly what we came up with.

If I may be permitted the time to quickly explain it to you, it was inefficient in that heretofore you would have to submit your $5 application fee along with your $25 licence fee, when you were applying for a licence. The $5 was non-refundable. In fact, if you were successful in the draw the $25 for the licence fee was not refundable either because you were now paying for your licence. However, the many thousands, tens of thousands I suppose, of people who were not successful in the draw it was required that their $25 be refunded. This caused delays in doing the draw, delays in completing the final transactions and a substantial cost probably to the tune of somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 annually by the Department of Finance plus our own people who were sent over in support of finance to get these refunds out, which took months. So, there was a substantial administrative cost involved that I did not think was necessary.

What we decided to do was to allow anybody in the Province who was eligible to submit an application with no money being sent in. Once they were successful in the draw they would be advised and their net cost would be the same as if they were successful in the original draw. In other words, the new licence fee would be $35, prior to that it had been a cost of $30, $5 for application and $25 for licence fee. The new cost will be $35. So individual hunters will pay the $5 extra cost but all the hunters I spoke to - and I spoke to many, many hunters - I said would you object to an increase of $5 in your net fee if you knew you had your licence and exclusively they said, no.

For two-party applications the cost is identical to what it was before, $5 for each individual application for a total of $10, plus the $25 licence fee for a net of $35. They would now pay the same $35 but only after they were successful in the draw. This meant that people who wished to move up in the pools were paying $5 a year for application only, just to get their name in their and no longer will have to bear that cost. So, in the long haul, I suppose, the cost to the individual hunter over the years will be much less than it had been before.

So, we have a more efficient system without the delays in refunding money and so on and will probably, in subsequent years, be able to make the draw as much as four to six weeks earlier. We had a more efficient system. We had no loss in revenue because the extra $5 on the individual licence would take care of loss of revenue from the application fees no longer submitted. And we saved something to the tune of, I believe it was, $32,000 in administrative cost by not having to issue all these thousands of refund cheques to people who had to wait months sometimes for them. So we achieved our objective which was a more efficient system, no loss in revenue, and a saving in administrative cost. And that is the rationale.

MR. OLDFORD: Last year, if I remember correctly, you issued additional licences for the regions along the Trans-Canada Highway. This year you have issued 5,000 additional licences?

MR. KELLAND: Something in the range of 5,200 and some odd extra, yes.

MR. OLDFORD: So are they going to be spread evenly across the Province, or are they going to be proportioned out along the Trans-Canada again along main highways?

MR. KELLAND: We take a lot of things into consideration. The ability of the resource in any given area to sustain a certain level of harvest, in some there are pockets of high density of wildlife and we would increase the harvest there. So it is not a uniform - you know, take the number of people and divide it by the number of animals we can harvest and evenly distribute it across the island part of the Province. From a good management point of view and a public safety point of view that is not the practical way to go. So we judged it on management practices and where concentrations of the big game were causing some problems, say in the highway incidents and so on like that. So it was done not evenly in that sense but by good management practice. So it is an uneven distribution from the point of view of numbers but eminently sensible when it comes to management and safety.

MR. OLDFORD: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister, thank you, Mr. Oldford. The Member for St. John's East Extern, Mr. Parsons.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all I want to say to the Minister that the answers that he gave to the questions I had were well-received. I must say that all the questions that I did ask he addressed very clearly.

MR. KELLAND: Thank you very much.

MR. PARSONS: There are only a couple of points I would like to make. When we talked about the Hibernia thing, I talked about it in an overall view. The roads leading down and everything. The part of the cove there that is being filled in and looking at it in an overall way. When you spoke about having to have a study done in other areas that perhaps could replace Robin Hood Bay. I am wondering what happened to the study that was done in 1974? Were there more sites than the one off Ruby Line? And perhaps there could be alternate sites in that study that was done in 1974 when the Ruby Line one came up. I think there was more than one area defined. And I am wondering if some of the other areas perhaps could not be.

MR. KELLAND: Mr. Chairman, actually the Member makes a very good point in my opinion. I thank him for the comments he just made as well. I am not aware that there were other sites of primary choice. My information that I have received to date was that the Ruby Line was the best site, I suppose, and for all I know the only site identified as being suitable at the time. It would strike me - and I would have to check this to make absolutely certain for the hon. Member - that if there were other alternate sites at the time of, say, high desirability, that the administration of the day, once they ran into the problem with Ruby Line, would have perhaps gone to alternative 2, 3, or 4, whatever.

So what I will undertake to do - and I do not know if it has to be part of the estimates as such - is determine in fact where that 1974, I believe, study rests now, and whether indeed there were some other sites that may be suitable. Of course since 1974 there

could have been a lot of developments which may have taken up some of the space that may have been considered in the 1974 edition. But I will undertake to do that for the hon. Member and provide that for him. I do not know if he will need to wait in the Estimates until I get that for him but I will undertake to do that for him. He makes a very good point actually and I thank the hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible) Mr. Minister to hold up the Estimates as such but you have offered to respond to the hon. Member and that is fine. I am sure the hon. Member would not have asked the question if he did not want to know the answer. It is nice to see the cordiality which exists between the Minister and the Member.

Mr. Parsons.

MR. PARSONS: Now, the other thing that I addressed was the offal situation and the dragging on the spawning grounds. I realize fully that is under Federal jurisdiction but I always felt not only through this Government but in past Governments as well we did not espouse enough to the Federal people about situations that were occurring in our own backyard. I think sometimes bureaucrats in Ottawa have very little knowledge of what is happening so close to home for us. When I spoke about the offal as you know, just to the south of us there was a great big offal plant and that offal plant is no longer there. Offal can produce high protein in cattle food and also can be used as fertilizer. It has tremendous value as far as protein is concerned in cattle feed.

On the other side of the coin there might be an opening there for the Minister to look into, I know there is a consortium now that are looking at the offal to manufacture fish food, as well. It is in its infancy but certainly there is great potential there.

The Trepassey thing: I certainly wanted to say to the Minister that I am sure there is going to be an EIS on the situation as it evolves. But I personally attended a conference in Washington a couple of years ago and I have great concern that Newfoundland, because of geography and because of availability, could be used as a dumping site for the rest of North America. This concerns me greatly. I look at, not myself, but the future that will bring to our children and our grandchildren. We looked at Bell Island many years ago and we also had people who looked at Buchans and on both occasions those sites were refused for the same reasons. I would like for your Department to leave no stone unturned. I am personally and teetotally against such an endeavour.

I will just deal with the old wrecks. You mentioned the old wrecks. Perhaps, it used to be in your time, Mr. Minister, but certainly it was in my time when a $2 fee was placed on the licence. When you brought your licence you paid $2 extra and that $2 was used to remove some of those old wrecks. Now, the problem the Minister says is great and so it is because on many occasions the people who have those wrecks around, not always now, but in some instances when people have those old wrecks around when you do go to them to get them to move them they do not have enough money to paid for it. If you do fine them, they have no money to pay for the fines, it is unending. I do not know what kind of a process could be brought in by the Minister and his Department but there is no easy solution to it.

On the recycling: I must say to the Minister again I think recycling should be uppermost in your Department. We just have to look at Newfoundland Tel. They have brought it in as a private enterprise and have certainly made great strides in recycling and also, MacDonald's.

Before I finish I would like to make one comment on the ATVs. I have a good friend in the east end, I am not going to say his name; he is certainly environmentally conscious of what is going on and he has on numerous occasions said to me that we are going to kill all the bogs, we are going to disrupt our whole environment if this thing is allowed to happen.

I personally have a four-wheeler; yes, and I travel hunting and fishing and I can see where those concerns are coming from; in some countries of the world, they are not allowed to exist, now I do not think that is right, but I think that the damage that has been done, especially to the bog lands, I am not sure if it can ever be repaired or if it will ever repair itself.

The other thing I had to say, is that I have to compliment the Minister for bringing members of his staff along. Certainly he was well acquainted with all aspects of the questions that I asked anyway, but it was nice to see those people there, with the Parks situation for instance, it was nice to see that you did have your support staff with you, who could answer anything that perhaps the Minister did not know and I thank you for your answers.

MR. KELLAND: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will respond; I will try to hit the items as quickly as I can in the interest of time.

Yes, I agree with the hon. Member. Again, there are economic opportunities with respect to the handling of offal. I thank the Member for pointing that out because there are positives, even though it is a waste and is quite obnoxious.

It is a federal jurisdiction; we deal with the federal people with respect to offal and other considerations on a continuous basis, I can assure the hon. Member of that. Also, I am very-

MR. PARSONS: (Inaudible) responsibility as it pertains to building those facilities, those offal facilities-

MR. KELLAND: Oh yes.

MR. PARSONS: - you know, the ones that have been destroyed now are not there; that comes under the jurisdiction of the Province.

MR. KELLAND: Oh yes, from the point of view of the facilities. I am agreeing with the hon. Member that there are economic opportunities, so there is not just waste that can be not put to use, but then you would not call that recycling of course, but you could call it perhaps re-usable material that is otherwise pure waste and creates a problem for us, so there are a number of economic opportunities there and I would think that organizations such as- perhaps E and L would address that.

I know Memorial University is doing some work on it and some other entrepreneurs have expressed an interest in either fertilizers or the protein feed and perhaps humus or soil applications for landscaping and other agricultural uses, so I am pleased that is out there, but it does require some push from Government to get those considerations made.

With respect to waste disposal in the sense he talked about like Trepassey or Long Harbour or whatever, we do not have a registration for Trepassey at this point in time, but as I said earlier, a proposal was made to Trepassey and we are aware of the proposal, but you can be assured that such an operation or proposal would be subjected to absolutely full environmental assessment process.

This is not something we would release on registration or anything like that nor intend to, and in fact, I will give you one example; with respect to the Baie Verte proposal for disposing of asbestos waste into the ground from which asbestos came, legislation does not require the Minister responsible, to go with a requirement decision to Cabinet at the EPR, The Environmental Preview Report stage, but because of the significance, perhaps in the precedence involved with that, we have already decided in Government that even at the EPR stage, that would go to full Cabinet for a decision, so it is not something that we take lightly.

But we do not on the other hand turn down proposals out of hand without full assessment, and full assessment will be applied, I give the Member full assurance of that. I do not think we touched on it before, but he also made reference to deposits and so on. I believe, a few years ago there were a couple of dollars per registration. I think there is something like 300,000 registrations a year right now in the Province which would be a significant amount of money for various cleanups if we could do that, if we could have the money dedicated to, say, an environmental green fund or something like that. The trouble is that generally goes into general revenue and it is our efforts in the pre-budgetary process to try and get that back out for our use for environmental matters. At that time, I believe the information I had showed that it was unfortunately a one shot only kind of a deal but it did clean up something like, I believe the figures I saw was something to the tune of 19,000 to 21,000 vehicles which were taken out of the environment. I thought that was significant and perhaps we should have looked at some ways back then to even continue on right up to this year. If you could get even $500,000 or $600,000 a year by some means into a green fund, or some fund of that nature, it would go a long, long way in helping out communities that have no economic ability to clean up the messes within their boundaries. I support that concept, I can tell you that. Getting it through the whole system thought is not quite as simple as it seems, but those are some of the options I have looked at, and am prepared to promote the ideas with my colleagues.

You mentioned recycling. I think I have adequately answered what we are trying to do at this point in time, but I would like to invite the hon. Member, and I do this sincerely, invite him to drop over to my office sometime in the near future and I can give him some details as I see a concept which I have discussed with other people already in the industry and in municipalities. I would like to perhaps have a discussion with him for perhaps ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, or a half hour, whenever he has time, and get his reaction on it, as to what the concept is. It has never been committed to writing, but I make that invitation.

He touched one more subject and I will try and get that one without using up too much time. He mentioned the ATVs again. Yes, I am quite concerned and it is a serious matter. On our break I was informed that we have well over 100,000 ATVs, snowmobiles, and the whole business, in the Province of which something over 35,000 are classified as ATVs, and it seems to be increasing. Certainly, if it is increasing there is a fair level of perhaps what I call indiscriminate use, or inappropriate use of these vehicles when you are not talking about going on a track to your cabin, or going along some recognized area, a well established trail or something, where you are in over the wet lands or the bog lands that could take 200, 300, or 500 years to perhaps even regenerate is a major concern of mine as well. We have a lot of information, a lot of input of information now and we are trying to get to the stage where we can actually get some sort of final decision for Cabinet to take a position on and get something very active going on it. it has been ongoing for quite a long time and the Member can be assured that is under active consideration and a very high priority with me personally.

Those were all the points, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

At this time I would also like to welcome to the Committee hearings the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island, Mr. James Walsh. If we have an opportunity and Mr. Walsh would like to ask a question of the Minister and his staff then the Chair will do everything to give him the opportunity.

Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: Mr. Minister, for some years your Department in conjunction with the Department of Social Services had a number of people around the Island, I think they were called environmental protection officers. They were local people who were hired to keep a close watch on environmental issues within a certain region. I noticed that in the Conception Bay North area, in particular, I think this is the second year now that those people have not been with your Department or with Social Services. You can see in just that short period of time that there is a deterioration again. An example of what I am talking about is the number of people - I guess this is true of a number of areas of the Province - who are getting into salvaging car wrecks, for example, without licences. And for some reason or another it seems like the entrance to a particular area of the Province, Roaches Line, as an example, the first couple of houses you come on to on Roaches Line on the left hand side there is a car dump there. And it would not surprise me - I have not checked it out - to find out that that particular person does not have a salvage licence. In fact, there are very few salvage licences around Conception Bay North. In fact, down in my area I believe there are only two in the whole area.

But the question I have for you is that as a previous mayor of one of the largest towns in Conception Bay I found it very advantageous in my community to have these people. The previous minister, and through the joint mayors of Conception Bay North - and at the time I was president - we talked about it. And of course the comment that was made to me was that: well, the towns would have to try to absorb some of the cost of these people. But you are talking about some pretty small towns out there in that particular area, and I suppose any part of the Province and to come up with extra dollars for salaries was always difficult.

Now the question I have, Mr. Minister, is that that programme must have been assessed by your Department. I am just wondering if it is not a programme that should be reconsidered because - at least I feel - there is a deterioration right now because these people are not working in the area. Do you know what I am talking about, Mr. Minister?

MR. KELLAND: The only thing that I am aware of with respect to our Department and Social Services, I believe, and my understanding is at least, that it is related to the programme that the hon. Member for St. John's East Extern referred to. In that people under social assistance programmes were involved with the cleaning up of some of those wrecks. Now that is the only thing I am aware of. The hon. Member shakes his head 'no,' but I can only say that is what I am aware of. I do not recall a programme that was in existence in the two years that I have been the Minister, but I will tell the hon. Member though nevertheless that we have recently entered into correspondence with the Minister of Social Services with respect to Provincial parks.

Now we are somewhat limited in what we can do in times of fiscal restraint, and there is always a need to provide some employment and income for people who are disadvantaged one way or another. So I can tell you that we have corresponded with the hon. Minister of Social Services with respect to whether or not there are some people in any of these programmes that we could have do some work. Not shift work as such but specific project work within our parks, some of which will be involved with the cleaning up. And I would be happy to extend that kind of a request, perhaps to areas where we are not talking Provincial parks or protected areas as such, but areas that would be environmentally unsightly at this point in time.

I have not done that at this point in time but we have opened the door at least in discussion with the hon. Minister with another division of my Department, as I said, to do with parks, some of which will be cleanup. And I would be happy to explore that a little further. But I have no direct knowledge beyond that of the programme that the hon. Member refers to.

MR. REID: Does your Deputy Minister know what I am talking about?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, by all means.

MR. JOHN FLEMING: Not really. I know I have heard of something about a programme whereby I think social assistance people were used to document or to verify non-ownership of car wrecks or....

MR. KELLAND: (Inaudible) car clean up programme, the only one I am aware of myself.

MR. REID: Well, there was a programme, and I will talk to you at a later time about it, Mr. Minister, and your Department was involved with it. But it was not your Department because it was in the previous government (Inaudible). They were definitely there, and -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just as a point of information. It is not normal for the Chair to get involved as such. But presently there is a constituent of mine in the person of Doug Strickland, whom a lot of people are familiar with, who is bringing in a piece of equipment that will take not only car wrecks and what have you but all metal discards. Whether washers, dryers, the whole thing. And he is hoping to set up a shredding - this machine will actually shred cars down to minute size pieces, about the size of a penny. And we are hoping to have that in place within the next six months to provide twenty-two jobs and do an awful lot, rather than just compressing the old units.

But this piece of equipment which now functions in Montreal, a similar piece of equipment, will actually shred it right down to fine, minute-type particles, and that will be able to be shipped out an awful lot cheaper and obviously with more dollar value to Mr. Strickland. Of course, again, it does two things. It cleans up the environment from a metal standpoint and it offers twenty-two full time jobs. So.

MR. KELLAND: Yes. If I could just quickly respond, if the hon. Member would not object. As I said earlier there are a lot of economic opportunities involved with, say, reducing and recycling. Everything you read from other jurisdictions seem to indicate - I read a headline not too long ago saying `Gold in Garbage' and that type of thing. That may be an extreme view. I would not want to see garbage created so someone could get an economic benefit from it. But we should be exploring ways and means that things can be reused and recycled and there are many, many opportunities. We are just not at the stage of development that some other jurisdictions are with respect to that. I believe Ontario probably has a few operations underway and Alberta does have, and there may be other jurisdictions. We have to recognize the fact that if the waste is out there, it is not just a dumping problem which is an unending thing and hard to deal with, but if there are economic opportunities where not only can you make use of the garbage for some good purpose but provide employment as well and still take it out of the environment, and that is the kind of thing we should be looking at.

MR. REID: I would just like to make a comment about the offal question of my Colleague for St. John's East -

MR. KELLAND: Did you say awful? The awful question he asked? I thought it was a good question.

MR. REID: It is just a comment really, I do not know if you want to react to it or not, Mr. Minister. But, we have one of the largest fish meal plants, I suppose, in the Province and we can in Carbonear take as much offal that is thrown at us. Quite often there is a shortage of it. The only problem we have right now, and it just happened recently, is that under the highways regulations there are a number of new regulations coming in with regard to the transfer of offal and that is giving the company in Carbonear all kinds of headaches. We can talk about our problems we have in offshore dumping but we are causing all kinds of headaches for those who are taking care of a major portion of the offal on the east coast of Newfoundland and we are giving them more trouble than they need.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Ried.

It is Ms. Verge's turn but maybe she would relinquish to the Member for St. John's East Extern for one quick question?

MS. VERGE: Sure.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Madam Vice-Chair.

I think I would be remiss if I did not say to the Minister up front that there is one piece of legislation from his Department - the bill has been written and it is the third time since 1989. It came in as Bill 53, then Bill 25, and now it is in the books as Bill 22. I have to voice my concerns and say to the Minister that I think if it is Bill 53, if it is Bill 25, or if it is Bill 22 it is wrong. I do not think for the ordinary citizen it will be a deterrent one way or the other. But I do believe the opportunity is there for people to abuse. I believe that in that new piece of legislation that is coming before the House, that a person who would have the capabilities monetarily and space to build boat houses that would cross the 10 metre reservation and then on both ends - say of a small beach or whatever, people who cannot afford to have vast areas of property, they could have boat houses on both ends of a beach, thereby - just visualize it - two large boat houses, a thirty-foot boat house is not a great big boat house, I have seen them fifty feet and more than that - two large boat houses coming from the side of the lake out to the reservation. Now you could have a chain link fence to that ten metres. With those two boat houses that person could have a private beach, as far as I am concerned.

And I know of people who would avail of that opportunity. And I think that if there is one chance that someone will do it then I think that part of the Bill is wrong. I think that 7 (2) should never be changed. I think that in the first instance the old bill naturally - and I feel justification with the Minister in saying that the generalities of the Crown Lands' Act had to be changed. In general. But the old part of that bill, in 7 (2), what we see now, there was nothing wrong with it. And you should have left it alone.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: Yes, (Inaudible) no, it is not Hogan's pond section, it is out farther than that. And there are areas of concern that I have with it.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: Yes. I mean, the people who were -

MR. GOVER: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Point of order.

MR. GOVER: Yes, Mr. Chairman, my point of order is as follows: this is a particular piece of legislation which is on the order paper. I do not know if the Bill has been printed yet or not. But it is on the order paper. That really has neither here nor there to do with my point of order. Obviously when that Bill comes before the House it will be debated at second reading and in Committee of the Whole. And in Committee the clauses of the Bill will be examined. And in fact there is an opportunity to debate the Bill on third reading.

This however is a committee on estimates and not a committee of a Legislative Review Committee or a Committee of the Whole in the House considering the Bill. So my point of order is, Mr. Chairman, that I think that detailed discussion on a particular bill which has no monetary implications no matter what other implications it may have to the Department, is out of order. Although since the Member for St. John's East Extern has raised the matter I think the Minister should be given an opportunity to respond.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: To that point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To that point of order.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible) wasting time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the hon. Member just would, for one second.... Okay. Yes, Mr. Parsons.

MR. PARSONS: There is no point of order, as the Chairman I am sure will rule. But the point remains, and I say to the Chairman, that it is relevant. It is relevant because it is - the Member there, my hon. colleague says, it has no monetary effect. I say it has. In many respects. I ask the Minister to give it some consideration. The Bill has been written, the Bill is ready, and I would like for the Minister - I think there is still time there - to revert back to or make some changes in the Bill. And that is why I brought it up tonight. I think there is still time left and I think that it is a good piece of legislation with the exception of 7 (2). There might be some other areas of concern but I would like him to address the 7 (2) part of it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. To that point of order, I would rule that I suppose it could be perceived that there is monetary overtones to the legislation, and as long as the Member for Humber East does not mind relinquishing her time, then the Chair really has no problem, but what the Chair wants to make sure is that each member of the committee has equal time to ask questions, so I want to thank the Member for St. John's East Extern and in all fairness, I think I should give the Minister an opportunity to respond to the statement, not the question.

MR. KELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no objection at all talking about the bill which I think is a good piece of legislation and in thinking about it, there may be that the hon. Member for St. John's East is more right in his assessment than perhaps my colleague who raised the point of order at the time, but I am not to judge that, that is the Chairman's job.

I think it is a good piece of legislation and 7.2, that Clause that was in Bill 53 originally really is not there anymore, as you probably had a chance to read the Bill I guess, when it was No. 25, the second last time? I believe that within that whole legislation, the changes and all the concerns that the hon. Member may have, have been addressed adequately.

The intent of the former administration was not to prevent anybody from having access to water bodies, in fact the former administration also wanted to ensure that the traditional rights of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were addressed and by the same token the present administration shares that view.

Because there was considerable public concern raised about 7/2, as our friend from Mount Pearl used to refer to it. I gave the commitment - I think it was on February 7th, 1990, if memory serves me correctly, in a press conference. I gave a commitment at that time, followed up by a commitment by the Premier a couple of weeks later, that if there were clauses there that would indicate people's rights were being taken away from them, that I would make the necessary legislative wording changes to make sure that would not happen and I proceeded to do that.

We went through the process - the hon. Member knows - of the Parliamentary Review Committee, and a lot of changes were suggested, and as far as I understand it we have addressed them all. But as the Chairman and the hon. Member said we will have a chance to adequately debate that; it has been in three times and I am as persistent as the hon. Member is adamant, and hopefully during my current term, not only will we have recycling and a lot less car wrecks, but we will have our new Lands Act through the House of Assembly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Wildlife law enforcement -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Just part of my time, there is a stop watch -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible), rule on that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I will rule by your reckoning which the Chair does not consider as a reckoning, Mrs. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Wildlife Law Enforcement: I refer you to pages 104 and 105 of the Budget Estimates, under the headings, Wildlife Management and Wildlife Protection. Now what I want to know about is wildlife law enforcement. The wildlife enforcement officers, through their association president, raised grave concerns about a shortage of personnel, about insufficient and inadequate equipment, and about unacceptable levels of risk to the safety of the personnel. Now, the President suffered for that but I am wondering if the Government has provided in this new Budget for additional personnel? The Minister has said there is provision for additional equipment, including a communications system, and I would like for him to elaborate on just what additional equipment and what kind of a new communications system. Finally, will the threat to the safety of wildlife officers be alleviated by any provisions in this new Budget? A related question that I want to get out now before I am cut off is whether the Government is inclined to adopt the constructive suggestion of the Opposition, the Loyal Opposition, of amalgamating one of the Premiers favourite concepts, amalgamating or integrating, wildlife law enforcement with environmental protection, forestry protection, and possibly negotiating a transfer of responsibility for inland fisheries from the Federal Government and forming a united uniformed force that might be called the Newfoundland Ranger Force to police the wildlife laws, the environment laws, the forestry laws, and the inland fisheries laws?

MR. KELLAND: I thank the hon. Member for those questions. Those are all very pertinent, by the way, Mr. Chairman, and I will try to hit them all as you addressed them to me. I share your concern, to be quite honest, with the number of personnel we have had, the amount of equipment we have had, the quality, for that matter, of the equipment, and the risk to our officers. I am proud of the training program that was provided through the auspices of the RNC, that course is quite a comprehensive one and what I would like to do at a later point, sometime after this evening, is provide the Member, if she wishes to have it, a copy of the course outline. For that matter when we do get some assessment from field personnel I do not see anything wrong with making that public or providing the hon. Member with it. I have had feedback on the wildlife protection officers safety training course which was geared mainly and primarily to their safety and will enable them to conduct their job with attention to their safety. That is what it was all about, how to handle certain equipment. Specifically, we were talking about, with respect to enforcement in the course context, was the night sticks and handcuffs. Now, heretofore on a couple of occasions the officers felt they needed them and and had purchased some personally because the Department had not provided them. Now, we sent out an order asking them not to do that until the course was completed, and I think I mentioned that in the House, because we were a little concerned that if they made use of some of this training equipment for example, unauthorized use of it without proper training that not only may the Department or the Government be subject to say some civil suit or something, but perhaps an individual officer could have been. I was concerned that that might happen to them. So (Inaudible) -

MS. VERGE: Could I interject? I would like the Minister before the Chair cuts us off to tell us quickly the number of wildlife enforcement personnel which will be provided for in this new Budget versus the number on the ground last year. And the additional equipment that will be purchased with the -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: - it's the same question, the Minister just was not answering it. Number of personnel this year versus last year, equipment this year versus last year. What additional equipment? What kind of a new communication system? When will it be in place?

MR. KELLAND: Okay, I am trying to get to that. I am sorry I may be taking a little longer than I should in trying to answer. We have no money in there for additional personnel but we currently have four supervisors and thirty-seven officers, okay? That is what we have, so there is no real change I do not believe from last year with respect to numbers.

I believe the hon. Member asked if the threat had been lessened as a result of the training. The training in the new equipment, which is communications equipment, provides good communications in the vehicle, plus hand carried or belt carried communications equipment with crystals which would allow the officers direct access to RNC and RCMP channels and so on. So that heretofore when they had to rely on an old operator system or very poor radio system they could not make the contact they needed as quickly as possible.

Last year we hired also - and we will look at this sort of a concept again - ten temporary enforcement officers to supplement what we had out in the field. We did that last year, and that kind of consideration would be ongoing, but we are not talking permanent positions in that case.

MS. VERGE: Could I ask the Minister how the temporaries will be hired? Whether the positions will be advertised and whether the Public Service Commission will choose them?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) for being persistent. But it is obviously the job of the Chair to -

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, the Chair is not going to let the hon. Member ask any supplementaries or add-ons or additions to questions, and the Minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well. Obviously the Member is taking advantage of the Chair. I am not going to sit here and be - I do not intend to be (Inaudible) -

MR. HARRIS: You don't often show your good nature and here she is taking advantage of it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to thank the hon. Member for St. John's East for his protection. Will the hon. Minister continue?

MR. KELLAND: I will try to wrap up for you. Well of course all officers who passed the course - and I believe they all did - are now equipped with the handcuffs and nightsticks and their Sam Browne belts. And there were ceremonies involved, and they all did very well by the way, did extremely well.

The communications equipment is either ordered or about to be ordered, and that is mainly the $180,000 expenditure. This will give them great communication capability and increase the ability to get backup and support services when they need it from other enforcement agencies and fellow officers. And I see that as a great step.

We have presented the idea of a Department wide enforcement unit. We do not have approval or anything like that but the concept has been presented. We have done that on different occasions. As opposed to say a Government wide which may be a more acceptable one, as the Member perhaps suggests, that a government wide enforcement unit may be the final answer. But I do not have a final answer at this point in time, and we have presented the idea as I have been saying.

MS. VERGE: And how will the temporaries be hired?

MR. KELLAND: Oh sorry, the temporaries. I will finish with that if you do not mind. The temporaries - last year we went through the Public Service Commission and did it under normal advertising, is that how we did it? Yes -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. GOVER: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Are we suppose to be alternating between Opposition Members and Government Members?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair recognizes each Member but I move around. This is our fourth Estimate Committee and I think the Chair has controlled some very boisterous Members with great patience and I would ask that the hon. Member for Bonavista South -

MR. GOVER: I will do that, Mr. Chairman, in an effort to show that the Liberals want to accord the NDP their ample amount of time.

MR. KELLAND: Where are the TV cameras now?

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point well taken.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

AN HON. MEMBER: To that point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, there is no point of order and the Chair will not entertain any more comments on the point of order.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East, Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. KELLAND: I am not allowed to raise a point but he is the Member for St. John's East and not St. John's East Extern, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I did not say Extern.

MR. KELLAND: I thought you did. I could not quite hear you because I was looking at one microphone and listening to the other Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: I do want to say that the Chair has been most fair throughout the proceedings but for the record it has to be noted that some Members, I think, are abusing the Chair's tolerance and good nature. When the hon. Member for St. John's East Extern wished to speak, the Member for Humber East gladly gave up her time, but she did not give up any of her time, Mr. Chairman, because she had all of her time after the hon. Member for St. John's East Extern used up her time for the first time. I think that ought to be noted for the record and taken into account in the grand scheme of things, as I am sure the Chair will, so that throughout our proceedings we will have, most assuredly, opportunities for equal time for all Members of the Committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair would like to make one quick comment. I am glad that you brought that to my attention, however the experience of the hon. Member for Humber East overtook the Chair and she asked five rapid questions in very short order which took a lot of time for the Minister to respond to, subsequently, I think that is what caused the time to run out. I think the experience of the Member for Humber East came through and I can assure the hon. Member the Chair will not let it happen again.

MR. HARRIS: I am sure as the Chair becomes more experienced in dealing with the hon. Member at his left we will not have that problem in the future.

We have talked a little bit about the problem of waste management in the St. John's area and in particular the problem with night soil, or sewage waste. I have attempted in the House, although the Minister has not been in the House for quite some period, in the last couple of days, other than today, but I was interested in following up on the question that I started to speak to the Minister of Municipal Affairs about, in terms of alternatives to going ahead and giving another landfill permit for the human sewage waste. The Minister is now talking about a study that might cost $150,000 for an alternate landfill site. I am interested in the Government showing some creative initiative and leadership in possibly looking for alternatives to that. I do know that when CBS was first talking about this some months ago there were a number of private entrepreneurs or at least one who had a proposal to make to CBS. They were prepared to take the septic tank waste and they had a process or could develop a process or were developing a process that could turn that into some useful product, whether it be fertilizer or whatever. And it may not be economic, it may be economic.

But what I want to say to the Minister is - and I think that the Minister will find St. John's City Council being cooperative if it means postponing the decision on June 30 if another alternative can be developed which may take time to develop. Can the Minister say that he is looking into the possibility of perhaps a demonstration project or a - we need to have the technology here to deal with this sort of thing. For the reason of this particular problem that we have right now but also for the reason I think of developing a technology that might be used when we decide finally to clean up the St. John's Harbour. Can the Minister comment on that? Is that a possibility? Is he prepared to take advantage of this opportunity, you might say, to make a major thrust in this area?

MR. KELLAND: Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr. Minister.

MR. KELLAND: I thank the hon. Member, that is a good question. I can assure the hon. Member that there are views that indeed there are some commercial opportunities and that may be indeed economic for some people. There are companies that do involve themselves with septic waste, that have a process of de-watering, I guess you would call it, and producing perhaps a useful substance or at least a more benign substance than the actual raw septic waste. We have taken some steps in this regard, and I am not sure of a time frame right at the moment, but there are at least a couple of companies that we were discussing that particular concept with. I would like to assure the hon. Member we will be pursuing that type of thing because there are alternatives in virtually any waste management problem and that just simply is one of the more obnoxious of the ones that we have to deal with.

But there are opportunities and there may be an economic - some people get paid to take that stuff, perhaps even Members of the House of Assembly, and I am being a little facetious in that remark. But nevertheless there is money, there is economic opportunity, and it is not just waste that you cannot do anything with except dump it in alternate landfills or successive landfills. We are looking at the more positive end of it. And we would like to be able to say that somewhere within a reasonable time frame we would be able to suggest some alternatives for Government's consideration, municipalities' consideration as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

MR. HARRIS: I am delighted to hear that, Mr. Minister, because I would not want to see this opportunity go by. It is a bit of a crunch, if I might say, of policy from municipalities. And even if it does cost a little extra to resolve the problem that way we can perhaps help to develop the technology that might be used elsewhere.

Speaking of the St. John's city water supply and the Harbour: why is it that the Government is not prepared to put in its share to develop or complete the water quality study that has been discussed? What objection does the City have? I mean, the cities of Mount Pearl and St. John's have agreed to put in their share for the water quality study. The Government says that they do not have the money or they do not want to. Why are you waiting on that? Do you not think it is important?

MR. KELLAND: (Inaudible) water quality study or waste study?

MR. HARRIS: I believe it is the harbour water quality we are talking about, isn't it?

MR. KELLAND: If I understand what you are saying - are you talking about the recent announcement on the Atlantic hot spots made by the Federal Minister with respect to the $10 million to the Atlantic Provinces, of which St. John's Harbour and the Humber Arm are a part?

MR. HARRIS: Well I wanted to ask about that as well, but I am talking about the study that the City of St. John's refers to as the Water Quality Study; now that may be the supply is it -

MR. KELLAND: I really cannot give an answer on that. I was thinking about another study because we were switching from Robin Hood Bay, our waste management to water. There is apparently, a water quality study in some part of the city environs- north east end perhaps or something like that? I am not certain of that but I am really not in a position to answer that and it probably should be better directed to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, who would be the funding department in a situation like that as we are more regulatory than funding.

MR. HARRIS: I will look into that further. On the harbour itself, what efforts has your department made to participate in this major green fund, environmental fund that has money for the Atlantic, do you think we are getting our share and what efforts are you making to ensure that we do?

MR. KELLAND: I suppose in one way, Mr. Chairman, in one way $10 million for Atlantic hot spots is a drop in the bucket, and I do not mean any kind of a one sided pun or anything at all. It is not a lot of money and the only two that were identified in this Province was St. John's Harbour and The Humber Arm in Corner Brook.

It is not a lot of money and my concern with that, is the fact that it is not action money so to speak but more of a study nature, as I understand it to determine the extent of the problem or something like that. I made this point by the way with the Federal Minister and other Federal Ministers with whom we have talked, that we would like to see more detail provided on the green plan which has a lot of money involved, and to find the mechanism by which we can access some of it in the Province, for other than, let us say study purposes where there would be no action oriented dollars. In fact I can say really that at this weekend's meeting, that issue was raised not only by myself, but other colleagues in other provincial jurisdictions and there was some level of agreement that we would seek mechanisms by which more information is available to us and ways and means of how to access the green fund funding for the benefit of the individual environmental problems in our provinces, there is no final answer on that but certainly consultations are underway with respect to it.

MR. HARRIS: Would the little bit more money from the planning side in your department, for example in the St. John's Harbour situation, if you put some money into the planning and finding out yourselves to some extent, the seriousness of the problem, would that not give you greater access to the action money, saying: look, we have identified this as a major problem as compared to this or this, or this which you have already funded, we should get our share. Would the Minister consider that as a possible alternative approach, by putting some of your own resources to that side of it so that you could have more information and more knowledge I suppose, to bring to the table to use it to demand a bigger share?

MR. KELLAND: As I said, we are mainly not really a funding department as such and most of the municipal infrastructures and things that relate to it would come under Municipal and Provincial Affairs, and some of your questions I suppose could be more properly directed to the Minister-

MR. HARRIS: No, I am talking, if I may-

MR. KELLAND: -however, however- I am answering your questions-

MR. HARRIS: I am not talking about structures now, I am talking about planning and information and knowledge.

MR. KELLAND: Okay, I understand that. Planning study money also comes from the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, and as I mentioned I think about an hour ago, the Minister was revisiting the concept for example, the $100,000 - $150,000 needed

for the Robin Hood Bay study, or the waste disposal site study.

The fact that we have or do not have money into the actual harbour study with respect to the problems down there would not prevent us from having the information that will be derived from the study funded under the green fund. We are in constant consultation, we are not confrontational with the Federal Department. In fact we work cooperatively with them. And any information coming from a study that they fund under the Hot Spots programme will be readily available to us, and I see no reason why it would not be.

So they have decided to fund those two projects (Inaudible) -

MR. HARRIS: But they are doing it, are they, themselves?

MR. KELLAND: Yes, it's all green fund or Federal money (Inaudible) -

MR. HARRIS: It is all Federal money, but are they doing it through their Environmental Department or are they contracting with the Province or private enterprise or what?

MR. KELLAND: Oh yes. We will have involvement. As the Deputy just indicated to me there is a multi-stakeholder group involved with that process of study and we are definitely and decidedly involved with the whole process, and we will have access to all the information.

MR. HARRIS: When you say that I get the impression that someone else is doing the study and you might get a copy of the report, but are your officials involved in the actual process itself? And the hands-on... I do not know if that is appropriate for a study in St. John's Harbour. But are your people involved in the actual process of conducting the study.

MR. KELLAND: From a technical point of view I would have to say yes to that question.

MR. HARRIS: I have another area I want to ask the Minister on. You mentioned the Hibernia project and the environmental assessment and the environmental plans to go with that. The other day, the Minister provided me with a copy of the interim plan that was put in place and that is scheduled to be implemented in the first six months of the project. We are almost nearing that now, and I wonder can the Minister advise whether or not, or what, steps he and his Department have taken to ensure that the commitments made by the Hibernia group have in fact been met? And is the Minister satisfied that they have in fact been met?

MR. KELLAND: We have a technician as I mentioned earlier, we have the construction site monitoring committee which our ADM chairs, so we are deeply involved. We are in a monitoring position with respect to that. The interim protection plan though in effect I suppose in a time frame could said to be finished, it will apply until the approval of the Environmental Protection Plan itself. Public input deadline I believe, as I mentioned earlier, is June 10. It is currently under review by officials and technical people. Following a short period after that, sixty days, the plan will be released and approved and we will still have the monitoring capability and the staff members who I have mentioned involved directly with the monitoring of the whole situation.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, I hear you in saying that: yes, we have a monitoring committee and we have technical people, et cetera. Obviously you would have to do that. My question was, are you satisfied that the commitments made in the plan have in fact been met and been complied with? Are you satisfied or have you completed a review or have you done a review or do you just sort of have an ongoing interest in it?

MR. KELLAND: No. We have more than a cursory interest here. The Deputy indicates to me that one or two problems have surfaced which have been dealt with. I cannot give the specifics right now but it is a continuing ongoing high priority item of interest with us. And we are not just giving a cursory look every now and then at some report, but we are directly involved with our own personnel.

MR. HARRIS: Can you tell us what the problems have been?

MR. KELLAND: Not before 10:00 p.m. I can get them and find out what they are and provide them to you, that is no big problem. There is nothing secretive about it.

MR. HARRIS: No, I would just like to know what they are.

MR. KELLAND: Yes, we can find out what they are (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Well, we are hitting 10:00 p.m., perhaps another -

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think considering that the fifteen days are very quickly going away from us I would hope that -

MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible) carry on, I will stay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I would hope that we could get through the estimates this evening. I think the Chair would ask the Committee to be brief (Inaudible) whatever, I mean, you know. I do not mind. The Chair certainly does not mind staying, and I would not want the Member not to get his questions answered. But when the Minister says that he will provide, then I am sure that the Minister will provide. And if it is tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon, I am sure the hon. Member will concur that that would be adequate as such. I think we are dealing with something here that is not really in dollar value as such. And I think the Minister has said he would -

MR. KELLAND: Any of that technical information we would be happy to provide.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, but I do not want to leave it open-ended in the sense of saying: yes, we are having a few problems but generally speaking things are going okay. It is a rather significant document of a very large number of commitments that were made and sometimes these things are done, like people making applications to CRTC with promises of performance. They do it to get the licence and then after that to try to get them comply may be a pretty difficult thing. The powers are not there, or sometimes if there is no pressure to do it often times there are lots of reasons to make shortcuts. What I wanted to know, generally speaking, is whether or not, aside from putting staff in place, and perhaps in preparation for the full environmental project, whether the Minister had conducted a review to determine whether or not they had complied to date, and if not, what was being done about it.

MR. KELLAND: I am satisfied with the work that is being done by our people to keep track of the thing, however, just to make clarification as best I can, I will call on the Deputy Minister to make some brief comments as to what is happening, and also what is happening with the senior committee involved because that is not a cursory thing at all but an ongoing high priority item. Perhaps, with the Chairman's permission, the Deputy could give us some information relevant to the case.

MR. CHAIRMAN: By all means.

MR. FLEMING: The system that is in place, the Interim Environmental Protection Plan was in place and it is a rather detailed thing. The monitoring of that is going on on an ongoing basis. We have people on site who are addressing it, as well in discussions between the Hibernia Construction Sites Monitoring Committee and the Company Nodeco, and these environmental issues are also discussed between the senior monitoring committee, and HMBC, and also Nodeco. The kind of problems the Minister referred to were just minor technical problems really that exist with any major construction site. Occasionally little things go wrong, there is a spill of this or a spill of that. It is a matter of addressing the problem at the moment and making sure that the company deals with it adequately. We have managed to actually deal quite satisfactorily, in our view, with most of these things, or all of those things so far. I think with respect to seeing that they comply with the Environment Protection Plan that is going on on an ongoing basis and we are satisfied that it is being complied with, at least so far.

MR. HARRIS: That is fine. That is what I want to know. You were talking about there were spills or minor things that happened along the way on a construction site, a barrel of oil tips over, that sort of thing. Is that what you were talking about?

MR. FLEMING: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: Well, that answers the question because I wanted to know whether you had the adequate money and resources to ensure that there was compliance. I see in the Estimates last year there was a significant amount of money for the Hibernia project and this year there seems to be none directly aimed at that project, but you are satisfied that there is sufficient resources to be able to ensure there is compliance with the plan, and in fact it is being complied with.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Deputy and thank you, Mr. Harris.

Just for a point of record, we allowed the Member for St. John's East eighteen minutes and fifty-five seconds.

MR. HARRIS: That is very fair, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you for being so solicitous.

MR. GOVER: One might point out, in fairness to the Chairman, that Mr. Harris' time exceeded the Member's for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: And he did not take advantage.

MR. GOVER: No. No. He relied on the protection of the Chairman who in the fairness of his position made sure that Mr. Harris had at least equal time, to the detriment of his own colleagues on the Government benches, I might add. Having said that, Mr. Chairman, it being the hour it is I move the passing of the estimates of the Department of Environment and Lands including all subheads from 1.1.01 to 4.2.08 inclusive.

MS. VERGE: Before we rush through I have just a few short snappers that I would like to ask.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

There is a motion duly moved and seconded. However, I could I suppose use something from the House and stop the clock for a second. If the hon. Member for Humber East has a couple of questions and she would confirm that we move all the estimates then I think I might ask the mover to -

MS. VERGE: Okay, these are just a few fairly pointed questions. One, is the Environment Department concerned about emissions from home wood burners? People increasingly seem to be burning wood and even garbage for home heat. Is there any concern on the part of the Department that the chimney emissions are polluting the air?

MR. KELLAND: I just want to confirm something here for the hon. Member. We have a concern with respect to all kinds of air emissions, and there are increasing wood users, I guess, as the hon. Member says. But it is considered to be a relatively minor part of the overall air quality question. We are more I guess concerned with the industrial and commercial particulate and so on that goes out there. So it is not a high priority but we have some level of concern.

MS. VERGE: Okay. I would like to zero in on Corner Brook, the district I represent. We are subjected to air pollution from a variety of sources. From the Kruger mill; from Western Memorial Regional Hospital, which is burning wood chips for fuel; from the cement plan, which emits cement dust; and from homes where wood and garbage are burned for home fuel. Does the Department really know what is being emitted into the air in Corner Brook?

MR. KELLAND: That is getting a little technical. I can talk on a policy end with respect to Kruger and so on, but what I would like to do - we do not have our Environment people here now - but I have asked the Deputy to respond from a technical aspect to that, if you do not mind, John.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Deputy.

MR. FLEMING: Mr. Chairman. Again, like the Minister I cannot give you specifics of numbers, but we have monitoring equipment installed in Corner Brook and we are producing monthly reports now I think on air quality and they are made available to the Corner Brook town council and I think to other people in the area. And in general - I am perhaps going out on a bit of a limb here - but I do not think there are frequent violations of the standards, frequent exceedences I should say, of the standards.

MS. VERGE: But my understanding from talking to environmentalists in Corner Brook is that the current monitoring is not assessing all the chemicals or the particulate. And I would just like to say very quickly that I think the Department should make a greater effort to measure just what is being put in to the air in Corner Brook from all sources. I mentioned four: the paper mill, the hospital, the cement plant, and the final category is homes.

The next question concerns the lower Humber Valley between Corner Brook and Deer Lake, which is quite beautiful. Does the Environment and Lands Department have any controls in place to prevent the marring of that landscape by indiscriminate tree cutting? There is a sign up that says that the Humber Valley is some kind of a scenic preserve, but what does that mean? And what is the Department doing, or can it do, to prevent trees being cut down indiscriminately or to prevent the scenic beauty from being marred?

MR. KELLAND: I guess any tree cutting that is not on private property requires permitting from Forestry and I guess they are the enforcement agency with regards to that and the public. I cannot adequately answer that unless there is an environmental concern which is brought to our attention related to it.

MS. VERGE: So trees are Forestry rather than environment, okay.

The next question: A year or so ago the military - I think it is whatever the militia are called now -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: This is the last question.

MS. VERGE: They are only little questions. Now be patient. This is important stuff.

A year or so ago, the military made a proposal to establish a shooting range at Mount Sykes in central Newfoundland and an environmental assessment was begun by the Government. I have not heard the result of that and I wonder if the Minister can tell me?

MR. KELLAND: My memory is not perfect on that I will admit to the hon. Member. I believe, it was released. The only thing I can tell you is that I shall have to go and check it for you and provide whatever update information we have on it. The Deputy does not recall the exact details either. I thought it might have been released at a stage but rather than positively state that I commit to get it for you tomorrow, if you wish, and provide the information.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

The last question is: Where will the approximately 100 new cottage lots budgeted for be?... how many in western, how many in central, how many in eastern. Secondly, in addition to the additional 100 will any other cottage lots open up because of lapses, because lessees failed to meet the conditions in their leases to develop; and, where will the new parks facilities be? The Minister told us that the capital provision for historic parks -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to let the hon. Member finish the question.

AN HON. MEMBER: I cannot hear the Member.

MS. VERGE: The last question has to do with: Where will the capital funding provided for parks be spent? The Minister said that it is mostly for provincial historic parks and sites that will be combined with money expected from the new Federal-Provincial Tourism Agreement and I would like to know where that will be spent, which parks, which places?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MR. HARRIS: A point of order. I will take back my remarks about the Chair being capable of controlling the hon. Member for Humber East. I do not know what she is trying to prove except that she can out-manipulate you, out-talk you, overrun you, and abuse, generally speaking, the Committee. She just asked about a dozen questions which she referred to as a few short snappers. She has taken up a full round, when I was asked to stop asking questions because we wanted to clue this up and I do not think this is fair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I would be quite happy to stay and listen to questions from other Members. But before we finish off these estimates I think we all should ask the questions on our list.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair is extremely sorry to lose the protection of the Member for St. John's East. However, I think now we have -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. And I will come back to the hon. Member for Bonavista South.

I think the question was and the Chair will reaffirm: Where are the locations for the cabins?...if that is possible to answer. What happened to the old leases that have elapsed?

AN HON. MEMBER: He answered that already, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: That question was answered earlier on today.

MR. KELLAND: Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence just one second. I wanted to know how far (inaudible) Lands could say with respect to cottage development. What the ADM can give you is the areas that are being looked at for the cottage development and I will answer the other part later.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps it might even be more beneficial if the Minister and/or his staff took the question under advisement and provided the hon. Member-

MR. KELLAND: Oh no. We could provide it very quickly, Mr. Chairman.

MS. VERGE: No, they could tell us now. This is important stuff!

MR. REID: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. At ten o'clock, there was a motion put to the floor and each one of us over here, and I think I am speaking on behalf of all my colleagues who are sitting on this side, gave the co-chairman the opportunity to pass on a couple of simple questions, now that was fifteen minutes ago. I seconded the motion, Mr. Chairman, and I am sure my hon. colleague who moved the motion would certainly like to call the motion at this particular point in time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before the Minister answers the question. You see, the allocation of fifteen days for doing Estimates are rapidly running out and to be fair to this Committee and to the Department and to the Minister and his staff, I think it behooves us to stay an extra twenty or twenty-five minutes to get the estimates passed on behalf of the department.

We have already dealt with three other departments. This evening the Chair recognizes an opportunity for the extra twenty or twenty-five minutes, to have the estimates passed for the Department of Environment and Lands and I would ask the hon. Members of the Committee if they would consider that and give leave to have those two questions answered and then we would entertain the motion and carry on.

MR. GOVER: I want to say, Mr. Chairman, since I moved the motion, once those two questions are answered, that if there are more questions, we are going to drop the first motion and call a motion to adjourn, because you know, we are scheduled to sit from seven to ten.

Now, time is not the issue, because we can schedule another meeting and come back for another three hours, any time, I mean I am available to come back, so time is not the issue.

The issue is the regular sitting hours and now the question is: should not a motion to adjourn, since the Committee now is past ten o'clock, we must be operating by leave, what is going to happen if I withdraw my leave, or put a motion to adjourn, and should not a motion to adjourn be automatically put at ten o'clock?

But having said that, Mr. Chairman, I am willing to have the answer to the last two questions, but, if there are further questions after that, I am going to withdraw leave.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Fine. Thank you.

MR. KELLAND: I will respond as quickly as possible.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. WINSOR: We are looking at four areas in the eastern region. As I mentioned earlier though, these are not guaranteed, there is still some planning to be done on those. Goulds Pond, Lady Pond, Nine Island Pond South, three actually for the eastern region.

Central region: four areas which are as yet undefined; that will be for preliminary planning and environmental studies particularly ground water studies.

Western region: Bonne Bay Big Pond, and that involves preliminary ground water studies. Labrador region: one area which is not yet named and that again is preliminary ground water studies.

MR. KELLAND: Okay, and the other part of the question: We are talking about the money for Parks and that is a Federal-Provincial type of an operation, similar to the things that were done in Blow me Down and Pistolet Bay, and as they are in a sort of a negotiation stage, occasionally those things are a bit sensitive to give advance notice on. I am not able to say where these Parks will be at this point in time, we are in discussion. Some have been tentatively identified. It is a Federal-Provincial type of arrangement and immediately after the conclusion of those planning things I will be able to release the information to the House. But at this moment I think it is a bit sensitive to say so and raise someone's expectations when it may not happen.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. The hon. Member for Bonavista South.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I must say I do not mind you extending every courtesy to the Member for Humber East, maybe other Members of the Committee might have a different view of it. But I now would like to move the motion that I moved and have that matter voted on.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through to 4.2.08, carried.

On motion, Department of Environment and Lands, total head, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to thank the Minister and his staff for bearing up under the partisanship that was displayed here this evening. It is nice to see so much competent resource behind the Minister. I am sorry that we did not get into more dollars and cents but obviously the issues that were raised to the Minister and his staff were important to the Committee and I want to thank you for a most informative evening. And we wish you and your Department well in the upcoming year, Mr. Minister.

MR. KELLAND: I would thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the hon. Members of the Committee, the staff, including our Page, the media who were able to attend, and particularly my staff in the Department of Environment and Lands, which has responsibility also for Wildlife and Parks. Probably amongst the most professional and competent people in all the Government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The Chair would now entertain a motion to adjourn.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: One question of the Member was not answered, the one about lapsed leases. I thought that was one of the two questions to be answered.

MS. VERGE: Now, now, now, now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now I mentioned that to the Member and the Member said she would talk to her critic and the question would be asked of the Minister in the House.

The meeting now stands adjourned.