Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Jack Byrne, M.H.A. St. John's East Extern substitutes for Harvey Hodder, M.H.A. Waterford - Kenmount; and William Ramsay, M.H.A. LaPoile substitutes for Patt Cowan, M.H.A. Conception Bay South.

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m. in the House of Assembly.

MR. CHAIRMAN (D. Oldford): Order, please!

I would like to welcome everyone to the Social Services Estimates Committee, and will begin by having the committee introduce themselves beginning with the Member for Fortune - Hermitage.

MR. LANGDON: Oliver Langdon, Fortune - Hermitage.

MR. BARRETT: Percy Barrett, Bellevue.

MR. J. BYRNE: Jack Byrne, St. John's East Extern.

MR. RAMSAY: Bill Ramsay, LaPoile.

MR. HARRIS: Jack Harris, St. John's East.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am Doug Oldford, Trinity North.

I want to welcome the minister and his staff. We will allow the minister ten minutes for an opening statement and the introduction of his staff. We will then start the questioning with the Vice-Chair, Mr. Byrne, who is sitting in for Mr. Hodder. I would ask the officials, if they are answering questions on behalf of their department, that they identify themselves because we are being recorded by Hansard. So, Mr. Minister, if you would...

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to present our estimates to the House of Assembly, to your committee.

I want to introduce the people you see here, our officials. Nancy Squires is at the end here, our Manager of Human Resources. Frank Harris is our Director of Administration. On my immediate right is David Jeans, who is the Assistant Deputy Minister, and John Fleming is on my left, who is the Deputy Minister.

The department is now a stand-alone department of Environment, where the lands section of the department has been transferred. During the past six months we have undertaken to try to - at least since I have come over there - put together a strategic plan for the department. There was one being worked on, and we have been finalizing that over the last number of months since we have more of a renewed mandate to focus on environmental matters and put a more focused approach on them.

In working on that strategic plan we have highlighted a number of issues that we were working on this year, in the coming year. We are reforming our legislation. For the first time in many years this will be a rigorous exercise which will see the different number of acts that we have under our present mandate put together under one act. There will be a public process for this reform and we think it will bring the legislation into the nineties and into the next millennium in its focus. That is going to be a pretty heavy exercise. Nova Scotia just completed the reform of their environmental legislation and that took quite a time period. We are not going to reinvent the wheel, but we are going to be working hard to do it. It will be taking some time, but we hope to have public input into that in a very major way.

We are also going to have a White Paper out shortly for discussion under environmental assessment. We are proposing some changes to environmental assessment, and that White Paper will be available shortly. We think again that it will help the assessment process, and these reforms, if we get them approved before the legislation is fully done, they will take effect and we will include them in the new reforms of the new act.

The Department of Environment has a great deal of activity around the Province in its presence. It gets involved in a variety of issues, as you are all aware. These issues include waste management, which is a focus of the department this year, working to try to deal with the whole waste management strategy in regions. We are working with the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to deal with putting a whole range of activities in place recycling, a proposed deal with the Industry Packaging Group, dealing with waste water and solid waste management. We are also working on a number of other issues with industry, a number of industries that we monitor for industrial pollution and so on. We monitor these industries and the department is involved heavily in that aspect.

Another aspect of the department that we have been taking on since last August, '94, has been environmental industries. We have been asked to help stimulate where we can, a focus on environmental industries in the Province and we have been doing a fair bit of work with the Newfoundland Environmental Industries Association to help them and to help them liaise with government and to help them in their efforts to do joint ventures and to bring in and develop new technologies; so there is a variety of issues there, I won't take too long to go over all of them and I would welcome any questions.

We also have the Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, they have been very active also in the last number of months and are working on a sustainable development strategy for us for the Province, and have been having a number of meetings on that and we hope to see more of that in the next short period of time. With that, Mr. Chairman, I think I will stop it there and if there are any questions anybody has about any of our workings, please feel free to ask.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a couple of quick questions before I get into the Estimates themselves.

Mr. Minister, what is the status on the situation with the - this is a district question more than anything - With Rod Pond in Torbay with the clean up?

MR. AYLWARD: On that issue, Mr. Byrne, our officials had a report in yesterday, and today I think, communicating with the councillor to try to see if they are going to make a move on it. We are outlining the situation to him what we believe it is, so we are hoping if we don't get it we are going to try and get an answer from him by tomorrow. The weather is changing quickly so it is a problem. We had a report in and we are going to try to do our best to deal with it but we should know by tomorrow what the status is of it and -

MR. J. BYRNE: We wouldn't want to go into another weekend.

MR. AYLWARD: Pardon?

MR. J. BYRNE: I wouldn't want to go into another weekend without having it done.

MR. AYLWARD: No, I know. It is a problem, sir.

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes. The other one is, the ATV regulations; what is the status on that now, and are there any major changes contemplated?

MR. AYLWARD: Well the ATV regulations are under review by the Legislative Review Committee of our caucus. They had some public hearings around the Province and I believe their report is due in pretty soon, within the next short period of time. If they propose any changes or whatever the report contains, will be given to the hon. Rex Gibbons, Minister, who is now responsible for the administration of the regulations and he will then bring forward what he believes should be any changes that should be reflected from the public hearings around the Province.

MR. J. BYRNE: Do you expect a report before the House closes?

MR. AYLWARD: I expect that the report will be in before the House closes; I am not sure if the minister knows what his time frame is but he is pretty interested in that subject so I expect he will want to make some rules on it in the next little while. As soon as he gets the report I am sure he will act as quickly as he can.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. I will get into the Estimates now.

On page 83 of the Estimates, Section 1.1.01; Transportation and Communications: $33,000 budgeted and spent almost $51,000; you have $53,100 budgeted this year, and Salaries for that section pretty well the same, gone up slightly, so why would there be so much more allotted for Transportation and Communications?

MR. AYLWARD: My understanding of that so far is that where I was a new minister coming in the middle of the year or halfway through I suppose, almost halfway through the fiscal year, what I decided to do was get a handle on as many issues as I could. So we travelled to most of the spots where we have a number of issues, be it on the west coast, be it Labrador or be it all over the Province, Baie Verte and so on. We had a minister's meeting there and there was a number of meetings. I have gone out around the Province as much as I can. We are still not finished with that exercise because with a lot of these issues you have to go see them in order to understand them. So we have been doing a fair bit of that. I think that is the answer to that - I believe that is the correct answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. AYLWARD: Oh yes, yes. We have meetings this year in the Yukon, the Canadian Council of Ministers.

MR. J. BYRNE: Coming up you mean?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes coming up, so it was budgeted this year. It will be a higher cost to do those meetings, the Canadian Council of Ministers in the Yukon, which is going to be more expensive travel this year.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you. Under Section 1.2.02, page 84, Salaries; there was $384,000 budgeted, spent $379,000 and this year it is down to $250,000 which is a $134,000 cut. Lay-offs in the department or what is the story on that?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, that is going to reflect the administrative changes that were outlined in the Budget, three departments are coming together. So that has not been worked out in detail yet but less money has been budgeted there in anticipation that there will be less salary required. That has not been worked out, the details have not been worked out.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, 2.1.01, page 85, Section 5, Professional Services; you had $150,000 budgeted, you spent none in there and you are not planning on spending any in it next year. Why did you have $150,000 budgeted and not spend it? What was it for? What was that for?

MR. AYLWARD: There was one year funding for a specific project. That was in the Summerside area which was a clean up of a site apparently. It was one time funding, so it is not there this year under that heading.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, thank you. The next section, 2.1.02, subsection 6, Purchase Services; you had $5 million budgeted, you spent $3.7 million and you budgeted $1,200,000 this year. That seems to be - what was that for, the services, and why such a decrease?

MR. AYLWARD: That is the Federal/Provincial Contaminated Sites Program. They budget expenditures on a yearly basis and those sites, the ones that were identified, are just about cleaned up but there are some left to do this year. So the funding on that agreement will run out and that is what is showing in the estimates. The work is getting completed and once that work is completed that will reflect here the numbers this year.

MR. J. BYRNE: I could go into some questions on specific sites but I won't, I will just stick with these.

MR. AYLWARD: Okay, Come By Chance, Makinsons, Gander -

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes, I know what you are talking about. Section 2.2.01, that is page 86, subsection 3, Transportation and Communications; $17,000 budgeted, $43,000 spent and you have $22,000 in this year. That is almost two-and-a-half times what was budgeted, why such an increase?

MR. AYLWARD: We had one of our officials, the Director of Civil Sanitary Engineering, travel to Japan to look at waste water technologies. He did a report on it actually, and on the strength of the report he has come back with we are exploring different options for waste water in the Province. That is why that amount is reflected there in the Budget.

MR. J. BYRNE: Who was that you said went?

MR. AYLWARD: The Director of Civil Sanitary Engineering, Ken Dominie, a very worthwhile trip, to be able to use the technology.

MR. J. BYRNE: Because we do not know much about it, right? The same thing there with Professional Services, you had nothing budgeted, you spent $145,000, and you have nothing budgeted this year, so I know it is a one-shot deal. What was it for?

MR. AYLWARD: We received that funding out of the SEP, Strategic Economic Plan funding for waste management and waste water treatment, funding to help do some consulting work in that field, so that is what that was. That was one-time funding for that year.

MR. J. BYRNE: Consulting work for any particular area in the Province, or just consulting work?

MR. AYLWARD: No, within the Province. I think it was for gathering information on waste management around the Province. There were a couple of studies done on waste water problems in the Province, getting an evaluation of those problems and so on, that is what that funding was used for. The department does a fair bit of consulting work, hiring outside the service within the Province.

MR. J. BYRNE: If the department does a fair bit of work along those lines you would think you would have money budgeted, so why would $145,000 just happen to show up all of a sudden? It seems peculiar to me.

MR. AYLWARD: One of the reasons why the SEP was set up, the Strategic Economic Plan, sometimes there are one-time expenditures. If you need to get an evaluation done of a problem then you can avail of those funds or you can get them in the Budget process, so either way we are able to find the funds to do it.

MR. J. BYRNE: Section 2.3.01: Salaries, $652,000 budgeted, $599,000 spent and $652,000 budgeted again, Services, $52,000 basically. How come that was not spent? Was there somebody who left the department, or was let go, or is that in the reshuffling again with National Resources, Environment and Lands, and blah, blah, blah.

MR. AYLWARD: Delayed recruitment. In trying to bring people into positions, sometimes it takes a little longer to fill them, so you end up with some funds left because it might be one or two months short by the time you get the positions filled.

MR. J. BYRNE: I just want to finish that section if I could. Section (06) there, Purchased Services. You had $163,600 budgeted, $81,000 spent, and $9,600 budgeted. What were the services and why the big cut?

MR. AYLWARD: That was a one-time expenditure for the demolition of a plant that had to be done. It was less money - it was costed out to be $163,000 estimate, but it ended up coming way under that to get the work done, and again, it was a one-time expenditure.

MR. J. BYRNE: You say it was the demolition of a plant? What plant would that be?

MR. JEANS: It is the abandoned fish meal plant in the Bay of Islands, the former Crosbie plant.

MR. J. BYRNE: Was it owned by the Crown?

MR. JEANS: No, it was abandoned.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Ramsay, have you any questions in this round? None.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

Minister, I realize this is your first opportunity to discuss your expenditures with the Committee so I hope you don't find the experience too jolting. First of all, I should explain my rather flippant comment prior to the opening. I mean, they have not really given you much money to do your work on the overall scheme of things. Your estimates, as a total for the department, and I am assuming they are taking out only those environmental things from the previous Budget. Am I correct in that, that we are just dealing with - we are comparing apples and apples when we are looking at last year and this year, I take it, when we are looking at the subheads, because last year in 1994-'95 with a Budget of $8.137 million, this year there is only budgeted $6 million. So I take it, that is a 25 per cent reduction in the budgeted items for the environmental subheads of the former Department of Environment and Lands. Are we comparing apples and apples when we look at last year's Budget and this year's Budget on these subheads, Mr. Minister?

MR. AYLWARD: That's correct, but most of it is reflected in the Site Remediation Agreement, the federal/provincial agreement, that is declining. A lot of the work was done last year, this past year, and less work will be done this year to finish up those projects. So it is under that subhead there.

MR. HARRIS: Which particular one is that?

MR. AYLWARD: Number 2.1.02 where you have Purchased Services (06) on page 85.

MR. HARRIS: So that $2.8 million -

MR. AYLWARD: It is a fair chunk of it, that's there, because it was budgeted there last year.

MR. HARRIS: So, by taking $2 million out, that pretty well explains the full 25 per cent I am talking about.

MR. AYLWARD: Most of it, yes.

MR. HARRIS: Other than that, though, we are looking at the subheads that would have been in Environment and Lands that relate to the environment side of the thing. Okay.

I am just looking, for a moment, at 1.1.01 the Minister's Office. I note a reduction from the actual expenditure last year of some $12,000, but I am also looking at the Departmental Salary Details and on page 65 of same I notice that your executive assistant is paid more than you are. I wonder if you would explain that? In fact, not only is he paid more than you, he is paid more than the executive assistant for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, the Minister of Tourism, the Minister of Natural Resources, Municipal Affairs, Justice, and Industry, Trade and Technology. You must have some executive assistant, because he is paid more than all of those, he or she - and I don't know exactly who the executive assistant is - paid more than all of those people. I am just wondering how that is determined.

MR. AYLWARD: He is a very good EA, but no, I don't know the answer. Whatever the salary rates are that are set for EAs, whatever he is supposed to be getting, he is supposed to be getting. I don't know if that is - I suppose it is correct, they put it in the budget, but I can't explain to you why it is more than what another EA is getting.

MR. HARRIS: Well, I am just - you know, I am not trying to embarrass any particular individual or anything, I am just looking at the government expenditure of $47,110. The EA for Employment and Labour Relations is paid $41,716; for Municipal and Provincial Affairs it is $41,716; for Justice it is $42,733; for Industry, Trade and Technology it is $42,733. I am not trying to reduce the EA's salary or anything, I am just wondering - and maybe he is worth it, I don't know, but how is it determined? You are the new minister, you presumably set his salary or were involved in the establishment of his salary.

MR. AYLWARD: Well, I think the previous EA who was there might have reached that level of salary. So maybe that is what is reflecting in that number. I don't know if that is -

MR. HARRIS: Could you find out for us -

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, sure - definitely.

MR. HARRIS: - and let us know? Because there does seem to be a discrepancy. I obviously expect that there would be salary scales and things but I didn't understand that they related to what the previous EA was getting.

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, that would - yes.

MR. HARRIS: It may be the level of experience in government or whatever but I would like an explanation in any event.

MR. AYLWARD: Sure.

MR. HARRIS: I also see on page 63 of the Departmental Salary Details, an item of expenditure in the ministers office of - in addition to the $153,000 for permanent employees - overtime and other earnings of $10,000. I wonder if the minister could explain who does the overtime or what that $10,000 is for?

MR. AYLWARD: Okay, it is the car allowance that is included in that. That is a car allowance of $8,000 for the minister.

MR. HARRIS: For car allowance, $8,000?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, so that is eight out of the ten and two is the allocation for gas because you are allowed to claim your gas receipts or gas bill as part of doing your job, so that is the other part of it.

MR. HARRIS: So the $10,000 is for the minister's personal transportation?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: So the $2,000, is that based on receipts or is that -

MR. AYLWARD: Receipts, you have to give your receipts.

MR. HARRIS: So you give your receipts for that and you get the $8,000 as a taxable benefit, I take it?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: So that may explain why the minister's salary and the EA's salary are a little different from each other.

I was interested in your comment, Minister, about the major initiative that is being taken on solid waste management. I wonder which subhead we would find that activity under. I see something under administration, 2.2.01, referencing the technical and administrative direction of water treatment, waste water treatment and solid waste management and the environmental approval process for the provincial water and sewer program. Is that where we would find all that activity?

MR. AYLWARD: That is not where you are going to find all of it. There is a waste water agreement signed with the Federal Government that is not reflected there as of yet because the amounts have not been finally determined, the amount of money that will go into that agreement. We have an indication from the Federal Government as to what they may be putting towards it. It is a 50/50 arrangement.

MR. HARRIS: So that is to do with water?

MR. AYLWARD: Waste water.

MR. HARRIS: Waste water - no, I mentioned in solid waste management, that whole issue. If that's where the money is coming from, all I see - and I see a reduction in salary complement from $163,000 to $133,000 and I see no professional services as opposed to last year's $145,000. I see very little in the way of purchased services, no information technology. We were here yesterday with the Minister of Justice and he had information technology coming out through his ears, a couple of hundred thousand dollars here, three or four hundred thousand there, six or seven hundred thousand somewhere else, to understand how all these processes are working. I just wonder, are we in a situation, as the Member for Bay de Verde said in the House last year or the year before, `We can't do nothing because we haven't got nothing to do nothing with.'

I am just wondering where you are getting the money to undertake a major initiative in solid waste management for the Province, given the fact that we are in an age where these types of activities are rather technical, technologically based. Sometimes they involve a fair bit of educational programming, sometimes an awful lot of consultation. I would have expected to see, and I may have criticized the detail of it, but I would have expected to see a fairly hefty Purchased Services there involving consultants, or preparation of reports, analysis of data, comparisons with other provinces, perhaps even a little travel for the minister or his officials to see what other provinces are doing, and I am just wondering how - I know there has been a report of a committee in the Avalon Region, but I don't see any financial evidence of a major initiative from at least that subhead. Maybe there are other places where you are finding money to do that.

MR. AYLWARD: On the IT, which you just talked about, we are very much trying to deal with the information technology side of it. Under 1.2.02, subhead 12, there is $132,000 allocated this year for information technology within the department. That is a jump up from $68,000 spent last year. We are attempting in a major way to deal with the IT side of it. We are hooked up within the department pretty well, and we are going to be better this year. Also, our office is hooked up on the INTERNET now, so we have an IT person fully in our department who is working on information technology strategy, and we are moving the department ahead as swiftly as we can in that area. We are very cognizant of the fact that we have to be up to speed on it, it is a priority for us to do that this year, and that will occur.

On the solid waste management, a lot of the money that we are using in solid waste management comes from Municipal and Provincial Affairs because we have to deal with municipalities, so when we are working on the policy and planning side we will develop and get - maybe use consultants and so on, along with our own people, to develop solid waste strategy or regional waste management strategy for areas of the Province, but also a lot of the capital money that will be needed or used will come from municipal affairs because it usually will involve municipalities, it will involve them doing some financing along with the Province, so our department and municipal affairs work a great deal together.

Now, we have also identified some funds with the SEP which we are still finalizing with the SEP fund that is set aside this year for further funding to put together and further develop the solid waste management strategy. Those numbers are not showing up there yet but there will be some funding for that in the next short period of time.

MR. HARRIS: I am not intimately familiar with the various recommendations of the Strategic Economic Plan. Could you give us a little outline of the particular recommendations which your department would anticipate being able to access money to carry out, as the Department of Environment - I am assuming that they are and I vaguely recall certain general times of managing the SEP. Could you give us an outline of those items or recommendations that you feel will give you an opportunity to access some of that money?

MR. AYLWARD: Under SEP, it is identified as priority to develop a waste management strategy for the Province and included in the waste management strategy are efforts to deal with solid waste management, waste water and so on, for which we have a separate agreement at this time. The stewardship initiative is also part of dealing with industry stewardship, dealing with solid waste management; hazardous waste and remediation in that area, same thing, recycling efforts, so the whole waste management effort as far as, you know, we are concerned, those are new initiatives.

That funding is there for new initiatives and we accessed some of it last year, we will be accessing more of it this year, but we will also be working closely with Municipal and Provincial Affairs because they have the bulk of the financing that we use; a lot of it will involve municipalities. We are trying to do collective efforts with municipalities. A number of regions of the Province are looking at regional waste management plans so we will be stimulating that discussion and trying to help reach agreement and new initiatives in that area but again, the financing may not come from our department but it will be stimulating the initiative.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We have been joined by Nick Careen, the Member for Placentia and member of the Committee.

Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, with respect to solid waste management on the Northeast Avalon, a report was submitted not long ago by the committee that was two years doing that report and I am just wondering what the status is on that report and, do you have any action planned for the Northeast Avalon?

MR. AYLWARD: We have had one meeting with the committee which presented the report to both the Minister of Municipal Affairs and myself. Our officials are analyzing now, what to do or where to go from here; they have carried out a fairly comprehensive evaluation and they have some recommendations there that we have to review. We are hoping that we will be able to come to some sort of a consensus in the next short period of time. It has identified areas where we can cut down on some of the sites that we have for landfill and reducing the number, so we hope to be able to have a definitive direction in the near future on it. The committee was pretty active and did a fair bit of work so we hope we can move ahead on it in the next little while.

MR. J. BYRNE: Is it not true that some of the committee members were not quite satisfied with the report itself because the funding available never provided enough money to do a proper and complete study?

MR. AYLWARD: Well, there was an expression of a thought on that from the Chairman, I think, but when we met with him we weren't getting that picture. They went out and identified some problem areas and some potential solutions; I think there was a question of evaluating the different landfill sites as to whether or not some were acceptable or not acceptable and that is something that we are trying to deal with in the next little while. I have a little note here to add to that. There are two draft component reports of the study that have been presented, a waste audit and waste management alternatives. The waste audit determined the total waste generated in the region and identified where we would be in the next five or six years. The alternatives component report outlines the number of waste management models incorporating recycling, composting and incineration. The models described offer potential for diversion of waste from disposal. That is the other part of it.

MR. J. BYRNE: Enough for now. I will read the report.

Now, back to the estimates. Page 89, Section 2.4.04 (12) Information Technology for Hydrologic Modelling. You had $5700 in and you spent $32,600 and there is none budgeted this year, so I expect the answer will be that you did not budget enough for what you wanted and now you do have what you need with respect to the computerized system, I would imagine.

MR. AYLWARD: I think we were trying to get up to speed in information technology in that section of the department. I expect that is what it was. I think that was it. That $32,000 comes out of the federal/provincial agreement on water resources which allowed for the purchase of some equipment to computerize the modelling equipment for the department. That is what that was for.

MR. J. BYRNE: Page 90, Section 2.4.07, Subsection (5) Professional Services. You budgeted $500,000 and spent $450,000 and now you have $650,000 spent. Could you tell us what services that was for and why $200,000 more than you actually spent last year?

MR. AYLWARD: That is the projected expenditure under the federal/provincial water resources agreement between the federal government and the Province. These are the projections for expenditures, the percentages are 50/50, so we are spending more money in that area this year.

MR. J. BYRNE: What does it do? What is the money actually for?

MR. AYLWARD: It does all kind of things. Actually, there is a report out on it which I can get to you. I do not have it here in front of me but this helps do a number of things, GIS activity, Geographic Information Systems for some of the areas of the Province, assessing flood claims where flooding has been occurring, setting up a whole range of data based information, the collection of information.

MR. J. BYRNE: Would there be anything in that for mapping for the flood planes and that type of thing?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, flood mapping is a big component of it, actually. I think we have funding in it this year for the Humber Arm area, to do some watershed development and so on.

MR. J. BYRNE: Would that normally come under lands rather than the environment?

MR. AYLWARD: Water resources are under this department.

MR. J. BYRNE: So you actually put contracts out yourselves?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, we administer it with the federal government. And the GIS activity, we like to see as much as that done as possible and we are working at helping to integrate the GIS. Hopefully, the Province may integrate GIS work altogether.

MR. J. BYRNE: I asked a question in the House the other day about that and I got the Minister of Natural Resources quite upset for some peculiar reason.

MR. AYLWARD: Well, there is hope down the road in the sense that this information should be available to people.

MR. J. BYRNE: Section 2.5.02, Environmental Assessment. You had salaries $373,200, you spent $331,700 and now it is down to $264,900. I would assume that is because of the reorganization of the Department of Lands with Natural Resources?

MR. AYLWARD: I would think. We did a review of the Environmental Assessment Act, and there was some extra money allotted last year to help do that review, so that reduction you see was temporary money allocated to the department for the review.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you. Section 2.5.03, page 92, subsection 03, Transportation and Communication. I will go through all of it now. You had: $6,500 spent $6,800 that over doubled, and for Professional Services you had nothing budgeted last year but this year you have $13,000, and in Purchased Services $17,000. Could you address all three?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes. It referred to the three subheads: the federal/provincial Agreement for Domestic Pesticides and Pest Management Awareness Program, so we are doing it in this Province for Atlantic Canada - I think that is what it is - so it is a federal/provincial agreement and those three subheads where you see increases are: No. 03; No. 05 and No. 06, those are monies allocated for that agreement this year for pesticides, management, education, awareness for pesticides you know, dealing with pesticides; a lot of educational programs. As a matter of fact, it is to deal with the awareness of pesticides, the use of pesticides in households and so on, that type of thing because it has been a problem and this is an initiative to deal with that problem.

The statistics for poisonings in the Province have been pretty high and could have been avoided if individuals had been involved or had been aware of the risks, and this is part of the plan to try to make people aware of the risks so that's what the effort will be doing this year in that program. Brochures and information sheets will be displayed and circulated throughout regional offices and pesticides retailers. The initiative will be managed by the Department of Environment on behalf of the four Atlantic Provinces, it will be done for the four Atlantic Provinces, each province is contributing $6,000, Agriculture, Environment and Food Canada and Environment contributing a total of $17,000.

MR. J. BYRNE: Last year, the previous minister brought in, in co-operation with the manufacturers for bottles the litter campaign, and I think the Member for St. John's East brought it up in the House the other day, the bringing in of some new regulations with respect to littering fines and that type of thing. Is that because the antilitter campaign is not working, that you had to do that?

MR. AYLWARD: No. It is partly because we have to do more. The anti-littering campaign that has been funded by the industry -

MR. J. BYRNE: Not really, not really.

AN OFFICIAL: Funded by the consumer.

MR. AYLWARD: Well, the consumer, you know, whatever. It is being funded by the industry; I mean it is a cost to them doing business, they are collecting the money and then they are -

MR. J. BYRNE: They are putting a tab on there and then they are charging it out to the consumer.

MR. AYLWARD: Well, you know, it is the cost of doing business. Some of them are saying it is a levy but that is up to them, but we consider it a cost of doing business and the stewardship principles are what we are going by. So they have done this and they are doing it and carrying out the campaign but it is not the only component of waste management in dealing with the waste stream. So as part of a number of other initiatives that we were looking at it was identified that a part of that campaign and part of dealing with it, as a government, would be an awareness and education issue and enforcement issue also to get people thinking seriously about the problem was to have it as a fine, as a deterrent, which it has not been officially and would bring more awareness to it. So that is the reason for it. It is not the total plan of the government to deal with the waste stream. There will be a number of other initiatives that we are evaluating at this time.

We are negotiating with the CISPI people or the Canadian Industry Stewardship Packaging Industry, to look at an arrangement for the collection and to deal with the total waste stream, not just bottles. So there are a number of parts that are in that waste stream that we have to deal with and the government, as of today, has agreed so far to deal and try to negotiate an arrangement with the industry, that they would fund and help fund a collection system which we would reach certain goals for collection. Thus far we have not reached a finalized agreement but we are, in the last few weeks, trying to reach an agreement and then if we can't we will have to pursue other options.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you, Mr. Byrne. Mr. Careen.

MR. CAREEN: The latest funding of the Avalon announcement, it only came through some time ago down in Argentia. Minister, the first funding they approved was damage down in Argentia, environmental damage. You and I did a tour and a couple of the officials there last summer. They are back now to find out what the extent of that damage is and it is under federal jurisdiction of public works. Is there much rapport back and forth between your department and the Federal Department of Environment?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, there is a working group set up to help oversee the effort. The contract has been let as of March 14 or 12, I think, last month and I believe there is some preliminary work started now in a whole range of areas down there. The water supply was one that needed to be assessed and is going to be assessed. We are going to be watching it carefully because it is a concern as to where we go with it and we want to make sure that the proper work is done and the problems are identified. We are in touch with the federal people to ensure that the work will get done at the end of the day.

MR. CAREEN: Because there were areas of concern that were pointed out to you as a visitor down there. The Americans have allotted some $5 million. They talked about some remedial stuff - if Canada finds out the extend of this damage we are going to have to be dealing with Uncle Sam on this because there are other people who say this $5 million that they approved is not going to go very far. It won't be just the Government of Canada on their standards, Newfoundland will be in on this as well?

MR. AYLWARD: Absolutely. As a matter of fact I am putting it on the agenda for a meeting with Sheila Copps, the federal minister, in the next month or so, to meet and discuss the issue and to see where they believe it is going with the US government, because if it costs $5 million to do the assessment, then it is going to cost a lot of money, millions and millions, to deal with the problem that has been left. We want to ensure that the federal government is going to pursue that and we are going to be keeping on top of it as much as we can to ensure that happens. The site itself is an excellent industrial site and it has potential for future development and I know the group down there are very active in the promotion of economic development but it is going to be tough to do if the environmental problems are left as they are, and we have to ensure that that work is done and we have to keep on it.

MR. CAREEN: We have situations in other parts of this Province as well, left by military installations. Goose Bay is one of the places and there are other places on the Labrador, parts of Pine Tree up in your own country. I find it difficult in dealing with some of these people where they tend to point back and say they never did it in other countries, but we were not the aggressor in 1939. We gave them all a good place to work from for our freedom and the freedom of everybody else that was lumped into it, but you are involved with the feds in making sure that Newfoundland is not left behind?

MR. AYLWARD: Not, a chance, Sir. As a matter of fact as a young fellow who grew up on an old base and probably had to stumble over a few problems that were left behind in Stephenville I am more cognizant of the fact that in these days the attitude is much different, thank God. We have to look at and assess what the problems are and find a solution to the problems. The US government and the Vice-President is a bit of an environmentalist himself.

MR. CAREEN: He is supposed to be.

MR. AYLWARD: He is supposed to be. We have done our part early on and we have to ensure that they take the responsibility.

MR. CAREEN: Long Harbour is another dandy that you and I have commented on. They closed shop there back in August 1989 and we are still into a situation - the company is now sold. A & W is now sold, Tenneco, and they have made a deal that the main company will go good if there are matters to be cleared up on A & W.

MR. AYLWARD: Pardon?

MR. CAREEN: A & W has been sold and Tenneco have promised they will make good on any - who is it sold to?

MR. AYLWARD: They restructured the company. Their company was restructured. I had a meeting with the representative of their company about a week and a half ago and they filled us in on more detail. The Province has an agreement. It is finalized and just has to be signed, on the liability of the company for the future. That is insured and it is with the main body of the main company that liability will lie. They have extended no hesitation at all so far and have admitted their liability. It will be signed and it will ensure that no matter what happens to parts of the company and so on, liability will be with them. They are a large world company with many, many assets so they are sure they will be able to carry out their responsibilities once a decision is made as to the proper process in dealing with the environmental problems down there.

MR. CAREEN: Is the agreement signed now?

MR. AYLWARD: It has been agreed to, I think it is just waiting to be signed. As a matter of fact, the meeting that I had with them was trying to set up a time when we would be able to get that done.

MR. CAREEN: What they have down there as well, Sir, is a rats nest and it has been going on for a number of years. We would like to be able to get at the truth - the truth is all according to who you talk to. The company had a bunch of consultants, their expertise, and the union had their expertise. You went back to them looking for more information last fall. They had to get the materials in from both parties. They don't seem to be any closer and some people claim that it is just a glorified cleanup, that the area was never meant to go for years and hold this sort of contaminant. We're not to far distant on what each process will take in years, the company says somewhere around five years to do their process. The union says about six years to properly put it into containment areas. How much longer, Sir, do you expect. Would you hazard a wild guess about when there is some kind of decision made on Long Harbour?

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you for the question. We have asked for just a little more information on this question. That information should be available shortly, probably over the next couple of weeks. Most of it is ready to be accepted for final review, all the details that they have submitted. We are just finalizing arrangements for a visit out to meet with the council, the Long Harbour Town Council, because they wanted to have one more session to go over their views on this matter, which we want to give them.

We met with the union more than a week and a half ago, I think it was about a week and a half ago, and they gave their views on it. So we expect to have every bit of information that we will need, finally in, in the next couple of weeks, this month, and then to prepare a recommendation for Cabinet. It has been a long process, there is no doubt about that. I have come to it very late but my understanding is that it is taking some time. It has evolved from what was thought in the first place could happen. It has been a very big learning process for all the people involved, the company, including the town officials along with all the other participants. It is also a big problem which has taken some time to work out a solution to. We are cognizant of all the details of the arguments that have been put forward as to what should be the appropriate process for dealing with the site. We should be able to make a decision very shortly and considering it has been five-and-a-half years, around that time, it has taken that long to do it, it has been an extensive time. We think we will be able to come to a conclusion on it very shortly. So it is being worked on every day, and right now we are getting the final details of it and we should be able to come forward with a final recommendation very shortly.

MR. CAREEN: Very good, thank you.

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you, Sir.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister, Mr. Careen. Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

Mr. Minister, I was remiss when I started my opening remarks, getting caught up with the fact that we were here in the estimates committee and not recognizing that as a new minister one of your first official acts was popping out of a caucus meeting in the fall of last year and announcing to the Province that Baie Verte was dead, and I want to congratulate you on bearing the message. I would like to think that you were not only the bearer of the message but that you had some influence on that being the message that was being sent, and I do want to congratulate you publicly for whatever role it was you played inside of the caucus and the Cabinet to make that happen. It has, of course, taken a lot of heat off the government, as you would imagine, and provided some comfort to those of us who opposed for many reasons any policy which would permit the importation of garbage, whether industrial garbage or construction garbage, or whatever kind of solid waste garbage that was being planned for disposal in Newfoundland.

I want to ask whether any progress has been made on the next step, which has been proposed by me a number of times in the House, and by others publicly, and I think by the PC caucus as well, and I think also by the Member for Twillingate, that there be some legislative change that would ensure that the people in this Province who have such strong feelings about this not have to be on the ready, as it were, to start a new campaign when somebody else comes along and says: I think I want to have the proposal. Is the minister prepared to announce tonight that his plans are to bring in legislation this year to enhance a policy, or to enshrine a policy of no final disposal of foreign garbage in this Province? Is the minister planning to do that?

MR. AYLWARD: I want to say first off that we have to be careful with our words. When we say Baie Verte is dead, we have to be very careful of what we say. The Baie Verte proposal for importation is dead; Baie Verte has a big life.

Part of that decision, in Baie Verte itself the town was torn. I was down there and we looked at the site and met with the groups down there, and we met with a lot of other people, but it has been very difficult for a community trying to struggle to come back from some of the problems they have faced, but I think there is an understanding now that that issue is a much larger issue. I am happy that the caucus and the Cabinet were able to come to a decision on it that I think reflected the opinions of the people of the Province and the will of the people. It is a very sensitive issue, one that built up over a period of time, and no matter what the science that people could put forward on it, the issue itself of importation, and our Province and its future, is one that you had to wrestle with, so I think the policy itself is one that our officials helped developed.

I can guarantee you, being a new minister, in the first two weeks it was definitely - what is that saying about out of the fat and into the fire? Well, that is where I was. It was quite a pleasure to sit down and work towards a policy, which our officials worked hard and long on, to bring forward and to be able to get it adopted. I believe it reflects the people's will and it is a major step for government actually in Canada to go forward with a policy such as that.

We are going to be doing legislative reform in the next year and under that reform legislation we expect to have it very much a public process, so we would expect that at that time any groups who want to have that policy enshrined in legislation, that they come forward. This democratic process will operate and people can put forward their views on it. This policy is not a policy of the government of the day here. It will be difficult for any government to turn around and take that policy out, but some people want to see it enshrined, some people believe we have an adequate policy, and other people believe we went too far. Right now we believe we have a strong policy, one of the strongest in Canada, to deal with this issue and it is working well and it reflects the will of the people.

That was a problem that was around for some time for the government in the sense of dealing with the issue all the time and it is working quite well right now. The proponents who were applying to the Province, I think, have all withdrawn and they have a clear indication from government that this is the way we are going.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

I know the minister did not mean to misinterpret what I said. When I said Baie Verte was dead I certainly did not mean that the community was dead but certainly the project that was of great concern to a lot of people was dead. I have to say that the minister - and this is a follow-up question, the minister caused me some concern in the week or ten days, or two weeks, before this announcement was made when he visited Baie Verte and talked about a whole series of environmental problems that he saw this project as potentially solving. It sounded to me like it was a setup for an approval, as opposed to a lead-up to a policy that I was looking for and willing to welcome.

Those problems that the minister discovered in his visit - we have not heard anything about them since, and I am just wondering whether the minister has delved further into that issue. I do see the CMRMA monies gone. Do we have high risk contamination sites there? Is this a possible project for the green fund, or is there some solution for the environmental difficulties that have been left behind by a mining company that did not provide for its environmental costs and expenses?

MR. AYLWARD: I appreciate the further question. When we first went and saw the site I remember giving a statement to CBC radio in that area and basically it was a statement of fact, that this is a site that has problems and this is one solution. Whether or not it is acceptable is another question, but there are other solutions we would hope.

An interesting aspect of this has occurred over the last few months in Baie Verte, the campus of Central College there has an environmental program of studies for students. We have had initial discussions with the college and I am going to be taking a visit down there very shortly to discuss it with them. They want to do some environmental work. They want their students to get out and do some environmental work, as there is interest in looking at the potential of evaluating different problems around the Province. You would really have the students, as stakeholders in that area, getting involved along with the other resources we can bring to the table to look at a plan for the future in dealing with that problem. Really, I don't think it has been given any great consideration; it is an abandoned site, it is now in the hands of the Province, and we are going to try to put together a wide resource group and maybe have a focused discussion on this about where we can go with it.

There are some possible alternatives. There are some things - we may have to do further assessment on the site which is the other thing. It is very much of interest to me that the campus down there is one of the only two campuses in the Province that is looking at environmental management programs. And they have some expertise at the college and have initially now just indicated their interest in a liaison with the Province and the Department of Environment. So we are going to see what we can do to bring some resources to bear collectively to look at the future down there and see what is possible.

MR. HARRIS: Speaking of industrial sites, I know the Member for Placentia raised the issues of Argentia and Long Harbour. A new potential issue for the Province to deal with is the proposed privatization of the Newfoundland Dockyard. At the moment, it is part of a federal Crown corporation and presumably is part of the Harbour's property as well, it is not really in your bailiwick.

I can foresee very easily a privatized corporation being in fact a provincial corporation, a transfer of the dockyard assets to the Province, and I understand serious environmental liabilities at least, associated with that property. Has this been brought to the minister's attention or is it of concern to the minister? Is there some discussion under way or proposed to see that some sort of environmental audit is done as part of whatever process that may involve that property coming under provincial jurisdiction? Has the minister given any consideration to that?

MR. AYLWARD: We haven't given it any consideration as such as yet. I know that there have been some public announcements, some press on the negotiation or the proposed sale of it, but we haven't had any initial discussions as of yet. This issue, though, that you raise, is one that we will have to eventually deal with or at least do an overview to see what the potential impacts are and we would take that question and have some discussion on it.

MR. HARRIS: Perhaps the minister can put that on his agenda for his upcoming meeting with the federal minister. I think it is something that is looming there as a serious possibility.

MR. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a number of questions prepared under the Auditor General's report and the Department of Environment.

I don't think I am going to ask them all tonight but I do want to address, on page 130 - I don't know if you have it there - PCB Registrants. It says: "There are more than 60 approved PCB storage sites in the Province". Could I get a list of those PCB storage sites and how much is stored at each site or what is stored there?

MR. AYLWARD: Okay.

MR. J. BYRNE: I am going on to read a bit of this and get you to comment on it. "The storage of PCB Wastes Regulations specify clearly defined waste management procedures to ensure the proper storage and handling of PCB wastes" and it goes on, but one of the points that is made here, it says: "For seven of the ten files, there was no indication on file that PCB storage sites had been subject to an annual inspection as required by Departmental policy. For one of the three files that did have an inspection report, the report was incomplete, several violations or deficiencies were noted with no indication of follow-up action being taken by the Department, and there was no indication of overall review and approval by senior management." This is a very serious situation. What will be done to rectify the problem?

MR. AYLWARD: We can get you that list as soon as possible. We have a number of sites around the Province, and almost everybody who is responsible for taking care of them, or keeping them contained and properly under lock and key are doing a pretty good job. There is a scattered -

MR. CAREEN: Mount Cashel, last winter.

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, Mount Cashel is a case in point. But our inspectors are, on a regular basis, out and around the different parts of the Province, and they usually get around to every site and ensure it.

We are going over the details of the report of the Auditor General. On a number of occasions we have had to send further correspondence and follow-up to individuals or companies that may not be storing it properly, or there were some problems identified. So there is a fair bit of ongoing, up-to-date review being done, but the overall question of PCB containment and dealing with PCBs is something that we, as a Province, are looking at carefully now.

There was an attempt in Atlantic Canada, with the feds, to try to find a site for dealing with PCBs, to burn them and get rid of them, but we haven't been able to get an agreement within Atlantic Canada. Swan Hills, in Alberta, is the only site in Canada right now that is accepting PCBs for destroying, so we have to look, as a Province now - we tried within Atlantic Canada to find a site - very extreme difficulty. A fair effort went into that in the last two or three years and so far it is unsuccessful, and we have two to look at in Nova Scotia.

MR. J. BYRNE: Wasn't there a portable incinerator or something in Labrador last year or the year before dealing with PCBs? What is the status on that now? Are there any plans afoot to have that anywhere in the Province?

MR. AYLWARD: That was a one-time project about three years ago, a little more than three years ago. It was done specifically for an amalgam. It was gathered on a site.

It is an option for the Province, but we haven't decided. We have to look at our options now as to what we should do with dealing with PCB waste. It is a difficult issue, but we have to find a way to deal with it. There was an attempt made within Atlantic Canada and we just haven't been able to get a final solution to it. That is a solution, a potential one, but it is difficult for location purposes, where you would put it and so on. It is something that you would have to assess. Everything is cost; it is a very costly venture. And the reason Alberta have opened their doors to the importation of that is because the present facility is just so costly that they want to be able to at least have it run on some cost recovery basis.

MR. J. BYRNE: With respect to the PCBs, the Auditor General made a few points and a couple of recommendations, and the department's response was this: "The Department agrees controls need to be strengthened and that records of inspections and follow-up need to be improved. The department needs a Special Waste Program Manager to implement a process to ensure registrants submit the required report". There is just another sentence or two. When is the department planning on doing something along that line?

MR. AYLWARD: We are hoping that as we develop a waste management strategy this year, that is part of that overall strategy. Identification of resources is the other thing and that is under way now. As we identify what we are going to be doing with our waste management strategy, hazardous waste is an item which is part of that overall strategy. Again, the Auditor General reminds us of it, but also we are very cognizant of the fact that we must have proper registration and the resources to deal with the management of it. So that is included this year in our development of waste management. It will hopefully be included once we identify it as a requirement.

MR. J. BYRNE: Under Gasoline and Associated Products: The point made, "The Storage and Handling of Gasoline and Associated Products Regulations require that registrants perform certain tests on storage tank systems and submit the results to the Department. The Department reports that this regulation is not being complied with and at present there is no process in place at the Department to identify these situations. Of the five files examined, none contained the required test results nor any indication that the department followed up on this."

With respect to this storage of gasoline and the study that has just been done on the Rutledge Crescent situation, and apparently there were a couple of areas checked out. You notified the public not long ago that there was going to be some more testing done but last Fall, or the Fall before last, I am not sure which, there was a diesel tank at the White Hills transportation depot removed that was leaking. Do you suggest there should be some testing done between the White Hills depot and Rutledge Crescent? Because I still believe that the river bed that was going down Rutledge Crescent which was relocated out to the side of the road is part of the problem. In the meantime, one of the recommendations is that the department should develop and implement a process to ensure registrants submit required test results. They `should' develop. Will they develop such a process?

MR. AYLWARD: It has been identified by the Auditor General and also as part, again, of our waste management strategy, this year when we form our legislation and regulations, we hope that will be an important part of the process. It will have to be. It comes down again to resources-wise and we may need more resources to do that. It has been identified as a problem and we have our people out in the field doing a lot of it, as it is, but there are a lot of installations, too, that have to be taken care of.

So, it is a problem identified, and we have to look at it carefully. Under the waste management strategy we are proposing, it is going to be identified and the necessary resources will be identified also and we will be bringing that forward to Cabinet.

The Rutledge Crescent issue itself has been one of frustration for everybody because you are trying to find a solution to a problem that you couldn't find a solution for. The new company that was just commissioned to do further engineering work, CH2M, Hill Engineering Limited from Ontario, have just started some work in the past week. The work that you identified up there by the depot was carried out. The tank was dug up and there was some excavation downstream, so that was carried out. There are some preliminary results in. We are going to give out some details on that during the next few days, and we hope this time we have identified part of the problem.

MR. J. BYRNE: This plan you are talking about, the waste disposal plan, province-wide - I noticed here, and truth is, I am not going to get into it now, there were a lot of areas there where there seems to be different sections underfunded. So I know that is going to create problems for you. But with respect to the legislation - you mentioned legislation - when do you expect that to be forthcoming to the House?

MR. AYLWARD: Well, we are hoping to have a discussion paper later on, in the Fall, on the policy issues for the legislation. So we may be looking at having some public discussion in the Fall on the policy issues and then next Spring attempting...it took almost three years to do it in Nova Scotia, because policies are fairly sensitive, but we are going to use the Nova Scotia legislation. We are going to look at that very carefully. Whatever we can use we are going to use it and bring it forward and whatever we need to adapt here we are going to bring it forward. We are going to fast track it as much as possible because we need the new legislation as quickly as we can to bring our legislation up to the 1990 standard that it should be, to put recycling into the legislation, re-use and so on. The philosophy itself, with the legislation, will change.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your answers. I have a number here in the Auditor General's report but I will save them for the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Careen.

MR. CAREEN: Minister, in the last number of weeks, in particular in the past number of days, a number of municipalities are in financial trouble. Now, I am amazed that all of these places haven't come out yet, but should they go into bankruptcy, go belly-up, your department is working closely with Municipal and Provincial Affairs - now our garbage dumps are not the best as they exist. We have the waste management (inaudible) in the Province but should the municipalities go belly-up, you will be working closely with other departments to make sure that things get no worse than they already are. What plans have you made so far?

MR. AYLWARD: Well, part of the problem that we have encountered and I think Municipal and Provincial Affairs have encountered, is that some of the municipalities that have financial problems - some of it, too, is due to systems that have been put in place, water and sewer systems for tax bases - probably could not handle it a number of years back.

One of the things that we are doing with the waste water technology that we have done in the last year - and the same with solid waste management, the landfilling and so on - in identifying solutions, what we are trying to do is identify solutions that people can afford. Some of the waste water technology, for example - the report that we had commissioned, due in the next couple of weeks, is identifying alternative sources for dealing with rural areas of the Province for dealing with waste water, not in the multimillion dollar range, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are systems that deal with the problem at source, systems that you can do house-by-house, every three and four houses, and so on and so forth.

So we can't propose solutions. It is no good for the Department of Environment and Lands or Municipal and Provincial Affairs to come forward next year and say, well, it is going to cost us $1 billion to bring in the - we have to find other solutions. We have to use other technologies that might be available that are out there around the world, be they in Japan, in Ireland or a whole range of other areas of the world that are using different things. So we have had an analysis done and so far the preliminary draft that I have seen - some results are interesting, as to what we may be able to do in the Province. We have to get more realistic as to what types of solutions we can bring in.

So even though municipalities have to face some of the financial problems - as the Provincial Government have had to do - that is a reality of life, and what we are looking at, in the sense of solutions down the road, may save them money instead of costing them money. But the problem, at this point in time, is that some of them have debts which are pretty heavy. And if solid waste management is done on a regional basis, for example, some of these municipalities having debt problems may find that it may help to ease some of that burden. Because if you look at what it is costing them now, in some cases collectively, it is costing them a fair dollar, but we have never really had a good solid look at what the costs are in each of the regions. I think there is a way to move on it, a way to do it constructively, but you have to do your homework first.

MR. CAREEN: With the twinning of the Trans-Canada - and eventually they will get to Whitbourne -

AN HON. MEMBER: I don't know about that.

MR. CAREEN: Well, you have to have some hope.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: Oh, yes, anyway, it will come.

There was concern expressed some time ago about the Whitbourne dump on the Trans-Canada, as to location or relocation. Have they come to any decision yet?

MR. AYLWARD: A regional waste management evaluation was carried out in that area. There is a report in from the consultant for that area. We had a meeting in October with a group of municipalities in that region, with the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, so we expect to have a final report and to be able to come forward with some kind of recommendation - working with the region out there - that might see the closing of the incinerator, or potential closing of that incinerator, and maybe two landfills instead of five or six which are in the area, or one incinerator instead of three, so we have recommendations coming forward. We have another meeting on them shortly. We had a meeting with the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs and the consultant only about a month-and-a-half ago. It is very much a problem and we have to do something about it. I drove right by there last night to go to a function in Green's Harbour. It is a problem, and we have to find a way to deal with it. We can't hide these problems, mind you, in the sense of putting them in the back somewhere, but we have to find a more acceptable solution to dealing with the waste in those regions, and that is one in particular that has been highlighted. I thank the member for raising it.

MR. CAREEN: Getting back a bit on the parochial - because you have eighty miles in Placentia Bay and it covers a lot of territory, there have been problems with Come By Chance; money has been spent. The complaints that we were once getting seem to have abated. Are there many more problems ticking down there in Come By Chance? Now, I am not going looking for problems if problems don't exist.

MR. AYLWARD: The new company ownership have taken on a pretty darn good attitude as to dealing with the whole situation down there. The compliance agreement that we have with them, that was initialled and signed with the former minister, Patt Cowan, and negotiated by our department and the Province, is a pretty detailed agreement, but they discovered a lot of different problems down there. The regular maintenance activity wasn't undertaken on a regular basis at all, unfortunately, previous to that. Just by doing that type of activity they found a tremendous change in the problems that were occurring.

They have set out a compliance agreement with us to carry out a whole range of detailed expenditures, improvements. They are very much working with the community liaison committee down there. They sit on the committee; they sponsor the committee. They have set up direct access for individuals in the communities affected to contact officials of the company at any time, a very open process. I was at one of the meetings, I think it was around November, and one of the first meetings they had. The new manager had just come into town. And it's a very open process and what we are on, at least, is a sound footing to try to move ahead. They are running into a variety of problems that they probably didn't expect, I think, but they haven't been shying away from trying to fix them so that's the good news; we hope it continues and our officers in the department are overseeing that very carefully.

MR. CAREEN: One last thing: As I said earlier, eighty miles of bay, Placentia Bay, tankers, some nine million tons went through the bay last year to Come By Chance. With the talk that when Hibernia starts to operate there could be a possibility of that crude coming ashore. There are all kinds of speculation about shuttle tankers which will cause it to be busier than ever. An emergency response will be a necessary thing in that particular area right now with the potential danger of anything happening in Placentia Bay; the winds are in Placentia Bay, it is not like in Trinity Bay if it were coming in there, the winds would be out. Have you been talking to your federal counterparts with regard to safeguard? A potential danger could exist in Placentia Bay, in foggy Placentia Bay. We have been lucky - some of those tankers that they had trouble with breaking up, one broke up off Scotland last year, have been in Placentia Bay.

MR. AYLWARD: Well, it's a concern. There are some changes, too, federally with the Coast Guard now, and going under, I think it is DFO. I think that is the move they are making. Their responsibility for the waters offshore is pretty clear and any proposed further activity out there would have to come under their guidelines and jurisdiction. It is something that we would want to be more than cognizant of; any further development of that activity out there will certainly increase the pressure and the chances of problems that might occur in future so, it is something provincially that we would want to be more than aware of. There is some potential out there for further development but it is of concern now actually, it is something that you have to be cognizant of but the federal side has the responsibility for it. We assist them. I think we have a plan in place for assisting. But it is of concern, and if other occurrences start to happen in a sense of development, we would want to ensure that the proper plan is in place and that the Coast Guard, in its new role, certainly would ensure proper and adequate controls and safety measures be put in place.

MR. CAREEN: One last thing - I just thought of it. Earlier, you mentioned Sheila Copps. Will you be meeting her here in Newfoundland or will you have to go to the oasis known as Ottawa?

MR. AYLWARD: We are still working that out. We have a time set but don't have the details worked out yet. We may be able to get her to visit here because she is married now to a person from this Province. You never know, she might want to come back here. She likes this Province - a very nice minister, and she should come back, too, actually.

MR. CAREEN: (Inaudible) culture left.

MR. AYLWARD: So if I can, I am going to get her to come down here and we might even show her a few of the sights and stuff, but if not, I will be going to Ottawa anyway to discuss a number of things on the agenda.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Ramsay.

MR. RAMSAY: I don't have any real questions on the budget. I wanted a bit of a comment and then to ask the minister a little something. I want to compliment the minister on his interest and desire to green the Province, I suppose, first and foremost. He is very much an environmentalist, blue box on the brain and certainly is extremely eager to make a lot of this stuff happen. I know that from knowing him personally, but I wanted, Minister, for you to put on the record - and I ask you this as you have told me a little bit about it, but you went to a school the other day, I understand, and your little girl told everybody what you do. I think that is very relevant to what we are talking about here. Maybe you could advise the Committee members of just what it is you do?

MR. AYLWARD: Well, you are asking me a tough question now, hon. member. My wife calls me Captain Planet but my daughter says she told the teacher that Daddy helps clean up the earth. So I am a cleaner-upper of the earth or I try to clean up the earth.

MR. RAMSAY: Save the planet.

MR. AYLWARD: Save the planet, yes. Actually, Captain Planet is very nice, I like that.

MR. RAMSAY: And she is what, three years old?

MR. AYLWARD: Four.

MR. RAMSAY: Four now, okay. Anyway, it is good to see the desire you have to do a good job within the ministry and the co-operation of your officials. You have already undertaken a number of initiatives. There are a few that haven't been mentioned that I know of. Maybe you would like to just make a quick comment on them, the rubber tires initiative, the Atlantic Provinces is one that I know of - I don't think you have mentioned it unless I have been terribly tardy in my listening - and other initiatives to do with flood control. You were talking about GIS but with the water resources coming under your jurisdiction, there is a desire to have flood control and that sort of thing. So if you could mention anything about those initiatives - they are certainly a key part of the overall department strategy, I guess.

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, the Atlantic Provinces agreed to do a request for proposals for waste tires in the Province, in Atlantic Canada. It was felt that there wasn't enough within each Province to have a viable environmental industry opportunity to be put together so the Atlantic Provinces together have put out an RFP to - and to ask for proposals to deal with waste tires. We are trying to -

MR. RAMSAY: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, could you keep the crowd to my right here in line?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I was just going to say that. Can you keep it down a bit over there? Minister, go ahead.

MR. AYLWARD: The waste tires - some of the waste in the waste stream that goes into landfills - we are trying to look at ways to find environmental opportunities to recycle, reuse, etcetera. Waste tires are a possibility and we don't have the results yet of that RFP as to the interest. If there is not substantial interest for Atlantic Canada we are going to try to search our way through the Province. So there are approximately 500,000 tires in Newfoundland on an annual basis which is quite a number. Now, the other thing of interest related to that is auto wrecks in the Province, which still are a problem. But over the last few years, with the legislation that was brought in, there was an opportunity created for a company out in Argentia, Municipal Recyclers, and they actually have negotiated agreements with at least forty-five or fifty municipalities, a good number. They put aside the auto wrecks when they come to the dump sites, the landfill sites and they come pick them up, truck them down to their site and recycle them. There are four different world markets they are into right now where they compress the auto wrecks down to the iron and steel, and there are approximately twenty-five or thirty people working in that opportunity. So, where there wasn't an opportunity five years ago, there is now an opportunity created, because people started to look a little harder. That has been very beneficial because it is helping to show people that these types of things can occur and that the landfills will have a longer life because we will have less things going into the landfills that are problem areas.

So, there are some decent things happening. Environmental industries in the Province are starting to spring up and we have some excellent small environmental companies that are doing some great work. We are going to try to support them as best we can, through procurement, through the Government of the Province, to help them deal with new initiatives, be it environmental assessments, environmental clean-ups and that type of thing, to give companies in the Province the opportunity.

Thank you.

MR. RAMSAY: I thank you for the answer, Minister. I just wanted to say that you are doing a good job so far. Do not take this as a self-serving pat-on-the-back type thing. I am certainly impressed with your efforts so far, and I think you will certainly fare well in the long-term within the department. I just hope that you stay there long enough to implement some of the policies, and they don't move you over to another department and you change ministries. I hope you are able to carry through on some of those things. As it is, in politics, as we both know, sometimes our stay in given departments - you can move around. We hope you can stay `green' for a long time.

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you, my colleague. Thank you very much for that. I don't know what to say. I only say that the team we have in Environment, I am driving them kind of crazy, because we are working them hard. They may say to me pretty soon they want to have a change. But under the pressure they are doing really well, and thank God, they are able to hold up to it. They deserve the credit, not me. I just have the mouth to go with it, that's all.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have a comment on that, I hope you don't become `too green to burn'. When the member, Mr. Ramsay, started out, I wanted to say, we are here to ask you questions, not to fill your head up with garbage, but he started out nicely and ended nicely.

Okay, who is next?

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Chairman.

I don't back off at any of the comments of my friend to my right here about the minister's idealism and the expectation that the minister's job is to help save the planet. I think those of us who are idealistic felt that we got into politics to help change the world a little bit. Although I do not back off from that, I think we do it in practical ways and incremental ways in many respects.

Just to emphasize that, this matter has come up year after year in this committee and the officials will be aware of this. I know, after much prodding and a lot of comments, some sarcastic, some helpful, some otherwise, the department or the previous minister was moved to at least get the paper off the floor of the House, and now the paper comes in little brown containers that are under the desks and gets thrown in the garbage just as it was before. Is there any -

AN HON. MEMBER: Head table (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I will put it under the table here now. I understand John Efford tabled a bucket of water a couple of years ago but this, you know, it makes the place look a bit neater, I say to the minister, but it doesn't do anything to further what could be an example, at least for ourselves, and a reminder to ourselves, that things that can be recycled ought to be recycled.

I was in another part of the precincts of the Legislature the other day and saw a whole bunch of documents like this that had `garbage' written on it and I had to write it off and say: `recycle' on it although I found out afterwards that it was the Clerk's clear intention to see that these items were recycled.

These are anecdotal tidbits, Mr. Minister, but I see that throughout the building, both the East and West Blocks or Centre Block or whatever they are called, there are individuals, on a volunteer basis, individually motivated, carrying out certain activities of that nature. I don't think that is good enough, Mr. Minister.

I know it is all very well, the volunteer efforts are wonderful things, but this should be a matter of governmental policy, with the support of the government, with the insistence of the government and the managers, not just the Department of Environment where it might be cool or sexy or hip to be involved in recycling, but it should be a part of all government. Perhaps it should be started right here in this House and I ask the minister, is he prepared to urge his Cabinet ministers and perhaps work out something with the Speaker's Office to turn the brown into green or blue rather, turn the brown into blue so we could get a little bit of green.

Is the minister prepared to get, on a volunteer basis, active on that, perhaps let the government offices, at least in this building and the West Block, be a model of recycling where it's the rule rather than the exception, where it is the policy rather than the voluntary initiative?

MR. AYLWARD: A couple of things first off, and I appreciate the question from the member because I can tell you that - I won't put the Clerk on the spot here, he is here tonight - but we have been in discussions with the House of Assembly during the last few weeks actually, correspondence has been transpiring back and forth; these boxes can still be used and they are going to be used, but we need some more equipment - I believe that is the understanding - more equipment because of the confidential nature of the information that comes on these papers. But there is effort under way and will be in place very shortly, to have all of the papers in this hon. House going through our recycling effort.

There is a government-wide system for collection of paper within each department right now that is collected for recycling. There are blue boxes in every department? I believe they are in every department, and there is a collection procedure. I believe that is pretty well the case. Most every department has a blue-box effort under way, not just the Department of Environment.

Now, the other thing that we are doing is, we are looking at governmental operations. I am looking at guidelines for government operations environmentally in the sense of paper etcetera. I will be meeting shortly with the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. Our office and our officials are meeting with his people and him to discuss a paper which we have ready as to guidelines for operations environmentally. We are going to be doing that very shortly. Because I would like to see something, not just in Confederation Building, but province-wide for any government offices that operate. Nova Recycling has a system set up in the Province for collection and government-wide we should be involved in that system of collection.

MR. HARRIS: Well, I look forward to seeing some official pronouncements and paper or guidelines on this because I think we are allowing this to be treated as a goody-goody issue, that it is only the goody-goodies who recycle and do things. This is a very serious economic issue, particularly for this Province where most of the stuff that we are getting is coming in from somewhere else. If we don't recycle it and make use of it, we are only filling up our own places with garbage and causing ourselves serious economic and environmental problems.

Again, on the same point, I want to ask the minister, does he look out the window when he flies from here to Stephenville? How does he feel about what he sees in Central Newfoundland in terms of what is on the ground? I realize that the new Department of Natural Resources probably takes away a lot of the say that the minister may have in dealing with issues having to do with forestry. In addition to the forests, there are the rivers, streams and water courses that are affected by the devastation of our forests and the use of our forest management practices that have been far less than satisfactory. Does the department and does he have any say, any program, any input whatsoever into what is happening to our forests, rivers and streams as a result of timber and other wood harvesting practices for pulp and paper, timber and whatnot?

MR. AYLWARD: Again, I thank the member for the question. It is of major concern, actually. The practices that have been carried out, the management plans that the companies do, and the Province now, we are - for example, the provincial Department of Natural Resources is proposing to do some forestry harvesting in Labrador. That has been under environmental assessment. They have proposed doing it in a process called a debt of management process, a process which includes a consultation beforehand as to the areas you would cut, the type of technology you would use, mitigating any impacts that might occur in areas that you do and avoiding sensitive areas where possible. As a matter of fact, I was talking to the minister just yesterday and there are some public meetings on the West Coast to look at two areas where they propose to allow for cutting and asking for stakeholder representation.

With the companies they - I am going out, actually, very shortly to have a tour of woodlands operations further. I am familiar with them somewhat. But the companies have adopted environmental guidelines for cutting of wood, harvesting of wood, going over water areas and that type of thing, which are guidelines for operations. It is not what it used to be in the past, there is still a lot of devastation from the past, but there have been improvements as to the companies' operations in the last while. They are doing training for their employees in the woodlands divisions, environmental training, the handling of waste oil, the handling of their machinery, where to cut in areas that are sensitive. So there has been some work done, there has been some change of attitude, there has to be more. One of the things I want to approach them on more directly is the technologies they are using. There is some interesting work being done on the West Coast. The West Coast model forest over there is proposing different ways to harvest the forest so, you know, the issue - we look at the fishery and I kind of come back to that a little bit because we invented technology to wreak havoc on the resource; we have almost done the same thing, in many cases, in the forestry, and some of the technology works but sometimes it works too well.

MR. HARRIS: Just to use an example, the huge machines - I forget what they are actually called, the machines that are used - timber harvesters, I guess they are. In a way, it is a little bit like the Spanish trawler. The only way to make it economic is to take down and ignore good environmental practices and, in essence, destroy the environment that the trees are living on in order to get enough wood to make the whole thing economical; it's a super-abundant technology, highly capital intensive, very low-labour intensive and the end result is a forest that doesn't regenerate in a reasonable period of time.

These machines were brought in without any environmental assessment, I say to the minister, of any kind, any process, and it seems to me that we are in a situation where the government and the government officials are walking behind the machine, as it were, and helping to find some guidelines to justify the continued use of them. And I wonder, does the minister feel that he is trapped with that kind of technology or, does he feel that he can have some influence on what is going to happen?

MR. AYLWARD: I don't think we are trapped with it. We are living with a lot of past practices and some past -

MR. HARRIS: It is very recent, that stuff.

MR. AYLWARD: Well, some of it is recent but also, you have to recognize that the companies are a lot more cognizant of what they are doing; they may not seem to be, but they are a lot more cognizant of what they are doing in the sense of the training - This is just a publication that the Abitibi-Price mill in Grand Falls puts up and this issue is devoted to environmental training of their employees. They highlight the work that they have been doing and what they are saying is, they are just recognizing the fact that they want to train people and so on in proper procedures.

The use of technology is a question that we have to start looking more closely at, as they start to harvest in areas where there is a wood supply problem - we have a wood supply problem in this Province so we have to be careful how we handle the harvesting of some of the wood in the Province. Some of the areas that they have harvested in the past with this technology have not come back very well, others have responded fairly well when you move in and replant trees.

I had a meeting with the West Coast office of the Department of Natural Resources, the forestry division, only about two months ago. In the last ten years we have planted more trees than we have cut down, so we have the table turned but we have forty or fifty years of past practise to catch up on. But, in dealing with that, there is no doubt that the technologies we employ will have an impact and we have to try to find a way to balance that. The West Coast model forest will help, I hope, in the next year, come up with some recommendations. Because the industry is working; the pulp and paper industry are also involved with the model forest and have input into decisions and processes made there, so you know, we have learned some hard lessons.

We have to start approaching the companies and talk to them about where we are going in the future. It is on the mind of this minister, but we will see where it goes; we are trying to focus them as much as we can on environmental, friendly practices considering that they still have to cut down trees and they still have to harvest, and so on, to make their operations viable. But there are some ways to do it. There is an emphasis on it. By the middle of this year all the pulp and paper mills will basically be in compliance as to the federal regulations, within a month a two.

MR. J. BYRNE: So, Corner Brook, Grand Falls, Stephenville -

MR. HARRIS: That is the air quality.

MR. AYLWARD: Air quality, yes.

There are some things they have done which have been a struggle to get them to do at time, because of markets and so on, but there are some things that have happened that are starting to work out. It is a good time to start looking at -

MR. HARRIS: Well, they have some money these days, too.

MR. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: Going back to the Estimates subheads for a moment, 1.2.03 on page 84 provides for $221,000 in Policy Development and Planning, up about $100,000 from last year, and looking again at the Departmental Salary Estimates, on page 66, there are three positions, one of which is a secretary, a parenthetical designator - I am not sure what that is, but $123,000 for permanent employees and an additional $100,000 presumably for a temporary.

I know that the Public Service Act does not require the minister of the department to go through the Public Service Commission to select temporary people. It seems to be new money this year, it wasn't there last year. The minister has $100,000 to hire one or two people, I don't know how many. What process does the minister go through to hire? Did he go through the Public Service Commission, and who did he hire?

MR. AYLWARD: The process hasn't been completed yet. That is legislative review reform, money allocated for two positions, and I am assuming it will be done through normal channels - the Public Service, I suppose it will be done that way. One is seconded within the department, so that is internal, and the second has yet to be filled and I think that is a Justice position, a lawyer.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is another one.

MR. AYLWARD: There is another position which we will fill through normal channels, which will be the Public Service, I am assuming.

MR. HARRIS: So the second position is going to be hired through the Public Service Commission?

MR. AYLWARD: If it's a permanent position, that's where it will be.

MR. HARRIS: If it's a permanent position?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: It is not a part of the permanent salary complement.

AN OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. AYLWARD: It will be handled by the department and it is a temporary position. It will be handled by the department and it will be a competition.

MR. HARRIS: A competition by the department, not by the Public Service Commission?

MR. AYLWARD: Yes, by the department, because it is not a permanent position. I think it is a one-year position.

MR. HARRIS: So there will be a public competition advertising and that sort of thing? Is that what is anticipated?

MR. AYLWARD: Internal first.

MR. HARRIS: Under Subhead 2.1.01, Administration, there is a budgetary item there for salaries of $189,000 which is somewhat less than what was budgeted and spent last year, and again, I note that in comparison with the Detailed Salary Estimates for environmental investigations, there is a total cost of the three permanent positions of $194,197 but you are only going to get $189,000 to pay them. Is there some reason for that? Is one of those positions not filled? Can you explain that? The $189,000 is the vote for salaries, yet the three permanent employee cost is $194,197. Maybe one of the positions is not filled for a couple of months or something.

MR. AYLWARD: There are three positions there that were funded under step III in their pay scale, previously, and they are funded under step I this year, new classifications.

MR. HARRIS: Because a new person came in or -

MR. AYLWARD: A turnover of new staff -

MR. HARRIS: A turnover, new staff came in at a lower level.

MR. AYLWARD: Bottom level, yes.

MR. HARRIS: One last question for the night, Minister. Under this particular subhead there are "development proposals, environmental emergencies, complaints and inquiries and the promotion of environmental awareness". I haven't seen anything else under the department's various subheads that have anything to do with the promotion of environmental awareness other than the ordinary activities of the department. I don't see any money for `the promotion of environmental awareness'. What kind of money is spent on the promotion of environmental awareness? Are there advertising campaigns, the budget - I see $9,600 for Purchased Services there but I don't see very much else. I am wondering, does the minister have a budget for environmental promotion generally for various activities maybe in the schools - aside from his personal visits - that all of us could undertake. Is there an environmental awareness campaign that the minister has money for?

MR. AYLWARD: Under 1.2.01, Executive Support, there are funds there for - we have a public relations specialist there who promotes the departmental programs and has a budget to promote those programs. Also the other divisions under Transportation and Communications, in each of those subheads there are some funds allocated from each of those divisions to have some effort under way to promote parts of what they do throughout the year through the public relations specialist. We are actually doing a communications strategy. We are working on one now, with the new fiscal year, to refocus a lot of that activity outward through press releases that we can communicate - just communicating different activities can go on and highlighting a number of other environmental initiatives.

We are also working in conjunction with the Economic Recovery Commission who have a program there for youth core, a conservation core. They are hiring summer students around the Province to do environmental projects. We are going to be working in co-ordination with them, to get that message out around the Province, in getting out environmental policy, making people aware of environmental policy. We have developed a home page for the INTERNET also, I want to point that out, in our communications, a plan to let people avail - if they want to, with their computers, that information highway - avail of information from the department, from their homes or from their businesses and so on, which is the first time ever, it was only done in the last month. So there is a fair bit of effort - it was co-ordinated this year, and I think you are going to see a lot more activity. This is the first time we will have a public relations specialist dedicated towards -

AN HON. MEMBER: Public relations director.

MR. AYLWARD: Director, I am sorry - director dedicated towards this effort. So we expect to see more activity in that area.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If there are no errors or omissions could somebody move the Minutes from last nights meeting, please?

On motion, Minutes adopted as circulated.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 2.5.04, carried.

On motion, Department of Environment, total heads, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to thank the minister and his staff for being here tonight. Having said that, could somebody move the adjournment, please?

On motion, Committee adjourned.