April 22, 1994                                       GOVERNMENT SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE


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

MR. CHAIRMAN (Oldford): Order, please!

My name is Doug Oldford and I'm the Chair of the Government Services Estimates Committee. We are here tonight to review the estimates of the Department of Employment and Labour Relations. I want to welcome the minister and his staff. At this time I would like to introduce our Committee. On my left is Mr. Roger Fitzgerald, the Member for Bonavista South. He is the vice-chair of the Committee. Next to him is Mr. Jack Byrne, the Member for St. John's East Extern. Next to him, to his left, is Mr. Lloyd Matthews, the Member for St. John's North. Last but not least is the late John Crane, the Member for Harbour Grace.

At this time I would like for the minister to maybe introduce his staff, and then we can lay down some ground rules and get right into the estimates. Mr. Minister, if you would.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could probably do the quick introduction and say it is the same crew as last year, for those of you who were here. Many of the Committee members are the same. But to give it the just deserves, with me on my right here is the Deputy Minister of the department, Ms. Debbie Fry; Assistant Deputy Minister for Occupational Health and Safety, Mr. Mike Dwyer; Assistant Deputy Minister for Labour Relations, Ms. Linda Black. In the back row, in the middle - there are a couple of ways you can tell, it is the person in the middle and it is the female, and that is Ms. Cathy Gogan, who is the Assistant Deputy Minister in the Employment Services branch. Then there are our two money people who try to keep us in line in terms of expenditures. Directly behind me is our Director of Administration, Mr. Tom Hopkins, and Mr. Gerry Crocker on the far right who's - the exact title I never know, but I know he is the Financial Manager of Operations and those kinds of things.

These are the people we rely upon as I indicated here last year to keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow. Usually they pass the message along to one of the other people and they try to make sure that I haven't done anything wrong, and the department hasn't done anything wrong, at least from the point of view of expending money. The other issues, lots of other people pass judgements, but at least that is the procedure we go through when it comes to the expenditure of funds.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you for the opportunity to introduce the staff, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The ground rules we've set for the Estimates Committee is this. We will allow the minister fifteen minutes to introduce his department's estimates. We will then go to the vice-chair who gets fifteen minutes to question the minister, and we will go in ten minute cycles from there on in. Without further ado we will ask the minister to do his introduction. We would like to limit it to fifteen minutes so we can get some questions from our Committee members. Mr. Minister.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I note the procedure continues to change a bit from year to year, even though we are trying to be consistent, I suppose. Because I reminded the group last year that the year prior out of a three-hour session I was given the first hour-and-a-half to do my introductory comments because there were so many things we wanted to talk about. Then we took the requisite coffee break and came back and there were some questions for the better part of an hour. We adjourned and everybody was satisfied that they had explored fully the estimates of the department and were given a full opportunity to do so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Obviously the Chair wasn't very competent the year before last.

MR. GRIMES: Then last year in trying to work with this fifteen minute rule I think we ran a little bit over time and at some point in time the Chair did remind me that I had gone beyond fifteen minutes and that there were some people who really like to ask some questions more so than the year before.

I will try to be very brief this year in terms of just saying that generally we were pleased in the budgetary process, that for the different budget headings and the different divisions and the areas of operation for which this department has responsibility in government we basically were able to maintain our program funding in just about every area except areas where we by design suggested some changes that we thought were improvements in services and could be done just as efficiently, if not more so, with a little less money. In some areas, because they are considered to be areas of priority for the government, there are actually some increases that show up in our budget and in our estimates.

In any event, rather than go through the detail, I would just like to point out a couple of areas where we have placed ongoing emphasis. One of them carrying into a second consecutive year now is an attempt to place some increased emphasis on occupational health and safety. This whole issue is one that the department always took very seriously, but when it came to a head, I guess, a few years ago, particularly as it related to some pending changes in workers compensation, it was made clear by everyone that was interested in that particular aspect that we, in making our changes to workers compensation, should make sure that everybody involved was going to put increased emphasis on occupational health and safety, and hopefully find a way to diminish the number of lost time accidents so it would have a real positive impact on the individuals by virtue of the fact that hopefully there would be less injuries for which they would lose less time, and as a result that would then be the very best way for workers compensation to bring its finances into line.

That effort started in a big way with the budget and the things that were announced January 1, 1993. We have had a year of experience that shows again now for, I believe, Mike, this is the fourth consecutive year where there have been significant decreases in the number of lost time accidents. So the trend had started prior to the changes in the workers compensation legislation, but has certainly continued and been accelerated because of the fact that everybody involved did commit to put increased emphasis on occupational health and safety as a part of the overall attempt to have some real positive impact with workers compensation.

Since workers compensation, I guess, answers to government through this department, and the occupational health and safety division is funded from workers compensation on a recoverable basis, we are very proud of the efforts that have been put in and the fact that the Workers' Compensation Commission - that board of directors which represents employers and employees and has some public reps - as well as the Cabinet, have both agreed that there should be funding provided in an increased fashion within the limitations that are legislated to enable those efforts to continue, and they have been bearing effect and showing the fruits of the effort over the last couple of years, so we are very pleased in that particular area.

The other part is that in the employment services area, particularly as it relates to opportunities for youth and women, we've managed to maintain and in some cases increase the budget in terms of programs that have already shown a great deal of success. There's a great deal of interest by both employers and the individuals who get employed, and the concept of establishing programs that lead to real possibilities for long-term employment by offering a wage subsidy of some sorts, both for graduates trying to seek their first jobs, for all kinds of other people trying to enter the workforce on a regular sustained basis, that we've maintained our monies, increased them a little in some areas, and we hope that we will find ways, along with the federal government and Mr. Axworthy, because they're very interested in this whole area, even though it's not budgeted here now, that some time later in this fiscal year they may be able to participate with us in some joint shared programs that will even see more money than is indicated in our estimates spent on employment opportunities, particularly those targeted for young people, and again we've maintained the funding for programs that are specifically targeted at women and entering into areas where they are non-traditionally employed, so the non-traditional skill and trades areas.

Those things are ones that I would like to highlight briefly in terms of things that we have been trying to concentrate on and that we have put emphasis on again for this year. Any other matters, I am sure that what I would probably rather do is provide the members the maximum opportunity to ask of myself or any of the staff if you would like more detail than I can provide, we would like to give you as much detail as you would like to have, to allow the maximum time for some questions and we will try our very best to provide the answers, hopefully in a fashion that would be suitable to the Committee and would meet the needs of all the members.

With that brief introduction, rather than go through a description, again, of all the different programs and areas of the department, I might better serve the use of the time and the needs of the committee by allowing for the exchange of information through question and answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Before we go with the questioning I would like to remind your staff that as you speak or if you're answering a question would you please introduce yourself because the recorder doesn't know your staff the way they would know the members of the House because we're here all the time. So if you could, introduce yourself and identify yourself every time you speak. Having said that I turn it over to Mr. Fitzgerald for any questioning.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Minister. As I look across the aisle I see a very balanced staff there, Mr. Minister and I compliment you on that. Some of your staff are wearing red, some are wearing blue and there's some neutral colours there so you've done very well in bringing in a good relationship right from the beginning.

One concern that I'd like to bring forward, Sir, is the part of your budget where you've decreased the number of electrical inspectors I think to something like ten electrical inspectors that are going to be laid off due to the changes in the 1994 Budget and I'm not sure if I'm correct or not but probably three or four boiler inspectors. I have a great concern about this myself having come from the construction trades and knowing the things that are happening out there, not only today but in bygone days as well. I have great fear that we're going to be leaving a lot of people, very innocently, in probably very unsafe conditions and I hope that it's not a matter of saving some dollars and cents and putting people's lives and their safety in jeopardy. I'm wondering what you based your decision on and where you came up with the information that you don't need those inspectors anymore, that they weren't doing a task that was worthy of keeping them on staff?

MR. GRIMES: Thank you and if you don't mind as well, Mr. Chairman, maybe if I used the opportunity here of the Committee to give a little more detail to an answer then we might during a day at Question Period because the issue has been raised a couple of times before but it's a good opportunity to probably spell out the whole thing in a little more detail. I'd ask too, with respect to this particular question, that at the end, if I've missed anything, maybe you might be prepared to fill in and just make a note if there's any gaps in the information that I provide to the Committee because I'd like for it to be accurate and complete.

We've been looking at the issue for some while. The questions that you raise are very legitimate questions in terms of public safety. The Committee can be assured that they were the very questions that were raised by myself when we looked at this as an option. I said, OK fine, if there's going to be a shared responsibility - particularly now with respect to the electrical inspections - between the industry, the electricians themselves and government in terms of everybody taking some part of the responsibility to ensure that the work is done to the appropriate standard and done so that there would not be a concern for public safety, if we're going to do that, we'll be making sure that we are not in fact going to leave ourselves open or leave the people open to a concern that they should fear to go to bed at night in a new residence because of the fact that it might not be inspected by an electrical inspector.

The reality of it maybe, just to give a little bit of the history is that - and there are a couple of very positive up sides to this -is that over the years here the requirement that no occupancy occur until the inspection was completed by a government inspector actually led to a situation where, in some instances, particularly in the rural areas, a number of less then fully qualified people were doing electrical installations. I think all of us who are representing districts, particularly outside the larger metropolitan areas, can relate to the scenario where somebody does this kind of work, somebody does that kind of work and then as long as it passes the inspection, the rule of thumb is that it doesn't really matter who did it as long as it passed the inspection.

I guess what was really happening in many cases was that the government inspector became a teacher for some of these non-qualified people because the government inspector would go out and say; well you didn't do that quite right. If you fix this - and the next time around try to do it this way. Some of these people actually learned on the job with the benefit of the inspector as an instructor.

The real change that's going to occur here is that - and we've checked it too with the contractors, with some engineering firms and also with representatives of IBEW. The real change is that we are going to register both the contractors, those people that are going to put themselves forward as legitimate electrical contractors, whether it be a one person operation or a larger operation, and we are going to register the electricians. All of them will be required to register. They will have to verify to the department that they have appropriate certification.

That will carry with it, and I have not been dealing with this publicly before, but I think if there is a political issue in this it is not the safety factor, because that was the first question we asked: Will this be safe? The answer every single time without reservation has been, absolutely. It is the norm across Canada. It is the way it is done in the other provinces. The contractor himself and the installer put their reputation, their registration, and their ability to do this work on the line every time they do it. They have to ensure they are going to do it according to the code.

Really, the down side of it from any kind of a political point of view, that ourselves as members might be confronted with after the new system comes in place on June 1, is the fact that a person who was able to go and wire a house with no credentials and have it passed is not going to be allowed to wire a house.

MR. FITZGERALD: Will he not be allowed to wire a house, or will it be a situation where he will not be allowed to take out a permit?

MR. GRIMES: Maybe I should clarify that, too. The only people allowed to take out a permit will be people who have been registered and the registration will require a level of certification, whether it be journeymen or at least to the apprentice level, and if you have been trained in the trade. I think the reality is that some people who have no formal training in the trade have been doing wiring and have gotten good at it just through experience. These people will not be allowed to pick up a permit and they will not be allowed to do the actual installation, so the passing out of the permit is going to hinge upon the fact that the person getting the permit must have a certain qualification and must be going to ensure that they or someone who is equally qualified is going to do the installation and stand by the actual work itself, and put their stamp of approval on it. Also, it is a fact that because these will be in categories - Mike might go into more detail for the Committee if you want to pursue it.

We estimate that about 40 per cent of the installations will still be inspected by the remaining inspectorate because we have to spot check the contractors and installers from time to time to make sure they are doing the work so that they too can maintain and continue to maintain their level of registration. Much of it, in terms of registration, will be based upon their previous experience as to whether or not they have engineering and design plans done, and whether or not they have inspections done by another agency as part of their work, whether or not they inspect it and have an engineer on staff and those kind of things, depending on the size of the company.

We still expect that likely 40 per cent of the installations in any event throughout the Province will be inspected before occupancy, and that the combination of everyone doing the installations and putting their own credibility and their own right to actually be in the business on the line every time they do a job, plus the spot checks, will leave us in a position which I say is the norm across Canada. It has satisfied everybody in the other provinces that there isn't any kind of a public safety risk involved with this, and that it has been the kind of approach that the industry is looking forward to participating in.

One of the complaints that all members, who have been in the Legislature long enough, one of the complaints that I regularly get as minister would be if somebody had a building done and they were ready to go on to some other stage, ready to do the wallboard and cover it up, but they were not allowed because the inspector had not been there. If the inspectors were busy, particularly in the summertime they might have to wait three or for days and the call was: why can I not get an inspector? Under this system they will not have to wait for an inspector.

From time to time there will be a spot check and that kind of a problem that is in the system, which is not a problem when our priority is safety, but it will be removed and it will be a shared system whereby the contractors themselves and those doing the installation, the individual qualified electricians, and the government will share responsibility for this.

MR. FITZGERALD: So everybody out there now who would normally wire a House if he has not went through the procedure of the Department of Labour and does not have a license he will be expected to go and upgrade his education or go back to school, or at least write the exam before he will be allowed to continue wiring houses as in the past?

MR. GRIMES: That would be the basic notion. People will have to verify already existing credentials or would have to actually go get them to the satisfaction of the department. The last numbers we had was that there were about 2300 certified electricians in the Province at this point in time, and about 300 registered apprentices, so we expect that all of those could be registered automatically just by virtue of demonstrating to the department the qualifications and experience that they have, and anyone else wanting to have a right to pick up permits and do installations will have to meet whatever criteria is established to show that they belong in this category. I don't know Mike, if there is anything that I have missed here that you should add at this point.

MR. DWYER: There is only one minor point and somebody will probably bring it up anyway. How about those people who had been, over the last number of years, making a livelihood of electrical installations and who have become competent in electrical installations?

There is a clause there for anyone who has been making a livelihood of it over the past three years - the last three years and who basically can identify that it has been their principal occupation; based on references and writing an exam, using the electrical code criteria, they can be given a restricted license and in all likelihood a restricted license will restrict those persons to residential installations only, and most likely that is all that they have been doing over the past number of years anyway.

MR. FITZGERALD: Much the same for the boiler inspectors?

MR. GRIMES: The issue with the boiler inspectors again is that, through the committee that looks at the regulation and so on, the requirements for many of the boiler-pressure vessels that are in the Province and so on, particularly, many of the newer installations have been changing over the years and they don't need and require as constant and regular inspections as before.

The other thing that the department has done is, moved into a very aggressive targeting and auditing of inspections, and have looked very closely at the concept of changing the regularity and necessity and I think, to give an example: when there may have been a requirement here, that there be an annual inspection regardless of the age of the pressure vessel and so on; the notion now with the new standards and so on that are out, that many of the new vessels may not require an inspection each year, they may only require an inspection after the third year, much like the cars when you take them in to the garage you don't need to do it the first year and those kinds of things, so we are looking at the present itinerary in terms of the number of pressure vessels that are in the Province, the age of them, what kind of real inspection that they require.

Again, to make sure is the number one priority every time, that safety is the number one concern, that any safety concern has been addressed, but with the new targeting and auditing it is clear that with the number of pressure vessels installed and operative in the Province, we will not need the same inspectorate. I think most members will know that many of the pressure vessels, a number of them are involved with fish plant operations; a number of which have remained idle for a period of time now and are expected to for a number of years. Even before, if there was a requirement whether it was in use or not, for an annual inspection you had to go and inspect, so with the new auditing and targeting inspections, it has been shown that we could reduce the boiler-pressured vessels inspectorate by three positions and still with the remaining staff get all of the necessary and required inspections done and not under any set of circumstances as we see it increase any level of risk for any of the operations that have the use of pressure vessels on their premises.

MR. FITZGERALD: There seems to be quite a movement in one direction. I have come from industry myself and I know, up until now, even if the smallest size of a pressure vessel is brought into any kind of a plant, whether it was just a compressor to put out enough pressure to blow up a tire on an automobile, it had to be inspected before you were allowed to put it into operation in those plants, and now, it seems that we are moving away from it and we could almost go in and put in almost any type of a pressure vessel and not have it inspected.

The same thing with housing I suppose, you indicated that there have been people who have had to wait two and three days and have been screaming trying to get an inspection, but I can assure you, if it were a house that I was having built, I would rather wait two or three days and have it inspected before the wallboard went on than to put something up like that hoping, and not knowing what was inside. I have a lot of concerns and I know there is a lot of concerns out there today regarding the safety in which there has been so much movement now in an opposite direction from what we have been used to. When you say you are going to be doing spot checks, can you elaborate on that? Will it be a situation where the inspector himself will have the privilege of getting up in the morning and just going and picking out a certain place, or will it be a situation where certain contractors, and what they are doing will be inspected rather than jobs?

MR. GRIMES: A combination of both actually. In the registration for contractors and for electrical installers for these certified electricians who are eligible to pick up the permits and do the work, depending again on their experience and the experience that the department through the inspectors had with them in the past. That will be taken into account in terms of the schedule for the inspectors. They will do a determination as soon as the permit is picked up, depending upon who picked it up and what the record and experience of that particular person has been as determined by the department. They will use that as a large part of the determination as to whether or not there should be a compulsory inspection of the work done by that person and/or contractor.

We are in the position right now I think that - we were targeting the end of this month, so we are probably talking about next week for the public release of the total details of the regulations. Because we need to give that month advance notice for both the electricians and the contractors to register with the department so that the whole thing can be functional by the first of June, which is the target date, I think once those are released - and they are in the final form now.

Once they are released I think you will be able to see that the criteria that are put in in terms of dictating or determining for the inspectors themselves the priority list in which they do inspections I think would also relieve any of the concerns that you've just expressed. Because it is clear that through the registration process the remaining half of the inspectorate will be able to tell quite clearly which of the jobs should be inspected more so than others, and then that they are - I think in most inspectorates it is always useful from time to time, unannounced or anything else, just to pop into a site where you know there is activity. To verify for yourself that if you have a record showing that a particular contractor has been very good, even once a year or so you may want to check on a couple of their installations to make sure that nothing has slipped in terms of their standards and so on.

We've been discussing those kinds of issues with representatives of the contractors and with representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, as I say. They seem at this point in time - they came in with some concerns, as you would expect. Went through a full discussion with our officials and seem to have gone away reassured that the system can work and will work. They are pledging to us that they are going to do everything they can to cooperate with us and make it work, because they see it as a positive step and it gives them some credit for what they do. Also it gives them an opportunity to share the responsibility and show the people that they can do the work credibly, safely, without always having to have somebody looking over your shoulder.

MR. FITZGERALD: Also I understand that not all of those boiler inspectors are going to be laid off. Some of them are going to be moved around within your department rather than be laid off. I stand to be corrected on that. What will government save by this lay off?

MR. GRIMES: I think the actual number in the estimates shows that through the total changes in the inspectorate there is expected to be in the range of about $600,000 less expended in the coming fiscal year as compared to the previous year. I believe that number is accurate. That is the range of it for the electrical and the boiler pressure vessel inspectors.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Crane.

MR. CRANE: I don't have many questions for you, Mr. Minister. I have questions but I'm not going to ask them now. They are not about your department. However, I'm happy to see that you retain most of your monies comparable with what you had last year in these years of hard times, tough times. I'm sure you've got to kick up and really be able to keep up your hand to keep most of your subheads the same as last year. I noticed in one, in particular the Youth Employment Strategy, you've increased considerably.

There is one there that really has me somewhat bothered and I'm sure we are going to need it again this year, and that is the Emergency Response. The program where there was $5.9 million in it last year. I know it wasn't budgeted last year but it was spent last year and there is nothing there this year again. It wasn't budgeted last year, was it?

MR. GRIMES: No.

MR. CRANE: So, just if you need it you find it, is that what you are saying?

MR. GRIMES: I think that's the approach that we've used now three years in a row. I guess by the time we did it for the third time in the past fiscal year even the heading, the Emergency Response Program, this is the point that our colleagues in opposition have made in Question Period, that if you have been doing this two or three years in a row why don't you just make it part of the program and budget for it?

I guess if it's consistent and regular and carries on year after year then maybe it should become a regular part of the program. We've had that discussion, however, in Cabinet, and each time it has been exactly as the heading describes. Government is committed to trying to get to a point in time where we will not need to put people to work on projects, that there will be some other way to have meaningful employment opportunities and/or some consistent way of income maintenance without having to put people to work, because each time we've done this the last three years, in our initial announcement we made no bones about exactly what we were doing. The initial announcement each time said that we were going to put people to work for the minimum period that they required to qualify for unemployment insurance, and that was said without reservation, without trying to disguise what it was, or anything else, and it was done because a real income need existed in the Province each of the last three years that wasn't being met through any other avenue.

Ourselves and the federal government are currently involved in discussions with the National Social Security Reform Program and, of course, we had another proposal that we put to the federal government that I won't talk about in any detail this evening talking about maintaining income for people through a certain mechanism that is still being discussed, and we are trying to find ways creatively now with the federal government that of an $800 million strategic initiative fund that Mr. Axworthy announced in the federal budget, to see if we can't get a fair share of that into Newfoundland and Labrador to meet some income needs of the people in our Province who don't meet their income needs through earnings from employment.

It looks like we could look ahead and guess that there is probably going to be some sort of need again in the coming year, but in the debate we said: Should we sit down and say we're definitely going to plan to spend some money on the emergency basis later on this year? We said: Well, if the emergency arises we'll try to find a way, in some way, shape or form, as we did in each of the last three years, to meet the emergency should it arise. Do we want to try and guess right now as to their best guess as to whether or not there will be an emergency type situation come August, September or October? We said: No, we're better to leave the judgement to that point in time.

MR. CRANE: It's nice to be prepared if there is.

There's one other thing that bothered me, and that's the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal. I see on the human rights side of the page you've raised the money, a fair amount, but I know every one of us were bombarded with people trying to get their appeals through the tribunal, and phoning the Workers Compensation you would forever get the same answer; we just don't have enough people.

I wonder why you haven't found some more money to at least hire one or two other people to help us out, or help the people out who are in desperate need sometime, and are run afoul out there in Workers Compensation and just can't get a tribunal case heard?

MR. GRIMES: I can certainly understand and share with the sense of frustration, because I think certainly every elected member in the Legislature shares it, because if you've had one dealing at all with Workers Compensation, particularly the appeals tribunal, unquestionably the individual you have been trying to represent, to present something on their behalf, has been frustrated by the time, and that becomes the consistent problem, that once they go into that appeal process they can, if they are really lucky, get a hearing date and get something back in nine or ten months, but more than likely it goes beyond a year. It's an area where we're putting extra attention into it now, and actually at this point in time there are proposals that are in the Cabinet system that we've put forward to try to look at ways to speed up the process.

We looked at it in the budgetary exercise as to whether or not adding money to this, which pays for the large part of it here, because they do have a small staff, but the large part of the money goes into paying for the chairs and vice-chairs, and representatives that actually sit and hear the cases and the expenses related to that.

The real problem I guess, is that the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, as verified by their annual report, has just about doubled its efforts in the last year or so and has continued - they're hearing more cases, they're making more decisions, they're not getting done any faster but at least they're putting more effort into it and there are a number and variety of problems. It depends on - you might get some different answers, some different times but some of the problems are unavailability of an employee rep. They can't get an employee rep, sometimes one of the chairs or vice-chairs are not available and a date gets postponed. Sometimes the person themselves, the claimant, when offered a hearing date has to postpone. Then that causes another problem because it's likely to be two or three months before they get another hearing date and those kinds of things.

We asked the tribunal itself actually, if just putting more money in and making more people available would enable them to hear more cases and dispose of them more quickly. The answer was no, that they're operating, right now, at just about capacity in terms of how many cases they could possibly hear on a monthly basis, a weekly basis or a yearly basis. So that putting more money in here to pay for more people to hear cases didn't seem to be a solution. So that's why I think there has been some preliminary public dialogue about the notion of whether or not we should go to a single adjudicator so at least you don't have to wait to get a couple of sides people and whether we can put legislative time lines in to say that every person must be guaranteed a hearing date within x number of days and following the hearing date, must be guaranteed at least a preliminary decision within x number of days and so on. So we're actively considering those types of things now but they don't require any additional money to do.

MR. CRANE: But I think even after the cases are heard that's a real problem, why it takes months to render a verdict. I mean I don't care what kind of a case it is. A group of three can certainly put together a decision in less then four or five months and sometimes it's taken that long after the case is heard. Thank you, that's all I have for you.

MR. GRIMES: You did mention the Human Rights Commission as well in terms of increased funding.

MR. CRANE: Yes.

MR. GRIMES: Their caseload has increased a fair bit as well. There's been a fair bit of activity at the Human Rights Commission and the major part of the increase here is because they came forward indicating that they needed some more dedicated secretarial assistance, even in getting the cases through, so they wouldn't fall into the same kinds of delays that are at Workers' Compensation Appeals. So there's been another secretarial position added plus they were having some difficulties sometimes in accessing legal advice because they had to rely upon a solicitor in the Department of Justice. So the idea here is to provide some funds so that the Human Rights Commission can actually hire its own council and therefore speed up the process so that we don't start getting similar types of complaints about delays at the Human Rights Commission that are very obvious, as you pointed out, at the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal.

MR. CRANE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

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

Mr. Minister, I have a lot of concerns myself with respect to the electrical inspectors. I have a lot of questions on the income supplement program that your government proposed but I don't want to get into those questions now because they're a matter of policy more so than anything. We are here to look at the estimates and I have a number of questions on the estimates themselves. I want to take advantage of you having your staff here with you. I'm going to put them to work more then likely, more so then yourself, with the questions I have.

So if you have the estimates in front of you, on Page 219, under the very first section, minister's office, subsection 3, 4 and 6.

MR. GRIMES: That's a good place to start.

MR. J. BYRNE: In Transportation and Communications you had budgeted $29,400 and you spent $48,000. Supplies you had budgeted $3,800 and you spent $7,400. The same thing with Purchase Services, can you give some explanation for that because when you look at the Transportation and Communication, you had budgeted $36,400 for this year, you spent $48,000 last year and you only had $29,400 budgeted for.

MR. GRIMES: I'd ask Tom or Gerry, either, to provide this because they would know the detailed listings of those kinds of expenditures under those heads.

MR. HOPKINS: Under Transportation and Communications; obviously that accounts for the travel budget of the minister and his telephone account, both of which have been relatively high this year with the increased activity in the employment area and the minister may want to speak a little more to that.

MR. J. BYRNE: This is the first meeting that I attended this year and I have two others with Works, Services and Transportation and Municipal and Provincial Affairs, the first thing popped in my mind - it is not your department I know - but where government has so many cutbacks with respect to the unions and hospitals and whatever the case may be, I see, through this meeting for example: $100,000 for the child abuse group that was cut - I mean, it is so easy to see that you could pick up $100,000 out of the general budget to keep something like that; fifty hospital beds cut and I see right through this budget, these estimates here I mean, there is money so easily to be saved; anyway, heave it out of you.

MR. GRIMES: In that respect as well, I think up until probably about Christmas, we were probably very well on target in trying to stay within the travel budget and so on, then we got involved as you indicated in the Income Supplementation Proposal, which was publicly released here, I believe it was the middle of December. It involved myself as the lead minister on a ministerial committee in discussions federally and also here, provincially, that put us in a position that required travel that was not expected at the beginning of the year, and put us as Mr. Hopkins says, into a position where we over spent and as I indicated in the introductions, for Tom and Gerry who try to keep us in line in terms of our spending, they used to say: well, Mr. Minister, you really don't have any money and I would say: well, it's a meeting to which I have to go, so they would have to find creative ways to transfer from other heads and so on to make sure that I could travel and perform the functions that I was to perform, many of them related to the position that came up in the last quarter of the year as a chair of a cabinet committee relating to ISP, and in targeting this year, again at $36,400, the notion on the Travel and Communication, is that it shows a bit of an increase over last year because I am still chairing that particular committee.

There has been a lot of activity that was already initiated as we were finalizing our Budget with respect to the National Social Security Reform Agenda which I am also chairing in the cabinet committee on that and requires travel that we expect might be above and beyond what I, as a minister might have done in any normal year or in the previous year, so we tried to strike the compromise and say let's target the number somewhere in between where we started last year and where we ended up last year and see if that might be a reasonable amount to cover the necessary travel expenses for myself.

The other thing that has happened at the department is - with a full year of experience and myself moving here and with an executive assistant who with the previous minister, was living right in the metropolitan St. John's area had very little travel representing a district here. My executive assistant operates out of an office in Botwood and covers some thirteen communities and his travel expenses and communication expenses for telephone and so on are also covered under this same head, so our numbers are up a little higher that they would have been in previous years.

MR. J. BYRNE: In the heading for Minister's Office?

MR. GRIMES: Yes.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. The next page, page 220, Administrative Support. Under salaries, you had budgeted $530,300, you spent $560,700 and you have budgeted this year $535,400 and there are just a few points I would like to make on that.

Employees benefits, you spent $50,000 last year, yet you only had $13,900 budgeted which was the same as the previous year. Transportation and Communications, you had budgeted $77,100, you have $75,500 spent but this year you have budgeted $102,100 which is quite an increase. Here is a big one in which I am really interested: Professional Services, No. 5, nothing budgeted last year, you spent $40,000 and you have $75,000 budgeted for next year, and the other one is Information Technology, you had budgeted $385,500 and spent $393,600, you have $509,100 budgeted for this year which is $124,000 more. Can you just give me some kind of explanation as to what is going on there?

MR. GRIMES: Okay, probably I can just -

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes sir, it seems to be a lot of money.

MR. GRIMES: - touch on each of them, I will ask Mr. Hopkins to jump in if I miss something.

In the Employee Benefits area the revised number that went from $13,900 to $50,000 then back to $13,900. Thirteen thousand nine hundred dollars consistently over the years has been a number adequate to cover that but in this past year we've had some workers' compensation claims that were extraordinary in the department, and some injuries in the department that had to be paid for through this particular budget head. That is what caused it in 1993-1994 to go up to $50,000 unexpectedly. Maybe Tom if you wanted, if you wanted to further question it, might give you some detail if there is any of that that you would like to have.

MR. J. BYRNE: Just on that one there, Employee Benefits. Did you say there were some workers' claims within your own department which came out of your own funds?

MR. GRIMES: That is the way it is done with each department of government. Workers' Compensation, we are self-insured. We pay an administrative fee to Workers' Compensation, but if the claims increase they actually come out of the department's budget, wherever the accidents occurred. Wherever the lost time and injuries were. That is the head in which that is covered in the department.

You mentioned Transportation and Communication again. The additional monies being budgeted up to $100,000, the additional $25,000 or so, are basically increased postage amounts that are expected in the coming year. Those amounts for us will be recoverable. Twenty-five thousand dollars is shown in other parts of the budget as recoverable income. Even though it shows here as an increase it will be a wash in terms of the cost to the department, because it is in an area of Administrative Support where part of our cost in Administrative Support, because it deals with occupational health and safety, is also paid on our behalf by Workers' Compensation. Any part of the Administrative Support that deals with occupational health and safety gets reimbursed to the department through Workers' Compensation. That is an area in which there is expected to be additional expenditure which will be recovered through the department through that mechanism.

You mentioned as well the Professional Services, that there is no item budgeted and then $40,000 expended in the past fiscal year and $75,000. That is the line in the budget where the money has been provided to pay for the services of our occupational health and safety consultant who is a Mr. Hogan, who was hired last year on a contract basis. This is the line in the budget that provides for the payment of that particular gentleman for his consulting services.

MR. J. BYRNE: That is the job you made for Mr. Hogan.

MR. GRIMES: You said that. (Inaudible) the line that we use to pay for the occupational health and safety consultant.

MR. J. BYRNE: That is three-quarters of the $100,000 we need for the child abuse group.

MR. GRIMES: I think either yourself or one of the members made a point like that in question period one day, I think, as well.

MR. J. BYRNE: It wasn't me, no.

MR. GRIMES: Something along those lines. This is the line in which the payment for those services are budgeted through our department under this budget head. Were there others there that...?

MR. J. BYRNE: Information Technology, $124,000 more.

MR. GRIMES: Yes. Maybe the Deputy Minister might give the information, because we've been involved in an exercise with respect to information technology that has been very successful in the department, but....

MS. FRY: Thank you. The department has participated in a strategic systems planning exercise authorized by Treasury Board. We were one of the first departments to do so and this is now year two of our implementation procedure. Really what this increase does allow for us is to expand our local area networks. We now have all of our offices that are outside of St. John's connected to us by computer hook-up, and we have electronic mail communication with all of our offices, not only within this building but outside. Just as if they were here. This is really to allow us to purchase the additional hardware and software to do that. Because we have been successful in completing the planning exercise I think Treasury Board has been very positive about approving this expenditure. Because we have used the electronic system very well.

MR. J. BYRNE: I personally have been promoting information technology over the past few years myself because I'm kind of familiar with that. Maybe it is money well spent. What actual benefits will the recipients of Workers' Comp -

MS. FRY: This is money for our whole department.

MR. J. BYRNE: For your department, okay.

MS. FRY: Yes.

MR. J. BYRNE: Anyway. How long can I continue? Because I have lots more.

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible) Matthews then we go around the circle again and I will give you another opportunity.

MR. J. BYRNE: Alright, good enough.

The next page, page 221, Administration. Salaries went from $445,000 up to $522,000, and again Transportation and Communications, and number 10 on the bottom, Grants and Subsidies, went from $800 up to $25,000. It seems like throughout the whole department Transportation and Communications has been up a lot.

MR. GRIMES: Looking at labour relations and labour standards, one of the things that we did last year on a pilot basis was to introduce the Preventive Mediation Program for the first full year. Funding was provided for that in terms of salaries for staff, as you get to the top of the page, through the Strategic Economic Plan. That was a one-shot deal in terms of 1993-1994. If the pilot which we did was deemed successful, which it was, then the funding for the future year was to be incorporated into the regular budget of the department. That is where you show the increase in salaries and so on at the top of the page from $445,000 budgeted up to $471,000, because we had spent some additional money hiring a coordinator for the Preventive Mediation Program, and now it is funded, a full-time position, on a full year basis in the normal department expenditures in that $522,300 head.

That is a program actually that has gotten very good use and has gotten very good reviews in terms of both employers and employee groups accessing the service so that they could have simmering disputes dealt with in a non-controversial and non-adversarial way rather than have to go through a grievance arbitration procedure. They go to this particular mechanism and deal with it in that fashion.

I didn't make the list accurately when you went through them so if you would want to point the other couple again.

MR. J. BYRNE: Transportation and Communications, and Grants and Subsidies, the differences there.

MR. GRIMES: In Transportation and Communications again, the bulk of that actually is not so much in travel in the work that they do but in phone charges. Because these people are in constant contact, the conciliation, mediation and arbitration service people. They administer hundreds of particular collective agreements. Anyone who is looking for an application or applying to them for the use of the services, a good portion of their work is done by telephone. The history over the years has shown that the bulk of that has been telephone charges and it is expected that there certainly may not be any decrease at all but again because of interest in the Preventive Mediation Program as well as the other services that there is expected to be probably increases, with the increase in staff and so on.

In the Grants and Subsidies it is intended this year to try to action another one of the action items under the Strategic Economic Plan. The preventive mediation was one of them. Sectoral committees and so on was another. This is money that was granted this year though to try to do the groundwork in terms of developing a labour education and research centre that was outlined in the Strategic Economic Plan two years ago. We've had expressions of interest from the community college system saying that they would probably be interested in offering some courses or developing a centre where people could go to learn about labour relations, labour education and those kinds of things. Where you could probably go to train to enter into some of the roles in there, but also enter into dialogue and look at an area where you could go and further positive labour relations in a number of ways.

We are also looking at a prospect of whether or not it might be offered through the University, that the University might have a centre for labour relations education and research. This $25,000 that is new in the estimates this year is put in place to do the exploratory work and to look at the proposals along the terms of where we might actually develop that centre. I don't remember the particular numbered item of the Strategic Economic Plan but it is one of the eight or nine items that were listed for consideration in the labour relations areas. This money is put forward to allow for further development of that concept and to look at the proposals from the community college system, the University, or anyone else who might be interested in saying: We can establish the centre or we can deliver the programs that you think we should have.

MR. J. BYRNE: The Labour Relations Board, the same page, number five, professional services. You had $269,000, spent $230,000 and now you are down to $111,800 budgeted for this year. Why is there such a cut there, and what was it for, those professional services?

MR. GRIMES: The professional services at the Labour Relations Board is basically the Budget head that pays for the cost of the part-time chair, vice-chair and the sides people, the representatives that sit on the board. They perform two functions, they sit on the board in a regular monthly meeting and they also sit in hearings when there is a request for certification, decertification, and other things. There is an actual hearing held where a tribunal sits and disposes of the issues.

There is the regular meeting dealing with the issues of the board, principles, policy, and those kind of things, as well as the necessary hearings, so this pays for the attendance of the people. You will remember that one of the things we did at the end of last year was to bring in new legislation which came into effect on Valentine's Day, or somewhere around there, about requiring legislative votes. Was that the day?

AN HON. MEMBER: February 28.

MR. GRIMES: Okay, February 28. Well, that is close to Valentine's Day. The days all run together for me anyway at some point in time. The 28 February could be Valentine's Day as far as I am concerned just as well as the 14th. We should have it every day as far as I am concerned.

In any event the legislation came into effect and instead of all the investigation and the hearings every time necessitated by an application for either certification or decertification it triggers an automatic vote, and then there is only the need for a hearing and the detailed process if in fact there are some objections raised and so on, so we expect there might be less need for hearings in the first instance. This is a projection and if that does not turn out then the experience of the first number of months we would have to re-evaluate and reassess it but these are the targets for this year at this point in time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Matthews, please.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: A minister who has such great affinity with Valentine's Day must certainly, in his department, be considered a real sweetheart. I do not want to ask any hard questions of him, not because he is a government minister, but because I am his member and he might decide to vote in the north the next time rather than in Exploits, so I will be as gracious as I can be. I do not have a great reputation for being gracious in the meantime, but there are a couple of areas I just wanted to speak about, or chat about, and get some comment and reaction from you and your staff.

The electrical inspectors situation has been dealt with and the possibility of a similar thing happening with some other type of inspections. I am wondering what your thinking is as a department with respect to the possibility - in cases where these types of positions have to be retained, the inspection type positions, the people who provide those similar type services, what your thoughts are on the possibility of contracting them out and getting them outside of government altogether?

Privatization is something we have heard a lot about and it is certainly an interest and a key part of our agenda as a government. A form of privatization to me can be involved in the aspect of contracting out for goods and services by government. Less government to me is the best government.

I am just wondering if you have any thoughts on that or if you have any interest in going in that direction?

MR. GRIMES: Actually, it is an interesting thought again because it is one that we have only discussed in a preliminary fashion, but when we went through the exercise, particularly in electrical inspection, using the more co-operative approach with the contractors, the electricians, everyone taking shared responsibility and so on, one of the issues that was actually raised was, well, why would we not go back to the function of government through the department setting the standards, doing that particular road, determining what the regulations and the standards would be, and then allowing anyone who thinks they are qualified to go out and actually provide the service, whether it be inspection or anything else. It is not an issue we have pursued beyond that other than to say it could be a possibility at some point in the future.

We haven't returned to the issue in terms of that agenda since we discussed it briefly during this budgetary process early in this calendar year, but by way of looking at it in terms of policy, at this point in time there hasn't been anything brought to my attention that would suggest that it could not be considered in terms of making sure that the regulations that we wanted enforced in terms of what an inspector is looking for when the inspector does an inspection, could that be done by a qualified person and put it out on a tender and say: does somebody want to provide ten electrical inspectors to do these kinds of duties on behalf of the government because we think these things should be done.

It is certainly not something that we have looked at as I said beyond that but it was a question that was raised and the only thing I could say to you, to repeat it again is that: no obvious reasons come forward right now as to why it could not be considered if we wanted to get serious about that in terms of it and there does not seem to be any particular reason of which I am aware at this point in time, why we would have to say: no, that could not be contracted out or privatized; that is something that could be considered but it is not actively under consideration at this time.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you.

With respect to inspections that relate to trades other than the electrical, is there any move afoot to have the other trades treated similar to the electricians, with the electrical trade in terms of the inspection requirements?

MR. GRIMES: There is a move afoot in this respect only, that the Building Trades Council of Newfoundland and Labrador, Building Trades and Construction Council representing all the different trades have made several requests of myself as minister and of the department, to consider if the general concept of a registration of the trades which will be the first step in identifying who it is that is entitled to be called a carpenter, a pipefitter, a welder and those types of things and then that would lead to other types of things.

We haven't dealt with the issue in a direct fashion other than to say - I addressed the Building Trades Council in Gander a couple nights ago about a similar type of issue; they are looking at the future of the unionized construction sector in the building trades in it, and indicated to them that we have committed at some point in the not too distant future, to a significant review of all of the labour legislation in the Province, and in the Labour Relations Act there are particular sectors or sections of it that relate to the construction sector, the construction industry, and it is in there, that they are proposing that we place some legislation to require registration of the trades so that when anybody calls for a plumber, they will know they are getting a certified registered plumber instead of just somebody who says I can fix your pipes, so that concept is around and I am sure that it will get discussed further in that public consultation and there is likely to be a definitive request from the Building Trades Council for us to take the first step down that road in terms of legislating the need for registration of all of the identifying building trades, we haven't gone beyond that at this point, but I think the issue will be raised in the context at that review.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: In the case of larger municipalities, the City of St. John's I suppose would be a prime example, who have their own electrical inspectors and plumbing inspectors et cetera, not that it's your area of responsibility, but is there any indication that they will be moving to displace or do away with the requirement on their own staff of inspectors, and that they will follow the standard or the minimum if you want, the provincial standard?

MR. GRIMES: I can only answer to the extent that they have made inquiries; there have been expressions of interest in terms of the exact detail of what we are doing, the rationale behind it and so on which has been provided to them as I understand at this point in time and it may be at the point now, I am not sure whether it has gone beyond that but I believe that there are some - certainly some officials at City Hall - I know we have had a contact here in St. John's who is probably looking at it in terms of whether or not that should change the manner in which electrical inspections are done by the city's inspectorate, so they are very interested in the concept. We are sharing the information with them and I am sure that the council will make its own decision in due course as to whether or not they follow this practice.

I am not sure how many other municipalities actually have their own electrical inspectorate. I wasn't sure about Corner Brook but they apparently don't have electrical inspectors on staff, provincial inspectors have done all the inspections within the other cities and so on. So the City of St. John's, which has made the inquiries, are looking at it and they will make a council decision as to whether or not they follow course in terms of the manner in which they conduct their electrical inspections within the city.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you.

The Emergency Response Program that has kicked in over the last two or three years as a result of employment or unemployment conditions in the Province, am I correct in understanding that those funds are primarily or exclusively accessed or able to be accessed only by non-profit or for want of a better name, make-work type projects?

MR. GRIMES: In each of the last three years, we've had different types of groups sponsoring programs. I don't think it's very common at all and it probably may not have happened whereby a for profit organization has actually been a sponsor. We've usually used organizations like development associations, town councils and recreation committees. Those are the types of groups that have been the sponsors of the project work and have been the actual employer of the people that have been hired. They just adhered to the criteria in terms of who was eligible, how long they should be or were entitled to be employed and at what levels they would be paid. These things were specified in the general parameters of the program but the experience has largely been non-profit organizations acting as the sponsor but Cathy, if you would please, answer whether or not there have been any businesses or profit organizations that have ever acted as a sponsor for us under the Emergency Response Program in the last three years.

MS. GOGAN: Due to the nature of the program and subjective to assist people to access unemployment insurance and the fact that some of the employment is for a very, very short duration, the profit business sector does not like to fund these sort of programs. It's not profitable for them. So we usually do have to fund them through development associations, et cetera. To the best of my knowledge everything has been funded through the non-profit.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Yes, I asked that question I guess in the context of my own experience. Probably the best kept secret last year was that, contrary to popular belief that it was only Pleasantville that didn't get any money out of the program, neither did St. John's North but I have no complaints in that regard because there were no applications from my district. I guess the north is composed of not to many non-profit organizations but a very significant business community in terms of businesses that are located there. I'm wondering if there shouldn't be some thought given to allowing, at least permitting, normal business operations to avail and access funds under this program if they so choose. For two reasons; number one, I think it would serve the best interest of a district like St. John's North or any district that has a high business community in it. Secondly, it seems to me that that is where the best hope lies for a job, once created, to become long term employment. Make-work projects are not by nature a definition given to becoming long term future career oriented jobs but certainly private industry offers that chance and I'm asking if my thinking in that regard is not valid. If it is to confirm it to me or if it's not to explain to me why it would not be a good way to go.

MR. GRIMES: It's certainly an interesting concept. As Ms. Gogan pointed out, I don't think that the criteria actually prohibits an employer from applying under the Emergency Response Program. The criteria probably didn't have a prohibition; however, the other reason why not only were they usually not interested because they could get a few people for a few weeks here or there, depending on how many weeks they needed for their unemployment, it didn't necessarily fit in with the business operation very well; but the whole gist, I think, of the rest of the employment programs that are offered on an ongoing year-round basis was to try to assist exactly the group that you described, that through the employment generation program, for example, the graduate employment program, the student employment program in the summer, through our seasonal employment program for seasonal operators, that while they can't get a person given to them like you can under emergency response with the full funding, there are wage subsidies available so that at least part of the wages is provided for an ongoing employer to get a break on the wage side while introducing additional staff into the operation and adding to the viability and hopefully the profitability of the operations so they could consider expansion.

I think probably the very best programs, the two in particular, we could point to would be both the Employment Generation Program, which offers a subsidy over a sixty week period, because both the employer and the person involved are making a long-term commitment right off the bat, up front, that you're not looking at three or four weeks to qualify for U.I.; you're looking at making a commitment at the beginning to bring somebody into your business for over a year.

The Graduate Employment Program offers a subsidy up to $10,000 per graduate with a certification or diploma of some sort to get their first job in that area for a full year, for fifty-two weeks, and it fits into that hole, and that one fits very nicely because I think again all of us here, as members are very aware of the people who have come to us, young people, educated, certified, ready to go to work, and then there's catch-22, they've got the paper but no experience. Then the employer says: Okay, but where did you work?

This program is put in place so they can get that first job, because an employer might want them, probably couldn't afford the full cost of them, would get a significant subsidy towards the wage of the person for fifty-two weeks, and hopefully in that period of time the person would have demonstrated how valuable they are to the operation, the company would have gotten enough of a break to find a way then to find the rest of the money in the next year to keep them, and those programs have been very successful. The Graduate Employment Program, for example, we fund about a couple of hundred positions each year where young people get their first opportunity and get over that hurdle, and that's funded jointly with the federal government through the Canada\Newfoundland Youth Strategy, part of that continuum of encouraging people to get trained and then trying to make sure they get that first job wherever possible.

The Employment Generation Program, Mr. Chairman, just to touch on that for a second, we've been doing about 600 jobs each year. I think probably every member here in the committee has had some experience with employers in their area who have been participating in that program and finding it to be very helpful in terms of meeting some of the staffing needs for the employer and also providing a real job opportunity for the person rather than just getting them enough work to qualify for unemployment insurance, so the focus of the regular ongoing year-round employment programs in the department are exactly what you describe, and the emergency response ones then have been trying to fill the gap for another need, and they really have not been intended to, and have never been described as being opportunities for a real job, an ongoing job, a continuing job, but just to get the person enough work to meet their immediate income need and to access some income maintenance program for the rest of the year.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Matthews, we will give you an opportunity to follow up with your questions after. We now go to Mr. Fitzgerald.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You've always impressed me with your knowledge of your department, and you continue to do that tonight. The only thing that I've been a little bit let down in, and getting back to the make-work projects and the emergency response projects, is the disappointment that I faced last year. I suppose it was a training program of being in opposition when many, many projects were announced and when our own people were trying to get information if even we had one project approved. I think there were projects announced that were up and running and people hired before most of us even knew if we had a project in place. However, that's just my thought on that.

You haven't shown in your estimates here any funding for the Emergency Response Program, as has been stated by the Member for Harbour Grace, but I feel certain that we will see some monies there. In fact we're going to have to when you look at the number of people who are going to be out there not being able to find work. If the past years have been any indication, and up until now this year, I think it would probably be a fair projection of what might be happening.

The only thing I say to you is when that funding is brought forward, if you could try to talk to your cousins up in Ottawa and try to get away from this silliness of having to have one fishing stamp in order to qualify for a federal project or not being allowed inside a fish plant in order to qualify for a provincial project, which was the case last year. Many people I think were told that if they had one hours work, if they walked inside a fish plant or they didn't qualify for the provincial funding that was put forward or to apply for a job - then all of a sudden we saw the federal government come out with a project where you had to have had at least three weeks work in a fish plant - if you needed ten or twelve, if you needed twenty - and you had this certain group of people who were penalized because they had enough initiative to get off their rears and go to work, work for a few days in any one week, not being qualified to get the federal project and being eliminated from the provincial one.

I think this is something that should be taken out altogether. I realize you have to have criteria but this doesn't seem to be criteria that makes any sense. Everybody should be judged on their merits or else be judged on how bad they need a job. I think those are the things that I'd like to see taken out of those rules and regulations if you intend to bring any monies forward for emergency response this year. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

MR. GRIMES: A point very well made in the sense that, I think there was a lot of activity on the phone lines generated by people expressing concern about the criteria and individuals calling in looking for work and wondering why. I believe members here had it but I think if the number of calls that you may have had - for two or three weeks after we started that program I don't believe I did anything except answer complaints on the phone. In the minds of the people, as you say, they don't make the distinction and they don't understand why the distinction is there. I think that there are a couple of things where there's a possibility that in whatever is done in a future year, this year, later or whatever, between the federal and provincial governments - we're working at trying to do things a little bit differently and to stop having to necessarily have the jurisdictional exercise played out.

The reality of it has been that the provincial government has been on record, I guess since 1989 with the Stein Commission Report that went a long ways and then stopped at the last minute, by saying it's tied into the issue of jurisdiction and responsibility. It's unfortunate for the people who just want to go to work but the two governments, regardless of the political stripe of them, played the exercise about whose territory is it, whose turf is it, whose budget is it, whose responsibility is it?

We've been saying consistently since that time that if the Province has some meaningful shared say in the real issues raised in the fishery - being the resource issues and those types of things - then we've recognized that if that is ever provided to us, shared say comes with it the responsibility for shared pay. That we could no longer say: The fishery is a federal responsibility so they have to pay. That has been the exercise here since 1949, that anything related to the fishery unfortunately the provincial government won't agree to pay money into the fishery because it then puts the argument over to the federal argument. They say: If they are willing to pay we don't have to pay any more.

Every government that has been here since 1949 has said: The fishery is a federal responsibility. If there are people in the fishery who need assistance the federal government must pay for it. The glimmer of hope comes in two areas. One is that I guess in principle we've looked at the notion of committing to fishing industry renewal boards. It won't be joint management, that is clear, it won't go that far. But the concept is clear that both governments will take its areas of responsibility - the resource allocation and the processing, the issuing of the licences for processing - into those board structures, in all likelihood. If we go to that kind of a cooperative approach then we are moving in that direction. We say: Okay, if we are going to together start having a real shared say in what is going to happen, there is no need to go through the exercise again of saying: You have to pay for all that because it is the fishery.

If we are going to start doing it jointly, the recognition from the provincial governments, we know that at that point in time there is a price tag that will be associated. We will have to start paying jointly. We will argue over whether it should be 90-10, 70-30, 50-50, but that will become the argument just out of saying: You are in the fishery, we don't pay. I found it a very draining experience last year in particular, to have to take call after call from people who had worked for a week in a plant because it was the only week's work available, probably with caplin -

MR. FITZGERALD: And penalized for it.

MR. GRIMES: - and because of that because they had shown the initiative while other people stayed home and collected their compensation and in some cases refused to work, that they were denied access to the only program that was available in the area which was a provincial one, and we made the criteria very clear up front. I think in the room there were two of my colleagues who spent quite a bit of time wringing my neck over it, the Member for Harbour Grace and the Member for Trinity North, who didn't at all like it in any shape or form because they too were getting the calls and I think that's why I got so many; they just took the approach: call the minister. I tried my best to convince him it didn't work, he wouldn't listen - the man wouldn't listen and I think all he did was put their calls on - I call it fast forward, what is it really called on the phone? Call ahead or whatever that thing is, I think that's what they did to me. But it was -

AN HON. MEMBER: Call forward.

MR. GRIMES: Call forward. - so it was a particularly frustrating exercise and while it was frustrating for us because we had to take some phone calls, it was unbelievably frustrating for the individuals who were being denied access to the only program in their communities, in their areas where they could possibly have gotten work faster and I hope too, for their sakes, that if we do some things with respect to an education supplement or a work supplement, the kinds of things on a pilot project basis that were in the Income Supplementation Proposal, whereas that in its entirety will not be introduced, but if one or the other of those kinds of programs is introduced here as a pilot, I am certainly one who hopes that it won't be the kind of thing that will be described: you can only access this if you are in or out of the fishery.

People who are taken care of through the TAGS program obviously won't need access to these programs but for all the others, I think it's in all of our best interest if we can find a way, even though it hasn't been done since 1949, but if we can find a way to put in place jointly some kind of a program to meet those income needs, hopefully through work, through a work opportunity for the people and not have to make the distinction then we would all be better off. I am not sure that that can be done but I certainly know that the effort from our side will be in that direction if at all possible.

MR. FITZGERALD: The other part of the same program that caused a lot of confusion, and I am sure only too well to other members here who represent rural Newfoundland districts, in some cases the funding that was brought forward was given to municipalities, councils and that sort of thing and the mentality of some places being what it is, felt that it is only the people from that particular community should be allowed to go to work.

I suggest in the future, that maybe, we should look at a broader way of giving out those projects and give it to either Rural Development Associations or Community Future Associations where they would encompass a much larger area and give other people a chance, because it seems to be totally unfair one community was fortunate enough to get a project that everybody in the surrounding communities were deprived of applying or getting a job. That has happened in the past.

In fact, I remember one of the student projects in my district where this little community had everybody in the community working back to Grade VII. There were only probably four or five people going to high school there and they were fortunate enough that the seven or eight who were going to high school, and there was one I think even from elementary school, were working that summer on a project because the community got the funding rather than the Rural Development Association; and in larger towns like Bonavista, you had people probably in their third or fourth year university who couldn't find a job, you know, so that's another example of what happens when you direct funding towards certain communities rather than the broader spectrum like Community Futures or Rural Development.

MR. GRIMES: If I could just comment, Mr. Chairman, to follow up on that.

One of the difficulties when the town council or the local service district or whatever the representative agency of that community is, once we go that route, the real pressure then is to make sure that every community in the area gets a program of some sort, otherwise, exactly what you describe does show itself unfortunately, I think almost without exception in cases in the last couple of years where we have used a community-based organization as the funding agency. They have 100 per cent employed people from that community, and I guess there are two things about that. If you were in their position, and if I was, we would probably do the exact same thing because it's the same thing we find about trucking fish outside to another area and those kinds of things. If there's an opportunity in the area, the people in the area expect to be the first ones picked, even though if you looked at a needs criteria in terms of that group versus some people in the next community up the road, some of those people might be in much greater need than some of the people selected from the community.

The other aspect that we looked at last year, there were a number of people who suggested to us that once people met the minimum criteria, whatever were laid down through the program criteria, that the names should be placed in a hat, that everybody should be considered equal. (Inaudible) have a committee go through them and say: We'll pick these five here... that is the fairest thing to do if there are only going to be five jobs and there are twenty people who met the criteria, throw it in a hat.

Each of the last couple of years we've looked at it in terms of, after the outcome and the reports come in, considering whether or not we would institute some of those changes in terms of the criteria for the next year if there were to be a program.

There are certainly interesting things tempting to put into the criteria, but I guess sometimes if you are trying to solve a problem you might create another one because the real focus was to try to find ways without being charged with discrimination of applying a real needs or means test, so that the most needy families could get access and get at least one person from the family on to a project or a program so there would be income for the household.

We put those kinds of words in there, I think, that it would be restricted to one person in the household. The unfortunate part then is that in the view of those who didn't get hired, and didn't get a chance to work on the project, there might be only one person in the household but the other person, in some cases, was working, and people found that to be very unfair. So it's very difficult, I think, in those kinds of circumstances, to put together a program that won't be, in some way, criticized for one aspect or another, but most of the criticisms come down to the selection criteria, and most of it relates to the fact, I think, that members in this committee have raised in the Legislature that if we had a need we recognized the need, and we put I think it was $6 million into it; but I think most people said: Well, you would need four or five times that to do a real, meaningful approach to that problem if you're going to put people to work; there were that many people out there.

We announced, I think up front last year, that we expected only to be able to meet the need for around 2,500 to 3,000 people, when our numbers showed that we could realistically identify, even when we announced the program, that there was somewhere in the range of 11,000 to 13,000 people who needed the help, but that for financial reasons all we could come up with in the budget was $6 million when we probably needed three or four times that.

So if there was an opportunity for everybody in a particular area who met the criteria, then a lot of the criticisms of the program on that basis would disappear because they were largely in terms of who got hired, because every time someone got hired for the program or the project, and three or four or five or ten people got left out, one person was pleased and the rest were more dissatisfied than ever; but I certainly hope that if we do the kind of thing jointly that the first matter that you raised can be dealt with in some constructive manner so that we don't have to be very definitive about you are eligible and you're not eligible because of what you do or don't do, but that if there's a need we will try to meet the need in some way for everybody who has the need rather than categorize it.

MR. FITZGERALD: Just to make another comment on that, I think there's probably been more bad friends caused in small rural areas of Newfoundland over those make-work projects than anything else we've ever done and brought about here, and I personally feel that I've been involved in a lot of this myself doing volunteer work, is that any hiring should be done by the people who are getting paid to do that type of work, which is CEC and whatever the nearest office is. In that way you wouldn't have a situation where you have brother against brother and families split up over getting somebody seven or eight weeks work a year at the minimum wage.

Moving on to something bigger, I suppose, the Hibernia project. Did you hear the news tonight?

MR. GRIMES: No, I didn't see the evening news.

MR. FITZGERALD: On the news tonight apparently it was mentioned that the Hibernia project, which is about halfway through to completion, is estimated to come in at $1 billion over budget. That must give you a great deal of concern. I suppose it might echo some of the thoughts again that I brought up here in the House, and other members as well, that this massive amount of overtime is being paid out at the Hibernia project while many of our people who are out of work, able to do the same jobs, are sitting at home drawing unemployment insurance. I wonder if government, if your department, intends to monitor what is happening out at Hibernia or to have some input into this serious situation.

MR. GRIMES: Probably before I deal with that - because while I didn't hear the news I was party to information today about Hibernia, but I would like to make a comment if I could to finish up the other issue you raised about the bad friends.

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

MR. GRIMES: Because I think many of us here recognize it. It manifested itself last year to the point that I think for the first time to my knowledge - Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are normally noted to be a very sort of generous, friendly type of people that wished everybody else well and their neighbour well and so on.

In two areas - both in our programs, those job creation programs, and with respect to compensation in the fishery - the phrase I use is that they weren't generous, that they started turning each other in. We had calls from people saying: There is somebody on the project, I want him taken off because they are not eligible. That would not have happened a few years ago. But they are getting to the point I think that the criteria being what they are, they wanted a job so desperately that they actually would phone the office - they would phone me or they would phone some other member - and say: So-and-so is on that program, he must have lied. I don't think we would have seen that in our Province ten years ago for sure, and probably not five years ago.

MR. FITZGERALD: That is right.

MR. GRIMES: I certainly didn't experience that kind of reaction in the first two years that we ran the Emergency Response Program. It was only last year that in any big numbers people would phone in. The procedure that we always used was if the complaint came from a member or directly from someone in the community we would have someone call the sponsoring agency and check it out and say: Could you check and see if so-and-so actually did meet the criteria? If not, would you please ask the sponsor to remove them from the project? We had to do that on a number of occasions. I think it shows the seriousness of exactly what you say, and it is one of the unfortunate outcomes that we don't want to perpetuate in any way, shape or form.

With respect to Hibernia, the information that we had this morning was that I think the - I don't know exactly the context in which the news reported a billion dollar overrun. The context in which it was explained to me earlier today was that $5.2 billion was the number that was always associated with the construction phase of the work at Bull Arm. Then there were costs for the production period and so on, and the whole project was going to take about $19 billion. That would be the cost over the twenty years of production and the five or six years of construction.

They had done some estimates a year or so ago to indicate that because things were looking pretty good at that point in time the actual construction cost mightn't be $5.2 billion but might be closer to $4.6 billion. Each of the partners were given the information that the way things were going if things stayed on schedule, stayed on time, if the drawings came in, it looked like they might be under target. That because of some changes in the sub-sea base and the operation they might even get the total production cost down, so it might cost in the range of $16 billion over the whole life of it rather than $19 billion. That it would be $4.6 billion instead of $5.2 billion.

Some recent preliminary looks again, a year and a half or so later since the last ones were done, indicate that now they are suggesting that due to late arrival of drawings, the pull-out of the Gulf thing which slowed down productivity for awhile and those kinds of things, that a new estimate was given to the partners and to the government for their information suggesting that the construction phase might now go to $5.6 billion. I guess if somebody is using a number of a billion dollars it is a billion dollars over their last estimate, but it is still just $400 million over what the preliminary estimate was. Over the whole life of the thing it might now have gone from $16 billion over the whole production phase to maybe $16.5 billion, but still under $17 billion and so on. The whole life of the project is still estimated to be under, but the construction phase might be - at this stage their best estimates, the best preliminary estimates, are about $400 million over budget in the construction phase.

That does cause a concern for the partners and so on, but they indicated in the information that was provided to us today that these are very preliminary figures. They are very soft figures but they felt they should provide them to the partners. If they have particular concerns they will go back and do more detailed studies to see if they can confirm them or not.

You raised the issue of overtime and scheduling, and so on. That has been raised several times. I mentioned I spoke to the Building Trade Council in Gander just a couple of nights ago. They were out there for a series of meetings and it is one of the issues I raised with them because the government has been hesitant to take any kind of direct intervention role at Hibernia for several good reasons. The main one is because we can't.

We have signed a special project order which basically said in exchange for delivering on time without work interruption we have put the project in the hands of the contractors and the unions and they have given their best efforts. They have guaranteed us there would be no work stoppage and in exchange for that they give their best efforts, they will do a top-notch job, demonstrate how good the Newfoundland building trades unionized workforce is, and show this off as a model of an example for the whole world, to prove that we can be real players in this industry for a long time in the future, so there is no basis for a direct daily intervention role of government.

If we could order them to do something we would have to have a debate as to whether we would or not, but the point is we cannot order them. We do not have any basis on which to order them any more than we could go out, I suppose, and order Abitibi to do something. We could order some environmental things or some regulatory things but to tell them which shifts to put on, or how much to pay people, we have signed off a deal that says that is not a role for us. We can just monitor complaints and monitor information, check things out for people, have it assured every time by them that they are living up to the commitments they have given to governments through the collective agreements. That is the role we play.

I did raise that overtime issue with the building trades from the point of view of it being one of their big concerns. They are fortunate now that their regular membership roles are pretty fully employed, but with the rush for Hibernia, of course, they have very long roles of new membership on the Hibernia list and so on that are only getting partial work. There is always pressure on the unions to say, am I going to get work at Bull Arm, in particular? There are other opportunities but they are limited compared to what they are at Bull Arm.

I raised as a question with them, if they would go to their membership and say: okay, you go to your own members. Would you consider going to your own members in a union hall setting and saying let us agree that the standard will be a regular week's work for everybody? We will try to get the contract amended with the companies that a week's work will be forty hours and nobody will work beyond that unless there are extenuating circumstances, a special skill, or somebody must stay there, the work cannot stop and they have to continue. See how your members would deal with that, because it certainly could create employment opportunities for more workers, and as long as the company was guaranteed that it was not going to hinder productivity then they would probably not object to it. The real challenge is whether or not, in that union hall setting, that the union leadership, the business agents, the presidents, and the members themselves, how they would deal with that issue?

It is one I have challenged them to look at but one of the problems, as you can probably relate to yourself, is once the workers get in there they know if they get laid off they go back to the bottom of the list so they want to maximize every minute they are in there. If they can get ten hours of overtime a day, and they are allowed to work it, they will take it, because while you are in there, for whatever that phase of work is, the individual wants to get the maximum number of hours.

I wonder what the discussion would be if you went into the union hall and suggested, okay, let us all agree that none of us will work overtime. It is a perplexing question that we have been nervous about to this point, but not one that we have approached the companies and unions with, other than to say would they consider it. We would not suggest it to them as an alternative because we have been very hesitant to ask, or even suggest that government would like to see the Bull Arm construction site used as a major make-work project.

We want quality work and the establishment of the possibility of real demonstrated expertise in the construction industry as it relates to the oil patch to be the number one outcome of Bull Arm. I do not think we have ever suggested to them that they should maximize the number of workers they put in other than what is in the special project order, that what workers are required and deemed to be appropriate by the companies and the unions, that the maximum number of those where possible will be Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, either because they already have the skills and are trained, or because, as they have done, they can train them and put them out there and use them.

That is the emphasis we put on it but it is a great issue, I think, for the unions themselves, particularly in the building trades, to deal with. It is going to be an issue that they will probably - the conference, by the way, that they were having was the future of the construction industry and the unionized trades in it. They were dealing with those kinds of issues that once Bull Arm moves off the scene in three years' time - these people have had the advantage of working in a tremendous construction opportunity.

What are they going to do in terms of - now the pressure will be on to try to place the members on the membership roles and to job opportunities. Even if not at Bull Arm then for the future would it make sense for them to try to build into collective agreements and so on? Or come to the government and say: Let's suggest that the normal work week will be X number of hours and no one will work beyond that unless there are extenuating circumstances. They guaranteed me that they would start having that discussion and they might even bring it up in that public legislation review that is going to happen in the not too distant future.

MR. FITZGERALD: I think they are right. If you probably went out to the Hibernia site and asked people what their thoughts were on working a forty hour week you may not get everybody agreeing. I've a funny feeling if you went into most of the union halls where most of the people are unemployed and put the question you will get directly different answers.

A couple of days ago I raised the issue after some people were laid off there in my District. I thought they were very qualified people. They laid off one individual who was working there as an iron worker in excess of a year. He got laid off while people from another province continued to work there. I had my own thoughts on that. I did make a phone call to the project and Mr. Simpkins called me back on a cellular telephone. I raised the question with him about a constituent being laid off, and I also brought up the question of overtime being paid out, because there are a lot of taxpayers' dollars going into that project. He indicated to me that the numbers were all wrong and there wasn't a lot of overtime work there. It was at the most one shift in the eleven day turnaround period.

Somebody happened to have picked up the telephone conversation and I had two phone calls that night from two individuals who had been working there in the rebar shop. They indicated to me at that time that they had been working in excess of thirty days and haven't been given a day off. They approached their supervisor to look for their regular turnaround and were told: If you don't want to work then we will take the machines out of here and put them somewhere else. Mr. Simpkins in my next conversation, when I called him back to ask him about that particular working situation, called me back two days after and said again that there was no overtime being paid out. Somebody is not telling the truth. I think I know who, I believe.

MR. GRIMES: You've done the right thing in going directly to the source. Each time that there is an issue brought to our attention we have raised the issue with representatives of the companies at Bull Arm and the union in which the person was involved. We've tried in each case to make sure that the individual got answers from both the union rep responsible and from whichever one of the employers or contractors it was. We've found the system to be effective but we are hesitant to say: We will get involved in it. Because as I say, there is no real regulatory or intervention role for us as the government because of the nature of the project.

In most cases - in all cases that I'm aware of - the individual at the end of the day has been satisfied that at least the frustration in many cases is that they haven't been able to get hold of anybody. At least by contacting say yourself or another member, or our own offices, they will facilitate at least a contact. Then the person is in touch with those who can deal directly with whether or not they have been treated fairly.

The overtime issue has been explained to us on a number of occasions. Again, I think the details are different depending upon the part of the project that the people are working on and so on. There is no doubt that there is some overtime involved. How considerable it is in terms of the whole scope of the wage package at the site and so on is I guess a judgement call. We've been comfortable with the fact that they've provided us accurate information. I've indicated most times it is not a matter of providing me with the information, but provide it to the affected worker, to the person who needs the information and deal with them directly. That's the route that's worked most effectively for us so far.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

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

I have a number of questions here, so how long we're going to be here is directly related to the length of your answers.

MR. GRIMES: I apologize for being a little lengthy but I don't get a chance to speak very often so I take advantage.

MR. J. BYRNE: No I know you don't.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: I see the Member for Harbour Grace is getting used to this role he's playing up here in the chair that he wants to cut us all short.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Questions should be brief and answers also.

AN HON. MEMBER: And everyone should be quiet.

MR. J. BYRNE: That's right. With respect to the Emergency Response Program, last year in around St. John's there was another problem created by that program and that was with respect to the qualifying time for people for unemployment. When we first started out it was, I believe twelve weeks to qualify and when it was finished it was thirteen weeks and it was directly related to the extra work that was created by the employment program itself. So I don't know if there's anything we can do about that?

MR. GRIMES: It was one of the factors in our contact with - I guess it was CEIC at that time because it was probably before it became HRD - the change in the department aims and so on, they indicated that it wasn't one of the major factors but it was certainly one of the ones because of the fact that more people did get employed which dropped the rate and caused the qualifying period to go up.

One of the other outcomes by the way, that we've recognized each of the years by putting these people to work, is that the potential exists for us to actually increase the unemployment rate a couple of months down the road because all these people that we put to work become unemployed. The whole objective is to get them on the UI roles and that while we were trying to help people get work and access to money, if you only look at the UI rate itself as an indicator of how successful it was - we might have actually made it look bad. So it was one of the circumstances in most cases I'm pleased to say because we checked into just about all of them - because they either contacted a member like yourself who passed it on to us or contacted us directly. They did find some adjustments within their own programming monies in many cases because what they did is they crimped a little bit on either their administration or maybe even their materials so that they could give the extra week and I was really very thankful that the program sponsors went the extra mile in terms of doing that.

I think at the very end of it, when we were cluing up and getting the final reports in, there was a very small amount of money that didn't get expended in some programs that came back. What we did, we had kept a list of those that were short a week or so and there were a couple or three I think that we managed to take care of while there were ten or eleven that had a problem. We managed to take care of a couple of them but it was, again, a troublesome type of thing. The time of the year again complicated it because the peak employment in the retail sector happens just before Christmas, where all the firms call everybody in for the big sales, which did happen last year apparently from the reports and that complicated the fact by putting the rate down and the qualifying period up. So it was one of those things that while we knew part of the problem we were satisfied that most people had found a way to make an accommodation.

Sorry again for the lengthy answer.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, back to the figures, under Section 3.1.01, salaries, it went up $200,000. How many new jobs are in the department there?

MR. GRIMES: Mike would you have the details of the increases there in Occupational Health and Safety? I probably have them here on one of my pages but I don't have it right at my fingertips.

MR. DWYER: There's two extra positions in that particular funded area, one is an engineer position, another one is a management analyst position. Why it appears to be $200,000 is because there is a difference between the 1993-94 budget. Back during the 1992-93 budgetary process we made some changes in one of our sections, in the medical hygiene section. We basically did away with a couple of these types of positions to incorporate new types of positions and before we actually filled those positions we felt that there was some work, some improvement to make in the operations before we actually filled the positions. So therefore we didn't fill them right away. We thought it probably would've been putting bad money in rather than fixing what we thought had to be fixed prior to, and there are two other positions there, and they were just like positions which, through normal people leaving, we backfill and there's a short period in between where there would be vacancies existing, so it's the equivalent of four positions there. That's the difference, and then we're adding two positions this year in addition to the four that we will be filling.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you.

Again, Transportation and Communications is up substantially, but the other one, too, number 7, Property, Furnishing and Equipment, $38,400, the same as budgeted for last year, but you only spent $20,500. Is this kind of money really necessary?

MR. DWYER: Yes, the changes in the 1993 versus 1994 figures clearly reflect the four positions which we were (inaudible) vacated throughout the year.

MR. J. BYRNE: Run that by me again.

MR. DWYER: Basically the difference between the 1993 and 1994 budget would be that there would be the same sort of proportional difference throughout most of the budget areas because of the difference in the four inspection positions.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. The next one is Education and Committees, salaries. You have $411,500 budgeted compared to $268,800 spent last year. That's quite a jump. Where is this extra money going?

MR. DWYER: Basically the difference in the 1993-'94 budget, one of the large differences, is the lack of being able to recruit an occupational therapist. The increase from 1994-'95 - this past two years we have had a person on staff seconded from the NHNHA, Newfoundland Hospital and Nursing Home Association. I keep conflicting with the NAHA.

MR. J. BYRNE: So now you're paying for that position?

MR. DWYER: Yes, and basically that was paid out of funds further down, which would see a proportional decrease, and that position has been funded this year as one of the three, and that's why the extra increase in the salary and the decrease in the professional services.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, thank you.

The next one I have is on page 224, Public Safety, 3.1.04. Salaries again are cut a fair bit there, aren't they, but the thing I was interested in is number 3, transportation and communication, and supplies. Transportation and communications is up $32,000, yet you have ten less employees in that section, because it listed electrical installations, the inspections, and other inspections I would imagine. So if you are letting ten electrical inspectors go, why would you increase the vote for transportation and communications? Shouldn't it be going down accordingly?

MR. DWYER: I believe what happened, when they went through the budgetary process there is still a readjustment of some of the figures here which would equate to the fourteen positions which were vacated.

MR. J. BYRNE: Fourteen?

MR. DWYER: Yes, there were ten electrical inspectors, nine of which were full time. There were three boiler pressure vessel inspectors, and there was another elevator inspector which was transferred to building accessibility.

MR. J. BYRNE: But that would be a decrease in salary. What about the increase in transportation costs, in communication? If you're decreasing by fourteen employees, you would think that would go down accordingly, transportation costs.

MR. HOPKINS: If I might have a comment there, the reason for that is that when the adjustment was made for the reduction in the number of positions in public safety this year they took all of the money out of the salary vote rather than adjusting the transportation and communications and supplies. It should have been adjusted throughout the whole activity.

MR. J. BYRNE: But it wasn't; so are you saying now that should be decreased $32,000 bucks or more? Actually, more.

MR. HOPKINS: In all likelihood we're going to have to transfer money out of the operating account into the salaries just to cover our reduction.

MR. J. BYRNE: I'm missing something here.

MR. DWYER: Where we identified the net difference in what the reductions would be - let's just say, for argument sake, it was $630,000 - they took the $630,000 out of the salaries when indeed there probably should have only been $580,000, for argument sake, out of salaries and so much out of transportation and communications, and that will have to be adjusted throughout the year.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay.

The next one, 3.2.02: "Appropriations provide for support to various agencies...." I would like to get an example of the agencies you are talking about. The Grants and Subsidies under that section is increased by $39,000, I believe. Actually had $30,000 budgeted, you spent $180,000, and you have budgeted $219,000. Why the increase, and can I have an example of the agencies you are talking about?

MR. HOPKINS: The reason for the difference between the budget in 1993-1994 and the revised, the actual expenditure, is because payments were made out of there for the employee and employer advisors of WCAC. The reason it wasn't in the budget last year is because in the last stages of preparing the estimates the money got voted by mistake in Strategic Economic Plan funding. The expenditure is there but the budget allocation is not there. The amount for 1994-1995 estimates, the reason that is up is because $200,000 is being allocated again for the work for the employee and employer advisors in WCAC.

MR. GRIMES: This to is scheduled for re-evaluation at the end of one full year. It was announced last year but by the time the people actually got it put in place - I think we've seen the public announcement. There is Mr. Hogan, who is with the Employers Council, housed with them, and there is - that is Mr. Denis Hogan, who is the employers' advisor, with the Employers Council. There is Mr. Gerald Dwyer, who is actually working up in an office at the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, who handles enquiries and provides assistance to injured workers.

Because they didn't get put in place until August the evaluation will be done sometime early next fall. Their budget amounts here, assuming that the evaluation would be positive - because certainly the preliminary indications are that people have found the services of these two advisors very useful - that the money is allocated there to fund them again for a full year, because they are likely to be in place for the full fiscal year.

You asked a question too about the types of outside agencies that funds were provided to. For a number of years now we've been providing funds to the Newfoundland Industrial Health and Safety Association. These are just small administrative grants to help people who are involved in occupational health and safety. They've been getting an annual grant of $6,500. They don't really have funding mechanisms otherwise. They use this just for administration, mailing costs for their membership, and those types of things.

The Canadian Society of Safety Engineering gets an annual grant of $1,500; the Canada Safety Council, $1,000; the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour for their occupational health and safety committees and their efforts in that area, $4,000; St. John Ambulance, $3,000; and there is another amount of $3,000 that is there depending upon requests for the year. If there are no other organizations that are involved in occupational health and safety efforts then the money is not expended. If there are other agencies that come forward and show that they are fostering the goals and objectives that we promote in terms of trying to make sure there are less opportunities for workplace injury and lost time, then we would try to help fund them in some small way. If not the money just rolls over as a non-expenditure.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you. Section 4.1.01, Employment Services. Grants and Subsidies, number 10: $271,500 budgeted, you spent $103,000 last year, and you had budgeted $135,000. That is a huge increase. Why is that?

MR. GRIMES: I'm sorry, I missed the question.

MR. J. BYRNE: Employment Services, Grants and Subsidies, a huge increase there, you know.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, okay. Last year for the first time too out of the student employment money that we had for students in the summer we took part of that allocation and funded for the first time the Newfoundland and Labrador Conservation Core, in which some - I think it was - I don't remember the exact number, but a number of groups - they were described as green teams and so on - did projects in different parts of the Province. It was considered to be a very successful first effort.

What we've done this year is recognize that the Conservation Core will now become a part of the program on a regular basis. The additional $150,000 or so in that heading is there for the administrative costs and hopefully also to be able to fund the initial projects that they will do in this upcoming summer. We're also participating - as you heard the announcement just last week, I guess last Friday, by Mr. Axworthy out of Ottawa about the Canadian Youth Corp and those types of things and job opportunities for young people. They've indicated that there's a good opportunity for us to tie in, in a joint fashion with that program to even increase these amounts by using our budgeted money as the provincial share, get a federal share and put even more projects into place through the Conservation Corp or some similar arrangement.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you. The next one I have is 4.1.03, Graduate Employment Program, Grants and Subsidies, again you had budgeted $1 million, you spent $1.4 million and you budgeted $1 million again. If you spent $1.4 million last year why would you not have that budgeted this year?

MR. GRIMES: One of the things that we found last year - there's funding available over in the head across the page, in 4.1.06, Women's Employment Programs, that look at the WISE program, Women Interested in Successful Employment and Job Bridges which is the program that funds women into the non-traditional occupations and trades. The funding for the women in the non-traditional occupations and trades - actually the requests were down a little last year below budget. So because we wanted to provide opportunities for women, what we did was transfer money - and you'll see that the expenditures were actually down a bit under that heading - transferred some of the money over into the graduate employment program and targeted it for female graduates so that at least the effort for women in last years employment efforts would have been consistent.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you. 4.1.05, Youth Employment Strategy; salaries doubled pretty well; supplies up substantially and I mean substantially. It went from $1,000 up to $92,000 spent and budgeted $122,000 this year. Number 7, 10 and 12, I just got a bracket here saying could you explain that because there seems to be some huge increases there too, like Information Technology, $100,000 there again, wasn't budgeted at all.

MR. GRIMES: I'll deal with probably the first one and then if Cathy Gogan or Mr. Hopkins would like to deal with the details at the bottom. Take number one and ten - there are a couple of particular areas under the youth employment strategy. We have had very large success in terms of dealing cooperatively with the federal government in providing joint services rather then they provide a service in some areas and we provide a similar type of service in other areas. We've had a lot of success putting in place the career information resource centres in buildings that CEIC runs. So that when people go into an unemployment insurance office, which is run by the federal government, somewhere in that same building they will be able to access a career information resource centre, staffed and funded by the provincial government so that we don't have to pick up the overhead cost of rent, heat and light and those kinds of things and it's a joint agreement that we've worked out.

These kinds of things were, again, initiatives that were done for the first time under the Canada Newfoundland Youth Strategy and targeted at young people. They've been proven to be successful enough that the federal government agreed with us that they would fund the monies to extend that type of initiative into other centres. We started in St. John's, opened joint offices in Happy Valley - Goose Bay and Clarenville and are now in the process of trying to put similar operations in place on the west coast, probably in the Corner Brook area and also in Central Newfoundland. We had some discussions with the offices - the CEIC I guess now the HRD people in Grand Falls - Windsor - and the federal government has agreed with us that they will pay for part of the cost, therefore our contribution is also up a little. We are jointly going to fund these kinds of centres on an expanded basis in this year.

We've also had some success with a linkage program whereby certain agents go out and find opportunities and place people in job opportunities. A particular linkage program targeted at, again, young people. The same as the Graduate Employment Program, the notion being trying to get the youth that first job. They've agreed that that's a useful initiative and they want to participate in that. So under our grants and subsidies and so on they've agreed that we'll budget more money. I'm not sure if that's 50/50 or what the arrangements are, but we will recover a portion of that that they are also funding, and if they are very pleased that we are continuing on with additional initiatives, particularly targeted at young people in trying to get over that hurdle of giving them information about jobs, which is what the Career Information Resource Centre does, and helping them with resume writing, job search and those types of things and also providing that first job opportunity by having certain agencies place people, so that the criteria is that a group comes out and says: we will place six or seven people in jobs for you if you can fund them and that program has had enough success that the federal government is pleased to commit the funding to continue on and expand in fashion for another year.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. Just a few other questions here, it won't take too much more time.

Under section 4.1.08. I just made a highlight that says: Appropriations provide for wage subsidy program that is designed to develop new long-term employment. Do you have a few words to explain that?

MR. GRIMES: The Employment Generation Program is one I referenced earlier in response to the question from my own member, as I recall the Member for St. John's North, because he does such a marvellous job of representing my interest as an MHA here in the Legislature. Often times I don't feel all that compelled to pick up for myself because he does it on my behalf.

The Employment Generation Program is the one that offers wage subsidy over the 60-week period to any employer. I guess many people and many of the members who have helped the constituent employers to participate in this program, refer to it as a 20/20/20/20 program where, there is a wage subsidy in the first twenty weeks -

MR. J. BYRNE: How successful is it?

MR. GRIMES: With the graduate program, they are the two most successful programs in that we had some numbers last year indicating that - of course, in the first twenty weeks we have, with a rare exception, just about 100 per cent of the people stay in for the first twenty weeks but the real test in this one, the acid test for the program is the middle twenty weeks where, the subsidy ceases and the employer is asked to commit to keeping the person, so we have had some people, for various reasons, who have dropped out in the middle. Anyone who stays for the middle, stays to the end and then - I should have taken that number off the top of my head but the number last year seems to indicate that people who stay for the sixty weeks - I should probably phrase it this way.

The numbers are much, much higher than in any other type of program in terms of how many of those then end up with a person actually staying on the job even after the program is completely finished, and indicate to me that those who finish the program, 80 per cent of the employers who have had somebody for the sixty weeks with a subsidy at the beginning, not being in the middle of the subsidy at the end, keep the person in the job for a long-term commitment.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. The last question. Under 6.1.01, Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, Salaries, the increase is quite a bit; Professional Services increased quite a bit from what was budgeted, spent and is budgeted, and No. 7, Property, Furnishings and Equipment, $10,000. I have a note here, what for?

MR. GRIMES: In each case in the last question that you asked about the property, furnishings and equipment, there has been a restructuring again in that attempt to try even with the existing staff over there, a re-arrangement of an addition of some staff to try to make it more efficient, so that the claimant gets over that frustration of months and months and months of: first, to get a hearing then to get an answer, it might be a re-appeal and those kinds of things, so that restructuring was agreed part way through last year, than in fact, adding additional staff over there largely to take care of -

Let me put it in this context. One of the real problems is the bulk of information that the people, during the hearing, have to deal with because some of you people have probably had files sent to you from a workers' compensation claimant who wanted you to look at their full file and some of them are unbelievable. When there is a hearing to be held, everything in that file has to be copied for everyone involved in the hearing and what we did here as I said, that the most useful thing that they could do was actually to get some people involved because there were actually some delays, believe it or not, they were caused by the fact that the materials were backed up. People could not get their hands on the material.

There are people over there who do nothing except copy materialsfor distribution in files related to cases, so they looked at the operation, they did a complete examination of it, and the chairman and CEO on the board agreed that what they needed was to re-allocate and get more people involved in those perfunctory type of things, and administrative type of things, so that it could function more efficiently.

Even with the concurrence of the Workers' Compensation Board who funds this, because this is all the cut of their money, this is not taxpayers dollars here. We handle the budget for purposes of making sure that there's an accountability, but it comes from the premiums and so on, the assessments, and we've agreed that this kind of restructuring will actually help facilitate that appeal process. The additional staff then that are there in those areas, too, need the additional equipment because they weren't there before, so it's just a normal purchase of things like desks and a few chairs. They may have even gotten themselves one additional copy machine, but I'm not sure because -

AN HON. MEMBER: No shredders.

MR. GRIMES: Shredders are a big item over there, but I won't go further into that.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you. I would like to make one comment, and that is that last year in our first meeting such as this we did three committees, or three hearings, and I was impressed by how well you knew your department. I should say I don't know if I was impressed at how well you knew it or how well you appeared to know your department, anyway. I can't give you too good a compliment.

Anyway, I thank you for your time and I thank your staff for being here tonight.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Fitzgerald.

MR. FITZGERALD: I have a couple of short questions, Mr. Minister. Is there any truth to the fact that there were eighty welders brought in from mainland Canada to go to work at the Newfoundland Dockyard? If the figure eighty is not correct, were there any welders recently brought in to go to work at the Newfoundland Dockyard?

MR. GRIMES: I don't know. I can't confirm the number. I do know that it's an issue in terms of - I've been dealing with one welder in particular who has been trying to get tested for CWB, because there are job opportunities opening at the dockyard and they have put a call out for welders. His representation to me was that in fact because just about all the welders with CWB tickets in Newfoundland and Labrador are already at Hibernia, they're already at Bull Arm, that there is a shortage of them and unless people like himself who currently don't have a CWB designation can get tested in the short term somehow, that they will be left with no option but to bring in people from outside the Province with a CWB designation who are not currently working in order to meet the requirements for the work that's expected at the dockyard.

The staff officer who checks into those kinds of things for us at Bull Arm is currently checking to see whether or not that information can be verified, what the numbers are, what the prospects are, because it was brought to my attention I think two days ago. We asked the question this morning, early, and when I went back to the office this evening I checked and there is no reply back yet, but it is an issue and a concern that has been raised, but I am not in a position to verify whether or not the numbers are right and whether, in fact, they will be bringing people from outside the Province, but that exact proposition was put to me by a constituent of Mr. Careen, I believe, because we had discussed it here in the Legislature as well and I assured both the Member for Placentia and that person that as soon as I got an answer I would get back to them.

MR. FITZGERALD: Is there some reason why we couldn't have trained our own welders, or did we not have any knowledge of the amount of work that was coming up at the dockyard in order to certify them for the CWB?

MR. GRIMES: That's part of the question that's being asked. Did they get this contract on some basis so suddenly that we couldn't foresee it, because the good news, I guess, is that we did train a fair number of Newfoundlanders, and we did let them do the CWB test and they did pass and they are at Bull Arm. The bad news is that means that just about everybody who has that designation in the Province is currently employed, and was there some way that the dockyard could have known in advance, because the difficulty that this individual welder is putting forward is that unless referred by the contractor, I guess in this case the dockyard, or the union, then the testing usually doesn't get done because they test in groups because of the cost and so on, and the most perplexing problem for the individual is that he, as an individual, who is not a union member and not being referred by any contractor or employer, can't get to do the test.

He is pretty well convinced that given an opportunity to do the test he could pass and get the CWB designation. He has been told by the Dockyard apparently that with the designation he would be hired tomorrow. He would be given a job. So that is what is being investigated and checked into. So you can imagine again the level of frustration for a person who is a qualified welder but doesn't have that particular designation and can't even at this point in time seem to find a way to do the test.

MR. FITZGERALD: It seems to be very unfair, because it is common practice. You go to work in Come By Chance or in other places, the welders many times, even though they are certified welders, they come forward and they do testing before they are hired on any particular project. Their welds are examined and X-rayed and this sort of thing. I'm wondering why the same thing couldn't be done with our own Newfoundland welders at the Dockyard. What makes it so different?

MR. GRIMES: Again, as you can appreciate, having the question raised and now having it investigated, I would hope to have an answer as soon as possible. It is a problem. On the face of it again, when you look at it, there doesn't seem to be any reasonable explanation why what you propose couldn't happen. I don't have the answer at this point in time. Maybe there will be a successful and happy resolution to this, not only for that individual but for anybody else, but I'm not in a position to say at this time.

MR. FITZGERALD: Do you have any information that you might be bringing in part of this income support program, or any indication that your department may be bringing in a pilot project to see if this program works in certain areas of the Province? The proposal as you put forward on the income support supplement program.

MR. GRIMES: I guess the situation that would be relevant to this point in time is the same as in the last statement I made in the Legislature. While there has been some interest expressed in the principles, and while we are going to continue to explore this part of the two year review of national social security reform, there isn't any prospect at this point in time that the entirety of that proposal will be introduced in Newfoundland and Labrador or anywhere else in the country, I guess, for that matter. It is certainly being considered in that review.

At this point in time though Ms. Gogan and other officials from the Department of Education, and some people with the Economic Recovery Commission, are looking at what would be an appropriate version of an education supplement that the federal government has also expressed interest in piloting in Newfoundland and Labrador. We are still looking at what version of a proposal would we put to the federal government, because that is the stage: Well now, he said, if you people will come forward with some kind of a detailed education supplement we would certainly give it serious consideration and consider introduction on a pilot basis.

Part of that discussion would then necessarily have to be: If there is agreement that we are going to do an education supplement, some version of it to be determined, as a pilot project in the Province, will we do it in some region or area of the Province, or will it be done again in the whole Province as a pilot project? That discussion hasn't been held yet either. The federal government seems to indicate that it is willing to consider any kind of realistic proposals we will bring forward. That is the one they've expressed most interest in the short-term, and asked us to develop it further and come forward for discussion.

MR. FITZGERALD: One last comment, Mr. Minister. If you do intend to bring in any parts of this particular document I would hope that would go out to the area and have public hearings, or at least have public input into it. Because I can tell you that that is one of the most negative pieces of information I think that I've ever read. I think in rural Newfoundland you will find that if it is implemented then you will see the biggest exodus of people that you ever saw in rural Newfoundland in our time, that is for sure. Very negative. Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any further questions? Mr. Matthews.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Yes. I wanted to pick up from where I left off a few minutes ago. The minister in his usual perceptiveness ran ahead of me to the extent that he self-applauded the programs that I was going to applaud for him. That is, the ones that tend to lead to long-term employment opportunities as opposed to the make-work ones that are short-term.

My point at that point was to, I guess, impress upon you and your officials my view. Being that wherever you can put the meagre dollars that we have available to help generate and subsidize employment we put it to the best use. If it is in the private sector where jobs can have a chance and be more viable and more long-term and then we allow them to participate, that sector to participate to the greatest extent possible.

The other question or comment I wanted to relate it - I had a note here to talk about - was the ISP. My colleague here has alluded to it and showed you the document that you are familiar with it, and told you again how bad it was. I guess it depends on what aspect of it you want to highlight and what emphasis you want to put on what areas in it. I think overall there are a lot of positive things in it that haven't had a lot said about. The things that get people all excited and riled up, particularly I guess in the rural areas, are the things that have been highlighted. I think I would suggest to my colleagues that they put a little fairness and balance in their presentation of ISP and promote it for what it is.

AN HON. MEMBER: Question.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Question. I've got about fifty minutes left according to the time you gave these fellows, so don't rush me

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: I have news for you.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) I don't know why he skipped you.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I know why he skipped me.

MR. CRANE: I have news for you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Better pass the estimates and go home.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Something that is of more concern to an urban member than probably a rural member is the fact that there seems to be a disproportionate amount of attention continuously paid by both levels of government - and I suppose in this case primarily the federal government - to certain sectors or classes of workers, and others get very little attention. Fishermen, for instance. There is everything in the world to help them, there are all kinds of assistance and programs being put in place, there are all kinds of fuss being kicked up about them, and they consume a lot of media time. I'm not suggesting for a minute that they don't have a big problem and that they shouldn't be adequately looked after in terms of compensation.

You hear scarcely nothing that would assist a displaced cab driver, a displaced retail sales clerk, a displaced probably even public employee. On and on I could go. My question is: What is the thinking of your department and your officials in terms of putting some, as I would say again, fairness and balance into the thought process and the support programs for everybody? Because there are a lot of people who live in the City of John's who are sick and tired of all the attention and all the money and all the effort that is being put into fishermen and others when there is nothing available, no program available. They are completely falling through the cracks in terms of what is available in government support for sectors, as I say, like the retail sector, the displaced workers in those areas, and others similar to that. Do you have any sympathy for the type of workers who find themselves in difficult circumstances?

MR. GRIMES: I think that is the issue for all of us. I won't use the same language around that last issue that you used, because hopefully you would make the media talk about that and I won't.

MR. CRANE: The media is not here.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Looking after you fellows out in the bay.

MR. GRIMES: The consistent approach of the government since 1989, and it may have been before that - but I didn't check I guess, I didn't have a responsibility for that prior time and didn't look - has been really that the programs should be available across the board, the treatment should somehow be consistent. There is no doubt that there is a special need been recognized in the fishery which is being dealt with in the clearest possible way. As we've been debating in the Legislature the last couple of days, some people think it is fair, some people think it is not enough. You might think it is unbalanced and so on. There are many opinions on it, but certainly the idea is to try to deal with the issue on a fair basis.

It comes to a head I guess and has come to a head several times, even in the fisheries compensation thing and in the programs that we run in terms of the government's consistent position with respect to early retirement that we'll participate on a financial basis for early retirement in the fishery on the same basis that's it's available for anybody in the (inaudible). We can't justify spending provincial taxpayers dollars to retire someone at a different age because they happen to have come into a crisis in the fishery when we couldn't retire somebody who was in some other sector that lost their job at the same age. So that's been the consistent and that's been the driving force behind the programs.

In a couple of things, if I might make another couple of comparisons, a couple of things that were in the new TAGS program -as the new name or acronyms will be - with relation to wage subsidies and so on, the whole idea, as we're pointing out here in the employment generation program, as others, is that there are wage subsidies available for everybody. I think what they really did in a case was borrow the concept from us, make it available and say this is the concept that's now available for the fishery but really it always was available for the fishery and it's available for anybody else if they can find an employer to pay some of the wages. It might not be on the exact same criteria that's in our provincial program but the concept is there.

That's been the position - as a matter of fact it was only, I think, Thursday past that myself and Ms. Gogan were in Ottawa meeting with Minister Axworthy about the same issue. That if there were going to be certain components that were going to be announced publicly as being available as part of this continuing fisheries compensation effort, that similar types of programs need to be available for the other unemployed Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who have just as great an employment need as someone displaced from the fishery. So that's an issue I think in which we've taken a consistent approach and I would expect that that's the way to be. Not that the provincial government in any way, shape or form would offer any condemnation of the effort relating to the fishery.

I certainly wouldn't use the same language that you use but as my representative in the House of Assembly of course - the advantage of being in here is we're all free to express our views. Even in the same party lots of times people don't have to agree as long as when it comes time to vote at the end of the day we vote for the same stuff. The most important one this evening here I would expect is that if you forget about some of the other ones get the estimate passed that grants my salary for the year and that kind of stuff. The others you might come back to at a later date but do that one tonight and be unanimous on it. We'll be very thankful and grateful to you.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's a real worry that is.

MR. GRIMES: It is but going back to the first topic that you raised as well, I didn't seize the opportunity or take the opportunity to enter into any debate when the Member for Bonavista South talked about his well expressed public view of the merits or demerits of the income supplementation proposal because I think it's on the public record that - we obviously, the government and certain members of the Opposition, have a difference of opinion as to its merit and worth. I think that it's suffice to say that if we thought that the negatives were what you had expressed, I don't think we would have proposed it in the first place. So we don't necessarily agree on the issue but am glad that one of the committee members took an opportunity to engage in a debate that's already gone on for awhile in the public and may again at some time in the future.

At this point in time it's not one of the burning current issues but it may resurface again at some point, depending on how the continuing discussions go. Your view is well known that you hope it never comes back again but I suppose some people would suggest that because of certain things that are occurring, some version of that might be more necessary in the Province now then it might have been even when it was proposed in December and that some of the concepts out there certainly aren't wrong. Some people might take exception or objection to some of the details that are there but certainly some of the principles involved in terms of incentive, disincentive and those types of things are ones that are generally acknowledged to be headed in the right direction despite some of -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) something there to create work - work placement out there where people could go, I'd have no problem with the proposal. The sad part about it is we're bringing in a proposal before we bring in the argument and concern.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I would just conclude, Mr. Chairman, not so much probably to the minister as to his officials, to impress upon them if that needs to be done that there are significant numbers of unemployed people who don't fall into the resource base sectors that are highlighted continuously as being in desperate straits but who also need to have attention paid to their problems, and again, I refer to, as a matter of example, a simple retail sales clerk or a displaced cab or bus driver or a truck driver who has been laid off - there are a lot of people out there - security workers. A gentleman yesterday, from Coughlan College who was a cleaner who is out of a job after twenty years, you know, there is nothing there for these people, there is nothing there; nothing, they are going through the cracks but there are mega bucks being spent to assist other sectors who have fallen upon similarly and just as devastatingly hard times, and if it helps at all, I would want you to remember to treat everybody as fairly as you can in the development of policies and programs to assist displaced workers and those who want and should be retrained.

Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Matthews. Mr. Crane.

MR. CRANE: If you are implementing new programs, think about poor, millionaire, businessmen as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: I would like to make one comment to the minister regarding the Income Supplement Program. From my perspective, I think the Income Supplement Program is almost as big a resettlement program as what Brian Tobin announced the other day.

AN HON. MEMBER: Now don't be so foolish.

MR. FITZGERALD: (Inaudible) St. John's North on some of the points that he made but, Mr. Chairman, a lot of people out there today to whom he referred, that are very well off and are being treated with all kinds of goodies passed down and they have been treated very well, he fails to realize that some of those people now are losing their homes because of commitments they have made in order to be a fisherperson and have bought boats and gear in order to gear up and support their families.

He is right when he says when people get laid off one job it is very important whether you are a cleaner at Coughlan College or you are a fisherman, nobody is going to argue against that, but that all goes back in time. Years gone by, I remember when Come by Chance closed down there was a massive outcry about the 200 people who were laid off there when it closed down for the first time. Nobody mentioned the 260 construction workers who were laid off the same day and lost their jobs, so I suppose there is strength in numbers but when you look at the fisherpersons and you look at the people out there in rural Newfoundland today, I can assure you that they are not being looked after and they are not all that well off.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. One comment I wanted to make to the minister about the ISP and I think that some of us might agree on that. The component on education and the component on the supplement for lower income people is fine, but I think the concern that was expressed out in my area was the fact that, that was being financed by taking it from people at the top and the money was being moved down and that's where the big concern was expressed, especially on the Bonavista Peninsula where you don't have a big service sector and that money would not have been spent in that area, it would have moved off to towns like Clarenville, Gander and St. John's where you have a bigger service sector and that was a concern.

MR. GRIMES: I think each of the committee members might be interested to know as well that the kind of concerns that were brought forward here with respect to the Income Supplementation Plan, many of them that had been discussed publicly are currently being taken into consideration by these working groups who will look at re-assessment and re-evaluation and those kind of things and their continuation, because there were a number of concerns raised over a period of time and while there is some further exploratory work continuing, it is not the kind of work that just continues to say what's in the proposal is the proposal, and that's all they are going to discuss.

Those other issues have been raised; because others that were brought up for example were the fact that with the work supplement, that 20 per cent supplement, would that entice the employer just to reduce their wages by 20 per cent and those types of things, so similar considerations that were raised in some public discussions and otherwise are being now looked at by the group as they continue their efforts.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I don't know if there are further questions, if not, I would like to take just a minute or so in conclusion to say: thanks, if I could, if this is the appropriate time and actually pass the estimates.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think you should wait until we actually pass the estimates. I would rather if you waited till we pass the estimates just in case your salary does end up to be a dollar.

No further questions?

On motion, Department of Employment and Labour Relations, total heads, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister, if you would like to clue up.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate the effort put into the session this evening by members of the Committee. I appreciate each time the straightforward, non-confrontational manner in which people just address the issues and seek the information. I'm sure that some of it may even form the basis for further questioning at some point in time, but our purpose here this evening is to make sure that if you have a question or a concern that we try to give you the straightforward direct answer.

I apologize that when I answered it took a little longer to get the answers then when Mr. Dwyer or the Deputy Minister or someone else did, but I think you've probably learned from experiences even in Question Period that that is one of the risks you take if you ask me a question. I might take a little while to get the answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Certainly as well I, on behalf of the staff, would accept any compliment of sort that you've offered in terms of knowledge and thoroughness, and on their behalf would like to thank you for every one of them, I think not only for their efforts within the department and in making sure that we are prepared to answer your questions, but on their ongoing efforts on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm sure on behalf of the Committee I can formally conclude the evening by passing on our thanks to them for their continuing efforts in the public service in the best interests of the people of the Province. Thanks again for all your efforts here this evening.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, I want to thank you and your staff on behalf of the Committee. It has been a very short evening, actually, I think we usually go on longer than this. Thank you and thanks to your staff, and thanks to the Committee.

The Committee adjourned.