Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Percy Barrett, M.H.A. (Bellevue) substitutes for Oliver Langdon, M.H.A. (Fortune - Hermitage) during first half of meeting, and John Crane, M.H.A. (Harbour Grace) substitutes for Oliver Langdon during second half of meeting.

The committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the House of Assembly.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Gilbert): Order, please!

I would like to welcome the Minister of Justice and his officials here this morning. I would imagine the minister is aware - maybe some of his staff are not familiar with members of the committee, so I would ask the committee to introduce themselves. Starting with me, I am David Gilbert, the MHA for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir.

MS. VERGE: Lynn Verge, Humber East.

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

MS. YOUNG: Kay Young, Terra Nova.

MR. HODDER: Harvey Hodder, Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. BARRETT: Percy Barrett, Bellevue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now that the meeting is open, I will ask, before we start, would some make a motion to pass the minutes of the last meeting, the Estimates Committee for the Department of Health?

On motion, Minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The procedure that we follow here is that the minister will open with a fifteen-minute review of his department. The Opposition critic, Ms. Verge, will have a like time to respond. Then we go into ten minutes and what will happen is that the members of the committee can question the minister for ten minutes. They can talk for ten minutes, or they can have a give and take between the minister and the member to decide the best way to do it, but they will have their ten minutes however they want to use it.

For the sake of the officials who are with you, Mr. Minister, I would suggest that when they are going to speak they identify themselves if you designate those people to speak, because the transcribers are not as familiar with their voices as they are with ours.

With that, Mr. Minister, would you make your opening remarks?

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will forego the opening remarks, if it is acceptable to the committee. This is, I believe, the third year I have appeared before the committee on the Justice estimates, but just let me introduce, if I may, Mr. Chairman, my officials who are here. Perhaps I could just indicate as I read out their names: John Cummings, an ADM; Kevin Dicks, the Director of Finance and General Operations - we do not have a director of special operations, I want to say; Ralph Alcock, an ADM on the administrative side; Colin Flynn, the Director of Public Prosecutions - Colin and John are lawyers, Ralph and Kevin are not; Chris Curran is one of our senior solicitors and works with me on policy issues; Marvin McNutt, is the Director of Adult Corrections; and Seamus O'Regan, Jr., my executive assistant, is here as well. The deputy minister, Ms. Spracklin, will be with us as soon as she finishes a meeting she began at 8:30 a.m. and we expect to conclude shortly.

With that said, I will turn it back to you, Sir.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

I would like to welcome the Minister of Justice and such an impressive array of officials from the Department of Justice - more numerous than in my days, I might add.

MR. ROBERTS: I am sorry; more...?

MS. VERGE: Numerous.

MR. ROBERTS: In the department or here in the House?

MS. VERGE: Both.

MR. ROBERTS: Some of us need all the help we can get.

MS. VERGE: I would like to ask the minister about the spending on extra policing to try to crack down on smuggling on the South Coast of Newfoundland, from St. Pierre, and what residents of Western Labrador consider to be cross-border shopping. How much is the government spending on this extra, stepped up crackdown on smuggling of tobacco and cigarettes?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, the information I have is this. There are two police forces, of course, which provide policing in the Province. The RNC is directly under the direction of the government, and we bear the full cost of its activities.

We have provided an additional $194,400 in the estimates for the RNC for 1994-1995 in respect of anti-smuggling initiatives. Now, that is, of course, the lesser portion because most of the smuggling activity, or at least the point of entry, tends to be in the areas for which the RCM Police have direction and responsibility. I am told they have provided an extra $735,000 and that is 70/30 money. Under the arrangement between the Government of the Province and the Government of Canada, an arrangement, I add, which is precisely the same as that in effect in seven other provinces throughout Canada, we bear 70 per cent of the cost of the RCM Police operations, so if one takes the figure of $735,000 and multiplies it by 70 per cent, unless my arithmetic is flawed, it is approximately a half-million dollars; add those two numbers together and you will get the additional money that has been authorized. Of course, the regular police work includes the component of anti-smuggling activity as well.

MS. VERGE: So that's extra in 1994-1995 over 1993-1994.

MR. ROBERTS: It is over - to be precise, it would be over and above that which would otherwise be spent because there would be an increase year by year, you know, salaries have gone up and that kind of thing.

MS. VERGE: Sure, but what I understand you to be saying is that this is additional spending from 1993-1994 to 1994-1995 targeted at the smuggling.

MR. ROBERTS: I want to correct something there - $735,000 is our 70 per cent share so the total being spent by the RCMP is about a million dollars.

MS. VERGE: A million provincial money?

MR. ROBERTS: No, no, about $1 million by the RCM Police, of which $735,000 is our share.

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: I took the $735,000 as being the total and that was in error.

MS. VERGE: But the $735,000 provincial money -

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, plus the -

MS. VERGE: - for the RCMP and the $200,000 (inaudible) -

MR. ROBERTS: - $194,000, so you have about -

MS. VERGE: - adds up to about $1 million provincial money.

MR. ROBERTS: No, about $920,000.

MS. VERGE: About $1 million provincial money.

MR. ROBERTS: Well as the hon. member wants. That is the extra costs identified with officers and resources specifically tasked with the enforcement of the regulations on smuggling both tobacco and liquor and they fall into two components. There is the cross-border element with respect to tobacco - the hon. member referred to that in Western Labrador - and, of course, by far the more significant one is the extra national as opposed to the extra provincial trade; there is, of course, a great deal of liquor and a great deal of tobacco which is smuggled into Canada as opposed to into Newfoundland and Labrador - into Canada from outside the country.

MS. VERGE: Can the minister give a split between the spending directed at the cross-border shopping or the intra-provincial from Quebec to Labrador?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I don't think I can give the committee a precise answer because my officials don't have it and the police apparently don't keep them that way. The RCM Police have added twelve extra person years, as they call them, during this year over last year, and that is in their Customs and Excise section which includes the St. Pierre operation, if you wish, the smuggling that comes from St. Pierre as well as Western Labrador. Are there one of two in Western Labrador, do you know?

AN HON. MEMBER: We don't.

MR. ROBERTS: We don't know precisely but there might be one or two of those people assigned to Western Labrador. The great bulk of the effort comes in the St. Pierre effort, and I could add for the committee's benefit that the information I have been given - and again, would my officials please correct me if I am wrong - is that by far the greater part of the smuggling into the Province, by far the greater part, 90 per cent or 95 per cent, comes from St. Pierre - or, if you wish, outside the Province, and that is St. Pierre.

I think it is fair to say there is very little activity that we know of in Western Labrador. Is that a fair statement? There has been one charge laid?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: One, or possibly two persons charged in Western Labrador and that's it. The real activity is elsewhere than Western Labrador.

MS. VERGE: That is certainly most people's impression, and people who live in Western Labrador, or Southern Labrador, along the Quebec border, are seeing what they regard as an inordinate amount of public expenditure on extra policing and police equipment to deal with essentially people picking up tobacco with their groceries when they go over to Quebec to do their shopping - in other words, when they are doing cross-border shopping - and that's why I would like a more precise figure for the extra public spending, provincial and federal, being devoted to the Quebec\Labrador situation.

MR. ROBERTS: Well, without getting into an argument about ordinate or inordinate, I can undertake, Mr. Chairman - I don't have the information here, nor do my officials, and I have brought the officials who have knowledge. The reason we don't have the information is that we don't keep the numbers that way, but I will undertake to try to get the information and to provide the hon. member and the committee with it.

MS. VERGE: I would like to ask now about the general question of the inadequacy of our forensic pathology service, and about calls made by the forensic pathologist himself, Dr. Hutton, and others for greater powers for forensic pathologists or the establishment of a coroner's office.

Related to that, I would like to ask whether a decision has been made yet about having a judicial inquiry into the death of Leatte Moores, a young woman who died during what should have been routine gall bladder surgery in one of the St. John's hospitals.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, let me, if I may, deal first with the situation with Ms. Moores. I have found myself in a conflict of interest in respect to that matter, so I have removed myself from the file, but I think it fair to tell the committee why that came to pass.

I had no knowledge of the incident until it was raised here in the House by, I believe, the Leader of the Opposition. He presented a petition one day and there were some questions. I had no knowledge, except in a very general way, the sort of knowledge one would get from reading the newspaper or hearing the radio and television, until that day, with one exception. I had had a letter from Ms. Gillian Butler, who is a lawyer here in town and represents the family, the next of kin, of Ms. Moores; she had written to me.

In light of the Opposition Leader's remarks or, for that matter, the lady from Humber East and the gentleman from St. John's East, both of whom spoke in the House that day, nor in the letters from Ms. Butler was there any mention of the doctor's name, the name of the doctor involved in the incident. It wasn't until, I think it was Monday that the matter came in the House. Six o'clock that evening I listened to the television reports and a doctor's name was mentioned in either the CBC or NTV reports, and it was at that moment only that I realized the doctor is married to the sister of the woman to whom I was married a number of years ago. My marriage to the lady ended in divorce in 1977 or 1978, and there has not been any communication since then, but I came to the view that I was in at least a potential conflict of interest to be ruling with respect to an inquiry in which this doctor's conduct would be under scrutiny so I immediately referred the matter to my alternate minister who happens to be the Premier. So the Premier, I understand, will deal with it. I don't know if he has taken a decision - if he has, we are not aware of any decision as yet. So I can say no more on the Miss Moores case for that reason. I think it is a conflict or at least a potential conflict and a very unusual set of circumstances.

Now, let me come back, if I may, to the situation of the friends in pathology. There is a suggestion that we should change our present system, not to one of a coroner, as the hon. member used, but that of a medical examiner, and I believe there is a difference. I'm not trying to make too much of it. We have not come to a decision as yet. I met very recently with Dr. Hutton, the Chief Pathologist, the forensic pathologist in the Province, and had quite a long discussion with him. I have asked him for some further information which I have no doubt I will get very shortly. A medical examiner system has some very definite advantages. There are also some questions, I want to be certain we know the scope of it. I want to be certain we're not duplicating efforts of other agencies or for which other bodies are responsible and, of course, I must be concerned about cost. I can say to the committee, Mr. Chairman, I would hope that the government will be able to address this issue within the next few months with a view to deciding whether we are prepared to ask the House to change the present system. I would hope accordingly that next year, if the matter comes up, it will be in a form of either: Why have you made this change or why have you decided not to make a change? It came up last year, the hon. member will recall. I said then that I hoped we would get to it, we have not got to it. It's been a fairly unusual year in a number of ways. I do hope that next July we will be able to either explain what we have done and defend it or say why we have decided to do nothing.

MS. VERGE: Okay, a final question - I think I have only a little bit of time left. I realize that now the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations is the minister responsible for the Human Rights Code but the Minister of Justice has a role in seeing that provincial legislation complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There have been a couple of decisions of courts in other provinces, I think it was an Ontario high court decision a year or so ago -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) reading into the Charter?

MS. VERGE: - on the Canadian Human Rights Code, recently a provincial court ruling in one of the Western provinces dealing with the human rights legislation in one of the Prairie Provinces indicating that human rights legislation, which omits protection for gays and lesbians, contravenes the equality rights guarantee of the Charter. The Ontario decision respecting the Canadian code, the federal legislation, took the innovative step of essentially adding the missing provision from the Canadian code. I'd like to ask the minister how he can excuse or explain the failure of his government to make our provincial Human Rights Code comply with the Charter by extending protection to gays and lesbians?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, there no need either to excuse or to explain because the hon. member's premise is flawed. I forget the name of the case but the Ontario Court of Appeal which, of course, is the highest court in Ontario, read into the federal legislation if memory serves me correctly - I agree with the hon. member, it was federal and not provincial - an anti-sexual discrimination provision, if you wish, to protect people who are gay and lesbian. The Supreme Court of Canada declined a legal request for leave to appeal. So that decision is a final decision, perhaps not quite the same as a specific pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Canada but, nonetheless, they did decline a request for leave to appeal and one can take that as being indicative. So the law, as I understand it, in the country - and this will stand until and unless the Supreme Court of Canada rules to the contrary, in my judgement - the law re human rights codes is that one is to read into them a prohibition against discrimination on the grounds of sexual preference or sexual character, or whatever word one may use.

In addition, the Human Rights Commission in Newfoundland and Labrador announced two years ago, if memory serves me - I could speak with the Chair and get that very quickly - announced two years ago that they were prepared to accept complaints from persons who alleged they had been dealt with improperly because of their sexual preference or their sexual orientation.

MS. VERGE: Sexual orientation. It is not a matter of preference.

MR. ROBERTS: No, sexual orientation, I'm not sure I - well, anyway, people who have said: I've been discriminated against because I'm gay or lesbian. I understand the Commission entertains complaints and deals with them. That leaves one other question: Should we amend the act, the present Human Rights Code? The actual provincial legislation does not have a prohibition in it. That question is still open, we have not come to a decision one way or the other, but the practical effect, in my understanding, is that it is now - one who discriminates against a person because of sexual orientation, or whatever is the correct word, is breaching the discrimination provisions of the code and the enforcement mechanism will respond to that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired.

MS. VERGE: Okay, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you. Just looking at the beginning of the estimates, Mr. Minister, the first vote is for the minister's office and includes salaries estimated at $150,700 being revised upward by approximately $10,000 from last year's actual revised estimates. When I look at the departmental salary details to the estimates I see on page 165 that in the minister's office there are four approved positions with a total salary allocation of $141,510. Not the $150,700 in the estimates here. Is there an explanation for that, or is the minister planning to give everybody a raise?

MR. ROBERTS: No, I wish I could, but of course there are no raises. Let me answer the hon. member's question this way if I may, Mr. Chairman. There are no new positions in the office, to begin with. There is an increase. I have it as $5,000, and that would be over the budget figure. I could explain the revised figure in a moment if you wish. The budget figure, the $5,000, is $700 for step progression because, of course, there are step progressions being paid throughout the public service, and the staff in my office, some of them, are relatively new. Because my executive assistant and my - I guess it is my political secretary, we would call it, came in with me and they started at the bottom of their respective scales.

There is $2,300 for annualization of the 1993-1994 step progression and there is the money put back in to cover - and this would be in every minister's vote - the reduction of 4.5 per cent in my salary. Whether or not that is actually paid remains to be seen, but my understanding, Mr. Chairman, throughout the estimates, is that one will find a comparable increase in every minister's vote. We were all reduced, of course, 4.5 per cent last year.

The revision, the revised level below the budget level, came because Mr. O'Regan was on a leave of absence without pay for a month, I believe, last - a month-and-a-half last year. Of course, we "saved" his salary. There was no replacement hired while he was on leave.

MR. HARRIS: So the $39,834 on page 165 in the detailed salary estimates, is that the reduced ministerial salary?

MR. ROBERTS: I'm ashamed to say I really don't know. That is probably the increased salary. My officials don't seem - it is probably the salary that would be paid if the 4.5 per cent were restored, but I confess, I really don't know, Mr. Chairman. I know what my net pay is every two weeks but I don't know what the gross is. I could find out if the gentleman really needs to know.

MR. HARRIS: Well, if that is the case, then, the extra $10,000 is not accounted for because you can't obviously count it twice. If you say the difference between $141,000 and $150,000 is $2,300 in -

MR. ROBERTS: No. What I said, the difference between $145,000 - look at the budget figure for last year and go to the budget for this year, you have a $5,000 increase.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, but I'm not concerned about that. What I'm concerned about is the detailed salary estimates which are supposed to be more accurate, I presume, than the appropriations, and it shows individual salaries on page 165 - there are only four of them there, it is not difficult to sort out who's who, and you have a total of $141,510. Now, if your total is $141,510, why do you need $150,700 to look after these four salaries?

MR. ROBERTS: That is a good question, Mr. Chairman, and I asked the ADM who is responsible. I'm not sure I have the answer yet. I mean, I will be paid, if the reduction is restored - that is an "if", of course - $39,834 as minister this year and my EA will get $41,716 and so down. If the hon. gentleman will let that stand for a moment I will get him answer to the $9,000. What I did have here is a note as to why the budget has gone up from $145,700 to $150,700. I will get him the answer on the $9,000. I just don't have that. There are no new positions, there are no plans to hire anybody.

Ah, the hon. gentleman and I should both recall - we had this last year - apparently my $8,000 car allowance appears in there. That is a taxable salary benefit.

MR. HARRIS: So it doesn't show up under the next line which is Employee Benefits.

MR. ROBERTS: No. Well, they are only $1,000. That wouldn't cover the $8,000.

MR. HARRIS: It shows up -

MR. ROBERTS: But I draw $8,000 as a minister as a car allowance. The hon. gentleman will remember he and I had a discussion about that last year.

MR. HARRIS: Oh, yes. So it is shown in the Salary budget as opposed to the Employee Benefits budget.

MR. ROBERTS: That's what I'm told, and it certainly couldn't be in the Employee Benefits budget, Mr. Chairman, because there is only $1,000 requested there under that subhead. Transportation and Communications involves accountable, reimbursable expenses by those who travel in that vote, myself, my EA, or anybody else who may properly charge money to that vote.

MR. HARRIS: Under Victims Services -

MR. ROBERTS: Just give me the page.

MR. HARRIS: Page 270 of the Estimates.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you.

MR. HARRIS: There is a significant increase in the budget for Salaries, as well as for Professional Services. I think I have an idea what both of these involve but perhaps the minister could explain both of these programs.

MR. ROBERTS: The significant increases in both, Mr. Chairman - I'm very glad to explain this - represents the significant expansion of our program in this area that has come into effect in part in the last year and will be put into effect fully this year. Have we actually hired any of these new - (inaudible)? I believe we are hiring another eight, is it? Seven - another seven. Four apparently have been hired through the Public Service Commission. Another three, the hiring process is under way, and we have announced the offices at which these people will be stationed. The Professional Services is the purchase of outside services in connection with Victims Services work. So these represent new positions and an expansion of services.

MR. HARRIS: Are the Professional Services - what is involved in that? Does that include counselling for victims? Does it include ongoing counselling or is it only counselling during the court process?

MR. ROBERTS: The general - and I would ask Mr. McNutt to correct me if I go wrong on this - the general program is that we assist people only through the court process. And that is a deliberate decision, not necessarily one in which we take any joy, but the decision is to the best way to use the available resources. There are, I believe, still some continuing ones. Are all the Mt. Cashel (inaudible)?

The program still includes some contracted professional counselling services for persons who are severely traumatized. I would ask Mr. McNutt to correct me if I'm wrong, but the Crimes Compensation Board which, of course, is now history I'm afraid, made some longer term awards and we are still implementing and honouring those, of course. If - if, and I just don't know offhand - there is any element of those still to be paid for, this is the vote out of which they would come.

MR. HARRIS: Is the minister saying that any crimes compensation awards to individuals who were, say, awarded counselling, are being honoured up to the full amount of what was available under Crimes Comp? Because I've heard instances of individuals being told they were running out of money - whether that meant that their allotment, shall we say, of I think it was a maximum of a certain amount of money for counselling, had run out or that the budget had run out. Has that been -

MR. ROBERTS: It is my understanding that we are honouring fully, and within the spirit as well as the letter, all of the awards made by the Crimes Compensation Board. My officials confirm that. I don't know what individual cases, I would simply say - the hon. gentleman, I know, would not want to raise them here, but if he wants to get in touch with me, or ask people to get in touch with me directly, I will look into it. In my understanding we are honouring fully and appropriately the awards made by the Board.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Back to Victims Services, my understanding is that the number of offices of the Victims Services program has been increased, and I'm very glad to see that. Will spending for contracted counselling be provided in the same areas where the workers are stationed? For example, if a worker based at the new office in Port Saunders identifies victims who, in the opinion of the staff worker, need intensive counselling, will that worker be able to arrange for some of this Professional Services money to be spent for the victims who live on the Northern Peninsula to have fee-for-service counselling and also to travel as required to get the counselling?

MR. ROBERTS: The answer would be yes and no. The access to the Professional Services allocations is equally available to any of the counsellors, any of the officers, and in turn, or there accordingly, to any of the victims. Apparently, that does not extend to travel. What I would say there is we would have to approach that on a one-by-one or a case-by-case basis, it would seem to me. For example, we have a Victims Services officer either in Nain or there is going to be one in Nain which, as the committee is aware, tends to be an area where there is more than a proportionate share of people being victimized by criminal activity.

If there were no counselling available in Nain and if we said to a victim, well, we will pay the cost of the counsellor if you can get yourself to Goose Bay, St. John's, or wherever, we are not really doing very much by way of counselling, so we would have to deal with that on a one-by-one basis or a case-by-case basis. In the case of a person on the Northern Peninsula, one might have to go to Corner Brook, I assume, the nearest large regional centre, and it might be that the need will be a little different. So, the answer would be that the office in Port Saunders will have access to the money being voted by the committee, the same way as the offices in Corner Brook, St. John's, Carbonear, or where have you.

MS. VERGE: Then travel will be covered only in exceptional cases?

MR. ROBERTS: We would have to deal with that, I think, on a case-by-case basis. Again, one has a limited amount of money and must try to use it in the best way one can.

MS. VERGE: The minister mentioned Nain. I would like now to move to the question of administration of justice, policing, and court services for the aboriginal people in Labrador. The people in Davis Inlet, the Innu in Davis Inlet, now have a couple of native Innu police officers. The minister was resisting recognizing their authority, although through the news media in recent months I have detected what seems to be a softening of the minister's attitude. I wonder what, if any, progress has been made in reaching an accommodation between the traditional English model Canadian system with the traditional Innu system of justice? What is the minister's assessment of the situation now in Davis Inlet?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, that covers a wide variety of points. Let me try to deal with them and then perhaps the hon. member would want to come back and follow one or two others.

To deal first with the status of the native peacekeepers, as they are called. There are five? Three, the DPP tells me. Their legal status has not changed. They are not peace officers in the sense that term is used in the statutes. They are working very closely with the RCM Police, who retain responsibility for policing in Davis Inlet and elsewhere in all of Labrador except the west. I am told both by the Innu nation people with whom I have spoken and by the RCM Police officials that the services of these peacekeepers are proving more and more beneficial.

There has never been a question in my mind, or to my knowledge, in government's approach, about the value of these men and women or the need for their work. Our concern has always been with the question of legal responsibility and the related question of who pays for them. The Government of Canada have again declined to allow us to do in Davis Inlet what is being done in Conne River. We had put, "we" being me on behalf of the government - but after consultation with Chief Katie Riche, who was then chief of the band, and Peter Penashue, then, and now, the President of the Innu nation, we had put to the previous government in Ottawa a proposal that would allow us to extend to Davis the same kind of structure that is in place in Conne which seems to work very well, and that's a program that works in conjunction with the RCM Police, whereby the Government of Canada, through DIAND fund - and I forget the name of it because there are so many programs but, essentially it is an aboriginal police force enforcing band regulations and working with the RCM Police in enforcing the Criminal Code and other governing statutes.

The Government of Canada, the new government, have declined to change that position I'm afraid and so that status quo remains. I don't know where we will go. There are discussions under way, as the committee would be aware, between Mr. Irwin, the minister in Ottawa and his officials, on one hand, and the band council in Davis and the Innu nation on the other; I am not directly privy to those but we have a very close watching brief and I understand some progress has been made and perhaps we will see some announcements shortly. I will make three other comments and then let the member pick up wherever she wants.

It should be noted to the committee that the Government of Canada are paying for these peacekeepers and we raise no objections, none at all. They are paying for them in a sort of circuitous fashion by giving the band council money, allegedly for the band council's own purposes but knowing full well that the band council is using that money to pay the salaries of these people, and that's fair enough, we have no quarrel, but it does make it a little more difficult for us to understand why the Government of Canada will not provide the people in Davis with the same support by way of policing services as they provided in Conne River, and elsewhere in Canada, I may add. Conne is the only one in the Province.

Secondly, we are continuing talks on a variety of levels with respect to diversion programs. Now, this is a very complicated and complex and full area, Mr. Chairman. I won't get into it unless the committee wants me to, but I will say it will involve amending the Criminal Code, possibly involving the provincial statutes; it will require some money; it will also require a willingness and a change in values. A willingness and a change in values are there, the other items are being addressed. When the Ministers of Justice met in Ottawa in March, this was one of the items we touched on; it is a very active file but there has been nothing you want to point to and say, this has been done and this has not been done.

Finally, let me talk a moment about sentencing circles because that is something that has been very much in the news. Sentencing circles, as one calls them, are quite permissible under the Criminal Code of Canada or, I suppose one could say, under the provincial statutes as well. The DPP says we are not sure. In any event, let's talk about the Criminal Code because that's where they most often come up, as that tends to be the serious offence category.

Mr. Justice O'Regan - I remember the trial in the Supreme Court - sitting in Happy Valley, has used the sentencing circle and that, I think, speaks for itself. Wasn't it -

AN OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Oh, Judge Hyslop, I am sorry - of the provincial court, has used the sentencing circle. Mr. Justice O'Regan found it wasn't appropriate in the circumstances because the victim objected, and I will come back to that point. But these are permissible and there is a great deal of discussion between members of the judiciary on one hand and those involved in the administration of justice on the other, with respect to these. I assume and suspect we may see more. And let me just touch on a point I raised.

There is a great deal of concern being raised about offenders and about appropriate punishment of offenders, and that is certainly a factor that one must bear in mind. One must also bear in mind the victims, and there was a case in Sheshatshiu where an application was made to the court - it was sent to the Supreme Court; it was the one in which Judge O'Regan was involved - for a sentencing circle, by the defence council, and the victim said `no'. It was a sexual assault case involving a woman, and the judge heard all parties and came to the conclusion that the woman's objection was well-founded. So you must be careful in approaching it, Mr. Chairman, to realize that in protecting the rights of the offender we must take due consideration of the rights and position of the victim. But I suspect we will see more of these in the years ahead. It's an idea whose time is coming.

We also note to the committee that my deputy minister, Ms. Spracklin, has joined us, sitting on the right hand, as it were.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

I want to ask a couple of questions about the correctional facilities and, in particular, the penitentiary here at St. John's. I note there is a vote with respect to the renovations at HMP in St. John's of $300,000, and that $1 million was spent last year in alterations to existing facilities. Perhaps the minister can tell us whether or not the facilities at St. John's have been renovated to avoid the use of a portion of the jail which I saw last May during the election campaign, in which a number of inmates were held in rather close quarters, and rather filthy quarters, I might add, having seen them, where the inmates were complaining about rats and other problems in that particular area of the jail.

Now, I am not sure what the vernacular name for that section of the jail is, but it's the one where you are almost below ground because you can look out the window and see an old courtyard. I am sure Mr. McNutt would know the place I am talking about, but there is a vernacular name for it that the prisoners call it, and perhaps the staff as well. It's an area where there were two tiers on ground, or below ground level. You can look out and eye level would be about two feet above the ground and you can see an interior courtyard of what was the old portion of the jail. I want to know whether the renovations were designed to get rid of that, and are there prisoners still being kept in that particular part of the jail?

MR. ROBERTS: Let me deal with the number of points raised by my hon. friend, Mr. Chairman.

The renovations, which I understand are either complete or about to be complete, were to the centre block. Now, that was the original 1857 wing?

AN OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: The 1859 wing - and was not being used to house prisoners laterally, with the exception of a concrete newer addition on the General Hospital side, if that would give the member the geography, which will be used (inaudible). Those renovations are now, I would say, about to be complete. They provide some recreational facilities, some office space -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Office space, recreational facilities, and facilities to enable us to deal with, handle, house, one of the more, I will say troublesome - not that the prisoners are troublesome, but the problem is troublesome - areas, and that is these intermittent sentences, people who are sentenced to come in for the weekend. You know, the judge listens to the defence counsel and says: Well, we will sentence you to ninety days to be served forty-five weekends at two days a weekend. This proves an administrative problem, as the committee will appreciate, because you can't just have a prison available only for the weekend, so we now have more places to house these people.

The wings to which the hon. gentleman is referring, I'm told, are known by the prison authorities as the east and west wings. These have not been renovated and I can't even - there is nothing in the estimate requests this year for renovations for this year. That is not to say we wouldn't like to spend money there but a refrain, which I'm sure the committee has heard from my colleagues and possibly from me, there is a limit as to what can be done with the available resources and we just have not been able to find the money to do whatever we would like to do there.

I am troubled by the hon. member's comment about `filthy' and `rats'. I take it at face value. I don't quarrel with that. We do have some problems in an old building. Mr. McNutt and his officials, Superintendent Saunders, assure me - and I've been there I guess at least once, and plan to go there a second time - they tell me that given the fact the facilities are old, conditions are as good as one can expect, and I think we would have great difficulty if, in acknowledgement there were filthy conditions - I would say to the hon. member if he has reason to believe there is either, I would ask him please to let me know or to go to see Superintendent Saunders or go and see Mr. McNutt. Because we are not going to tolerate conditions where people's health or their safety or their reasonable comfort is jeopardized.

I want to make one other point if I may, Mr. Chairman. We have not added in this Province any prison beds since 1981 - or 1984? I'm sorry - the 1981 Hickman Memorial wing down in the Penitentiary. That is the newest wing, the one that is closest to the lake. No, I'm sorry, those would have been outside - that was a brand new building, the 1981 wing was the brand new building. We have added the other facilities (inaudible).

AN OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Labrador was 1984, okay. We have not added any new beds since 1984. The population of the Province has not increased significantly since 1984. The prison population has gone up dramatically in the sense of the number of prisoners being sentenced. The average length of sentence, I'm told, has gone from approximately thirty days to sixty days. Now, that is quite staggering. We have no control, of course, from the government over the length of sentence. That is a matter that rests entirely with the courts. The number of prisoners has increased substantially?

MR. McNUTT: Thirty per cent.

MR. ROBERTS: Thirty per cent, Mr. McNutt tells me, so the pressure on the prison facilities is very, very strong. I think it is very much to the combination of all concerned - the officials and the prisoners - that the system is working as well as it is. If the committee wants - I won't prolong my answer, but if the member wants I can go into some of the measures we are adopting, some of the measures we are contemplating, but it is a very real and present problem. I am one of those who believe the answer is not simply to build more jails. It would be easy in theory to build more jails but Canada already puts more people in jail than most countries do. I don't think that is the answer. The combination of more people being sentenced and the very real increase - of the order of 100 per cent increase - in the length of the average sentence has put very real pressure on all of our prison facilities.

Double-bunking, for example, in almost every facility in the Province, and so on. But even with that, I think my officials are paying proper concern to questions of life and comfort - reasonable comfort and convenience. Prison is not the Hotel Newfoundland or the Radisson, nor is it meant to be.

MR. HARRIS: The particular facility that I was speaking about, if that is still in use then I think we should all be ashamed of that. The fact that there are more prisoners or longer sentences should be reason to resolve the problems of facilities, if that is what the cause of the problem is. I say to the minister that this particular section of the jail was not clean. I was there at a mealtime on a Sunday and the prisoners were eating a meal on a piece of some sort of a tray that had three or four different kinds of things on the one plate, as it were, which they were required to eat standing up with some sort of a bench or thing about a foot wide that was attached to the wall. They were complaining. Now, you know, it is not a hotel, but this was not a facility that I would expect to have seen in this day and age for people who are incarcerated and they were there complaining about it. They were showing me the holes where the rats come and go, and they were complaining about the state and the condition, and they had said that they had complained about it.

MR. ROBERTS: I'm told the - talk about the tray, first of all. This is a standard throughout our system and indeed, we understand, throughout most systems. It is an institutional tray. I don't know if the hon. gentleman was ever in the air cadets or the army cadets or ever ate in an institutional mess hall - I have on occasion, not in prison, but in other institutions, and that kind of tray is standard. Without wanting to be troublesome, it is necessary in a prison facility to be very careful as to the implements to which people in a population have access, for obvious and proper reasons.

I'm told that there is adequate seating space if prisoners want to sit at a table to have their meal. I can't speak of what went on on a Sunday during the election when the hon. gentleman was visiting the Penitentiary. I can only say I'm told by my officials that there was adequate seating space if one chose to sit at a table or a bench or what have you.

On the other point I can only repeat what I said. I have no doubt there are difficult problems. We are working with older buildings. I can't change that. We are working under crowded conditions but I think my officials are doing the best they can with the resources we can provide to them. I think, and basically what I'm told, and I've made some enquiries, is that the conditions are reasonable and tolerable and acceptable. If the hon. member has information to the contrary I would like to have it so that I can take the appropriate action.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: Just a couple of questions. In the section on page 265 under the Fines Administration -

MR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry, under the fines...?

MR. HODDER: Yes, section 3.2.03. Some comments from time to time about the high dollar value of outstanding fines and the efforts of the department to collect those fines. I wonder if the minister might want to comment on the initiatives of the department to collect the fines that have been imposed and what the outstanding balances might be in that division.

MR. ROBERTS: The outstanding balance, I'm told, the most recent figure we have here, is of the order of $9 million. That sounds like a great deal of money, and it is, and one would not deny that. But by far the greater number of those fines are first of all very small amounts. We are talking in many cases $5 parking tickets and that kind of fine. Secondly, they are of - the latter part by far are of relatively recent vintage, which I mean less than a year old.

What are we doing to try to collect them? We are doing several things. First of all, several years ago the government brought in a system whereby the fines are linked in to one's driver's licence and one's vehicle licence. Now, I don't know if the hon. member has ever run into this, but if he has an outstanding fine, when the licence application form comes in the mail it will say: Dear Mr. Smith, you owe twenty-seven dollars for the following fines. Your licence or your vehicle renewal - I understand it's keyed to both -will not be issued until you've paid up. And we find that very effective, but by definition it takes as much as a year - you know, our licenses come up once a year. Secondly, in another vote that bears on here, we have brought some deputy sheriffs into play and they're out serving warrants of committal down there?

MS. SPRACKLIN: Yes, they will be.

MR. ROBERTS: They will be serving warrants of committal, because if an outstanding fine is not paid, one has to warrant a committal served on the individual and to - you know, we don't sue, we put you in jail, that's the penalty for not paying a fine. Then there has to be a warrant of committal that has to be served. These were being done by police officers and this was not the best use of very scarce resources so we've replaced those with a deputy sheriff. We had a pilot project last year and now we're moving into the full program and we provided them, I think, with an extra person or two to do that. In fact, we have hired two collection officers whose job it will be to go around and say, you know, Mr. Roberts you have not paid your fine, let's get on with it.

We are looking at two other things. We are considering accepting credit cards. The government do not accept credit cards now but my officials are looking into the issue of whether we should, that you could pay your fine by Visa, Mastercharge or whatever else. There are pros and cons and there might be administrative difficulties but it's certainly an idea we want to follow.

The other thing is, we brought in a provincial ticketing system - it was legislation - and we expanded the provincial ticketing system as legislation in the House last year. I hope it will be extended further to deal with offences other than traffic offences. One now is issued a ticket and if - well, forget for the moment the fact that you can plead guilty and we don't need a summons, that's a separate issue, but the ticket will be hooked into the motor vehicle system. So if my hon. friend, Mr. Chairman, gets in trouble with his snowmobile and is fined ten or twenty dollars for driving his snowmobile where it shouldn't be driven, on a highroad or something, then he can expect, when he gets the license renewal for his car a year from now, if he hasn't paid the fine, he will find the snowmobile ticket listed there as well. So we're at it in a number of ways but it's an ongoing difficulty. A lot of people don't want to pay their fines, Mr. Chairman. It's a question of how far and how hard you can chase for a twenty, fifty or hundred dollar fine.

Then the final comment - and the hon. gentleman may want to carry on - of course, this comes into the prison thing again. We don't have a lot of space in prison to put people in prison. I think there's something nonsensical about putting people in prison at what, $100 a day now, $115?

AN OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: It cost us about $115 a day to house a person and feed that person in one of our institutions. There's not much sense to putting somebody in jail for ten days over a $30 or a $300 fine if it's going to cost us $1,000 out-of-pocket, and we don't have spare beds in the prisons, I can assure the committee.

MR. HODDER: Has the minister considered - it has happened sometimes in other government agencies when certain bills become long overdue and they are of relative minor amounts, a procedure to simply write some of these off so that the - $9 billion, for example, to the average taxpayer seems an astounding amount, and certain amounts of that have been carried for long numbers of years, and the probability of payment is very doubtful, and if the cost of collecting is more than the fine itself, and if the reason for the imposition of the fine, shall we say, wouldn't jeopardize the procedures if it were to be written off, is there a policy to accommodate that?

MR. ROBERTS: We do have a write-off policy and we do review the outstanding receivables I guess from time to time; it is done on a regular basis. We get all sorts of reasons - people left the Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry, my friend?

AN HON. MEMBER: What is the (inaudible)?

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) exactly, every now and then somebody shows up dead and we can't put that person in jail. The real problem, I think, is the volume of fines and the relatively small nature of each of them. If the hon. gentleman is fined $1,000 for some offence, then I think he can be assured we will be chasing him. But if you build up - what is a parking ticket now, $5?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well, you know, if you build up a bunch of parking tickets we tend to find that the Motor Vehicle system is a very efficient means. Because sooner or later almost everybody in the Province comes through that system, anybody who has a valid licence, and we have a means of collecting, we find that very effective.

The other thing we have to bear in mind is administration of justice issues. If people know - there are people who don't pay parking fines. I know some who say: Well, it is cheaper to take a parking fine than to go buy a parking space; and if the government doesn't chase those people eventually why bother having parking fines at all? So we have to be conscious of that. I will venture, Mr. Chairman, that whether I'm here next year or the year after or ten years from now, or whoever is here before the committee, as a minister, the question will still be very much there. It is an ongoing one. We are getting a lot better. The hon. gentleman would appreciate, the aging of receivables is the key thing. We are getting them down now to fairly manageable levels, I'm told.

MR. HODDER: I'm sure that all of us would be admitting that there has been some progress made in that area.

The other question I wanted to mention was the traffic ticketing centre and some of the ongoing difficulties in the procedure there. I'm wondering if the minister might comment on the - you can't comment on the specifics, I'm sure, but there has been some question raised in the public's mind as to whether or not the traffic ticketing procedure is operating as efficiently as it might.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hodder, your time has expired. Does the committee want to give the minister leave to answer that question? If I have the leave of the committee, the minister can answer the question and then I will recognize Ms. Verge.

You have leave, Sir, carry on.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. I want to check with the DPP because there is still an investigation under way and the potential of possible criminal activity so I want to walk very carefully. I can tell the committee that one person has been charged with offences in connection with the... I use the term the `traffic court,' but the operation here in St. John's. There is still an investigation under way. We will see what comes of that. If the police determine charges should be laid, charges will be laid. It will go forward in a normal way.

We have made a couple of other changes as well, or are making them. Hitherto the prosecutions have been dealt with down there by police officers. Now, that was the tradition in the Magistrate's Court, as it was called many years ago, but now the Traffic Court would be, I guess, the one hold-over. We are now changing that. There will be a Crown attorney assigned imminently, the DPP tells me, if not already, to handle prosecutions. Of course, by far the great part - 80 per cent, 90 per cent, 95 per cent of the tickets never go to court. One simply pays them or ignores them and is found guilty in absence, as it were. But prosecutions will be handled by a DPP - well, by a Crown attorney under the direction of DPP, and we think that will help to prevent any further difficulties.

I hope I've answered the member's question. I don't really want to go beyond that for the reason there is an investigation outstanding and we must be very careful not to prejudice that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Back to Adult Corrections. The increase in the inmate population is more astounding than some people might realize. The minister has said now during this meeting, and I recall something the same the last two years, that basically the jails are bursting at the seams; last year the minister indicated that they were filled beyond rated capacity. I remember in the late-eighties - 1988, 1989 - the adult correction centres were actually significantly underutilized to the point that the department was looking at the possibility of closing one or more of the centres.

Is pressure on each of the seven centres more or less uniform? I'm saying seven, and I'm thinking of the big facility, the Penitentiary here in St. John's, but then there is Salmonier, Clarenville, Bishop's Falls, the men's in Stephenville, the women's in Stephenville, and then Happy Valley - Goose Bay.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I get a head count each week from Mr. McNutt of the population by day and by week in each of our facilities. I will ask him to correct me if memory fails me, but we average about 115 per cent of rated capacity. In other words, if we have in theory a hundred beds at any given time there are 115 prisoners. It varies throughout the week, and I will come back to the question by institution because that is a very perceptive issue.

We meet this - and I may add, so, I am told, does every other prison system in the country - by what is called double-bunking, which literally means, not double-bunking, as one might think, but it means prisoners sleeping in mattresses on the floor. I've seen this in the - I've not seen them sleeping but I've seen the accommodation. This is not a terrifically satisfactory solution but it is one that, as I said, every prison system in the country has adopted and so have we. We make no secret of it.

The hon. member asks if the population or the pressure varies, and the answer is yes. Two institutions in particular seem to be constantly overcrowded. One is the Happy Valley - Goose Bay centre, the Labrador correctional centre, which has a rated capacity of thirty-seven I think, thirty-eight, and regularly has prison counts of the order of fifty or fifty-one. That is a very troubling situation. I can say to the hon. lady as well that an astonishingly high percentage of the prisoners, way beyond proportionate, are aboriginal. That is a concern, a very real concern.

The Penitentiary here in St. John's also consistently runs beyond its rate of capacity. At least the hon. member will realize from her term as minister, and other members of the committee may, Mr. Chairman, the prison in St. John's serves a number of purposes. It is the most secure facility that we have. It is rated as, I think, a medium security - not a maximum, although if you get down to the special handling unit it's pretty maximum down there - but a prisoner who causes difficulties will end up in St. John's very quickly.

It is also the holding centre for trials. Prisoners remanded in trial over a weekend, or from day to day, are, of course, held here in St. John's. It's also the prison that serves the largest area, the St. John's metropolitan area, so the pressure there tends to be very constant as well.

The women's prison in Stephenville is the least utilized, if memory serves me. It is 100 per cent now, but it has been the least utilized over the years. For some reason we have a full house there, I am told, at present.

MS. VERGE: Just for the benefit of people listening, could the minister give us the rated capacity of male institutions versus the rated capacity of the one female institution?

MR. ROBERTS: I'm going to have to turn to Mr. McNutt for that.

MR. McNUTT: Virtually it is 100 per cent at the women's centre now, although -

MS. VERGE: But the rated capacity -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could you introduce yourselves, please?

MR. McNUTT: The number of beds in the women's centre is twenty-two.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you say your name, please?

MR. McNUTT: Oh, I am sorry - Marvin McNutt, Director of Corrections.

MR. ROBERTS: So we have twenty-two women's beds and how many men's beds?

MR. McNUTT: Twenty-two women's beds, 350 men's beds.

MR. ROBERTS: This is not an equal opportunity situation, I say to my friend from Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Apart from the astronomical rise in the inmate population with, as the minister tells us, particular pressure on the institutions in St. John's and Happy Valley - Goose Bay -

MR. ROBERTS: And the increase in the length of sentences also -

MS. VERGE: Yes, you've already explained that.

Is there any appreciable difference - perhaps Mr. McNutt can answer this - in the inmate profile? In other words, obviously they are still overwhelmingly male. Are they are still overwhelmingly young? And is there any appreciable difference over the last few years in the number of first-timers versus repeaters?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. McNutt?

MR. McNUTT: With respect -

MS. VERGE: I guess a third question is: Is there any appreciable difference in the type of crime for which people are doing time?

MR. McNUTT: There has certainly been an appreciable difference in terms of the profile with respect to the offences for which the inmates have been admitted.

The rate of violent offenders, for example, in five years has increased from 4 per cent to 25 per cent of our admissions. The number of impaired driving admissions has declined from 35 per cent down to 20 per cent. That reflects convictions right across Canada, of course. The number of property offenders is relatively stable at about 30 per cent, and the other 25 per cent would be comprised of a number of other offender categories.

The typical age is increasing marginally. I think that reflects the change in the socio-demographic realities within society generally.

The third question, Ms. Verge?

MS. VERGE: First-timers versus repeaters?

MR. McNUTT: That's relatively the same. Right now what we call our recidivism rate, that's the rate of individuals returning to prison for at least a second time, is around 40 per cent.

MS. VERGE: Forty?

MR. McNUTT: Yes.

MS. VERGE: How does that compare with other provinces?

MR. McNUTT: It's generally the same. Although I haven't conducted any kind of research into it, I believe it's generally the same throughout Canada.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Would you give me that breakdown for the violent offender, for the violent crime offender group, in terms of age, what type of violent crime?

MR. McNUTT: Our annual report actually will be finished by the end of this week. I do have the annual report for 1991-1992. There has been no appreciable change from one year to the next.

The breakdown, again, is what you are -

MS. VERGE: For the 25 per cent who are doing time for crimes of violence, age, type of violent crime, and how many are first-timers versus repeaters?

MR. McNUTT: We don't have it broken down in terms of socio-demographic variables compared to criminal activity. I can just share with you one statistic though that is important. Newfoundland and all of North America has the highest ratio of older inmates, that is all states and provinces in North America. I think there is a very real reason for that. We have a lot of sex offenders in the system, for example, on any given day who have been convicted for offences that occurred twenty or thirty years ago. I think that is certainly a primary explanation for what is happening here, but we don't have the capacity right now to actually break down those kinds of offender profiles based on offence.

MS. VERGE: How many of the 25 per cent who are doing time for crimes of violence have been convicted of sexual assault crimes?

MR. McNUTT: From 1991-92 there were 164 exactly. I don't think that number changed appreciably in 1992-93. One hundred and sixty-four were what we would call sex offenders.

MS. VERGE: And is that most of the violent category?

MR. McNUTT: Not all, most of the violent category would be for other offences.

MS. VERGE: For those 164 sex offenders, are there any rehabilitative programs, counselling programs, or self-help groups?

MR. McNUTT: Actually, there are five programs throughout the Province: St. John's, Harbour Grace, Bishop's Falls, Stephenville, and Happy Valley. We contract for these particular programs in some cases and in other cases our staff are running them on their own.

MS. VERGE: Since one is in Harbour Grace and there is no adult correctional facility in Harbour Grace, I take it that some of these programs serve people after discharge from the penitentiary?

MR. McNUTT: The program in Harbour Grace is specifically designed for people placed on probation as a result of a conviction for sexual assault.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: The Department of Justice is responsible for the provincial lotteries licensing program and other activities that generally come under the heading of gambling. We were told a year or so ago when the legislation was being brought in to outlaw one form of video lotteries and installing another set of lottery gambling machines that were owned by Atlantic Lottery, that this was necessary in order to keep out this other form of gambling, and to keep out the mafia or something in New Brunswick. I don't know if it was the mafia from New Brunswick or somebody who owned the machines in New Brunswick.

It seems that in the intervening year-and-a-half, or two years, we have a number of people hooked on gambling. The individuals themselves who actually gamble - and we now have Gamblers Anonymous all over the place, alongside of Alcoholics Anonymous, and other programs for people with addictive tendencies. The government seems to be hooked on gambling because our revenues from gambling are around $70 million a year now. That is just the revenues so that is only a percentage of what is actually being gambled. I am not really sure, and maybe the minister could tell me, but I think the numbers are about 8 per cent or 10 per cent of what the revenues are as the actual percentage of what is being gambled. The profits, that is, are about 8 per cent or 10 per cent and perhaps the rest is going out in terms of prizes or returns to the gamblers.

The bar owners seem to be hooked on gambling because recently when the Budget announced a change in the revenue sharing to take more for the Province and less for the bars that - I don't know about the minister's office, but mine was deluged with faxes from bar owners across the Province and their employees saying that if the government takes more of this money they might lose their jobs or not have the same amount of money.

I have also heard from all parts of the Province about people spending their money in these machines, from waiters or bartenders spending all their tips, to individuals in the community coming in and spending their time at the gambling, to bars giving either free drinks or good service to people who sit at the machine. Even in bars without table service, they will tell the waiters or waitresses to keep that person supplied with booze at the machine so they will keep spending money.

We have also had at least three proposals, I'm told, before the government for gambling casinos. It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Minister, that we are going for this in a big way, that a lot of people are being hurt by it, that there has been no real attempt to decide whether this is something that is in the public interest or not. I want to ask the minister whether or not he is prepared -whether he shares my concerns about the consequences of our Province being so involved in this business, and whether or not he believes that we ought to have a serious study of gambling in our Province, official gambling in our Province, and its effects.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, the hon. gentleman has raised a number of points. Let me try to respond to them. Let me first of all say that not only do I share his concern, my colleagues in the government do. I can tell him that the types of concerns that are being expressed to him by people who are affected prejudicially by gambling are being brought to us as well.

I guess the most striking example I can cite to the committee came in November. I was in Western Labrador with a Cabinet committee I share, and my colleagues, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations and the Minister of Mines and Energy were with me. We met, among other groups, with the town councillors in Labrador City, Mayor Darrell Brenton and a number of his colleagues, and they raised it officially. Our having run into a council raising it, they simply said: We are very much concerned about what it is doing to people who live within the town of Labrador City. I think it is a rising concern and we share it.

Let me come back to some of the specific things. I don't recall any legislation about video gambling, or any form of gambling, during the two years and a bit that I have been Minister of Justice.

MR. HARRIS: That's Mr. Cummings.

MR. ROBERTS: It may have been before my time. Has there been any legislation since I was minister?

MS. VERGE: There was a finance bill about three years ago.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. If there was a finance bill three years ago - I'm not trying to be picky, that was -

MR. HARRIS: It was a finance bill. It wasn't your department.

MR. ROBERTS: - before my time.

MR. HARRIS: - but Mr. Cummings, I think, was involved.

MR. ROBERTS: I have a certain responsibility for all legislation but I'm not trying to be picky. The government did authorize video gambling in Newfoundland and Labrador. It happened to be before my time but it is still a government policy.

The government's decision was that only Atlantic Lotto would be allowed to run these video gambling devices or licence them, however, they are I guess, operated by private bar owners or what have you. The ministerial responsibility for Atlantic Lotto rests with my friend, the Minister of Finance - I am not trying to duck out, but that's where the day by day thing is. I can, however, talk generally about the issue; the change in commissions certainly generated a certain amount of heat, I am not sure how much light. All we did, I would say to the committee, was say that the commission should be reduced from the highest level in Canada, bar none, to a level well within the range of that charged by other provinces.

Now remember, there were three slices that came out of the dollar when you pop your loonie into the machine. I have never in my life played one of them, I gamble in other ways, I guess, elections, litigation, what have you, but the dollar that's popped into the machine is split three ways; a certain percentage comes back to the winner, but at the end of the day, the house is going to win and the people who play these machines ought to realize that. The part that stays with the house is divided two ways, one part goes, it's commissioned to the owner, the bar owner, the person operating the machine, the other comes to the government - to Atlantic Lotto and then to the government. My friend mentioned the seventy-million-dollar item, that's, if you wish, our share of the take. We increased our share this year by reducing the amount to the bar owners from a level which as I said was the highest in Canada, bar none, down to the mid-rank of what other provinces are paying, and every province has them.

Free drinks, I would make a brief comment; if that's done, in my understanding that's unlawful. It is unlawful for a bar owner to say to somebody: come in and we will give you free drinks here if you plunk your money in our machine. That's an unlaw inducement and again, if my friend has some reason to believe it is going on, I would like to know about it so that I can take the appropriate steps. I will make two other comments, if I may, Mr. Chairman.

The first is a general one. The issue is not gambling, it is not a moral issue. Canadian society and Newfoundland and Labrador specifically, long ago passed that divide between gambling and no gambling. Gambling is lawful everywhere in Canada in some form or another. The issue, as we see it, is trying to strike a balance as to what's appropriate; we don't think we could outlaw gambling as we don't believe that would work, so we try to strike an appropriate balance. We may not have struck it, we think we have but it is a matter to be reviewed constantly, as conditions change.

Finally, casinos - there will be no casinos in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cabinet has decided, we are not prepared to do this. The most recent province, I understand, to do it is Nova Scotia; that's their choice. Quebec has allowed them, Ontario is allowing them and Manitoba is allowing them. I don't know of any other province - there may be one in British Columbia, I am told, but in any event, the government decided we will not allow them in Newfoundland and Labrador, and in our book it is a closed question, you know, end of that discussion. We are not going to allow these casinos, we don't think they are an appropriate form of lawful gambling.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. As it is now 10:30, maybe it is time we break and have a cup of coffee. I understand coffee is set up in the government members' common room. Just before we break, I have four more speakers when we return, and I was wondering if I could have the consensus of the committee that we will clue up by 12:00 noon, if not, we might as well carry on.

MR. HARRIS: I have a commitment at 11:00, so I won't be here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You won't be here after that. Alright, so I would assume we have general consensus that we will be finished by noon.

MS. VERGE: I have a few more questions but I should have no problem in asking them before twelve.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, in that case that's fine.

MR. ROBERTS: Are we invited?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You, Sir, are invited, and take your officials; you know the way to the government common room for a coffee and you can lead your group.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I will now call the meeting to order and I recognize Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, if it's okay, Mr. Harris says he has one question he would like to ask, and since he has to leave at 11:00 then that's certainly fine by me.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So you're satisfied that he takes your time on that?

MR. SMITH: Sure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Smith.

I won't take up all of the member's time but I wanted to do one follow-up question on the gambling. I am delighted to hear that Cabinet has decided they would not approve the casinos but I am still concerned about the extent of the use of the video gambling machines, the proliferation of them, the numbers of them in particular bars and what I see. And continuing concerns are being expressed by people, as the minister said himself, by also town councils. Is the minister prepared to review the province's commitment to the video gambling machines and perhaps hold an inquiry of some sort with public input into these machines to see whether or not something can be done to alleviate the problems that are caused by them?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I will have to reserve on the question for an inquiry until I can consult my colleagues and we come to a collective decision. It's a matter that is very much with us because of the public concerns which the hon. member mirrors and which others have expressed as well. I can tell him that we are pondering it. We've asked some of the officials - it covers a multiplicity of departments, given the way that the administration is structured. We have asked some of the officials to have a look at this with a view to developing some options and giving us some choices. I don't think I can go beyond that, until we have come to a decision, in which case there will be an announcement of some sort and matters can go on. But I can assure the member that it's a matter that - I was going to say all the Cabinet, I know a number with whom I've discussed various aspects of it and share the concern he voices. I think I can say we will be doing whatever we decide is the right way to go at it but I don't really know at this stage if I can tell him what will be done. An inquiry would be one option, there may be others. It's a matter, as I said earlier, of trying to strike a balance and a matter of being practical. We don't think we can ban gambling, so it's a matter of how best to allow it to continue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, with regard to police protection and the fact that we have two separate forces that operate within the Province, I'm wondering, in terms of the department's and the government's thinking at this point in time, are there any plans to change the ratio in terms of the services that are being offered by the RNC and the RCMP?

MR. ROBERTS: No, Mr. Chairman, but let me expand on that. It's approximately 50\50 at present by population. I don't know if anybody here has a number. Is it 52\48?

AN OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. My recollection is that it's about 50\50. About 50 per cent of the population live in areas for which the RNC has direct responsibility and about 50 per cent live in areas for which the RCM Police have direct responsibility. Of course, the RCM Police have another group of their members in this Province who are doing work that is, if you want to use the term, federal policing. The RCM Police for whom we pay on the 70\30 ratio are not all of the members of the RCM Police stationed in this Province. The two forces co-operate very well and I think from what I'm told, that is expanding, that is becoming more and more a fact of life. They run joint operations, they share intelligence and they co-operate in a variety of ways.

The other point I would make is, I think it would probably be an appropriate policy of government, and I don't mean necessarily the present Cabinet, but of government generally, to make sure that there were at least two police forces available always. It is not a matter of playing one off against the other like that, but simply that if you look around most areas in Canada, or most countries in the world, you will find that the only countries that ever have a single police force are, generally speaking, countries of which one might not be as happy as living in a country like Canada where we have a multiplicity of police forces.

There are no plans of which I am aware to change the present assignment of responsibilities.

MR. SMITH: Thank you.

With regard to the department's response to concerns in the community related to policing, and I am thinking specifically of an incident in my own district which occurred a short time ago, and it is something of which I am sure you would be aware, of a gentleman who went missing from the hospital during Christmas period, and his body was found a short time ago. Subsequent to that matter coming to my attention, I contacted the hospital administrator just to try to retrace the course of events of what had transpired there, and was informed by him that he, himself, had had some concerns with regard to the response of the RCMP.

Now, within the community, and I don't know how aware the department is, but within the community, the broad community, the district where I live, there is a fair amount of concern, and it is at a number of levels. What you get from a lot of people saying to me, for example, they refer back to, I think, a couple of years ago in that same hospital where a doctor went missing, and there was a significant search that was conducted over a period of weeks and months, and I am sure it must have cost a fair amount of money. Yet, because this gentleman who was a relative unknown, a poor fisherman from the Port au Port area, goes missing, the appearance is that no one seems to care. No one bothered to go looking for him, because his body was found, I am told, about 150 yards from the hospital.

Now, it's really causing a grave concern in the area, and the question that I have, I guess, in terms of the department, is, how does a department respond to that sort of thing? Do we wait for an official complaint from the community? Because generally speaking the people who are involved in this probably will not come forward and make an official complaint, maybe because they don't know how to do it. Would that sort of thing be conducted just as a matter of fact? Because obviously, the officials in your department must be aware of this situation.

As a matter of fact, I think it was in the news on the weekend; I understand that the CBC carried something on it on the weekend, although I didn't see it so I don't know what the extent of the program was, but I am just curious as to how the department deals with this sort of thing. Would the department normally respond anyway, and just move in there and check into matters of this nature?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I have no specific or personal knowledge of the incident to which my friend from Port au Port refers, so I can't talk about that incident because I don't know anything about it. I didn't hear anything on the newscast that I heard during the weekend and I don't recall learning about it any other way, so let me talk in a more general way without specific reference.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Minister, could I ask your officials: Is anyone aware of the incident?

MR. ROBERTS: The answer is `no'. Let me talk in a more general way and then we can come back. If my friend wants to pursue this, of course, we can.

We would not, in the department, be aware, or be made aware, or seek to be made aware, of an individual search. That would be a police operation. The police are governed - it doesn't matter in this sense whether they are the RCM Police or the RNC, they function in precisely the same way. They are governed by their own standing orders, their own policy manuals, their own operational manuals, and their own procedures, which are very well developed and, in most cases, are in writing. There is no secret about them.

The hon. gentleman may remember there was a judicial inquiry a year or so ago. Judge Wicks, I recollect, was the judge in the case where a young lad had gone missing here in St. John's and eventually died. There was an inquiry and the judge made some recommendations and, if memory serves me correctly, the RNC reviewed or revised their manual as a result of some of the judge's comments.

When I say we don't become involved in a search, we don't become involved in any police operation. I would generally hear of a police operation at the same time as anybody else in the Province hears about it, and by the same means, through the media or conversation. The only time I would be told in advance would be if there was something specific, something unusual about it, and I would be hard put to think of any examples of that in my time in the ministry.

There are, though, three avenues open to people with concerns similar to those expressed by my friend, and these are not mutually exclusive. One can follow all of these avenues or any one as one wishes.

The first approach, I would think, would be - and it doesn't have to be in any official context - but to the RCM Police either at the detachment concerned or through their own chain of command, the subdivision and then here in St. John's. The RCM Police are a responsible organization and if a citizen has a concern, he or she, I would think, normally would go to the NCO or the officer in charge of a detachment. I suspect this is the Stephenville detachment but wherever.

If that doesn't produce satisfactory results - and I mean the chain of command coming up to Chief Superintendent Butt, the senior officer here in Newfoundland and Labrador - there is another avenue. I answer, in the long run, to the House of Assembly and to the people of the Province for the conduct of the police. Again, one doesn't have to make an official complaint to me but I have to know about it. If nobody tells me then I don't know. One can't assume that if it is on the radio or on the t.v. or in the paper I would necessarily hear about it, or be minded to do anything even if I read about it. But if there are concerns about an incident, I would invite the hon. gentleman or his constituent simply to get in touch with me by any of the usual methods.

Finally, there is one other remedy. The RCM Police have a Complaints Commission procedure in place similar to that which the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary have. There is a well-defined and clearly laid out procedure which can be followed if any individual believes that the RCM Police have not conducted themselves appropriately in any given situation. I can give you an example of where that has been used in a somewhat similar case. There was an incident in Fortune last Labour Day weekend - a lot of press attention at the time - people interfering with the operation of the ferry back and forth to St. Pierre, or with people going on the ferry. There were at least two complaints that I received, one from the Fishermen's Union or local in the area, and the second from the Grand Bank Council.

That matter has been thoroughly investigated by the RCM Police in accordance with their standing procedure, which means somebody from outside the area comes in. A very extensive report, a written report, has been provided to those concerned. I have seen those reports. In fact, I will go further, I see - I make it my business to see, and I do see, all of the reports made in answer to complaints by citizens in this Province to either police force. So there are all of these remedies available, and any one of them would be available should my hon. friend wish to follow it. I don't know if that answers his question specifically. I've tried to.

MR. SMITH: Yes, it does, Mr. Minister. Am I out of time or do I have time for one more?

MR. CHAIRMAN: By leave of the committee, you have.

MR. SMITH: If I can wait.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well -

MR. SMITH: This will be a quick one. It is something I just wanted to touch on. Under item 2.1.04, Support Enforcement Services, I was really surprised, in the short time that I have been elected and working in my district, at the number of people I've encountered who feel themselves aggrieved under this. I'm just curious. Do we have any figures as to the difficulty we face here with enforcing these court awards? Because I'm amazed in my own district, as I said, the number of people I run into who had awards made but never collect.

MR. ROBERTS: I don't have figures here, Mr. Chairman, but I can perhaps speak for a moment or two and give the committee some information. I don't think there is any area of our activity in the Justice ministry that causes more difficulty than this one. The committee, I know, is aware of what goes on. The government have, through legislation, taken upon themselves to enforce support payments. Every support payment, and this is under the matrimonial legislation, in Newfoundland and Labrador is handled by this unless the parties contract out, in my understanding, basically, my deputy minister tells me. In some cases people contract out and in other cases they don't. We handle a very large volume. The office is located in Corner Brook and the staff are working well beyond any reasonable limits. We added two staff members last year and I think that has improved it somewhat, but there is still very great pressure on the men and women who work there.

The problem is a difficult one because some person, almost always a man, who doesn't want to pay his orders, to pay the obligations to support his former spouse or his children, and that is what these orders are, could make life very, very difficult. There are a couple of cases which I will not go into, but I know about them because people have come to me with complaints. Here in St. John's they have consumed, I suppose, hundreds of hours of lawyer time and staff time, because we go to court to enforce the orders. We take it upon ourselves.

I can only say to my friend that if his constituents are expressing a degree of dissatisfaction it is not unique to Port au Port, I am afraid. Secondly, we are trying to do what we can to respond to it. I think it is far more of a load than anybody realized when the system was set up. I made some enquiries as to when we took this on did we know, "we" being government as a whole, and the answer was nobody did anticipate this. I say to my friend as well, if he has specific cases where the response has not been as it should have been, I would grateful if he would let me know because we do follow them.

Mr. Cummings, one of my ADMs, is charged with direct responsibility for administration of the agency and we will look into them. I am not saying that our staff always get it right, that is not the case, but most times they do, and if something goes wrong then the appropriate action will be taken. It is a very, very difficult area of law.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Ms. Young.

MS. YOUNG: Mr. Minister, a few questions. Page 265, Fines Administration, I see there is no provincial revenue for last year. There is an estimate of $400,000 for this year. Would you clarify that for me, please?

MR. ROBERTS: A good question. Let me get an answer for it, Mr. Chairman. There was a fine revenue last year but that is not what we take in in fines. I say to my friend, the Member for Terra Nova, that is not what we get in fines. I can ask somebody to look it up, but because of government accounting, what we take in in fines would appear elsewhere in the Estimates, probably in the Finance section. We will look that up and tell the committee what that is.

We are making some changes in the administration of the fines. We haven't completed these but this is what we anticipate. For good reason, and this will not be changed, there is only one fine collection system in the Province but there are a multiplicity of people who are entitled to the revenue and to issue tickets. For example, Memorial University, town councils, city councils, hospitals, what have you.

One of the joys of my job as minister is signing bits of paper that authorize individuals to issue tickets under legislation. Now, we, being the court, which is not part of my department at all, but answers for these purposes, and my officials collect that money, and are responsible for collecting fines, but we don't keep it all. We turn back - the City of Mount Pearl would be entitled to, I don't know the number, but the net revenues from the fines that its - or the RNC officers issuing tickets out there.

Now, this is an area that we have spent a fair amount of time on. The City of St. John's maintained - I guess they started this, opening this Pandora's Box - maintained that they were not getting everything they should have got and that's a legitimate concern for them to raise, given they believe that to be the case. They simply said: we issued 5,000 tickets at one dollar each, that's $5,000, we have only gotten $4,000 you owe us $1,000. Well, when the letter came to me a year or so ago, I said: that's a good question, let's find out, so I asked my officials to go into it. It turns out that we have been subsidizing, it is fair to say, the university, town councils, city councils, hospitals and what have you; so now we are going to go at the system and we are going to rationalize it.

We are going to find out what it costs us to collect. And when I say subsidizing, it costs us to process a ticket so we are going to review the system, the process is under way now at the official level, with a view to making sure (a) that we collect what's due for the municipalities and so forth, (b) we turn over to them what's due to them and, (c) that we keep what properly belongs to government; in other words, a true cost recovery. We are not trying to make a profit and since we are offering this service we are not going to subsidize anybody and all of that comes to this point that, that $400,000 revenue item the hon. lady sees, in the 3.2.03.02 now to be voted, is the net gain that my officials anticipate we will get this year. That's the amount we are subsidizing in municipalities and other authorized ticket agencies at this time.

Now, I can tell you the amount we get on fines and forfeitures this year is estimated to be $9.445 million. Justice has a number of profit centres in it and one of them is the fine system, another is the Registry of Deeds and the Registry of Securities.

MS. YOUNG: Another -

MR. ROBERTS: I bet when the hon. lady asked the question she didn't realize she was going to get that long an answer.

MS. YOUNG: That's fine, thank you. Page 266: 4.1.02 - Administration for the RNC, under Supplies $754,400, what kinds of supplies would amount to that much money?

MR. ROBERTS: These are only the changes. The largest part of that are the uniforms which we supply to the RNC and that would be a collective bargaining - that's in the contract, isn't it, but also whatever other supplies are used, paper, you know, office supplies whatever; the RNC is a fairly large police force, it administers itself. The administration is essentially self-contained over at Fort Townshend and so whatever supplies, but the largest part, I am told, is the cost of uniform replacements.

MS. YOUNG: Under 4.2.02, that's Community Corrections - Purchased Services -

MR. ROBERTS: Fifty-seven thousand, seven hundred?

MS. YOUNG: No -

MR. ROBERTS: I am on page 268, 4.2. -

MS. YOUNG: No, I am sorry, page 269, 4.2.02.

MR. ROBERTS: A half-million dollars?

MS. YOUNG: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: That's the - Mr. McNutt will correct me if I go wrong. Community Corrections are the probation service by another name. A lot of the people in our custody are on probation, supervised probation, and that's the cost of the services we purchase. Now it has gone up significantly; I can either look it up in the notes I have been given or I can ask Mr. McNutt to answer it. I believe Mr. McNutt can answer that.

MR. McNUTT: Mr. Chairman, that's really part of a package designed to relieve pressure on the correctional institutions this year. That particular part of the package represents the value of a contract we will be entering into with the John Howard Society here in St. John's for the delivery of specific offender programs. It is really tied to a program which we have titled `electronic monitoring' through which offenders or inmates would be released back into the community under electronic surveillance.

I don't know if you want to go into how the technology works, but it would be -

MS. YOUNG: No, that's fine, thank-you.

MR. McNUTT: Okay.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, as we mentioned earlier during discussions, there is constant pressure on our custodial facilities, and one of the ways that we respond, and other services respond throughout the country, is to allow out on temporary absences - this goes on frequently, weekend temporary absences, what have you - people who are on probation, and we are looking at a number of options, not simply because of pressure, not simply because of financing, although those are both real concerns and have to be addressed, but also because if you have a non-violent offender it may not be the best way to help that person to reform, or to be rehabilitated, which is part of the mandate of any prison system, simply to keep that man or that woman in jail. There may be other ways that you can protect society's interest, and some of them are covered by this, as Mr. McNutt has said.

The John Howard Society, which is a splendid operation, a splendid organization - I assume the hon. member is familiar with it, at least in a broad way - will be doing more work, approximately fifty moderate risk prisoners on temporary absence programs. They will be helping to supervise and work with these people.

The bracelets are something I think we are going to get into. Used in other jurisdictions, one gets an electronic bracelet around one's ankle, and you are then told you have to stay within a certain radius of a monitoring unit saying you are home. If you go beyond that radius - which is relatively small again, Marvin, of 50 or 100 yards?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Fifty feet - your bracelet sends a signal to the police station, and the police then do something about it. So it's a form of temporary release into the community, that has the effect of confining the person to an area, and this is being done in a number of jurisdictions with very great success. So that's the reason for the very significant increase this year.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you. Do I have time for one more question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: By leave of the committee.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MS. YOUNG: I have heard rumours over the past year that the courtroom facilities that we have in Glovertown may be moved to Gambo or Gander, that the court service we have there will be just moved out of the town, and there is some concern among the residents of the area. They would like to keep that facility.

MR. ROBERTS: I can't answer that, Mr. Chairman, but I will let the hon. lady know. I can't answer because I just don't know. Perhaps I can add a word of explanation.

The court in Glovertown, or in Gambo, for that matter, would be the provincial court. The administration of the court rests with Chief Judge Luther, and what I will do is find out from Chief Judge Luther if he has plans to make any changes, and then I will let the hon. member know. When we see what answer comes, then she can take and I can take whatever further steps are appropriate, but the government, or more specifically, I, as the minister, do not establish whether the courts sit or don't sit. We pay for it but the administration of the courts rests with the courts in a broad way. I mean, the court can't decide to have no court sitting, say, between St. John's and Gander or the court couldn't decide to have a lavish court facility rented somewhere. You know, there are limits, but within those limits the administration of the courts rests with the courts themselves.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. Speaking of lavish court facilities, can the minister tell us how much was spent on renovating and furnishings for the office of the Chief Justice of the Trial Division over the past year or so?

MR. ROBERTS: I didn't know anything was spent and I doubt if it was lavish. The last time I was in the Chief's office I wouldn't have called it lavish but does anybody - my deputy minister might have that information.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Can you please identify yourself?

MS. SPRACKLIN: Lynn Spracklin, Deputy Minister of Justice.

Ms. Verge, the last work that had ever been done, I think, on the Chief Justice's office was around the time I was admitted to the Bar in 1969-1970, around that time frame, so it needed refurbishing. There have been minor renovations - lighting, wiring, plumbing, which are all obsolete in that building and which had not been dealt with in the 1970s, it was purely cosmetic. I believe the total cost, including the cosmetics, is somewhere around $60,000 but, as I said, a good portion of that relates to updating wiring in a very old building, plumbing requirements and the like.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

MR. ROBERTS: Again, if the committee needs more detailed information I will undertake to get it.

MS. VERGE: Okay, thank you.

I have a number of quick questions now. The Public Utilities Board, for which the Department of Justice has responsibility: Does the minister foresee any change in the budgetary allocation for the Public Utilities Board or any change in membership of the board or support personnel should the Electrical Power Control Act, now before the House of Assembly, be enacted?

MR. ROBERTS: There are two questions and let me answer them. First, do I foresee a change in the budgetary allocation or the cost, if I understand correctly, and the answer is no. The reason for that is that the Appeal Board, at least in its electrical regulation role, is essentially self-financing by a levy on the people who appear before it, which in due course, is passed on to the ratepayers.

The second question was, do we see a change in personnel? Yes, most definitely. In fact, the committee may not be aware but the Chair of the board, Mr. Good, who has served with great distinction for the last fifteen or twenty years as Chair, has retired because he has come to the age period. He has agreed to government's request to stay on, on a temporary basis, both to finish the rural rate reference which is now before the board and he has done the preparatory work on that, and also simply to provide a Chair, an acting Chair, temporary Chair or whatever, until we put a new regime into place.

When the House disposes of the Electrical Power Control Act and whatever may come of that, I don't think I am going too far to say that there will be further appointments made of people to carry it on. We will be making sure the board has the personnel to enable it to discharge the very significant functions which that legislation would vest in it.

MS. VERGE: My recollection is that, in addition to Reg Good, there's only one other full-time member now -

MR. ROBERTS: That is correct.

MS. VERGE: - Leslie Galway, and the others are part-timers.

MR. ROBERTS: That is correct. There are two full-time commissioners, Mr. Good and Ms. Galway. There are a number of part-time commissioners. I have been told by Mr. Good, and I haven't raised this with him recently, but I have been told by him on several occasions, that the number of personnel members available to the board is more than adequate to enable it to discharge the functions. At no point have they not been able to deal with the matter before them because of the lack of a full-time commissioner. A full-time commissioner costs $60,000 or $70,000. We simply save that much money by deferring the appointment. We may or may not appoint a third commissioner, which is authorized by legislation.

MS. VERGE: A third full-time commissioner.

MR. ROBERTS: A third full-time commissioner, yes.

MS. VERGE: How many part-time commissioners are there now? I know Ray Pollett, the Mayor of Corner Brook, is one of them.

MR. ROBERTS: I am not sure, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pollett, Mr. Kevin Vey from Gander; do I have the name? Is anybody...? I believe there is a third. I believe there are three part-time commissioners, but I guess I should say I don't recall -

MS. SPRACKLIN: The last time I checked the list, Wayne Thistle was there, there was a Doug House.

MR. ROBERTS: No, Doug House has retired.

MS. SPRACKLIN: He has retired.

MR. ROBERTS: His term was up.

MS. SPRACKLIN: Okay. There was Gary Vey.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Gary Vey from Gander, Mr. Pollett from Corner Brook. I believe there's an extra one here in St. John's, maybe Mr. MacDonald - Gordon MacDonald. I'm not sure, but if the hon. member wants to know, perhaps my deputy could get those...

MS. VERGE: Does the minister plan on bringing to the House any amendments to the Public Utilities Board legislation in the next year or so?

MR. ROBERTS: There may be one or two in the Electrical Power Control Act, that's why I paused, but I can't go beyond that and the hon. member, I know, will understand that until the Cabinet have made a decision on anything, I can't announce it.

My recollection is there may be one or two - no, I am sorry, to the Public Utilities Act, which is also the Public Utilities Board Act, are in the Electrical Power Control Act, the draft of the bill before the House, they would be consequential on the changes in the act.

If the hon. member could be more specific, I am not trying to duck, but if there is something she has in mind, maybe I can deal with it.

MS. VERGE: No, I don't have anything in particular in mind. It's just a general question. Apart from what's in the Electrical Power Control Act bill, does the minister propose or plan or have any thought of bringing before the House another bill to -

MR. ROBERTS: A minister could only get into trouble by expressing thoughts in a public forum such as the House, or a committee of the House. There are no proposals about to come before the House with respect to the Public Utilities Act. Correct me if I am wrong.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Now, I am not going to say that in six months or a year we may not come to the point of deciding we need to amend the act - I don't want to be heard to say that - but if you took the list of current legislation, there is no bill on that.

MS. VERGE: In the list of current legislation, is there a new limitations act as recommended by the Law Reform Commission a few years ago?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I am delighted and not surprised the hon. lady asked that question. I happen to have a note here on these things, which I asked for. Let me go a little broader, if the hon. member would permit.

MS. VERGE: Chair, I don't have a lot of time.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, the answer is, yes, we are working to develop the new limitations statute.

MS. VERGE: But it's still not drafted.

MR. ROBERTS: Well - is it drafted?

AN OFFICIAL: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: In fact, there is a draft. We're in the consultation process.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. lady should not anticipate immediate action on it. It's a long and very complicated matter.

MS. VERGE: Well, I've been waiting for five years since the Law Reform Commission report.

MR. ROBERTS: I must tell the committee - I can't keep from the committee that the report from the Law Reform Commission was submitted to the hon. lady as minister.

MS. VERGE: That's right.

MR. ROBERTS: And all I am doing now is picking up the things she didn't get done.

MS. VERGE: Yes, I got it in February of 1989, I think it was, just before the election. Okay, thank you.

Does the minister plan in the near future to reform our system of bills of sale registration and move to the kind of system that is now in place in I think just about everywhere else in Canada?

MR. ROBERTS: The answer is yes. We (inaudible) of the Cabinet and I think, in a general way, (inaudible) this. It is personal property security legislation, PPSA. We are in the midst of a consultation project that - without going into detail to bore the non-lawyers here, the hon. member I know would concur, it is a very complicated matter both administratively and legally. I would hope we will have legislation in the next year or so.

MS. VERGE: I've heard that a couple of the Maritime Provinces, maybe all three of the Maritime Provinces, are going to go in together. Is there any discussion about Newfoundland and Labrador going in with the Maritimes?

MR. ROBERTS: I hadn't heard that. I wasn't aware of it. Mr. Cummings -

MS. VERGE: I wonder if Mr. Cummings could answer for what is taking place now in the Maritimes. I heard they were working towards a co-operative arrangement either among two or three of the Maritime Provinces.

MR. CUMMINGS: I have some information on that. There had been some discussions amongst the Maritime Provinces. I'm not sure how far it has gone. It is under consideration as an Atlantic initiative but no decision has been made on it yet. I suspect it will be some time before any decisions are made. If it goes forward on an Atlantic basis we are going to have to marry that with our own internal process moving towards personal properties securities act, because presumably the first step is obviously a uniform act throughout the region. It is a little early to say exactly where that is going to go but for the next year -

MS. VERGE: Are we basically waiting to see what the Maritimes do -

MR. CUMMINGS: No.

MS. VERGE: - before we do anything?

MR. ROBERTS: No, we are not waiting on the other Atlantic Provinces. We are moving in our own sphere but not in isolation. It is a general policy to try to harmonize all this legislation in the interest of taking the burden off people who deal with the system. Mr. Chairman, as the committee will realize, all of these registries and what have you, essentially, are there to facilitate the commercial life of the country - the registry of deeds, the registry of bills of sale, executions, and what have you.

MS. VERGE: But our arrangement is now an irritating inhibitor to people trying to turn to (inaudible) transactions.

MR. ROBERTS: Oh gosh, yes, oh yes, it is. That is why we are trying - we are working in fact on executions against land, on mechanics' liens, on registration of deeds, on personal property. The whole thing that has been neglected for a lot of years, is now very much on the front burner. We are trying to bring it forward. We are not doing it in isolation. The hon. member's question was: Were we awaiting Atlantic -

MS. VERGE: I think we are now in isolation. My friends in Toronto who work in this area, for years have -

MR. ROBERTS: Could be, could be. I can only answer for the last five years, not the seventeen that went before.

MS. VERGE: Good, okay, thank you.

Support Enforcement. I'm fairly familiar with that operation. Could I have just a very short comment by the minister on the performance of the Support Enforcement agency?

MR. ROBERTS: I think the hon. member might have been out of the committee for a moment. My friend, the Member for Port au Port raised it.

MS. VERGE: Okay. I won't waste people's time asking for a repeat. One related question: Does the minister foresee just as great a need for, and just as much government effort directed towards, support enforcement if something approximating the Wells Administration's proposal for reforming income support programs should come to pass?

MR. ROBERTS: I don't think we've addressed that at all and I'm not sure it would come up in the context of Support Enforcement. Support Enforcement, Mr. Chairman - and the hon. member can correct me if I'm wrong because she helped to set up the system during her time as minister, and I would acknowledge that as a considerable accomplishment. The Support Enforcement is a matter of a court making an order that Mr. X or Ms. Y, but almost inevitably Mr. X, is to make payments of so many dollars a month to support children and a former spouse, or even a spouse if, in fact, a divorce has not taken place. One would assume that a court in making that award follows the dictates of the divorce act which basically indicate means and needs.

MS. VERGE: Excuse me. Since I don't have very much time - I realize the system.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, I'm not sure the committee realizes.

MS. VERGE: The question has to do with government's, Department of Justice's effort in enforcing orders that courts make. We have an agency now. The results are encouraging. A lot of money ordered by courts is being collected and making its way to the beneficiaries. The question is: Does the minister believe that the government effort should be just as great? The Department of Justice effort in enforcing orders -

MR. ROBERTS: I'm missing something here.

MS. VERGE: - should be just as great if reforms are carried out to the federal and provincial income support programs along the lines proposed in the Wells Administration's November paper?

MR. ROBERTS: I was trying to answer the question. I'm missing something, and perhaps the hon. member could help me. I don't see any connection between income support program reform such as the ISP or whatever else may come over the years - U.I. changes or what have you - and the Support Enforcement agency. The Support Enforcement agency's job is to enforce orders of the court. A court may or may not be effective - I mean, I have no way to know what would be the effect. Unless the hon. lady can give me the connection, and I just don't see the link, I don't see how there would be any impact on the SEA or operations in SEA by any changes in the income maintenance programs the Government of Canada or the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador maintain.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time is up now, Ms. Verge. If you could clue up, please.

MS. VERGE: Well, I have a few more questions so I will probably need another ten or fifteen minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Alright then, if you want to go on again.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: A couple of questions - three if we could, but we will see how it goes.

I've become aware of the problems with security at MUN and that there are some issues of student safety. Over the past year there have been, I think, three complaints of sexual assault that have been filed by the RNC. There have been eleven complaints of non-sexual assault. I'm wondering if the minister can apprise the committee of the dialogue that has been going on between his department and MUN and if there are any efforts to assure students, particularly female students, at MUN that the University has appropriate procedures in place to assist in assurances of safety.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I can't say very much because that is not a matter in which either I or my officials would become directly involved. It is an operational issue in the first instance. Now, we don't just take our hands back and say: There is a problem we don't get into. I don't wash my hands as Pilate did. But I would anticipate that those with concerns, including some students with the University administration who would have a responsibility, and other representatives of the people concerned -I don't know, the Students' Council, various advocacy groups of one sort or another - would be in touch with the RNC who are, of course, responsible for policing Memorial University, along with everywhere else in the St. John's area.

Now, if those discussions are under way I'm not privy to them, nor would I expect to be. If there are such discussions and they don't produce satisfactory results, or if there is some other reason, then I would become involved, or ask my officials to become involved. But, in the first instance, the matter would be no different from - for example, concerns have been raised by people who live in the George Street area. George Street has become a Mecca, a magnet, and I'm told, on Friday and Saturday nights - it may be my age but I'm not down there - there are thousands of people. There have been concerns expressed by residents in the area. Those I know about because the residents came to me with them and I set up discussions between the RNC on one hand and the residents on the other. The most recent word I've had from both groups, the RNC and the residents, is that they have made some significant progress.

I can only say to the gentleman that my knowledge is confined only to what I've read in the newspapers or heard in general discussion. That doesn't surprise me because I would expect the first line of response to be the RNC and in particular either Chief Coady or the various people in charge of this area of activities.

MR. HODDER: In other words, there have not been any direct representations made by the CSU at MUN to the (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: There has been none to me and, to my knowledge, to none of my senior officials.

MR. HODDER: On the Young Offenders Act: We have had a great deal of discussion in the country on amendments that are being suggested to the Young Offenders Act, to the way in which the act is in some cases not fulfilling the mandate that it was designed to fill. I'm wondering if the minister could comment on the discussions ongoing relative to the Young Offenders Act, and to what extent these discussions may lead to changes in a) the act and b) the way in which we are handling young offenders who get in trouble with the law.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend, Mr. Chairman, has raised a vast topic and I will try to make a fairly brief response. I think he would acknowledge it is a very wide area and very much in the public discussion.

The ministerial responsibility in this Province rests specifically with my colleague, the Minister of Social Services, because the Young Offenders Act is administered through him. The police have a role in it and the courts have a role. For example, the institution at Whitbourne is not operated by Mr. McNutt and my officials but by officials who answer to my colleague. With that said, let me go on, because I'm very much involved in discussions.

The Ministers of Justice met in Ottawa late in March - Mr. Rock and eight or nine of us from across the country. One or two had to send deputies. This was one of the areas that we did spend a lot of time on, probably more than we spent on any other single topic during a very full two days of meetings. There is no consensus at this stage as to what should be done. It is federal legislation. The federal Parliament under its criminal law power makes (inaudible). There is no consensus. Mr. Rock, the present minister in Ottawa, has made it an initiative that he intends to move on. It is in the famous Red Book. I understand there will be some procedural changes introduced into the House of Commons by the government - they have said this publicly several times - before the end of June, before the summer recess, and they look to substantive changes being brought forward in the Fall.

I'm not sure whether we will see substantive changes that quickly if Ottawa, the Government of Canada, decides that they want a consensus. There really is no consensus. Issues such as transfer - you know, at what stage is a young person to be transferred, or can a young person can be transferred to an adult court? the types of penalties and the types of sanctions, information about release, and so forth. I have not taken a particularly firm position because I don't have a lot of knowledge on which to base them, but I can say to the committee, Mr. Chairman, and to my friend, that these are extremely contentious issues. Having sat through a very long discussion in Ottawa - my friend, Mr. Cummings was there with me as the official accompanying me. I think it is fair to say there was no consensus that we heard around the - wide views among the provinces.

Of course, why the provinces - this is like so much in the Canadian justice system. Ottawa makes the rules; the provinces have to administer them. I can get into specific areas if my friend wants but he will acknowledge it is a very long and complicated area.

MR. HODDER: As it affects the educational system - and we all know the frustrations it causes when you ask a twelve-year old if he knows about something that happened within the school and he looks at you and tells you that he doesn't have the answer. In one instance, I had a thirteen-year old advise me that I should consult his lawyer.

MR. ROBERTS: With any luck, we were paying for the lawyer under the Legal Aid scheme.

MR. HODDER: You probably were. What I'm trying to zero in on, however, is, within the educational system there is tremendous frustration, particularly as it applies to the administration of the Young Offenders Act, when you have teenagers of whom, in some cases, part of their sentence is that they are required to go to school. So you end up with a situation where you have young people who are very much dysfunctional in terms of behaviour and you have the court system that would say to the family: We are sentencing you to go to school on a regular basis. This results in people being sent back to school who within their social group become heroes and it completely frustrates the school system - the disruptive behaviour in the classrooms. It is a very long, involved thing.

I know there are discussions between ministries, to do with the education department, to try to resolve some of those differences. I ask the minister to comment on his awareness of the difficulties. Are steps being taken to try to make meaningful the programs that are in place to give counselling and support to the school system?

MR. ROBERTS: The short answer is yes, and then one must go on to say that, as always, resources are a governing and constraining factor. Let's not leave it there, let me just go on for a minutes.

The committee would acknowledge that children have rights, too.

MR. HODDER: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: There is nothing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that says these apply only to people of a given age. Every person in Canada has rights so the legal systems have to respect those and if we don't in our legal systems the courts will make us, and properly so.

I acknowledge the frustration that the hon. gentleman voices, and others have voiced it as eloquently. It is becoming a growing problem. One of the things that I heard at the meetings in Ottawa, to which I referred, was that if our problems are one on a scale of one to ten, particularly Ontario and Quebec with the larger urban centres, have eight or nine. I had a conversation with one of the Ontario delegates about the problems of the Jane Finch Corridor, where I gather it is not unusual for children to come to school carrying weapons. We are not yet in that state, but the problem above all is nobody seems to have any answers or at least there are no certain answers in this as in so many other areas.

One could acknowledge that children of twelve are as capable of carrying out a heinous crime as people of eighteen. One can acknowledge the system doesn't have a great record in helping people who don't want to be helped. It is a fact that we built a very elaborate institute in Whitbourne which was designed to take care of the needs for a number of years, but the last I heard it is filled to capacity, it is bursting to capacity, and they are still using the old buildings as well. The number of children committed to closed custody has gone up dramatically, well beyond any predictions.

I can only say to my hon. friend, and I do not want to use the time of the committee, the scarce time, but his problem is a real one, I acknowledge that, and one that we all have to address because nobody at this stage has any answers, but it is very much on the agenda.

MR. HODDER: Have there been discussions about urban -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has elapsed. Do you have another question?

MR. HODDER: One final question.

In terms of corrections there is some good work being done. Part of the problem, I say to the minister, is that we tend focus a lot at the end of the school system rather than earlier identification and targeting children as young as seven and eight in Grade 2 and 3, so that any educator can identify those at risk by the end of Grade 2 with an 80 per cent relationship, yet we wait until they fall out of school, get in trouble with the law, and then we try to correct them.

MR. ROBERTS: I think my hon. friend makes a very valid point. I tell him that is an argument or a concern that is often voiced. I am told, for example, just to reinforce the point, that 70 per cent of our adult offenders have less than Grade 10 which would be a pretty striking statistic of the value of educating people, just as an example.

I can go further. The argument of early intervention is one we hear all the time. Social Services and the Daybreak was a classic example of that, where government went off the rails and came back. The problem always is money. You have to deal with the emergencies and sometimes because of that you never get to deal with the real needs that lead to more emergencies being caused. And that is true not only in the justice system but in social services, and I suspect in the educational system as well. If we could put more money into pre-childhood or into counselling at certain levels we would see results down the way, but in the meantime we still have to deal with the problem down the way.

Of course, on the other hand, there are rising, consistent, and constant demands for more punishment. There is a school of thought that says the answer to any problem is to put people in jail or punish them more heavily, and it is not a matter of catering to it, it is a matter of trying as always to find the balance between what's right and what's wrong. But my answer to my hon. friend's question is, yes, that the types of concerns he is expressing are ones that I hear in the discussions to which I am party.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: I have a couple of more questions about the support enforcement effort. Earlier, when the minister was responding to questions put by one of the committee members about collection of fines, there was mention of the integration of motor vehicle registration, both vehicle registration and driver's licence issuance, with the fines collection system and I am wondering if any thought has been given to linking support enforcement with motor vehicle registration in such a way that people in default of court orders for support will not be able to get their driver's licences renewed or their vehicles registered unless they clear up the support arrears?

MR. ROBERTS: The answer is no and I think it is a good idea. Mr. Cummings, who is here and who has direct operation responsibility, I will ask him if he will look into it; I have never heard that before, it's intriguing. We are - and the hon. member would be aware of this - we are expanding the reach constantly, we intercept government payments I think, routinely now. We had a problem with NCARP and the hon. lady helped in the efforts to resolve it. It took a year to persuade the bureaucracy in Ottawa, not a lack of good will but it took a year; NCARP payments which were going out to 20,000 or 25,000 people were not on the list from which interceptions could be made. It simply took an Order in Council to add to the list and it took a year and the hon. lady made interventions I know, with her - at that time the government in Ottawa were of her political stripe, and she made interventions and I made interventions and others did and it took a year to get it to the point. So, my answer to the question is no, but we will have a look at that.

MS. VERGE: Speaking of NCARP, will TAGS automatically be subject to garnishment for support orders?

MR. ROBERTS: Another good question. I can't answer that. At this time the people in Ottawa are of my political stripe and I will ask Mr. Cummings to put it on the list to see - do we know the answer, is TAGS on the list?

MR. CUMMINGS: As far as I understand (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, but we will find out. The answers I don't know but let's address this early and I thank the hon. lady.

MS. VERGE: There is another related federal irritant which is an archaic provision of the Canada Shipping Act which gives seamen - and that's defined in the act - immunity from garnishment for any type of a court order whether it is child support or any other court order. This has been on the books forever and when it came to my attention two or three years ago and I talked to officials in the Federal Government in a couple of departments, I was basically told that they know its archaic and they know it should be changed and it probably couldn't withstand a court challenge but, you sort of know that they will never get around to it unless they are pushed. Is anyone pushing?

MR. ROBERTS: I have not been, because until now I was unaware of it.

MS. VERGE: The people who have the Support Enforcement Agency are aware of it and they have dealt with it at their national meetings involving federal Justice.

MR. ROBERTS: I don't doubt that but they haven't told me.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I am told Mr. Cummings can answer that.

MR. CUMMINGS: That's right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you please identify yourself.

MR. CUMMINGS: The agency is aware of it and they have looked into the cases they deal with to see how much of a problem it is. They tell me, in fact, that it is very rare for that to be an issue but I think we will be approaching the Federal Government to try to get something done about just the same, because it has popped up in a very few isolated cases.

MS. VERGE: Now, I have been called by one judgment creditor in particular who said that her ex-husband was bragging that because he worked with Marine Atlantic as a "seaman", you know, she would never get her money, forget it.

MR. CUMMINGS: There have been a few cases, but there aren't very many of them.

MS. VERGE: Okay. I would think we would have more than the inland provinces. It's a small point, but it's irritating.

MR. ROBERTS: There are very few seamen left in this Province, unfortunately, very few - probably more in Ontario with the Great Lakes shipping operation.

MS. VERGE: That could be, too.

Unified Family Court. Those of us who live in or represent districts beyond the radius served by the existing St. John's Unified Family Court keep wishing for comparable services in our areas. Is there any discussion now about extending Unified Family Court-type services, either by pooling courts or by offering family counselling attached to the courts, in other areas of the Province?

MR. ROBERTS: If there is, I am not aware of it. That's the answer I would have to make. I am pausing because I am trying to recollect. I recently saw a paper - recently being within the last year - not with respect to Newfoundland and Labrador, but people were rethinking the whole concept of Unified Family Courts as to whether, given the ten or fifteen - how long have we had this, `Lynn', fifteen years here now?

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Longer?

MS. VERGE: Nineteen sixty-nine.

MR. ROBERTS: Well, 1969 so the -

MS. VERGE: No, 1979.

MR. ROBERTS: Nineteen seventy-nine. Anyway, whatever we have had, roughly -

MS. VERGE: It was the late seventies.

MR. ROBERTS: Roughly fifteen years.

Whether we can now come to a judgement, this is more than simply extending. It's really a matter of changing the jurisdictions of the courts and giving - we have this distinction growing out of the Constitution Act, as the member knows, certain laws federal and certain jurisdictions federal and certain laws provincial, but my answer to her question would have to be that there has been no discussion of which I am aware. There is beginning to be some discussion in Canada as a whole as to whether we should end the Unified Family Court concept, but replace it with a court; in other words, make the Supreme Court a Unified Family Court, if you follow the Irish in that one, as opposed to having separate family courts, but that is very preliminary.

MS. VERGE: The bigger question in my mind is not court jurisdiction, but is family counselling service.

MR. ROBERTS: And support services.

MS. VERGE: Support services.

MR. ROBERTS: And that comes right back up against the question of money.

MS. VERGE: And mediation services.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. That comes back against money, and also we are beginning to hear talk of alternate dispute resolution. Are there better ways to deal with these things than fighting them out in court?

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: The judges tell me, to a man and a woman, that the least productive time any judge spends is dealing with family support issues. It takes endless time.

My deputy practised in that when she was in active practice, and she may or may not have a view on it, but my wife spent a lot of time in court as well and she would confirm that the judicial process really isn't the way to address a lot of these support and maintenance issues.

MS. VERGE: I would agree with that.

MR. ROBERTS: But the law moves slowly, as my hon. friend will acknowledge - my hon. and learned friend would acknowledge.

MS. VERGE: Okay, well, since I've been called `learned', maybe I'll stop there.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. member has been called worse, I have no doubt.

MR. CHAIRMAN: What a fine way to end, and as no one else has indicated that they wish to have any questions for the minister at this time I will now ask the Clerk if she would call the heads. I would say call them from 1.01.01.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, may I thank you and your colleagues not only for asking the House to vote the money to pay our salaries and authorize the operations we carry on in my department, but for a very stimulating discussion that has gone over a broad range of subjects and I think gotten into them in a substantive way. I enjoy the process, and look forward to another year. It is not the way that wins the electorate but it is the political win that brings me back here in due course. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. On behalf of the committee I would like to thank you and your officials for coming.

The committee adjourned.