The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

MADAM CHAIR (Ms Jones): Order, please!

The first order of business will be to elect the Vice-Chair for the Committee. I will now call for nominations for the position of Vice-Chair.

On motion of Ms Hodder, seconded by Mr. Hedderson, Mr. Manning was elected Vice-Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: First of all this morning, we will start of by having the Committee members introduce themselves by name and district, and then we will ask the minister to introduce her officials.

MR. BUTLER: Roland Butler, MHA for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. MERCER: Bob Mercer, MHA for the District of Humber East.

MS M. HODDER: Mary Hodder, MHA for the District of Burin-Placentia West.

MR. MANNING: Fabian Manning, MHA for the District of Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. HEDDERSON: Tom Hedderson, MHA for the District of Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much.

We will now ask the minister to introduce her officials.

MR. HEDDERSON: (Inaudible) at 10:30 a.m, so I will be skipping out around 10:15 a.m. Hopefully, I will be back around 11:00 a.m.

MADAM CHAIR: Hopefully, with the co-operation of the Committee, we will be able to conclude our business in due course and you won't have to (inaudible).

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, I will have to attend to myself. I will have to check.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much.

I will now ask the minister to introduce herself and her officials, after which time, Minister, you will have fifteen minutes to introduce the Estimates from your department, and the critic on this side will have ten minutes to speak to your response, and then we will call the subheads for discussion.

I would like to ask everyone to identify themselves whenever they speak, for the record of Hansard. Minister Kelly, whenever you are ready.

MS KELLY: Thank you very much.

My name is Sandra Kelly and I am the Minister of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education and also the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women and the MHA for Gander District. The officials with me this morning, starting on my far right, would be: Catherine Gogan, the Assistant Deputy Minister in Planning and International Education; Carol Ruby, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Youth Services and Career Development; my Deputy Minister, Bruce Hollett. To my near left is Bob Young, in Finance and Administration, and, I think, to join us, or who is already here maybe and just had to step out for a moment, is Jack Thompson, who is the Director of Finance.

My comments this year, I think, I will keep a little more brief than I did last year. The department was brand new last year and I felt like I had to cover every single detail. So, I think I will just do a brief overview of some of the things that we have done in this past year. In looking back, I think we have accomplished a lot and certainly were able to bring forward the major initiatives that we intended to.

The department was established about fourteen months ago. One of our main priorities was to establish the Youth Advisory Committee, and that has been done. They have met three times and, I have to say, provided extremely valuable counsel both to me and to the department on issues that are important to the youth of our Province.

The Committee, we did as we intended. We had a public call for young people to express their interest. Then we took all of the applications and we have a Youth Advisory Committee that is very representative of the youth of this Province with Aboriginal representation, gender equality and regional representation.

We have young people from age fourteen or fifteen up to twenty-seven, I believe: some who are in high school, in post-secondary, either at university, the College of the North Atlantic or a private college; some who are finished and some who are out into the workforce. We have a young woman who is very involved as a shop steward in her workplace. I think we have a very good balance of young people to give advice to our department, and they are certainly doing that.

We have established the Youth Investment and Opportunity Corporation in this past year. It really has generated significant work experience and education funding for students through some programs that were already very well-established, like SWASP. We have put some new programs in that are very similar to SWASP, but very targeted. We have been doing some work in particular in areas like year-round SWASP so that students who are not at university or post-secondary in the wintertime but are there in the summertime, we are able to help a bit. Just in this last week or so we have, with the Department of Health, announced a program for fifteen social work students in their fourth year at university, to be able to give them work experience in rural areas, and we did that just about a month ago, I believe it was, for helping students get jobs in high schools to help students who need help preparing for their public exams. We felt that would be a good area to help students get experience, if they are intending to go into the education field, and would be very helpful to our high school students.

I think most of you would know a lot about our community youth networks that are around the Province and they are working very, very well. I spent a lot of time this year visiting them and opening some of the new sites, or their new facilities, as they are up and running. I have to say, they are very, very successful. The Social Policy Committee has also visited a few of them as we have been going about the Province.

I think the major program that we have recently announced, the major work we have been working on in the past few weeks and months, has been the reforms to our Student Aid Program. I think the main focus of this revolves around the sharing of responsibility for reducing student debt amongst governments, students and institutions.

I have to say, I think the changes were very well-received by students and I think that was because students were so involved in the decision-making process. It involved debt reduction grants for students upon graduation; incentives for timely completion, which is very important, because we have too many students who are running up much more debt than they should because they are in school longer than they should be.

We have certainly put in place, I think, provisions for extenuating circumstances to make sure that any of the new incentives for timely completion did not impede students who had extenuating circumstances, like disabled students and single parents and students with special medical circumstances. We put in enhanced interest relief to match the federal program because, before there were two programs and it was very confusing. We also allow students now to retain more of their study period income. We used to demand 80 per cent to be accounted for and now it is only 50 per cent and students are pleased about that.

We increased the accountability for students to say that a full-time course load was not going to be 60 per cent, it would be 80 per cent, which means, instead of three courses a term, students would have to do four courses a term at least, and hopefully five. Unless, as I pointed out, there were extenuating circumstances, that would be the expectation.

Enhanced communication with students. We intend to do a much better job so that students will understand the system. We will be going into high schools and doing a lot more work and publicity around our new program. We also felt that we needed to put enhanced career and financial counselling in place. We will be doing that from two perspectives, in training guidance counsellors and others in what the new program is all about so they can better counsel students in high schools. We will also be adding staff in our Student Financial Services Division so that while students are a part of the system they can receive better counselling. So that is the main pieces of the Student Aid Program.

In this year's budget, I think most of you would realize that we made some very significant investments in post-secondary education. We provided another - actually, it was $3.5 million for a further 10 per cent tuition reduction for Memorial students. We will be having a Round Table with the students at the university in the upcoming weeks to decide - because last year a comment or two was made around: Was tuition reduction the best route to go? Many feel that it is but we want to make sure that the university and the students are able to discuss whether that is the best route to go.

MUN Medical School tuition continues to be frozen, as does the College of the North Atlantic tuition and Marine Institute. Memorial's tuition rates are now the lowest in Atlantic Canada and almost the lowest in the country. The College of the North Atlantic tuition rates are also amongst the lowest in the country. I think though we need to point out, because many times when you talk about being the lowest financially, many people take that to mean that there is a difference in the quality. I want to assure everyone in this Province and in this room that the quality of our public institutions is amongst the highest in the country. There is no doubt about that. I think this year we have seen our college receive the largest ever awarded international education contract in the history of this country in Qatar, to build an institution in Qatar. Certainly, indicators like that I think verify the statements that I have just made.

Also in this year's budget, Memorial's Operating Grant includes an extra $1 million for high priority capital projects. We know that we would like that to be higher. They certainly have higher needs both at the College of the North Atlantic and at Memorial, but with the fiscal situation this was the most that we could provide for very high priority capital projects.

This budget also continued to fulfill an obligation that we had to provide a further $3 million for the Opportunity Fund. Again, this year we were able to carve out an extra $500,000 for the Canada Foundation for Innovation projects. This was outlined to us last year as we put the new department in place. Both the university and the College of the North Atlantic outlined to us that in many instances they are able to avail of research grants when they have some matching funds. In the past, they tell us, they had not been able to lever these funds because they did not have the ability to put their share in. So last year, by putting in $500,000 the university was able to lever an additional $1.2 million through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Our hope is that both the College of the North Atlantic and Memorial will avail of this $500,000 in the upcoming year to lever a higher level of funds.

Madam Chair, those are most of the comments I would like to make. I certainly am open for questions.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much, Minister.

Maybe I will ask the Clerk to call the first subheads before we entertain comments from the committee.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would just like to welcome the minister, her staff and the members of the committee here this morning. Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education is certainly an important department to many people in the Province, and most importantly our students. I certainly welcome the opportunity this morning to ask some questions but before I get into some of the different parts of the department, I would just like to run through some of the costs and the budget figures and revised figures first just to open up some discussion on those.

In the Minister's Office we had a budgeted amount last year of $50,000 for Transportation and Communications. The revised was $65,000 with an estimate this year of $46,000. Could the minister just explain why the increase of $15,000 there?

MS KELLY: Well, partly the reason for the decrease would be the fact of the 8 per cent decrease that all of us have been asked to accommodate in our budget. Last year also, it is certainly correct I think that we had extra travel expenses in that the committees that I am a part of were travelling more, especially social policy which would be accommodated there. I think all of those have been done except for one to Western Newfoundland which will come out of this year's budget. But last year, because I needed to be visiting the college sites, the university sites, and the community youth network sites - and also accommodated in that was some travel on behalf of the women's policy office because of the fact there isn't a travel budget accommodated for me there. So what I tried to do was always, when I was travelling, do it on behalf of both Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education; and the women's policy office as I got out to visit all of the women's centres in the Province. I think I was in every one of them last year, so that expectation will not be there this year. I anticipate and hope that I will be able to accommodate my travel within the budget that is outlined.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, minister.

Is there anybody at the Minister's Office level, I guess, or within the department, on contract with your department for consulting services?

MS KELLY: Not on a contract, no. I think from my memory of last year, and there may have been others down through the department, but two that I would know of would be a contract at the very beginning of the department when we were putting together materials and a backdrop, I guess, for attending career fairs in that there was a contract awarded for development of that, and recently a contract to help us unroll the new student aid package. I guess it mostly revolves around this here as the work that was done in this past year. Those are the two major ones that I would know of. Mr. Hollett, are there any others?

MR. HOLLETT: There are a couple of other contracts that we did let last year to engage people to examine specific policy questions that we had, that we did not necessarily have the expertise within the department. For example, we hired somebody around looking at whether or not we could or we should consider having more applied degrees in the public college system. Those would generally be small contracts. We also would have hired a couple of people to facilitate planning sessions for us, planning days for the department, that sort of thing.

MR. MANNING: On this particular one, Minister, can you tell me how much it costs to have this consultant hired for this?

MS KELLY: I think the whole contract was around $48,000, if I remember correctly. That includes the television ads, the radio ads, the development of the print material and also, I guess, the backdrop that would go with this program too, because we will be taking this out to the high schools and to guidance counsellor meetings and that sort of thing.

MR. MANNING: That would be all included in the $48,000?

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. MANNING: What company was that?

MS KELLY: Of the two I just described, one was M-5 and one was Total. I think the first one was M-5 and this recent one was Total. I think they may be called Total Communications. I am not sure of the exact name of the company.

MR. MANNING: Are we going to go, just for clarification, Madam Chair, subhead by subhead? Because I may finish up on subhead 1.1.01., while somebody else may have a question on that, before I move on to something else.

MADAM CHAIR: We can discuss all the subheads under the first head that has been called.

MR. MANNING: Okay, I just wanted to be clear on that.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. MANNING: Can I defer to - well, I will just finish up my ten minutes. I guess that is the best thing to do, because somebody else may have something.

MADAM CHAIR: For the record, I would also like to welcome the Member for Trinity North, Mr. Ross Wiseman, who has just joined us.

I understand that we will now move to the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne, Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to the Minister's Office, Salaries, in this one right here it says, $216,000 in salaries. We have recorded, well, budgeted, $249,000 and change, and now it is $245,000. There must have been other positions. I assume they were temporary or whatever. What other positions are in the Minister's Office that would account for the difference between $216,000 and $249,000?

MS KELLY: Well, through this year, actually, my staff has stayed exactly the same. The only thing that may have changed was, we had a changeover in communications staff. So, I would assume that it would be the difference in the salary position in that area. Other than that, my executive assistant - and there was also a change in my political assistant. Any of those changes, I think, would be in that area.

Is there anything else here that is different, Mr. Hollett?

MR. HOLLETT: The Budget was restated, actually. What happened at the beginning of the year, last year, where we had created a new department, some of the positions that eventually ended up in the department early in the year were not there when the Estimates were done last year because we had created the department immediately before. The difference in the amount that was shown in the Budget for the Minister's Office last year versus what is shown here now restated was the transfer of a secretarial unit from Industry, Trade and Rural Development, the old Department of ITT, to work with the communications director in the new department. So, the initial Estimates did not include a secretary for the Director of Communications.

MR. HEDDERSON: So that would account for the $26,000? That is the difference?

MR. HOLLETT: That is the difference, right.

MR. HEDDERSON: So, he or she would be with regard to communications.

MR. HOLLETT: She is the secretary to the communications director.

MR. HEDDERSON: She is still in that position -

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, she is.

MR. HEDDERSON: - and will be for the coming year?

MR. HOLLETT: And she was the secretary to the Director of Communications in the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology prior to that.

MR. HEDDERSON: So it was a transfer, more or less.

MR. HOLLETT: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: Ross, do you have anything?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: No, not on that category.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, Minister, under Executive Support, we have an increase of almost $20,000 in .03 Transportation and Communications. Again, I would just like to ask you to explain that. I listened to your answer in the Minister's Office. I guess, when you travel, your people travel with you, but it went from $77,700 to $96,700. Could you explain that for me, please?

MS KELLY: Well, I think most of that would be the increased travel activity that I have already outlined, getting out around the Province; because, I think, being a new department and bringing everything in and not being exactly sure what we were going to be responsible for, as we became responsible, of course, for all the community youth networks and for visiting all of the campuses of the College of the North Atlantic and Memorial University, and out meeting, putting together a Youth Advisory Committee - because I have tried, as they are meeting, and my staff, too, to get out to at least part of their meeting. So, it is just due to increased travel activity being higher than we expected it to be.

MR. MANNING: In 06., Purchased Services, with a budget of $27,900, revised to $9,400, there was a considerable drop, a good deal somewhere, so I would just like to know why there is a considerable drop in that.

MS KELLY: Well, it was mostly due to a lower volume of printing, I understand, than what we expected we would need. I do not think it is down, actually, that significantly. I think we have used most of it. I am not sure if there is any other reason that you can -

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MS KELLY: Okay. Are there any other...?

MR. HOLLETT: No, it is essentially printing. Printing of certain documents last year was not done, but typically is done in a year, and we have provided for it in the Budget again this year. It was just less printing.

MR. MANNING: So, the printing was not needed in the last fiscal year?

MR. HOLLETT: There was not as much printing of documents and materials as had been provided for in the Budget. It is a category that has been, I understand, in previous years, up and down, and that was the allocation. We did not require it all, so when we had to try and restrain money in the course of the year that was one of the areas we just said, well, we will hold the line on that one.

MR. MANNING: Under subhead 2.1.01., Youth Services, the budget for Salaries was $420,500, which went up by a little over $50,000. It is revised back down this year almost $30,000. Could you give some elaboration on that, please?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hollett.

MR. HOLLETT: Again, this was some moving around of positions from one department to another on the establishment of the new department. When the Youth Employment Programs came from the Department of Human Resources and Employment to the new department, initially, at budget time, there was not a person associated with that. Early in the new fiscal year we had an individual whose position was transferred from Human Resources and Employment to Youth Services. So that is part of the reason it went up.

As well, we have had some adjustments in Salaries of people going from the Youth Services vote and being moved over to the LMDA Secretariat in the department. Again, it all relates to the structuring of the new department and moving the positions into the department from one division to another. That happened in about four or five instances in the department's estimates related to the creation of a new department.

MR. MANNING: Okay, so that is why we have a revised estimate this year of $393,900 because some of these positions have moved to another part of the department.

MR. HOLLETT: Well, have moved from the Youth Services section of the department to the LMDA Secretariat.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

Also, under Youth Services, .09, Allowances and Assistance, there is a considerable drop in the budgeted amount from $495,000 to $345,000. Could you, once again, elaborate on that somewhat?

MS KELLY: Oh yes, Allowances and Assistance.

It is mostly doing with tuition vouchers, I understand, and that would be the program that we have Tutoring for Tuition in high schools, which has been an extremely successful program.

MR. MANNING: Okay, we have a budget of $495,000, is it that people are not - I understand the program also and there is a considerable drop. Is it that there are not enough people taking part because my understanding is that there are?

MR. HOLLETT: There are indeed more people taking part, Mr. Manning. What happens is that once we issue the tuition voucher it does not actually record as an expenditure then. They are only recorded as expenditures when people cash them in and bring them to an institution. We know how much is outstanding and while we provide a budget estimate, it is really an estimate of how much is going to get turned in during the course of the year. This $345,000 is actually how much is turned in to institutions during the course of the year.

MR. MANNING: Why wouldn't they be turned in? For what reasons? People did not go to post-secondary or -

MR. HOLLETT: There could be a number of reasons. People may have, for example, not gone on to post-secondary education, but more likely they may have received scholarships or other forms of funding so that they (inaudible) this year, and they may require them in the future. They do not stale-date really. We will reissue them and honour them at a later date if people do not use them for a year, two years, three years, four years.

MR. MANNING: So they can be carried over into another year?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes. The voucher stays with the student and they can use it when they need it. So if they do not need it until their third or fourth year sometimes, that is indeed what happens.

MR. MANNING: So in reality you could have a budget of $495,000 this year which could come in a little larger if people cashed in, but at the same time it is brought over from last year.

MR. HOLLETT: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS KELLY: I think there are also instances where they have not completed high school. They get them for several years in a row. So you could have someone in -

WITNESS: Level II students.

MS KELLY: Yes, Level II students doing this. Then they are still in high school and in some instances accumulating more in their last year also. That will help them out as they go through. So that instance also would cause them not to put their tuition vouchers in.

MR. HOLLETT: Actually, this is an estimate of how much would be cashed, not how much we will issue. I guess that is the best way to look at it.

MR. MANNING: Yes, okay. It is a considerable amount. I just wanted clarification.

Do you have anything on this particular one here?

WITNESS: I was going to go back to the executives.

MR. MANNING: Okay, I will just defer.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Bruce, just to clarify a point you just made. The $495,000 for 2002-2003, is an estimate of what you anticipate to be redeemed and not an estimate of what you anticipate giving out. Can you break that down for us and tell us how much of that $495,000 would be new vouchers given and how much of that $495,000 would be vouchers that you think are out there in circulation to be redeemed from previous years? Do you have a sense of what that might be?

MR. HOLLETT: I do not have those figures with me but I know that they are available in the department because I have asked that same question myself. So we can get that information for you if you wish.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Could you do that? In the meantime, I would appreciate knowing the figure, but do you have some sense of - because when I look at $495,000 from last year and you actually cashed or redeemed $345,000, that is just a significant drop. It tells you that there are a fair number of vouchers out there that do not get redeemed very quickly. So that would suggest, or at least I think it might suggest, that there are a fair number of vouchers out there in circulation that are not yet redeemed from last year and maybe the year before that. If we are investing new money, then how much of this is a new investment versus what is already out there in circulation? Do you have some sense of what the ratio might be?

MR. HOLLETT: I believe probably around 50 per cent to 60 per cent is redeemed within the first two years. That is my understanding.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just look at the Youth Services, 2.1.01. There is a National Child Benefit Program mentioned in there. Basically, just looking at the breakdown, with the National Child Benefit, I think, you are making a commitment that you are investing $1.8 million. Is that provincial money, federal money? Where does that show up on the allowances, grants or whatever?

MS KELLY: The National Child Benefit, I understand through my department, is mostly for the Community Youth Services Network. The details of it - Mr. Hollett, I guess, or Mr. Young or Mr. Thompson could give you the details of it. I have not analyzed that myself.

MR. HOLLETT: That program was transferred to us from the Department of Health but I believe - I need to check exactly on this - the $1.8 million there was a commitment that the Province made as part of the National Child Benefit Program, and the federal government made other investments as well. This piece of it, the Community Youth Network, is a piece of the entire National Child Benefit which the Province has committed to.

MR. HEDDERSON: I am just seeing what piece it is. So the Province, you are saying, is putting in $1.8 million. Has that been matched or what is the deal or the details?

MS KELLY: My memory of it is the National Child Benefit is federal dollars.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay. And we put in $1.8 million of our own funds?

MS KELLY: No, the Community Youth Network is funded through the National Child Benefit which is federal dollars.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so that $1.8 million is federal dollars?

MS KELLY: Yes, that would be my understanding but we will certainly make sure that we check back, but my memory of when we signed the National Child Benefit, that it is the same right across the country.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to that $1.8 million, that funds the community based organizations. I understand that something like nine projects, if I am not mistaken, in Labrador, the Grenfell region, western, central, eastern and St. Johns's, right?

MS KELLY: Yes, it does not fund youth programs outside of the Community Youth Network. As you know, we have hundreds and hundreds of youth programs that are funded by the provincial government under another subheading but under the Community Youth Network, it is all that that particular funding is for.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so it is allocated. Nine projects is what I see for $1.8 million. Is there just simply a division, nine into $1.8 million, or is it according to the needs? With regard to those projects, how do they break down?

MS KELLY: It is funded differently in each, of course, according to the budgets that are put in, where they are located, because obviously there are different rentals for facilities in different communities. The salary levels would be the same, but different youth networks run different programs. Also, under the fact that there are nine, some of them have more satellites than others. If I remember correctly, on the South Coast of Labrador there are three satellites from the main Community Youth Network facility. In Central Newfoundland, I believe there are two. No, maybe three, actually. I should remember from visiting them all. It just depends. There are more satellites in some areas than in others.

MR. HEDDERSON: The decision for funding would come from your department, or is it in consultation with, you know, federal agencies, other provincial agencies or other departments? Who oversees that? I know it is your department, but is it an advisory panel? Who does the allocation of the funding?

MS KELLY: There was an in-depth study done as the program was put in place provincially. The Community Youth Networks were put in areas with the highest need, with the highest percentage of youth at risk, or youth unemployed, who needed these services. Actually, we would like to have a lot more of them and we have certainly had a very high number of requests for them, especially since the success has been demonstrated throughout the Province, but, with the funding that is available, this is as far as we were able to bring it.

The initial decisions were not made by the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education. They were made by Health and Community Services, where the program originated before this department was put in place.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to those nine projects, is there any way that we could get an idea of what the funding was for each of them? Is there a printout?

MS KELLY: That certainly shouldn't be a problem. They all have budgets identified. Some of them, it would appear, when looking at the Budget, have much less funding than others, but that is only because some are more up and running than others are. I think in this upcoming year, actually, you will see the true budget picture because all of them now, I think, are at the stage of having their facilities rented, their staff hired and their programs up and operating. Some of them, for part of last year, only operated on a full scale for half the year.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so in the budget item, then, that would be under Grants and Subsidies, that one point. I assume that was what was given last year. I assume it is the same this year. Would that be correct?

MS KELLY: Yes, that -

MR. HEDDERSON: That is a steady amount.

MS KELLY: Yes, that is correct.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the Youth Services, as well, again the salary units, I am just referring to this book right here. Under Youth Services, we have total activity in outlining the employees in that particular section as $102,000. I see here under Youth Services last year, $420,500 in salaries boosted to $470,400 and cut back now to $393,900. Now, I think you have already explained why there is a cutback. Again, I wonder why this book just records $102,000 whereas, wow, you know, $420,000. Again, I will leave it up to the minister to -

MS KELLY: I would assume that some of that is because we were at the start of putting a new department in place and many, last year, of the salary units were resting in other departments and would have been transferred over during the year. If you have any further comments, I assume that would be the reason. If there are other reasons for the differences in those two figures, I am sure the officials could point it out.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, we could get a printout of the difference of $102,000 and the $420,000, as to who has been hired and what positions and that sort of thing? That could be provided to us?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, we can indeed provide that. The main difference there would be that the Salary Details book presents funded, permanent provincial government positions. To the extent that we have temporary employees and positions that are funded, for example, through federal-provincial agreements, they would not show up in the Salary Details book, but within the Estimates that would be a true and full reflection of exactly how much you spent in salaries in that particular section. For example, we get funding for the Community Youth Networks from the federal government. That would also cover the salary of the Community Youth Networks co-ordinator that we have in the department. That is the way that works.

MR. HEDDERSON: We did mention the Tutoring for Tuition Program. Has that been extended down to Level I's as well? I know Level II's and Level III's are usually part of it. Is that being pushed back to Level I as well? I am just curious.

MS KELLY: My understanding would be, with the funding that is allocated and is done by school boards, that it would go to Level III and then to Level II. It would only be in instances where the funding would be there. I think that would be very rare, that you wouldn't find Level III and Level II students availing of it to the degree that there would be significant amounts left for Level I. So, while I think it is possible, it does not happen very much.

MR. HEDDERSON: With the Tutoring for Tuition Program, I know one of the problems experienced when I was involved with it was getting volunteers with regard to teachers, and setting up and that sort of thing. Is all the money for tutoring just going into the vouchers or is there some support with regard to, you know, making arrangements to train teachers, to train students, and that sort of thing? Is it all just for delivery of it, the vouchers, and has anything changed in the program? Because before it was simply put in the laps of the teachers and they were asked to co-ordinate it, but I found that it did not always work out and some of the teachers did not have the skills to pass on to the tutors to pass on to whatever. So, is all the money dedicated for it or is there training or administrative and that sort of thing? What is the breakdown of that?

MS KELLY: No, all of it goes for tuition and, actually, we would like to be able to put more in there. This is the first, actually, that I have heard that there might be a need to do otherwise, and I have been very involved with the program this year. It may be that the difficulties you are outlining may have just been at the start of the program until people were used to it. I will certainly be checking now to see if there are any expressions of concern coming from our school boards or our teachers, but, from my perspective, teachers and school boards and administrators have been glowing in their comments about the program as I have been out about the Province. So, all of the funds go into helping students save money for their post-secondary education.

MR. HEDDERSON: I just bring it up, Minister, simply because I was involved in one of the first of those. Those were some of the problems that were arising. It is getting increasingly difficult to get the commitment of even teachers after school hours, due to different reasons that we will not go into right now. Again, I just thought I would bring that to your attention because I think it is something that has to be looked at because it is an excellent program and I certainly would like to see every bit of the money go towards the tuition vouchers. To make sure that the program continues, perhaps that might be some consideration for you here as well.

MS KELLY: Could I make a further comment on that? I would assume that the increase in the teacher education or the teacher in-service budget that has been done over the last few years certainly might have been able to accommodate that. That would be done under a different budget heading in the Department of Education, but this budget is purely in place to assist students through the Tutoring for Tuition Program.

MR. HEDDERSON: Minister, any chance you get, put a plug in for those teacher volunteers who are running the program, because they are really doing stellar work out there, staying behind after and being present and taking their dinner hours and lunch and recess minutes to basically take care of the program.

MS KELLY: There is no doubt that teachers have been extremely supportive and have actually, when I am out and about, especially to youth leadership things where many of our teachers are helping students on weekends, at many things that I attend, one of the things that they bring forward to me very consistently is both the SWASP program and the Tutoring for Tuition Program. That was one of the reasons we extended some of the Tutoring for Tuition Programs at the university level this year to bring students back who are hoping to go into the education field, because we felt it was so valuable.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the Youth Services as well, we are looking at youth programs. Is that employment programs? What other programs are there? I am looking at Grants and Subsidies of $2.6 million and change, $1.8 million of it which is what we have already discussed. Tutoring for Tuition is there, the National Child Benefit Program that we discussed. What others fall under this category?

MS KELLY: I need to just check here to see, would that also be the area where the funding for our various youth programs come in place, like the Boys and Girls Club, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Encounters with Canada. There are a fair number of programs that we help subsidize throughout the year that would be included under that heading. Most of this funding has been done for some time now, so it is almost a routine one whereby the decisions are made, as I have outlined, for programs that have been identified and very successful in this Province for a number of years: Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Duke of Edinburgh, Boys and Girls Club, the TI Murphy Centre, and programs like that. Most of the other funding would be, as you have said, Tutoring for Tuition and our Community Youth Networks which is done through the National Child Benefit Program.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, Minister. Basically, I am just looking at a whole range of programs here: Tutoring for Tuition, Graduate Recruitment Program, Graduate Employment Program, the JEEPS, Opening Doors. Are they in another heading or are they all under that one heading?

MS KELLY: No.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hollett.

MR. HOLLETT: All of those are in other departments, the (inaudible).

MR. HEDDERSON: On your Web site they were all under the same -

MS KELLY: They would be in the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay.

MS KELLY: Actually, in the list that you just outlined, the Graduate Employment Program would be run through our department. I know that I sign off those applications as students graduate, go out and seek employment and, where they meet the criteria, the places of employment they go to are eligible for a grant of up to $10,000 for the student's first year of employment. It has been one of our very successful programs, actually.

MR. HEDDERSON: I just got this off your Web site, which is Employment Programs, and we have Department Employment Programs and External Employment Programs. Under the department, Opening Doors, you say, you administer but someone else funds?

MS KELLY: Yes, Human Resources and Employment. In some instances they may administer some of them too. We work jointly on them. It depends on, when a student comes forward, what their particular needs are and where they would fit.

MR. HEDDERSON: JEEPS?

MS KELLY: JEEPS would be done through Human Resources and Employment, many times, though, in conjunction with us.

MR. HEDDERSON: The SWASP?

MS KELLY: SWASP is totally done through the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education.

MR. HEDDERSON: The funding as well?

MS KELLY: Funding as well.

MR. HEDDERSON: That is not under this heading.

MS KELLY: No, SWASP would be under the Newfoundland and Labrador Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation that we put in last year.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so that is the next one there. The Tutoring for Tuition Program is under this heading of Youth Services?

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: The Graduate Recruitment Program?

MS KELLY: The Graduate Recruitment Programs is certainly administered by our department. I am not sure if the financing is done through Human Resources and Employment or through ours. I would have to check.

MR. HOLLETT: The Public Service Commission.

MS KELLY: Oh, that one is done through the Public Service Commission, Mr. Hollett tells me.

MR. HEDDERSON: I beg your indulgence because they are all listed off here and I am not sure. I guess the only way to do it is to ask.

MS KELLY: That is correct.

MR. HEDDERSON: The Employment Generation Program?

MS KELLY: That one, I am not sure. That is probably through Human Resources and Employment.

MR. HEDDERSON: The EAPD, the Employability Assistance for Persons with Disabilities?

MS KELLY: That one is done through Human Resources and Employment. Oh, through the Public Service Commission, I am told.

MR. HEDDERSON: Basically, these are listed off on your Web site as opportunities that people can - that you just pass them on to the next department or whatever. These are not what you are responsible for; it is just what is available?

MS KELLY: It is what is available, but in many instances we would work very closely with the students and the departments. We would be, in many instances, the lead department for communicating this to students. What we have been trying to do on our Web site is, even though there are various programs like in every government, all over government, we want to make sure that there is one repository of information for students to be able to go to and find out what programs are available to them and what information they need to access the programs. So it is more or less what we commonly now call one-stop shopping.

MR. HEDDERSON: I was just wondering, because I was not sure if you were administering them or whether you were financing them, both, or -

MS KELLY: A combination of all of it.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, a clearing house in some ways.

MS KELLY: Exactly.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just to get back to Youth Services, and I will leave it at that, the only allowances under heading 09. would be, then, I assume, the Tutoring for Tuition. Everything is dedicated, so the allowance is there. That takes care of that whole section. There is nothing else there.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the Grants and Subsidies, the $1.8 million we referred to before. What is the difference in that? What other programs are covered by that?

MS KELLY: Under that, there would be the TI Murphy Center, which is $276,000 a year. Youth organizations are $558,300 a year, and that would be mostly what I have outlined to you: the Duke of Edinburgh, Boy Scouts, the Boys and Girls Club, that sort of thing. Community Youth Network, as you have said, is $1.8 million, and Allied Youth is $30,000.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, I will leave it at that for that section and I will pick up at the Investment and Opportunity Corporation. Ross, or someone over on that side -

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Just one quick question, Minister, on the Youth Services category. This reflects a conversation you and I had one time last year about the 4-H movement. Just more for my information, did that program get brought under your department after? Because it was under forestry, I believe, or somewhere. Did that ever get grouped under Youth Services?

MS KELLY: No, but we have worked very closely with them. We have not been able to identify funds to the extra salary unit that would be needed to bring it under our department. So the Department of Forestry and Agrifoods have very kindly continued to find the funding for that position, but there wasn't an ability there to be able to transfer it. So, while we work closely with them, the funding for it has remained in Forestry and Agrifoods.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: In terms of an appropriate category, if the funding is there in that department and it seems to be kind of an anomaly under that department, because it is a youth program, if the funding is in one department, isn't it just a simple matter - not meaning to over-simplify it, but it would appear to be a simple matter - of transferring the funding to another department so it is more appropriately categorized. It would be like saying the College of the North Atlantic is going to go under the Department of Health tomorrow. That program is a youth program. If it is currently being funded in another department, isn't it a simple matter of transferring the funding over and having that program under this category consistent with the thrust of having a single department responsible for those kinds of initiatives?

MS KELLY: Yes, it does sound like it is fairly simple to do, but the big problem has been that the funding for the program is not under a heading specifically for 4-H in Forestry and Agrifoods. Because they believe very strongly in the program, they have accommodated it in their budget throughout the year.

From my perspective, we would certainly want to be able to get the extra funds. As a matter of fact, I know that the program could use more than what is currently in there. We do, within government, try to find the funds and it is more a matter of finding a little bit here and a little bit there to make sure that we are able to continue that valuable program which, in particular in rural agricultural areas, is very important. We would like to, in future years, be able to strengthen it. At this time we were not able in this past year to identify the funds to be able to do it. We are very grateful to the Department of Forestry and Agrifoods, that they are able to continue to find the funding to be able to do it without really having a heading for that salary.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I apologize if it got covered before I came in, but I am going to go back for a moment, Madam Chair, to the Executive Support category. We talked about Professional Services, where the figures, both budgeted and revised from last year and again the estimate into this year, remain a constant figure. I am assuming that is a normal service that is provided annually. Can you break that down for me? If you have already done it, I apologize.

MS KELLY: No, I have not. Mr. Hollett, would you be able to do that?

MR. HOLLETT: That is a provision for consulting services that has been constant. We have not changed it either up or down. That is an allocation every year, if we need to hire a consultant for a particular purpose or get some other contract work done. That is what that is there for.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Could you give us an example of the kinds of categories that you used that money for last year?

MR. HOLLETT: We did discuss that earlier but, for example, one of the contracts that we currently have ongoing is that we have an individual examining whether or not, for example, we might do applied degrees through the College of the North Atlantic system. Sometimes we would hire facilitators when we have departmental planning days. We would hire a consultant to facilitate that session for us. Those are the types of things that we would use that money for.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

Madam Chair, are we moving on to 2.1.02?

MADAM CHAIR: You can discuss any of the subheads under this particular section.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Maybe we can talk a little bit about this program. The corporation was established last year. You mentioned SWASP was one of the programs under that category. What are some of the other ones under that grouping?

MS KELLY: Under the heading - actually, I have the exact amounts here. Last year under the Graduate Employment Program, we put in about $1.5 million there. Through SWASP, very close to $2 million. Our high school program, $500,000. That is one that most MHAs, I think, would be very familiar with where we try to - in each of the electoral districts - have high school students gain some employment because many times we are finding that, for grade twelves in particular, they are finishing school and university students have been out for two months so most of the jobs are gone. So we are trying to get some better work experiences for our senior high school students.

Small business co-op placement, we put $360,000 into last year. The Conservation Corp, $450,000 for jobs that are provided all over the Province through that particular program.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Just to pick up on a couple of points you just raised. You commented about the high school program and you talked about the distribution in electoral districts. Is that how the SWASP program works as well? Is that done by electoral district or is that done by -

MS KELLY: No, the SWASP program is administered through the department and through the Community Services Council. That is done by application from mostly service groups and other community groups.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Can you give us some sense in terms of the demand? We can understand from the dollars quoted here of how much money actually gets spent for the program. Do you have some sense of how much you are able to accommodate based on the percentage of applications approved versus those that you cannot accommodate? Is it an oversubscribed program?

MS KELLY: That was part of the reason the Student Investment Corporation was put in place, so that we could take that very successful program and build on it. Last year I think we did put more into it than we usually did, and we did it through several ways. One, we were hearing from students - the evaluation that was done by both the applicants, the sponsoring agency and students, was that it was an excellent program but university students were telling us that they would have wanted programs that lasted longer than eight weeks. Some of the employers were also saying that they needed to have the students on to do the planning of the programs, and the evaluation and clean-up at the end. In many instances last year, especially where the work experiences were very pertinent to what students were studying through their post-secondary education institutions, we put twelve-week grants in place rather than eight weeks. That gave students more money saved or tuition vouchers towards their education and offered them better work experience, and was better for the employers. So not only were we trying to increase the number of students who could avail of the program, but to make it a longer program so it was of greater financial and educational value to them.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Some of these student loan programs are administered by HRE as well. How does that work in terms of your coordination between this program? Can you provide the funding here under SWASP? The Community Services Council administers it, approves the funding and does the processing of the application, so you are the funding agency and not the agency that approves it or processes the applications?

MS KELLY: No, we work very closely with the Community Services Council in both the evaluation and the implementation of the program. We actually, through the SWASP program, hire senior students who are employed - because we do not have offices out in the regions of the Province, we hire the students and work with Human Resources and Employment. We have supervisory students in each of the regions administering these programs, both on behalf of the department and Community Services Council. We work very closely and it has worked very well actually. We have just started the process now for this year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If I were to ask the question: How much money is invested in student employment programs? Then the answer would lie in this figure here. Somewhere else in the Estimates, if I were to look under HRE, would I see a different figure, another figure in addition to it or is this the pot of money that goes into student employment programs, period?

MS KELLY: This is the pot of money that goes in but, of course, we work very closely with the federal government. So there are also student employment programs that would be administered by the federal government but we would work very closely with.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I asked the question because in some of my experiences - I have dealt with staff at HRE around student employment and then there is a federal program but, from a provincial perspective, this is the full pot of money that is used for student employment programs?

MS KELLY: That is my understanding, yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Whether it is a SWASP program or whether it is direct grants to profit or non-profit and private business to employ students, it all comes out of this money?

MS KELLY: That is correct, other than the federal programs.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The SWASP program is this voucher system, I understand. Is that correct?

MS KELLY: Yes, and there are several types of SWASP programs depending on whether it is the private sector or the public sector that are administering them, and the federal government also has a SWASP program. Some of them are done on the basis of a total tuition voucher with just a stipend each week, and some of them are done on a 50/50 basis I understand. I don't have all the details here with me.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The administration is done by HRE or the students who are hired. They work out of HRE offices, I understand, as well.

MS KELLY: They work out of HRE offices but they are employed by the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education. I guess there are four agencies that work very closely in the summertime to administer this. It would be the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education, the Community Services Council, the federal government, and the provincial Department of Human Resources and Employment; because they obviously have regional offices throughout the Province. I would never advocate that we would set up independent offices. It would just take too much money away from what we could be giving to students.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The other question I posed a moment ago with respect to satisfying the demand that is out there for the program. Do you have some sense of the numbers of applications that were not approved last year and historically, do not get approved because you just run out of money?

MS KELLY: Last year we had probably the highest success rate that we have ever had because of the extra money that was put in. I cannot tell you the exact percentage, but I think out of the - you also have to remember that it is not only the number of applications we get, it is the number of good applications that we get. We do get applications that we feel are not valid. We need to be - and I feel we need to be - even more careful. I have met and discussed this with the Community Services Council that we need to be making sure that our young people are getting valuable work experience and that it pertains to what they would like to do. It either gives them good work experience or pertains to what they want to be doing while they are seeking their post-secondary education. We cannot, in some instances, approve SWASP applications that just do not make sense.

Last year, I think it is fair to say - in my evaluation and my discussions with the staff and the Community Services Council - most all of the applications that were evaluated met our criteria, were able to be funded. Now in some instances we may have had groups asking for four employees and we were only able to give them two or three. In many instances, I know, through the evaluation it was felt that they did not need four employees. Many times groups were applying for more than they needed, I think for reasons most all of us would know, thinking: Well, if I ask for four, I will get more than one; and this sort of rationale. We put an evaluation of applications in place to try and determine what makes sense. I think, on the whole, last year we were able to satisfy most of the need, much more so than in previous years.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: On that point, minister, the criteria to look at - and I appreciate the comment about trying to match the student with some meaningful employment given their course of study and what they may want to do in their lives. The other part of that is in many parts - particularly in rural Newfoundland, and I can think of three very distinct parts of my district in particular where you have small all-grade schools - there are no business opportunities in those areas and you are dealing with a community organization whose primary interest is to get some employment for the students so that they can have some financial assistance to go back to school.

The meaningful part of the employment is secondary, just getting a voucher or getting some money into student's hands so they can get back to school in September is the critical issue. It might be a church group who wants a graveyard cleaned up or some organization who want Coke bottles picked up from the side of the street or the road. So the meaningful employment part of it is secondary. If a tremendous emphasis is placed on the meaningfulness of the employment experience then there is going to be some of those kinds of communities and students who are going to find themselves disadvantaged because there will not be meaningful employment in the community in which they live. It is not financially viable to leave - and I will just use a couple of examples in my district - or viable to drive from Southport in the Southwest Arm area to Clarenville for meaningful employment. You would rather stay home in Southport and not have any expense during the summer other than staying at home with your parents and clean up a church yard or rake some debris from a graveyard. At least it gives them that income and that voucher that they might have when they go back to school in September.

If that becomes one of the overriding considerations than large numbers of people are going to be disadvantaged through that process. How do you reconcile that with the criteria that you have already established?

MS KELLY: We have done a lot of work to reconcile that and actually did some pilot programs this past year. We actually put a small program in place last year because of our concern of what you just outlined, to make sure that, for instance, a student who is at the College of the North Atlantic and taking a skill trade, that person's choice would have been to go back home and do the type of work you have outlined or to stay in an area where they could get employment experience that would have been very valuable to them as a part of the trade they are studying. In that instance, we were able to accommodate them to give them an enhanced SWASP grant so that they would be able to pay the extra expenses of having to stay away from home, really. So in instances where we see that the student has lined up very valuable work experience, we are trying now, as much as we can through the College of the North Atlantic and other educational institutions, to be able to accommodate that.

We are not saying that in instances you have described of being able to clean up graveyards, et cetera, that it is not meaningful work. In particular, I feel that when it is a student's first job - almost any type of job where, you know, you have to show that you are responsible by showing up for work everyday, accomplishing the tasks that you have set out to do. In my estimation, it would not be good if a student had to do that same job for four years in a row and they were planning on going into a skilled trade or into social work or almost any area that they are training for. It would not give them the type of experience that would be valuable to them for getting a job upon graduation. That is why we are doing a lot of research and a lot of work around where we can provide experiences, even in rural communities. That is why, just last week for social work students, we put a program in place where we can employ fifteen social work students in their off-term in rural areas. That is for several reasons. It is to give rural students, who are studying social work, the ability to be able to work in their communities. We hope that by doing this some of those students will gain experience that they will want to go back to rural areas upon graduation. It is a very two-pronged approach. We feel that if we do a lot more work in this area we will be able to identify better opportunities.

Many of our communities have fish plants. For instance, most of the fish plants would have an electrician on staff. Now if you have a young person, a young man or woman who is studying electrical to become an electrician at the College of the North Atlantic or a private college, we want to be able to work with private employers at the fish plants to say: Could you hire through our SWASP program? We would help you hire an apprentice electrician for the summer or a young person graduating from Grade 12 who thinks they would like to go into the electrical area. So we have to do a lot more identification of opportunities, and it is more difficult in rural areas. We are working both with the zonal boards and with the Strategic Social Planning Regional Committees to identify better opportunities for our rural students.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: On the SWASP program, this matching process - I appreciate the value in having the student do some recruitment themselves and try to find potential matches of employers who may want to sponsor their application. Just this past year I had some experiences with students who are attending school here in St. John's and because of application deadlines - and again (inaudible) to get students or their potential employers and meet with them and talk to them about whether or not they could provide that opportunity, and have some discussion with them. I found some difficulty in being able to do that because of the inability to get back out into the community. Has there been some discussion around, or have you given any consideration to having a mechanism where in fact employers could register and make application to become a sponsor of a student and some matching being done then by either yourselves or these students that you hire by HRE?

MS KELLY: Yes, we certainly had that discussion. We are looking at programs and hope, actually, to do some through technology to be able to have a program where both the employing agencies and the students would be able to apply on-line and have matches done. As you have described, there have been difficulties with that in the past. I am not sure we will be able to do it this year. We tried to get some research done this winter. We had hoped that the Community Services Council might have some current research that was already done on it but we were not able to find any. I did find a program in the Northwest Territories that had some pertinence but it required a lot more research. So our hope is, in the future, that we will be able to do a better program there, especially I think, we need to tie it into career plans that are developed when they are in their senior high school years. I think in that instance we would be able to do a lot more work.

We have also had some preliminary discussions with the new program that was developed here in Newfoundland which is now being used worldwide; a software program developed by Bill Barry. What was it called? I just read it last night actually.

WITNESS: The Real Game.

MS KELLY: The Real Game, yes. We are hoping that we may be able to add on to that program so that we can tie it into our SWASP programs and our summer career employment programs and probably have the best program then in all of Canada. So we will be continuing that research in the upcoming year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

MR. MERCER: Yes, just a couple of questions on student aid. I noticed in your salary estimates there that your student aid permanent employees is perhaps the biggest block of money you have in terms of permanent salaries within your department, and a very significant temporary and other employee block of funding for student aid.

One of the most frustrating departments to deal with in government is student aid. You cannot ever get anyone to answer the phone. You always get lots of voice messages, and maybe in a few days you will get a call back and maybe you won't. Many times I have had to call the minister's office actually to ask someone in student aid to give me a call. If it is difficult for me it must be horrendous for the students, and I am sure this is not the first time you have heard this. Are there any plans to - and looking at this, it seems like it is not a people problem unless you have an horrendous number of people trying to get through. It seems like you have the employees there but is there something I am missing here? Is the volume of requests to student aid so overwhelming and overbearing that people cannot get anyone with a real voice at the other end of the line to answer them?

MS KELLY: I will be most pleased to answer that question because as you have outlined, as MHAs, in particular in September month, I think it has always been a difficulty for us.

My hope would be that, in speaking to all the committee members this morning, they have probably had less difficulty this year than they have had in previous years because we started last September with a call centre at the student aid division. So no more should there be no answer on the phone. Because it is a call centre, it should always be answered live. There should be no answering machine and voice messages, et cetera, left. Hopefully, that part of the problem has been taken care of.

The volume of requests, of course, in this Province has gone up very significantly over the past decade because we have so many more students going to post-secondary. We have more students completing high school and, I think, close to 80 per cent going on to post-secondary, one of the best rates in the country. Of course the problem was greatly exacerbated in this Province because of the fact of the higher number, but also because we have such a high number of students who have to avail of the student aid system because of the lower salaries in this Province. Parents are often not able to help their children as much as they are in some of the bigger, higher employment provinces of this country. So, we do have an increased volume of requests.

Our whole new program that I was pointing out to you when I talked about why we needed to put the program in place wasn't just to help students graduate with less debt, but was also to be able to have a smoother running system. My hope is that all of the new programs that were just brought in - many of them will be automatic. Students will not have to be calling about nearly as many things. We are doing a better student loan application process. We are putting a better appeal system in place. Many students now will receive an automatic exemption. If, for instance, they are disabled, they are not going to have to go back every single year and appeal their case to student aid. My hope is - and especially we have put more staff in. The reason why you see the great numbers that are there is because you do not need as many permanent staff because there are very high points in the year that students need extra assistance. Through August, September and October, of course, are when most students are entering the system. That is when you would have more temporary employees employed in your call centre to help address the needs so that you do not run into the problems you have just experienced. My hope is that, when I sit here next year, you will not be able to ask that question. I think we have addressed some of it this year. I have certainly seen myself that the numbers have gone down, and other MHAs have told me this, and parents and students have also told me that there has been a vast improvement since we put the call centre in place. Now, with the new program we just announced several weeks ago, my hope is that you will be getting very few calls through your MHA office next year.

MR. MERCER: Well, that would be a relief because that would probably cut out about 25 per cent of my workload.

MS KELLY: Mine too.

MR. MERCER: On the appeal process, one of the things that I have observed with the appeal process is that at the first level there is really no appeal. There is no review. It is only when you go to the second level of appeal and appear before the committee that anyone really looks at the actual information that was submitted and makes a decision. Maybe that is only my impression, but in all the appeals that I have been involved with, the first level of appeal really does nothing. It just simply comes back with a perfunctory answer. It is only when you go to the second level and you ask it to be examined by a group that they actually look at it. In most cases when you go to the second level - at least in my case I have a high percentage of success, but I have a zero level of success at the first level. If we are not going to be doing anything really at the first level of appeal, why do we have a first level of appeal?

MS KELLY: My hope is that, with our new system, you will also find that will be greatly improved. Also, you will find that the time period will be greatly improved because one of the complaints that I have been hearing from students is that they are often having to go to the bank or somewhere to borrow money while they are waiting for their appeals and that to go through. Both of those problems, I hope, will be taken care of with our new system and with our better application process.

I think that many of the difficulties that students have been finding the need to go through an appeal have been because the appropriate information is not always there. We also want to do a better job with students in high school in imploring to them that, if you are going through this system, you have to take it seriously and give us the information we need to be able to help you. Many times students are not putting in the information that is needed and they are not treating the application form seriously enough. They think, all I have to do is fill in part of this and I will be able to get a student loan. Many times they are causing the extra delay themselves, so we are trying now to work with the guidance counsellors and to get into high schools and meet with Grade 12 students who are going on to post-secondary and will need to avail of the student aid system to tell them: If you give us the right information, we will be able to help you more quickly and you won't have to be going through the appeal process.

Is there anything else I should be adding there?

MR. HOLLETT: Part of the additional resources that the minister talked about earlier would be that we are creating a special assessment unit within the Student Aid Division. Hopefully, we will preclude a lot of those initial rejections that require people to go back then through the appeal process; because many of them, when they do go to appeal, are successful, there are certain characteristics to those that, by having a special assessment unit, instead of bumping them back out with a refusal, it would go to this unit before that happens. So hopefully that would reduce the numbers even further.

MR. MERCER: It just seems to me that a lot of the problems in not getting a student loan is the incorrect filling out of the application, and that sometimes happens. Recently, I had a gentleman who applied for funding to go to a heavy equipment school in Badger; shall we say, a somewhat senior student. He filled it out in pencil. No, no, you can't do that. It was sent back to him. By the time he sent it back in with some more information, he had missed something that he should have put in. Anyway, by the time he went through all the hoops of getting the application correct, the last letter was: Sorry, your course is now expired and you are not eligible for the program because you have taken the course and the program is finished, so we cannot pay you money after you have finished the program.

That is a little bit frustrating for an individual. It would seem to me that even if the application was incorrect in the first instance, the application date that it was received should have been the date of application, not the date in which it was finally received with all the I's dotted and the T's crossed. So, in this particular case, the individual ended up with taking the program in Badger, having applied for it back in August, shall we say, and when the program was finished in December, and he still never had all the I's dotted and the T's crossed in his application, he was told: Sorry, you are no longer eligible because the program is over, and we cannot fund you for something that you have already taken. So, that is a bit of a problem.

I think it is so easy to just simply take an application, fix it up, and then send it back to someone without taking into account the real needs. That individual perhaps had been out of school so long that he did not have all the skills, perhaps, to make what we would consider a suitable application.

I guess what I am pleading for is a little bit of heart.

MS KELLY: I hope that you would not have to plead for a little bit of heart, because this is the first instance that I have heard that this could have happened, and I would think that maybe there might have been another reason. If that was the reason, I agree with you; we need to go back and take a look at that. I wouldn't mind sitting down with you afterwards when you are able to give me the appropriate information, because obviously you would not be able to give me that here in a public forum. I would be most pleased to refer it to my officials because maybe the person was ending up to be not eligible anyway, even when the other information was provided. We would need to take a look at the whole picture there. I agree with you, that is a problem that we would need to take a look at. I am surprised to hear that could happen.

MR. MERCER: I will get that to you, and I will get all of the correspondence from the Student Aid Division to my office and to the individual. I shall do that.

One other point I want to speak about on the student aid, recently there was a lot of chatter in the news about monies that were available which students were entitled to receive but which they, for whatever reason, had not. What steps have been taken, or has your department taken any steps whatsoever, to ensure that those students who were eligible to receive funding, which they did not, are now receiving it? What are we doing about that?

MS KELLY: That is the deferred bursaries you are referring to. The department, actually, not through this specific department but through the Department of Education, after that program was discontinued, I think, for three or four years, sent letters out each year trying to notify students that they were eligible for this deferred bursary. Of course, all that was happening was that the letters were coming back, that they were unable to find these people.

What we have endeavoured to do now is to speak about this program more publicly so that parents are telling their children who live away from the Province about this program, because that is where most of the problem is. We have also put all of the information on our Web site. We have also, as students are calling in, or parents, they are calling the Student Aid Division, so we have all of the information and everybody able to give it to them over the telephone to find out if they are eligible. So, we are receiving large numbers of letters or telephone calls from parents now just asking for the information of, what do they tell their young people who are living away from home about how to access? So, we are able to give them the information.

MR. MERCER: Are you getting much of a result from that?

MS KELLY: I think we are. Actually, many students I am finding, in the e-mails that I am getting, and the telephone calls through my office, are students who are not necessarily eligible but at least they are checking. So, the fact that so many people are checking now is that we are finding some students who are eligible.

MR. MERCER: One last question, and it is not on student aid: On the program offerings by the private college or the public college, the College of the North Atlantic, what role do you play in approving or recommending the types of programs that they are offering? And what, if any, consideration do you take into account for what the private schools are offering?

MS KELLY: The College of the North Atlantic is run by a board. So, we do not have in the department the ability to be able to say to the board: You cannot or can do such and such a course. But, of course, under the mandate of the board, they very clearly have the responsibility to be responsible, I guess, is the best way to put it, from the perspective of looking at all of the research that is done through the department and through the federal government, the statistics that are available about the numbers of students in the Province. Our graduate indicators that we put out each year certainly is a document that they are expected to use in determining whether a course needs to be taught, whether a course should be dropped, whether it should be suspended. As we receive concerns either from the private college association or individual private colleges, from parents, from students themselves or the general public, we certainly speak to the college about it to make sure that the courses that they are offering are pertinent. We have had some discussion with them in the recent months around skilled trades. There has been a lot of public discussion in this Province about the fact that some people feel there are instances we are not training enough people in the skilled trades. So we are obviously doing research around that, both in my department and in the Department of Human Resources and Employment, and we are finding, actually, that we probably do have the numbers of people who are going through the apprenticeship, going into the first year skilled trades, but they are coming out and not necessarily being able to move through their apprenticeship program on to journey person status in this Province. Because of our small private sector, many are leaving the Province and sometimes not coming back to do the journey person. They are doing it in other provinces where they have been able to get the number of hours to be able to move above the apprenticeship stage. So, it is something that we are investigating right now and we working both with the College of the North Atlantic and the private colleges, individually, and with the association.

MR. MERCER: I agree with you. I think in the College of the North Atlantic we have sadly neglected some of our trades to the point where I suspect now the number of tradespeople that we have available in the Province is perhaps not always sufficient to meet the demand, particularly if there is another development like an Inco or a Voisey's Bay or whatever, so I applaud that.

The basis of my question was: Now that we appear to be getting back into some of the trades - I am thinking about the welding program which is going to be offered in the College of the North Atlantic in the West Coast, Corner Brook area. In the intervening time that we have been out of that type of a program, the private colleges have come in and set up and prepared to go forward. I know in my area right now there is tremendous discussion about the ACOA providing funding to the public sector college CONA with money for that particular program while one of the private colleges who have geared up and become accredited are now saying: What is going on here? We have set up. We have the equipment in place. We have become accredited and now the Province is back into the game.

That is why I am asking the type of discussions which might be had between the private and the public. Is there any kind of attempt to match programs to areas, as to who is doing what, or are we just going to continue to offer programs that are being offered by the private sector or the private sector being offered by the public sector? It seems to me that we need to perhaps get our mind around that one a little bit.

MS KELLY: I agree with you, Mr. Mercer. It is a difficulty right across the country. As a matter of fact, we have started to talk to some of the smaller provinces to see if they have been able to find a solution to some of this. We are in the middle, actually, of a discussion right now. I have been receiving copies of letters that some of the private colleges have been sending to federal agencies about this, and we are involved in the discussion. We, of course, have no say in what the outcome will be of the ACOA discussion but we certainly are having the private college association, the College of the North Atlantic and my department to sit down together to find out, are there solutions that we can bring forward in this area?

As you bring it forward, I think it is important to have all of the details also because we have people publicly saying that the colleges in Western Newfoundland are starting to offer welding, whereas that is really not correct. They have offered welding in the past. They suspended the program when it was felt that we had too many welders in the Province. They are now feeling that, with the research they have done, there may be a need to start the program again.

We need, as a Province and with these two groups, to be sitting down to determine if that research is correct because what you are saying about tradespeople and the possibility of needing many more of them in the very near future is somewhat accurate but not completely accurate. When we go to look at our numbers of tradespeople available, we have the numbers we need right now. There may be very specific instances of people who are really specialized or they are not right in the region you need them but they are certainly within the Province and should be able to move where the jobs are. This is a much greater problem in the rest of Canada, to be truthful, than it is right here. We have many of our tradespeople who have had to leave the Province, as Mrs. Hodder would well know, to be able to seek employment in other areas because we have not had the employment opportunities here.

We know we have the experience of Hibernia to know how many Newfoundlanders would like to return home, who have the trade skills and experience that we will need as projects start. That does not mean, as Voisey's Bay or other projects should come on stream, that we do not need to be training up people especially in Labrador, in our Aboriginal population.

All of these plans are in place and ready to roll and we will be able to meet the need as these projects come on stream because obviously there is a construction phase to them before we even get into the implementation of the project stage. We anticipate being able to meet all of these needs, but the biggest problem that you have outlined between the private sector and the public sector is something that we are working on right now. There is not really any easy solution to it.

MR. MERCER: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Mercer.

Are there any other questions or comments?

The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have certainly listened to Mr. Mercer and I think we all are fully aware of the percentage of calls we get related to your department. I guess that is why there are so many questions, especially when it comes to student aid. I have a few for student aid that I will hang to until later.

I would just like to refer, if I could, to subhead 2.1.02., Newfoundland and Labrador Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation. Just for clarification, I guess, on March 22, you issued a news release, Minister, announcing the establishment of the corporation with an initial allocation of $4 million. On May 10, 2001, you issued a news release updating the House on Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation with an initial investment of $8.8 million, that was announced during the Speech from the Throne.

In the budget detail we have $4.8 million and then the revised is $4.8 million and change, and then in 2002 we have $4.8 million. From the $8 million to the $4 million, I am just looking for clarification on that.

MS KELLY: Clarification on that, I would like to outline to you, is that $4.8 million is the money that the provincial government normally put into student employment each year. An extra $4 million was put in to start the corporation last year so that we could put in new programs and expand some of our programs in place. We used some of that money last year and we will be using more of it this year. There wasn't a new allocation of another $4 million this year. That is what brought it up to $8.8 million, I think it was, last year. It was the usual $4.8 million that we put in every year and a $4 million pot of money was put in there to start the corporation for us to be able to help students more in the Province get meaningful work experience and to pilot some programs that we would like to try and to make sure that students get good work experience.

MR. MANNING: So, if this $4 million was used for that purpose and the budget is still $4.8 million this year, in your pilot projects that you used the $4 million for, or whatever, to invent these projects -

MS KELLY: Correction there; we did not use all of the $4 million last year. That money is still available. It is still in the Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation and able to be used. Because of the way that fund is set up, that $4 million, the part of it that was not used, did not expire on March 31. I think we used about half of it and the other half is available now to be used this year and in upcoming years as we roll out new programs and do new research.

MR. MANNING: So that $2 million is not budgeted in this year's budget detail.

MS KELLY: Not in budget detail because it is in the Investment Corporation, but this is the $4.8 million that we spend each year on programs.

MR. MANNING: You're talking about your programs here, your student employment programs?

MS KELLY: SWASP and that sort of thing, yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

On subhead 2.1.03., Labour Market Development Agreement Projects, I find budgeted $2.4 million for salaries, revised $2.4 million, and estimated this year for $2.4 million. In the salaries, departmental details, we have $2.4 million but we have no permanent employees. Under temporary and other employees, $2.4 million, is everybody who is involved with the Labour Market Development Agreement all temporary employees? There are no permanent employees involved there?

MS KELLY: It is mostly contract employees, and it would be done under contract for the duration of the agreement and employees would be seconded into that agreement. Mr. Hollett, would you have further information?

MR. HOLLETT: In 2.1.03., that is the projects that are actually administered by various government departments. So a lot of the projects, these are LMDA projects that, by their very nature, may well have a significant portion of that as a salary component. So these are not necessarily employees of our department, although our department might be the sponsor of a couple of programs. For example, examining youth apprenticeship in the department. We have applied and received LMDA funding to examine or research youth apprenticeship. That would be part of that $2.4 million. So these are all over government, essentially.

Any department which has a project that qualifies for LMDA funding would apply. It is voted through here, and this would show the salary component or whatever on those particular projects.

MR. MANNING: So these people would be employed throughout government but paid by your department. Is that what I am -

MR. HOLLETT: They are paid by the LMDA project, but because our department is responsible for co-managing the LMDA with the federal government the projects flow through us. So it is federal money that flows through our department.

MR. MANNING: So this $2.4 million is 100 per cent federal?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, it is.

MR. MANNING: On the LMDA, my understanding is there is somewhat of a change of how - I do not know if administer would be the right word but certainly there seems to be some involvement from our Regional Economic Development Boards at the table in regard to looking at projects, approving projects, to see exactly what would be funded.

My understanding now is that HRDC - has more or less, over the next little while - will be removing the RED Board from the decision-making process. Knowing full well that the RED Board is a major initiative of the government over the past couple of years, I am just wondering what reaction, Minister, the department has in that regard because the RED Board plays a (inaudible) role in many parts of the Province in relation to looking at project applications, or whatever the case may be. Now, I understand that they may still play some type of role but it seems to be diminished a fair bit. I am just wondering, is that because - not to put words in your mouth - of the fact that the feds are providing not only this $2.4 million but a fair amount of the money for the Labour Market Development Agreement? What role do people who are out in the field - not necessarily government people (inaudible). It concerns me, and it certainly has been raised to me by people in my own district, the fact that they are not going to have a say anymore at the table in relation to projects for the area.

MR. HOLLETT: The issue that arose here; this issue is on all regional assessment committees for LMDA projects because the LMDA is managed by regional committees around the Province. The regional committees for LMDA, the overall steering committee in each region, comprises HRDC as the funder because LMDA is 100 per cent federal money, the provincial government, and then community partners like the Regional Economic Development Boards. Most of the regional offices also had regional assessment committees for assessing specific projects. For example, if a community organization or private sector employer were to submit an application for funding under LMDA, it would go to an assessment committee.

The difficulty that arose was there was a legal opinion at HRDC which essentially said that was a violation of the act, to have people who were not either working directly for HRDC or working directly for the Province to be looking at each individual specific application of private sector applicants. When you include people who are not working for government a situation could arise where somebody might say - for example, a private sector company could say: You have access to my financial information and yet, in a lot of cases, you could be my competitor in the community. So it was a private information issue.

We had - and when I say we, both Cathy Drummond, who is the regional head of HRDC, and myself as the two co-chairs of the LMDA committee - met with the RED Boards on a number of occasions to discuss this with them and how we would get around that problem. While they had to be removed from the assessment committee by and large they were okay with that, but there were some cases where they were concerned about it but we tried to, through the establishment of the steering committees in each region, ensure that the RED Boards still had a very significant role in determining what types of projects in the community would be funded. It was simply a case that they would not have access to the financial information of private sector applicants. So, that is what happened.

MR. MANNING: In regard to the private sector applicants versus the public sector, the fact is that these people who had been sitting at the table over the past couple of years are not going to be at the table anymore? Would that be correct?

MR. HOLLETT: They will still be at the table in terms of the regional steering committees and in advising on and discussing what types of projects should be approved for a specific community. The only place we have asked that they not be at the table is actually sitting down with the detailed financial information that would be included with an application from a private sector applicant. If a company in a community put in an application then nobody other than the government employees on the assessment committee should be the ones who look at that. What may happen in the various regional committee structures that they have, because they are fairly autonomous, they may decide they are not going to be involved in any assessments, but that will be a decision of the local steering committee, including the RED Boards; all the community partners. The only piece that they have been excluded from is seeing the detailed information that is provided by private sector applicants.

MR. MANNING: Did I hear you correctly when you said, Mr. Hollett, that (inaudible) would be 100 per cent funded by the federal government?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, it is.

MR. MANNING: I want to skip ahead, if I could, to heading 3.2.02, Physical Plant and Equipment, under Memorial University.

MS KELLY: Which one was it again?

MR. MANNING: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 3.2.02.10, Grants and Subsidies. We had a budget of $3,000 which was revised up to $6,000 -

MS KELLY: Three million.

MR. MANNING: Three million, I am sorry. Three million up to $6 million and a new budget of $4 million. Just for clarification on that. It is doubling the amount, plus we have $1 million extra this year.

MS KELLY: The $3 million that was budgeted last year and the extra $3 million that went in was the Opportunity Fund; $3 million that government put in, which I outlined in my opening remarks.

The $4 million that is budgeted for this year is an extra $1 million - that I also mentioned in my opening remarks - to help with priority capital expenditures. I think I mentioned in my opening remarks that certainly more is needed but this is the most that we were able to put in this year. We would have liked to be able to put in more because we know there is great infrastructure needs at Memorial University, both need for new infrastructure but also for revitalization of some of the buildings and structures that are already in place.

MR. MANNING: The Opportunity Fund, I guess, is based on the money that is raised. The government matches dollar for dollar, is that correct?

MS KELLY: Yes, up to, I believe, $27 million or $30 million. I forget which now but there has been an agreed to ceiling there. It is $29 million, my officials tell me.

MR. MANNING: I am just moving around here because I have some financial - under Student Aid, 3.4.03, Newfoundland Student Loans Program. There is a budgeted amount of $29,900,000 and we have a revised amount of $18,480,000. Is it the fact that - clarification on that, please.

MS KELLY: What was the exact number?

MR. MANNING: 3.4.03, Newfoundland Student Loans Program.

MS KELLY: 3.4.03; I am on the wrong page here, I think.

MR. MANNING: Newfoundland Student Loans Program, 09, Allowances and Assistance.

MS KELLY: Yes, okay.

The differences there are partly the same as last year. We have moved from a system where the private sector banks were administering the program, into government administering it themselves. Also, it is very hard to know at the end of each year when students are going to start paying back their loans. Many times upon graduation we think they are going to start paying back their loans but then they go on and do a Masters Degree or go on and do an IT program. So it is very hard to estimate each year what will happen, but a lot of that is because of the changes in switching from CIBC back into administering the program ourselves.

Are there any other comments that should be made there, Mr. Hollett?

MR. HOLLETT: A number of other factors as well contributed last year. Interest rates were lower than we had anticipated at budget time. We pay the interest on all the funds that are outstanding while students are still in school. Lower interest rates helped us there.

The same thing with interest relief; interest relief costs were lower again because interest rates were lower. We had less in requests last year for loan remission than we had budgeted. The last big piece in terms of the savings was, as the minister mentioned, where the responsibility has come over to the Province from the banks now. There was a lot less in loan defaults in 2001-2002 than we expected. We had anticipated that more people would go into default and the Province would have to pay the banks, but there was less of that. So that is what happened.

MR. MANNING: You had budgeted $26 million-and-change for this year - well, $3.5 million less than last but considerably more than what you used last year. Interest rates have certainly been raised but is that one of the reasons why you have an extra $9 million there, almost $9 million from what you used last year?

MR. HOLLETT: A combination of factors: $3.9 million of the increase from $18.5 million essentially last year to $26.1 million in the current year; $3.9 million of that is because of the program changes the minister announced a month ago. So that is an enhancement of the program. The rest would be loan defaults which - we had less months last year of loan default opportunity than we will have this year because of the timing that it came over from the bank to the Province. It was really only about half a year last year that we could have had loan defaults that we would have been responsible for. This year we will have a full year. Interest rates are on the rise. So it is a combination of the new program, program enhancements, higher interest rates and higher expected defaults. That is essentially the increase. Again, some of these - because of the variability of interest rates it is fairly difficult to project student aid requirements with accuracy.

MR. MANNING: Yes.

MS KELLY: Another thing that my hope will be is that our new program will improve the student default rate. Of course, because there are more jobs available in the Province now than we have ever had really, and some of them higher paying jobs, our hope is that the student default rate will not be as high as it has been in other years. That is one of the main reasons that we put the new program in place, to do something about the student default rate and to give more help to students so they will not have to default.

MR. MANNING: Moving along to Industrial Training, 3.5.02. I am asking the same question on two things here, so I will combine them for - also on the same page, Canada/Newfoundland Agreement on Economic Renewal, 3.6.01.

Under Training Programs, we see an increase of $400,000 on our budget and brought up to $3.9 million this year for Purchased Services. We have the same thing in the next section, 3.6.01, an increase of, give or take, around $160,000 in Purchased Services with no budget for this year. Some clarification on those numbers, please?

MS KELLY: I can just tell you that the reason there is none budgeted for this year is because the Economic Renewal Agreement has expired. For the details of the increase from the Budget to the Revised, Mr. Hollett will be able to provide those details.

MR. HOLLETT: Under 3.5.02, Training Programs, the increase from $3.5 million to $3.9 million, that is money that we get from the federal government under the LMDA for training their clients, essentially. At the beginning of the year we would estimate, with HRDC, how many people they are going to be referring for training or for apprenticeship training and we would negotiate an amount with them that would compensate the Province for the costs that we incur to train their clients. If, during the course of the year, there needs to be an adjustment of that, then we go back to HRDC. We would renegotiate this, what we call a contribution agreement, and the money would increase. That is what you see happening here. We went back to HRDC part way through the year and said: You are not giving us enough for that. We need more because there are more people, for example, or because the costs are higher. Renegotiate, and it went up. That is what happened.

MR. MANNING: It would be the same thing under the Economic Renewal Agreement, I guess, would it, where we had the increase there in Purchased Services?

MR. HOLLETT: Under Economic Renewal Agreement?

MR. MANNING: Under Economic Renewal Agreement we had an increase in Purchased Services of around $160,000. 3.6.01.06, Purchased Services.

MS KELLY: Which one was it again? 3.6.01 -

MR. MANNING: 3.6.01, Economic Renewal Agreement, under subhead .06 Purchased Services. It went from $597,400 to $757,400.

MS KELLY: We will have to get that information for you because I do not have the details here. It is not one that is foremost in my mind right now. I, frankly, cannot remember. So we will get that information for you.

MR. MANNING: If I could go back for a second, under Student Loans Program, and take a moment of your time just to - maybe you can help me here.

I had correspondence from a former student concerning the Newfoundland portion of a student loan as it relates to the interest relief. He had success in receiving relief on his Canadian portion but denied relief on his Newfoundland portion because of some rules. Just quickly: I have been paying on my Newfoundland portion religiously since the repayment period had begun, which is almost four years now. He never missed a payment he tells me. The provincial government rules state that you can apply for interest relief for three months at a time up to a maximum of eighteen months. The rule also states that you must apply for that relief in the first three years. Once past the three-year period you can no longer apply for interest relief, even though he will be paying on his loan for many years.

For many years following the three years this person will paying on their loan but the rule - I am just wondering, and this is just an example here. When he called student aid, basically the answer given was: It is the rule and we can't do anything for you. I understand the rules are there for a reason. I am just wondering, has the department given any consideration to extending that period past the three years? For the simple reason, if a person leaves their post-secondary education and goes out into the workforce immediately and has a couple of good years and is paying on their student loan, as this person did religiously, and then in three-and-a-half, four, or fifth year runs into a problem where he loses his job or whatever the case may be, he needs that relief at the time, he can go to the Canadian Government and get it but he gets turned down by the Newfoundland Government.

MS KELLY: You just described exactly why we changed it, why we brought in this new package; and the new interest relief program is there. Our interest relief program now is exactly the same as the federal governments. As of the date of the announcement, which I think was three to four weeks ago now, three-and-a-half weeks, that person would be eligible now to apply and receive the same consideration as they did under the federal program under our new program. So that problem has been resolved.

MR. MANNING: When a student applies for a student loan parental income is taken into consideration. I have found in my dealings, and maybe other members have too, that the debt that some of these parents have is - students feel it is not factored into the loan application - and it is done for four years, I believe. I am just wondering, has any consideration been given to that in regard to dealing with - a parent may not necessarily, even though, yes, we have an income on this side here but our debt on this side - basically, it does not weigh out to assist their students as much as maybe the numbers should. I am just wondering, from a department point of view, do you run into that problem very much? I did in a couple of situations and I am just wondering what is the department doing to look at that?

MS KELLY: It certainly is a problem that I have run into both as minister and as an MHA in my own district. It is something that we certainly would have wanted to try and be able to put the thresholds at a different point, but we are not able to with the financial circumstances of the Province.

We also are in discussions with the federal government and through the Canadian Council of Ministers of Education on this topic because this threshold is the same, I believe, right across the country. It is something that we want to talk to the federal government and other provinces about, which we started to do actually just last week in Toronto. The whole student aid system across the country, the parts that the federal government are involved in and are the same in each province, are being reviewed this year. Some of the preliminary work has already been done. Alberta has been one of the lead provinces on it and we have certainly been very involved in it. In order to relieve that problem we certainly would have to put a lot more money into the student aid system. In many instances, I believe, what is occurring here is that students are not being denied going to post-secondary education, it is the fact that they are having to seek loans through the private system rather than through the Canada Student Loan system, and their parents are being held partly responsible for it; they are having to co-sign and go to the charter banks with their students, so at least that piece of it, we know that students are not being denied an education but they are graduating with debt that both them and their parents are being responsible for. We are looking at the threshold and trying to figure out how much more money we would have to put in depending on how we move the threshold. We are certainly doing the research. Whether we will have the ability to put more money into the system to do anything about it remains to be seen.

MR. MANNING: Thank you.

I will pass for now.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I just have one question, but before I ask that I want to thank the minister and her staff for the wonderful response that I think all members have received here this morning. I had a couple of questions on student aid but they have been answered due to the questioning of my colleague for Humber East.

The one that I have is 3.1.03., for the Veterinary College in P.E.I. Last year it was budgeted $482,900 and it was revised $516,200 and this year the estimate is $543,400. My question is: That $543,400, what share is that of the operating cost for that college in P.E.I., and how many seats are we provided for that?

MS KELLY: I can answer that question for you. I cannot tell you the exact percentage of what it would be in the budget. I know it would be very low. The agreement that we have with the Atlantic Veterinary College is that they will reserve two seats each year for Newfoundland students. We pay for, really, eight students per year to be in that system. So that amount is for that reason and also for our share of the fact that it is a school that does research and so on, and for our students to be able to participate in those particular programs. In that school, actually, we have someone on the board, not the board of the college but the board that decides the number of students and so on. We have been very fortunate, as a Province, in that while we pay for eight seats we normally have far more than eight seats there. We have a lot of Newfoundland students who are interested in going into that particular field and what they do, actually, because they have such high grades, they do some of their pre-education or some of the work experience they require to get into Veterinary College in other agricultural provinces in Atlantic Canada. By doing that for one year, they are able to apply as non-Newfoundland residents and they are having a very high success rate of getting in. Most times we have far more than eight in the system, but we only pay for eight, so I think we are getting very good value for our dollars this year.

This is the first increase they have had in five years and, before they were allowed the increase, the other provinces outside of P.E.I. put the stipulation in place that they had to increase the amount of revenue that was coming into the college from non-governmental sources and they actually exceeded the expectations and 31 per cent of the revenue is non-governmental that is going into the college, so we actually put in less than what we were anticipating being asked for.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Butler.

The hon. the Member for Trinity North.

MS KELLY: Excuse me one moment.

My officials tell me that what we put in is 4 per cent of their budget.

Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Minister.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

If the Chair will allow, there are a couple of questions that I want to raise but I want to continue in the same vein, if I could, before I go back to another point that the Member for Port de Grave was pursuing with the Veterinary College.

I just want to get an understanding of why there would be a different treatment for different programs. For example - and I acknowledge this is an appropriate place to have it accounted for, and an appropriate manner in which to account for the spending, and we haven't done these yet, but when we look at the Health and Community Services Estimates, within those figures somewhere will be a cost that is attributed to the Province's contribution to Dalhousie University for programs in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech language pathology, and there have been some sub specialties where there are some technologists required at the Health Corporation of St. John's where the health system has, in fact, had some sponsored programs in Ontario. I cannot just tell you the name of the institution but it is a similar kind of situation as we are talking about here at the Veterinary College.

I guess my question is: Why would we not, as a Province, categorize and expend those sorts of things in this grouping as well under your department, because now it is reflected as a health expense? When we start talking about expenditures on health care, in that is now chewing up that part of that budget, and I recognize that it is public expenditure, period, so it does not increase the share of the amount of money that the Province has, but it just appropriately categorizes because we do not misrepresent what we are actually spending on health services. Can the minister comment as to why she would not have pulled those sorts of things back into her department as well?

MS KELLY: I would be most pleased to comment on that. I have asked the same question myself and we continue to have discussions about it, actually, to see where it should best lie. One of the rationale is from a recruitment perspective that, through the Department of Health and Community Services, they would be doing most of the research and the background work on the recruitment needs, the needs for the occupations that you have outlined, and that is mostly why it sits there. I think, really, it could sit in either department in a very valid way and one that, you know, we will continue to have another look at.

From this perspective, it is because it is a college perspective that we are involved in the administration of, and it is more education to education, whereas in the Department of Health it is done from a recruitment perspective. But, you are correct, it could be done from either. We have had some preliminary discussions with the Department of Health and Community Services. Right now, we know the money has to be spent no matter which headline it comes in under.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I guess my comment was more to, as we talk about how much we spend on health care, we need to ensure to represent appropriately comments when we say we are spending this much on health care when, in fact, we are spending so much on education. To me, I would suggest it is appropriately grouped right here.

MS KELLY: Yes, another point of view that I did not make is that, because the Department of Health one is tied into recruitment, there are also grants tied into that one, whereas these students do not receive grants to go to school. This money that is allocated here is strictly to the institution, whereas I believe in the Department of Health and Community Services, along with the seat placement, most of the money that they put in, in some instances, goes partly to students also, whereas this one does not. It is strictly to the school.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Not to contradict the minister, necessarily, that may have been a valid statement several years ago, but it is my understanding that, as of about four years ago, the bursary component has now disappeared so what you have with the Dalhousie arrangement is exactly what you have with the Veterinary College because it is basically payment for the seat.

MS KELLY: Yes, for occupational and physiotherapy it is, but the Department of Health and Community Services also administer the program for medical students whereby some - I am not sure if they are called grants, what the incentive program is called, but that does pay to students also residence and that, either grants or salary subsidies while they are in school, and all of that comes in under that one heading in the Department of Health and Community Services. What we would have to do is separate programs in the Department of Health to do what you are advocating. We have certainly had that discussion and will continue to.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I think that might be very appropriate, Minister, to do that, actually.

If I could go back, in response to questions from my colleague from Placentia & St. Mary's, to 2.1.02., Newfoundland and Labrador Investment and Opportunity Corporation. Correct me if I am wrong, Minister. From my notes, as you were answering the question from my colleague with respect to the funding and the amount of money - because he read out some news releases that came out - talking about accounting for basically $8.8 million. Firstly, have you tabled in the House the annual report for this corporation yet?

MS KELLY: No, we do not have a year in under our belt yet, I would not think. As of May or June, I think, we would have one year. We haven't been in place for one year. Well, actually we do have one year but from the date of the first meeting of the corporation. It is probably not the Board of Directors.. We would have put it in place just before the year-end Budget of 2000, so it probably would have been put in place legally the end of March, 2002. Then we would have started putting programs in place and a meeting of the Board of Directors probably in late April or early May of last year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The corporation was legally established as a corporate entity in March of 2001 -

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: - so therefore it has now completed one twelve-month period as a legal entity. Therefore, an annual report will be provided on that particular year of operation, I assume, accounting for the funds in that fiscal year. Would that be the case?

MS KELLY: Yes, but it certainly would not have been tabled yet. We are only about two to three weeks into the new year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So let me just link the two here now. When that report gets tabled, will we see that in that twelve-month block of time there was $8.8 million invested in that corporation or given to that corporation, and we will see how it was expended? Will we see that?

MS KELLY: Yes, we certainly should see that but you will not see that all of the $8.8 million was spent.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: What I am trying to established here is, and get a better feel for, I guess, is, if you had $8.8 million put into that corporation in that twelve-month period from March of last year to March of this year, and the budget here suggests, or this document we are looking at here suggests, that there was $4.8 million spent under that category, then where did the other $4 million dollars come from? Because it is not is the Estimates for here.

MS KELLY: The other $4 million that would have gone into that last year was the end-of-year funding that the government decided to put into this particular corporation so that we could put in place new programs and pilot new programs for student employment. It would have come out of general government revenues, year-end revenues, and was reported as that last year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Last year. So, March 31, 2001, there was $4 million added to the $4.8 million that is in the Estimates here.

MS KELLY: The Estimates of last year had $4.8 million and the Estimates of this year have $4.8 million. That is what the Province has traditionally allotted to student employment. We added $4 million from year-end money to the Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Alright. So when we get the annual report tabled, it will show some kind of surplus around $2 million, $3 million or $4 million?

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Going back to one of my questions before I had that knowledge, I asked you a question around the last year's experience on how many requests the Province was able to accommodate and what our rejection rate was. I forget my exact phrase but what I was trying to get at was: Were we able to satisfy all of the demands we had last year?

If I remember your comments, and I cannot say exactly what you said, I think you indicated that you were quite pleased that we were able to do most of the requests. It was not an answer that said we absolutely satisfied every request and that we had enough money to satisfy every request. I am assuming, then, that we rejected some of those requests for student employment last year even though we had ample funds to satisfy the need. Would that be a correct statement?

MS KELLY: My answer to you was that we met most of the need, but the reason we did not meet all of the need was not because of financial reasons. It was because many of the - on evaluation of applications, they were either not appropriate applications or, in some instances, when we went back to them, the applying agencies were not able to deliver the programs, or they were asking for more students than we knew was necessarily needed.

We did not want to get into a situation where we were employing students on make-work projects where there were not eight hours a day of work for them. You could tell by many of the applications that there would not have been. We felt that would be a very poor example to be setting for students. You would literally just be passing students a paycheque for showing up at work and the work would not necessarily be there. So, we were able to satisfy the need for the applications that could be verified, that there would be work experience for students, and real work to be done.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Even though your report is not tabled yet and you have just finished the year, and no doubt the auditing information has not been provided to you, would you or your officials have some sense of how much was actually left over as of March 31, 2000? How much money are we carrying forward in that fund from last year to go with the $4.8 million from this year?

MS KELLY: There would be a significant amount left over because last year the applications were lower in some; the $4.8 million could accommodate most of it. There is a significant amount left. As you know, we were a new department, so we started to delve into the $4 million as we were outlining the new programs that we have just announced with social workers, with education students, with more money for tutoring, for tuition, with year-round SWASP, and the program that I announced whereby we put extra funding into CONA to allow students doing trades to be able to stay where they could get good work experience.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: But the Tutoring for Tuition Program comes under Youth Services budget and not this one.

MS KELLY: Yes, you are correct there but we did put extra money into it after the strike, I think, last fall, of the support workers. I am just naming the programs where we put extra into.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I understand.

If I were to take what you have just shared with us - you used the phrase, I think, a substantial amount carried forward. Correct me if I am wrong in this assumption. If we carry forward a substantial amount of the $8.8 million from last year, let's say the figure is $3 million, and we add to that $4.8 million from this year, that gives us $7.8 million to play with this year for the Student Employment Program. If the number of applications and the level of requests that come in this year is in the same ballpark as last year, then will we find ourselves in a situation this summer where no grants or no requests will be denied because we have run out of money?

MS KELLY: I would hope so, but it would be the same situation as last year, that they have to be valid applications that meet the criteria. In that instance, I would hope that we will be in that position this year. To be truthful, I think we should be.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The reason I ask that question, and I am very specific about the question, is from personal experience, because this is kind of new information I am getting now. Last year, that was the response I got: We do not have any more money. We have just run out of money. Last year, as an MHA following up on some applications in my district, I did get that answer, in that: We do not have any more money left.

Now what I did get in response to a couple of calls like that was, a call back a couple of days later that said: We had somebody who did not want the money, or we gave them the funding they requested and then they said they did not want it, so we have some people turning the money back in. Therefore, we will give you that particular request because someone just turned it in.

The answer I got was: We are now able to get that particular money for you because someone just turned back the money they had. But I had been earlier told that the fund was empty; there was no new money. Obviously the fund was flush with money but someone chose to cap the amount that was going to be given out either in a particular district, or cap the amount that was going to be provided to the program for the Province.

If I interpret correctly what you have just told us today, we should find ourselves this summer across this Province, if the level of demand is the same as last year - that is the qualifier - and you are right, if the applications are for reasonable programs and reasonable employment opportunities, that we should not get a response this year that: We have run out of money and there is no more left in the fund.

I do not want to read too much into what you are saying, but I want to make sure I have clarity around what it is we are proposing to do with this fund.

MS KELLY: I would anticipate that the program that you are mentioning was probably the high school program, which $500,000 was allotted for. It would be to the detriment of post-secondary students if we were to open that program completely. You could take that fund and annihilate it in one year if you offered it to whatever high school students in all four levels applied. So, the funding that was put in to start this investment corporation last year was not put in place to be used all in one year and to be used all in one particular area.

Now, we are anticipating getting a lot more work done with the Community Services Council. I have met with Penny Rowe already to try and enhance our SWASP program, to make it year-round, to tie it to post-secondary and work experience programs, to do more work with CONA and the university to make sure that students who are in post-secondary are getting both work experience and money to fund their education.

What I think you would be referring to, and I would have to have more detail of it, would probably be our high school program where we did put extra money in last year. I think we put $500,000 in last year, and I think in previous years we were allowing ten students per district. Last year, I believe, we did fifteen. I am not absolutely positive of that; I would have to go back to the records to take a look because I do not think that information is here.

Other than that, you would have to look to see where the money is allotted within the budget of the student corporation. We certainly cannot employ every high school student in the Province through the Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation because then there would be no money in future years for post-secondary students.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I appreciate that totally, Minister. The incident, just to give you an example - you need to know particulars - one of the examples was a second year university student who was going into - in fact, has gone into - the social work faculty this past semester, who could not get - the SWASP application that she submitted last year was not approved, so it was a SWASP program. It was a second year university student who could not get, or had to work for, to get her a sponsorship. That was how it was gotten last year, so there was obviously a -

MS KELLY: Was it a provincial SWASP program or one that was administered through...?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Provincial, because that is how I got the money.

MS KELLY: Was the initial one, though, through Community Services or through the department?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I wouldn't be able to tell you.

MS KELLY: That is some of the type of detail that you need. My hope is for good applications this year, that we will be able to accommodate the needs of our students.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The other point, you just raised, actually, the comment you made, I just wanted verification of it. You made a reference to, or questioned me as to whether or not the district allocation may have been used. You are talking about electoral districts? Or are you talking about...?

MS KELLY: Yes, the high school program is done by electoral districts, and administered by the MHAs.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: But there is a cap on it?

MS KELLY: Yes, there is a dollar cap on it.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: A dollar cap.

MS KELLY: A dollar cap and number of students cap.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The other programs would not have a cap per electoral district, would they?

MS KELLY: The other programs are not done by electoral district. Like, the Graduate Employment Program depends on applications from the private sector and public sector.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The only one that is done by electoral district is the high school program which has a cap by number, by district. It also has a cap by dollar, provincial and district. So that is the only one that has a cap attached to it by district?

MS KELLY: Yes, that is a new program that we put in place for high school students because we were finding that the availability for jobs, as I said in my opening remarks, or in some of my remarks this morning, was very different for high school students. We needed to put something special in place for them because many of them were finding they were coming out of school in late June and all of the jobs through the SWASP programs and other private sector programs were all gone because they obviously have to write exams; they are not available to go to work as early as university students. This was an experimental program that was put in place before the department was, but last year we tried to enhance it because we felt it was a valuable program.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you for the information and clarification, Minister. If you do not mind, as a comment, we look forward to seeing the report tabled in the House but it might be - and I recognize last was a start-up year, and I recognize it was new program and a new corporation set up. Given the purpose of the corporation, it may not be healthy to be having a major surplus left in that account and I think it would be unfortunate if, in any given year, we found ourselves, you know, with a fund that had a $2 million or $3 million surplus in it at the end of the summer when we had students who went back to university or college in September and found it difficult because they did not have a job and only got six weeks work instead of twelve, and they were out of university from - next week, university students are going to be out until September and if someone cannot get a job until June and they are only going to get eight weeks out of it when there is $3 million or $4 million in a fund, it may be something that we need to really look at in terms of how we hold that money.

MS KELLY: I think I need to clarify this a bit more because this is not viewed as a major surplus in the fund. This is viewed as a program that, until we have more funds we are able to put in on a yearly basis, these funds were put in to last more than one year. They were to develop and research and put new programs in place, especially for rural students. You cannot just take all the money in one year and have every student in the Province employed by government programs. Last year, as much as we possibly could, where we could find in rural areas places for students - I mean, we went out last year and spoke to the college, spoke to others, about places to find good placements for students.

As I have said to you, we do not want to get a make-work mentality in our student work programs. This $4 million was not put there to be all spent last year or this year. It is put there to develop new programs to help students year round as much as we can.

We have students coming to us who are saying, for instance: I cannot get the courses that I need in this particular term. I can get them next term, but there are no job programs out there for me to avail of.

We want to be able, in some instances, to have year-round SWASP programs. We want to be able, in our Community Youth Networks, for instance, to be able to provide - we feel that is an area to provide very meaningful work for students; in particular, students who are going in to either guidance counselling, into education, into recreation areas, community recreation and that. We were able to put in place a year-round SWASP program for students, for one student in each Community Youth Network this year.

That is what the program was set up to do; not to view that the money is left as a surplus and that we should have used it all in one year; because, as you know, in this year's Budget and what we anticipate for next year's, there will not be $4 million available to be able to put into the program, so we have to spend the money on a very pro-rated and wise basis.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you for the clarification. I wasn't advocating it all for job creation for the sake of having students get a cheque. I had experience with a number of instances last year, in particular, where students found themselves picking up six or eight weeks work when, in fact, they were off for a full summer and some of them university students off from May until September, because there wasn't enough money in a pool that they could get and there weren't enough employment opportunities. That would be unfortunate if that happened. That was my point, really.

MS KELLY: I should clarify that a bit more.

In many instances, where we could, we put programs on for twelve weeks last year in areas where especially employers said to us: Look, eight weeks and six weeks is really not long enough.

In many instances, the volunteer organizations in the small rural communities could not legitimately put them on for longer. Either they could not do it themselves or there was no valid reason to do it. So, we will still have instances of six- and eight-week programs, but where we can and it makes sense we will certainly do like we did last year and put in ten- and twelve-week programs for university students in particular.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

There was a point that the Member for Humber East raised that prompted me to raise it with you, in respect to the College of the North Atlantic. I think your response to him indicated that there was a board in place that runs the college and there was little control that you could exercise over that kind of thing. I just want to raise a point with respect to the credentialing process for instructors in the college. I understand that there is - and for good reason - a mechanism in place to ensure that there is a credentialing of all instructors in both the public college and the private college, and that there is a mechanism in place to ensure that there is a compliance with that, and there is a review mechanism, and things like that.

One of the difficulties that surfaced, that came to my attention recently and I got involved with, was a situation where there is an ability within your department - and so you should have - to ensure that people who teach in the private colleges have the appropriate credentials, are certified and well-trained. However, because of limitations and restrictions placed by the collective agreements in the College of the North Atlantic, you are not able to exercise that same insistence upon compliance within the College of the North Atlantic because of collective agreement restrictions.

The question came about, or the issue that arose, was a situation where there was - or potential existed for someone to be teaching in the public college who may not have been as well qualified as officials in your department may have wanted them to be, but because of some restrictions of a collective agreement, that could not be changed, which creates a double standard in that you are able to ensure compliance in the private colleges but you are not able to ensure compliance in the public college. It is a product of the collective agreement and a product of the autonomy that the college has in negotiating its own agreements.

MS KELLY: I would have to get further information for you on that. I know, from my own perspective, I have run into instances whereby the collective agreement has made a difference in who could be hired and the level of education, but I am not aware of any circumstances whereby an instructor in the College of the North Atlantic would have been inappropriately given a job or instructing a course for which they were not qualified. I feel certain that is not occurring, but I think there could be instances whereby people are not able to move from one area to another within either a college or within the college system because of the collective agreement. I am not aware of any circumstances where people would be inappropriately teaching courses that they are not qualified for. I do not feel that the collective agreement would have any precedence in that instance.

Maybe Mr. Hollett you might know, or some of my other officials, but I would have to check into that. You would have to give me the specific details because I would think that some of that would be on a specific case-by-case incident.

MR. HOLLETT: The College of the North Atlantic is regulated under an act in and of itself. So it has been given the authority under the act to, not only approve its own instructors, but also to approve programs. That is the guiding legislation for that. The Board of Governors of the College of the North Atlantic has the autonomy to (inaudible) the accountability at the same time to ensure that the programs and the quality instructors they have are of a good quality, much the same as Memorial University has.

In the case of the private colleges, there are regulations in the department whereby the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education approves the programs and approves the instructors. So that would make it possible for there to be a situation - although it would be very unusual and there may well have been an instance or two of this happening - where somebody might be teaching at the College of the North Atlantic who might not meet the technical qualifications that we would lay down for teaching at a private college. Those instances, if they occur at all, would be very, very rare; but, the quality of instructors at the College of the North Atlantic is very high and they are accountable. The Board of Governors at the College of the North Atlantic is accountable to ensure that that happens.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I would not want to give the impression, minister, that I was suggesting that the person instructing was not qualified. The example, and better illustrated by your deputy when he said there was someone who was teaching at the College at the North Atlantic who could not become credential to teach in a private college because of that issue.

MR. HOLLETT: It is a technical possibility.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: It is, yes, and that does happen. That was the point. I just raised that and was prompted to speak about it when the Member for Humber East raised the question.

I am cognizant of the time, Madam Chair. I have a number of questions I wanted to raise but I do not want to monopolize the time. If there are other colleagues of mine who want to raise some questions - what time do we have allocated for this and how does this work?

MADAM CHAIR: We normally allocate three hours, which will take us to 12 o'clock. Will you require more time than that?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I do not know, I have a few things I wanted to raise. I have had control of the conversation for a little while now and I don't want to monopolize. If someone else has some questions?

MR. MERCER: On a point of order, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: On a point of order, the Member for Humber East.

MR. MERCER: I move that at 12 o'clock this committee do adjourn or we do wind up our debate, one of the two, because at 12 o'clock we have other commitments and other work to do. If members wish to come back at a later date, reschedule this for another time, fair. Otherwise some members on our side are going to be leaving at 12 o'clock.

MADAM CHAIR: Well, obviously the Member for Trinity North has some other questions. How about the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne? The Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, have you concluded your remarks?

MR. MERCER: This will be the first time, Madam Chair, in the six years I have sat in this House of Assembly that we have not concluded our estimates within three hours on any department of government, just for the record.

MADAM CHAIR: There has been a fair amount of repetitiveness in the questioning this morning, I do agree.

MR. MANNING: (Inaudible) to do with this department sometimes. It is a very important department for us also, certainly, as I have been around a few years too and I have not had this much detail given back to us. I say that in thank you to the people opposite. It is an opportunity for us to delve into some things. If it needs be, if the members (inaudible) it does not matter to me.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Burin?

MS M. HODDER: No questions.

MADAM CHAIR: The Member for Humber East?

MR. MERCER: No questions.

MADAM CHAIR: The Member for Port de Grave.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: May I ask the two members who still have questions and comments how much time you feel you are going to require?

WITNESS: The Member for Placentia & St. Mary's has some questions too, I think.

MADAM CHAIR: Can you give me an indication of how much time you will require Mr. Manning to conclude?

MR. MANNING: The questions or the answers -

MS KELLY: (Inaudible) try to be very precise and get at them, okay. Let's use that fifteen minutes wisely.

MADAM CHAIR: It is a very serious question because if we have to reschedule I need an indication of the time frame in which we will need to work. If we reschedule before the House opens at 1:00 p.m, or if we reschedule for later today or another day, I would like to have an indication of the time, please, that you will require to conclude. We have already had nearly three hours of debate on the estimates for this particular department.

MR. MANNING: The Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne informs me he needs about half an hour.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The questions that I have remaining are in and around the student aid program. Fifteen minutes would probably -

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, so we should be able to conclude within an hour.

I would suggest then that we probably move to adjourn at this time if you have to leave at 12 o'clock.

MR. MERCER: At 12 o'clock I have other commitments. I generously allocated a full three hours not really expecting to be here for a full three hours but since we are, and it looks like we are going to have to continue, I will have to beg leave to leave at 12 o'clock.

MADAM CHAIR: I am just asking the committee if it is possible to reconvene at 7 o'clock this evening? Is that a problem for committee members?

MR. MERCER: We have a committee meeting at 5 o'clock.

WITNESS: You have a meeting at 5 o'clock this evening?

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

WITNESS: I was wondering if I could get a copy?

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, it is in the schedule.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: Well, we have a committee meeting set and it has been scheduled -

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: Well, as of right now the session is still scheduled for 5 o'clock this evening.

MR. MERCER: It is my understanding, Madam Chair, that is the prerogative of the Chair, and in consultation with the committee, for tying up the meeting; and I assume that there have been discussions with the Vice-Chair.

MR. MANNING: (Inaudible) be convening here to finish this one, whatever that takes; but to set up for another department this evening, my understanding is that the conversation has already taken place with your House Leader this morning.

MADAM CHAIR: I haven't been informed -

MR. MANNING: No, I haven't either.

MADAM CHAIR: - unless the Clerk of the House has - you have been informed.

WITNESS: The House Leader (inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

To my knowledge the session has been scheduled for 5 o'clock this evening to do the Estimates for Human Resources and Employment. It has been scheduled since yesterday. No one has notified me or brought to my attention anything otherwise. As of now, we will proceed at 5 o'clock this evening.

On the matter of the Estimates for the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education, I would now entertain, I guess, a motion to adjourn and to reschedule for continued debate at another time.

Moved by the Member for Burin-Placentia West.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: There are a couple of things, I guess, we should be sensitive to; the fact that we have gone a full three hours and need some additional time, as my colleague for Placentia & St. Mary's indicated, is the (inaudible) of a quality discussion and the importance of the issues we are talking about. The characterization of this as a debate is probably not a correct characterization. I would suggest that this is a good flowing discussion where we are asking, I think, some very pertinent questions in gaining a good insight into the operations of the department, and the minister and her staff have been extremely cooperative in providing us with that kind of insight. So, the characterization of the discussion as being a debate might suggest that because there was a debate we took so long, whereas it is not really the case at all. I suggest that we not characterize it as a debate but a good flow of discussion.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you for your comments, Mr. Wiseman.

Are there any other comments before we -

MR. MANNING: (Inaudible) this evening. We are going to have to get back on that because we are going to be in the House from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m (inaudible) going into the three hour estimates from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

WITNESS: It all depends (inaudible).

MR. MANNING: I think we have to look at the schedule on that because we were here three hours this morning and then in the House. We have to eat.

MADAM CHAIR: We usually schedule the sessions for three hours and all members are aware that they should clear their schedule for a three hour period, and that three hours is up. We will adjourn and reschedule for another session. Approximately one hour I think is what you require to continue discussion or debate.

The motion has been put. Is there a seconder, or do we require one?

Motion seconded by the Member for Port de Grave.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Minister and your officials. We will notify you as to a time when we can reconvene.

On motion, Committee adjourned.