Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Gerry Reid, MHA for Twillingate & Fogo, replaces Kelvin Parsons, MHA for Burgeo & LaPoile.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Wallace Young, MHA for St. Barbe, replaces Clyde Jackman, MHA for Burin-Placentia West.

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m. in Room 5083.

CHAIR (Wiseman): Order, please!

(Inaudible) for the Department of Education. For members of the Committee, you have just been handed the minutes of the meeting of the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, held this morning.

Can I have someone move that those minutes be accepted?

MR. O'BRIEN: So moved.

MR. YOUNG: Seconded.

CHAIR: Moved and seconded. Accepted as circulated.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: I thank you for that.

Minister, I welcome you and your staff. Just to talk about some of the process we go through, we have allowed three hours for this evening. I heard the Member for Twillingate & Fogo talking about a record he had to break. I do not know if that means he wants to get out early or if he wants to get out late.

What we have normally done is allocate about three hours, set aside about a three-hour period. About halfway through, in an hour-and-a-half, we will take a little break, a stand-up break for about ten minutes.

The process historically has been that we will provide you with an opportunity, Minister, to make some introductory comments. As a part of that process, I would ask you to introduce your staff. Then we open it up for some questions and an exchange between the members of the Committee and yourself.

First, before we proceed, I would ask that the Committee members introduce themselves. I will start with our colleague, whom I forgot earlier today, the Member for Labrador West. You can be first tonight.

MR. COLLINS: Randy Collins, MHA for the District of Labrador West.

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

MR. REID: Gerry Reid, MHA for the District of Twillingate & Fogo.

CHAIR: We can hear each other in the room just by talking, but for the benefit of Hansard - I apologize for that, Kevin - on your base here there is a place called talk. If you just hit that, the microphone, the little red light, will come on here. In order to be recorded in Hansard, you need to do that. It is for the benefit of Hansard that we need to have that depressed so they can hear you.

MR. WISEMAN: Ross Wiseman, MHA for the District of Trinity North.

MR. FRENCH: Terry French, MHA for the District of Conception Bay South.

MR. O'BRIEN: Kevin O'Brien, MHA for the District of Gander.

MR. YOUNG: Wallace Young, MHA for the District of St. Barbe.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Minister, with those introductions of the Committee, I turn it over to you and open the floor for your comments and introductions.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the Committee. We are pleased to be here this evening to discuss the Budget Estimates for this coming year for the Department of Education.

Joining me this evening - I will just introduce our officials here this evening. Of course, you know Tom Hedderson, the MHA for Harbour Main-Whitbourne and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Education. To my left is Bruce Hollett, Deputy Minister. To my right is Gerald Galway, ADM, Primary, Elementary and Secondary. Rachelle Cochrane is our Assistant Deputy Minister for Post-Secondary. Next to Bruce is Rick Hayward, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services. Joining us as well is Lynn Salter, our Director of Communications. I think we have everyone.

Obviously, they are here to assist me in providing any clarification you may require as we go through our submission. I have indicated to them that they should feel free to join in, in response to questions that are asked.

You will note that there are reductions from last year's Budget Estimates in certain areas, and increases in others. The reductions are a direct result of both a contracting education system and our government's commitment to addressing our Province's deficit. In the past months we have looked very hard at where we can streamline the system without compromising educational quality. The result to date has been - and, of course, we are all familiar with this - the merger of the Department of Education and the former Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education; some reductions to both the K to12 and post-secondary budget lines; a two-year transition towards implementing the recommended teacher allocation formula; and, a consolidation of K to12 school boards in the Province from eleven to five.

While there have been some concerns expressed about board consolidation, most people accept that reducing the number of school boards is a concrete step that we can all take to help us reduce administrative costs while maintaining educational programs and services. In fact, the Ministerial Panel report considered recommending further school board consolidation back in 2000, and stated at that time efforts to achieve efficiencies through future board consolidation would seem achievable and necessary within the next several years.

It will come as no surprise to anyone here that the issue which is forcing us to look at the structure of our K to 12 education system is our rapidly declining student population. Since our Province underwent major education reform in 1996 and 1997, enrolment has declined by 23 per cent, the number of schools has declined by 29 per cent, the number of teachers has declined by 17 per cent, but the number of school districts, district administrators and district program staff have remained constant or, in fact, increased. Clearly, the time is right to address this issue.

It is important to note, however, that this reorganization is at the governance and administrative level. It will result in fewer board members and executive positions and a reduced administrative structure. It will not, however, unduly affect the school level operations.

The merger of school boards will take effect this coming September 1. I am therefore pleased to report that existing boards are working co-operatively with our transitional committees towards making this transition seamless for students in the classroom.

The reason we spend so much time, effort and money on the K to 12 education system is that we have a commitment to prepare our young people to handle the challenges of post-secondary education. Today's employers are looking for a specific knowledge and skill sets. They demand their employees have more than a high school diploma. We must therefore continue to encourage young people to pursue post-secondary studies and we must remain committed, as a government and as a society, to a vibrant, comprehensive, post-secondary system that delivers high quality education.

We have a world-class university and a college system with campuses across the Province. Our institutions, their faculty and graduates, have an excellent reputation nationally and internationally. We have every right to be proud.

Government recognizes that knowledge is the fuel of the new economy and has set a course to examine post-secondary concerns, affordability and accessability, and to identify initiatives that will enhance the employment prospects of graduates through the allocation of $250,000 for the commission of a White Paper on post-secondary education. The White Paper will also examine whether our university and public college are meeting their potential to attract investment and generate economic development opportunities in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Meanwhile, although funding has been provided to renew infrastructure at both Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic, we have asked each institution to identify measures to achieve efficiencies of $2 million this fiscal year. The 2004 savings requested represent a very small share of their operating budgets; Memorial approximately 1 per cent and the College of the North Atlantic approximately 4 per cent.

Recent investment initiatives, such as major renovations to the College of the North Atlantic to house the health programs at the Prince Philip Drive campus, government's continued contribution to Memorial University's Opportunity Fund and the continuation of the tuition freeze for public post-secondary institutions are clear indications of our commitment to higher education.

You are, no doubt, aware that 20 per cent of the provincial Budget is spent on education, second only to health, which comprises 30 per cent. That is 50 per cent of the Province's entire annual expenditures. We consider the high percentage of taxpayers' money that goes to education as an investment that will enable us to capitalize on the limitless opportunities our natural resources and other assets provide. However, as with any investment, we must spend wisely. Our education dollars must be spent in a way that will most benefit our students and our Province and we have every intention of ensuring that this will be achieved.

Mr. Chairman, with those few introductory comments, I welcome any questions or commentary from Committee members and my officials are here to join with me in helping with the responses.

CHAIR: Thank you, Minister.

We will start with the Opposition critic for Education, the Member for Twillingate & Fogo.

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your introduction. I will try not to keep you too long tonight but I have some comments that I would like to make first. You are taking 475 teachers out this year and next year, is my understanding.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: As you know, 256 have been identified for this year and the balance for next year will be - probably I should just share with you where the 256 comes from. In terms of a reduced student enrollment this year, just looking at that raw figure, we were looking at 147. As you may recall, I think it was in 2001, the government of the day kept in 218 teachers in the system. So it was decided this year to address that issue, but only one-half. So, the 147 plus the 109 - 109 representing one-half of the 218 who were kept in the system a few years ago - gives us the total of 256, which is the amount for the academic year 2004-2005.

It was announced in the Budget, and you are quite right, that there will be further teaching positions which will be affected next year. The exact number we do not know. What we do know is the one-half of the 218. So in order to recapture the 218 that were left in the system two years ago, we do have that figure of 109 that we do know, plus another number. At this stage it is difficult to tell.

MR. REID: Why would it be difficult? We know what the projections are for enrollment two years out, don't we?

OFFICIAL: We have some projections in terms of enrollments.

MR. REID: Because the day that we did the lockup for the Budget I asked an official in the department of Treasury Board how many teachers were going in the two years and he called your department or Treasury Board and the number that he was given, and came back to me, was 475.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It is difficult to say, with certainty, what the precise number would be. Again, we know of the 109 but that clearly would be a decision that would be made next year. From the Budget announcement this year, it indicated that one-half of the 218 would be impacted this year, or 2004-2005, and the other half next year. To be precise and to give an exact figure at this stage would be premature in my view because the second part of that puzzle has not been completed.

MR. REID: Personally, this is an opinion, I think you did the wrong thing there. It is probably not your fault because I think you feel the same way, in light of the questions that you asked me last year. We kept 218 in last year as well. Is that right, John?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No. As I understand it, in 2003 there were 165 teachers, or teaching positions, and the year prior to that the government of the day removed 208 teaching positions. It was the year prior to that, that the 218 positions were kept in the system.

MR. REID: Okay, yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: But the last two years, prior to this year, there were teachers removed or teaching positions removed, 165 and 208.

MR. REID: Anyway, you are taking out what remained in there over the next two years.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

MR. REID: I think that is a mistake and I argued for it last year. I was successful in getting the Cabinet - of which I was a part - to leave those teachers in there. I think you agreed last year that even with the numbers we took out there were far too many. I think, like the boards, that we have reached a point where we really need to review the formula we are using because of declining enrollments, especially in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and with somewhat of a difference in the St. John's area - even though you are losing students in St. John's, they still have the capacity to deal with the loss far easier than they do in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I think you would hear more from the boards on the need to look at a different formula or another way of providing teachers to schools if they were not so busy trying to keep their jobs right now.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I do not mind saying to you, we have met (inaudible) the boards on a fairly regular basis. There are representatives of some of the boards who make that same claim that you just made and support the idea of any government looking at a change in the way the formula works and how it is applied to teacher allocation.

MR. REID: Yes, I think we are going to have a declining enrollment in rural, rural Newfoundland for the next ten or fifteen years. If we continue to take teachers out, based on that formula, these children in those areas are certainly not going to get the education - and they are not now - that they get in large urban areas.

My argument when I was in the department was not that public but you have courses being offered in St. John's that they could never even dream about in rural Newfoundland. For example, there are schools in this city that are offering German, Russian, Spanish and French, whereas I think in your district, Randy, they cannot even offer French, or they are talking about cutting our French Immersion this year. I think it is an unjust system and is one that needs to be looked at very carefully, because everyone outside of the Avalon, or at least the Northeast Avalon from Holyrood West, is certainly going to be impacted in the next few years, especially up your way, Wally, and down my way, and areas like that.

There has to be a better way because, even though the distance education program is a good one, it certainly does not replace a teacher in the classroom. It is a good tool but it does not replace the teacher. Anyway, I hope that next year you can convince your colleagues of the need for leaving those teachers in there.

With regard to the school boards, I think you moved too fast, and I cannot see the savings. You are saying you are going to reduce administrative positions and you are doing it for efficiencies and stuff. Efficiencies, we all know, is just another bureaucratic word for cutting the budget. I cannot see how you are going to save the money, this year or next, in the school boards, because you are cutting from ten to six, the major boards, and you are going to keep the offices opened. That is my understanding; is that correct?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Do you want me to speak to that, just for a moment?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We are reducing the total number of boards, counting the Francophone, putting that in the mix, from eleven to five. Of course, the Labrador Board and the Francophone Board are not affected by this, so essentially we are talking about the nine Island boards; however, when I say that, I have to be mindful of the fact that the Great Northern Peninsula Board includes a portion of the South Coast of Labrador. So we have nine boards that are essentially becoming three.

We have identified the headquarters and we have regional educational centres that will be open for each particular new district. Going west to east, the Western Board headquarters will be in Gander but we will retain regional education centres essentially in the locations where the school board offices already exist. Therefore, with the headquarters in Corner Brook, we will have a regional education centre in Stephenville and another one in Lower Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula.

The Central Board headquarters has been identified as Gander, and the regional education centre for that board will be in Grand Falls-Windsor. The Eastern Board, which is a consolidation of four, the headquarters will be in St. John's with regional education centres in Spaniard's Bay, Clarenville and Burin. Obviously, the director and the assistant directors will be housed in the headquarters, with a flexibility and an understanding that people are free to move as they see fit, but their office, I guess, will be located in the headquarters, with the exception of the Eastern Board. Because of the distinction or the dichotomy in the rural-urban split, such an obvious one in the Eastern Board, it was felt that we would include in the distribution the role of an additional assistant director to be housed in Clarenville to deal primarily with rural school issues.

Other regional educational centres that I have identified will maintain a variety of functions and features throughout the Province; because the bottom line is, and perhaps in some respects you are alluding to this, educational service and the providing of educational service has to continue. Therefore, although our directors and assistant directors will be in the headquarters, our regional education centres will house an administrator or manager. There will be some consultants. There will be some student support services. There will be itinerant teachers, and there will obviously be the need for transportation services and maintenance services, and that will continue in our regional education centres; but, again, as I mentioned, the director, the executive staff, will be work out of the headquarters.

Referring briefly to your point on savings, there will be significant savings from the point of view of the direct reduction of executive positions and other senior managerial positions in the school boards. I understand that, with the consolidation that we have announced, we are looking at, I believe, some thirty-three positions in total, and that, in and of itself, will realize in the range of perhaps some $3 million in savings, just from those executive positions, because the vast majority of these are senior executive positions. From a salary point of view they vary, but they are easily one hundred, one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible) average.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay, an average of one hundred and five; so, one hundred, one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty range.

MR. REID: Too much for them.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Pardon me?

MR. REID: Too much for them.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well, that was a part of the thinking.

In addition to that, in terms of travel, travel time, cost of travel, we have a significantly lower number of school board trustees, obviously, because we only have five boards instead of eleven. That has travel implications and cost savings and other efficiencies that we will be asking our boards to obviously identify.

MR. REID: But on the elected school boards, you are not going to save a lot of money on those, on the actual members travelling. I know if they are like the board in my district, in the Gander district, they may meet once a month, and all they get is their travel cost. They are not -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Gerry, there is travel, I agree, and they are coming from all different parts of the Province, but the number is significantly reduced. You take, under the act, we are allowed fifteen members per board, so that is less than 165 members if we go with the eleven. Now we have five, so we have ninety less. There are ninety less individuals doing any travel; but, granted, those who are -

MR. REID: (Inaudible) travel are going to have to travel now, spend the night and pay for hotel rooms.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Again, that very issue came up. It was only the last two or three days we met with the - in fact, Tuesday night I met with the Western Board in Corner Brook , or the transitional committee rather, in Corner Brook - no, that was Monday night. Last night we met with the transitional committee for the Eastern Board. These members talked about, for example, a flexibility within that structure that will allow them to do different things in terms of travel. We have regional education centres. There is no reason - for example, the Eastern Board, although the headquarters might be in St. John's, their second meeting might be in Clarenville, or their third meeting may be in Spaniard's Bay. The Central Board - from a travel point of view - is a non-issue in terms of where the two offices are, but I realize that the members have to travel significant distances.

I guess what I am saying is: the travel is an issue, there is no question, but with so many less individuals, and so many less individuals travelling, and with the flexibility within the new transitional committees - who will become school boards, actually, on September 1 - with that flexibility built in, I am sure there are ways that can be found to economize and try to limit expenses. Ultimately, obviously, that is a part of this exercise.

MR. REID: Why did you pick St. John's over Spaniard's Bay, when we own the building in Spaniard's Bay? From what I can understand, it is quite a palatial building.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, I have been there and it is quite a building. It will be a regional education centre.

The St. John's office is leased. The lease expires, I believe, in 2007; however, the board, or the transitional committee - again, to become the board - may very well look at ways whereby the existing premises can be sublet. If there are ways that they can back out of that lease, that will be explored.

Another factor that we took into account was this: There are many board-owned properties within the St. John's area. In fact, one of them, Brinton Memorial, is just down here by the Arts and Culture Centre and it is used now by the Avalon East Board to conduct a variety of activities and provide some services to students and teachers. That is the kind of thing that, once the lease expires, or if the present property in Atlantic Place can be sublet, a property such as Brinton - and, in fact, it might be Brinton - it is a board-owned property, it is now vacant in the sense that it is not used as a school, and it may very well be identified as a headquarters.

MR. REID: The reason I argue, besides the rent, you are keeping the building open in Spaniard's Bay and if you were to close it, obviously the return to government or to the board would not be as great if you were building in Spaniard's Bay as if they were to take a school in St. John's and convert it into an office, because the resale value on a piece of property here is far greater. I think you should have looked at that; but, in terms of overall savings, have you done any calculation on what it cost board members to travel to board meetings in the various boards last year? I would assume the most expensive one was Labrador. We are not going to save any money there because we are not doing anything with the board; because, when they came to board meetings in Goose Bay, they were flying in from all over Labrador - well, at least from Labrador City and places like that - and I do not think the savings are there.

What are these new senior management positions that you have in the board, that you did not have before?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In the regional educational centres?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It was felt, where the director and the assistant directors would be in the headquarters, that it would be necessary to have a senior education officer or manager, whatever the terminology ultimately may be, to essentially act as a co-ordinator for that particular office. It is somebody who will oversee the activities of that office and ensure that there is some organization to the regional education centre and again to allow those individuals - because, keep in mind, the regional education centres will be prominent centres of education in these communities. I think it is important that we remember that, because there will be consultants, there will be student support services, there will be itinerant teachers, and there will be the ongoing day-to-day maintenance and bus transportation issues that will arise. It was felt that a person, whether we call him or her a manager or a senior education officer or co-ordinator or whatever, not an executive position but a managerial position for these offices - it was to help co-ordinate.

MR. REID: Did you look at reducing the number of employees at the board before you said you were doing away with the boards? Because I think you could have gotten your savings of your thirty-four individuals over eleven boards easier than what you are doing.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Obviously, you know, it was -

MR. REID: You could have had eleven, for example, by reducing the number of assistant directors by one in each of the eleven boards.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: As a department, we looked at a variety of options that would be brought to government, to allow government to make a decision, but because of the very weighed sort of (inaudible) of executive positions that existed with our eleven boards, with their salaries, with their associated expenses, and even in their cases travel costs and other administrative expenses associated with their positions, it was felt that the greatest savings would be as a result of an amalgamation and consolidation of boards, therefore eliminating, as I say, thirty-three relatively senior and well-paid executive positions throughout the Province.

MR. REID: John, I have one fear for all of this, in trying to close five or six boards, is that you have left the regional offices open. I think, for anyone who does not know, let me tell you how a school board operates. We told these school boards they were allowed, back in 1997, one director, three assistant directors, and six program co-ordinators. I bet if you went down to the Avalon East School Board tonight and looked at the number of employees - how many employees were there, Gerald, last year - actual professional teachers or the like - in that board at the end of this year?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: At the Avalon East Board?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In terms of consultants and co-ordinators?

MR. REID: Yes, because they were allowed, what was it? One and three is four, and six are nine. I happen to think or know that they created a new class here in St. John's called associate assistant directors.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: They did.

MR. REID: Not in the legislation. They were not allowed to have them. What they did with them is, they pulled them out of the classrooms. Because the minister assigns teachers to a board, they took them out of the classrooms and put them in the board office. Not only did they do that, but they took money from operating funds to top up their salaries, which is criminal as far as I am concerned. My fear is that they are going to do the same thing in these regional boards.

Very soon, when whoever gets the job down here in St. John's looks at the board that he has now compared to what he had last year, four times larger - well, you have four boards put in one; it is not four times larger but it is at least twice - and he is looking at half the staff that he had for one board, I know exactly what he is going to do. What are you going to do to prevent that?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well, one thing, there is going to be an accountability.

MR. REID: There had better be something more than accountability, John, because they do listen. Believe me, I was there.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well, this is a new regime. This is a new structure that is being put in place, and there will be an accountability mechanism as part and parcel of it, particularly when it is fundamentally the reason that we are doing this. It is addressing ways to achieve savings - the government - but at the same time recognizing a drastic reduction in our student enrollment.

We have made it clear, in discussions with our transitional committees, that there will be a requirement that there be total and absolute accountability to the new directors who are to be hired to become the directors of the new school boards after September. We will, and it is certainly a part of our plan to issue ministerial directives along those lines to ensure that the staffing model that we propose is implemented and adhered to.

It is much easier, I think, Gerry, when introducing a new structure and when beginning a new administrative regime, to set the rules to ensure that they are adhered to. It is much more difficult - and, again, I think this is what you are referring to - in an existing regime where the rules have not been followed and where boards have, for whatever reason, felt that they had the freedom to do as they pleased. It is much easier to change a system that is, but when we commence a new structural regime we set the rules, we issue ministerial directives, we impose upon the boards the absolute requirement of strict accountability. In approaching that way, I feel that the issue that you are talking about can hopefully be avoided.

MR. REID: If it is not, what you will see, instead of 475 teachers going out of classrooms in the Province, you are going to have 675.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, and that is the fear.

MR. REID: It is not a fear; it is a reality, if you do not stop them. John, I am serious. This is not a criticism; it is something that I certainly felt strongly about, and I was only in the position for seven or eight months.

How many, Gerald, were in St. John's, on the Avalon East?

MR. GALWAY: In terms of -

MR. REID: Program co-ordinators, associate assistant directors, directors, and everyone else.

MR. GALWAY: Mr. Reid, there were three assistant directors, there were six program specialists; but, you are right, there are a number of other program specialists that have been assigned out of the teaching allocation. That number varies from year to year, but it is -

MR. REID: How many? Give us a rough estimate.

MR. GALWAY: Certainly in the range of twelve.

MR. REID: Additional ones?

MR. GALWAY: No, probably twelve to fifteen in total.

MR. REID: The associate assistant director is a class that is not even recognized.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Not even identified or recognized in the act.

MR. REID: No.

MR. GALWAY: My understanding also is that there are approximately three associate assistants in this particular board.

MR. REID: If you really wanted to save money, you could have done away with all of that stuff, still left the boards in tact, and taking some control over something that certainly was getting out of control. I am not blaming it on you; you inherited it.

You are talking about a new system now, Minister, and that system was only put in place in 1997. You are right, the boards - or, more importantly, the director of the board - knew that he was responsible to an elected body which was not government, and they set their own salaries for the most part.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You know, we are mindful of that. In fact, there was an issue in Labrador that went very public recently.

MR. REID: Not just in Labrador. My understanding is, it is just not in Labrador.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well, on that very point, it was obviously a problem that government has identified because the Auditor General is presently conducting a fairly thorough audit and investigation on that issue -

MR. REID: So he should.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: - on executive salaries.

MR. REID: We should have done it, because they were taking their additional salaries from the classrooms of this Province, from the students, because we were giving them the money either for operating capital, to keep the heat and light on in the schools, or for salaries, which they chose not to do. That is my fear, that when we get a board in Spaniard's Bay with half a dozen people you are going to send out there, that in five or six years that might be fifty, if left unchecked. It is a serious matter.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I think your point, again, is a valid one in the sense that there is a requirement. If this is being done for the reasons that I have outlined, if it is to be meaningful to the system in this Province, there has to be an accountability and a supervision and a scrutiny to ensure that what is set out here is followed and abided by; otherwise, we run into the very problem that you have identified.

MR. REID: I will move off that one; we have beaten that one to death.

In school construction, how much money are you spending this year in school construction? I think the minister mentioned, in the Budget, $22 million?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, $22.3 million or something, I believe.

MR. REID: How much did you cancel or defer?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Let's see. The full amount here, what we have - I will just go on memory now in terms of the Budget Debate. Cancelled was a school in L'Anse-au-Loup, in Southern Labrador; deferred was redevelopment of work at Herdman Collegiate in Corner Brook, Mobile Central High School in Mobile on the Southern Shore -

MR. REID: Leary's Brook.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Leary's Brook in the north end of St. John's, and also the Mealy Mountains Auditorium in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, which is not limited to the Department of Education because it ties in an involvement with the Department of Municipal Affairs and, I believe, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation. What is going ahead is, there has been allocated $1.5 million for the refurbishing of St. Bernard's school, and -

MR. REID: A top priority for the board.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: All other projects are deferred, with the exception of the cancellation of L'Anse-au-Loup.

What is continuing are two projects: one in the Bay of Islands area, a school that was started some months ago -

MR. REID: Meadows.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In Meadows, and also the provincial component of the continuation and completion of the Francophone school here in St. John's.

MR. REID: Where is the $22 million? These are projects like New World Island that have not been completed funded yet, are they?

OFFICIAL: Cash flow on projects that are not yet complete, that is correct.

MR. REID: The school is complete but you have not paid for it.

OFFICIAL: Or construction that has already started and is underway. In other words, schools that are not yet complete, or other projects that are not yet complete.

MR. REID: Is the entire Francophone school on the hill included in that, and we get the money back later? How much of that do we get back?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Is that 60-40 or 70-30, the Francophone? You are talking about the new Francophone school?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. HAYWARD: I think the federal government are making a contribution of around $3 million to a $5.5 million project, if my memory serves me right.

MR. REID: So it is not really $22 million out there in new school construction.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No, it is a combination of ongoing, completed, new, and work to be completed.

MR. REID: That Meadows thing, that is under construction is it?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

MR. REID: And Coaker Academy is finished on New World Island.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In fact, I am advised that classes should be open in September, and I want an invitation to your district for the official opening.

MR. REID: I hope the Minister of Health accompanies me to Fogo Island for the opening of half of our hospital as well.

I am sure you can get an invitation out of the board, John. I would love to have you there, seriously, because it is a nice building and it is long overdue.

On the Leary's Brook school, maybe you should inform your Member for St. John's North that it was not the previous government that cancelled or postponed that; because he took a jab at me in the House late the other night and criticized me for cancelling the Leary's Brook school. I think your Minister of Finance did that - not me - your Minister of Finance.

CHAIR: Excuse me for a second, Gerry. If you are through the capital piece - I will let you continue with your train of thought on the capital funding - Randy indicated that he had some limited time, so I will just pass it over to the Member for Labrador West and he can pick up questioning and we can come back to you later, Gerry.

MR. REID: Yes, no problem.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you.

I do not have a lot of questions, Minister, but I would like to get your thoughts on whether or not your government intends to expand on the private schools that are operating in the Province.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Private schools? The trend is certainly the other direction. There was a time in the Province when we had approximately 120 private schools and now our number is closer to thirty, so the trend is to recognize that the private schools that we had in our jurisdiction are those that, number one, are credible and they provide the choice and the option that a certain number of our students wish to have.

We have certainly maintained the position in the department that, with the proper monitoring and the proper supervision of what takes place in the private school industry, it may very well be a legitimate entity from the point of view of choice and selection that some students may require and may need at a certain particular time.

To answer your question, we certainly do not plan to abolish the private school system in any way, but it is fair to say that the numbers now appear to be manageable in terms of institutions. There appears to be much more accountability to the public at large, and we will continue our role in the department to ensure that adequate monitoring takes place.

MR. COLLINS: Do you have any concerns about the fact that students who are going to private colleges end up generally spending a tremendous amount of more money than through the public system, and sometimes is not because they are offered a choice. It is one of two things: either they cannot get into the public college for what they want, or the public college is not offering the courses that are being sponsored by the private colleges.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We do a fairly regular check on what courses are being provided and what programs are being provided at the private college system. If it is seen by government that there is a demand for a particular area, we may very well take that into account in providing programming or course offering in the public college system.

In terms of what a student spends, it seems to me that may be difficult, Randy, to really get a full grasp on, and I will tell you why. There are many students in the private college system who once were perhaps in the university or in the public college system. What happens very often is, when that student may graduate from a private college, yes, there is student debt and there is student liability but it may not be solely a product of the fact that he or she was in a private school. They may have been in a public institution for a year or two, and sometimes it seems to me - I know in our analysis of this very issue - that very fact seems to get overlooked sometimes. Yes, there is debt. There is debt, whether it is public or private, but often a private college graduate - or, for that matter, a private college dropout - may incur debt, but debt from both systems.

MR. COLLINS: Going back to the one we spoke about earlier with the French Immersion program under the Labrador School Board, where the percentage of kindergarten students beginning kindergarten this year, 54 per cent have signed up for French Immersion. Have you had any recent conversations with the school board on that issue?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I am concerned about that issue. I have spoken with some parents in Lab West, and the Canadian Parents for French.

MR. HEDDERSON: I have had some conversations with (inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, you may want to speak to that after. Tom, met with some parents just last Friday, wasn't it?

MR. HEDDERSON: Friday (inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I know recently the school board met with some of the parents as well. My impression is that there was a loosening of the position. Now, that is not an indication to me that there is a change of position, but it does not seem to be as firm and as definite as what Jeff Thompson, the director, was saying publicly a month-and-a-half ago.

As you know - because you asked me the question in the House one time - we have made an application to the Department of Canadian Heritage to seek some funding, extra funding, for French services, French teaching, and French instruction materials. We are still awaiting a response, but, if it is positive at all, then certainly my first phone call will be to the Labrador School Board to provide that assistance to them so that this issue may be addressed.

MR. COLLINS: That goes back to something that Gerry mentioned there a few minutes ago, the priorities of spending money. In the Labrador School Board, we have people making $149,000 a year, or $138,000 a year.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: The auditors were there about two months ago dealing with that.

MR. COLLINS: The Auditor's report, do you have any idea when that will be -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I believe the Auditor General's report is filed in November of each year - late fall, I believe.

MR. COLLINS: We won't get anything on that until November?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It will be this fall, I would think, before the report is filed.

MR. COLLINS: Have you had any discussions with the Labrador Board in terms of the funding cuts by the mining companies, and the effect that may have on them?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Not directly. That was announced last week. I certainly paid attention to the media reports on it. I understand that the IOC grant was reduced from $1 million to $300,000.

MR. COLLINS: Nine hundred thousand, three hundred.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: So, it is a $600,000 reduction.

My guess is - and this is only my own suspicion, perhaps, more than anything - the reason it was cut was because it was uncertain to the company as to exactly where the funds were being used and allocated. I guess IOC made a corporate decision that it had to make in light of that uncertainty. What it means, of course, is that when any school board receives in excess of half-a-million dollars less than it was accustomed to receiving, it raises the issues in terms of what the impact may be, but it is an issue.

MR. COLLINS: It is going to be a negative impact upon the education system there because the top-up step that teachers receive may not be possible to continue under the limited amount of funding that is going to be provided in the future. As minister, you have not had any discussions with the -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I haven't, not on that issue.

MR. COLLINS: - mining companies?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No, not since last week. I do not know, unless maybe my officials have?

OFFICIAL: No, they haven't that I know of, minister.

MR. COLLINS: You were saying, it is time you had some meetings?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Do you want to speak on the French Immersion -

OFFICIAL: The Canadian Parents for French had a meeting in St. John's, or a conference, and they were in. I was just having a conversation with them about the situation and, I guess, it goes back to the parents of the board, Randy. It seems to me that right now there does not seem to be a great relationship between the two of them.

MR. COLLINS: Well, you have a board that is ruling with an iron fist that does not display any flexibility on any issue.

OFFICIAL: No, and my advice to them was, again, to continue to lobby the board. I think what they are looking for is a working relationship to deal with this situation. As the minister has indicated, that heritage fund is there and it has been applied for but everyone needs to come together on this as a concerted effort. I think that is where they would like to go with it and, hopefully, that is where it will go.

MR. COLLINS: But for French Immersion now in the Province, you receive 50 per cent funding from the federal government?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We receive funding from the federal government for French services, that is right, and French instruction materials and related costs.

MR. COLLINS: How much of that money would have went to the Labrador School Board?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We probably have the exact figure there, do we, on that?

MR. GALWAY: I do not have the exact figure.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We can give you the figure of the allocated funding for the board, but you want the breakdown for French?

MR. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We do not have it. We can provide that.

MR. COLLINS: Okay.

The next issue, from my district perspective, is: Do you have any plans in the near future of - I do not know how to put it - either building the college in Labrador West, your own facility, or continue paying highway robbery prices at the tune of $1.2 million a year to the existing facility?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You are talking about the Notre Dame Academy?

MR. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Clearly, that is a situation that has to be addressed and we are addressing it. In fact, my guess is - Gerry, when you were in the department you perhaps addressed the situation as well.

There was a requirement to settle the issue of ownership and property dispute, and that was conducted several years ago. That went to the Department of Justice. That issue was settled, in terms of who has the property rights and -

MR. COLLINS: The diocese of Schefferville.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Exactly.

The R.C. Episcopal Corporation, through the Schefferville Diocese, is the determined property owner. They then went ahead and, on a monthly basis, started charging the College of the North Atlantic - and has been doing so, I think, since 1992, if I remember correctly - an exorbitant monthly rent. There were two separate figures and there was a lease, I believe, that was signed originally, whereby the college would pay $50,000 a month. Subsequent to that, I am not sure if it was a written document or an understanding or whatever, but the rent was increased to approximately $80,000 a month to the tune of approximately $1 million a year.

We have requested of the Department of Justice to give us a legal opinion to: A, the validity of lease one; B, the validity of whatever the arrangement is with regard to the $80,000 a month, whether it is a lease, an agreement, or a memorandum of understanding. Because there is some confusion, as I understand it, between lease A and agreement B, and we are awaiting an opinion from the Department of Justice on that issue. Upon receipt of an opinion from the Department of Justice and in consultation, obviously, with the Board of Governors of the College of the North Atlantic, a decision has to be made.

MR. COLLINS: Is there a lease in place now, like a fixed duration?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It affects duration?

MR. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: The original document was a lease and it referenced the monthly rent of $50,000. Does the lease refer to duration? Are you aware of that, Bruce?

MR. HOLLETT: No, I am not sure if it is an open-ended lease or if it is a fixed duration.

MS COCHRANE: The second lease is due to expire around 2012, so our question to Justice is: If the first lease holds, we can get out on a month-to-month lease. If the second lease holds, we may be locked in for quite a while.

MR. COLLINS: Oh, my God, 2012.

MS COCHRANE: (Inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: If Justice determines the second arrangement to be valid and binding.

MR. COLLINS: Wow.

Okay, I think that is -

AN HON. MEMBER: That is enough of that.

CHAIR: Are you sure you do not want to end on a more positive note?

MR. COLLINS: I do not have the stomach for much more of this.

CHAIR: Thank you to the Member for Labrador West.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Probably I will pass it over to Gerry again, because I am going outside, so this will not cut in with our meeting. I have a few more minutes to go, and, rather than interrupt the meeting (inaudible)

CHAIR: By all means, it is your call, whatever you want to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you coming back, then?

MR. BUTLER: I am coming back, yes.

MR. REID: I am not going to be too much longer.

MR. COLLINS: I will follow you out, in case I have to pick you up.

Thank you, everyone.

CHAIR: Thanks, Randy.

MR. REID: The last few years, government put $1 million into public libraries, books in the Province. Is that in there this year as well?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, it is. I think our amount is relatively consistent with last year.

MR. REID: Was it always included in the Budget like that? I thought we made special (inaudible) after, a donation to them each year.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It is there on page 182, Gerry, Public Libraries And Information Services. In fact, the amount is almost identical; in fact, it is slightly higher than the Revised figure from last year. It is essentially equivalent to last year.

MR. REID: Before I just ask you a few things about the Estimates themselves, do you think that we could have a list of all the employees with the department, as well as any boards that you control, the number of employees that you have now? I think they are probably -

AN HON. MEMBER: They are all listed there.

MR. REID: They are listed in -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Salary Details.

MR. REID: Salary Details.

How many of these are going? How many are not filled? How many will you be filling? Things like that.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Sure.

MR. REID: I think the other ministers that the Chair of this Committee has asked, they told him that it would be provided to them by the end of the month, I think.

AN HON. MEMBER: Before the (inaudible).

MR. REID: Yes. Is that possible?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I would not think that would be a problem. It is a list of positions: positions that are filled, and positions that are vacant.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: He wants me to keep you going for at least five more minutes.

Let's go back to page 172 and we will go down through some of the headings. I will not do what I did the other night, because I do not need to. I know what a lot of these are.

Under subhead 2.1.01.05. Professional Services, $275,000 up from $30,000 last year, what Professional Services would you be purchasing for that?

MR. HOLLETT: That is $250,000 additional for the White Paper on Post-Secondary Education.

MR. REID: On page 173, Administrative Support, Information Technology, $30,000, it is new; it was not there last year.

MR. HAYWARD: That is really a reallocation of our Information Technology budget to deal with the tangible capital assets that the Minister of Finance has been dealing with, our move from the cash accounting to accrual accounting.

MR. REID: Okay, (inaudible) economics.

On page 174, Grants and Subsidies, under the Community Access Program, we have dropped $100,000 in that. It has gone down, the Grants and Subsidies portion, by $100,000, subhead 2.2.01.10.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It went from $1,156,000 to $1,055,000.

MR. HAYWARD: That is a cost-shared program, as you are aware. We are budgeting in 2004-2005 for a cost-shared program, and that just reflects the different cash flows that the federal government are participating with us.

MR. REID: Under the School Board Operations, subhead 3.1.02, page 175, that $141 million is for the operation, for the most part, of the schools around the Province, is it?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You mean under the total?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

MR. REID: Under that, Minister, if you do not mind a suggestion .

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Please, go ahead.

MR. REID: I had the opportunity to visit a number of schools in the few months that I was minister and I have to say, outside of the one that we were replacing in Burgeo with a brand new school, a beautiful school, state of the art, outside of that old one that I went into that was still in operation - I guess the new one will be open in the fall, will it?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: The new one is open.

MR. REID: The new one is open? Outside of that school, I think the worst school that I went into was the one on the hill here, Bishops, is it? Not Bishops, but Prince of Wales. Not Prince of Wales, Bishops College.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Do you mean Bishops or Booth?

MR. REID: No, Booth. No, Bishops. That is atrocious.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: There are problems with windows.

MR. REID: Well, you could put your hand out around the windows and knock on them from the outside from inside.

What I suggested to Brian Shortall, just in passing one day, maybe an idea - because the three of the schools on the hill are the same age and they are all in similar states of disrepair - why not go for one school?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You mean for that area there?

MR. REID: Yes, a super school. They have done it in other provinces. I think you might save enough money over twenty years by closing the three of them to pay for it.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: As you probably remember, the Avalon East Board, before the St. Mary's issue, went as public as it did. A part of its closeout plan was to close out Booth Memorial, which is the school right next to Bishops. After one or two public meetings, and further meetings with the board, that particular decision was reversed. So the board at least did contemplate this year doing in part what you are suggesting.

MR. REID: Yes, because I cannot see replacing three schools, or even two new ones up there, but you are going to need it. I think that to continue to put large sums of money - and they are not getting that now and have not been - into those two schools upon the hill is a waste of money. They are fifty years old. I think three of them are roughly the same age, aren't they?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: They were built in the 1950s, yes.

MR. REID: I am not so familiar with Holy Heart, but I understand that is not in great shape either.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It was built in 1959, I believe, 1957.

MR. REID: You would only be talking a couple of thousand students, I think. When it was probably in its peak, some of those schools down there probably had that many (inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I taught at Holy Heart, actually. I taught there in my first year of teaching in 1974 and there were 1,500 students at Holy Heart. Now the student population at that school - and it is still probably the largest high school in the Province, that or Ascension; Ascension is fairly large as well - is about 900?

OFFICIAL: Almost 1,000.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Almost 1,000, so it is between 900 and 1,000. So, what was a population for a large high school in St. John's twenty-seven or twenty-eight years ago is now equivalent to a population of two of our schools.

MR. REID: I think you are always going to have a need for a school in that area, it is in the centre of the city, and I think it would be a good idea to build one. I know you would get some flak from parents, because I think maybe the school is too large, but I think it would probably solve a number of problems.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: My sense is that one of those schools, not necessarily next year or the year after but in due course -

MR. REID: Will close.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: For two reasons; again, the drastically declining enrollment and the condition of the school resulting from that.

MR. REID: Anyway, it is something to look at. I think you could sell it to pretty well anyone in the Province, the need for the building of that.

Under Special Measures, on page 176, 3.1.06, Appropriates for French First Language, you have gone from $750,000 to $2.5 million, in terms of Grants and Subsidies. What does that deal with? That is not construction of the school, is it?

MR. GALWAY: That relates, Mr. Reid, to an anticipated increase in the official languages agreement in response to the Stephan Dion plan, where they are making substantial investments, I think $137 million across the country, to increase second language education and bilingual fluency among school graduates. We are anticipating receiving that amount in an additional grant.

MR. REID: None of that can go into Lab West where they are having a problem, can it?

MR. GALWAY: We have actually identified seven or eight areas which will require approval from the federal government. One of the areas we have identified is financial assistance to school districts to hire teachers for rural schools, but we, again, do not have the approval of that. If we were to get the approval, then we would have to engage with the school boards to look at how those units might be deployed.

MR. REID: Thank you.

On page 178, 3.2.01, Salaries has dropped by $150,000 over last year. Who got axed?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: That is what it is, the elimination of a consultant position.

MR. REID: Who was that, or is it more than one?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Do you mean the name of the person?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. GALWAY: It was actually only one position, although it reflects two there. There was only one position being eliminated and I guess there will be some reallocation of funding within the department. That was the art consultant, with the art and music being put together.

MR. REID: And the same with Student Support Services, it looks like there is a job or two gone there on 3.3.01.

MR. GALWAY: That actually reflects three autism consultants that are being - the source of the funding for those consultants is being transferred to Teaching Services. The reason for that is that these consultants are spending 80 per cent to 90 per cent of their time on the road working in classrooms actually with teachers and students. So, it was appropriate to charge those units off to Teaching Services.

MR. REID: Under School for the Deaf, how many teachers did you take out of there this year?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: This year, under the School for the Deaf, I believe there were three. Only one actual displacement but three teaching positions. The actual numbers - in fact, I have the exact numbers right here of the reduction. Here it is.

MR. REID: What is it, eleven (inaudible) or something?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I will just give you a little bit of background here. I will not be long. Last year, enrollment at the School for the Deaf was seventy, with twenty-five students in residence. This year, fifty-two students, with nineteen in residence. The projection for this coming September is forty-six students, with sixteen students in residence. Again, a significant drop in just a two-year period.

To answer your question, there are three teaching positions that were impacted.

MR. REID: What about the Whitbourne facility out there, does that come under that budget? Did you lose any units out there?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, there was a unit. Again, as you know, the facility itself comes under the Department of Justice. There is a full unit that has been shut down, and has been shut down for awhile. In terms of actual teaching numbers, again, the number was three?

MR. GALWAY: The positions went from eleven to seven, which is a reduction of four, but the Whitbourne school has a reserve of one unit should the enrollment increase. The enrollment dropped from fifty-two - the students in that facility - down to twenty-eight. So, it was a fairly significant reduction. Should the enrollment increase in September, there is another unit in reserve that the Whitbourne centre can have access to should it be required.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Youth incarceration is something that has significantly changed under new federal legislation dealing with youth criminal justice. Sentencing options have changed significantly and closed custody, which would have been the option obviously for the Whitbourne facility, is used sparingly; whereas five years ago it was quite common. That is why we see a significant number of actual young offenders in Whitbourne, because judges are not giving sentences with respect to closed-custody warrants. Therefore, that again impacts everything, as can be seen from the number that Gerald just gave.

MR. REID: It is quite the facility; a beautiful facility.

Under Centre for Distance Learning, it looks like you dropped some money there, a small amount. Do you have any idea how many additional children will be taught this year through Distance over last year?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Actually, we have increased the budget for CDLI. It has gone up by, between $400,000 and $500,000.

MR. REID: That is something that is going to have to continue as you cut teachers.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well, of course, the thing is, it is a service, an option and a providing of service to students; particularly in more remote communities and in schools with very small high school populations.

We have 23.5 teaching units this year and we offer, I believe, this year some twenty-five courses through CDLI. This year there are some 900 students in the Province who avail of E-Learning through CDLI. We are anticipating, because of the investment that we are making as a government this year, an extra three to five teaching units next year, which will impact perhaps as many as another couple of hundred students. So, it is conceivable next year we will have in excess of 1,000 students doing maybe twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight courses through CDLI.

The reality is, I guess, that if - I remember an example you gave me last year actually, in your own district. The reality is that if a student is in Main Brook or a high school student is in Lawn or a high school student is in Change Islands, to use your example, and there are only two or three who are interested in doing an advanced chemistry course or an advanced course in conversational French, they should be provided that opportunity. It may be difficult to attract a teacher in that situation, and from a fiscal point of view it may be even more difficult perhaps, but at least there is an option that is being provided to allow a smaller number of students to take advantage of a greater variety of courses.

What is interesting about that - I was looking at some documentation on it this morning - the performance outcomes, once the evaluation has been completed, is almost identical to the normal, traditional teacher-student relationship in the classroom. Now, that is not to say that it should ever replace that, and you have made that statement often and I agree with you. It should never replace the traditional classroom setting, but there is no reason why it cannot enhance opportunities for young people in this Province who find themselves in very small population settings but yet deserve an opportunity to take chemistry or to take advanced math or to take science or conversational French the same as that high school student does in that rickety old school here at Bishops or Booth. Do you know what I mean? So, it is a bit of a balancing act but it is an investment that I think is well worth the money.

MR. REID: Don't you think that some distance education, even though it would not be distance, should be done in some of the high schools in St. John's, whereby you could offer some advanced courses where you have large student populations? Obviously, you have some kids who are extremely bright. Why not stick them on distance education, free up a teacher? In so doing, you still would have skilled teachers in the school that the students could go to.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Actually, some do. There are urban settings in this Province where students, for example in Gander, which I think we would consider, certainly by Newfoundland and Labrador standards, a large community, but there are students at the high school in Gander who are engaged in E-Learning.

MR. REID: Yes, but here where they offer the courses, as I said earlier, couldn't we do some of those through Distance Ed? At least they would have a resource teacher in the school who is not teaching them full time but teaching somebody else. At least they could converse with him or her from time to time during the day if they were doing it through E-Learning rather than taking a teacher from that particular class.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It is happening. We have some examples at the lower grades, in Elementary and in Junior High, where there is a setup whereby students in smaller communities interact with students in larger centres. Again, we have to remember what CDLI is. It is a response to a diminishing number of students in schools where populations are low. That fact or that reality may not exist in Carbonear or it may not exist in St. John's or it may not exist in Stephenville, where if you offer a chemistry class there may well be twenty-two students, whereas in another community, on the Northern Peninsula, there may only be three students n Level III who opt for chemistry and who may want to take advantage of an opportunity if it were there. I think it is that reality and it is that context in which CDLI has to be assessed. It is not to take away from the validity of the fact that there may be E-Learning experiences that students in larger centres may take advantage of, and sharing that with other students in the schools.

MR. REID: Yes, and that way you could free up a teacher. Probably at Holy Heart we have three chemistry classes going on at the same time, whereas if you had one doing it through E-Learning at least you would have two other teachers who could help these kids at times, and free up a teacher to send up to Witless Bay or somewhere. Under the formula that we have for allocating teachers you would never be allowed to do that. Anyway, it is something to think about.

I am not going to get into this post-secondary stuff. We already gutted that, sure. There is nothing left to talk about.

I had an interesting experience on Monday or Tuesday. I went to an appeal for a student who had gone to a private college, like Randy said, and couldn't get a job. In fact, of the twenty graduates who had gone there, she only knew of one person who was working. Because she had run up a debt of $30,000, student aid didn't want to give here a student loan. We went to the appeal and written right in there in the appeal were the reasons she was denied. One was because of the debt load that she had, and because she wanted to do Education, one of the reasons they were giving was that the job prospects in the Province were not very good, which was somewhat ironic, coming out of the Minister of Education's Department, when they were telling her, basically, that they were not going to fund her a student loan because prospects for that particular field were not great.

I suggested that they might be getting you in trouble, John, so you should get them to change that.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: That is worrisome.

MR. REID: Yes, but there are prospects elsewhere.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Also, there are prospects here. When we had that student fair last week, the information that is coming back to us is that there are literally hundreds of teachers who are being sought after this year. All we have to do is look at the newspapers and the classified ads. There are hundreds of positions that are being advertised.

MR. REID: There are two problems there, though. One, it is in fields that we cannot get teachers for, and the other one is, it is in areas where a lot of people do not want to go.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: My sense is, we are anticipating this year perhaps as many as a couple of hundred teachers, recent graduates from Memorial, from the Faculty of Education, who will be in the classrooms in this Province come September.

MR. REID: Yes, but there will be others who will not be.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well, we have 400 teachers retiring.

MR. REID: As well, there will be teachers who will actually lose their job this year.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: There may be some; but, Gerry, I do not think it is going to be a significant number, because when you look at the fact that 400 teachers are coming out of the system through retirement, and when you consider the numbers that are being sought through classified advertising and the teacher's fair, and just the direct information we are getting from school boards and the directors, my sense is that the numbers of teachers who will not be able to find work, who are seeking work in September, will not be as high as (inaudible).

MR. REID: Yes, but you are laying off 255. There are 400 retiring, so that is 150 positions.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We are not laying off. There are 256 positions less, and there are 400 teachers who are retiring, right?

MR. REID: So there are 150 vacancies, we would say, but they do not always match up in areas, and they do not always match up in the course of study, and that says nothing for - how many are graduating from MUN in this convocation, a couple of hundred?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Probably a couple of hundred, 220 maybe, but that is not unusual. That happens each and every year. It is not a perfect match every year, that x number of teachers retire and the precise number to replace that number is found in September. My comment, though, in response to the point, is that in view of the reduction of teaching positions, which this year is higher than last year and slightly higher than the year before, the impact on the number of new entrants and the impact on the loss of jobs - it is our analysis - would be minimal. There will be some; I am not saying there will be none. There will be some, but that happens on an annual basis.

MR. REID: There will be at least 150.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Pardon?

MR. REID: There will be at least 150. What I am saying is, there are 150 positions out there in the Province today, that is if 400 retire and -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Just using those figures.

MR. REID: Yes. It cannot be any more, unless some of them quit.

Do something with sick leave on that particular issue, and I am not talking about going out and forcing it down the union's throat, like you did with the public service. Do something like -

OFFICIAL: An incentive.

MR. REID: Yes, exactly. Do an incentive for when they leave, but also do it such that after a prescribed number of days somebody goes to see a doctor, and not one of their choice. I happen to know an individual who was off all year from teaching, from stress. His sick leave runs out two weeks before the end of the school year, and he is going back.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: For the last two weeks?

MR. REID: Yes. The courses are finished. The last week there are no exams, so he is going back to sit in the office while the kids are writing exams for one week, and it is a pensionable year.

There are ways, and we were looking at one - they are doing it in other businesses - where you go to a doctor. There was someone interested, actually, in looking at that in the department as a pilot last year.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It is an issue.

CHAIR: Thank you to the member.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: I would like to thank my hon. colleague, because I thought I had a plan in place here. I asked him to take five minutes and he took twenty-five, so anything could happen here at any minute. I apologize for that.

Just under some of the headings, Minister, under 3.1.01., before I get to the few general questions I have here, Grants and Subsidies for teachers' salaries is up by $13 million over last year's expenditure of $340 million. I was wondering, how does this fit into the picture where there is elimination of teachers, or cuts, or whatever you want to call them? I was wondering if you could explain that, Sir.

MR. HOLLETT: The difference there is, there was an extra payday for teachers in this fiscal year. While there was some reduction in salaries for teachers because of the lower number of teachers, there was also an extra payday.

MR. REID: What is the cost? Twenty-two million?

OFFICIAL: Thirteen one eight four.

MR. BUTLER: Under the same heading, Sir, 3.1.01., it says here the Newfoundland School for the Deaf is down by $416,000 from last year's Budget. I was wondering, is that due to declining enrolment or have services been cut there along with that?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No, there has been some reduction of service due to declining enrolment. There were four support staff who were impacted, again due to the enrolment, but keep in mind that there are forty-one full-time positions at that school for the number of students that we referred to earlier, but there is a reduction.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Under the same heading, Substitute Teachers is up by $1.5 million over last year's Budget. I am wondering, where does this increase come from at this point in time?

MR. HOLLETT: This year or last year?

MR. BUTLER: What it says here under 3.1.01., Substitute Teachers is up by $1.5 million. I was wondering, has this been at the expense of permanent teachers, the ones who are coming out of the system?

MR. HOLLETT: That was higher usage of the non-discretionary days, so sick leave, basically, higher sick leave usage.

MR. BUTLER: The $1.5 million.

MR. HOLLETT: Yes.

MR. BUTLER: Under 3.1.02., School Board Operations, Transportation of School Children has increased by $909,000. I am wondering, is this due to school closures where they have to travel greater distances or...?

MR. HOLLETT: No, that is an increase in cost in contract busing. There were some new contracts negotiated last year and the costs were up.

MR. REID: Can I ask a question on that?

MR. BUTLER: Yes, indeed you can.

MR. REID: There was some dispute over that last year and we were threatening to go to court. Did we ever do that?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Over bidding in the St. John's area, Avalon East?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You are right, there was some dispute in terms of the bidding practice.

MR. REID: They rigged the books.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: There was a concern there. We have discussed that issue and -

MR. REID: Can I ask a question? Am I protected by the House here?

AN HON. MEMBER: You're on your own tonight.

MR. HOLLETT: We are seeking some advice on that particular issue, on what some of the options on that one might be.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We have directly asked the Department of Justice to get involved and give us an opinion on that.

MR. BUTLER: Under the same heading, Minister, federal revenue is down by a little over $1 million. Could you explain why that is, or why is this cut expected? It shows there the Revised for last year was $2.449 million.

MR. HAYWARD: Yes, I think that was just some late receipt of federal revenue in 2003-2004.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

A lot of those I had to cover, someone else has asked questions on them. Under 4.2.01. Memorial University, I was just wondering, where does - I remember in the Budget, I think, Memorial was asked to cut back, I think, around $2 million or come up with $2 million, whatever terminology you want to use. I was wondering how that is factored here in that particular page, on 185? Because, I think it says here that the funding is up by $2 million, so I was wondering if this had been reversed or what.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No, it has not been reversed but there is an explanation for the answer.

MR. HOLLETT: The total Grants and Subsidies for Memorial University is a combination of an awful lot of things that we had to fund, including annualizing salary increases, et cetera, pension costs, other benefits costs; so, while there is a total increase, it should have been $2 million higher if not for the $2 million that they were asked to save. That is, in essence, the answer.

MR. BUTLER: The next one, Minister, is subhead 4.4.03. Newfoundland and Labrador Student Loans Program. I took notice that under 2003-2004, under the Revised and the Budget, it was listed under Allowances and Assistance, and under 2004-2005 it is listed under Grants and Subsidies. I was wondering, is that just a misprint, it was dropped from one line to the other, or is there a reason for it?

MR. HAYWARD: That was basically a change in accounting policy dictated by the Comptroller General because of the way we are funding the Student Aid Program now versus in the past. You are aware of that issue.

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

Under the same heading, Revenue - Provincial, I notice there is nothing listed but there was $360,000. Probably that is tied into the same reasoning, is it?

MR. HAYWARD: Yes, it is.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

MR. HAYWARD: All revenues now are going to go into the corporation.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

I think it was in the Budget with regard to $2 million that was to come forward, or it was noted some time ago anyway, for new school buses, the school bus fleet or what have you. I do not know if that was in the Budget now or in your book previous to. I am wondering, if that is a fact, where would that be listed in the headings here? Under what division is this being spent?

MR. HOLLETT: It is back under School Board Operations, subhead 3.1.02., Transportation of School Children. That is where school busing appears.

MR. BUTLER: Okay, it would be under there.

The next question, Minister, with regard to the school busing issue, how is that being done? Will that go out on tender through the department? Is there anyone on the outside of the department who is looking into this issue to size up the school bus fleets around the Province?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: There is a dedicated person at the department dealing with student transportation issues, and deals directly with school boards. As you are probably aware, some of our fleets are board owned, others are done directly, but we do have a dedicated person to assess that and work with school boards closely.

MR. BUTLER: Okay, but there is no one on the outside of your school board in the department who would be looking into this issue on the outside through a contractor or anything like that?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Some of the school boards have their own dedicated personnel dealing with this as well. I know what you are saying, but no, just the relationship between the department and school board personnel would be -

MR. BUTLER: Nobody outside of that.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: (Inaudible).

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

One of the questions I had here was the additional funding. I guess probably you answered that just now, when I found out what funding was there. I was wondering if the federal government - if the funding had been secured for the Canada Student Loans. I guess that has been answered because you noted it over here.

Just a quick question. What impact is the escalating insurance cost having on schools and school property, and how is government handling this? Is there a major increase or concern that way?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: One factor, and it is a significant factor, is the whole potential cost of remediation of property because of buried oil tanks and that sort of thing. That, of course, impacts on insurance policies and cost directly to school boards and I guess indirectly to government.

It is an issue, and it is one that has escalated significantly in the past number of years, and it is one that may well increase over the next few years as schools close and as environmental regulations are brought to bear on what a particular school or school board or government should or should not do as it relates to these underground tanks. So it is an issue tied in with insurance costs.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Public exams, will they be administered this year? I took notice there is a lower funding for Student Testing and Evaluation. Will that have any impact on it, if that should be proceeding?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No, the public examination schedule is set. Everything is finalized. The timetables are set, exams are completed, and things are ready to go.

MR. BUTLER: With regard to the school board offices like in Spaniard's Bay, for instance, and I can be corrected on this, my understanding was that all staff who were there were laid off, I suppose, or - we heard the terminology - they had their pink slips.

AN HON. MEMBER: They were.

MR. BUTLER: They were. So the positions that will be going back in those particular offices around the Province, how will they be hired? Will it be through the Public Service Commission? Will the general public, as well as others, be applying for those position and so on?

MR. HOLLETT: The school board director and assistant director positions are being advertised and recruited through the Public Service Commission. All of the other positions in the school boards will be done by the new boards themselves, by the new board of directors, but I think it is not true that most of the staff in the school boards have been laid off. In fact, it is quite the contrary. They have not been given pink slips. I know that rumour is out there, but that is a rumour; it is not true.

MR. BUTLER: So they are not laid off; is that what you are saying?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: The school board staff are not. Some may very well be impacted, depending on the specific role of each individual regional education centre; however, as of now, there have been no layoffs. I think some program co-ordinators have been given notification and, in fact, some have been reassigned back to schools for September and will be resuming their classroom teaching position, almost getting back to your earlier point about excess numbers of program consultants and co-ordinators at school board offices.

In terms of the staff, there may be. I am not aware, other than the co-ordinators who have been impacted. Again - and I think this is an important point - it is important to remember what the regional education centre is. Just because it is not a headquarters, and just because the director and assistant directors are not there, that does not mean they will not be busy and active centres of education in these communities that will require a staff to carry out certain functions.

MR. BUTLER: I guess where I was coming from, I know two or three top positions there, more or less, that are going to be gone.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: They are going to be gone, no doubt about that.

MR. BUTLER: They are going to be gone, but all the other people who were working there - I am not saying all because, like you said, some of them are allocated back to the schools or whatever. The rest of the people, they are there? They do not have to apply for the positions they are in now?

MR. HOLLETT: Some of the support staff positions in the new school boards will not be necessary, but it is going to be up to the school boards to determine what positions they will, on a go-forward basis, no longer require.

AN HON. MEMBER: They have bumping rights, too.

MR. HOLLETT: Certainly in a unionized position some of them would indeed have bumping rights. The only ones who have actually received any notification to date, that we are aware of, are those, as the minister mentioned, program specialists who, under the NLTA collective agreement, have to be assigned for September by May 7, so they were reassigned back to the school system before May 7 for September 1, but some of those may well end up being back in the board offices as program co-ordinators in the new boards offices come September.

MR. REID: Did you say the directors were going to be selected by the Public Service Commission?

MR. HOLLETT: The recruitment process is being run by the Public Service Commission. In other words, the Public Service Commission is advertising, is accepting the applications, is doing the screening, and is setting up the interviews, the sort of Public Service Commission role that they normally conduct.

MR. REID: But the minister picks them? Who will pick the director for the Avalon -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: There is a selection committee. Right now the selection committee involves the Public Service Commission, it involves the Deputy Minister of Education, it involves the chair of the transitional school board, and we have also invited the Dean of Education at the Faculty of Education, Dr. Alice Collins, to sit in on the selection committee. It is a combination of those four or five individuals.

MR. BUTLER: Which positions did you say they are going to be selecting?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: The directors of education of the newly formed school boards or transitional -

MR. REID: Then the new school board and the director will pick the rest of the staff?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: The director will, obviously, under his leadership, be responsible. Granted he or she may assign that responsibility to an assistant director of human resources, for example, but ultimately would be responsible for the other positions within the board office.

MR. REID: But there wouldn't be an assistant director of human resources, someone would have to hire that individual.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, the director would be involved in that process.

MR. REID: With the same group?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes. There would be a support group for that particular person, perhaps involving the senior executive of the department as well.

MR. BUTLER: That would be for the individual who would be, more or less, the chief cook and bottle washer at the office in Spaniard's Bay or Clarenville or wherever?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Right.

MR. BUTLER: That is how they would be selected.

MR. REID: I don't think they wash many bottles.

MR. BUTLER: I think that is all. Are you finished on that one as well?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. BUTLER: The only other one I have is with regard to the teacher-student ratio. I am just wondering if you can confirm or deny it for me. I have been advised that this year coming and next year, over a two-year period, Ascension Collegiate and Amalgamated Academy will be down by five teaching units. I have also been advised that at Ascension Collegiate they cannot see the size of the class going much lower than anywhere from forty to forty-five to fifty students. Is that correct?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I cannot speak to the numbers of teachers because what happens is, each board is generally aware of the numbers of teachers, or teaching positions, that it will be reduced by in September. Then, the existing school board directors, in consultation with the principals and the administration of each school - there will be a decision made as to what the exact numbers of teachers will be for a particular school. In fact, we have the number for Avalon West which, of course, is where Ascension is, and the total number is - in 1999, or is it 2000? - okay, that is the average class size. Do we have the exact number for Avalon West? I had that here earlier.

MR. GALWAY: The pupil-teacher ratio?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: No, the exact number of teachers that the board loses. I have that here as well. Maybe forty, if I remember correctly. Here we go: Avalon West, thirty-six. The number of teachers in the Avalon West School District was reduced by thirty-six teachers. It is then the director, in consultation with the principal, who will determine how that will impact each individual school within the Avalon West District.

The average class size, according to the information that Gerald just passed to me, is approximately between twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-three students, in that range. The number that you gave me, forty-five students -

MR. BUTLER: Forty to forty-five.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: For the average class size at Ascension Collegiate next year?

MR. BUTLER: No, over two years, when the five full units -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Roland, I can say to you, that would astound me.

MR. BUTLER: You are telling me now that all of the classes at Ascension now are around twenty-one or twenty-two?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. BUTLER: That is what I was just quoted.

OFFICIAL: What it is, and Gerry alluded to it, and I brought up the same thing last year, the fact is that there some classes in that building that are offering AP to probably fifteen or twenty students. That is what is perhaps driving up the (inaudible).

MR. REID: Plus, you might have a principal (inaudible).

OFFICIAL: On the other hand, too, basically, to go back to the formula that Gerry was talking about earlier, that the small and medium size did well in the last round, it was the larger schools - Amalgamated, I know personally, I think they lost three units as a result of that new formula coming in. That has followed them through right to this day. (Inaudible) still talks about it.

MR. BUTLER: That is the other concern I have. I live in Shearstown, and the Shearstown school was closed. Everybody fought to save their school, and everybody will do that around this Province as long as there are going to be school closures. Those people moved out to Bay Roberts, which is only about six or seven minutes run on a bus. The level of education and what they have been offered there as compared to just that short distance away is unbelievable, but I have grave concerns, and a lot of people have grave concerns, that when five teachers come out of that system over the next two years, if that is what is what coming out, because I think Tom mentioned three or whatever, they cannot get the same programming, the same education - probably the same education when it comes to passing Grades 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10, yes, but something has to fall by the wayside.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: They are difficult decisions that many schools are forced to make in terms of what programming and what options will be offered to students at a Level I, Level II and Level III area, and these are decisions that school administrators have to make in terms of the numbers of teachers and the programs that have to be offered in terms of the number of students who are available in that school.

Keep in mind, though, that there may well be a class, and a student may be in a class with thirty-two or thirty-three or thirty-four, but that very next period, because of the course selection that student has opted for, it may be a class of sixteen or eighteen.

This is not a consistent pattern of large class size for each individual student. It does vary, but these are choices that are made and school administrators have to grapple with that.

MR. BUTLER: But a lot of the programming they have now, I cannot see how they can hang on to one. All those other schools, like when Shearstown school closed down - and it was for a reason - a lot of those schools out there, they said: Look, it is better to be in this other school. There are more teachers. You have more programming. Now they are into those schools and there is more programming, I believe, coming out of those as well. That is the concern I have, and a lot of people have that concern.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: My sense is that at Ascension Collegiate today there is perhaps a greater variety and option for high school students this year than any previous year. That would be my guess.

MR. BUTLER: Can you say that over the next two years?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In terms of the different programs that are available.

MR. REID: I would say 1983 was the biggest course offering they ever had.

MR. BUTLER: I agree.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It is an interesting point of discussion. Just out of curiosity, I will see if I can get that information for you, okay?

MR. BUTLER: I would appreciate that.

Just one other little question, Minister. It has nothing to do, I guess, with the Estimates, but it is a thing that concerns me and I am sure Tom is aware of this one as well. I have been back and forth to the school board, to the Department of Education, under different ministers, under different governments, and still cannot get anywhere - so, Gerry, you don't mind me saying this, do you?

AN HON. MEMBER: You want someone to sign off on that land.

MR. BUTLER: No, I am not even bringing that up here tonight. I will not get into that one at all.

It is no large amount of money, and that is the parking lot at Coley's Point Primary. I hear hon. members in the House talking about the birds, the seagulls and ducks landing in the potholes in their roads. If anyone could only drive in over that little parking lot - and it is impossible to get the few dollars to assist them. Do you know what they are doing now? They are going to have a ticket draw out there to try to raise enough money to pave their parking lot. Seriously, it is unbelievable, and it is no bigger than this here, where you drive in and come back out again. It is unreal, and the school boards says: No, we do not have the money because of this. The Department of Education will say: Well, we gave the school board the money to look after those things. I mean, you are going in and down, it is unbelievable. There is not a road in the Province like it. I know you do not have the money here tonight to give me, but I am just wondering; there must be something in the system that something like that can be looked after, with all the dollars that flow back and forth. I think for around $15,000 they can have it all paved and will not have the problem any more. Now they are grading it every year and in three years they will cover the cost of the pavement in grading and filling in the holes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Was it ever paved?

MR. BUTLER: No, it was never paved, not to my knowledge anyway.

That is the only comment I want to make on that.

AN HON. MEMBER: It took Roncalli, I think, thirty-two years to get theirs paved.

MR. BUTLER: I will not go into how many years this has been there, but I took Grade 10 and Grade 11 there.

AN HON. MEMBER: A long time ago.

MR. BUTLER: That is the only thing (inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: The road has held up well.

MR. REID: To be fair to the minister, if he gave that board $1 million tonight, he could not guarantee they would pave the parking lot.

MR. BUTLER: I know that.

MR. REID: A couple of questions. I would assume that you are not going to have to put any money in to honour your commitment on no class larger than twenty-five in kindergarten.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: That is phased in, as you know, over the mandate.

MR. REID: Yes, I know, but I don't imagine there was ever a class of twenty-five in the Province in kindergarten, was there?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Very few. There might have been in urban centres, but the plan there is to phase that in to all primary grades by the end of this present mandate.

MR. REID: No, that is not what it said. Over three years, starting in kindergarten.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

CHAIR: That is the first edition that you had there, Gerry.

MR. REID: There are four of them, right?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

MR. REID: I would say, by the time you have to honour that one, there will be fewer than twenty-five, for sure, in those couple of classes that you got there.

The other one is just a question on the boards. The assistant superintendents and the associate assistant directors - I call them superintendents - they are not unionized positions, are they? They are not NLTA? They cannot bump back into the classroom?

MR. GALWAY: Yes, the associate assistants are generally bargaining unit positions that have been reassigned, but the assistant directors and the directors are not bargaining unit positions.

MR. REID: Depending on the contracts they signed, I guess?

MR. GALWAY: No, I do not think they are -

MR. REID: All associate assistant directors are members of the NLTA?

MR. GALWAY: That is correct.

MR. REID: So, their positions would have remained in the school?

MR. GALWAY: Either their positions would have been held or they would have been reassigned in accordance with the collective agreement.

MR. REID: So, if I were to fill the position vacated by an associate assistant director, would I be losing my job this year?

MR. GALWAY: If the position itself was held, there would have been a cascade effect and, depending on the seniority, there probably would be some shifting. If there wasn't a specific position held, then there would be a position found, an equivalent position, somewhere in the system for those individuals.

MR. REID: On the $2 million over four years for busing, I guess that is coming in future years?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

MR. REID: All right.

CHAIR: I thank you very much, Minister. There being no further questions, I ask the Clerk to call the heads please.

CLERK: Subheads 1.1.01 through 4.5.02 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01 through 4.5.02 carry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 4.5.02 carried.

CHAIR: Shall the total carry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Department of Education carried without amendment?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Carried.

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

CHAIR: Thank you all.

First of all, Minister, I thank you and your staff for the enlightening answers, and I thank my colleagues for their questions and input.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you.

CHAIR: To the Committee members, I thank you for the past two or three days. To the staff, thank you for your support.

On motion, the Committee adjourned sine die.