The Committee met at 6:00 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Littlejohn): Welcome everybody. We welcome the Department of Justice to the Social Services Committee tonight.

I have just a couple of general comments before we start. When replying to a question, or if committee members are stating questions, remember to state your name and please wait for the red light to come on in front of you so it is recorded for Hansard purposes. We thank you for that.

I am going to introduce the committee members. My name is Glenn Littlejohn and I am the MHA for Port de Grave.

Andrew?

MR. A. PARSONS: Andrew Parsons, MHA, Burgeo – La Poile.

MS ROGERS: I am Gerry Rogers, MHA for St. John's Centre.

MR. LITTLE: Glen Little, MHA, Bonavista South.

MR. CRUMMELL: Dan Crummell, MHA, St. John's West.

MR. CORNECT: Tony Cornect, MHA, District of Port au Port.

CHAIR: Just before we move into opening it up to the minister, we need a motion to accept the minutes of last evening's meeting with the Department of Health and Community Services.

MR. CORNECT: So moved.

CHAIR: Moved by Mr. Cornect.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded.

Carried.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Bill, could you call the first heading, please?

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Subhead 1.1.01.

Normally, Minister, we would allow you fifteen minutes for an opening remark if you so choose. If not, we can go right into questions and I would turn it to Andrew. Andrew also has the opportunity for fifteen minutes, and then ten minutes for Gerry, and we will go back and forth until the evening is done.

Mr. Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Would you introduce your staff as well, Minister, please?

MR. F. COLLINS: Felix Collins, Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

I will introduce some of my officials before I go on.

MR. BURRAGE: Donald Burrage, Deputy Minister.

MS DUNPHY: Debbie Dunphy, Departmental Comptroller.

MS LAKE-KAVANAGH: Jackie Lake-Kavanagh, Director of Policy and Strategic Planning.

MR. NOBLE: Paul Noble, Assistant Deputy Minister.

MS BALLARD: Donna Ballard, Assistant Deputy Minister.

MS HYNES: Anita Hynes, Executive Assistant.

MS COLMAN-SADD: Vanessa Colman-Sadd, Director of Communications.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I am going to say it is a pleasure to be here this evening on behalf of the Department of Justice and my officials to discuss the Estimates with the Social Services Committee.

I do not have an opening statement as such. You have already met my officials. The procedure that we will follow, I will field as many of those questions as I can and I will not hesitate to resort to my officials to put some meat on the bones, as it were, for any of the questions that you might want to ask.

With that, Mr. Chair, we are ready to proceed.

CHAIR: Thank you, Minister.

Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the minister and staff for being available tonight to take these questions. I appreciate that.

I am going to start off with some general questions at first, if I could. We all know in the Budget there were apparently some positions cut across government.

MR. F. COLLINS: If you would excuse me a moment, Mr. Parsons, to get my technology working here.

Try it again.

MR. A. PARSONS: Good evening. My name is Andrew Parsons. I am the MHA for Burgeo – La Poile.

MR. F. COLLINS: No, it is not working now. I do not think I will need it, but just in case. I might have to ask you questions several times.

Okay, I think I have it now. I have a loose wire here somewhere.

Go ahead.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Minister Collins.

My first question is, again, we are talking about the number of positions cut across government in the Budget. I would ask: How many positions were cut within the Department of Justice?

MR. F. COLLINS: No positions. Of the numbers that were given to you in the Budget, I think it was forty-five temporary. There were no positions cut as a result of that particular exercise. The 3 per cent exercise did not result in the loss of any positions with the department.

MR. A. PARSONS: Are there any positions being added?

MR. F. COLLINS: The positions added, RNC added an exploitation officer. As we go through the estimates, you might see a few extra ones there.

MR. A. PARSONS: Perhaps what I could do, I may be a bit ahead of myself. As I go through the book, I am sure I will ask these questions.

MR. F. COLLINS: Back to that, Mr. Parsons, I stand to be corrected. We did have a Solicitor for the Family Litigation Unit, but these are trade-off positions. We traded a position for that. We had an Internet Child Exploitation Officer for the RNC, which was a new position. We did a trade off for the position at HMP for a Manger of Finance. We also traded off two vacant positions for a position of Manager of Policy and Planning, and Corporate Services in Corrections. There were new positions but we traded off vacant positions for them.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

Just to go back very quickly for clarification purposes. When you say there are no positions eliminated, we are not referring to positions that were cut, eliminated, or attrition. There are no positions gone in the Department of Justice?

MR. F. COLLINS: No.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

Thank you.

MR. F. COLLINS: The Department of Justice, incidentally, has the second largest employee staff in government, is it not?

OFFICIAL: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

This is sort of a more general question, as well. Obviously, we know about the change or the new law coming down federally, Bill C-10. Has the impact of the federal changes to the criminal law had any impact on this budget for the Department of Justice?

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, they certainly had no impact on budget preparations.

With respect to the impact, Mr. Parsons, Bill C-10, the alleged two areas of possible impact would be, of course, on Corrections and Prosecutions. With respect to Corrections, we are part of an Atlantic Correctional Committee, representative of that committee. That was erected by the premiers of the Atlantic Provinces to do the impact of Bill C-10 on our Province as far as correction is concerned. They are still collecting their data and information. So at this point in time we are not able to make a projection. We do not have our information from the committee yet and subsequently, we would not be able to make any kind of projection on what impact it might have in terms of resident beds in our corrections.

With respect to Prosecutions; our Prosecutions team is monitoring what is happening here. We are looking at other jurisdictions; we are looking at our own policies. At this point in time it would be premature for us to make any suggestion as to what might happen as a result of Bill C-10.

MR. A. PARSONS: Did this committee set in place a time to reconvene to discuss – give it so much time since the implementation of the bill to sit back and look at the data that has been accumulated?

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, the Atlantic committee is still in the process of finishing its work. We expect to hear from them in a timely fashion, but as of yet they do not have the information for us.

They did some information back, as well, when we had the two-for-one legislation, you would recall. They were able to make some projections for us then. I do not recall what those figures were. They were not significant. We will have to wait to get their information and see what is going to happen with respect to Bill C-10.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

I am looking at, in the budget, 1.1.01, Minister's Office, section 03, Transportation and Communications. You will notice there was a budgeted amount last year of $38,000 and only $10,000 was spent.

Is there any reason why the full amount was not used?

MR. F. COLLINS: That is under the Minister's Office, in 03?

MR. A. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: I am not a travelling man, basically. The reduced travel comes about as a result of executive members attending on my behalf and whatnot. I attend the FTP meetings and probably one other. I am no Bev Oda.

MR. A. PARSONS: I see the budget has been kept at the same level this year, so are you going to be a travelling man this year, or should we keep it at $10,000?

MR. F. COLLINS: Could you repeat that question, please?

MR. A. PARSONS: The budget last year was not spent, but this year we have kept the same amount.

Do you anticipate expending that part of the budget this year?

MR. F. COLLINS: For transportation?

MR. A. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, we budgeted $2,600 less than we budgeted last year. I do not know if I have any major plans to change on transportation. We have cut it pretty lean in transportation and we intend to keep it that way. It is one of the biggest staff in government so, yes, as you go through the Estimates there is a fair amount of transportation involved in there.

MR. A. PARSONS: Moving just below that, in 1.2.01, Executive Support, I noticed last year there was $1,174,000 budgeted and $1,294,000 expended.

How many positions was this and what were they?

MR. F. COLLINS: There is a shortfall there of about $119,000. That relates to payout and severance, basically for leave of an ADM who left during the year. That is mainly where there came from. That is offset by a vacant deputy minister position that we have on staff.

MR. A. PARSONS: Is that position being advertised? Is it going to be kept?

MR. F. COLLINS: The position that was left?

MR. A. PARSONS: You just referenced an ADM position.

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes, that position has been filled on an interim basis. I will have the deputy respond to that.

MR. BURRAGE: That is the ADM position, which is the Director of Public Prosecutions position. The director was appointed to the Provincial Court you might recall, Pam Goulding. That position is currently filled on an acting basis by Donovan Molloy. He is in there in an acting capacity at the moment. Whether we subsequently advertise that position or whether Donovan is eventually made permanent remains to be seen. He is in there now in an acting capacity.

On your question regarding salaries, the executive salaries are basically, myself, there is a position which is vacant now, associate deputy minister, and then the assistant deputy minister positions, Director of Communications, and two secretaries. That is our executive salary.

MR. A. PARSONS: I notice in the same section line 03, Transportation and Communications, that there was a shortfall of $20,000 in the transportation budget.

Was this a specific trip or was this just something that built up with a number of trips?

MR. F. COLLINS: For the last two years, we have been negotiating the RCMP contract. This covers the transportation of our ADM and the director to meetings all over Canada in delivering that contract. That is basically the transportation costs in negotiating the RCMP contract in most of these figures here.

MR. A. PARSONS: That is the contract that was signed just recently, correct?

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: So we are going to keep the travel budget at the same. Are we anticipating extra travel?

MR. F. COLLINS: We think the budget in there of $64,300 for 2012 more accurately reflects the actual expenditures, so we will expect that for next year.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

In line 04, the budget for Supplies went from $4,400 to $13,000.

What was the addition there?

MR. F. COLLINS: That was basically purchase of straightforward office supplies: printer cartridges, setups for meetings, and so on. There is nothing unusual about that one.

MR. A. PARSONS: Are we not expecting that to happen again this year if we kept the budget at $4,400 again?

MR. F. COLLINS: Debbie (inaudible).

MS DUNPHY: Generally, Mr. Parsons, we set base budgets for these areas. There is usually not a lot of flexibility. You have already noted the travel: the minister's is down and executives' is up. We have tried to reflect that based on re-profiling from other areas.

Supplies is an area that – it is a large department – we do not always have a lot of flexibility to move things on a permanent basis. The base is set at $4,400. Some years we will spend that, some years we will spend more, and some years we hope to spend less. Obviously everything is going up in price. Printer cartridges are a prime example, and these colour printer cartridges. I am an accountant and I know these things, but things just go up in price.

Yes, it is an area we may have to look at to increase in the future. It is not an area we focus on to need to increase it on a permanent basis.

CHAIR: Last question.

MR. A. PARSONS: My last question for this time is in 06, Purchased Services. If the Chair would permit me this indulgence, it is a two-part: A, being new to this process, could explain to me what purchased services are as it relates to the Department of Justice; and B, it was $2,600 budgeted, so what did we spend $10,600 on?

MR. F. COLLINS: Debbie, would you respond to that?

MS DUNPHY: Certainly.

Purchased services in general can go from anything from contracting for a service outside of government to things like printing, training, departmental entertainment – entertainment is not a great term. Obviously, the minister would, at times, have dignitaries or officials from other provinces or departments and may have discussions at a business lunch, or whatever.

For Executive Support, that is mostly what is in purchased services. For example, our catering contract at the penitentiary is a purchased service. At the front of the Estimates book, there may be a brief description. I hope I am right.

MR. A. PARSONS: The second part of that is: It was budgeted for $2,600 but we spent $10,600, so what was that additional amount for?

MS DUNPHY: Under Executive Support, that was mainly related to some mandatory training we had for the executive.

MR. A. PARSONS: What was the specific training?

MS DUNPHY: Minister, can I pass it back to you?

MR. F. COLLINS: There is media training. Purchased services covers such a wide line, and as you go through the other Estimates you will see purchased services in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It could be anything. It is a small figure of $8,000, so it is pretty hard to pin it down on what it was.

MR. A. PARSONS: The problem I have, if I could say, is that I have to try my best to account for all of it. That is my job.

This $8,000, if it went to media training, which company would it have been? If the information is not there if someone could provide an undertaking to provide me with the name of the company and the specifics behind that, I would appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Thank you, Andrew.

Gerry.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

I am very happy to be here, it is my first time as well. Justice is a great passion of mine and I am learning a lot. I know you have a huge job on your hands and I respect that – a very complex one.

I will just ask a few questions as well then before we go on to some of the lines. I know our prison system is really, at times, bursting at the seams and is very, very stressed. Again, with Bill C-10 we can assume there will be even more of a strain on an already strained system.

I was wondering, is there any movement at all within the Province to look at building a new prison to replace HMP at this point? Where is that at?

MR. F. COLLINS: It is certainly a very important question. There is no doubt that some of the priorities of the department is in Corrections. We are in reasonably good shape otherwise, but we realize we have to pay the full amount of attention on Corrections.

To that end, ever since the Decades of Darkness report came out in 2008 we have focused pretty significantly on Corrections in the amount of investments that we have made. We have invested significantly, over $7 million in terms of training and infrastructure improvements. In addition to the monies that we are already putting into our facilities, and I refer to the camera systems and I think it was $800,000 for a ventilation system for HMP, for example, and $1 million in Clarenville and so on and so forth.

We are also doing an internal assessment of our Corrections. We have, I think, six correctional institutions in the Province. We realize that we are going to have to make some decisions in the very near future with respect to Corrections.

We have done a capacity assessment of all of our institutions in attempting to see if we can get a better bang for our buck in terms of numbers. If we can rearrange, modify, adjust something so we can accommodate better numbers in the institutions we have. At the end of the day, that will also inform us as to what we need in terms of new facilities. So that is an exercise we are going through at the moment.

In addition to that, in assessing what capacity we have within our existing system, with some modifications, we are looking at a number of other things. Bill C-10 obviously has to factor into the equation. We have to wait until we see where that is going.

As well, we have responsibility for federal prisoners. As you know, the federal government has made announcements in recent days about closing federal institutions. We have a unique arrangement with the Government of Canada. We are the only Province that does. We can keep federal prisoners. We have on average about fifty federal prisoners at any one time.

All of these things are thrown into the equation so as to inform us as to what we are going to have to do in terms of infrastructure needs going forward in Corrections. Certainly, right now I think it is fair to say it is the main priority, top priority for the department.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Would it be possible to get numbers on the number of federal prisoners we do have through the year, federal prisoners?

MR. F. COLLINS: Numbers of inmates?

MS ROGERS: Inmates yes, that we have in the different facilities.

MR. F. COLLINS: We can undertake to get you that, yes.

MS ROGERS: That would be great.

We have heard rumours that government plans to reassign the Whitbourne Youth detention Centre for use to house adult inmates.

Has the government decided to do this? Are you looking at that? If so, then what would be the plan for youth detention?

MR. F. COLLINS: When I mentioned we were doing an assessment of all of our correctional institutions, Whitbourne is included. Whitbourne presents a different presentation completely than the other institutions. The other institutions are designed for adult corrections. Whitbourne was never designed for that purpose. It has a specific purpose, and purposely built for youth rehabilitation and training of youth.

It is vastly underutilized, as you might well know. We are looking to see what we can do with Whitbourne. It may have nothing to do with adult corrections. We have to look at Whitbourne to see what options are open to us there for better use of that facility. It is a tremendous facility. It has a lot of good things going for it, but the numbers have been down considerably over the years.

MS ROGERS: That is a good thing.

MR. F. COLLINS: Where they will go with Bill C-10 is another issue. The Youth Justice Act and Bill C-10 might have some ramifications for that. When we say we are looking at all our institutions, we are looking at Whitbourne as well.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Are you looking at any other options for youth detention then?

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, that is all part of it. If we, obviously, were to come up with another use for Whitbourne, we would have to find an optional use or a facility of equal substantive use. That is part of the ongoing assessment. It is going to take some time. You just do not come up with another Whitbourne overnight. What options Whitbourne gives us at this stage we have to look at very seriously.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Just one more question before we go to some lines. Again, with the closing of Kingston, which would probably impact us as well, and C-10, what kind of movement or what is happening with the Province's efforts to push the federal government, urge the federal government, or beg the federal government to participate in the building of a prison?

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, we have not moved off that position. We think the federal government has an obligation to Newfoundland and Labrador. We have federal prisoners here. We get a per diem from them, but we think they have an obligation because we do have federal prisoners. So far they have not come to the table, but we are not ruling it out.

They have told us they are not building any newer prisons, and they are not. They are putting modifications and additions onto existing prisons. We are hoping the door remains open for discussions with them on that.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Again, before we go to the lines. I would like, if it is possible, to have numbers of capacity for each facility that we have, and what was the capacity rate in every facility in the past year, if that is possible.

MR. F. COLLINS: Sure.

MS ROGERS: Great.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: Go ahead, Don.

MR. BURRAGE: Just a point of clarification. Were you looking for the original rate of capacity and the capacity as it was last year? There may be differences. The original capacity of some of the facilities, we have made changes to increase the capacity of some of them. Did you want the original capacity and the current capacity?

MS ROGERS: Why not? It sounds good to me.

MR. BURRAGE: Okay.

Did you want youth as well?

MS ROGERS: Yes, I would. Thank you very much, Don.

I am at General Administration (Cont'd) 1.2.02. Administrative and Policy Support.

CHAIR: Gerry, just for clarification, 1.2.02, page 17.4?

MS ROGERS: That is right.

CHAIR: Okay.

MS ROGERS: Line 01 Salaries – okay, that is fine.

We could go to Professional Services, 05.

CHAIR: 1.2.02.05, Professional Services?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

CHAIR: Okay.

MS ROGERS: We see there has been quite an increase there. What kind of professional services would that have covered?

MR. F. COLLINS: We budgeted $70,000. The revised projection is that we are going to be spending $470,000. Is that the line you are looking at?

MS ROGERS: No, I am at 1.2.02, and then line 05, Professional Services.

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes, Professional Services.

MS ROGERS: Yes, sorry.

MR. F. COLLINS: We have a shortfall there, if that is what you are looking at, from what we budgeted from $70,000.

MS ROGERS: It went from $70,000 to $144,000, doubling of the Professional Services.

MR. F. COLLINS: It is the Professional Services line you are looking at?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: We have a shortfall there of over $70,000. That shortfall is attributed mainly to the criminal code review board and the budget of that has been in the base for years of $15,200. This year the expenditures were over $106,000 and that is basically for medial assessments and whatnot for people who – this review board is headed by retired Judge Reid and when the board was set up Judge Reid was still a judge so we did not pay his salary, but he is no longer a judge. So the base budget has not changed, but every year the assessment costs have gone over that. We are holding the line on the budget for next year.

MS ROGERS: Okay, thank you.

Then 10, Grants and Subsidies, there is a significant increase there.

MR. F. COLLINS: This was transfers by Treasury Board during the year, and there were two grants. Nain and Hopedale both got a community constable. That is under the community tripartite agreement. That is a savings from the RCMP. The RCMP contract is a 70-30 arrangement. The Province pays seventy and the federal government pays thirty for the policing arrangement, but with Northern policing the arrangement is 52-48. So we save considerable money, but it has to go back into policing and we put the money back into community constables for the Northern coast.

That is some of it. There was also a significant amount of money put in there, and only just recently, for the thermal imaging equipment for search and rescue.

MS ROGERS: Could we have a list of the grants and subsidies from that category?

OFFICIAL: Yes.

MS ROGERS: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Gerry.

Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to continue on with that same section. So, I understand under Professional Services, the part you just talked about, that is to do with the criminal code review board headed by the judge. Last year it went over. You are not anticipating it is going to go over this year?

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, that is the budget we have been using. As Debbie pointed out earlier, we move money around to take care of some of these things, so $70,000 in our base budget, we are actually staying with that. If we need money, as we did this year, we will try to find it in other places.

MR. A. PARSONS: Further to Ms Rogers' requests on grants and subsidies, is it standard practice that I can get the same information provided to me as well?

MR. F. COLLINS: The grants and subsidies that Ms Rogers is requesting, I am wondering if you could be specific about what you are looking for there. All grants and subsidies that are given during the year?

MS ROGERS: If that would be possible.

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes, fine, no problem. We can do that.

MR. BURRAGE: When we provide something that is requested, it goes to the entire Committee.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you for that.

I have just a quick question on the revenue in the same section. It has been budgeted at $63,000, but you actually received much more than that. What was the difference there in receiving $175,000?

MR. F. COLLINS: When it comes to related revenue, I am going to let you talk to Debbie.

MS DUNPHY: Mostly in that account, we take in monies for commissioners for oaths, notaries public, and ATIPP requests. There is a variety and it fluctuates from year to year. As is apparent this year, we did get some extra money.

Republic of Doyle – we actually recover some costs from the set. Sometimes police officers are doing some overtime and they recover that money back. There is some extra money in there related to that. The Sheriff's Office had some money – Don, I do not know what the word is. They could not find whom it was owed to, so then it gets remitted to the Crown. They are one-offs. It is undistributed accounts sometimes or maybe an increase. Autopsy fees are another. It is just up and down. This year is a little higher. That Republic of Doyle money should not be there. It should be under RNC, but that is my fault.

MR. A. PARSONS: I have to say, I was not expecting that answer to that, but that is good news certainly.

MS DUNPHY: Good.

MR. A. PARSONS: I am just going to move down to the next section, Strategic Human Resource Management, and in line 02, Employee Benefits, there was more spent out than budgeted. What was this attributed to?

MR. F. COLLINS: A lot of this funding is budgeted in Purchased Services, but it is paid out through Employee Benefits, travel, and Supplies and the budget transfers are made from time to time. What is budgeted in one area is showing up as being spent in Employee Benefits.

MR. A. PARSONS: So what you are saying is that if you compare line 02 to 06, the amount that was budgeted under Purchased Services was $385,000 but only $170,000 spent.

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: Am I right in saying that there is still a little gap there? I guess money was not spent – about $100,000 not spent?

MR. F. COLLINS: Debbie, go ahead.

MS DUNPHY: What is mostly budgeted there under Purchased Services is the learning and development fund we receive from the Public Service Secretariat every year. It covers things like mandatory training for our correctional officers or fish and wildlife officials, any employees within the department. It can cover things like the cost of a conference fee, it could be the cost of the trainer we hire, or it could be some travel costs. There is a variety of things.

When we say there is only $170,300 spent out of Purchased Services, the rest of it had to go to the other main objects to cover those costs. Under 02, as well as some of this learning and development cost, this is where the departmental Workers' Compensation costs are budgeted and paid out. That is an area, again, that has been traditionally under funded and we have just managed within.

For 2011-2012, we have had about $329,000 in Workers' Comp costs. In 2010-2011 it was down a bit to $260,000. In 2009-2010 it was $373,000. Again, as the minister mentioned earlier, we are one of the largest departments and we are twenty-four seven, so we do have a lot of these issues and our costs are variable from year to year. Attempts to get extra funding have not always been successful.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

Just a quick question on the same section, Supplies, there was a $13,000 overage. What was that for specifically?

MR. F. COLLINS: The same principle applies here. This is budgeted in Purchased Services and paid out through Employee Benefits in transfers during the year from one fund to the year. I do not know if there was anything specific on that, Debbie, you wanted to refer to.

MR. A. PARSONS: The reason I ask specifically is I asked this in Education and in one case they said it was a printer. It was very specific. Sometimes I ask and you get an answer that it was a specific piece of equipment or something along those lines.

MS DUNPHY: Not that I am aware of, that it is something specific. Again, with training for police officers they may need ammunition, for correctional officers they may have to buy extra gym mats if they are doing use of force, or they may have to use pepper spray, those sorts of things that are covered under the learning and development fund. So it is basic supplies, it is not a specific item.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

Moving to the next page 17.5, 1.2.05 Administrative Support; the big difference there, obviously, is it went from $614,000 to $1.7 million. I am just wondering what happened there to cause that difference.

MR. F. COLLINS: Which one is that again? I am lost here.

MR. A. PARSONS: Sorry, 1.2.05 Administrative Support, under line 07, Property and Furnishings.

MR. F. COLLINS: Okay. Yes, I got it.

The shortfall there of over $1 million?

MR. A. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: That relates to the purchases of vehicles for Fish and Wildlife, the RNC, and Adult Corrections. These were funded through operational savings within the RNC and Fish and Wildlife.

MR. A. PARSONS: So, $1 million sounds like a lot of vehicles.

MR. F. COLLINS: It was anticipated that Fish and Wildlife, for example, would be fully staffed and fully operational. So we bought equipment and vehicles and whatnot in anticipation of that, and it will be by the end of this year, or by early this year. Some of this will be one-time purchases upfront.

There are some vehicles in there as well for RNC and Adult Corrections. Operational savings within the RNC are spent for other things within the RNC, so extra vehicles would be purchased here.

MR. A. PARSONS: Just so I am clear now because, again, this is my first time. If money is spent for the RNC equipment, that could come under here. It is sort of all under one, I guess, is it?

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

The Fish and Wildlife, that came from Natural Resources?

MR. F. COLLINS: Inland Fish was part of Justice. Last year the Inland Fish and Wildlife were merged into one specific division under the Department of Justice. So in going along with that, there was organizational work to be done, offices to be established, staffing to be done, because the whole jurisdiction of Fish and Wildlife is moved over to Justice.

There is a considerable expense in staffing and getting that up and running, including accommodations, equipment, staff and so on. That is a new division that is functioning now within – before it was in Natural Resources. Wildlife and Conservation and Forestry were together under Natural Resources. All the enforcement section is now under Justice.

MR. A. PARSONS: Was there an increase in funds to cover this increase in size?

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes. That would be in last year's Budget, actually, some of that.

MR. A. PARSONS: Moving to page 17.6, Fines Administration; I am going to start with something general. This is something that came up, it was in the public. We know there are tons of people out there who have thousands of dollars of fines racked up. I am not sure what the number is. How many millions is it, roughly?

MR. F. COLLINS: At the moment, Accounts Receivable – I have these figures for you here – for 2011 was $34 million.

MR. A. PARSONS: I know this is not something that just built up all of a sudden. This is an ongoing problem over a number of years.

Has there been any discussion within the department on different ways to track and find these people?

MR. F. COLLINS: There have been a number of developments. This is an issue, Mr. Parsons, we have sat down in our offices and discussed time after time after time. Any time somebody gets picked up on the weekend and shows an outstanding $30,000 to $40,000 of fines, it evokes the discussion all over again. We keep asking: Is there anything else we can do here? There are all kinds of ideas being suggested, from chain gangs to everything else.

What we have done is we have increased, since 2003, the number of collection officers from one to eight. We have made an agreement with Canada Revenue Agency to garnish fines against income taxes and GST. That netted us, for example, this year over $1 million.

There are a number of challenges that face us here, obviously. There is always going to be a number of people who will always have complete disregard for the law and whatnot. We think we are doing everything we can to get these fines in.

In terms of figures, in 2010, for example, we collected $11,700,563. In the next year we collected $11,448,000 and last year $11,765,000. Our collections are going up every year.

Some of the problems we have with regard to collecting, people change their names as a result of marriage or divorce, unpublished cellphone numbers, people with no fixed address, a person incarcerated, no or low employment. It is a matter of trying to get blood out of a turnip. These people go back out on the road. When they get a chance, they are out on the road again without any licence, without any insurance, with a clunker they bought for $500 or stole.

What we have done, we have amended the Provincial Offences Act to allow us the mechanism of incarceration. Before, you could only give them a ticket and fine them. At least now you can incarcerate them. The cost of incarceration is more than what they owe.

It is a very difficult situation and one that we have wrestled with to see how we can deal with it. From adding an increased number of collection officers to making the arrangements with the CRA and adding to the mechanisms we have with regard to incarceration and whatnot, we are making inroads. The numbers are high and they are going to stay high.

One of the reasons why the numbers are high as well is because the costs of fines have gone up. Driving without insurance used to be $1,000, now it is $2,000. If you are caught twice of driving without insurance, that is $4,000 against you right off the bat. Victim surcharge fines have gone up. The number of tickets given by the RCMP have increased and the cost of each ticket has increased somewhat.

Sometimes you think you are going against the tide here, but we think we are doing everything we can to collect on these.

MR. A. PARSONS: As with the suggestion that the outstanding amount did not come over right away, some of these people's amounts did not just happen right away either. These people had to have been fined a number of times.

Has there been any discussion, perhaps with the judiciary or with prosecutors, as to looking at people's prior records and saying: Okay, at this point, look, you have X number of dollars racked up and we are not going to put another fine on you? Maybe there is a policy across the board of, like you said, the incarceration or some other means.

MR. F. COLLINS: My understanding is we have incarcerated people.

If you see someone caught for owing $30,000 in fines, more than likely that is the same person who we saw two weeks prior to that. The numbers of people now are small compared to what appears in the media with respect to the amount of fines. A lot of these are repeat offenders, the same people. Your option, basically, is to put them in jail.

MR. A. PARSONS: My final question, I have to ask since you brought it up: How do you feel about the possibility of chain gangs?

MR. F. COLLINS: A number of different remedies have been suggested in the media – people out doing community work and whatnot. We do not have the structures in place to do that sort of thing and the cost of putting those structures in place again outweigh the (inaudible) so it is something that we are going to be living with for a while, I am afraid.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

CHAIR: Gerry.

MS ROGERS: I will just carry on with that. Has there been any exploration at looking at reassessing amounts of fines for some people? For instance, when people go bankrupt they can only pay so much back. Has there been any exploration at looking at something that truly is payable by some offenders?

MR. F. COLLINS: We have put a debtor assessment system in place and once the fine goes over a certain amount, then it is turned over to the enforcement agency, to the Sheriff's Office, and then they can bring in all of their forces to bear, like they do in any collection situation. We have a system in place where they are brought in and assessed and see if they can make payments. That is turning us in a certain amount of revenue, but, again, a lot of these people that you hear about do not have the wherewithal to respond.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

MR. F. COLLINS: The thing is most people pay their fines.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: Anybody who has the ability to pay it out pays. So anybody that you bring in, to assess them and see what kind of a payment schedule they can make, usually these are not the people that you have to worry about.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

Civil Law and Enforcement, 2.1.01.01, Salaries, we see an increase there overspent by $392,000.

MR. F. COLLINS: The extra money is projected for salaries in this budget. We had to take additional lawyers on staff due to increased demand in certain areas. We are always going flat out in the civil section and sometimes we have to bring in additional people to help us out. Where we had a solicitor retire in that division, we had to pay some severance and leave payout for that person as well.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

In 05, Professional Services, here we see an over expenditure of $399,000.

MR. F. COLLINS: Again, in Professional Services, the shortfall there that had to do with the retention of outside legal assistance. Usually we are looking for someone with a particular expertise that we do not have in the department. That is where this is covered off.

MS ROGERS: What other kinds of professional services would be in that category? I am just curious.

MR. BURRAGE: It is not necessarily limited to legal. It could also involve consulting services. We need to reach outside and draw on some expertise the department does not have.

That varies from year to year. It is really a hard number to predict. For example, you might plan on a contingency and it not happen. A case could settle or something conversely could go in a completely different direction. We could face a situation where there is a series of serious crimes that require some additional resources we would otherwise not call upon. From year to year, it is a difficult thing to predict.

It is basically outside assistance and generally, as the minister said, because the expertise is not available in the department. It is something specialized.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

Then 06, Purchased Services –

MR. F. COLLINS: That, again, is a shortfall due to an expense in a civil case, a litigation case.

MS ROGERS: Could you just tell me a little bit what the difference is between professional services and purchased services?

MR. F. COLLINS: Again, I will refer to Debbie Dunphy on that one.

MS DUNPHY: That is a great question. How we always distinguish the two: a professional service is that you are getting an opinion or a ruling of some sort. A lawyer gives an opinion, an auditor gives an opinion, or a consultant gives a recommendation on a project. That is what we always use as our line for professional services. The purchased services are more of you are buying a service: catering, the John Howard Society provides services to our inmates, document retrieval, and training people. It is different, a more tangible thing, whereas professional we always consider to be some sort of opinion or recommendation.

MS ROGERS: Some of the services John Howard is providing for you, then, would come under civil law?

MR. F. COLLINS: No.

MS DUNPHY: No, that is just in general.

MS ROGERS: No, it would not. It would come under another category. Absolutely, I understand. Thank you.

Property, Furnishings and Equipment – I imagine simply something was bought there.

Allowances and Assistance?

MR. F. COLLINS: We had a savings there this year of $550,000. The Department of Justice are involved in settlement cases with the various actions against the government. This year our amounts were down by $550,000. That is a difficult one to predict. It is pretty hard to say what the trend is going to be from year to year. As a part of our savings this year, we are anticipating that we will maintain that position and taking in account that budget savings in our projected budget.

MS ROGERS: Okay, thank you.

Now to the next heading 2.1.0.2, Sheriff's Office, 01, Salaries-

MR. F. COLLINS: For the most part, the variances you see the Sheriff's Office have to do with provision of court security for circuit courts.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MR. F. COLLINS: The judges now are ordering deputy sheriffs to accompany them on circuit courts, so that calls for extra resources, and then you have to backfill the positions when they do go. A lot of the things you will see under this heading have to do with that.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Since we are speaking about circuit courts, some of the circuit courts that I have visited and then also heard from people using the circuit courts, many of them are totally physically inaccessible. Is there anything being done to address that situation? Because it affects not only the accused or their families and supports, but also the possibility of counsel who may be physically disabled, judges who may be physically disabled. It is really a serious issue of access to justice. I am just wondering how, particularly in some of the courts – I mean, the one in St. Anthony you are faced with two flights of stairs.

MR. F. COLLINS: Certainly it is a concern for us. We hold circuit courts in some strange locations in this Province –

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: As I am sure Mr. Parsons will attest. Security was not built in to the design when it was put there. We are from over the bar in Nain to the Lions clubs and town halls, but we cannot possibly do – to the cost of physical alterations, they are not our buildings to start with, a lot of them. What we could do in terms of infrastructure improvements there were limited. What we did instead, in terms of security enhancements – that is our main purpose, public safety – we are supplying the deputy sheriff's to assist the local police and whatnot in security.

In terms of accessibility we have – further on in the Supreme Court – budgeted, I think it is $300,000 and $400,000 for a wheelchair ramp for the Supreme Court, which has been a long time coming. We made some accessibility improvements in the Supreme Court building as well.

You are right; we have a lot of court facilities around the Province that need a lot of improvements. There is no doubt about that.

MS ROGERS: For instance, a courthouse like in St. Anthony, how often would that be used? How many days a week, or is it a day a month?

MR. F. COLLINS: The Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal?

MS ROGERS: In St. Anthony, yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: Which courthouse are you referring to on?

MS ROGERS: The court that has two flights of stairs.

MR. F. COLLINS: The Supreme Court building?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: The big historic building you are talking about?

MS ROGERS: No.

MR. F. COLLINS: The Court of Appeal?

MS ROGERS: The Court of Appeal, that is right, yes.

OFFICIAL: No, it is not; the court in St. Anthony.

MS ROGERS: In Anthony, yes.

OFFICIAL: The Supreme Court and Provincial Court both go (inaudible) circuit.

MS ROGERS: Yes, that's what I thought as well.

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes. We will have to get the numbers for you. That is a circuit court, we would not know.

MS ROGERS: Ballpark, is it a few days a month? It is not every day is it?

MR. F. COLLINS: I do know from discussions last year that the Unified Family Court now in Corner Brook on circuit goes throughout five times a month, I believe.

MS ROGERS: I see, out to St. Anthony?

MR. F. COLLINS: That might be the whole court system, five days for the Supreme Court. We will have to get the figures for you because I am talking off the top of my head.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Yes, I would like those figures. That would be great.

Thank you.

I think I can pass on from the Sheriff's Office. Transportation and Communications, however, in the Sheriff's Office, would that as well relate to circuit courts?

MR. F. COLLINS: Absolutely. Yes.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MR. F. COLLINS: Not only circuit courts, but sometimes deputy sheriffs have to travel to other courts for other reasons but it mostly has to do with – if there are some vacancies in a court outside St. John's then a deputy sheriff from St. John's will have to go to that court. So that is part of the expenses as well.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Civil Law and Enforcement (Cont'd), 2.1.03, we see there Purchased Services in 06.

MR. F. COLLINS: Purchased Services there, an increase of $33,000. That is a result, basically, an increase in bank fees on a Support Enforcement account.

MS ROGERS: To be a bank. Okay.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Debbie, please.

MS DUNPHY: Just to add to that, Minister, we have actually been in discussions with the Comptroller's Officer. Government, as a whole, has a banking arrangement that we tender and go through a process every so many years.

Support Enforcement, that is a separate issue, it is not government money. It is monies collected from individuals and passed on. For years, when the interest rates where higher and bank fees were lower, there were times government actually made money off that from interest. Again, it was distributed to the CRF.

The past two years, bank fee have flipped and it is costing us a lot of money. We have been in discussions with the Comptroller's Office to see if we can find some better arrangement to try to reduce these fees because it is obviously gone up considerably.

MS ROGERS: Then if we go on to 2.1.04, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy. I would like to ask a broad question first about that.

Minister, you received the Cummings report on the first statutory review of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and you said there would be a careful review of the recommendations made. My understanding is there are amendments to the legislation in the works.

Can you give me an update of where you are with those recommendations? What they are going to look like, what is happening?

MR. F. COLLINS: As you can well imagine, it is quite a sensitive piece, an important piece of legislation. When we received the report from Mr. Cummings, when we reviewed the report, then we had to submit it to all the departments for their review and their input.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: As a matter of fact, it has made two rounds of the departments. We are now in a position of collating all the information that the different departments have provided so that we can properly draft the amendments.

In addition to what Mr. Cummings has suggested, there is a lot of input from the various departments into that report. So when the bill comes to the House, the amendments will reflect all of the input that went into that review.

MS ROGERS: Will we get any of that information before the bill comes to the House, in terms of the recommendations and amendments?

MR. F. COLLINS: I would suggest to you, that information – you will be briefed, certainly, on the amendments before they come to the House.

MS ROGERS: Do you have a time frame for that?

MR. F. COLLINS: The amendments are still being discussed and they are still being reviewed. This is a bill that is going to take a long time because it is going to be in effect for another five years. It is one that gets a lot of attention, so we have to make sure we do that one right. Before the bill comes to the House, it will get an extensive review on what the reviews are going to be.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Gerry.

Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to go back, if I may, to 2.1.01 Civil Law.

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: Under Professional Services, there is a budget of $2.3 million and we spent $2.7 million. I am presuming these professional services are for monies, in some cases, paid for law firms for outside services.

Do you have a list of the law firms that were paid in 2011?

CHAIR: Don.

MR. BURRAGE: It is a question we anticipate every year. So we can provide that for you, absolutely. I cannot provide it to you at the moment, but we can provide that.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

Just going down for a second to the Sheriff's Office, I noticed the amount spent in line 07 Property, Furnishings and Equipment went up a lot.

I do not know if Ms Rogers asked that or not. Did you?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: What was that again?

MR. F. COLLINS: Is that Property, Furnishings and Equipment? Is that the one you are talking about?

MR. A. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: There is a shortfall there of over $40,000. That relates basically to the purchase of the X-ray scanning equipment.

MR. A. PARSONS: Perfect. Thank you. Sorry for the repetitiveness.

While we are talking on this topic, one of the things that were brought up last year in a report by Judge Baker was the probation offices. My hometown has the distinct pleasure of having one of the worst in the Province.

I am just wondering: What changes have been done to the Port aux Basques office for probation services since that report?

MR. F. COLLINS: Judge Baker made eighteen particular recommendations in his report and they were basically divided into two categories. There was administration and policy, and procedural type of recommendations, as well as infrastructure recommendations, public safety and security enhancements. We did not wait on that report. Once we had some discussion with Judge Baker, for example, we did the home visit assessment because that was one of his recommendations in there.

Basically, what we have done since that report has come in, we have hired an additional regional manager. That has gone through the classification process and is ready now to go to advertising. We moved the office of the Chief Adult Probation Officer from downtown St. John's into the Department of Justice, and now she will have a regional manager.

With another regional manager, we will be able to address a lot of the recommendations and suggestions that Judge Baker makes in his report. Going forward, she will be able to address policy changes and procedures in policy manuals, that sort of training, and so on. She will be able to address all of that.

With regard to the infrastructure, we have made a number of changes in some of the offices. You are absolutely right. Some of the working conditions in some of these offices, Judge Baker pointed out that the probation system was working really well, in spite of some of the infrastructure challenges that existed. We made a number of changes in some of these offices. In this year's Budget, we budgeted $150,000 a year for the next four years to address some of these changes and needs.

MR. A. PARSONS: Just a follow-up to that, you say that there is a new manager – you guys are advertising now?

MR. F. COLLINS: It is not advertised yet I do not think, is it?

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay, you are in the process. That position has not been hired.

MR. F. COLLINS: No.

MR. A. PARSONS: I think you said, and maybe I heard it wrong, that she will do something. I did not know if –

MR. F. COLLINS: Right now we have one chief adult probation officer, Fran Cumby.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. F. COLLINS: Pardon?

OFFICIAL: That is the she.

MR. F. COLLINS: She – I am sorry about that. Giving her another regional manager – we are looking for four regional managers going forward, and we have hired one, and that will assist her in implementing some of the recommendations that Judge Baker had made in his report with regard to policy changes and training, developing procedures and manuals and that sort of thing. That would be a big help in addressing some of those recommendations.

In the meantime, we are spending money on improvements to the workplace situations that some of these people are working in as well.

MR. A. PARSONS: Is there any anticipated timeline on when this position will be advertised, the interview process and then hiring take place?

MR. BURRAGE: Can you say it again, Mr. Parsons?

MR. A. PARSONS: We are talking about a probation position that has just been reclassified and is about to be advertised. I am just wondering: Is there any anticipated timeline on when this position will go through the process of being advertised, interviewed, and then actually hired?

MR. BURRAGE: I would hope sooner rather than later. I do not think it has been advertised yet. It is taking a while to get classified because it is a new creation, but I know that we are quite anxious to get it out there, get it advertised through the PSC and to get it filled. I hesitate to give you a firm timeline but certainly I would say, Paul –

MR. NOBLE: In the spring.

MR. BURRAGE: Yes, it is a spring issue, not a fall-winter issue.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

I guess while we are talking Sheriff's Office and court costs – and again, I do not know if you have the answer there because it is a bit of a convoluted question. It was only a couple of years ago that the circuit court in Port aux Basques, they used to have a staff person who was there. Whenever the circuit court came in, that person came in worked those three days or four days of that month, and this was replaced. This person was taken out. What happens then is when the judge used to travel in from, say, Stephenville staff would be brought in with that person.

I never did understand the logic of the move in the first place. I would assume it was a cost-saving measure at that time. I am just wondering is there any breakdown – did that actually achieve cost savings?

Like I said, I do not expect you might have that information here. I wrote a letter to the previous Minister Marshall on this expressing my displeasure. This is just when I was a practising lawyer there because this is a job in our area and someone is familiar with the area. Again, cost savings was the reason, I believe. So I am just wondering: Has there been a cost savings to that?

MR. F. COLLINS: I do not know if we can answer that question at this point in time or not.

MR. BURRAGE: I am not sure – I know we cannot answer it today.

MR. A. PARSONS: That is fine. An undertaking on that would be fine.

MR. BURRAGE: If they have tracked that as a cost item so it can be teased out, if you will, then we can certainly provide it.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

MR. BURRAGE: I just do not want to give an unequivocal undertaking to provide it because I am not sure if the court has it in that level of detail. If it is there, you can have it.

MR. A. PARSONS: I would assume that if the previous minister said we are going to save money here there had been something to calculate this is going to save money, so we need to show that the money was saved.

MR. BURRAGE: I just do not know how they tracked it since that decision was made.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay, thank you.

I am just going to move very quickly off to the side. Two years ago the department spent $134,000 on I think it is called a Black Maria prisoner transport. I guess that is a big, fancy transport vehicle – a bigger one for more people. I understand the vehicle is not used very often. I am wondering: Is there a record on how often this vehicle has been used since 2010?

MR. NOBLE: I think it is used frequently. That is my understanding, Mr. Parsons. I am sort of at a loss to respond to your question. My understanding is it is used on a fairly frequent basis to go back and forth across the Island. It is a prisoner transport unit. In fact, the second one is being delivered any day now, so there is certainly a demand for it.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

When we are talking about this vehicle used for transport of prisoners, on October 29, as we all know, there was a young man who escaped from custody on Parade Street. At that time, the word was that Justice officials had custody of him, but I do not know if there was ever any explanation on who had custody of the young man.

I am just wondering if the minister is able to provide me some answers on that topic. How did he escape? Who had custody of him?

MR. F. COLLINS: The information that was given at that time, was streamed through the media, and supplemented by the police and by Justice, that was a specific case that we could not comment on. For privacy reasons, we could not release any of that type of information on that particular individual. Even the disposition of that case, we are not prepared to disclose at this particular point in time.

I know that is not the answer you are looking for, but that is a position Justice finds itself in on so many occasions when information is requested about a particular individual that is in conflict with the system. Our hands are tied with respect to giving any kind of information about who had custody at the time, what the disposition of the person is. It was before the courts and there are privacy issues and whatnot that binds our hands. That was the case in this case and remains the case today.

The matter did go to the courts and proceeded through the courts and was disposed of through the courts.

MR. A. PARSONS: After that time, will we have an opportunity to ask about the procedure, was procedure followed and whatnot.

MR. F. COLLINS: Our examination of the situation, review of the situation, felt that all of our protocols were followed and it was just an unfortunate breach that occurred. Breaches of this nature happen all the time in the administration of justice when you are transporting prisoners or inmates or with corrections institutions. Prison breaks and escapes from custody, unlawful escape from custody and whatnot, are something that you experience. Albeit you want to cut it down and reduce it so that it does not happen, but given the nature of the game it is going to happen. It happened in this case and the review showed the protocols were followed and were in place. It happened in spite of it.

MR. A. PARSONS: Again, I am sure you are privy to more information than me, but I do not think the public would like to hear that this sort of stuff happens all the time.

MR. F. COLLINS: I should not say it happens all the time. I take that back.

MR. A. PARSONS: I will give you an opportunity to clarify.

MR. F. COLLINS: I take that back. It is not unusual in the whole business of corrections when you are dealing with inmates. I think I once said I thought escapes from jail happens all the time. That was an unfortunate use of words. Certainly, we want to reduce it from happening at all, but it happens in all correctional institutions across Canada.

MR. A. PARSONS: I am going to move forward to page 17.8, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy, there was a difference in Salaries between what was budgeted last year and what was spent; $595,600 was budgeted but only $351,900 was spent.

What was the difference there? Was there a position not filled?

MR. F. COLLINS: There are a couple of things in there. There is a solicitor position attached to ATIPPA, and that position was vacant. It was seconded to another division of the department. The director there, then, was really performing both roles. Delays with recruiting and hiring of another official in there accounted for some of it as well.

That system will revert itself this year so that the Budget will be somewhat reduced, but it is expected the full staff complement will be in place and back again in 2012.

CHAIR: Thank you, Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

MR. BURRAGE: I just would add for clarity that the director is also a lawyer by training. That is why the individual was able to assume both roles.

CHAIR: Gerry.

MS ROGERS: When can we expect that the position of solicitor would be filled for ATIPPA? You said the position of solicitor is vacant. When can we expect that to be filled?

MR. F. COLLINS: I will let the Deputy Minister reply to that.

MR. BURRAGE: The individual is actually seconded to another department in government. He is expected to come back shortly, in the next month or so.

MS ROGERS: Yes. So he is coming back?

MR. BURRAGE: Yes.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Thank you.

Family Justice Services, I do not have any line-by-line issues there but I do have a few questions I would like to ask.

Can you give us an update on the new Family Violence Court?

MR. F. COLLINS: Family Violence Court is continued under this budget for another year. We are still considering it in a bit of a pilot stage. It was a three-year pilot, but we are between the third and the fourth year because it did not get started until halfway through the first year. We are now in the process this year of being able to get some better data and judge the results of that court. It is continued to be budgeted under this year's budget.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MR. F. COLLINS: The initial results in St. Anthony are very positive. The problem with it is that you need some time to evolve in order to get data. It is no good getting data on someone who went through the courts a couple of months ago because you are going to have to wait a year before you see what the actual results are.

The only valid data that we have in the third year really are people who went through in the first year. That gives you a bit of longitudinal study as to how they are doing.

MS ROGERS: Well, I have to tell you, thirty-odd years ago I was involved in doing the first process and impact evaluation of the Unified Family Court after it opened. So yes, it takes a while.

Also, what is being done right now – I know this is not specifically family violence, but what is being done right now to address the wait-list in the mediation program in family court? I know there is a long waiting list. Can you tell me what those wait times are, the average, and what is being done about that?

MS BALLARD: We are working on two fronts with regard to the wait times in family court. The mediation program is run through our Family Justice Services. We have offices throughout the Province.

Our main area where we were having some problems in terms of wait lists was in St. John's, especially over the last year. We had a number of human resources problems in terms of people on sick leave and so forth. We are up to a full component right now, and we are working very hard and very closely with the Unified Family Court judges.

Recently, what we did is we took a lot of the files and transferred them back to the court. They had a special sitting of the court for three weeks so they could deal with that backlog, and that was very, very successful.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MS BALLARD: Right now, we have a manageable list. What we are doing is looking at ways of screening those files as they come in to ensure that files, for example, will not – there are some files that mediation is just not going to work for, so they have to go immediately back to court, or where, for example, the respondent does not respond at all. So it is going to be an uncontested application, those sorts of things, where there is violence involved. What we are trying to do is ensure that there is a double level of screening so those files are immediately dealt with and put back to court.

The other thing we are trying to do, even for clients who come in who are not going to benefit necessarily from mediation services. What we are doing now is we are putting on additional parent information sessions for everybody who comes in through that system, because the judges find that it is very beneficial. Even if they know the lingo, they understand what the best interest of the child is, they understand child support, and they understand the guidelines and those sorts of things. We are putting extra sessions on so they can streamline that and move it back into the court as well.

We have done very well over the last few months. If you have heard anything any more positive, I think you will in the next few weeks, and we are continuing to do that.

Also, on the Unified Family Court process there are also committees looking at the administrative process within the court system itself. There is no question, there are delays down at the Unified Family Court and it is recognized right now. The Chief Justice has recognized that and is working with the Department of Justice and set up committees that will try to streamline as much as possible.

Plus, there is going to be a new Unified Family judge appointed very soon, we understand. That will help as well in dealing with some of the replacements, some of the retirements. The retirements we do have are going to be supernumerary judges. So we are expecting to have four full-time judges down there within the next few months.

MS ROGERS: Great.

Do you know how we are with our wait times compared to other jurisdictions in the country?

MS BALLARD: I cannot say for sure. You are going to have some wait times anyway because there are difficulties in just getting hold of people as you make those initial calls. We are trying to keep it as short as possible. We are trying to do a four-to-six-week turnover. Sometimes it can go to three months. Comparatively, a four-to-six-week turnover is reasonable and what you would expect.

Obviously, in some other places in the country there are more resources put into it and more of an emphasis, and there are different ways of streamlining. We are connected with other Family Justice services across the country. In terms of improving our service, we continue to try and improve the service.

MS ROGERS: In terms of EPOs and first appearance, how are we doing with wait times or first appearance times from the establishment of an EPO and then first appearance?

MS BALLARD: Emergency Protection Order in Provincial Court, you mean?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MS BALLARD: Under the legislation, I would have to check, but you can get those ex parte when just one party applies for it. Then within, I believe, fourteen days you have to be back in court again in order to give the respondent an opportunity to respond. Then the order itself is just a ninety-day order.

MS ROGERS: Right.

MS BALLARD: There is no difficulty with those. We do no have a backlog with those.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

One more thing about the mediators: How are we doing with ongoing training with mediators and staff training?

MS BALLARD: There is ongoing training with the mediators. We have some funding. We also have some federal government funding as well for FJS. We do train the trainers as well, so that keeps down on the cost. We have training for the trainers and then they train the other mediators. So there is ongoing training.

MS ROGERS: Do you have enough money to do the type of training you feel is necessary?

MS BALLARD: Sorry, is the Minister going to take that one?

MR. F. COLLINS: The question again? I am sorry.

MS ROGERS: Do you feel you have enough money to do the training that is felt is necessary for the mediators to be able to work to their full, most brilliant capacity?

MR. F. COLLINS: Again, I will refer to Donna on that one.

MS BALLARD: You can always use more funding, but we actually are in good shape with our funding. We are in good shape with FJS in our funding. We do not have a huge staff across the Province and except for the backlog that is happening in St. John's, how much I just described, our other areas are actually doing very well, and are smaller areas.

Yes, more funding is always a good thing. I really do not feel that we are deficient. We have a very competent group of mediators and counsellors in FJS, who are also working very closely with the Unified Family Court. Right now, they are actually sitting in on some sessions and working with Madam Justice Butler. I think that we do have adequate training. I do not feel like they are deficient in the services they are providing.

MS ROGERS: Okay, thank you.

Line by line, I would go to page 17.10, Other Legal Services, Legal Aid and Related Services, 2.3.01. Before we get to that line by line, I am just looking at the tariffs for legal aid, the current tariffs. I understand that they have not changed since 1991. I am wondering if there is any intention to do something about that.

MR. F. COLLINS: Are you talking about the contributions of the federal government towards legal aid?

MS ROGERS: No, the tariffs for –

MR. F. COLLINS: To pay lawyers?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: (Inaudible) outside lawyers.

MR. F. COLLINS: Do you want to take that?

MR. BURRAGE: That is what I get for speaking up. I get the question.

You are right, the tariffs have not changed. I am assuming you are meaning the rates which are paid to outside counsel.

MS ROGERS: The counsel of choice –

MR. BURRAGE: That has not changed and Mr. Parsons and any of us who practise law know those rates are low. There is no immediate plan to change them. I will say that most of the legal aid that we do here is done in-house through staff solicitors.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: What we did do in a budget a number of years ago was to increase the fund available for counsel of choice in serious matters.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: I believe they were murder and some of the more serious cases, to give the accused the right of counsel of choice. In those cases, I believe the amount which is paid to those lawyers is actually more than the going tariff. It is difficult to get somebody to do something at the tariff. It often is supplemented by the department, but most cases are being dealt with by in-house counsel. That fund that was established for the serious cases, that is there to provide counsel of choice to people in serious matters.

MS ROGERS: It is still quite ineffective because the tariff is so low. My question would be: Why would there not be any intention to do something about making that tariff even the least bit reasonable?

MR. BURRAGE: I will say that the tariff is something that is on the radar. I cannot give you a time or a date, but the tariff is on the radar with legal aid. We have had discussions with them around that.

MS ROGERS: It seems that this is a serious access to justice issue once again, with such low tariffs.

MR. BURRAGE: Well, only in circumstances where there is no staff lawyer available or you have a conflict and you cannot have a staff lawyer. Most cases, the vast majority of cases, are dealt with through staff solicitors. If we have a circumstance where somebody needs a lawyer, they are impecunious, they are unable to hire a lawyer, and we have a conflict within legal aid such that they cannot do the work, for example, we just cannot have a staff solicitor do it, we find a way to get a downtown lawyer to do that by offering higher than the tariff rate. That is the reality.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MR. BURRAGE: I do not know of any circumstances where somebody has actually had to go to court to defend themselves because they have been unable to obtain a lawyer as a result of the tariff. I am not aware of any situation like that.

MS ROGERS: Yet if somebody is in a real serious situation where there is a potential of life imprisonment, the option to have a very experienced –

MR. BURRAGE: That option is there because we have increased the funding and the ability in legislation for people to have their counsel of choice in that circumstance. There is a larger fund available in those cases.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

The eligibility thresholds for legal aid at this point, I wonder if we could have those.

MR. BURRAGE: You can have it; it is complicated. I asked for it recently and Ms Ballard gave me a whole pile of stuff. I went through it, I thought I understood it at the time, but if you want it you can most certainly have it, yes.

MS ROGERS: I guess there is another concern there as well in terms of a basic access to justice issue that people in order to be able to defend themselves, particularly if it is a situation of false accusation as well, that they can become bankrupt or the lose a family home. We know that the costs of defence have skyrocketed and the threshold again is certainly not – and then we know that it affects what is happening in our courts.

MR. BURRAGE: The access to justice issue is a national issue. It is not just to do with rates. There are times when people, for one reason or another, choose not to have a lawyer represent them. That is, as you might imagine, problematic.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: Problematic for the accused and problematic for the system.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: This issue of a self-represented litigant, the self-represented accused, is a complex issue. It is one that is not unique to this Province; it exists everywhere. It is not just a monetary issue. In some cases, it is a matter of personal choice. It is complicated.

MS ROGERS: I think often, also, even if you are middle class, it is a problem.

CHAIR: I am going to hold that conversation. I think we have had the conversation and I am going to move on, Gerry, if I could, please.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

CHAIR: Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to quickly go back to 2.1.05, Family Justice Services, if I may, line 03, Transportation and Communications.

In that you can see that what was spent last year was actually less than what was budgeted and this year it has been budgeted down lower. My question would be: What is being cut to achieve this new budget figure?

MR. F. COLLINS: That is one of our cost-saving initiatives within the department. Transportation is an area that we have looked at across the whole board in our department. You will find, in a lot of cases, it is an area where we think we can get some savings. With the specifics on this one – Debbie, I do not know if you have any specifics on this one.

MS DUNPHY: I guess the only thing I would add, Mr. Parsons, is that when the Division of Family Justice Services was established a number of years ago and you try to come up with the estimates of what it is going to cost, you do not really know until you get a few years in. It does appear that what we have budgeted at $126,000 is probably not really reflective. If we look back at the actuals, yes, it was a good area to look at reducing the budget overall or in some cases we may have reprofiled it to other areas where it was needed.

Yes, we do anticipate just getting savings, not from a reduction of service or anything but it may mean instead of two people attending training out-of-town or out-of-Province, maybe only one goes; or instead of four going, maybe they bring someone in, those sorts of things, but not to reduce service in anyway.

MR. A. PARSONS: So it is related to staff and training, it is not related to employees and going outside their –

MS DUNPHY: No, certainly not.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

MR. F. COLLINS: The directive of cost-saving initiatives, programs were not to be negatively affected. Any cuts in transportation are not going to negatively affect any programs (inaudible) mentioned.

MR. A. PARSONS: Good.

Living in a rural setting we expect to have to travel, so I am always sensitive to cutting down on that, no matter if it is justice or education or whatnot. So I appreciate that.

Under 2.2.01 Criminal Law, we had $60,000 in 05 budgeted for Professional Services. I would assume this is another area where you are anticipating a question. We spent $105,000, I am wondering why did we spend extra money and who did it go to?

MR. F. COLLINS: This would be connected with the retention of outside counsel. Most of the professional services data that you will find having to do with the Civil or Criminal division, that sort of indicates where you have to get outside counsel or special expertise, or by a court order or whatever. The $45,000 extra there was due to retention of outside counsel.

MR. A. PARSONS: Am I able to get a list of who that outside counsel is?

MR. F. COLLINS: We want to give you the list of law firms and what we paid; it would be in there somewhere.

MR. BURRAGE: We can add that to the civil list. Usually, as the Minister said, the reason for retaining outside Crown prosecutors in this case is either somebody is not available or you need a particular expertise or that kind of thing, but by all means.

If the case has been concluded, I would have to give some thought to, if it involves an ongoing prosecution as to whether or not the disclosure of any of the information while the prosecution is ongoing, might be of concern to the prosecution's office. It may not be, but if it is I would need to take counsel on that.

Certainly, if a prosecution is concluded I cannot see any reason whatsoever, but if it is ongoing I would need to check with the prosecution's office. That is the only caveat.

MR. A. PARSONS: That is fair enough. Thank you.

I am moving forward to 2.3.01 Legal Aid. Under federal revenue, I would assume that is money given to us by the federal government $2.23 million, but we actually received a fair bit more. What was the extra money from?

MR. F. COLLINS: That is sort of a catch up in claims. You present your claim to the federal government for reimbursement and sometimes it is two or three years behind. So we got a little windfall here. We picked up some extra funds. We caught up with the system. We are still behind, it is about at least a year, but more money came in out of this year's claims. They were processed a little bit faster than we thought they would be.

MR. A. PARSONS: Do you mean the federal government is slow on giving out to this Province their money?

MR. F. COLLINS: No, I did not say that.

As a matter of fact, we are slow sometimes in getting our claims to the federal government. So it is a combination of both.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

I am going to skip past the Commissions of Inquiry, which looks like a bit of a placeholder there of $1,000.

MR. F. COLLINS: That is what it is.

MR. A. PARSONS: Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, we spent more last year in Salaries than was budgeted. What was the reason for this? Was extra staff needed for – it looks like the same amount is budgeted this year, so I assume it was an extra position or employee?

MR. F. COLLINS: The shortfall there related mainly to a retired employee, severance and retirement benefits. As well, there was additional staff person hours required to address some operational requirements that we had. It was a one-time cost.

MR. A. PARSONS: Under Professional Services, we spent $20,000 more last year. What did this relate to?

MR. F. COLLINS: That was, again, operational costs. Increasing lab costs, for example, transport of deceased persons, we had some extra costs in there, some autopsy costs and whatnot.

MR. A. PARSONS: While we are at it, line 06 Purchased Services. We spent about $90,000 more last year.

MR. F. COLLINS: That is the one I was referring to, I am sorry. Is that the question you asked me previously?

MR. A. PARSONS: No, I was asking about Professional Services before. There was a $20,000 shortfall.

MR. F. COLLINS: I am sorry.

MR. BURRAGE: Do you want me to take it?

MR. F. COLLINS: Go ahead.

MR. BURRAGE: As I thought, it just really is the cost associated with retaining pathologists to do work that the office requires. Again, it is hard to predict from year to year how much of that there is going to be.

MR. A. PARSONS: Just moving on here very quickly. I have a question here on the closed circuit camera, that system that was placed on George Street. I see there was something in the news on that tonight. I did not actually catch the news but I am just wondering so far, maybe from the RNC or RCMP perspective, how is that system working out?

MR. F. COLLINS: I did not catch the story either. I heard of it, but the reports I get back are all very positive.

I will ask Paul Noble if he wants to speak.

MR. NOBLE: Mr. Parsons, I do not have any statistics to give you off the top of my head but I do know the RNC have reported that their calls for service and the number of complaints relating to criminal misconduct and other rowdy types of behaviour on George Street has decreased in the last year. I suppose one would be tempted to, in part at least, attribute that to the presence of the CCTVs.

MR. A. PARSONS: Has the video been used yet in any court cases or investigations – I do not want to even say successfully. Has it been used for that purpose, maybe?

MR. NOBLE: It has been used in a number of prosecutions. Again, off the top of my head I am not sure how many.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

There was no issue, I guess, as to the –

MR. NOBLE: Admissibility?

MR. A. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. NOBLE: None that I am aware of.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay. Good.

If I might go to section 2.3.04 Human Rights, obviously, there is a fair difference between – when it comes to the Salaries there is a sizeable cut there. What is that attributed to?

MR. F. COLLINS: You asked me earlier if there were any positions cut at the department with respect to the 3 per cent. My answer with respect to the 3 per cent cost-cutting initiative, there were no positions cut – two temporary positions at the Human Rights Commission, and a specialist. These two positions were appointed on contract some time ago, two years ago, to handle a backlog that was built up at the Human Rights Commission. This year's budget, the money was discontinued for these positions because that issue had been addressed. So these two positions have been – the money for these positions are gone.

MR. A. PARSONS: Technically speaking, there were positions cut.

MR. F. COLLINS: A rose by any other name, I suppose.

MR. A. PARSONS: If somebody was looking at this topic, Human Rights, and sees a significant cut in the salary section they would say that something has been cut here. You are saying, basically, there was a backlog, you had to hire on extra people but you do not need that backlog.

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, that was the reason for which two people were hired in the first place. There was a significant backlog. There is still a significant workload there for the current number, but the backlog, basically, has been addressed.

MR. A. PARSONS: Under 2.3.05, Office of the Public Trustee, my understanding is that there a job advertisement coming in that department soon, or is one being posted I believe.

MR. BURRAGE: Mr. Parsons, there was an advertisement and the competition is all but complete. We are in the final stages now of deciding who that individual will be. There was an advertisement for the Public Trustee and there was a publicly run competition through the PSC. The competition is closed and we are just now in the final evaluation stages.

MR. A. PARSONS: It is not anticipated that that hire will impact what you have budgeted for this year. That has been budgeted in?

MR. BURRAGE: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

I just want to quickly go on to a topic here. This was brought up in the Blue Book for this year's election; the drug treatment court was brought up. Now, there was no mention of it in the Budget. Where does that issue stand?

MR. F. COLLINS: We are doing some preliminary investigation and monitoring of other jurisdictions of the drug treatment courts. There are only about half a dozen drug treatment courts in Canada – federally funded.

We are in the preliminary stages of planning an investigation as to the possibility of setting up a drug court, and it has not evolved much beyond that. We did some preliminary work on it, but right now we are focusing on the Family Violence Intervention Court, as well as the Mental Health Court and making sure we get these up and running and working well, and doing preliminary investigations and work on the drug court.

For further information on that, I refer to Jackie – can you expand on that?

MS LAKE-KAVANAGH: We have done some research on that. We have done a comparative analysis of what other jurisdictions have done and we have looked at the various models that they have, because you cannot automatically assume that what one jurisdiction does will fit for all others.

We have been looking at the complete model, the eligibility, the kinds of services, and the kinds of costing that will be involved. Again, it is at a very preliminary stage, but we have begun to actually dig into actual models of drug treatment courts in other parts of Canada.

CHAIR: A follow-up.

MR. A. PARSONS: A follow-up, if I might.

CHAIR: Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS: Two questions: One, like in a lot of other things we have been talking about the hospital and there is $1 million set aside for a feasibility study, was there any money budgeted to assist with this or is it done in-house?

MR. F. COLLINS: The current investigation and preliminary work, it is all being done in-house.

MR. A. PARSONS: Do you anticipate having to go outside?

MR. F. COLLINS: Not at this stage of the game. We still have a fair amount of work to do in getting ourselves up to speed on drug courts. At this stage of the game, I do not envisage getting any outside – again, I will refer to Jackie, if she has any further information on that.

MS LAKE-KAVANAGH: No, I think at this point we are able to handle that in-house in terms of the research and the analysis piece. I suppose when we are prepared to move on to the next step and look at what direction we need on that, that would be an appropriate discussion to have at that point, but I think we are able to handle that in-house at this point.

MR. A. PARSONS: Is there any anticipated timeline on the establishment of this? This was: We will establish a drug treatment court. So I am just wondering if something is going to happen in the near future.

MR. F. COLLINS: The Blue Book has a four-year term. We have some time to work on that, but we are not going to be bringing a drug court obviously until we are ready to do it. We need to be ready to do that. A drug court is a very sophisticated and significant court. All specialized courts are very expensive, as we are finding out with the Family Violence Intervention Court. It certainly will not be this year and it will not be the early part of the mandate, I would not think.

CHAIR: Thank you, Andrew.

You have one more question to follow up. I will give you one more question.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Do you think it will happen during this mandate?

MR. F. COLLINS: That is the intent of the Blue Book, to have it within the mandate.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Thank you, Andrew.

Gerry.

MS ROGERS: If we could go back to Human Rights, 2.3.04. The passing of the revamped Human Rights Code in 2010, the government refused to recognize gender identity as prohibitive grounds for discrimination. This essentially leaves transgendered folks without a lot of protection. Transgendered individuals experience double the average rates of unemployment and almost 100 per cent have experienced mistreatment and discrimination at workplace. Are there any plans, Minister, to include gender identity in the Human Rights Act?

MR. F. COLLINS: We did not include gender at the time because most of the advice we got was not to include gender.

MS ROGERS: Gender identity.

MR. F. COLLINS: We could not find a specific definition of gender. There were so many definitions of gender that it was almost impossible to arrive at one. We think most of the human rights issues that occur in situations you just described would be covered under the sex discrimination. For that reason, we did not include gender. We have no plans at the moment at least to consider it. That is not saying going forward, in pursuance to broaden the bill, we would not.

MS ROGERS: I think that there has been some very interesting human rights work done around the area of gender identity in other jurisdictions that may have best practices that maybe could be considered.

MR. F. COLLINS: A lot of work has been done around gender, but a lot of it is confusing in terms of giving directions as to how to proceed on it.

MS ROGERS: Gender identity can be confusing, sir – it can be confusing; however, with the human rights aspect of it, it is not so –

MR. BURRAGE: The only thing I would add to that is that the Human Rights Code, like human rights, is evolving. It is not static. The department is always looking at the Human Rights Act as it is now called for ways in which it can be modified or improved. As the minister said, at the time we were coming forward with the act, gender identity, there was still a lot of ambiguity around what it would mean, how it would be interpreted. We are always looking at the act.

MS ROGERS: I would be interested in having a conversation about that.

Office of the Public Trustee, did we go there already?

MR. A. PARSONS: We did ask a question about advertising.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

We see a disparity there of about $686,000 from the budget to the revised for the total –

MR. BURRAGE: What section?

MS ROGERS: For 2.3.05, Office of the Public Trustee.

CHAIR: Are you talking revenue, Gerry, 02, provincial revenue?

MS ROGERS: Yes. Did we already deal with that?

MR. A. PARSONS: We never asked specifics on that.

CHAIR: Section 2.3.05.02, Revenue – Provincial, Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: Related to revenue?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: Basically that is revenue that was related to the previous year that came in, in 2011-2012.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Section 2.4.01, Legislative Counsel, the difference in the budget for 2011-2012 to the new estimate –

MR. F. COLLINS: On Salaries?

MS ROGERS: There is a decrease.

MR. F. COLLINS: The increase in Salaries in 01, is that what you are talking about?

MS ROGERS: No, I am looking at the overall budget and that there is a decrease there.

MR. F. COLLINS: Most of that has to do with salaries.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MR. F. COLLINS: That is due to reclassification of one of the solicitors – if we are on the same line here?

MS ROGERS: Right.

MR. F. COLLINS: The budget of 2011-2012 of $569,000, if you look at the bottom line there –

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: The budget for the coming year is $608,000.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: Is that what you are looking at?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: The difference of $38,000.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: That is broken down, as you can see in the variance – most of that is in 01, Salaries, and that is the reclassification of one of the solicitors in there, that increase in salary. It is also step increases for the existing staff under the existing agreements. Basically, the bulk of that comes under that.

MS ROGERS: Okay, thank you.

If we can move on then to Law Courts, Supreme Court, 3.1.01.06, Purchased Services –

MR. F. COLLINS: Debbie, do you want to speak to that one?

MS DUNPHY: Certainly.

Ms Rogers, are you talking about the estimate – the significant increase?

MS ROGERS: The estimate is considerably more.

MS DUNPHY: That mainly relates – the minister referenced earlier that we did funding in this budget for a ramp at the Court of Appeal, so there would be a contract let to actually –

MS ROGERS: At the Court of Appeal?

MS DUNPHY: At the Court of Appeal here in St. John's, a wheelchair ramp for accessibility; it was actually part of the inclusion strategy.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MS DUNPHY: There was $325,000 provided for that. As well, there was an additional $54,000 – we are doing some significant work with Supreme Court, like I said, administration and staff, so we need some additional space, as well there are some extra judges being appointed – Supreme Court judges. We got some money for some extra accommodations for about six months because we figure it is going to be that before there is a tender and space available.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MS DUNPHY: That is the main reasons for the increase.

MS ROGERS: Then, under 07, Property, Furnishings and Equipment, we see that there was an increase, a variance there in the revised budget.

MR. F. COLLINS: That mostly has to do with creating efficiencies in the Supreme Court. We are going through a major reorganization of administration of the Supreme Court and doing a lot of things to improve the administrative structure down there, the court administration. It was funded from savings elsewhere in the department. It had to do, for example, with video conferencing equipment that had to be purchased for several court locations, some new filing systems and so on.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

Then 3.2.01 Provincial Court, Salaries.

MR. F. COLLINS: As you know – well, you would not know, it was in the last session of the House – we brought in a new salary scale. A new judges' tribunal appointed to bring in a new salary scale for provincial judges. That was implemented last year and retroactive monies also apply to that, so that takes care of that. The budget for this year has dropped to take care of that one-time extra cost.

MS ROGERS: Thank you very much.

Under 3.3.01, Court Facilities, 06, Purchased Services, if you can tell me a little bit about what is going on there?

MR. F. COLLINS: That relates to the new court facility in Corner Brook and the problems we have had up there with the roof on that building. The expenditures here relate mainly to salary and travel costs for the Transportation and Works employees going back and forth, as well as the removal of the slate roof from that building. There is an outstanding issue with the contactor on that, so $450,000 is budgeted to look after that in the coming year.

MS ROGERS: A roof will do it every time.

Police Protection – before we move on to that, back to the court situation. Where are we at with the possibility of a new courthouse?

MR. F. COLLINS: New court precinct in St. John's? Well, certainly it is in the government's infrastructure planning going forward, and it has received a lot of discussion. There have been a couple of reports done on it, actually, studies done over the last number of years. We have had a number of discussions and done a significant amount of planning on the court precinct in terms of location and sites and so on.

There is no money in this budget, our budget, for planning, but we are actively looking at the court needs for across the Province – not only the court precinct in St. John's, there are court needs in other parts of the Province as well. We will make a decision hopefully relatively soon with regard to what direction we are going in. With regard to planning, I think you may have heard the Minister of Finance mention the other day there is a pot of money for planning in Transportation and Works, and any planning that we need to do on that particular issue will come from that fund.

MS ROGERS: So planning –

MR. F. COLLINS: We recognize the need for a court precinct in St. John's.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: There have been a lot of issues around a couple of things – first of all, the site. The whole discussion of the downtown situation –

MS ROGERS: I have an idea for you.

MR. F. COLLINS: – it is has raised a lot of discussion, and the practicality of that and the costs of it are astronomical. We will make Judge Green very happy whatever time it is done, but we are continuing to explore and discuss possible options as to how to proceed with that.

MS ROGERS: So, any money for planning and exploration for a court precinct will be with Transportation and Works?

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, the planning fund for all departments –

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: – rests with the Department of Transportation and Works. So, if we proceed this year with any preliminary planning on that, that planning fund would come from Transportation and Works.

MS ROGERS: Do you know, sir, if there is any money allocated specifically in the planning fund for exploring the possibility of a court precinct?

MR. F. COLLINS: No money has been allocated specifically for this project and most projects – it is a pot of money there that planning would be drawn from.

MS ROGERS: Okay, thank you.

So, Police Protection, 4.1.01, 01, Salaries, we spent $818,000 less than was budgeted?

MR. F. COLLINS: What is happening in the RNC – as you will also notice when you come to the section on Corrections – is that with the retirement and attrition of senior officers being replaced by the junior officers coming in, they are coming at a lower salary than the officer going out, which constitutes quite a savings in salaries.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Speaking of that, I am really happy to see the increase in the number of female officers in the RNC. I think that is great. That is great for those who are employed; it is great for the citizens of the Province. Is there anything specifically being done to assist female staff in the RNC to move up in the ranks? It is still a challenge.

MR. F. COLLINS: It is a good question and certainly one that we have paid considerable attention to in the last two years. Specifically in the last year, there have been a number of senior promotions that have evolved in the RNC with female promotions. One of the things that is happening in the RNC, a lot of the female officers have not yet progressed up through the system in terms of seniority.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: That will happen over time and we expect to see a much rapid progression of female promotions as time goes on. At the present time – I do not have the numbers in front of me – the numbers of female entrants in the RNC is significant with the new recruiting program. They are at the bottom of the scale.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: As they move up, you will see that progressing. We have some great people coming in. Having said that, we appointed two new senior inspectors last year. We also have a female with one of the deputy chiefs. It is just happening.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MR. F. COLLINS: The new Chief Johnston is very cognizant of that.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

CHAIR: Thank you, Gerry.

MS ROGERS: Thank you.

CHAIR: Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to go quickly back to that discussion on the possibility of a new court. This is just something internal; there have been no consultants hired at this time?

MR. F. COLLINS: There were consultants hired in the past to make some recommendations with regard to possible sites and whatnot. Then there was a follow-up study that put some costs around some of those sites. How practical they are this time in the game is another question because it happened some years ago.

At the moment we are trying to marry future plans and a possible site together. We will have to do a lot of planning as to what is needed for a new precinct in St. John's. It would be all inclusive, of all levels of court, obviously.

Our buildings, the old Supreme Court building is a beautiful building but the practicality of it, I am sure you have worked in there, leaves something to be desired.

Atlantic Place, as a Provincial Court, we have done an awful lot of work and made an awful lot of improvements in Atlantic Place. It is probably now one of our better courts but it was never designed as a court, as you well know. It was retail office space.

A lot of planning has to go into bringing all of that together. It is a very costly project, and the process is ongoing. As of now it is all internal, but it will eventually have to go outside as the planning goes on to put some parameters around what we are looking for.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

I just want to go back to, not go back, but something that was mentioned in the Blue Book, and that is on the Lamer Inquiry follow-up. It says we will remain vigilant in adhering to the recommendations of Justice Lamer regarding wrongful convictions and shortcomings in the system.

Can you explain? What policy changes are you discussing to continue on with this, to adhere to this?

CHAIR: Don.

MR. BURRAGE: I think, as it said, it is a matter of remaining vigilant. A lot of the changes have already occurred. It is just a matter of ensuring that we do not slip.

The Crown Policy Manual, for example, is available online. It is there for people to see. There is a substantial fund that exists for training of Crown prosecutors. We just signed off on sending – I forget how many it was, but quite a number of them to Crown school in Ontario where they go each year. It is a matter of ensuing that having made those gains that we do not fall back. I think that is really the impetus, but – what did you tell me?

Debbie reminds me that we hosted a convention here on the Wrongfully Convicted last summer and that was through the Crown's office. So, it is just a case of not becoming complacent now that we have made gains and improvements.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

Move forward to the Supreme Court, 3.1.01, and just a quick question on line 05 Professional Services. There was just under $41,000 budgeted last year, none which was spent, but this year we have upped it to just under $65,000. Are you anticipating an additional cost this year?

MR. F. COLLINS: When Ms Rogers asked a question on line 06 earlier, I thought that was the question she was referring too. I passed it on to Debbie, but it was a question on Purchased Services of a wheelchair ramp.

So I will take the opportunity now to pass it back to Debbie.

MS DUNPHY: Back some time ago, probably in 2006-2007, there was some money approved for the whole expansion of the Unified Family Court and the creation of Family Justice Services Division. At the time there was $1.5 million approved.

Over time, we have not had to use all of that money because the expansion has not happened as quickly as was anticipated back then, but in 2012-2013 we do anticipate having some additional costs; some administrative pressures that we have been trying to deal with in relation to that expansion. So we are going to be using some additional money this year.

It may not all go through Professional Services. It may have to be moved around, but this was money that was previously approved. It sits in our base, and I know I get caught up in the finance talk, but it is in our base and for a number of years we say we are not going to spend that on that purpose, just move it out to another year. This year we have actually accessed some additional funds for that to deal with some of these pressures that we are having in that area.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

Just quickly moving down to Provincial Court, Property, Furnishings and Equipment. We spent a bit more than was budgeted under Property, Furnishings and Equipment, just under $50,000. What was that for and what court was it for?

MR. F. COLLINS: I think that was for video conference equipment, basically, and some other required equipment. Again, we were able to get that from savings.

MR. A. PARSONS: What courts did the video conferencing gear go in?

MS DUNPHY: I can undertake to provide it to you. They have not actually been installed yet. We do have all of the equipment. It is stored in an office on the fourth floor. We are waiting on the televisions that go with everything else.

I do know there were some for St. John's and I am going to say Grand Bank, Clarenville and Corner Brook, both Provincial and Supreme but it is different locations. If you wish we can put that in with the rest of the information and give you the specifics of which court, if it is the Provincial or Supreme and where it is located.

MR. A. PARSONS: Is there any video conferencing gear at the courthouse in Port aux Basques yet?

MR. BURRAGE: I am not sure. I think it unlikely, but when we provide you the list of where that is intended to go it will be obvious as to where it is going.

MR. A. PARSONS: A follow-up to that question, once I get it, I do not believe the gear is in Port aux Basques.

MR. BURRAGE: No, I do not think there is.

MR. A. PARSONS: I am wondering, is this something that is on the radar and it comes under Access to Justice? There is no video conferencing gear that I am aware of. I think it is a necessary component, especially in a rural setting where you get a circuit court.

Are there any plans to make sure that video conference gear is available to all rural courthouses?

MR. BURRAGE: I can provide you with the listing of those courthouses that have been identified as receiving video conference equipment. That I can do. I really cannot take it much further than that.

MS DUNPHY: If I could just add, some of these units are not even new units. They are replacing existing, but some are new. We take direction from both courts as to where they feel the most demand is, but, as Don said, I cannot answer if they have a further plan down the road.

MR. A. PARSONS: Is there any plan to expand what already exists in terms of video conferencing gear?

MR. F. COLLINS: We always want to expand and improve the situation in as many courts as we can. As has been mentioned, we take our direction there from the Provincial Court Chief Judge. Basically he gives the direction, within the parameters of the money we have, where it is to be spent. As has already been said, I am not sure where Port aux Basques court stands in it at this point in time.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

I just want to discuss the RCMP contract, which was negotiated and signed off on this year. I understand it was perhaps a little more difficult than it had been. It took a little while.

How long is this contract? Are the terms different? What are the new terms as opposed to, say, previous contracts?

MR. F. COLLINS: I am going to refer to Paul Noble on that. Paul was one of the chief negotiators on that contract. I will ask him to answer your questions on that.

MR. NOBLE: Mr. Parsons, the new agreement is for a term of twenty years. There is no change there from the last agreement. With the new agreement, as with the old, there is an off-ramp, if you will, or the option for an early termination which can be exercised by either level of government, either the federal government or the provincial government, by giving two years' notice to the other party.

The substantive changes between the new agreement and the last agreement would be in the level of accountability at the federal government and the RCMP, and the extent of the partnership between the RCMP and the Province in terms of being consulted in advance on substantive decisions that will affect the quality, the cost, and the administration of the force in the Province. That has given rise to the creation of a contract management committee, which has national scope. It is comprised of all of the provinces and territories – that would be eight provinces and three territories – that receive provincial policing services from the RCMP, as well as representation from Public Safety Canada and the RCMP.

The idea is that this overarching committee would meet probably twice a year to discuss the more substantive policy issues, administrative issues, and costing issues that are impacting on the RCMP. The provinces and territories that are receiving the services can have an opportunity to discuss with the federal government some of those planned changes or proposed changes and provide our perspective.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

MR. NOBLE: Oh, I am sorry. I am just reminded as well by the deputy the other significant change between the new agreement and the old has to do with the accommodations or the infrastructure of RCMP detachments and buildings in the Province. We have created a discrete fund now to invest in the renovation and construction of new RCMP detachments in the Province. There is an additional amount of money that has been earmarked in the new agreement; it is just about $3.9 million on average for the next five years.

The infrastructure program is one that is developed jointly between the RCMP and the Department of Justice, assessing the needs, their infrastructure needs, their detachment needs, across the entire Province and working with the Province in identifying those needs and funding the construction of new detachments or the retrofitting of older detachments as well.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

CHAIR: Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: If I could add to that, as well, this contract being a twenty-year contract, the accommodations agreements are in five-year increments. There is an accommodation and refitting detachment infrastructure program for five years and then it is followed by another five years. We have four incremental programs, which gives us twenty years to address the infrastructure needs across the Province.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

I just have a question on the RNC firearms. This was something that did come up in the AG report, as well; it has been flagged as an issue since 1999. Have there been any changes in terms of that policy, storage, and moving forward to avoid these issues?

MR. F. COLLINS: I will let Paul speak to this in a minute, but in the AG report the discrepancies found in the report were mainly in Corner Brook and Labrador, which make up only 15 per cent of the RNC force. With regard to St. John's or the Northeast Avalon, we have a compliance rate of 100 per cent. So we are quite pleased with the way that has been handled.

Prior to, I think it was 2009, the Auditor General did the review of the firearm policy with the RNC. In recent years, with the increase in resources and whatnot, that audit is carried out now within the RNC itself, and that is working very well. Where there is a discrepancy, obviously, we have to deal with it and we discuss it with the RNC. We do not think there is going to be a problem complying with the AG on that.

MR. A. PARSONS: Again, going back to the RNC and something in the Blue Book just talking about building on our investments to strengthen police forces and train officers, et cetera. What is the situation currently on RNC hires? Is there a retirement wave coming? Are we expecting new hires in the next little while? What is the anticipated growth?

MR. F. COLLINS: The recruitment program is ongoing. Obviously, we will have retirements of senior positions with the RNC, but they are being replaced by the recruitment classes we are doing in conjunction with Memorial University. That speaks also to the question raised earlier with regard to salaries. The recruitment process is working very well and will cover off the retirements of senior officers.

MR. A. PARSONS: Are you hiring more personnel?

MR. F. COLLINS: The recruitment class is around twenty-five to thirty. They all go right to work when they are trained.

Paul, do you want to elaborate on that?

MR. NOBLE: The number of funded positions for uniform officers, I think, is in the range of 400. As far as I know, it is going to stay static or stable at that level.

The challenge for the RNC is trying to project on the early basis how many officers they anticipate will retire in the next year and then to mount a recruitment campaign that, as best they can, will cover off the number of anticipated retirements or resignations. They have been hovering between twenty and thirty over the last six or seven years. For the foreseeable future, we will continue to see that, depending on the numbers they can anticipate in terms of retirements for any given year.

CHAIR: Thank you, Andrew.

Gerry, if you please.

MS ROGERS: In Corrections and Community Services, 4.2.01.05, Professional Services, we see an increase, Minister, from $705,000 to $1,000,000 – and increase of $300,000 there.

What might that have been?

MR. F. COLLINS: There were some invoices incorrectly charged to Professional Services here. They should have been charged to Purchased Services.

I will let Debbie elaborate on that.

MS DUNPHY: Ms Rogers, you mentioned earlier asking the difference, well, see we struggle with the difference too. Sometimes that is what happens.

Mostly under Professional Services here are your medical costs and dental costs relative to inmates, as well as some counselling services, that sort of thing.

We have had a closer look, and again it has been a labour of digging into some of these accounts – obviously, there are significant expenditures – and ensuring now for the future we will be properly categorizing these. That is why our budget is staying at the same level.

Under Purchased, to kind of complement that, that has gone up a little while the Professional Services is down. We have gotten some additional funding there for our catering and that sort of thing. So, it is something we keep an eye on, but like I said, it is a work in progress, constantly.

MS ROGERS: Is it possible to get a list of the professional services and the purchased services under this category?

MS DUNPHY: Anything specific? Like what exactly we are paying out, or the types of expenditures or the actual contracts? I am not sure –

MS ROGERS: I am interested in the types of services that you are contracting out, particularly as they relate to catering, and as they relate to programs and services within the institutions' programs for inmates.

MR. F. COLLINS: We can give you an updated list on programs in our institutions and who is implementing them.

MS ROGERS: That would be great, yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: I do not have a problem there.

MS ROGERS: Okay, great.

Are there any plans to expand any of the programs right now? What kind of programming are we seeing in the prisons now? For instance, in Her Majesty's, in Clarenville, and in Stephenville?

MR. F. COLLINS: Again, we can certainly give you an updated list of programming, but there is a long list of programs and improved programs. Of course, since the Decades of Darkness report in 2008 we have spent a lot of money on programming.

Service providers are people like the John Howard Society, Stella Burry, Turnings, Canadian Mental Health Association, but then there are also other programs. In Stephenville, you have Correctional Services Canada doing federal programs.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: We can provide you with a complete list of all the programs that are being provided.

MS ROGERS: What I would be interested in as well is the addictions and violence programs, for instance, the federal ones in Stephenville and the wait-list as well for those programs. Because I understand some of our provincial prisoners can avail of those programs if there is room. So, if we can take a look at that? Also, I am looking forward to visiting these facilities.

MR. F. COLLINS: Provincial inmates can avail of some of the federal programs –

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: - depending on numbers and the length of time that the provincial prisoners are incarcerated. Again, we can get you that information.

MS ROGERS: Okay, great. That would be wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Minister, you had mentioned in the House a little while ago that there was a peer review done on the psychiatric services at Her Majesty's Penitentiary. Can you tell us where that is and when we can expect to see it?

MR. F. COLLINS: Our understanding is the groundwork has all been done. As I told Mr. Parsons, we are waiting now on the report. The review has been completed and we are waiting on the report.

MS ROGERS: Do you have an expected time when that might be complete?

MR. F. COLLINS: We certainly hope we will have it in a timely fashion. We have gone back to see if there is any further information we might want to require and, as far as I know, all of the review work has been done and whatever time it takes now for them to get the report to us.

MS ROGERS: You have no time frame on the contractor or this particular person?

MR. F. COLLINS: It is difficult to put a time limit on it. We would like to have it next week, but if I said that and we did not get it until the following week or the following month then I would be misleading you.

MS ROGERS: Yes, it is kind of global ones.

MR. F. COLLINS: We hope to get it as soon as we can, put it that way.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

Is it possible to know who has done this review?

MR. F. COLLINS: I am sorry?

MS ROGERS: Who did the review?

MR. F. COLLINS: The report?

OFFICIAL: Who did the review?

MR. F. COLLINS: No, not at this stage. We will release that when the report is here.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

I would like some information, if possible, about how many prisoners have been placed in the SHU over the past year and length of stay? Is it possible to get that kind of information?

MR. F. COLLINS: I am sure there is a record of it somewhere in HMP, how hard it is to access, I am not sure.

Paul, would you have any further elaboration on that because I know Mr. Parsons asked a similar of type question. Although I did not get back to him with the answer yet, the same answer applies. Some of this information is in the system within the facility, the institution.

Paul, would you have anything further?

MR. NOBLE: I see Debbie Dunphy making a note, so I am assuming we will compile that. Off the top of my head, of course, I do not have the information in front of me.

MS ROGERS: Of course, I understand that, yes.

MR. NOBLE: I would expect that there are records kept, absolutely.

MS ROGERS: Right.

There is another bit of information I would like to have access to, the number of hours of outside recreation for prisoners in all the facilities. I know that there is a log kept there.

MR. BURRAGE: Just a comment on that, as well as the prisoners in the SHU request.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: I think the degree of our ability to respond is going to depend on how easy that information is to obtain.

MS ROGERS: I understand.

MR. BURRAGE: If it is a matter of going into an existing record, pushing a button and producing it, that is one thing. If it is a matter of having somebody sit down and go through the daily records in order to compile it, then that is another matter altogether. We may not be able to do that because it is just a resourcing issue.

MS ROGERS: I understand.

MR. BURRAGE: If this is statistics that are kept and are producible within reasonable limits, then I do not see any problem with it.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

Then I would also be interested in if there is any particular policy regarding exercise for inmates, access to the outside, and also the situation of the exercise rooms in each of the facilities. How can we find out? Perhaps when I visit –

MR. BURRAGE: You will see it.

MS ROGERS: – I will see it. I have been to many of these institutions before.

CHAIR: Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: If I might add for the purpose of the other members of the committee, when they hear how many people are in the SHU, it is not something you wear on your foot. The SHU is a Special Handling Unit – for the people who have quizzical looks on their face on what the SHU is.

CHAIR: Thank you for that clarification.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Thank you very much for that.

In terms of the Decades of Darkness report, what have you been able to respond to at this point and what is your wish list? What is the outstanding wish list in terms of responding to the recommendations of the Decades of Darkness?

CHAIR: Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: There were seventy-seven recommendations, I think, in the Decades of the Darkness. I believe seventy-four of these recommendations – or maybe more of them, maybe seventy-five – have been either totally implemented or in some degree of implementation. A lot of that has to do with training and programming.

In terms of a wish list, the biggest thing of course is the infrastructure, the physical infrastructure itself. We have a long ways to go on that. In regard to the rest of the recommendations, we have done very well in implementing a lot of these recommendations.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Thank you.

MR. F. COLLINS: As a result of that, we have spent somewhere in the vicinity of $7 million on training, programming, and infrastructure developments.

MS ROGERS: I just want to look at what else I wanted to ask you.

Has there been any additional investment in this year's budget to expand access to transition houses? This was a promise that was made in the Blue Book. That is not transition houses for victims of family violence, right? They are transition houses for inmates leaving institutions.

MR. F. COLLINS: Your question was: Was there any additional funding?

MS ROGERS: Investment in this year's budget to expand access to transition houses.

MR. F. COLLINS: There has been no additional funding to my knowledge, no.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Thank you.

Another question: Has there been an increase in the number of child protection cases before the courts since the creation of the Child, Youth and Family Services Department?

I am not looking specifically on their information, but the impact on the court system in terms of child protection cases coming before the courts.

MR. BURRAGE: I am not sure what statistics are available. I know anecdotally there has been an increase in the sense that the new child protection legislation has within it tighter timelines.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: There is an impact as a result of adhering to those timelines. We have added a lawyer to the family unit this year in the Budget to deal with the CYFS caseload.

Now, whether that is a result of the legislation or a result of other factors and so forth, I do not know. It is an area certainly within the Civil Division of the Department of Justice that we have to take very seriously. For that reason, we have added an additional lawyer. You are dealing with families and children, and so forth. It is not the kind of thing you can make mistakes on, or should.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: I can try to find out whether there are any statistics available from the court and whether they keep that kind of information. You might also check with CYFS, if you have not spoken to them already, to see what their impression has been on that.

MS ROGERS: Yes, I will do that.

MR. BURRAGE: The legislation does have tighter timelines – that much I can say – for good reason.

MS ROGERS: The other thing I would be interested in is how many of the cases actually go to court and have full hearings? How many are being settled outside of court?

MR. BURRAGE: I do not know if those statistics are kept, but I can certainly inquire for you.

MS ROGERS: Yes, okay.

So there is an extra lawyer. Is that with legal aid, then?

MR. BURRAGE: No, the new family lawyer will work within the Civil Division, Department of Justice; fourth floor here.

MS ROGERS: The Civil Division, right.

Will there be an increase in legal aid to respond if there is an increase?

MR. BURRAGE: Legal aid has already placed additional resources down in the family court.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. BURRAGE: I will have to check to see what their plans are as a result. I know on the CYFS area they have been working quite collaboratively with legal aid and with CYFS to deal with the CYFS caseload down there. I know legal aid have put additional resources into the Unified Family Court here in St. John's particularly, but I would have to check.

MS ROGERS: Right.

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Gerry.

Andrew.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It looks like this might be my last session, so I am going to try to squeeze it all in here.

Very quickly, I would be remiss, going back to the RNC, if I did not ask – I had seen this in the public lately: What is the likelihood of going to sealskin hats for our officers?

CHAIR: Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: Well, certainly we can say that government supports the sealing industry; that goes without saying. The sealskin hat is an interesting concept and I am sure that in conjunction with the RNC, when they consider their uniform needs and whatnot it will get some consideration.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

Section 4.1.04, RNC, line 05 Professional Services. I do not believe this was addressed. There is nothing budgeted for Professional Services, however $280,000 was spent last year. I am wondering what that might have been for? It looks like it is under appropriations for our new facilities or redevelopment.

CHAIR: Debbie.

MS DUNPHY: Yes, that related to – it still relates to the headquarter annex and redevelopment that is currently ongoing. It was consultant fees related to that, which carried over. The budget was not there. We just transferred it up from the existing budget under Purchased, but it related to the same project.

MR. A. PARSONS: I would assume, given there is an increase in the budget for Purchased Services, is that related to the same?

MS DUNPHY: Yes, it is related. The project to redevelop the annex and the headquarters is a multi-year project, and there is about $57.5 million approved for the whole project. We have cash flows that are provided by Transportation and Works for approximately how much they anticipate spending year over year on the different phases. So this year, yes, it is the $20.25 million.

MR. A. PARSONS: I have to go back to the situation about the peer review to ask a quick question. You are not able to tell me who did it, are you able to tell me how we paid?

CHAIR: Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: Not at this stage, because I do not know if we have paid anything at this stage or not, whether or not the final cost of that review has been – if we have been even invoiced for it. We would not have that information yet.

MR. A. PARSONS: So, it is not paid? Is there a contract?

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes, there is a contract, but with regard to any money having been – you are talking about has he been paid, that is your question?

MR. A. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: I doubt if he has because the report is not received.

MR. A. PARSONS: I know we are in a situation where we are at the mercy of the individual, the person who is compiling this report. Has he been given instructions on, you must have the report filed within a certain period of time?

MR. F. COLLINS: With respect to guidelines and timelines, we have an understanding from him that we are going to get that report in a timely fashion. He is going to be able to work on it and get it to us as quickly as he can.

You have to remember, he or she, this review is done – as we find it out already – by a peer, a psychiatrist who works in a similar setting, in a correctional setting. That is what took us so long to find somebody because you could not have a peer review done, a psychiatrist in a correctional setting done by a psychiatrist who practices outside. That person has his or her own schedule to follow and his or her own commitments. So he has to find time to get the report done. All of the review work is done. He is putting it together. We could have it tomorrow, or we could have it in two weeks time. Hopefully, we will have it sooner rather than later.

MR. A. PARSONS: You know why I am sceptical about the term timely fashion because timely fashion could be anything.

My concern is this is something that has been on the go for a year, these concerns are coming up. We know the Citizens' Representative has brought it up. My concern here is that if this person is going to do this in a timely fashion and their timely fashion might be another year, these concerns are not addressed for that period of time. That is why I sort of press on that issue, that the next citizens' report might come out.

MR. F. COLLINS: The delay in getting this report done does not involve the review itself. The delay was involved in preparing for the review, in working with the health authorities to identify the person to do the review, in getting the person to agree to the parameters of the review they wanted, in being able to free the schedule to accommodate us, and finally in getting to the point where he or she could set foot on the ground in St. John's and start doing that review. That is what took all the time.

The actual review itself did not take very long. He had to go over the files and he had to access files. We had to make provisions for him. That work is done. When I say a timely fashion, I fully expect to receive it in a timely fashion.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you.

I am going to move on to HMP. Again, the main questions have been asked on that. I have just one questioning I was wondering. I went down, had a look around, and had a chat with the guards. A big issue in there, obviously, is drugs. We all know that.

One of the things I am wondering is – as it stands, inmates at Her Majesty's wear street clothes in the prison – has there been any talk about the possibility of removing street clothes and using issued uniforms for the purposes of cutting down on the drug influx into the prison?

MR. F. COLLINS: Yes there has, and there have been a number of issues brought forth to us around that, especially with intermittent prisoners on weekends and the amount of drugs coming into the prison. There is no doubt about it. A lot of things come from Corrections in every division for budgeting and you can budget so many things. You cannot budget them all. It is a matter of not being able to get it through the budget at this stage of the game.

MR. A. PARSONS: There is just not enough money there to cover off that.

MR. F. COLLINS: I do not think anybody disagrees with the need – well, not everybody would agree with the need for inmate clothing because some people might think it is a discrimination thing to have everybody wearing the same clothes. At this stage of the game, it has not passed the budget process. Trying to make priorities of how much money is spent in Corrections is falling off the radar at this stage in the game.

MR. A. PARSONS: In terms of prison maintenance, you might make it easier for me because I know there is money budgeted toward prison.

How much are we spending on upkeep of that prison a year? What is budgeted for that specific institution?

MR. F. COLLINS: That information we would have to get from Transportation and Works.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

I just quickly want to move on to 4.2.02, Youth Secure Custody. Just looking at Supplies and Property, there was much more than budgeted – whether it is 04 or 07 there, we budgeted a lot more. What was the additional cost last year?

MR. F. COLLINS: For Supplies?

MR. A. PARSONS: Supplies and Property.

MR. F. COLLINS: The shortfall in Supplies is a result of – we are doing catering now in-house, as opposed to outside. The savings that we realize there you will see in Purchased Services. That is the reason for the shortfall in 04.

In Property –

OFFICIAL: We got some video surveillance.

MR. F. COLLINS: Video surveillance equipment was purchased there.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

Just going above that, Adult Corrections, we spent about $300,000 more last year in Professional Services. What was that for?

MR. F. COLLINS: Professional Services, 05, you mentioned that before. That is some invoices that were incorrectly charged.

MS DUNPHY: I guess as I explained earlier to Ms Rogers it is that confusion and grey line between professional and purchased.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

MS DUNPHY: Really, it is not that we spent more; I think there were just some things that were really characterized as professional and should have been purchased. So if you moved it down, the savings are offset in Purchased Services, which is many of the contracts for programming, catering, and counselling, that sort of thing.

MR. A. PARSONS: I just want to move over now – I guess we are getting towards the end of it here – to the Fish and Wildlife Enforcement section, 5.1.01. I do not know – there are some changes in different figures here, whether it be Transportation, a lot less spent than was budgeted, but it is going up. What was that about?

MR. F. COLLINS: Most of these things have been associated with delays in getting the staff hired. You will see it in Salaries and in Transportation the costs are lower than anticipated because delays of getting staff and getting the whole thing wrapped up.

MR. A. PARSONS: We are talking about this new department, there was that transition period. Have there been many issues with the transition?

MR. F. COLLINS: No, we think it has gone quite well, actually. It is developing. It performs a very valuable enforcement service. It is an enforcement agency, and by being under Justice it takes advantage of all the characteristics and services that Justice provides, and we are quite happy with the way it has developed. We still have some ways to go in getting staffing up-to-date, and office accommodations and so on, but it is moving along very nicely.

MR. A. PARSONS: With this department, where we are getting into firearms and firearm incidents, are there logs for this type of thing if the firearm is pulled or if there is a firearm used?

MR. F. COLLINS: Probably more so than the police.

MR. BURRAGE: I am not sure about that – scratch that.

I think that yes, there are certainly policies and protocols around the use of firearms, storage of firearms, as there are with the RNC, RCMP. If a firearm is withdrawn, taken out for any purpose, there is a log kept of that, there is an incident report made on it – I know what your next question is going to be.

MR. A. PARSONS: Just if there were any –

MR. BURRAGE: Absolutely, absolutely, but it is not, I am pleased to say, a common occurrence, obviously.

MR. A. PARSONS: Okay.

Mr. Chair, I believe those are all my questions. I am sure Ms Rogers can clue up.

CHAIR: Fine, thank you.

Gerry.

MS ROGERS: Yes, two itty-bitty questions.

Back to Youth Secure Custody. So the catering in-house, 04 – what facility would that be at? You said that there is now –

MR. F. COLLINS: In youth –

MS ROGERS: Yes, so would that be at Whitbourne?

MR. F. COLLINS: You are talking about Supplies, 04?

MS ROGERS: Yes, I believe Donna had said to us that there was a change, for instance, that there was catering in-house, and is that –

MR. F. COLLINS: Catering is being done in-house.

MS ROGERS: Okay, and that is at Whitbourne, so rather than having food brought in – great.

MR. F. COLLINS: When it was done before on the outside it would come under Purchased Services. So the savings you can see there, the corresponding savings in Purchased Services.

MS ROGERS: I understand.

So, I just have a question then, in terms of the facility in Clarenville. Is that catering still being brought in from outside?

MR. NOBLE: Clarenville does not have any capacity within the institution to prepare meals.

MS ROGERS: I have been there.

MR. NOBLE: Yes. Of course, Whitbourne does. Clarenville is serviced by an outside catering firm.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

I would like the menus, if possible. For those that have catering outside, could I please have the menus for those, the list of the food that is being provided to our inmates in those situations?

OFFICIAL: Yes.

MS ROGERS: Great.

Is there any complaints kept of people concerned about Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Officers having guns? Have there been many complaints? Is there a list of complaints?

MR. F. COLLINS: I think most people accept the fact that as an enforcement authority they carry side arms. When they came over from Natural Resources, the component that was left in Natural Resources was the Forestry component. They do not carry side arms – they did previously – because the enforcement capacity has been moved over. They would have long guns, shotguns, and that sort of thing because they look after nuisance animals.

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR. F. COLLINS: We have no registered complaints that we are aware of. There are always people who have concerns with people carrying side arms, obviously, but we have no registered complaints or official complaints about the use of side arms by our Wildlife officials.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

I am done. I want to thank you so very, very much. I know everybody probably started work very early this morning, and the days are always so very full.

Thank you very much, and thank you for your patience with all of these questions. I know some of them may seem a little bit odd, but I appreciate it very much. I look forward in the next three-and-a-half years of continuing to work with you.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: Andrew, do you want a closing word?

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Chair, the same thing. I would like to say thank you very much for taking your time to be here tonight and answering our questions. I just want to put that on the record.

Thank you.

MR. F. COLLINS: You are very welcome.

I thank my officials, Mr. Chair, for supplying the information as well.

CHAIR: Thank you, Minister.

Like you said, I want to thank the committee. It has been a long night. I want to thank your officials, Mr. Minister. It has been a great discussion here tonight. It has been very informative. The officials have been very forthright and frank about the answers they have provided tonight. The committee appreciates all your time and effort, and we want to thank you once again.

At this point, I will ask the Clerk to call – just call it, Bill. I am too tired. I cannot get it out.

CLERK: We will save some time.

Subhead 1.1.01 to 5.1.01 inclusive.

CHAIR: The Chair calls 1.1.01 to 5.1.01 inclusive.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 5.1.01 carried.

CLERK: Total: $244,875,900.

CHAIR: Shall the total carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded.

Carried.

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

CHAIR: We are done, I think. It has been a long day.

Adjournment is in order, Mr. Clerk?

CLERK: Yes.

CHAIR: A motion to adjourn.

MR. CRUMMELL: So moved.

CHAIR: Moved by Mr. Crummell.

Goodnight, folks. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Have a great evening.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.