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June 11, 2019

SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Pam Parsons, MHA for Harbour Grace - Port de

Grave, substitutes for Derek Bennett, MHA for Lewisporte - Twillingate.

The

Committee met at 6 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

MS. P. PARSONS:

Order, please!

Okay, I

think we're all ready to start.

CLERK (Murphy):

The first item of business

is to elect a Chair.

Are

there any nominations for Chair?

MS. P. PARSONS:

Any nominations for Chair?

Mr.

Derek Bennett.

CLERK:

Mr. Derek Bennett.

Okay,

are there any further nominations for Chair?

The

first order of business is to elect the Chair.

So, we

are looking for a nomination for the Chair.

MS. P. PARSONS:

Which MHA Derek Bennett.

CLERK:

Mr. Bennett.

He's

not here, but he can be elected in absentia.

MS. P. PARSONS:

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

MS. P. PARSONS:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

CLERK:

Now, you conduct the

election of the Vice-Chair.

MS. P. PARSONS:

Now, we will conduct the

election of a Vice-Chair.

Any

nominations? Anyone?

Can I

nominate someone?

CLERK:

Yes.

MS. P. PARSONS:

I'm going to nominate MHA

Conway.

Do you

accept?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes, I accept.

MS. P. PARSONS:

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

MS. P. PARSONS:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

I will

be substituting tonight for MHA Derek Bennett. I understand there are a lot of

first-time people here tonight, in this process for the first time, so we'll all

bear with each other and get along.

Elizabeth.

CLERK:

So the first thing to do is

to ask people to introduce themselves.

CHAIR (P. Parsons):

Okay, so what we will do

is we will start on this side with the department and we'll have everyone

introduce themselves.

We'll

start here.

MR. CHAFE:

Dan Chafe, High Sheriff.

MR. BOLAND:

Joe Boland, Chief of Police, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

MS. MERCER:

Jennifer Mercer, I'm the Deputy Minister.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Andrew Parsons, MHA, Burgeo

- La Poile, Minister of Justice and Public Safety.

MR. GREEN:

Andrew Green, Departmental Controller.

MS. WRIGHT:

Kendra Wright, Assistant Deputy Minister of Courts and Corporate Services.

MS. BARRON:

Danielle Barron, Director of Communications.

MS. CLARKE:

Lesley Clarke, Media

Relations Manager.

MR. FLEMING:

Mark Fleming, Executive Assistant.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Rolf Pritchard, Assistant

Deputy Minister for Legal Services.

MR. HAYWARD:

Thomas Hayward, Manager of Budgeting.

MS. NESBITT:

Megan Nesbitt, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Safety and

Enforcement.

MR. HOLLETT:

Iain Hollett, Director of Public Prosecutions, Assistant Deputy Minister,

Criminal.

MR. CROKE:

Neil Croke, Manager of Public Safety and Enforcement.

MS. CHIDLEY:

Joanne Chidley, Manager, Policy Analyst.

MS. MEMARPOUR:

Pegah Memarpour, Director of Policy and Strategic Planning.

MS. TURNER:

Joanne Turner, Director of Court Services, Provincial Court.

MS. ORGAN:

Shelley Organ, Chief Executive Officer, Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal.

CHAIR:

Okay. We'll start over here.

MR. LANE:

Paul Lane, MHA for the

District of Mount Pearl - Southlands.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Helen Conway

Ottenheimer, MHA for Harbour Main.

MS. DRODGE:

Megan Drodge, Researcher with the Official Opposition caucus.

MR. P. DINN:

Paul Dinn, MHA, Topsail -

Paradise.

MS. COFFIN:

Alison Coffin, MHA, St.

John's East - Quidi Vidi.

MR. MORGAN:

Ivan Morgan, Researcher, NDP caucus.

MS. STOODLEY:

Sarah Stoodley, MHA for

Mount Scio.

MR. CROCKER:

Steve Crocker, MHA,

Carbonear - Trinity - Bay de Verde.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Sorry,

did we get you there?

MR. REID:

Scott Reid, MHA, St.

George's - Humber.

CHAIR:

Is that everyone?

So the

minister has 15 minutes to introduce his Estimates, the Member speaking

immediately in the reply to the minister has 15 minutes and all other Committee

Members have 10 minutes to speak. Members may also be referred to in Standing

Committees by their name, rather than by their district or portfolio, and may

speak as often as they wish.

we're ready to begin.

CLERK:

The Members should identify

themselves (inaudible).

CHAIR:

And identify themselves

before you speak, please.

CLERK:

So you start with the first

subhead.

1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 carry?

MR. A. PARSONS:

So I guess I'll kick off. I

know I have 15 minutes; I don't plan on using it, except to say that I'm

surrounded by the brains of the Justice department, and so glad to have them all

here. Some of them have been to a few of these Estimates; some, this is their

first time.

The

reason we have such a big crowd here is that I think it provides a better

opportunity to ask questions as it relates to policy, decision-making,

expenditures, just about anything from people that are actually doing the work,

whether it's the chief of police or running the court services. Thankfully, I've

got Andrew here to – because Andrew actually does all the hard work of

explaining how the money is all put there.

I'm

happy to answer as many questions as you put forward. If we want to delve into

policy or anything like that, by all means. And ready to roll.

CHAIR:

Okay. So the next person to

speak, it's a go.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

I'll just make

one comment in regard to your opening statements, Minister. I can see that you

have a great group there and contingent, and I would just ask – this is my first

time as well, so bear with me, I may ask questions that perhaps may not fall in

line, but I'll do the best I can. And I know this is all in the spirit of

learning as much information as possible.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Minister.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I appreciate that. So I

don't actually have much to say about the Estimates itself. I figure the best

thing is that if you guys have questions, we'll do the line by line starting

with 1.1.01.

Given

that I've been through a few these, maybe I can give some background in really

what I've seen Oppositions do, or what we used to do. I think you get – is it 10

minutes on the clock? So you have 10 minutes.

So,

basically, what we've done is do the full block of 10 minutes.

Can we

just use first names here?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes, absolutely.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay, Helen's going to go

first for 10 minutes, you might get into the second or third one, then when your

10 minutes is up, then it goes to Alison. She has every ability to backtrack and

go ask questions that haven't been answered, same with independents, whatever,

but it's a lot easier doing that than trying to – you get into a flow once you

get your 10 minutes, and it's easier to stay in that.

If we

go past something and you want another crack at it later, by all means go back

and just make sure you get the questions you want to ask no matter what the time

is.

I'll

throw it back. I don't have much to say, I blabbered on for a few minutes in the

House today, so let's just answer the questions.

CHAIR:

And, again, just feel

comfortable, it's an informal atmosphere. Just identify yourself before

speaking, everyone. Okay?

Okay,

you can begin.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under Minister's

Office, that's 1.1.01, under Salaries, can the minister please explain why

salaries are forecasted to increase by $11,400 in '19-'20?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah. So what happened there

is previously in this role, as both minister and Government House Leader, I've

had, like all ministers had, an executive assistant. Plus, under the caucus, we

had a – I'm trying to think what the name was – House Leader assistant.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The person that was doing

that role, Devon Ryan, actually ended up going over to Health and Community

Services.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We were – I'm trying to

remember now – partway through a session at the time. Instead of bringing

somebody in to go through the retraining and learning and everything else, it

was just decided that Mark Fleming would continue on as House assistant and the

executive assistant, and then what there was, there was a change in salary to –

so, basically, it became –actually, if the other salary, and I don't have the

numbers here exactly, if the other salary was $40,000, we said we'd cut that to

$20,000 and that would be the corresponding raise for taking on that entire new

role.

So, the

difference between this year and last year is last year I had two people working

with me every day; this year I have one doing both roles.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Executive Support, specifically Salaries, looking at fiscal '18 to '19, there's

a large increase from the budgeted amount of $859,300 to the revised of

$1,385,000.

So can

the minister please explain why this occurred?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

That

would've been severance coming from different changes in positions there.

Maybe

what I can do is, I've got Andrew next to me; he can probably provide a little

more clarification as to different moves.

MR. GREEN:

There was some retirement

expenditures. We carried two deputy ministers for a short period of time as a

transition, and we had an unfunded media manager position, which was right-sized

in this budget cycle. So, we never had the funding for it last year but we kept

it in an unfunded ADM, which we've right-sized in this budget.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

So that

accounts for the increased difference of about $525,000?

MR. GREEN:

Yes.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yeah, okay. Thank

you.

Under

Salaries as well, comparing the budget of '18-'19 to the budget of '19-'20, the

salary envelope is increasing to $1,054,400.

Can

Andrew please explain that or –?

MR. GREEN:

Yeah.

funded the media manager and ADM position, and it's less from attrition. There's

been attrition applied across all of our departments proportionately, so there's

little allocations in every division. If you see in some divisions they might

have a $1,700 reduction, that's attrition. In this division, we had a $10,000

reduction in attrition.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

And

under Employee Benefits, I see that Employee Benefits went over budget by

$1,200. Why was that?

MR. GREEN:

That would be the additional

deputy minister Law Society fees.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Looking

at Transportation and Communications, from '18-'19 the budget was $34,200, the

revised increased to $46,000 and the budget for '19-'20 is being set at $37,000.

Can Andrew explain that please? That's under Transportation and Communications.

MR. GREEN:

Some of that is

phone-related expenditures for landlines and mobility. Then we had FPT travel

for the executive, and we hosted an FPT, which had some expenditures in there as

well. Some of the other expenditures would fall in Supplies and Purchased

Services for hosting that FPT.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Minister.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I could just give us some

context here.

FPT

being federal-provincial-territorial meetings, as the first one we hosted, it

was in November. So usually when you go you send up a team of three to four

people. Where we hosted this year, the hosting fees in terms of booking the

rooms, having the convention hall, entertainment, whatever comes with it. That's

why you saw a pretty big change there from what it normally is.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, I see,

thank you.

And

under Supplies, we see that it went over budget from '18-'19 by $16,500.

Can one

of your explain that too, please?

MR. GREEN:

Same thing.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Same thing?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would the same thing.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Same thing.

MR. A. PARSONS:

It still comes with the

federal-provincial-territorial.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Thank you.

And

Purchased Services, that also went

over budget.

MR. GREEN:

That would be like –

MR. A. PARSONS:

Hang on a second, (inaudible).

MR. GREEN:

Oh, sorry.

Rental

fees for facility, or if you had some Eastern Audio, if you had some

expenditures related to that, they would've been part of the FPT. They go in

Purchased Services.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Under

Administrative and Policy Support,

1.2.02, under Salaries, can you explain the variance in the Salaries?

You see that last year, there was $1,449,100 was budgeted; however, only

$1,095,000 was spent. You see that's a difference of approximately $34,000. And

then we see in '19-'20, the budget is increased to $1,783,000.

Why the variance there?

MR.

A. PARSONS:

That would've been from the delay in the commencement of the Drug Treatment

Court. We had some savings there because it didn't get off the ground, I think,

until December 2018. The same with the Family Violence Intervention Court. There

was money put to the side because we were looking at, hopefully, getting it off

the ground in Central, that didn't end up getting spent. I believe during the

same period, there would've been job vacancies in different positions from time

to time where you saw savings.

That's why you also see the increase there going up to $1.7 million and change

because now you have the – not only is the Drug Treatment Court up and running

for the full year, our plan is also, again, to have the money there for the

Family Violence Intervention Court, allowing for the expansion.

MS.

CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Now, I understand that there were two: the Labrador Family Violence Intervention

Court and the central Family Violence Intervention Court.

Is that what you were referring to there?

MR.

A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS.

CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Both of those? Yes.

I'm just wondering, I notice last year, the intent was to have four Family

Violence Intervention Courts, or at least that's what was referred to.

That has not happened, has it, or can you provide an update?

MR.

A. PARSONS:

No.

So, in the original mandate letter, it was for four regional Family Violence

Intervention Courts. The St. John's one is up and running, Western is up and

running, Central – the phrase that our former deputy minister used when we were

doing Western: there was some sand in the gears. So, we decided against delaying

the expansion.

It's not purely a departmental move. We also have to work with the Provincial

Court judges in

figuring that out.

Central

will happen this year. As I've said before, when I first got here, there was

planning on putting it in Clarenville, which I didn't, personally, feel was

Central. I felt that it would be Gander or Grand Falls-Windsor. Again, you got

to work with the chief judge on that and work with the court staff to figure

that out.

Labrador, it was planned to have it in mandate but, as you get into it, we've

had greater issues just in terms of infrastructure in the Labrador Provincial

Court which didn't make it feasible. That's still our goal, though, is to have

regional family intervention courts in all those centres.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Legal Information Management, the Salaries last year, $471,600 was budgeted but

only $383,400 was spent. Was that because there was a position left unfilled,

perhaps, for a portion of the year or some other reason?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, the same thing. It would have been vacancies there.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Do you know who? What was the position that was vacant?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Thank you.

There

were a number of vacancies in Legal Information Management. There are actually

two components in Legal Information Management. There's the law library and

there's the registry. There's a vacancy in the law library and there were some

vacancies in the registry side, and the ones in the registry side have since

been filled. But that's why it was lower last year.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Transportation and Communications, I notice that went over budget by $2,700 last

year. Andrew, can you explain that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would have been Michelle O'Keefe having to travel to Labrador to so some

work on behalf of the department, which would explain the increase there.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

And she is, Michelle –

MR. A. PARSONS:

What's her technical position?

MR. PRITCHARD:

She's the manager of legal information.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Manager.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under Supplies, last year from '18-'19 Supplies went over budget by $40,000. Can

the minister or can Andrew please explain what was purchased that wasn't

budgeted for?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay. Go for it, Rolf.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Thank you.

That

particular line in the budget is for subscriptions and so forth that are

purchased and used in the library. They will vary from time to time and year to

year depending on the particular projects or the nature of the research or the

litigation that is taking place. They may be required to purchase particular

software or different subscriptions for legal materials. It will vary from year

to year and it can be difficult to predict at times.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

primarily subscriptions to computer software?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Legal periodicals and software.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Purchased Services last year went over budget by $4,400. Can you explain what

was purchased that wasn't budgeted for?

MR. GREEN:

The Purchased Services expenditures there is mostly Xerox expenditures, but it

went over budget based on shredding and document retrievals. So if things are

out in storage, we have to pay expenditure to get it back if it's required.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

The

Member's time has now expired, so we will move on. Next – just identify yourself

here.

MS. COFFIN:

There we go, thank you.

Can we

go back to 1.2.01, Executive Support? I understand that a lot of your

expenditures were a result of the FPT conference. Were you not aware of the

conference a year ago when budget planning was happening? Usually these things,

if you're hosting, you tend to know a little bit ahead of time.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Actually, we took it over for the Northwest Territories. They had been planning

to do it, couldn't arrange the hotel space, so we agreed on the last part of it

to take it on and host it, which is why we couldn't account for it, as you

suggest.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Let's

go to 1.2.02, Transportation and Communications, $76,000 extra from budget to

revised – what happened there?

MR. GREEN:

This is the allocation for departmental postage expenditures, plus the landlines

for our divisions.

MS. COFFIN:

Uh-huh.

MR. GREEN:

So our postage expenditures last year were $355,000.

MS. COFFIN:

So Transportation and Communications went from $329,000 to $405,000?

MR. GREEN:

Yes, so then there's other –

we have landlines to those, and then there's some travel for – so that line item

includes all of our landlines and mobile phones for the finance shop and the

policy shop, it includes travel for the finance shop and policy shop and it

includes departmental postage expenditures.

MS. COFFIN:

So it went up by $76,000 over budget. What happened? Why did we see the overage?

MR. GREEN:

It's based on the increase in postage expenditures. So costs in postage have

increased by 17 per cent since 2013-14, and it's mostly due to the increase in

the stamps. Stamps have increased 48 per cent over that period of time.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Let's

see, Grants and Subsidies, there's an extra $500,000 put in Grants and Subsidies

over budget in the last year.

MR. GREEN:

There was litigation expenditure – so in Civil Law, we have an allowance in

assistance which pays for litigation settlements and there was a settlement for

the Newfoundland Eastern School District. But based on accounting rules, because

they are a grant, we had to move the money into our grants to pay them back.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so they came in from another government department.

MR. GREEN:

It came in through Civil Law.

MS. COFFIN:

Can you tell me what the

settlement was?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Do you know which one it

was?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Many of the settlements that the Department of Justice engages in – in fact,

most of them are subject to settlement privilege. And so it's a condition for

both the litigants which would include the government entity and the plaintiff

or the other defendant that you can't discuss the terms of the settlement

publicly. We would be revealing settlement privilege, so you can't really speak

about it in any more detail other than to indicate that they were settlement

funds.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So the settlement was in favour of the Eastern School District and they

were bestowed a sum for something –

MR. PRITCHARD:

That's correct.

MS. COFFIN:

– $500,000.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Did we

get this one – the Supplies overages I had a look at.

1.2.04, Property, Furnishings and Equipment, we had a $127,000 overage in the

last year. I noticed it went back down again in Estimates. Can you explain to me

what the overage was about?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think I can jump in there. That was the increase in the RNC police vehicle

allotment. I think we got – the number is 16. So that's 16 new police vehicles

and that's the slot that that would have found itself in.

MS. COFFIN:

How many extra cars do they get for $127,000?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Four?

MS. COFFIN:

Sixteen?

OFFICIAL:

We get 10 to 12 a year.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Ten to 12 a year and they got four new ones.

MS. COFFIN:

Sixteen for $127,000?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah. I thought it was 16.

OFFICIAL:

We normally get 10 to 12 (inaudible).

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, normally we get 10 to

12 a year. This year we got 16.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Good, way to go.

All

right, let's talk about Salaries, Fines Administration, is that attrition, the

$16,200 that's down from Budget 2019

to '19-'20 estimates?

MR. GREEN:

Yes, it is.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So, does that mean that you have the same number of staff but one retired

and you put a new junior person back?

MR. GREEN:

No –

MS. COFFIN:

It was just total attrition, and that was (inaudible).

MR. GREEN:

There's an attrition allocation for the department and we just apply – we have

to meet the attrition targets throughout the year.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. GREEN:

We just proportionately applied it against each salary allocation.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So say for example –

MR. GREEN:

There are no positions down in Fines Administration.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, all right, yeah, I'm sorry.

across the whole department, you may have had three or four people from – you

lost that many from attrition, but then you averaged out the salary cost across

all salaries. Is that –?

MR. GREEN:

We haven't met the target yet, so we're going to meet it – the money is taken,

and then we have this fiscal year to find the positions that make up that

allocation.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh.

MR. GREEN:

So the total allocation for us is $450,000 and then we've applied that across

the department. I don't know where – we have to have those meetings throughout

the year.

MS. COFFIN:

You have to find that attrition. Okay, all right.

Transportation and Communications, you saved money. You're down $8,000 unspent.

They got emails instead of letters mailed?

MR. GREEN:

Their mail gets charged to the previous division. They do a lot of mail outs.

On the

savings would be, there was some savings in contravention money that wasn't

spent this fiscal year. We had a federal agreement for contraventions ticketing

and they didn't spend all the money and it was allocated in different areas in

the operating accounts.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

We have

Property, Furnishings and Equipment, is someone without a desk for $5,000?

That's the attrition model, if we don't have the desk, we don't have to put a

person in it?

MR. GREEN:

No, people have desks.

MS. COFFIN:

There's extra up on the fifth floor if you want, outside.

MR. GREEN:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, the federal revenue, we've got Amount to be Voted, federal revenue is

down; provincial revenue is down.

provincial revenue down due to fines or is there another reason, like a lack of

fines collected?

MR. A PARSONS:

That would likely be the case when it comes to provincial fines. It could be for

a number of reasons.

I don't

have the stats right here as it relates to the number of tickets handed out. We

did see last year across the Highway

Traffic Act a significant increase in different ticket amounts, which could

have corresponded. If you know that you have to pay $100 for a cellphone fine

and now it's gone up to $500, you might have fewer fines if more people are

driving without the phone.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so the budgeted

number, provincial revenue, $920,000, that was how much you expected to earn in

revenue by tickets?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

All right. We need to talk

to the RNC. We'll get there.

Federal

revenue, we're down by $100,000 there. What happened there? Are the feds not

giving us money?

MR. GREEN:

There was an allocation for

a federal-provincial agreement on cannabis ticketing for $100,000 and the

agreement never got signed last year. We didn't spend the money and we didn't

collect any money, or we didn't get the money back from the federal government.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So there was supposed

to be the ticketing in place, the ticketing didn't happen, therefore you didn't

get the money. Okay, all right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I could just jump in for

a second.

The

person that handles fines just gave a few notes here that I think would be

helpful for the process. Just sort of a

summary of what they did over the last

year talking about salary differences, training periods and late payment penalty

amounts have decreased because of delays in keying tickets that require us to

remove the late fees when notices are late.

Ticket

processing fees have decreased since a high of $967,000 in 2016. The high was a

result of the increase in the fee from seven to nine per ticket in September

2016. The ticket processing fees for 2018-19 dropped directly related to fees

for the City of St. John's, which decreased from $577,000 to $389,000. So that

would be related to the stories you hear on the news about the City of St.

John's with their meters, all the meters are broken so they are hauling in less.

We were

doing the processing for them and we charged them more for that, but there was

fewer of those going through.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The total receipts was

roughly the same as the year before, $10.4 million.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The provincial victim fine

surcharge has gone up over the last three years. There's an increase in that

from 15 to 30 per cent in September 2016. So that amount has gone up, but that's

a little more context to go with the Fines Admin side.

MS. COFFIN:

Of course.

won't do a five second question, hey?

MR. A. PARSONS:

We can come back, that's not

a problem.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, no, there's more. I have more questions, don't you worry.

CHAIR:

The Member's time has expired and we're going to move on.

Next

speaker.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under 1.2.04 Administrative Support, how often is a vehicle replaced? You were

speaking of the new vehicles for the RNC.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Which

section was that

again? Sorry, I missed –

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

It's 1.2.04.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Admin Support?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yeah, Admin Support.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The RNC vehicles.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

It really depends on the usage of the vehicle. The chief might even be able to

jump in on this, but in some cases, when it hits X number of kilometres, that's

one thing.

We had

an issue a couple of years ago where we had to go out and rent vehicles for a

while because there was a manufacturer's defect with a number of the vehicles. I

think we ended up in litigation on that one, if I recall correctly.

In some

cases it depends on the usage. It's not the kilometres that's the issue, it's

just where they're being driven and how they're being driven, but maybe the

chief can jump in and provide some background as well.

MR. BOLAND:

Some of our fleet is patrol services, which is frontline 24-7. The vehicles are

operating constantly and that's the highest demand. So, if you're asking for

years of service, that vehicle is probably three to four years.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. BOLAND:

Then you have a Criminal Investigation Division vehicle, which is basically a 9

to 5, Monday to Friday, even though they do some weekend work, but those

vehicles could be six, seven or eight years in service.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

I see. Thank you.

What is

the current size of the RNC fleet, including cars, trucks, snowmobiles, ATVs, et

cetera?

MR. BOLAND:

I think it's 150 in total.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Do you

have a hope to add more or increase more vehicles this year? There's always a

wish, I guess.

MR. BOLAND:

Do I have a need for more vehicles? Is that what you're asking me?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. BOLAND:

I would say that in our Patrol Services section, there is a demand for that part

of our fleet and we would hope to increase, not necessarily the size of the

fleet, I think the size is accurate, but some of the age of that fleet would

need to be replaced.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

1.3.01, Fines Administration, with respect to Salaries, comparing '18-'19 to

'19-'20, there's a $16,200 reduction in Salaries. Can Andrew Parsons please

explain why?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Attrition.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Attrition.

getting back to attrition, you mentioned that the total attrition target this

year is approximately $450,000, I understand, but what is the attrition

allocation in terms of number of positions?

MR. GREEN:

That is yet to be

determined.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. GREEN:

So we just have to try to

make up the $450,000 through

vacancies or targeting retirements. I think there are rules around we are not

allowed to lay people off, we have to target a vacant position or a potential

retirement.

MR. A. PARSONS:

My understanding of how this

process works is that Finance would work with departments to figure out

attrition targets for each department, the department gets it and then you have

to work within the department over the year to figure out do how you come to

that number, where do you find that – again, going by the rules Andrew said

about no layoffs. I don't think – there was no loss of positions over the last

year, was there?

MR. GREEN:

We had attrition targets for

'18-'19

that we met, so it

was $570,000 in

'18-'19 .

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. GREEN:

And we eliminated nine

vacant positions.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Can

Andrew Parsons please give an update on how many people work in the Fines

Administration division?

CHAIR:

Okay, just a reminder, if we

could identify ourselves before speaking every time, please, for Broadcast

Centre purposes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Right now, Fines Admin has a

staff of 15: seven financial collection officers, three clerk IIIs, two clerk

typist IIIs, two clerk IVs and a director. I think one of the FCOs is actually

vacant and they just had the job competition and will be filling it hopefully

within two or three weeks, pending security notice – clearance.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Last year in Estimates, it was mentioned that there was going to be a bilingual

clerk hired. Did that occur?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, I think there was under

the financial collection officers.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under

Fines Administration, continuing on with that, you mentioned there had been an

agreement with the federal department regarding cannabis, which was not signed.

Can you please give some background on that and if there was a delay that was

under the Fines Admin?

MR. GREEN:

In budget prep for Budget 2018 , we

were preparing for new cannabis legislation and we had some concept

federal-provincial agreements that we and other provinces and territories were

working with. One of them was with respect to the ticketing offence, and we

would have had a potential federal-provincial agreement in place for ticketing

expenditures related to actually purchasing the tickets.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. All right, thank you.

With

respect to Revenue - Provincial, last year $920,600 was budgeted, but only

$725,100 obtained. Can Andrew Parsons please explain why the budget estimate was

$195,500 more than what was collected?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes. The $920,000 would have been the estimate based on what was the projected.

As I discussed earlier, where there was a decrease in fines received from the

City of St. John's due to meter issues that they had, there was a decrease

there. I guess in some ways it was counteracted by the increase in the

processing fee from $7 to $9, but what you eventually ended up with was

$725,000, so there was a decrease there.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Can you provide an update of what is outstanding in terms of what needs to be

collected in terms of fines?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Right now, as of March 31, 2019, fiscal '18-'19, in this province, there is

about $42 million in fines, penalties and surcharges outstanding. Last year,

there was $10.4 million in fines collected, which, if you look at the numbers,

we're pretty consistent with getting around 80 per cent that's owed every year.

Even though I don't have this number, I'll bet $42 million – I'm willing to say

I bet you about $32 million of that is historical debt going back decades and

decades, just cannot be collected; it's just bad debt. You're batting about 80

per cent there. We got $1.5 million through CRA, so they managed to do that

part.

I guess

the stats that I'm using have been pretty consistent over the last number of

years. The one big change was, in 2013, there was a decrease in the number of

financial collection officers in that division. They dropped that down. You had

a corresponding decrease in collection with fewer collection officers. We

managed to go to six. We are actually now at seven. So the numbers have gone up,

but we are still approaching that historical barrier.

But the

$42 million, that's not all in 2018-19. Like I say, there is a very big chunk of

that – we could probably go to Finance to get the actual number. Eight out of 10

people are paying when they go to renew their licence. They are paying; they

don't have an issue. It is the other two that choose to not pay. And a lot of

them, especially the ones you see on the news, are people with significant

records for driving without insurance, driving without registration, and they

continue to do it. They continue to get fined. The fines get larger that are

imposed on them. They did not have any money to pay the last one, so they are

not going to have any money to pay this one, either.

Right

now, we know that Supreme Court has talked about the concept of putting people

in jail based on poverty is not a real reason. We just did some media this week

on trying something new, not in terms of the collection, but in terms of paying

off some of that stuff owing – a pilot project. That will be launched in the

fall. But I got to tell you this is one of the things that have gone a long –

when I was sitting on that side I was asking the same questions.

Then

you get in and it is very hard when these people have – one of the good things,

and I know Mr. Lane has just talked about this. We just announced that, moving

forward, we are one of the only few provinces – and we talked about this with

the insurance, all the work we have done with the insurance companies. We are

going to see plates going with people. That's one of the things that are moving

towards.

There

is a huge infrastructure cost in terms of having the system. But I agree with

the concept, and that is where we are hoping to move. I think it is only us and

New Brunswick that are the only provinces that are still not there. But what you

are seeing now, these people are going out and buying the beater car for $500.

They will have insurance. Boom, they get down the road and they call and cancel

the insurance. It is a big issue.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

The

Member's time is expired.

Now,

moving on …

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you.

Since

we are talking about fines, you have been quoted as saying collecting fines from

people who owe large amounts is a bee in your bonnet. Recently, you did announce

that you are looking at the concept of allowing people who owe large amounts of

money in traffic fines the option of community service to work off that money. A

number of concerns about that – first of all, how would it actually work in

practice? How would community service be valued? What types of community service

would you do? What kinds of matching programs might happen? And how would that

work be supervised?

MR. A. PARSONS:

We did announce the fines option program. It's actually going on in a number of

other provinces. The Auditor General, actually, identified it about five years

ago in saying it was a possible option and allowable as something we could do.

So what

we're going to do is it's going to be monitored under our probation officers –

the Probation department within the division. We are still in the final stages

of figuring out what are the community groups that want to apply to be a part of

this and who are interested individuals that want to be a part of this. I can

say, from a personal anecdote level, I've been contacted by multiple people who

say, look, I'm in this spiral now that I can't get out of. This is something

that I'd like to try. I cannot get out of this right now.

We've

had some issues when they call in and want to get on a payment plan. They'll say

that's fine, but you have to come up with a down payment. Again, it defeats the

purpose coming up with that down payment. They just don't have it. A lot of

people don't have that means.

Without

revealing some of the final details that we're working out, our plan is to have

it ready for the fall, monitored by Probations and it's going to be a pilot.

Some people, it's not going to work for; some people, it will. I can say that

the other methods that have been tried, when we got in, were basically going to

take people to court. When you have Crown attorneys going into court 28 times on

one file and coming out with zero dollars collected, we haven't moved forward in

that regard. It was, actually, a huge use of resources with no return.

terms of the valuation, I might – this is where I throw Pegah out there. Pegah

has been working on this policy for some time, so maybe you can provide some of

the insight that I just do not know.

MS. MEMARPOUR:

We are also, as the minister

said, looking at various jurisdictions and how they are doing it and how it is

working for them, and working with our Probation office to move forward, and

working with the community groups. So we are still, again, in the final planning

stages and consultations will be a huge piece of that.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, as a follow-up question then, what is the uptake rate you expect to have?

I think you mentioned earlier that you had about an 80 per cent of people who

pay fines, but you have an enormous amount that is not collected. What kind of

rate or what kind of share of the outstanding fines do you expect to be able to

recapture with this community service program?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I don't know if we have an actual valuation of exactly how much money there is.

It is amazing that you can come up with a significant number just based – we did

have a top 10 list of the top 10 owing debtors in this province.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Which I would point out, for the record, are not all traffic fines. Some are

illegal contraband, cigarettes, things like that which come with a significant

fine. I think that would be valued differently and I don't know if that would

even be eligible –

MS. COFFIN:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– for this. In terms of the amount, again, I don't know if Pegah, that's

something off top of the head.

MS. MEMARPOUR:

I was going to say part of the pilot will be evaluating the number of people

that come through and working with Fines Administration on seeing the people who

can be part of that program and that'll part of the evaluation pieces program.

MS. COFFIN:

Do you know how well it's working in other provinces?

MS. MEMARPOUR:

Sorry, pardon?

MS. COFFIN:

Do you know how well it's working in other provinces? Like what kind of recovery

rate do they have?

MS. MEMARPOUR:

I don't believe they have the stats on that –

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MS. MEMARPOUR:

– presently, but that – stat collection is huge for us, so that'll be part of

that pilot piece.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

Will

there be an expectation that once you get the easier ones to collect, the ones

that are harder to collect, obviously, are probably not going to go into this

program, so very soon, once the easy ones to collect have been collected, then

we're left in a situation where the program is no longer working, and there's a

lot of people with outstanding fines that would not have fit in the program in

the first place – so would there be an expectation that once we reach that point

that the program will be folded?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I don't want to jump that far ahead, that's pretty far – I don't want to say

that the program is so successful that it's now failed before we haven't got it

off the ground.

MS. COFFIN:

It could be so successful then you just say it's done, it's not failed, it

actually worked, check.

MR. A. PARSONS:

What I say is this: In sitting here in this House, this is one of those issues

when I was sitting on that side, I used to ask a lot of questions about it. We

got here, and it's a difficult nut to crack, there's no doubt.

MS. COFFIN:

Mmm.

MR. A. PARSONS:

One was tried when we got there, and we said let's continue on. There's people

that have tried at this; let's not stop it. This is one of those problems – and

again, this is not a Newfoundland and Labrador issue, this is an every single

jurisdiction –

MS. COFFIN:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– issue. So I want to try this. If it's not successful, we'll look at, you know,

were there things we did wrong or was it just the process is wrong and then it's

on to the next idea. I just want to try something new, rather than the age-old

philosophy which sometimes people express: Oh well, let's just put these people

in jail. And that's just a bigger cost on the system and you still have zero

recovery.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes.

appreciate new alternatives, absolutely. Unfortunately, I don't want to spend a

whole lot of money, or a tremendous amount of money on something just to try and

see if it works. As a follow-up to that, government has tried many different

approaches in the last decade or more, a consolidation of fines collection being

the most recent attempt. How has that plan worked?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can't say that I'm following, to be honest with you. Consolidation of fines –

MS. COFFIN:

No, this is still on my policy questions; I've gone over to this part.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, I think that's under the Department of Finance.

MS. COFFIN:

Is it?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, I will move that question for when I have Finance.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Save that for Tom.

MS. COFFIN:

Excellent, he'll be delighted.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, you can let him know (inaudible). Remember, I'm a teacher and I know cheat

sheets.

Okay,

let's go back over here: Civil Law, 2.1.01. I noticed that the Salaries from

budget 18-19 to 19-20 has gone down. I assume that's attrition again?

CHAIR:

Okay, I'm just going to jump

in here. If people are finished on this subhead, we're going to call it. Because

I noticed we've moved on to Civil Law and Enforcement here. Are there any more

questions on the first subhead?

MR. LANE:

Madam Chair, I haven't asked

any questions yet (inaudible).

CHAIR:

So we'll stay with this

subhead.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay. So before we move on to the next subhead, maybe give everybody a chance to

ask those questions and then we can move on to the next one. Is that okay?

CHAIR:

Yes.

We'll

start with the Member Lane here.

MR. LANE:

Minister, on the fines thing, I just have a couple of questions on that as well.

First of all, as you say, the idea of the licence plate going with the

individual, I really think in the final analysis that's going to be the best

solution that we're going to come up with as it relates to this ongoing issue.

least you will be able to identify the people that are doing this or hopefully

the police will be able to identify them much quicker and get them off the road

much quicker. I commend you for trying this new initiative. I'm a little

skeptical about it I'll be honest, because I believe that anybody that would

rack up that many fines and would be charged by the RNC or the RCMP multiple

times for no licence, no insurance, no registration and then do it again and do

it again and do it again, I got my doubts that these people are going to

willingly agree to go paint some church fence or do some charity work for the

Lions Club or whatever. They're probably going to tell you – they probably won't

show up or will have no interest in doing it would be my initial thought.

Anybody

who would be of the mindset of community service are probably the type of people

who, (a), would have paid their fines when they had them and certainly they made

have made a mistake once but they wouldn't be making it over and over and over

and over again.

You

might get a few off the list and I certainly appreciate the effort in doing

that. And I hope we do get some off the list. At the end of the day, though,

they're still going to have uncollected fines because it's not like money is

coming in. You're just going to – a charity group or something will benefit from

their toil, so to speak. The money will still be owing to the province if I read

it correctly of what you envisioning.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The money is worked off, we'll say, so it's deemed –

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. LANE:

Yeah, but it's not worked

off in the sense that the money that's outstanding is still not going into

government coffers. There is no money; it's just that we get them off the books

and hopefully some charitable group benefits, right?

MR. A. PARSONS:

You can't get blood out of a stone.

MR. LANE:

Exactly. I agree.

I wish

you best of luck with it, but that's my comment. I really do think that, as you

say, we do need to move in a direction of the licence plates and I hope that's

going to happen.

talked about the Family Violence Intervention Court. I understand in the other

questioning we said that Central was supposed to happen and it got delayed and,

of course, we have issues in Labrador. We have it in Western and we have it

here. The first one, of course, was here on the East Coast.

certainly acknowledge that I think it was a good move. I acknowledge the former

Member for St. John's Centre who really, really pushed it. I have to give her

credit for that one as well. I'm just wondering, how is that working? Is it

working the way that you thought it was going to work and positive results?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can speak anecdotally. One of the biggest issues or challenges that came with

the establishment of the court was convincing people to be a part of it. I guess

one of the arguments for shutting it down back in the day was that the numbers

just aren't there, but you know what it's like convincing people to do something

differently than what they've been doing. The standard practice was to follow

the paperwork, go into court and have it out that way.

We're

seeing a lot more success. Plus, the fact is the more it gets known, the more

uptake it gets because community groups get involved, different stakeholders are

being a part of it. Right now, it's been a successful thing. You only have to

talk to the people that are utilizing it, the parties that are utilizing it. I

think it's much better than the traditional method. It's like anything. It takes

some time to grow and, like I say, there's sand in the gear.

MR. LANE:

Sure.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The biggest issue with

Central, quite frankly, was that, as I said, when we first got in I didn't think

Clarenville was the viable option; we should go with one of the other two.

That's not fully our decision. We cannot just go and we're going to do it here.

We have to work with the judges; we have to work with the court staff.

I can't

say it becomes a resource issue in the sense of – and, obviously, there's a cost

to it; in one centre you might have two judges, in one centre you might have one

judge. That one-judge centre is a better location for it, but then you have to

work with the judges to ensure you have the judge coverage on those places,

right?

I think

it's a success. In fact, you're seeing more call now to do different alternate

methods of court. You have the Mental Health Court, we have the Family Violence

and we just started with Drug Treatment Court. My goal this year is to see the

Drug Treatment Court go from Avalon to the rest of the province.

I think

once we expand it, it's not going to be for everybody, it's one of those courts

that nobody ever wants to see them fully booked. We don't want to see a Drug

Treatment Court busting out of the walls, nor do we want to see Family Violence,

but it's good for the people that are using it.

MR. LANE:

Yeah, well, that's good. On

the Drug Treatment Court, I absolutely applaud and support that initiative as

well. I don't mind saying for the record I really feel, in the last two or three

years, that when it comes to the Department of Justice, I think we've seen some

very positive movement. I say that to everybody over there in a lot of different

areas, which is good.

MR. A. PARSONS:

It feels like you're about to hit us with a tough question now though.

MR. LANE:

No, not at all – not at all.

I did have a question, I guess, directed towards yourself or to Chief

Boland.

talked about fines being down and I just make the comment in passing that still

– and there's no doubt I've been out on the Outer Ring Road. Actually, I saw

yesterday there was a police car had somebody hauled over, which is great. It

was somebody on Team Gushue the other day which was good to see because

everyone, of course, is thinking it's a 100 when it's really 80. They're finding

out the hard way it isn't.

Still,

when you go out on the Outer Ring Road, in particular, I have a tendency to have

a little bit of a heavy foot from time to time. I freely admit it; I always have

to be watching the gauge, right? But b'y, I tell you what, there's still cars

whizzing by me like you're not even moving. I'm sure they must be going 150, 160

sometimes, and motorcycles as well.

When I

see the fines down, I know that there's definitely opportunity to up those fines

in certain areas for sure. I'm just wondering, in terms of the policing, the

staffing that's dedicated to traffic enforcement and keeping our roads safe, has

that changed in any way or we are maintaining the same levels that we have been

in the past?

MR. BOLAND:

What I would say, Paul, is

that over the last three, four years, the number of tickets issued by the RNC in

all our jurisdictions has been pretty consistent. What I will say to you is that

from discussions I've had with municipalities throughout our jurisdiction, it is

their number one concern.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. BOLAND:

And it's something that the

minister and I have talked about and we looked at coming up with innovative ways

– there's only so much you can do with regard to education and awareness.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. BOLAND:

At some point, it comes to

enforcement.

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MR. BOLAND:

So, looking at the

opportunities to increase our level of enforcement, for sure.

MR. LANE:

Yeah, I agree and I mean I

know municipalities – certainly in my district, St. John's, Mt. Pearl – they use

those radar signs and stuff. They work to a certain degree and sometimes

speedbumps, but it still is a big problem.

I hear

from people from my district and different neighbourhoods; Southlands Boulevard

is one. Actually, I had a message from a constituent today asking me to reach

out to the RNC and ask them to do some extra patrols. I said: guess what? I will

do that this evening, right to the chief.

appreciate that response. It is an ongoing issue and it's an issue that is

certainly on the mind of a lot of people and families, particularly with small

children, the safety of our streets.

I do

have a couple of other general questions, but I think they may fall under a

different category later. I'll stop for now and will get back in a little bit.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I could just jump in

before your turn is up, Paul –

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– just on a couple of points

that you make. Going back to the plate part –

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– what I will say is that all that – one of the difficulties, too, is this whole

silo approach sometimes; all that falls under Service NL.

MR. LANE:

Yes, I realize that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's been some of the

challenges here. It's not a Justice decision –

MR. LANE:

I know that, yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– but let's just say we've

assisted.

MR. LANE:

You worked together on it.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We've assisted.

MR. LANE:

Yeah, for sure.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

The

second

part is when we talked about the new fines collection pilot program, I

won't say that I share your skepticism, obviously, but what I'll say is I

understand it. You know what? It's fair to be skeptical, although I've had some

calls. It's hard to generalize. There are certainly some individuals that fall

within the description you provide, which is they just continue to do it and

it's the don't care part.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Whereas sometimes there are

others who, let's just say you make a really bad decision when you're young and

you carry those fines with you for a long time. Life goes on. You're working.

You have to get to work. What are you going to do?

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

You have to be able to

drive; you can't afford to pay the bills off. There are people that have reached

out saying we want to take part.

MR. LANE:

Good.

MR. A. PARSONS:

But, like I say, it's a

tough thing.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Maybe we don't end up any

better off, but I'd like to think that we'd certainly try .

The

last thing going back to the traffic part and the speeding, the chief and his

team and the RCMP do a great job with the resources that they have. I always use

the story I haven't walked into a community yet where they said we have too much

enforcement – there's too much, we don't want any more. It hasn't happened yet.

What I will say is that TW actually did their traffic camera program. That's

something we're hopefully going to build off doing traffic cameras in

construction zones because that's a bit nuts.

The

other thing – it's interesting, we've look at the traffic camera system here .

Alberta is about to get rid of theirs. When you're in Alberta driving and

you get hit speeding and you get the picture, it's become almost now it's too

big of a cash cow. It's amazing. It's hard to believe. Here we are talking about

trying to – I don't look at ticketing is about revenue generation. I look at

ticketing is about safety but one of the things that comes with it – the only

way sometimes you can convince people to stop doing a certain form of behaviour

is by hitting them in the pocketbook. We see in some other jurisdictions where

they're looking at it and saying this hasn't changed the behaviour. It hasn't

done that, and we got this money coming, what else do we have to do? Like the

chief said, I don't know how many times you got to educate people, but there it

is.

MR. LANE:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Any other further speakers

on this particular

section before we move?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Member

Conway Ottenheimer.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Getting back to

the plate following the driver, do you have a cost estimate in regard to that

program?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I've been told – this would

fall under Service NL, so I wouldn't be the source of the best statistics. I've

heard it's in the tens of millions. So I don't know – I've heard between 20 and

30. I can't tell you. I would suggest that you save that for Service NL and,

hopefully, they can give you a better breakdown on cost, research, everything

they've done. I fully support it; I think it's the way to go. They would be the

crew that's responsible for implementation.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

With

respect to the fines collection pilot program, you said that will be piloted

this fall. How is that going to be financed?

MR. A. PARSONS:

One of the things we have is

probation is not going to be an extra cost there. That's why we didn't go to an

outside group. There are some groups outside that wanted to partner with us, but

it would have been a significant cost to get the program up and running. What

we're trying to do is use it with resources internally so that there's no cost.

Right

now, there's no hiring, per se, so we've got Fines Administration who are

already doing this work. We've got Probation who has already got the officers

who are going to oversee this. That is one of the challenges because going

outside if you're paying a big sum of money and, like you said, there's some

skepticism, you end up spending a lot of money on something that's not

successful, so we try to make it as cost favourable as possible.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

Any

further speakers to this particular section?

CLERK:

Section 1.1.01 to 1.3.01

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 to 1.3.01

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 1.3.01 carried.

CHAIR:

Now we're moving forward to

Legal and Related Services.

First

speaker.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under Civil Law,

with respect to Salaries, in '18-'19 there was a savings of $200,000 in the

salary line. Can the minister please explain why?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, I think that would have been ongoing vacancies within the department –

staff leaving and then having to fill it.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

And can

the minister please explain how this year's budget of $5,349,200 was calculated?

MR. A. PARSONS:

This is one of those convoluted ones that I'll probably try my best to explain

it, fool it up and you'll get the real answer now in a second.

there's attrition, plus we had to take the ADM funding out of there and move it

to the appropriate placement in Executive Support. So going back to those

changes earlier we saw in Executive Support, basically this is Rolf, I guess. So

if you have any issues with this, it is all Rolf's fault.

MR. PRITCHARD:

It was the movement of salary for certain positions between Executive and Civil

division. As it turns out, it was my salary, so I'm glad they put it somewhere.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Transportation and Communications went over budget in '18-'19 by $42,800. Can

the minister please explain why?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Labrador travel. We ended up having some cases up in Labrador – some

prosecutions, I believe, was it –?

MR. PRITCHARD:

The major issue with Labrador for the Civil division is the family unit and it's

travel related to the family unit's lawyers in Labrador to cover a position

where someone is on extended leave for the year.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

So with respect to family law cases?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Yes.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Professional Services, can the minister please explain what professional

services are included here and please explain the variance in the line items? I

believe there was $1,277,000 increase.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay.

So this

is for outside counsel for various cases. What I would point out is if you're

looking at your revised 2018-19 – does yours say $3.45 million?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

It does –

MR. A. PARSONS:

It's actually supposed to be, I believe – am I right here, 2.42, the actual is?

So we budgeted at $2.173 million –

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– and the actuals were 2.42. Am I right? So the revised was not as high – not

like a million dollars over. We overestimated what the over expenditure would

be. So it's over –

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, it's every year. You can't tell what you're going to need, you know, in

litigation funding depending on what cases come up. So going, historically, this

is what was figured out. We ended up still being a bit over but this all comes

down to outside counsel being hired for every former case you name.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Speaking of cases, with respect to the litigation of the tobacco health care

cost recovery litigation, that case, how much is that costing us on an annual

basis?

MR. A. PARSONS:

So we have a contingency fee, historical one with – I think the firm is

Roebothan McKay Marshall. They've been the counsel of record since, I'd say, 15

years – yeah, about 15 years or so. They also have counsel down in Missouri. I

think they handle the American side. I don't even know – what we can do is we

can get you – and I would put there for the record, now, any information that's

requested by one group, we'll make sure to provide to everybody without any ask

for it.

So what

we can do is we can get you the exact number of what would have been spent on

the tobacco file this year.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Do you

know what the status is of the litigation now? When is it coming to trial?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'll toss this to Rolf who would probably have a better take on this. Where are

we in the tobacco –?

MR. PRITCHARD:

So what's happened with that litigation, there was a lengthy process involved in

gathering documents from various government departments and providing them. So

the documents have been filed. There are a number of different actions

proceeding simultaneously across the country and there are some different sorts

of motions and various delaying tactics by the tobacco companies occurring

across the country.

There

haven't actually been any developments in the last six months in the litigation.

I think they're trying to settle some of these procedural matters. The documents

are filed. So once these procedural matters are cleared up, things will start to

move forward again.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. All right, thank you.

Can the

minister please explain what matters required outside counsel over the past

year, or there are too many perhaps?

MR. A. PARSONS:

There are way too many. Some start new this year. Some have been going on for

years. Some require outside counsel, mostly in Ontario. We've got a number here.

What I could probably do is I can have a list provided of all the expenditures.

Obviously, there are certain things, we both know, that are privileged, but –

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– there's no reason you

can't get the firm name and what the expenditure was for 2018-19.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Purchased Services went over budget by $16,900. Can the minister please explain

why? That's under Civil Law, Purchased Services.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Yeah, I can speak to that.

As part

of the ongoing process of litigation it's often necessary to purchase certain

services. For example, if we conduct a discovery, there's a fee for that; also,

the cost of transcription and sometimes there are witness fees. Those you can't

really predict. It depends on if there are some trials coming up or certain

matters have reached the stage where it's necessary for witness discovery or

document disclosure.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Allowances and Assistance, $6.1 million was spent last year. Can you please

confirm that this is for settlement claims?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Last

year in Estimates, I believe the deputy minister indicated that he was doing a

review of the Civil division. What was the outcome of that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What we did over the last

couple of years was we were looking at inside counsel versus outside counsel.

Last year, we actually hired two new counsel – was it – in the Civil division?

We hired two new.

The

goal was we looked at what the expenditures were historically when it came to

outside counsel and the argument was that we think we can get more value for

hiring inside. We hired two new and I'd like to think the first year was

successful because the budgeted over expenditure was estimated, based on

historical data, to be 3.4 and we ended up spending 2.4.

So far

that has worked. When you're going outside it's like there's that's significant

cost. Some files are impossible, you just cannot retain the intricate level of

expertise you need, but having the extra staff has certainly helped us with some

files.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay, the Member's time has

expired for now. We'll come back.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Any further speakers next?

Ms.

Coffin.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes, please. Thank you.

Professional Services, I noticed the budget from last year to this has gone up

by a little more than $700,000. What do we anticipate spending $700,000 on?

MR. PRITCHARD:

As the minister indicated

earlier, of course, Professional Services largely, although not exclusively,

involves purchasing services from lawyers. Broadly speaking, they fall into

three categories; one is general. That's advice that's necessary for various

government departments requiring expertise that maybe doesn't exist in the

Department of Justice. For example, specialized trade advice, mining tax and

those sorts of things – that actually accounts for about 48 per cent on average

of the legal services that are purchased.

Thirty

per cent of the legal services that are purchased are what we call AG funded

counsel. Those are basically matters in which we have no discretion whatsoever,

the court orders us to provide a lawyer for someone who doesn't qualify for

legal aid in a family law matter or perhaps a criminal appeal.

We're

also required to provide legal counsel for a program called judicial

indemnification which is where judges require a lawyer, perhaps because they're

appearing at an inquiry or there's been a complaint made against them. That

accounts for about 30 per cent and then 22 per cent are matters related to

litigation. That could be, for example, litigation that we're involved in the

Province of Quebec where it requires a fluency in French or a matter where our

lawyers are conflicted. That also includes funding for the purchase of expert

witnesses, so that's sort of where that money goes.

MS. COFFIN:

The extra $700,000, though, where would that fall? That's an anticipated

$700,000 from last year to this year. Is there anything in particular on the

horizon to justify that?

MR. PRITCHARD:

No, there's nothing in particular. If you look at the spending on Professional

Services over time, there's actually a downward trend. That number is sort of

where we're comfortable in, in forecasting where things will lie next year, but

there isn't anything in particular that we're anticipating.

If you

look at the trend over a number of years, as the minister indicated, what we've

tried to do is to hire lawyers internally to reduce our dependency on external

counsel. So that's sort of looking at a number of years in sequence where

they've gone. We're saying, okay, that's where we think it's going to come to

rest in this fiscal year.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so higher than last year –

MR. PRITCHARD:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

– and no longer on a downward trend.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Well, down from what it has been in some previous years.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay then.

MR. PRITCHARD:

But it's down, yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

This is perhaps a good time now to talk about the counsel of choice provision

and its removal from the Legal Aid Act .

MR. A. PARSONS:

We should wait until – I think that would be under Legal Aid. Am I right?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

All

right, we'll save that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

When we get to the Legal Aid section, we can –

MS. COFFIN:

No problem.

MR. A. PARSON:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Let's go here. Transportations and Communications we talked about in Sherriff's

Office. Did we talk about it in the Sherriff's Office?

MR. PRITCHARD:

No.

MS. COFFIN:

No. Okay, let's talk about the Sherriff's Office. How come their transportation

has gone up by $130,000?

OFFICIAL:

If you could just raise your hand there?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It looks like he's testifying.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, yeah. Here we go.

OFFICIAL:

Yeah, there you go.

MR. CHAFE:

Transportation and Communications in the Sherriff's Office is primarily

non-discretionary due to – we have circuit courts in Labrador as well as jury

administration. Those cases come and go and we can never really tell, so

primarily for Labrador and for jury administration.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, so it was an unexpected $130,000. So, if people got stuck somewhere in a

snowstorm for four days, that happens.

MR. CHAFE:

Yeah, in Labrador that tends to happen.

As well

as with the jury, we have jury coordinators that travel to where the juries

occur. That would happen before and after the trial.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

That

was an unexpected increase. Is there anything that we can do to avoid that type

of thing? Is there any anomalous event that caused that?

MR. CHAFE:

No. I mean 90 per cent of the Sheriff's Office budget is non-discretionary just

because –

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. CHAFE:

– we have to provide security and we have to have jury trials. We're pretty much

at the mercy of the court system unfortunately.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, thank you.

Let's

see here. You saved a whole pile of money in Purchased Services. What was not

bought? I'm seeing about almost $300,000 not spent in Purchased Services?

MR. CHAFE:

Under Purchased Services, I might have to defer to Andrew here, but that was due

to the Contraventions Act , I believe.

The Contraventions Act is in relation

to the – I'll let Andrew take that, actually, so I don't misspeak.

MR. GREEN:

When the

Contraventions Act – when we received

that funding a number of years ago it included money related to OCIO

expenditures that weren't required with respect to that act and so the money was

never spent. It's actually been removed from the budget now. That's why it's

down.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, okay. That's why we got the $269,000 in the '19-'20 budget.

MR. GREEN:

Yeah. There was a $142,000

reduction based on the Contraventions Act

and we reallocated $36,000 up to Transportation and Communications based on

historical expenditure review. It's not being spent in one; we're moving it up

to the other.

MS. COFFIN:

Right, okay.

Purchased Services went down because the OCIO, the unspent stuff and then it

went back up. Okay, that's reasonable.

Again,

we see another shortfall in federal revenue. In 01, federal revenue was down by

$200,000. What's with the feds not paying up?

MR. GREEN:

That's the OCIO

expenditures. They'll only pay if we incur the expense.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh. Okay, so that offset the other one. Yes, okay.

Now

they're going to say that the $252,000 that they were going to pay last year,

they've gotten rid of that so now it's only $109,000. What are the federal

revenues anyway? What are they paying us for?

MR. GREEN:

It's all contraventions.

There's other Contraventions Act -related

expenditures and perhaps Dan could explain.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. CHAFE:

Sorry, what was the question?

MS. COFFIN:

Just wondering what are the federal revenues for? Why are they giving us money

under this? He mentioned it was contravention.

MR. CHAFE:

The Contraventions Act is for us to

enforce federal tickets. We didn't enforce them before.

When

enforcing the federal tickets for the Sheriff's Office piece, we would only

enforce the ticket if the money wasn't collected, much like the fines, if it was

way past due. So that would've been our portion.

We had

asked for funding to make our system – because it's a federal system, we would

have to make all of our system bilingual. We were unsure how much that would

cost and we're still in that process. We didn't spend it this year because we're

so far down in the process – because, of course, you have to collect the fine

first or try to collect it and it go into arrears before my office would then

try to enforce it. So we're downstream.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, thank you.

I can

go on to Civil Law and Enforcement, Support Enforcement. Purchased Services in

Support Enforcement is up by $12,000. What's happening there? What are the types

of purchased services that they would require and why the increase?

MR. A. PARSONS:

So what I have here is that covers the cost for service of incoming

interjurisdictional support orders, final orders, recalculation services,

incoming provisional orders, as well as the cost for other documents and

appraisal fees. Also, it covers the cost of printing and bank fees.

As you

can see there, it looks like it went up about $3,600 last year and I would

assume Craig Scott, who is the director of Support Enforcement, is anticipating

an increase this year.

Kendra

might want to jump in.

MS. WRIGHT:

This number is sometimes always a little higher. It's with respect to the

banking fees, so the one thing that Support Enforcement does is we actually

facilitate payments. We're not a bank, but we actually facilitate payments from

the payer to the payee. So the banking fees tend to be high and they'll go up

and down and fluctuate, so that's the increase there.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, interesting.

Access

to Information and Protection of Privacy, Salaries were down last year. I see

between 2018-19 and '19-'20 that there is a decrease, but I notice that there's

$150,000 unspent in '18-'19. What happened there?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Two vacancies.

MS. COFFIN:

You managed to save them through the attrition model, well done. At least one of

them to keep, that's great.

Employee Benefits, it went up by $4,000, from $3,000 to $7,000. What kind of

benefits is someone getting for $3,000?

MS. WRIGHT:

So all the ATIPP coordinators have the ability to be certified under IAPP, which

is the International Association of Privacy Professionals. It is $100 – so we

pay the entire fee for all the ATIPP coordinators across government. It is $100

US, so the money last year was actually allocated – it was only in Canadian.

MS. COFFIN:

Exchange rate, yes.

MS. WRIGHT:

So it's just the exchange rate, and we've put in that amount because we

anticipate we want to cover as many ATIPP coordinators as possible. So that's

why it also rises for this fiscal.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. And then, of course, in Transportation and Communications they're doing

things more by video conferencing? They get half as much money?

MS. WRIGHT:

No – and also they do travel and they'll go to certain conferences. And this

year they did save a little bit of money. They normally go to the Municipalities

NL conference and this year they didn't go, just because they've been going

every year. Municipalities NL felt that everyone was already engaged and

educated, so they'll put that back on their list for next year. So it was just a

savings.

MS. COFFIN:

They missed a fun time.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Order, please!

The

Member's time has expired. I think we're going to take a break.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I could, yes, maybe what

we could do, we're about an hour and a, half in, maybe we could take just a

quick 10-minute break to get a drink, use the washroom, whatever, and we'll come

right back at 7:38. You like that –7:38 by this clock.

CHAIR:

Okay, 7:38.

Recess

CHAIR:

We're good to go?

OFFICIAL:

I think, yes.

CHAIR:

Okay and now we're good to go.

Ms.

Conway Ottenheimer.

CHAIR:

I don't think your mic is on.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yeah, Helen Conway Ottenheimer.

CHAIR:

There we go.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under 2.102, Sherriff's office, Salaries, in '18-'19 Salaries went over budget

by $84,100. Can the minister please explain why?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Dan.

MR. CHAFE:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Okay.

There

we go, yeah.

MR. CHAFE:

Again, that would be primarily for overtime as it relates to court sittings. At

the end of the day it could also be for travel for circuits as well.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Yet,

this year Salaries are expected to drop to $6,090,200. Why would that be?

MR. CHAFE:

So under the Contraventions Act we

were funded for a position, a bilingual clerk. We were unable to fill that

position so it's a vacancy.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Now, I thought that the bilingual clerk position had been filled from –

MR. CHAFE:

No, that's –

MR. A. PARSONS:

(Inaudible.)

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Oh, okay.

MR. CHAFE:

Yeah, so in each of the sections there were positions identified to do this

work. In the Sherriff's Office if we were to enforce those federal tickets, we

would need someone who was bilingual.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. CHAFE:

There were multiple positions. We couldn't fill ours and we're still trying to

fill it.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Are any

positions being removed?

MR. CHAFE:

No positions right now. No.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Thank you.

Under

2.1.03, Support Enforcement, under Salaries comparing '18-'19 to '19-'20, we see

that salaries are being decreased by $13,300. Can the minister please explain

why?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Kendra.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Kendra.

OFFICIAL:

Thank you.

MS. WRIGHT:

Again, there's no change in the salaries or the position complement. This is

just the attrition that's being applied to the Support Enforcement Division.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Thank you.

Under

Purchased Services in '18-'19, $75,600 was budgeted but only $15,000 spent. Can

the minister please explain the savings of $60,600?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Sorry, can you repeat which

line was that?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

That's under

Purchased Services under Access to Information and Protection of Privacy.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Oh, okay.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Sorry about that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

2.1.04.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So –

MS. WRIGHT:

That's MNL (inaudible).

MR. A. PARSONS:

Oh, Kendra. That was the MNL

one, right?

MS. WRIGHT:

No, the Purchased Services is a different one. Normally, we do the IAPP training

here in person. This is from the University of Alberta. We've had savings –

sorry, there are two things here. We normally do the in-person training for IAPP

which is the $100 per person. We're currently paying $100 per person.

Normally, they will come here and do the training but you need a minimum of 15

people. This year we only had eight people, so we didn't have to do the

in-person training because there weren't enough people. That's not a reflection

of the amount of people who want to do it; it's just that we already had the

people trained and so this year there were only eight people who needed to be

trained.

The

second

part is there were savings with respect to the certification at

University of Alberta. We work with the University of Alberta to provide a

five-course certification program in access and privacy, so we have money

allotted for persons to take those courses. We didn't have as much of an uptake

on it.

There

are currently eight people enrolled in the sessions now and there are no summer

courses being offered, which before, the money was based upon the full year,

courses being offered in fall, winter and spring/summer sessions. There are no

longer courses being offered in the spring/summer, therefore there's no uptake.

That's why there's just been a decrease.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Now,

this year there is $63,500 budgeted. Can you please explain what Purchased

Services are being planned?

MS. WRIGHT:

That's the same. It's still going to be the coverage of the University of

Alberta five-course certification program. Now, we have eight people enrolled

this year,

whereas last year we – it just depends on the uptake and the ebb and

flow –

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MS. WRIGHT:

– of the persons who want to be enrolled in it. At one point some people in some

departments used to go through the CLD program to get half of the cost paid.

Here we have money now in our budget to help offset those costs.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Thank you.

Have

the number of ATIPPs received in the last year increased?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

What I

can say here is that in 2017-'18 the number of requests was 2,311. In 2018-'19

the number of requests was 2,416. As of today, this year, there have been 518,

so they are growing every year since, especially since the new regime was

brought in in 2015.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

What support is being provided to respond to the ATIPP requests?

MR. A. PARSONS:

There's certainly a fair amount of training going on. It's an education amongst

the ATIPP coordinators too. There's a suitable amount of pushback that's

allowed. In some cases, if it doesn't fall within the rules, you don't have to

provide that information. Sometimes when you have new officers, there's – it's

like any job. As you get into it, you realize – you find ways to save time.

We've

had a number of training sessions. We've got a new head of the department and

I've had a couple of meetings myself with him to say: What are things we can do

to make things easier? One legislative change that we brought in last session

talked about changing the holiday date because when we get into the 10 business

days (inaudible), that was one of the small issues they brought up. It wasn't a

monetary issue, it was depending on – you had 10 business days, but it wasn't

clarified how the holidays fell in there, so we made that legislative change.

We had

added, I think, two floater positions. ATIPPA falls under us but every ATIPPA

coordinator is under their own separate department, even though we're the

coordinating body. Certain departments, I think, are more heavily burdened than

others were. We put the floaters in and then, at the same time, people were gone

off on vacation, we need to fill those positions.

It's a

big increase since 2015, especially when you remove the cost for it. That's

something we have to look at, I don't mind saying. You talk about anecdote. I'm

all for access to information – we all know that – but when you get people

putting in requests saying: Can you please print me a copy of Andrew's Twitter

timeline, that's just lazy. We shouldn't be using government resources to get

you something. Go on your Wi-Fi and get the Twitter timeline.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's where we have to find a way to have a bit more pushback, because that's a

frivolous waste of expenses, as opposed to the good requests for information we

should get out there. We're also working – but it's difficult – on proactive

release of information. That's something we're working on but we've got Sonja

El-Gohary there. She's been doing a great job, as well as the coordinators, so

onwards and upwards.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Currently, core public departments post their ATIPPs online, but the same is not

necessarily true for all publicly funded entities. Has consideration been given

to expanding the online posting of ATIPPs?

MS. WRIGHT:

When you say publicly funded entities, what ones would you be referring to, just

so I can have a general …?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

For example, school districts and Nalcor.

MS. WRIGHT:

I am going to have to get back to you on that one. We will get that information

for you. I know currently – the way it works now is that ATIPPA, our

coordinating office, attracts all the ATIPPA requests. So the numbers that the

minister just provided with you now, we will make sure that – it is the

responsibility of the ATIPPA office to be posting them online. We deal with core

departments, so I'm going to find out the reason why.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MS. WRIGHT:

I think basically everyone in those entities would have their own policies with

respect to the posting, but we will get back to you on that one because that's a

very good question.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Can the

minister please give an overview of how proactive disclosure works within

government? For example, how after are documents posted, and how is the decision

made to post information, the process involved?

MR. A. PARSONS:

This is one of those times

when I wish Sonja El-Gohary was here.

There

is a constant battle for figuring out what is there to put out there. One of the

arguments has been about – we have heard questions about we are putting all this

information out there, but is in an excessive or a useful format? What we are

trying to figure out now – because proactive disclosure is great, but

proactively disclosing information that people don't need or want is a whole

different ball game. In certain cases, the proactive disclosure is fine, but you

still have some privacy concerns with that.

When

you look across government, when you look at orders-in-council, they are all

posted on a fairly regular basis; certain reports, and everything else, are put

out there. I think the list we are talking about is a bit smaller – may be a bit

more intricate than that. All the ATIPPs go out there.

I have

not had put to me any specific requests on, okay, this is something I would like

to see that is not put out there and we have to request it. I have not had that

put to me. Because if I had it put to me, the first thing I would do is go to

the coordinator or go to the department and say: Is there any reason we can't

put this out there?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Do you

know how many documents were posted in the last year? Would you know that

without –?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I would not have that

offhand, but we will put that in the list of things that we send over after –

information to provide on a follow-up.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

The hon. Member's time has

expired, so we will move on.

Next

speaker, please?

MS. COFFIN:

Let's move on to Criminal Law, 2.2.01. Transportation and Communications, they

have a postage issue as well. They overspent by $120,000 plus or minus a little

bit, '18-'19.

MR. HOLLETT:

The bulk of that would have been for travel-related expenses to cover off

circuits in Labrador.

MS. COFFIN:

How come it went up by $120,000? What was the unexpected part?

MR. HOLLETT:

There were additional circuits and, for some of the time, we were covering off

from the Island as well.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

What

caused the increase of $50,000 from '18-'19 to '19-'20?

MR. HOLLETT:

Sorry?

MS. COFFIN:

There's an increase. Transportation and Communications, it goes from $341,400 to

$394,200.

MR. GREEN:

That was based on our historical review of travel expenditures are increasing in

that line. So we reallocated some money from within Operating Accounts.

MS. COFFIN:

The price of gas, carbon tax maybe?

MR. GREEN:

And I'd just like to point out quickly on Transportation and Communications, the

Department of Justice has over 1,100 employees that are required to travel for

their work, so that's why we have a large expenditure in these lines across.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, I figured there had been. It's just nice to know where the estimations are

off.

MR. GREEN:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Let's see, Purchased

Services, we had a fair chunk that was unspent – almost $150,000. What falls

under Purchased Services – okay, do I see this? Support Enforcement, Criminal

Law, nope. It may be over here. Purchased Services (inaudible) office equipment,

training costs – so we didn't spend $150,000 in office equipment?

MR. HOLLETT:

Part of that was due to some of the cost that was going to be associated with

cannabis ticketing; $100,000 came out of there. And if you look down under the

federal revenue, under 01, we're down $100,000 there. So it's offset there for

$100,000. That was due to some of the cannabis ticketing which didn't get

implemented.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So that's kind of similar to the thing we spoke about earlier.

MR. HOLLETT:

Right.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, and then Purchased Services under the salary section, as well, I noticed

it goes from $252,000 – there's a pile unspent – down to $174,000 now. Is that

accommodating the federal revenue change as well? Is that what's happening

there? It looks to be –

MR. GREEN:

It's somewhat of the federal – it's a reduction of $50,000 in the federal

revenue that we anticipate to receive and we moved some of that money up into

travel. So it's the –

MS. COFFIN:

That's moved that way, okay, very good. And then my federal revenue question was

answered. Other Legal Services – big old chunk in Legal Aid. So here's where we

can chat about that question.

noticed there $100,000 out of a $16-million budget that has dropped. That's not

particularly substantial. Is there any reason for the $100,000 less?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's attrition on one position that is to be identified by Legal Aid. So it's

not an actual loss of position, and Rolf can handle that, but that's what I

think it's for.

MR. PRITCHARD:

That's exactly what it is,

yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, so you capture attrition under Grants and Subsidies because the Grants and

Subsidies capture bodies in Legal Aid, is that right? Okay, so that's just part

of the – you have to take however much off your attrition model so it comes off

(inaudible).

Since

we're in Legal Aid now, let's go back to that question. Since we recently saw

the legislation removing the counsel-of-choice provision from the

Legal Aid Act , are you anticipating

any long-term implications? Does this impact the accused person's right to a

fair trial, and how does this square with cutbacks to Legal Aid as we've seen

from the budget?

MR. PRITCHARD:

I can answer that.

The

removal of the choice of counsel was responded to by Legal Aid by the creation

of a special defence unit in which they took some of their more senior lawyers

who have specialized in defending more serious crimes such as murder. They

created this unit and I think it has three full-time lawyers in it, and they

primarily do these more serious crimes that previously people would've had a

choice of counsel.

Now,

the choice of counsel doesn't exist anymore.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. PRITCHARD:

The director of Legal Aid

has always had the right to select private counsel when it was necessary if

there was a conflict or a shortage of counsel in a particular area, but that's

just in special circumstances.

The

removal of choice of counsel, however, is something that – there's a

transitional period at Legal Aid, because at the time that amendment was made,

there were actually seven murder cases for which certificates had already been

issued, so that'll take some time to wind down. But in the meantime their

special defence unit is already up to strength and running, so there shouldn't

be any diminishment of services available to people who require that kind of

defence.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Can I jump in on that one?

MS. COFFIN:

Oh yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Two things. The blunt answer to it impacting a right to fair trial I would say

is, no, not even close. The second part, I just want to make sure for the sake

of posterity. So there's not a cut in the budget, per se, there's no change to

the budget. It's just there's $100,000 less due to attrition, but there are no

positions lost, change in service.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes, I understood that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I wouldn't want somebody to read it someday and –

MS. COFFIN:

And say what happened here. No, I understand that there's an attrition model.

Whenever you have salaries, it comes off the full salary amount. Okay, that

makes sense to me.

Going

back to this choice of counsel and the removal of that, do you anticipate that

will result in cost savings?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, that's the plan going forward is that I think there would be some savings

there. Again, we went through a pretty substantive debate on this, when you look

at the cost of outside counsel versus the internal and looking at just the cost

for these individuals, especially when we raised the rates of what we're paying

the private counsel.

Those

rates in the last number of years – we had a debate here where we raised the

legal aid rates that we were paying to outside counsel. I think you will see

savings down the road. Part of this but not – it's funny, it wasn't timed with

the Legal Aid branding, but to me there's a perception issue, too, here that has

nothing to do with money. When you have these counsel saying – or I guess

clients saying – I've got legal aid, I've got nothing, I mean it just was not

true. It's a garbage argument. Legal Aid has some of the best lawyers out there.

There's

a perception thing there that's always bothered me. I've had a chance to work

with Legal Aid lawyers and see them. If anything their biggest issue is, like

everywhere, they have big caseloads and lots of travel, so it's difficult. So

people coming in and based on nothing but their perception, based on absolutely

– not even talking to a lawyer to say: Well, I don't want a legal aid or I want

my own choice of lawyer. It's like, well, pal, you want your choice, you go for

it and you're going to have to pay in certain cases.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah and I understand that. I know some very good lawyers who were in the legal

aid program.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah. It's just nice to see how this kind of gets billed out.

Let's

see, so the budget increase is there. Commissions of Inquiry, let's move on to

that. In '18-'19 there was $500,000 unspent and then we're seeing almost a

million taken out of the budget from next year. What was happening there?

MS. WRIGHT:

With respect to the budget for the Muskrat Falls inquiry – so in Budget 2018 we

used a model that we had used to build the budget initially. So we worked with

what staff would they need, location, lease space, we went through it all.

At the

time, we built a number for this past year of $20 million –

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. WRIGHT:

– which this year they didn't need to use that amount. This year, we were able

to rightsize what they actually would need. When you actually look at some of

the budget numbers there it's just basically they were allotted a certain amount

of money and they spent what they required.

MS. COFFIN:

They needed less. Okay.

MS. WRIGHT:

I think they were under in most sections, and so what we did for this year's

Estimate is we just rightsized it for a nine-month period because –

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. WRIGHT:

– the report is due on December 31, 2019.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, they doubled their Supplies. I mean that's a lot of stickies, I think.

MS. WRIGHT:

Under Supplies –

MS. COFFIN:

Under Commissions of Inquiry –

MS. WRIGHT:

– $60,000 –

MS. COFFIN:

– they go from $60,000 to $120,000.

MS. WRIGHT:

No, Supplies would've been –

MR. A. PARSONS:

(Inaudible.)

MS. WRIGHT:

Yeah and there would've been travel. Initially, when we built the budget –

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah.

MS. WRIGHT:

– I believe there were two trips to Labrador. In fact, if you look at their

schedule online, there were four trips to Labrador. There are certain things

that it's very hard to ship items, so they end up having to purchase items.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah.

MS. WRIGHT:

It really kind of works itself out, but that would have factored in there, too,

with respect to four trips to Labrador.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah.

And I

noticed it went down the next year, so we have the number of file folders or

whatever the supplies were that's there.

MS. WRIGHT:

That's correct.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MS. WRIGHT:

Yeah, and a lot of binders so …

MS. COFFIN:

One more thing. I notice

that the minister's mandate letter included a public inquiry into the Humber

Valley Paving scandal. How come that inquiry has not been struck yet and will

it?

MR. A. PARSONS:

When I first got my mandate

letter back in December 2015 there were three on there: There was the Humber

Valley Paving, there was the Dunphy inquiry and there was the –

OFFICIAL:

Burton Winters.

MS. COFFIN:

Winters.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, search and rescue,

that's right. It was so long ago.

At the

time, we made the decision to lead off with the Dunphy inquiry. We didn't

proceed with search and rescue right away because at that point the Senate had

been doing their own parallel investigation and it seemed kind of foolhardy to

go and maybe duplicate that work. Humber Valley was – we were going to do Dunphy

first. Haven't having done one of these, they're pretty intensive coming up with

the terms of reference and everything.

Since

then, we made the decision, obviously, to go ahead with the Muskrat Fall

inquiry, which wasn't on the original mandate. Since that time, there's been a

decision to move forward with possibly children in care with the Innu inquiry,

so that's something. We're still actively working on search and rescue. We've

got Muskrat that's ongoing right now and we have the Innu where we're working

with the Indigenous governments, as well as the federal government.

Quite

frankly, the Humber Valley one just did not get done because we had so much

going on. I think that now, given the period of time that we've passed, I don't

think that's a priority compared to the other inquires that we are doing and

still have to do. Maybe it's not my decision to say whether we actually ever do

it or not, but I don't think it's something that I think is worth – personally,

I don't think it's worth pursuing at this juncture, given the passage of time,

given where we are in terms of expenditures and everything else and given the

amount of time since that took place.

I don't

see it going forward, given that we've still got two left to strike and do and

they're pretty significant. When you're talking about children in care and

search and rescue, those are two big ones. And the fact that both of them are

going to involve jurisdiction in Labrador, so just the travel and communications

you see there, it's going to be – it's not like doing it in St. John's where you

have most of the parties. Having been involved with these now, it's a pretty

costly venture.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. Thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay. Thank you.

The

Member's time has expired. We can come back.

And so

the next speaker.

MR. LANE:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, I don't have any lines by lines. I've got basically three question

areas here and then I have to depart.

first question relates to Her Majesty's Penitentiary.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. LANE:

I'm just looking for a

little update or whatever. I think as you've said in the House of Assembly

today, if I'm not mistaken, I thought you said five years out or four years out

– I don't know if it was you or the Minister of Transportation, one of you – for

the new penitentiary, assuming that it goes ahead.

MR. A. PARSONS:

It's going ahead.

MR. LANE:

The minister is saying it's

going ahead.

In the

meantime, I guess I'm just wondering from a program perspective if you can give

us any update as to what's been happening in that regard, the issues, as we

know, of mental health and addictions and so on at Her Majesty's Penitentiary. A

lot of what we've heard from family members of inmates – and we've had some

deaths there as well and we've had a couple of reports,

Decades of Darkness , and then there

was the other one that Marlene Jesso did.

I'm

wondering what progress or what are the plans to at least put some programs in

place? I understand it's challenging to put those programs in place in that

facility and we really need a new facility, but I mean if it takes five years,

that's five years that we should at least be doing something, to some degree, as

best we can until we have a new facility. I'm just wondering if you can comment

on that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay.

apologize; I may jump back and forth in terms of going to different notes here.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I've got one – and I know

that the fellow sitting over there for Transportation and Works would love to be

able to answer some questions, but he'll have to wait his turn until tomorrow.

terms of the timeline of HMP they did the value-for-money analysis. It was

completed September 2018. I think it came to about 11 per cent savings doing it

in that model. Am I right there? Okay.

The

timeline I have here – and Neil Croke has been working on this tirelessly, so he

can jump in when I fool it up or miss something. This year, September 2019, will

be issue RFPs for external advisers. The RFQ will go out next spring 2020. The

RFP would be issued fall of 2020 and construction start would be spring of 2022,

which puts you in 2024 –

OFFICIAL:

2024, yeah, around there.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– around that for entry.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's the timeline right

now. Given that it's been the same model used for long-term care and everything

else – and they've stuck to their timelines pretty good, right – we haven't seen

a lot of delays there so we're confident that can happen.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

One of the issues we talked about – and you're talking about treatment inside.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

What we've done – and a couple of things; we're actively moving treatment inside

from Justice to Health.

MR. LANE: Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That was (inaudible). We were working on it anyway. The Jesso report comes out

and says you have to do this. We've since been able to expedite it in the hopes

of having it done this year. It was going to be a much longer process but we're

making it happen faster.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Right now, when you look at what's going on inside, the different programs

inside, we got John Howard in there, Canadian Mental Health Association,

Turnings , there's a MIMOSA program that's offered which is

Moderate Intensity

Management of Offender Substance Abuse. When I was first going down to the

prison all these inmates were telling me, I got MIMOSA and I was like, MIMOSA?

The MIMOSA program is something – actually, there's a pretty big demand for it.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The Canadian Mental Health Association has a Justice Program, there's safety

training programs going on down there, first aid, traffic control, different

things like that. Pre-release programs that we do in the – just in terms of the

recreation, we've had yoga down there, woodworking, the different things that

are getting done out in the community now that are coming from the shop down

there.

There's

been huge library services. We still have ABE. We've had First Light which was

formerly the St. John's Native Friendship Centre which is now First Light.

They've been in there providing cultural services and supports. We have Stella's

Circle in there. There's a lot going on. The issue is space,

MR. LANE:

Yes, I understand that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

One of the big issues that prevents a lot of what's going on in HMP is you

combine the increased numbers, lack of space and the greater number of

incompatible prisoners more so than ever before.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

It's becoming very, very hard to manage when you've got the prison that's sort

of making it difficult.

MR. LANE:

Yes, I understand.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Just putting people outside; it's easy to say we can do that, but let's say that

it can lead to difficulties.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I didn't mention I was down there and saw that St. John Ambulance had the canine

program down there; SPIRIT Horse is gone back there now. Erin Gallant runs

SPIRIT Horse bringing in the equines. What else? Am I missing anything?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

There's a lot going on.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We're trying to do more and hopefully, when we get the increased space, that's

going to increase the numbers. When you talk about the mental health services,

we did manage to get an extra mental health counsellor position, I think, or –

OFFICIAL:

Nurse.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– mental health nurse. So, you had this wait-list. We've cut that in half now, r ight?

Do we want it better? Of course we do, but that's an issue that people face

outside as well. When it comes to access to certain services –

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– we face wait-lists in certain areas. Mental health services are an issue

inside and outside, but we recognize that the prevalence of mental health issues

inside is huge.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

Okay,

well, thank you, Minister. I appreciate that. As I said, I understand we're

challenged for space and the age of the facility, the condition and so on, but

it's important, obviously, that for however long it takes before we have a new

facility, we have to at least try our best to offer the best programs we can. I

know that's a concern that's been raised publicly on a number of occasions, so I

do appreciate that we're seeing some progress in that regard.

I'm

going to ask one more question and this relates to the Muskrat Falls inquiry. I

certainly will be asking more questions of the Minister of Natural Resources,

but it kind of ties into what I had asked about last year, I believe, when we

were talking about this and talking about the budget and the inquiry.

At the

time what the ask was: Would there be anybody that would be watching what's

going on?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. LANE:

My thought at the time was

there should be somebody from the RNC or the RCMP Commercial Crime that's

following this inquiry and then investigating whenever something came up that

may have potentially warranted an investigation. Somebody from your department,

from a civil liability point of view, they see something coming out that

warrants that; someone from an HR point of view to hand out pink slips, which

we'll get into that with the other minister.

Anyway,

the point is: Are there any investigations, either criminal or civil? Is there

anything at all being looked into now, as a result of what's come forward thus

far in the inquiry?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What I would say to you –

and I'll wait for Kendra, Rolf or Jim to kick me if I say something wrong –

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– so (

a) it's in the Terms

of Reference. There is no inquiry that goes out there and says our purpose is to

find civil or criminal liability.

MR. LANE:

I understand that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We get that.

MR. LANE:

I understand that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

But, at the conclusion –

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– of an inquiry, depending

on what comes out of it, if it is a criminal issue, then the police – whether it

is the RNC or RCMP – have every right to investigate if they have any evidence

that there is something of criminal wrongdoing.

The

same when it goes to civil. If we find something out that's of such a nature

that we feel the province might have to do something about it, we can make that

assessment then. I don't think it is a good idea to do that mid-inquiry without

even having the final report back from Justice LeBlanc.

MR. LANE:

Right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm no different than anyone

else. I see what comes out in the news, I watch and I say, wow, but we can't go

off half-cocked and say, we're going to start a side-by-side investigation of

this thing that's going on. We might end up overtaking the inquiry when we have

the inquiry going on for a reason.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I don't think you need a

specific person that's sat there watching it every day even though I know there

are lots of people doing it. When it's all said and done one of the things you

do an inquiry about is to look back and see what happened, prevent what's going

on or prevent that from happening again in the future. But if there is something

of a criminal or civil nature that we found of concern, we have no problem

having it looked into by the appropriate authority.

MR. LANE:

Okay, so I guess the answer is: Once it's concluded someone will look at it. I'm

going to say about a year ago I contacted the RNC myself and spoke to the RNC's

solicitor about it. Basically, I was told that there would have to be a specific

– someone would have to actually physically go in to the office, lay a specific

complaint about something to investigate.

MR. A. PARSONS:

And it's –

MR. LANE:

To which my thought was, well, I mean, that's why you have investigators. I mean

MR. A. PARSONS:

But we're not – I mean, right now –

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– we're not even done the witnesses yet.

MR. LANE:

No, I understand.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's my understanding.

MR. LANE:

I understand. It will be once it's complete –

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think you have to wait for it to be finished and have a look at it on its

whole.

MR. LANE:

– then we'll see what

happens.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. LANE:

Yeah. Okay.

Anyway,

I just think it's absolutely ridiculous what's gone on and I'm sure a lot of

people agree. That's it, other than the only other question and then I'm done,

Madam Chair.

Maybe

the chief of police can just give a brief comment, if he would. A concern I've

heard from a number of people about in schools and everything is the issue of

drugs. I'm just wondering. I know there was a task force at one point. I think

we dedicated a millions bucks or something in a budget. I don't know if it was

last year or the year before to some – I thought it was a drug task force or I

thought it was joint RNC, RCMP. Maybe the timelines are –

MR. A. PARSONS:

Oh, you're talking about CFSEU. Yeah.

MR. LANE:

Yeah, there was something I know.

I'm

just wondering if we have just a comment as to where we are in terms of do we

have a drug investigation unit, do we have any joint forces? I know maybe you

can't disclose it because we don't want the criminals to hear, I don't know, but

what can you comment on the drug situation?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'll make a quick comment before –

MR. LANE:

I'll put it that way.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– I toss it to the chief because I defer to his experience and his knowledge.

What I would say is there was a joint force, the CFSEU, made up of RNC, RCMP

working on big drugs, exploitation.

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

There was a decision made to disband it.

MR. LANE:

I remember that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Maybe the chief can talk about what led to that because we're thinking there's a

positive reason to go to that and it might tie into one of the issues brought

up.

MR. LANE:

Okay, that's what I was talking about, that joint – yeah.

MR. BOLAND:

Yeah and it goes to speak to just what your –

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. BOLAND:

Paul, it goes to just what you're speaking to.

If you

look at CFSEU and you look at the RCMP's federal mandate, they're basically the

same; they look at organized crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs. Some of the

things that we were seeing in our playgrounds, schoolyards were a much lower

threshold and so it's more of a mandate for the RNC, even though we still work

hand in hand with the RCMP on bigger files, and even on some of these – not less

significant, but smaller, in investigative terms.

So we

have now street crime units. We have two separate ones that work in the

Northeast Avalon area. We also have ones in Corner Brook and in Labrador. Now,

the ones in Corner Brook and Labrador are more in and out.

So I

think that answers your question.

MR. LANE:

So they're kind of dedicated to drugs and stuff like that to deal with those

issues?

MR. BOLAND:

They are dedicated – so you take the school principal who has a problem with

somebody coming into the schoolyard selling then these files get handled. They

wouldn't fit the mandate of CFSU or the RCMP, where you'd have to have an outlaw

motorcycle gang or organized crime.

MR. LANE:

Okay, thank you. I'm done.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay, any further speakers

to the section?

Seeing

no further speakers …

MS. COFFIN:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Oh, we do have a speaker

down here.

MS. COFFIN:

(Inaudible) Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 2.3.04.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

Let's see. Let's start over here.

Doctor

Matthew Bowes – Chief Medical Examiner of Nova Scotia – in his review of the

province's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner offered a list of

recommendations for the office involving using more resources. Estimates show

the real increases in salaries where Bowes spoke to the physical infrastructure,

equipment, information management system and staffing levels of the office have

important deficiencies.

Can the

minister give an update on how the implementation of these recommendations is

going?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Maybe what I can do is talk

about just the genesis of this. This was perhaps the first issue I had to deal

with when I came in – was that tragic situation where we had a loss of evidence

that led to a charge dropping. Dr. Bowes came in, we got a report – we'll get

into the details, but I think the best person – I got Joanne Chidley here, who's

been really handling that and just overseeing it, spearheading it, doing it. So

there have been some hires in that department.

So I'll

let Joanne talk about the work she's been doing.

MS. CHIDLEY:

So Dr. Bowes's report came out with 65 recommendations for improvement.

Currently, we have 43 in progress or completed.

The

information management system, which you mentioned, we are in the process of

consulting with a software vendor from California who specialize in medical

examiners and coroner-specific software. So we're hoping to procure that in the

fall.

Staffing levels have also increased. We were approved for two full-time

equivalents for pathologists. Currently, we're sitting at 1.5 FTEs, and we' re

currently recruiting for the other 0.5, and hope to have somebody hired in the

fall. We're also recruiting

for medical examiner's investigators, which were in the report as well, hoping

for the fall as well.

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you.

Let's

go to Salaries. I've noticed the Salaries have gone from $500,000 – we saw about

$69,000 that were unspent '18 to '19. Then we're seeing Salaries go up to $1.09

million in '19-'20. Is that as a result of the recommendations?

MR. GREEN:

Yes, it's a result of recommendations and the reduction in the revised amount

was based on the new CME that came into that role later in the year. The old CME

was paid out of Professional Services, so we moved the money from Professional

Services in the budget up to Salaries.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. GREEN:

We've also added some funding for the investigators, as Joanne alluded to, and

there's some funding for an IM analysist to help implement that new information

management system, once purchased.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So we expect to have that in this fiscal year then?

MR. GREEN:

Yeah.

MS. COFFIN:

Good news.

Okay,

so I see Purchased Services – Purchased Services and Professional Services, let

me go over here. What's the difference? Professional Services of the CME – the

autopsy room is rather expensive. Look at that.

We see

a drop there, a budget decrease in Purchased Services. What else are we not

going to have – $50,000 worth of less autopsy room and instruments? You have to

use autoclaves less I guess with …

MR. GREEN:

There was a one-time funding last year put in the budget of Purchased Services,

which includes the expenditure for transportation of human remains. So when a

fatality happens, they have to get the body to a medical examiner's office or

hospital. We had one-time funding in there last year and it was removed this

year based on historical expenditure review. It wasn't as high as we thought it

would be.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. Okay, that's good to hear.

Property, Furnishings and Equipment, there was an increase of $29,000 and a

little bit. Is that your IT system?

MR. A PARSONS:

Would that be where we have new hires then, obviously, we need the PFE to go

with that – am I right there?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A PARSONS:

Software system.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, because they got a pretty cool office for $63,000.

Let's

see, what else do I have here? Under Human Rights, we saw a drop in Supplies but

increases in Professional Services and Purchased Services, with bigger increase

being in Purchased Services. What's happening with Human Rights? What do they

get to buy? That's a big chunk for advertising, meeting rooms and office

accommodations.

MS. WRIGHT:

Under Professional Services this is where you're going to see all the costs

incurred for the board inquiries, the cost of the commissioner, the Commission

members and the adjudicators.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes.

MS. WRIGHT:

And the number of hearings for the boards of inquiries has increased, therefore,

causing an increase in –

MS. COFFIN:

You get an increase in that, of course.

MS. WRIGHT:

– adjudicators and certainly we've seen an increase in time over the length of

these boards of inquiry. They might have gone – at one point, this whole system

was designed so instead of using the court system you would try to navigate

yourself through these –

MS. COFFIN:

(Inaudible.)

MS. WRIGHT:

– self-represented and now, all of a sudden, they're turning into people

bringing lawyers. There are no longer one or two days, they're turning into a

little bit longer.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. WRIGHT: So

you're seeing that in the increase in Professional Services. With respect to

Purchased Services, this was an increase in the cost of transcriptions.

MS. COFFIN:

Wow.

MS. WRIGHT: So

the Human Rights Commission currently is trying to address that and so what

they're going to do is that they're just going to record the hearings on a

go-forward basis and provide the recording to the adjudicator to listen to. On a

case- by-case basis, if it's going to be required to be translated, they'll look

at that.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MS. WRIGHT: But

they're going to try to cut down on that cost by just providing the audio

version of the recording.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. Because it went up by a little over $27,000, so they're saying, well,

let's cut back on the trans