May

13, 2008

Social Services Committee

The Committee met at 5:30 p.m. in the House of Assembly.

CHAIR (Hutchings): Good evening everybody. We are here this evening - the

Social Services Committee - to review the Estimates for Human Resources, Labour

and Employment, and Newfoundland and Labrador Housing.

Just a couple of housekeeping items; our general pattern has been, in terms

of questions from the committee, we have been going in fifteen minute intervals.

I will notify you around fifteen minutes.

I will ask the minister to have some opening comments and, as well, to

introduce his staff. You do not need to refer to the committee in their official

titles, certainly by name is fine.

The other thing, witnesses who are giving information, I ask you, for the

benefit of Hansard, to identify yourself each time before you speak.

We will start to the right, if the committee could introduce themselves.

MR. KING: Darin King, MHA for the District of Grand Bank.

MS SULLIVAN: Susan Sullivan, Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans.

MR. CORNECT: Good evening, minister.

Tony Cornect, Port au Port.

MR. COLLINS: Felix Collins, District of Placentia & St. Mary's.

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

MR. REID: Scott Reid, a researcher with the Opposition office.

MS MICHAEL: Lorraine Michael, MHA, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

CHAIR: I will ask the Clerk to call the first subhead.

CLERK: 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01. carry?

I will now refer to the minister for opening comments and introduction of

your staff.

MR. SKINNER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It is our pleasure to be here this evening to provide whatever information

the committee members would like to inquire upon.

I am here this evening with a small delegation of people, who I will let

introduce themselves a bit later. I will tell you that there are representatives

here from the Department of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, there are

representatives from Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, Workplace

Health, Safety and Compensation Commission, and the Labour Relations Agency.

Before I get them to introduce themselves, I would suggest, if I could, to

the committee - rather than having everybody stay here all night - if maybe we

could start with Housing, go to the Commission, go to the Labour Relations

Agency, and then to the departmental initiatives, if that would be okay. I would

prefer if we did that, so that maybe people can move on. If that does not work

with you and we need to do it in a different order, I am totally flexible. I am

just trying to allow people to move on rather than have them sit around all

night.

With that, I will ask the people who I have here with me to introduce

themselves. I will just remind them to wait until the light comes on before they

speak.

MS CAUL: Hi, I am Brenda Caul, Deputy Minister of Human Resources, Labour

and Employment.

MS TUBRETT: Denise Tubrett, ADM, Corporate Services, with Human

Resources, Labour and Employment.

MR. HANLON: Brendan Hanlon, Director of Finance with Human Resources,

Labour and Employment.

MS WHEATON: Roxie Wheaton, ADM Responsible for Client Services.

MR. PENNEY: Wayne Penney, ADM, Labour Market Development, HRLE.

MS GOGAN: Aisling Gogan, Director of Poverty Reduction Strategy.

MR. BARTLETT: Eric Bartlett, Executive Director of Corporate Services

with the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission.

MR. MAHONEY: Tom Mahoney, Executive Director of Worker Services,

Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission.

MR. MORIARITY: Ed Moriarity, Communications Director.

MR. KENNEDY: Gerry Kennedy, Executive Director, Newfoundland and Labrador

Housing Corporation.

MR. WILLIAMS: Kevin Williams, Team Leader, Programs Division,

Newfoundland and Labrador Housing.

MR. LAWRENCE: Tom Lawrence, Chief Financial Officer, Newfoundland and

Labrador Housing Corporation.

MR. FOWLER: Wayne Fowler, CEO, Labour Relations Agency.

MR. SKINNER: Thank you.

If I could, Mr. Chair, I will have just a couple of brief remarks, if I

could, about the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, if it is okay if

we start there just by way of introduction for the committee members.

Budget 2008 is certainly, I believe, giving a fair bit of good news for the

Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation. As members may be aware, we have

just over 5,500 non-profit homes throughout the Province. The vast majority of

them would be in the twenty to sixty year old range. A significant number of

them would be in the forty, fifty, sixty year old range. A fair amount of work

needs to be done on the interior and the exterior of those units, and in this

budget government has provided Housing with an increase of $2 million per year

over the next five years to address the interior housing renovations that need

to be done.

As well, there is significant funding of $27.5 million announced, an increase

over five years that we have provided to Housing, which basically will be used

to modernize and improve the social housing stock.

We also have a one-time $2 million funding allocation, which will be

available this year, to address asbestos and mould abatement throughout the

Province. As members across would be aware, there have been some issues with

asbestos and mould, and we have a $2 million injection of funds into this year's

budget to deal with that.

Also, under the Poverty Reduction Strategy, we have three new housing

initiatives to help reduce the wait list for social housing. In this budget we

have $1 million approved in 2008-2009 and an additional $1 million in 2009-2010

to increase the number of rent supplements that are available Province-wide, by

500 over the next couple of years. So, we hope to be able to get 250 this year

from the private sector and another 250, obviously, next year; $1 million in

each year.

Those rent supplements, just so you understand, the number we came up with

was based upon the wait list that we had. We analyzed the wait list, determined

how many people who were out there who could avail of this particular subsidy

and then we put a budget allocation forward to try and address the wait list.

We have also approved $350,000 under the Poverty Reduction Strategy to extend

the changes we made in last year's budget in rental calculations to

community-based housing groups. Last year, for instance, we did a calculation on

rent, on net pay versus gross pay. For seniors, the rent geared to income scale

was reduced to 25 per cent from 30 per cent. Just as an oversight - it was not

any particular reason, it was just an oversight - the community-based housing

groups did not get that. When we recognized the oversight the budget had been

passed. We did not have the funding there, so we incorporated an extra $350,000

into this year's budget to be able to apply the same rental calculations or

changes in rental calculations to individuals, tenants of ours living in those

community-based housing. That is about 1,000 tenants who will be affected by

that change in a positive way.

The final thing is we have gone through a fairly extensive IT reconfiguration

at Housing, which is going to bring us current and in line with today's

technology. We had some fairly old legacy systems there, and there has been a

fair amount of investment made over the past couple of years in the IT budget of

Housing. This year, in particular, we have a couple of new IT positions that we

funded with a $140,000 investment which were identified as a part of our review

that we did, that we are lacking. They were new positions that we needed to

effectively use the new IT equipment that we had. They did not exist in our

human resource component, so we brought in the funding to be able to hire those

two people.

I will stop there. There is lots more I could say, but I will stop there and

allow the committee to address any questions to myself or to the officials of

the Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Mr. Butler.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much.

I would like to welcome the minister and your staff here, sir, from the

various divisions.

First of all, I want to introduce this gentleman. This is Scott Reid, one of

the research people with us. Where we are small numbers, we like to bring

someone for company.

Minister, I know you mentioned that you have a fairly large delegation. When

I came in I thought the House was still in session, to be honest with you.

On a more serious note, I think every year that I have been taking part with

the estimates for your department - and I think Housing was under Municipal

Affairs at one particular time, not too long ago. I am going to make a comment

again tonight that I always make, that is, the main thing that is involved in my

district is when it comes to the provincial repair program. There are very

little units of housing like you have here in the city and other areas, but I

have to say, we know there is a two-and-a-half year wait list but when people

put requests in and I know they are of an emergency nature and you see it

yourself, I have to say, the officials, they are not jumping because Roland

Butler calls, I know that, but they do take the needs of the people seriously. I

have seen that so often. I guess this past year, more so than recently. It is

good to see that once the need is there you are not just left on the wait list

and the people are there to help. I must say, the inspectors drop by fairly

quickly when they know there is something of that nature. I want to say that,

and say thank you to the staff.

MR. SKINNER: Thank you.

MR. BUTLER: To begin with, I am just going to do those one-liners. I am

not too fussy about them but you have to do them anyway, I suppose, from time to

time.

Under Housing, 1.1.01., I was just wondering, can we get a breakdown of the

amount that is spent on each of those programs that is listed there, the Grants

and Subsidies? Is that all the - or are there various - maybe most of it is

going into programs like I just mentioned, the repair program? What else might

be entailed there?

MR. SKINNER: I can certainly give you some numbers to quantify that a

little bit more. Then I will turn my attention to the back row and they can fill

in the gaps that I may leave.

Just for clarification, the amount that you are asking me about, I assume,

Mr. Butler, is the amount of $40,075,200?

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: Yes, okay.

Some of those things are the Aboriginal housing trust fund, which is $8.1

million - I am giving you round numbers here, $8.1 million; affordable housing

trust fund of $1.1 million; the mould and asbestos remediation that I talked

about earlier, $2 million there; the interior retrofit program, $2 million; the

rental supplement program that I referred to is $1 million. We increased the

market rent that we are going to pay the landlords. There was a $200,000

allocation for that. The community-based housing rental change that I referred

to is $350,000. We invested $100,000 in a community facilitator, we are calling

them. You would be familiar you may be familiar. I am sure Ms Michael is

familiar with this. I am trying to remember the name of the group

OFFICIAL: Community Centre Alliance.

MR. SKINNER: Community Centre Alliance, thank you. It just escaped me for

a second.

The Community Centre Alliance that exists here on the Avalon which sort of

works jointly with all seven community centres, there was no such resource

existed on the West Coast, so we have an allotment of $100,000 to try and bring

a Community Centre Alliance type person and support system to Corner Brook and

to the Dunfield Park area. There is $100,000 for that. CMHC revenue, $836,000;

Information Technology staffing that I talked about, $146,000.

That is about it I guess in terms of round numbers. I will throw those out to

you as an example of the kinds of things that the monies are going into.

MR. BUTLER: Very good.

The other heading, 1.1.02.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. BUTLER: Yes, that is correct.

Maybe you can explain this for me. It looks like the total budget there is

federal money for this year, Grants and Subsidies, $1.7 million. I was wondering

why there was no federal budgeted last year or in the revised figures last year?

MR. SKINNER: I am going to have to turn to my officials and see if they

can help me with that. Tom?

MR. LAWRENCE: Basically, what that is, that is a capital grant that we

are receiving this year which we never had in a long time. It is to cover off

the construction of some new units in St. John's and Stephenville. It is fully

funded from the trust fund.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

MR. SKINNER: Just for clarification, Mr. Butler, I believe that is under

the affordable housing trust fund as well. That is affordable housing units that

are being constructed.

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

My next question is with regards to a report that was in the AG's report,

and that comes down to everybody from time to time. The AG always finds

different issues to bring forward. He indicated that there was a lack of

adequate recordkeeping within the department and so on. I think he went on to

say inspections prior to attendant vacating and delays in collecting efforts and

so on. I was just wondering, what has been done to address this problem? Is the

problem as bad as what it seems, like when you read something?

MR. SKINNER: Certainly, the Auditor General did identify a few concerns

that he had with the corporation. I will tell you that they have all been

responded to officially by the corporation back to the Auditor General.

In terms of the detail of them, I will turn to officials just so they can

give you a bit more information. It is my understanding that we have responded

and the Auditor General is satisfied with the responses that have been provided,

but I will ask the officials to help with that.

Mr. Kennedy.

MR. KENNEDY: These concerns primarily dealt with a study that we carried

out of how we administered our social housing operations in the Province. We

identified - it was a joint union management study and to look at, really, some

ways we could improve it. Of course, any time you implement a program like that

you are probably a little more ambitious in terms of how soon you can implement

all of the recommendations. I think his comments were more to those

recommendations that we had said need to be implemented, but they have not been

all fully put in place. I think, as the minister said, subsequently we responded

and outlined a timeframe. I think we have made real good progress in terms of

getting them all in place. So, it seems to be okay.

MR. BUTLER: Very good.

Minister, you mentioned here in your opening remarks about the asbestos and

the program I think you said $1 million or whatever it was for asbestos,

mould and so on. Would that be also in rental units that you would have out

around the Province or is that for the major housing complex more so?

MR. SKINNER: No. There was an inspection done of all of the units that

Newfoundland and Labrador Housing owns throughout the Province. There was an

assessment report done on each one and those units that did have the potential

for asbestos were identified.

Just for the information of the people in the room, the fact that units

contained asbestos in and of itself, was not necessarily a concern. It was only

when the asbestos was disturbed or something was broken, the gyproc was broken

that it became a concern. We have responded to emergency concerns, ones that we

knew we had to get in and get at. That has been done. There has been, I believe,

$1 million spent on that. I will get the officials to correct anything I say

that might be wrong in a second, but I believe there was $1 million spent on

that.

What we have now is a plan in place, on a go-forward basis, that if we go

into any of our units to do any repairs or any maintenance calls or anything

like that, we will try and look after the asbestos that is there, undisturbed,

and get that cleaned up as we go through the units.

If I could, I do not know if I have missed anything that somebody might want to

add to that.

MR. KENNEDY: Just for the purpose of clarification, a lot of that

asbestos that is causing us the difficulty is asbestos that is actually in the

sparkling, in the plastering as opposed to - there is some of it around pipes.

Most of that has been looked out for. It is the asbestos in the gyproc that is

causing us the difficulty. As the minister said, we actually went out and took

samples of the gyproc and identified it and put steps in place.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, you also mentioned about, I believe it was 500

rental units over a period of time. I was just wondering, what is the breakdown

for Western, Central, Labrador or Avalon, or would you have that?

MR. SKINNER: There are 500 in total; I will say that to you. Well, let me

back up. We currently have about 1,000 rental supplements already that we have

available to potential tenants of Housing. There is a wait-list as I indicated,

so we analysed the wait-lists that we had and determined that over two years we

needed to incorporate about another 500 of these rental supplements into the

system to be able to look after all of the need that we saw there.

I will say to you, that about 80 per cent of the wait-list is for non-elderly

singles and also for seniors and two-member families. They would be the other

people who would be on the wait-list. We have basically provided that money to

try and look after that over the next two years.

In terms of the regional breakdown, I am going to have to refer to the back

row again and see if they can help me with that.

Mr Williams.

MR. WILLIAMS: Our breakdown: I think it is quite obvious that the vast

majority of our units are in the St. John's metro area. That goes for our own

units as well as our rent supplement units. Right now we have 1,000 rent

supplement units. Approximately 700 of those are on the Avalon Peninsula and the

others are throughout the Province with the next highest lot in Corner Brook, in

Grand Falls, Gander and so on, as you would expect with the larger areas.

The allocation for the extra 500 units that we will be getting over the next

two years will be based on a wait-list. The intent is to reduce our present

wait-list by 500 clients with those units. The wait-list that has existed in our

regional office will be used to determine where those units will be allocated.

MR. BUTLER: With regard to the Provincial Repair Program, I know there is

approximately a two to two-and-a-half year wait-list. Is that holding its own

now, or is it on a decline or on a rise again?

MR. SKINNER: As you are aware, we did invest significant money into the

Provincial Home Repair program to try and decrease the wait-list. If memory

serves me correctly, I believe we expected to eliminate the backlog that we had

over a five-year timeframe, and we are making progress on that. Going from

memory - and again I will refer to the people in the back to help me with my

numbers - but I believe we would typically do probably 400 per year, and I think

we are up to about 600 a year now.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, overall. A little bit of an explanation, I guess,

around the Provincial Home Repair program, and, Mr. Butler, you alluded to the

fact that we deal with emergencies immediately. There are two categories which

we deal with immediately: one is an emergency situation, furnace down or

something like that, roof leaks and that sort of thing, and the other is a

There has been a significant increase in that demand over the past few years, as

we would expect with our aging population.

Prior to the extra money that was infused in the last year's budget, we

were doing about 1,800 clients a year, which included disabled, emergency and

people coming off our wait-list. This past year ending March 31 we did

approximately 2,500 people. The wait-list a year ago was about 4,200 and we are

down to about 3,600 now. We would hope that trend will continue. We are not

seeing a significant increase in demand as a result of this, which we expected.

There was a bit of spike obviously when money was announced. People realized

there was more money out there and we received more applications. We expect that

we will meet those objectives of reducing that wait-list to a current list in

the next four years.

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Chair, I do not know how I am doing for time but I only

have one other question.

CHAIR: Okay, carry on.

MR. BUTLER: I have to explain this one a little bit I suppose. I think

the name of the program is already changed. Back when there was a Federal

Liberal Administration, they came in with what they called the Home Heating

Efficiency Program. I know when government changed they had to review it and

rightly so, and I think they changed the name on it. Prior to, I guess, last

year there was a notification went out that applications would be available in

April of 2007. I can tell you I have a list of about seventy-five people and I

think every second week they call me: when am I going to get an application?

The question I have for you today - I know it was said that it was going to

be administered through Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and it was in addition

to the program that you have, but I was told the reason there was a delay with

it was because of a couple of provincial departments. I might have them wrong,

but I thought Natural Resources and Environment?

I was just wondering: how is that going? The only reason I am asking you this

question - it is with those people I know, but where your department was going

to administer it from that perspective.

MR. SKINNER: You are correct, Mr. Butler, in terms of this money has been

a couple of years, I guess. It is certainly eighteen months, maybe two years,

that it has been kicking around. When the federal government did change there

was some delay in terms of that being processed. Initially the Province was

involved through the Department of Environment and Conservation. The intention

was that there would be a set of guidelines and policies developed by the

Department of Environment and Conservation and then Housing would be the

implementation or delivery agent for the program. It is referred to now as REEP,

Residential Energy Efficiency Program; REEP. The policy around the program moved

from Environment and Conservation to Natural Resources. I am actually having a

briefing on this Thursday or Friday morning this week of the policy and program

guidelines, and then assuming all goes well, very quickly we, being Housing,

should have that and be able to roll it out. It is close, but I would not want

to tell you to call your seventy-five applicants yet to get their application

in.

MR. BUTLER: They will call me.

MR. SKINNER: I think we are very close, and hopefully very soon we will

be able to roll it out for you. Again, if I have missed something - Mr. Williams

in the back.

MR. WILLIAMS: You are absolutely right, it is just a very short matter of

time.

MR. BUTLER: Maybe I should not be asking you this question, but I think

when the program initially started, and then I saw some information on it

through our MP because he had the guidelines to it, is it still a part of it

maybe you would not know that where it is being reviewed now - that the people

would have to pay $200 or $300 or something to have someone come in and inspect

their house before they could even be considered? That was a part of it, wasn't

it?

MR. SKINNER: Again, I will look for clarification from the back, but it

was my understanding that there had to be an energy audit done of an individual's

home before work started. The estimates that I heard, Mr. Butler, were up to

$500 for that to be done. In the discussions that I had early on we were trying

to find a way around not having to have people pay for that, have the energy

audit done but incorporate it into the monies that would be paid out through the

fund, because we felt it was important that the energy audit be done.

It sort of gave you a baseline at the home before the work was done. You did

the energy audit, then you did your work and you did another energy audit to see

how successful the renovations were. I have not sent the policy yet, so I cannot

tell you whether or not that will be included.

Again, I will look to Mr. Williams to see if he can add some clarification.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, Minister, the audits, we are hoping, are going to be

provided as part of our program. It will be a free audit. One of the other

reasons for an audit is, the audit will enable the home owner to avail of the

federal ecoENERGY program. It is our expectation that we will provide some funds

for retrofits and based on those retrofits the homeowner will be able to avail

of the federal program as well with the hope that money will come back into the

program for more people to avail of retrofits. That is the idea; maximize the

federal inputs as well as the provincial.

MR. BUTLER: If the fee is not incorporated I can assure you my

seventy-five applications will not be long dropping.

Anyway, that is all for me, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank you very much.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Butler has covered a lot of what I would have wanted to cover, so I will

not be repeating because I have answers.

Just a couple of questions on the REEP. Is that money in hand now? Is it

parked somewhere?

MR. SKINNER: It is. It is in the coffers of the Newfoundland and Labrador

Housing Corporation and I believe it is about $6 million.

OFFICIAL: It is $6.9 million.

MR. SKINNER: It is $6.9 million. It is in our account, right?

OFFICIAL: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: It is, yes.

MS MICHAEL: I was wondering, Shawn - it would be helpful for me, and I

would say maybe for the rest of the Committee, if we could just have the

breakdown that you read out under Housing Operations and Assistance, the Grants

and Subsidies. Would it be possible to get a copy of that as committee members?

MR. SKINNER: Yes, I do not see any reason why you could not. Are the

pages around?

MS MICHAEL: It can happen afterwards. The Chair will take an account of

anything that we are requesting to make sure that we get it.

Where this budget is just the one figure, it does not give us any detail.

MR. SKINNER: Sure.

MS MICHAEL: What about under 1.1.02? There must be a breakdown for that

money as well. Here we just have it as $1,715,000.

MR. SKINNER: You are referring to the Grants and Subsidies?

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: Just bear with me while I have a quick look.

MS MICHAEL: Is it broken down in terms of where regionally? Maybe there

is no breakdown where it is in Grants and Subsidies, but the money is used in

different ways because some are rental units and some is rehabilitation of their

own residences?

MR. SKINNER: I do not have that here with me but I will endeavour to

provide it to you.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

One thing that Roland did not ask about and I do want to is: every time I go

to Labrador West one of the biggest issues thrown at me everything is housing. I

think you are aware of how desperate the housing situation is there. Could I

have some idea of what is before I go on I want to repeat what Roland said

with regard to the response of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing to need.

I have only been around for about eighteen months, maybe less, but there has

been a major improvement in what I see and a lot of effort has gone into that. I

know my Constituency Assistant has been part of meetings. I know Roxie was part

of meetings. You organized meetings for my staff to be at and it has really paid

off. There is really good clear communication and in my district I know that

people really are having needs met. I do want to mention that and congratulate

you on the improvement that has happened on a number of levels, even with regard

to getting a better understanding of how you set up your system for doing

repairs and scheduling and your own program. Having that information is helpful

as well, because it is interesting, with the constituents, if my assistant can

actually give them that information it makes a difference to them.

If they are just told it will be soon or it will be six weeks, but they have

no idea what to expect, it is difficult. When you can give them some clear

information it actually helps them. So I think we are better, we have better

information now for doing that and that is really, really helpful.

MR. SKINNER: Well thank you for that, and there has been a lot of effort

made in that regard by the employees and officials, and we appreciate that.

MS MICHAEL: I am aware of that, yes, and it is paying off. Certainly that

is my experience, like Roland's. I almost forgot to say that.

With regard to Labrador West, if you could give me some idea of how the

corporation is trying to help out with the issue of lack of affordable housing

up there.

MR. SKINNER: I will give you some information that I have, and again if

any of the staff have anything they wish to add.

As you are aware, Ms Michael, we did have the affordable housing program for

the profit and not-for-profit sector. The not-for-profit sector, in particular,

there appeared not to be a capacity to be able to avail of that program in the

Labrador West area with the not-for-profit sector. One of the things that we are

looking at doing is trying to take some of the capacity that exists here in the

Avalon Region in particular, because we have a lot of people who do some great

work here, the Jocelyn Greens, the Bruce Pearces and so on - you would know them

better than I would. We have those people who we are trying to link up with,

people in the Labrador West region, to be able to try and build some capacity up

there. We are prepared as a corporation to invest some monies into trying to

establish those connections and build that capacity, so that the community

itself is able to respond.

The second thing is that the federal government has, in my opinion, and in

our opinion as a government, a significant role to play in terms of the funding

that they provide to allow us to move forward initiatives in social housing,

affordable housing, homelessness initiatives and those kinds of things. All of

the funding that is currently on the table expires as of March of next year. I

just recently came back in April month from meeting with the

provincial-territorial housing ministers and the federal minister, Minister

Solberg, trying to nail him down on a commitment from the federal government to

continue. There is approximately $2 billion per year that the federal government

puts into the affordable housing programs, and we are asking them to continue

that, and the federal government did not make that commitment.

They have indicated to us, at least at this point, that there will be no

further federal funding and we are on our own, basically. Given that message by

the minister, we are now in discussions, myself and officials with housing,

trying to determine in next year's budget what are we going to be able to do

to try and address some of that need. We will come up with some solutions, I can

assure you. We won't take care of all the need in next year's budget, but we

will certainly try to put a dent in it.

I am hoping that the federal government response that we got is an interim

response. I suspect as we draw nearer to an election and they get the heat

turned up a little bit on them, from some of my provincial and territorial

colleagues, that they will respond a little bit more appropriately; because

there have been some petitions and some motions in Legislatures across the

country that have been presented, and I am currently looking at one for our own

Legislature, and I think that will draw attention to the issue and maybe get the

federal government to step up a little bit more and participate with us.

I will offer that to you, and if you will allow me to ask the staff if I have

missed anything.

MS MICHAEL: Please.

MR. SKINNER: I don't know if anyone from Housing - or Roxie, even, if

you might want to jump in, Roxie? I know it is a Housing issue but you have

great knowledge - if there is anything.

MS WHEATON: The whole Housing area has been a passion of mine, having

spent six years in the Avalon region, but clearly we do have an incredible

struggle here with getting the feds to be at the table to understand that it has

to be a federal-provincial solution.

In the absence of a solution, I think there is a great willingness of

provinces across the country, particularly in Atlantic Canada, to try to figure

out how we can come up with some creative solutions to address areas,

particularly in rural parts of the Province, where, as the minister indicated,

we do not have the capacity like the organizations. That is a real struggle,

because some of the great solutions we have seen in St. John's have come from

the grass roots up.

We are also challenged, through this federal-provincial relationship that we

have, that they are very much into giving bricks and mortar but not into

sustainable funding. A lot of what has happened has resulted in the Province

having to pick up the sustainability in keeping this housing. There are some

real challenges, I think, we are going to have to face as a Province, as we look

forward, to: How do we keep the momentum going?

We also know, of course, with the changing demographics in the Province, we

are going to have to be very creative as to some of the solutions that we come

up with.

MR. WILLIAMS: We have recognized that, and we have been having

discussions with our regional staff in Goose Bay who are responsible for that

particular area, and we will be targeting some of those rent supplements that

were alluded to earlier to that area.

One of the difficulties, you are probably aware, in Labrador West, is the

high incomes. Affordability is not necessarily the type of affordability that

we, as the Housing Corporation, deal with. Most of our clients have incomes in

the range of $14,000 to $15,000 per year. What is troubling in Labrador West is

that people with incomes in the $60,000 and $70,000 range just cannot find

housing. That is part of the difficulty.

Of course, when they do find housing then the low-income people seem to be

forced out. We have seen that happen in other jurisdictions where we have a

major upturn in the economies. We will be looking at the Rent Supplement Program

if possible to accommodate some of those displaced people.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

I recognize that you do have the issue of the high salaries, but then you have

other issues such as students who come in and who don't have high salaries. I

think they were hoping to get student housing, residential, a building for

students. I think it would really help them, if they had it.

The other one is people who go into new situations in their lives where

housing becomes problematic, particularly with women and children when there is

a marriage breakdown. It is specifically through the Women's Centre that I

hear most of the concerns around housing because, of course, they are dealing

with women and children.

Then you also have the issue as you know, I am sure of senior

citizens, because you are getting a new generation now and you are getting the

generation of retirees who are going to stay there. It is becoming difficult for

them to stay there, but neither can they afford to leave, especially with

retirees if they are women who do not have pensions or they just have a survivor's

pension which is smaller than the pension than the worker would have had.

I think you know there are a lot of complications over in Labrador West for

sure. What I am hearing is, at this moment everything is in the talking, hoping

and planning stage, really.

MR. SKINNER: Other than the rent supplements, there is no concrete

initiative that I can speak to you about in terms of today being able to help

somebody it is the Rent Supplement Program but I can, and I do want to

stress this to you, as a group of provinces and territories we have definitely

mobilized, in the last four, five or six months, to try and draw our federal

government to the table to assist us in the crisis that we experience right

across the country, and we are not going to relent on that.

MS MICHAEL: Good. I am glad to hear that.

This is not a question; it is a comment. I guess it comes from not so much as

a politician but from my experience. You alluded to the issues for rural

communities, and building capacity, and using people like Joyce and Bruce to

help build capacity.

I guess I would say I would be cautious about that; one, because in rural

Newfoundland we are not dealing with the same demographics. We have not as many

young people staying around. We are dealing with older people, an older

population, number one, and because of other things that have happened in rural

Newfoundland a lot of people who are involved in the community are overworked,

doing volunteer work around needs in the community. That certainly has happened

to the women's community.

I just would say be cautious about how much you expect of them, to do the

kind of mobilizing that was done here in the city; because, if you look at the

population, number one, you have many more people who are paid to do that work

here in the city. They are community groups but they are paid to do it. Out in

rural Newfoundland you are not going to find people part of groups that are

being paid to do that work.

I would really say be cautious about how you approach that. If not, I think

you may need more of your own staff to be available to work in regions, to work

in rural Newfoundland.

That is just a caution from me, and a concern both as a politician and as a

person who has done community work.

MR. SKINNER: I certainly hear the point you are making. I will just

reiterate to you that we have indicated, as the Housing Corporation, that we are

willing to try and support that initiative with some of our own resources, be

they staff or financial, but I just recently came back from Peterview and there

is an individual out there who is doing good work in terms of helping mobilize

the community to be able to provide some affordable housing units out there, for

instance. This is a lady who is a senior citizen but she has as much energy as I

have, I am sure. So, there are people out there who are willing to take on the

challenge and we have to be careful to make sure that we do not overburden them,

but that is a balance that we will try and achieve.

MS MICHAEL: Don't let doing it depend on having somebody there able;

that is the other problem.

MR. SKINNER: The need is there, whether the capacity is there or not. I

hear you.

MS MICHAEL: That is right.

I think that covers everything, then, because Roland covered so much of what

I was going to ask about. I think I have covered everything.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

I guess we are still on the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation.

Does the Committee have any more questions?

Okay. What was the next topic you would like to

MR. SKINNER: If I could, I would just like to excuse the members of the

Corporation who are here with me, if that is okay with members opposite.

Thank you very much for your attendance, and I appreciate your effort.

CHAIR: Thank you.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

MR. SKINNER: If it would be okay with the Committee members, maybe we

could look at the Workplace Health and Safety Compensation Commission, and look

at trying to do something there.

CHAIR: Where we are finished with the Estimates for the Newfoundland and

Labrador Housing Corporation, we are going to call those first. So we will just

take a minute.

CLERK (Ms Murphy): Subheads 1.1.01. to 1.1.02.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01. and 1.1.02. carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those contra-minded, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01. through 1.1.02. carried.

MR. SKINNER: The information that you asked for, Ms Michael, on Grants

and Subsidies, hopefully we will have that in the morning. I will just get that

forwarded through the Committee Chair to you and to the other members of the

Committee.

CLERK: Subhead (inaudible).

CHAIR: Shall the total carry?

CLERK: I am sorry, I though you were starting the other heads.

Okay, yes, the total.

CHAIR: Okay, call that?

CLERK: Yes, the total.

CHAIR: Shall the total carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those contra-minded, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, total heads,

carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates of the Newfoundland and Labrador

Housing Corporation carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those contra-minded, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Estimates of the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation

carried without amendment.

CHAIR: We are going to move now to the Workplace Health, Safety and

Compensation Commission.

MR. BUTLER: I was going to give out the number but they are all the same

anyway - there is only one - 8.1.01., Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation

Review.

MR. SKINNER: Go ahead, sorry.

MR. BUTLER: My mike (inaudible).

CHAIR: Okay.

MR. BUTLER: Okay, thank you.

Under 8.1.01., there will just be a couple or three questions here on the

one-liners. I notice there is an increase in Salaries for this year, and I was

just wondering if the minister could give an explanation there.

Last year it was $321,000 and the revised was $317,000; this year it is

$456,000.

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

Again, I will give you an explanation, Mr. Butler, and then I will refer to

staff. I find that sometimes they can fill in the gaps. So, if you don't mind,

I will do that again this time.

MR. BUTLER: Not a problem.

OFFICIAL: That is the Review Division, is it?

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

Are you referring to 8.1.01., the heading?

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: Just for clarification, we are referring to, then, the

Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Review Division as opposed to the

Compensation Commission by itself. All right, I just wanted to make the point.

MR. BUTLER: Is there a

section there for compensation as well?

MR. SKINNER: No, in the Budget Estimates it is under the Review Division.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

MR. SKINNER: In terms of Salaries, just to answer your question there,

there were two things that impacted. One was the savings, as you indicated; that

was just basically a vacancy we had for a short period of time where we did not

fill that position. Then the increase into 2008-2009 Estimates up to $456,000,

there are three new positions that we have identified as being needed to be

filled. Two of those are client service officers: one to work with injured

workers and one to work with the employer community. The third position is a

senior policy research analyst that we have at the Commission as well. That

increase in Salaries is related to those three positions.

MR. BUTLER: The review commissioners themselves, they are included in

that, are they?

MR. SKINNER: No.

This is specifically the review division itself as opposed to the Commission,

is that correct?

OFFICIAL: In my understanding.

MR. SKINNER: Yes, my understanding is that this is the review division.

These budget items here in

section 08. are specifically related to the

Compensation Review Division versus the Commission. They are two separate

entities, the review division being Mr. Lundrigan's area.

MR. BUTLER: Yes, and that is what I meant.

MR. SKINNER: Okay.

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Lundrigan is one of the review commissioners.

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

MR. BUTLER: The chief review commissioner, or whatever the title.

MR. SKINNER: Correct.

MR. BUTLER: I know there was an announcement made recently that there

were three or four new appointments, and what have you. I was wondering, is that

included in that salary number that is there?

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Fowler can answer that.

MR. FOWLER: The Salaries are for the administrator, clerks, and the staff

of the review division, not for the review commissioners or the chief review

commissioner. That is just the funding for the people who work in the office in

the review division, correct, yes.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Maybe this is an improper question. The review commissioners themselves, they

would be made through the Commission, or where would they be noted?

MR. FOWLER: Professional Services, Sir.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

MR. FOWLER: My understanding is the category, being 05., their pay would

come under that category, Professional Services.

MR. SKINNER: Just a bit further down the line.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

That is what that one is for, because that was my next question. I notice

there was $410,000 last year and it was revised to $180,000, and I was going to

ask what the reason was there.

MR. SKINNER: There are two things there in terms of Professional

Services. Number one is, in terms of Mr. Lundrigan and the other commissioners,

there has been a declining trend in the number of cases that they have been

hearing, so the number of appeals that they have been hearing has been

declining. That in itself has led to some of that. The majority of that was

related to, there was a Web-based design computer system that was going to be

implemented and it was delayed in being implemented last year. The amount was

approximately - just to give you an idea, $230,000 in savings is recognized from

the Web-based design system being delayed and the drop in the caseload.

I don't know if anyone might be able to tell me the trend on the caseload.

Mr. Bartlett? Eric?

MR. BARTLETT: (Inaudible).

MR. FOWLER: Thank you.

The caseload back in about 2004 was up around 530. For the last two or three

years it has dropped down to about 350, and the trend has been that for two

years and they anticipate it will stay at about 350 this year. So, what they

believe will happen is, there will be about a $90,000 reduction in professional

services due to the drop in the caseload, and there are a number of reasons for

that, obviously.

Work that is being done at the Commission is affecting it, and Early and Safe

Return to Work programs are affecting it. The other saving is in, as the

minister said, the application of the Web project which has been delayed, as

they work through working with OCIO to get it put in place correctly.

MR. BUTLER: So the $180,500 is the actual wages and other entities, I

guess, in relation to the review commissioners themselves,

whereas I thought it

was listed up in the Salaries up top.

MR. FOWLER: Yes, you are right, $180,000.

MR. BUTLER: Under 02., Revenue-Provincial, on the bottom, I know it was

budgeted at $905,000 but there was almost $1.5 million there. I was wondering

what the increase was there.

MR. FOWLER: That is what I understand to be an accounting practice

situation, where the money that is funded back in from the Workplace Health and

Safety Commission obviously comes in a year late, I should say, if that is the

easy way to explain it, so that is where you see it being an accounting function

with respect to how it is recorded. That is why you see the money being larger

now because of the recording practice.

MR. SKINNER: Basically, Mr. Butler, as I understand it, the issue is

simply one of timing. The money does not actually arrive until the 2008-2009

budget year; so, although it is intended to pay for the services or whatever,

that have been provided in the previous year, it actually doesn't arrive until

the next budget year. Therefore, that is why that has been shown like that.

MR. BUTLER: So, where this is under just the Workplace Health, Safety and

Compensation Review Division, you do have people here who can answer a question

if you have one on the workers' compensation itself?

MR. SKINNER: Yes, Sir.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

It is timely to do it now under this one, I guess.

MR. SKINNER: Oh, yes, by all means.

MR. BUTLER: I only have a couple of questions anyway.

MR. SKINNER: Yes, by all means.

MR. BUTLER: I know there was an officer put in place, I will say some

time ago, and there was a client services report. I was just wondering, will

that report be made public? If so, when do you anticipate that happening?

MR. SKINNER: The report that you refer to was actually a report that was

commissioned by, or requested by, the board of directors of the Workplace Health

and Safety Compensation Commission and, as I understand it, it had to do with

analyzing, reviewing, the client services that were being offered by the

Commission, and whether or not a dedicated client service officer was needed.

There was a determination that there was, in fact, a dedicated officer

position needed, and they put a pilot project in place for, I believe, about six

months. I am not sure of the exact time frame, but around six months. They then

evaluated that client service officer position over the six-month period to see

if, in fact, they felt it was something that should be done on a long-term

basis; and, in fact, they agreed that it should be and they put funding in place

to make that a permanent position.

In terms of the report being released and stuff, that is in the hands of the

board of directors of the Commission and I guess it will be up to them whether

or not they want to release it. It is an internal report for them; it is not a

government report. It is not something I have seen or read. It is not something

that we as a government commissioned, or I as minister commissioned.

I don't know if I can turn it back - I don't know if any of you gentlemen

can add to that?

Eric?

MR. BARTLETT: That is correct, Minister, it was an internal report that

was done for the board of directors in an evaluation of the office. That is

still under active consideration and is going to the board next month. The final

report is going to the board next month.

MR. BUTLER: The other question I have, and I hope I am going to say this

correctly - if I am wrong, I don't mind being corrected - we have had meetings

with various individuals and groups outside who sometimes come forward with

concerns about the Commission and so on. I understand that there is funding, and

I don't know how it is allocated and that is not my question, but for the

employers to have a rep involved with what is going on within the Commission,

and then the unions, apparently they are asking for a rep to represent the

employees themselves.

Maybe I am saying this wrong, but if it is correct what I am saying, are

there any plans in the future that there would be someone considered like the

other two?

MR. SKINNER: I would have to be honest and say to you, Mr. Butler, I am

not aware of what you have raised. That doesn't mean it is not out there, so I

am going to turn to the people behind me and see if they might shed some light

on it.

MR. BUTLER: I could be wrong.

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Mahoney will answer.

MR. MAHONEY: Mr. Butler, for clarification, may you be referring to the

worker advisors and the employer advisors?

MR. BUTLER: That is it.

MR. MAHONEY: To explain that, on behalf of the minister, we do have a

contract in place. One is actually signed and in place now with the Federation

of Labour where we do have two worker advisors: one in St. John's and one

housed in Grand Falls.

The Employers' Council also houses the office of the employer advisors, who

also provide employer-related advice to employers who have issues with claims at

the Commission, or with the policies and procedures at the Commission.

One contract is in place; the other contract should be in place by the end of

the week.

MR. BUTLER: Very good.

My last question, I guess, goes to the reports that were tabled here in the

House only recently: the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Review

Division, the annual reports for 2006 and 2007.

I guess the figures - and I noted them sometimes when you were making

comments in the House - to me, they were startling figures. In 2006 there were

327 cases that were heard and 161 of them were allowed, for 49 per cent, when

they went before the commissioners, and 39 or 12 per cent were referred back to

the Commission again, which left 39 per cent that were upheld, we will say, with

the decisions that were made by the Commission; 61 per cent of them were either

overturned or referred back.

In 2007, the figure has gone up to 65 per cent. Out of 308 cases, 147 were

allowed, 52 referred back, and 109 were denied.

I get involved in a lot of those cases on behalf of clients, and I am not

saying the people who go with the clients are all that professional and that is

why they are overturning them. I was just wondering, it seems like it is an

awful high figure once the Commission makes their decision - and I am not

doubting the Commission; they have their rules and guidelines to go by, by their

medical staff and their case managers or what have you - but when they go before

the review commissioners, to see that 61 per cent and 65 per cent of them are

overturned, I was just wondering, is that something that is being looked at? I

am not saying that something has gone wrong at the Commission, but the figures

seem to be awful high when you go before a review board and they are overturned

by that percentage.

MR. SKINNER: Well, in fairness, Mr. Butler, I would share some of your

sentiments on that in terms of the high percentage of cases that are being

overturned. I think it points to the need of the policies of the Commission

being reviewed more frequently than what the statutory review process currently

allows, which is every five years. There is a major sort of review and a major

overhaul done of the Commission every five years and that, I think, is part of

the problem. It is inherent in the fact that within that five-year window

changes need to be made that are not always made because the statutory review

has not been done. I am suggesting, as minister, that we need to look at that

process more frequently now, and I have addressed that with the Commission and

with the employer and worker representatives.

Also, as well, different review commissioners bring different perspectives to

things, and sometimes their adjudication of the cases, I believe, needs to be

fed back into the Commission's evaluation of the cases in the first place. I

have had discussions with the Commission staff about that, so we now have review

commissioners who have indicated to us by the rulings that some of the

interpretations that the Commission have made are not acceptable, for lack of a

better word, are not appropriate, so we need to now go back and change our

evaluations and our processes in terms of how we are dealing with people on

appeals that they are making to us.

I think you will see some more balance start to come to those numbers. I

would hope to be able to show you more balance to that next year, for instance,

but we are aware of an imbalance and we do believe there are things we can be

doing to change that.

That is from my perspective, as minister, and I will just again turn to the

staff who may want to expand a little bit on that for you.

MR. MAHONEY: As Executive Director of Worker Services, I want to confirm

the direction that the minister has provided to the Commission, and again what

we are talking about is consistency in the application of the Commission's

policies.

The statutory recommendations have come forward that we do more work with the

case managers to which you have referred, that we have new protocols we are

working on now for enhanced training on medical evidentiary issues.

Where we are in a quasi-judicial environment, the case managers who mostly

have a social work or psychology background are being tasked with weighing

evidence in a quasi-judicial way. What we are doing is, we are doing more

training on the weighing of evidence, taking in both the employer and the labour

perspective. We are also looking at issues that go beyond the physical for

individual workers, and also trying to balance those with the concerns of

employers in this particular environment, given our assessment rates are some of

the highest in the country and also that we are trying to target claim duration.

What we are doing to target the rates of those decisions that are being

overturned is to do a better job of the decisions as they come out of the

Commission, and putting in place a quality assurance function in the teams to

make sure that we have more consistency in the application of those, which

hopefully can address the concerns raised.

MR. BUTLER: Just to elaborate a little on that, and that is good to know,

that something is being done there, there are lots of cases, I know, that go

before the Commission that are not as legitimate as other cases. We all know

that. Unfortunately, I guess, that is the lifestyle we live in these days, but

when you know someone is very legitimate and you can see the medical

documentation in the file, sometimes you just wonder how it could go off the

rails.

I have one individual now I won't give any names or anything - he has

been to the review commission, two different review commissioners, three

different occasions, won his cases three times with the review commissioners,

and has been turned down by the Commission. Now, this month I shouldn't

say this month because the date has not been set, but pretty soon - he is going

back for the fourth time. It is a very legitimate case; but, then again, I guess

that is the way it works.

It is good to hear that it is being looked at in that light, because those

figures, I couldn't believe them when I saw those reports come out.

MR. SKINNER: There are significant frustrations within the current

environment in which we operate, and I believe the Commission staff, as well as

the people that you and I have represented as MHAs, would speak to it.

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: I can tell you that, with myself and the other senior

executive team, we have tried to bring, as Mr. Mahoney said, some balance back

into that and try and be a little bit more flexible and a little bit more

realistic, relative to some of the rulings that have been coming out, to ensure

we don't put people through that level of anguish that some of them have gone

through.

I have to be up front and say to you that this will take time. I wouldn't

want you to walk away from here tonight thinking that we are going to have big

changes tomorrow.

MR. BUTLER: I understand that.

MR. SKINNER: We are in a process that we are trying to change the

direction but it will take some time, I do believe. We are trying to get there.

MR. BUTLER: We all know that the Commission is trying to get people to go

back to work, a safe return to work, and that is understandable. It is 100 per

cent funded, I understand, by the employers of the Province. They have their

perspective as well, but it is good to know that.

I thank you for that answer.

MR. SKINNER: Thank you.

MR. BUTLER: That's it for me, sir.

CHAIR: Okay.

Ms Michael?

MS MICHAEL: Well, I have hardly anything to say or ask now, but I will

just come back to the appeals issue. I think when you talked about hopefully

working toward a balance, I think the balance should be having fewer and fewer

appeals because things are working out in the Commission and we do not have to

have as many appeals.

I cannot give you the number, but I know that my constituency assistant has

dealt with a number of cases since I came in, in November of 2006, and she has

won every appeal. I felt certain when I read the case and talked about it with

her, that she would, simply because I could see the loopholes. So, that is very

disturbing. That is something, like Roland said, people who have been through

two and three years of anguish.

I am really glad to hear that you are pushing this, as minister, and that the

Commission sees the need, because it is very disturbing when you see somebody

who has been injured, who has a legitimate case, and the majority do - that is

the issue, the majority do - and then they end up in two and three or more years

of anguish and not getting covered. It is not acceptable. I accept it will not

happen overnight, but I am glad to hear that you are going to start taking real

steps on this one because I think it is need.

MR. SKINNER: We will.

MS MICHAEL: I really have nothing else new to ask or say.

MR. SKINNER: Okay. All right.

Just by way of responding to what yourself and Mr. Butler have raised, I do

want to stress to you that the staff at the Commission - there is a fair bit of

corporate knowledge there and they have indicated to me - and I have supported

some of the thoughts and ideas that they have brought forward, as well as put

some of my own thoughts and ideas forward as an MHA, sharing the roles that we

share relative to representing our constituents, and the Commission is working

hard on this. I do want to stress that to you.

There is a real commitment to trying to be better service oriented, not have

people go through the anguish, as you have said, try to deal with them on the

first or second step and not have them go through ten steps, because people are

traumatized enough when they have a workplace injury and they are dealing with

loss of income and so on, that the last thing they want to be doing is fighting

with somebody to get what they feel is an entitlement that they should have.

So, that human face we see is one that we are trying to respond to in an

appropriate fashion and the Commission is working with me on that.

MS MICHAEL: Just one thought, just to add to that. I do not know how it

is working inside the Commission but we all know, it is part of human nature,

that if somebody is dealing with an individual and they get off on the wrong

foot for some reason with an individual in a power relationship, because it is a

power relationship, then the person without power can end up just suffering from

that.

Whereas a fresh person coming in, using a team approach so that more than

one person is dealing with a case, I think - I see Tom nodding up there - that

that is one way to deal with that.

That would go for people on Income Support as well. In health, you know so

many areas where that should be the case. So, it looks like that is probably an

approach you are looking at, or one of the approaches.

Thank you.

MR. SKINNER: Thank you.

CHAIR: Any further questions from the committee?

MR. BUTLER: (Inaudible) meetings that I had, it was the Canadian

Federation of Independent Businesses. I know one of the issues they were putting

forward, and probably it has been dealt with, is wondering if the payments could

be - I am calling it payments. It could be -

MR. SKINNER: The assessments.

MR. BUTLER: - assessments could be on a monthly basis versus, I think, at

the beginning of the year or at the end? I was just wondering, has that been

considered? That's all.

MR. SKINNER: I will just give you my thoughts on that and then again, for

clarification I will refer to the staff.

I have spoken to Mr. George at the Canadian Federation of Independent

Businesses about this and he has raised that issue with me. I have spoken to our

new executive director about that, our new CEO about that issue, and I have a

meeting scheduled to review that with her in terms of seeing whether or not we

can comply or work with what the CFIB has proposed. I do understand, and I will

look to staff for better clarification of this, that we do have alternatives and

various times when people can pay their assessments. That may not be exactly as

the CFIB want but are not as onerous as somebody having to pay everything

upfront.

I will just ask the staff to respond to that, but I will conclude my remarks,

Mr. Butler, by saying to you it is on my agenda and in the next week or two I

expect I will have a meeting with the CEO about that.

Mr. Bartlett.

MR. BARTLETT: Thank you, minister.

Yes, with that matter about payments of the employer assessment, particularly

small and medium-sized businesses, has been an issue raised with the CFIB, both

in terms of the reporting of their payroll and the payment. We have committed,

as part of our work plan this year, to consult with stakeholders on this

particular issue. In the interim, what we have done, as the minister I think

alluded to, is that we have - all employers right now, they have a report on an

annual basis, give their estimate up-front by, I think it is March 31, and then

pay their assessments in a lump sum. What we did, if they do not pay within

thirty days, they get charged interest. What we did - I think it was a couple of

years ago - to I guess provide more flexibility around this particular reporting

process and to alleviate some of the financial demands on a small, medium-sized

business, we implemented a process where they could pay their assessment. Even

though they had to report in a lump sum, they could pay that assessment over a

period, I think from April to October interest free. So they could sort of

divide up the annual assessment and pay it that way. Unfortunately, we do not

have a lot of uptake on that. Nevertheless, it is an issue that is there that we

are hoping to address but we have taken some interim steps to alleviate the

problem in the interim.

MR. SKINNER: As a former small business owner, Mr. Butler, I have great

sympathy for the point brought forward by Mr. George and we will be trying to do

something about it, yes.

MR. BUTLER: Okay. Yes, sir.

CLERK: 1.1.01. to 8.1.01. inclusive.

CHAIR: 1.1.01. to -

MR. SKINNER: No, we only dealt with

section eight, we did not deal with

the beginning.

CHAIR: Oh, no. It is just page 223, the review division.

CLERK: Okay, 8.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall 8.1.01. carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded.

Carried.

On motion, subhead 8.1.01. carried.

CHAIR: The next heading, is it just Human Resources, Labour and

Employment together?

MR. SKINNER: We are going to go to Labour Relations now, if I could.

CHAIR: I guess we will move to the Labour Relations Agency.

Ms Michael, did you want to go first this time?

MS MICHAEL: No, actually I would prefer not to.

CHAIR: Okay.

Mr. Butler.

MR. BUTLER: Now, where are we?

MR. SKINNER: Tab 7.

MR. BUTLER: 7.1.01., isn't it?

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

7.1.03., I think that is the one. I wonder, for clarification, the amount in

the detailed salary estimates - which is found on page 165, I think it is -

shows $1,121,320 as a total for Salaries,

whereas in the departmental estimates

it shows $1,040,700. I was just wondering what the difference is? Maybe there is

something I am not looking at there properly

MR. SKINNER: No, I am going to toss this one, if I could, to Ms Tubrett

who is going to fill us in on this.

MS TUBRETT: I do not have the salary details in front of me but I can -

and I do not know the actual numbers, but I think the difference relates to the

fact that in the salary details, the number you are looking at would be the

permanent salary dollars and what you are looking at here is the total salary

dollars for this particular activity, which would comprise the permanent plus

the temporary.

MR. BUTLER: Okay, yes.

7.1.04., the Fish Price Setting Panel.

MR. SKINNER: Okay.

MR. BUTLER: I have a question on 7.1.04.03. It showed a budget of

$30,000. I guess there was no travel, there is no figure there, but that is what

it is, I guess, isn't it?

MR. SKINNER: That is exactly what it is.

MR. BUTLER: I just wondered if it was a typo or - okay, there was no

travel at all.

7.1.05., there is an increase in Salaries this year. I was wondering if you

could give an explanation on that. It was $441,000 last year and this year it is

$547,000. Is that probably increases in

MR. SKINNER: The increase there is basically related to - the Labour

Relations Board has three new statutes that have been added to it in terms of

decision making, arbitration making process. They have added to them the House

of Assembly, the whistleblower legislation and the smoke-free legislation. That

is three new statutes. I believe nine in total now - nine in total, if memory

serves me correctly. The salary is related to two positions that have been

created because of the added statutes and the anticipated added workload. One is

a deputy CEO position, and the other one is a secretary to the chairperson

position. So, that salary increase that you see is reflective of the two new

bodies being assigned to the office, being hired in the office.

MR. BUTLER: Okay. Under the same heading, 03.Transportation and

Communications, budgeted $29,200 but it went to $44,600. I guess it is like the

other one, there was no travel; this one I guess was more.

MR. SKINNER: Yes, you are correct; there was more travel in this

particular case. As well, and I will look for some clarification, but I believe

there is a legislative requirement that some of the applications for

certification have a vote done on site, wherever that site happens to be, and

therefore the board members would have to travel to those sites. If there is a

business or something that is looking to be unionized, the board members would

have to travel there to do the certification vote. So, there was a bit more

travel last year; that is simply what it consists of.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Just a couple of other questions outside of the one-liners, and this is just

a general question, it might not have anything to do with you people at all. I

know you are involved with Labour Relations and so on, and I know in Come By

Chance there is a union, I think - what they call in-house union or something; I

think that is what I was told, steelworkers or whatever. Would anything like

that come to you people, the Labour Relations, where there is a possibility of

150 being laid off out there and the work being contracted out? Does something

like that come forward?

MR. SKINNER: The only time - again, I will defer it to the man who has

thirty-plus years experience, but the only time that we would get involved as a

Department of Labour in issues like that would be if in fact there was a strike

or a lockout or a collective agreement type issue where they are trying to

negotiate a new collective agreement.

As I understand the particular situation in Come By Chance, it is just a

matter of recall. They looking to take people back, and this year at this

particular time when people normally got recalled back, they have had a change

in their business process where they are not going to be having these people

come in for a period of five or six months to go to work. They are going to

contract it out. As I understand it - again, there was nothing, no grievance

through the collective agreement for that. The union really, I will not say does

not have problem with it, but there is nothing in the collective agreement that

they can take issue with. Therefore, on that particular case, we really would

not be called in to do anything.

Again, I will defer to Mr. Fowler maybe to add some more content to that for

you.

MR. FOWLER: Thank you.

They have a collective agreement, Mr. Butler. It is obviously in place. It is

fair to say, with respect to the refinery and the steelworkers' union, they

have worked with the agency and the agency has worked with them for a lot of

years. They are well versed in the assistance that the minister can provide in

all areas.

I think the steelworker business manager, Mr. Bussey, put it plainly when he

said they will deal with the issue that is before them through the collective

agreement that they have signed with the employer which is the correct way

to deal with it but they also recognize that the individuals may very well

want to state their case on the road, to emphasize where they come from; but

without a doubt, as the minister said, the collective agreement covers them but

the Steelworkers Union and the refinery know exactly everything that we have to

offer.

We also have an officer dealing with them right now on other collective

agreements they are negotiating, so that issue of contracting out may very well

come up there as well.

MR. BUTLER: Very good.

There was another issue that came up in my district, with one of the

businesses out there, and they were locked out over an issue. They were in

dispute with the [Mr. Butler coughs]. Excuse me; that is the candy they gave

me over across the way. I knew they wanted to go home early.

I will start again. I am sorry about that.

I won't use the company name, but there were so many workers out there

I think the company is owned by someone on the mainland - and there was an issue

that came up with the employer, and they all signed a letter asking if they

could look into the situation, and apparently they were all fired, or whatever

you want to call it.

The question I have is not in regard to the situation and what went on there.

I called into, I guess, labour I forget who I spoke with even, and I wouldn't

use the name here if I did and they mentioned to me, unfortunately, when

there is non-union workers there is very little there and there is nothing in

the system, more or less, to stand up and fight for them that way.

I was just wondering - with your thirty years experience you will know where

I am coming from, for sure - are there any plans, or can it be put in place

through Labour Relations, that something like that can be there to assist this

group, at least to hear their story? Do you know what I am saying?

Maybe I am not making myself clear on the issue. You know the situation I am

talking about, anyway.

MR. SKINNER: I do, indeed. I know the store and I know what you are

referring to. You are correct; it was an employment situation where there was no

collective agreement in place. Therefore, when there is no collective agreement,

the minimum labour standards under the Labour Standards Act would apply, and we

would ensure, as an agency, that the minimum standards in this Province would

apply relative to severance and notice and whatever else needed to be given. If

any individual who was employed there had any issue with that, they could

certainly contact the office and we would ensure that they got what they were

entitled to, relative to the minimum standards; but, again, the Labour Standards

Act is minimum standards and it does not offer a whole lot.

We are, as you are probably aware, undertaking a review of labour standards

in this Province. I won't say to you that, that is specifically on the agenda.

To be honest with you I don't know the items on the agenda. That is being

handled by the officials and the Strategic Partnership Initiative and so on, but

there is a review of labour standards ongoing and I will ask maybe Mr. Fowler to

just give us an update of some of the issues, because what we have tried to do

is have the union and employer representatives identify the issues that they

want to deal with as opposed to us telling them what they are going to be

dealing with.

MR. FOWLER: As the minister said, it does come under the labour standards

area, what you are talking about, not labour relations, which is the non-union,

no collective agreement in place, strategic partnership, which is business,

labour and government, which have been dealing with the labour relations side of

things. We are currently in a process of reviewing our labour relations

legislation, but our labour standards, which is obviously a part of what we do,

is also envisaged to be looked at as well. I think the last time anybody looked

at labour standards in this area was 2001, Mr. Butler, when there was a report

came out with respect to various areas and what can or cannot be done.

Needless to say, there are different points of view from employers and from

workers with respect to what needs to be in place from a labour relations

perspective, and even more different points of view of what needs to be in place

from a non-union perspective. We are always attempting, either from the agency

and the minister's portfolio, to look at labour standards and labour relations

and keep it modernized, and strategic partnership is one of the areas that we

have agreed, because it is a partnership of business, labour and government,

that is the correct way, avenue, to look at labour relations in a tripartite

situation. We have had a fair amount of success already, and we hope that some

of those areas that you are talking about will be dealt with in that area.

CHAIR: Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: (Inaudible) jump into this discussion, because it is a bit

like a discussion. This is an ongoing issue. This has been around for a long

time, the issue of non-unionized workers. They have fear of reporting, because

usually the workplaces are so small that they know they will be known.

A few individuals over, say, the past two years, that I have dealt with on

this are home care workers who are working with private agencies that really do

not live up to labour standards - they really don't - so what happens is the

worker is more inclined to walk away and either find another agency or just

start doing home care as an individual outside of an agency rather than become

known by the agency as somebody who reported them to Labour Relations.

I don't know if anybody, any jurisdiction in this country, has real

protection for the worker who is non-unionized and goes to Labour Relations to

report an employer. I don't know if either one of you has an answer to that,

but I don't.

MR. SKINNER: I guess, just as a part of adding to the discussion, Ms

Michael, if there are employers out there who are going to be rotten employers,

for lack of a better term, then they are the same as rotten employees; they will

find a way to get by with what they do and how they do it.

My experience has been, in my twenty-two years of being an employer, an

employee, that people will reach a point where they will feel that is enough and

they have to make a stand, so to speak. That does happen from time to time, and

we do get information like that, but I would suggest to you that, no matter what

level of protection one builds in, there will be somebody who will find a way

around that, or try to do something to find a way around that.

I think as long as we are working with the Strategic Partnership Initiative

we can advance it forward. I don't know if we will ever stop having to advance

it, I guess, is the challenge.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: I think we need to be cognizant - at least I feel, as

minister, the responsibility to be cognizant - of keep moving it forward and don't

sort of sit and say, okay, we have reached where we need to reach.

I don't think we will ever be there; I just think we need to keep pushing

it, and that is what we are.

MS MICHAEL: All right.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Are there any more questions on the Labour Relations Agency?

CLERK: Subheads 7.1.01. to 7.1.05.

CHAIR: Shall 7.1.01. to 7.1.05. carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those contra-minded, nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 7.1.01. through 7.1.05. carried.

CHAIR: Okay, Minister, the next heading.

MR. SKINNER: The next one would be - do you want to go into departmental

stuff at this point? That is the last one that we have basically to do.

CHAIR: Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: I will start with the easy stuff. I will do some line by

lines.

Under 1.1.01.06., Purchased Services, I consistently ask this question and

the answer is generally the same, but I will ask it anyway. Under 06. you seem

to maintain a base of $7,000 for Purchased Services. Is that correct? You had

$7,000 in the budget in 2007-2008, revised to $1,500, and $7,000 again as the

estimate for this year.

MR. SKINNER: The short answer, Ms Michael, is yes, but I have to be

honest and say to you, I take what I am given. Maybe I can ask the people to the

left of me to tell me why I am given it.

Denise, would you like to maybe help with that?

MS MICHAEL: What would the purchased services be in the minister's

office? What would that $1,500 be, for example?

MS TUBRETT: That could be pens, paper

MS MICHAEL: Purchased Services?

MS TUBRETT: printing, printing services.

MS MICHAEL: Printing? Okay, printing I can see.

Thank you.

Pens would be supplies, though, wouldn't they?

MS TUBRETT: Oh, sorry, yes. That is correct.

I had one in my hand, so I looked down.

MS MICHAEL: Printing services, okay, yes.

MR. SKINNER: What about the amount of $7,000?

MS TUBRETT: That has just been the base budget year over year, and we

tend to keep it consistent. Different ministers have different spending

patterns.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you.

AN HON. MEMBER: I am sure they do.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

Under 1.2.01., Transportation and Communications, the revision for 2007-2008

was significant, from $45,000 up to $73,200. Did you have a particular reason

why last year you had that extra amount in Transportation and Communications?

What was it for, which side of that subhead?

MR. SKINNER: It just took me a second, Ms Michael, to find the amount; I

just want to be sure I have the right one. It is the $45,000 to the $73,200?

MS MICHAEL: That is right, yes.

MR. SKINNER: Okay, yes.

Basically, as you are aware, we are involved in negotiations with the federal

government in terms of the devolution agreement on the Labour Market Development

Agreements, and part of the increase has been sending our negotiating team to

meetings with our federal counterparts.

Also, as well - and I can get more detail from one of the executive here if

you want something more on that besides the LMD devolution, one of the

commitments that we made as a minister and senior executive team last year, when

I became minister, was to have an increased presence of our executive in the

regions so that we could get out into the regions and see the environments and

talk to the staff and get a sense I wanted a sense, as minister, of how

things were going.

Myself and a lot of the senior executive that you would see here spent a fair

amount of time in the regions last year, travelling out, going to the offices,

talking to the staff, and a number of initiatives came from that.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. SKINNER: That is why the travel numbers are up.

If you want any detail, I can certainly provide more to you.

MS MICHAEL: No, no, that is fine; and, of course, that process is over

now so you won't have the travel for negotiations that you had.

MR. SKINNER: Almost over.

MS MICHAEL: Almost over?

MR. SKINNER: Not quite there. Mr. Penney might be able to provide some

guidance to us on that, but we are not quite there.

MS MICHAEL: I would interested in knowing about that, but we might wait

until we get to that head

MR. SKINNER: Sure, that is fine.

MS MICHAEL: and we will talk about it, because I would like to know

how that is going.

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Penney understands why I am interested in that, as do a

couple of others of you over there.

Under 1.2.02., once again 03., Transportation and Communications,

interestingly here, for different reasons, one would imagine, the budget was

revised down -

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: $266,800 down to $180,500, and then this year back up to,

I guess, what the budget probably usually is.

Why did that take such a dip last year?

MR. SKINNER: In last year's budget there was an expectation that,

because of the new Low Income Drug Program, there would be significant numbers

of appeals of individuals who felt they should qualify for that, who may not be

given the benefit, and because we had an appeal infrastructure within the

department we were tasked by government to deal with the appeals, rather than

the Department of Health. So we had to put in a notional amount based upon what

we expected to happen, and there were less appeals of the low income drug card

than what we expected, and there is also an indication here that there was less

travel by Finance.

I am not sure if you might be able to help me with why that would be, Denise.

MS TUBRETT: In the Finance Division there is an Internal Audit Division,

and the Internal Audit Division was not operational in 2007-2008, so most of the

travel dollars would be spent by that division, so now they are up and running,

it is fully staffed, so we anticipate that this year, 2008-2009, the travel will

increase.

MS MICHAEL: And that is why you have gone up to $228,300.

MS TUBRETT: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you.

Under subhead 06.Purchased Services, you are going up - well, not a million,

less than a million but still maybe about three-quarters of a million in

2008-2009 from where you have been. Why is it so much? What are you anticipating

in this year?

MR. SKINNER: The decrease from the Budget to the Revised has to do with -

first of all, we were going to be opening up a new office in Grand Falls where

we were putting a Career Information Resource Centre and that was delayed

because the tender we did, we ended up having somebody win the tender who had to

construct the building. So there was a delay in that process happening. That is

why the costs were a little bit less.

In terms of the significant increase in the cost, we will be opening up six

more offices, career work centres across the Province this year as our

expectation. Those career work centres are additional space on top of the

offices we have, additional resources and infrastructure and so on. So there

would be an increase in cost because of that.

Is that okay? Am I missing anything else?

MS TUBRETT: (Inaudible).

MR. SKINNER: Okay. I will ask Denise again if she will just add a little

bit more to that for us.

MS MICHAEL: Sure.

MS TUBRETT: It is a little bit more than the CIRCs, yes. In fact, the

CIRCs is putting pressure on our budget and increasing the total space that we

require but also our leases are up in certain locations and when we go to tender

the rates can come in higher than what they would have in the past. So, we have

a number of sites this year that we anticipate that we will have to re-tender.

MS MICHAEL: Right. Thank you.

1.2.03., a number of these have gone up, beginning with - I will not question

Salaries. It looks like you are probably getting one - oh no, it is a bit. Maybe

you could explain Salaries to me. So, 01. first.

MR. SKINNER: Again, the significant amount of that increase in salary is

again related to the LMDA devolution discussions, and we actually had to put a

formal negotiating team together which consisted of four or five people. We had

to have legal opinion; we had to have analysts, support staff, etcetera, to do

that negotiation. So, that is where a significant portion of that will come

from.

There is also other amounts related to - I am just looking to make sure I

have my numbers correct here. We are going to be, as a part of this year's

budget, the Opportunities Newfoundland and Labrador campaign where we are going

to be doing a registry, an international registry, a youth retention strategy,

an awareness campaign. We are putting more money into our labour market

information, labour market partnership, and the office of disabilities. We will

have staff hired for the office of disabilities, that will go there. We managed

to get some support for Aisling in Poverty Reduction. So, there is a position in

Poverty Reduction, things like that.

They are basically new positions in those areas. Again, depending on how much

detail you want to get into, I could provide you with more specifics but that is

where it is coming from.

MS MICHAEL: No, that is fine.

I will assume then that 03., Transportation and Communications, the reason

for that going up significantly would be because of the new work around the LMDA,

because the Transportation and Communications has gone up by over $100,000.

MR. SKINNER: Yes. The increase from $216,000 to $342,000 - to speak to

the increase - some of that is going to come from the Poverty Reduction

roundtable Strategy that we have to do. We have to go out and do the

consultation piece in year two. So some of that transportation budget will be

utilized there.

There are some other Poverty Reduction Strategy initiatives that have some

increased costs related to it, and the Opportunities Newfoundland and Labrador

piece that we are doing will have some costs related to transportation as well.

So it is not related specifically to the LMDA -

MS MICHAEL: LMDA, Poverty Reduction.

MR. SKINNER: - it is related to some of the other initiatives that we are

doing within the department.

MS MICHAEL: Right. Thank you.

05., Professional Services. Now this is significant, because it is basically

a $2 million increase.

MR. SKINNER: Again, I will give you a list. I will read out to you to

give you a sense or a flavour of where this is coming from.

The Opportunities Newfoundland and Labrador Initiative that we announced in

the Budget - as I said, there is an awareness campaign that we will be doing.

The international registry that I referred to is going to have some costs

associated with that, related to Professional Services. The youth retention

strategy, there will be youth retention consultations that will be done. A

significant piece of this work will be the youth retention awareness and

retention strategy that we will be doing.

There was an announcement in the Budget for the Poverty Reduction Strategy to

do a transportation study relative to the poverty reduction piece. That is in

there.

MS MICHAEL: Could you talk a bit about that? I actually do not remember

that.

MR. SKINNER: Yes. I will just ask Aisling, if you do not mind. She knows

it a little bit deeper than I do and she can give you the details.

MS GOGAN: We keeping hearing about transportation issues and so many

other issues relating to poverty. Transportation is connected to them,

particularly in rural areas but not only. So, in terms of looking at a solution,

we have had a number of interdepartmental meetings and talked to a number of

community people about it and really there is no obvious, easy solution. This is

$100,000 to really take a look at the problem and find some real solutions

because when we look, government already spends a large amount of money on

transportation when you look at school buses and the amount spent for medical

transportation, for other types of transportation, for Income Support clients,

that we feel perhaps we could be making a better use of existing resources, as

well as coming up with some creative solutions that we have seen in other

jurisdictions. So, it is an opportunity to look at the issue and find some real

solutions.

MS MICHAEL: Is there any discussion going on with Municipal Affairs? That

was one of the issues I raised this morning with Municipal Affairs, was the

whole issue of - because we have such a lack of public transportation in the

Province and the implications of that.

MS GOGAN: This work has not actually started yet, but certainly they are

going to be involved as we carry out that work.

MS MICHAEL: Good. It is nice to see this.

I stopped you in midstream there, minister. You are doing your listing.

MR. SKINNER: No. Actually, the only other one that I had left to speak to

was the Poverty Reduction Strategy, again, in terms of the consultative piece.

This is year two where we have a commitment.

Again, I will just look to Aisling, if she might be able to give you a little

bit more of an idea of how far along we are with that and what our intention is

throughout the summer months and the fall.

MS GOGAN: There are sort of two pieces included under this category, one

is relating to the consultation. So we are just starting to plan those and look

at how to carry them out. We are developing some documents to sort of set off

the discussion like we did with the initial consultations in 2005. We are

looking at putting a number of different things in place, including the

toll-free line and the Web site and inviting written feedback, as well as

organizing some roundtables. Then the other money that is included here is some

money to have some facilitation of sessions, some with people living in low

income and with different community partners.

MS MICHAEL: Okay. Thank you very much.

Under the same head, 06.Purchased Services, that is going up significantly by

about $500,000 this year. What do you anticipate under Purchased Services?

MR. SKINNER: Again, I am going to read off some of the same kinds of

things that I said to you before. Under the Poverty Reduction Strategy, there is

a data purchase that will occur, which costs - we are estimating about $75,000,

just to give you a sense.

Under the Opportunities Newfoundland and Labrador, there will be some

professional services that will be required. Under the Office for Persons with

Disabilities, we have allocated some money here for purchased services relative

to some consultations and things that we will do with the community when we are

setting that office up, once we get some staff in place.

We made an announcement in the Budget about making work pay for clients of

Income Support, in terms of keeping more of the money that they earn, from 10

per cent, which it currently was, to 20 per cent today. There will be some

communications in trying to get that message out so people on income support are

aware of the fact that if they go to work, they can maintain or keep more of

that income.

I believe that is about it from my end of it. Is there anything else I am

missing?

MS MICHAEL: Okay. Thank you.

Finally, under that head, 02. Revenue; what would be the source of the

Provincial Revenue? It was $375,000 in the budget for last year and it got

revised down to $13,000, and this year up to $345,000. What would the revenue be

that you are anticipating, though you got such a small amount of it?

MR. SKINNER: I am going to turn to the accountants at the table and allow

them to answer that for you, because I will only confuse myself.

Denise?

MS TUBRETT: It is revenue related to the labour market initiative.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) federal funding.

MS TUBRETT: Actually, maybe I will pass it on. I know what it is, but I

cannot explain it. So maybe I will pass it on to Wayne Penney.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. PENNEY: Good evening.

I cannot speak to the accounting piece of this but I can speak to the

activity.

We co-chair a Labour Market Information Secretariat for the country. This

gets passed around the provinces, and we started this a couple of years ago.

This will end in March 2009. All provinces and territories contribute to a fund

that actually pays for that work to be done. This revenue reflects that.

MS MICHAEL: Good. You only got $13,000 in 2007-2008, but you had hoped

you would get the $345,000 in this year's budget.

MR. PENNEY: And not being the accountant, but as I understand, that was

more a matter of timing when the actual revenue was received versus when we had

budgeted for it.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

You may already have spent it. Yes, it is already spent maybe -

MR. PENNEY: That is right.

MS MICHAEL: - or some of it.

MR. PENNEY: It is the timing.

MS MICHAEL: Timing, yes.

MR. PENNEY: It is timing only.

MS MICHAEL: Okay. That is fine.

Thank you. That is interesting actually.

Does somebody else want to take over? I have been going for a while at this.

CHAIR: Yes, somebody else.

MR. BUTLER: Okay. 2.1.01. Client Services, 06. Purchased Services,

$388,000 budgeted, $280,000 revised, this year it is $1 million. I was just

wondering what the -

MR. SKINNER: Yes. The $388,000 going down, budgeted down to $280,000 on

the revised, there were some costs related to our career work centres that I

talked about earlier that were charged off to supplies incorrectly, I assume.

The accountants at the table might be able to help me more with that, but it was

more of an accounting allocation. There was an expenditure and it got charged

into a different account than Purchased Services. It is up in Supplies as

opposed to being in Purchased Services. You will see there is a bit of an

increase there in Supplies. That is why the decrease was there but it was

actually reflected in the line above in terms of an increase in the line above.

In terms of the significant increase that you see in this year's budget, as

I indicated earlier, we are going to be announcing and opening a number of

career work centres this year, so that money is just the annualization of the

funding that has been approved for those career work centres as we start to roll

them out.

MR. BUTLER: 3.1.02. National Child Benefit Reinvestment, I notice the

figures are all pretty accurate. I was just wondering, $600,000, $600,000

straight across the board. I was just wondering if you could explain that

because usually from one line to the other is a difference up or down or

whatever. They are so accurate every year.

MS GOGAN: We are just so good.

MR. BUTLER: I am not going to deny that.

MS GOGAN: No, that is pretty much - we were spot on in our estimates, I

guess, and it has not varied.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

MS GOGAN: Now this is going to get really accounting, and I do not know

if you want to go there, but the budget is $600,000 and these expenditures are

incurred under another activity. So we would only transfer over $600,000 anyhow.

I think the true number was $612,000, so there would have been $12,000 left up

here under Income Support. That is really an accounting explanation for that.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Some general questions; Poverty Reduction Strategy, I was just wondering if

you can give me an update on how it is progressing? I know everyone in the

country is talking about the plan that we have here, just a brief update.

MR. SKINNER: Yes.

As Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy, I have been at a

number of events throughout the country, Mr. Butler, where we have certainly

been recognized and identified as being leaders in some of the initiatives that

we have brought forward. As you are aware, the strategy itself is a ten-year

strategy to go from the Province with the highest level of poverty in the

country to the Province with the lowest level of poverty in the country. You are

aware that we have had an initial investment of $60 million this year, it is

$100 million annualized. There are a whole bunch of initiatives around that.

The important thing for me, I guess, is we have a commitment this year on

doing the stakeholder consultations again. I think it is important that we get

back into the communities and down to the people who we are supposedly helping

here and getting their feedback. That is part of the work that Aisling will be

doing, and we are looking forward to that.

The other piece of the work that is really critical again, I will look to

Aisling to add some meat to this bone when I finish, but one of the concerns I

have discussed with departmental staff is how do we measure ourselves? There is

no real consistent measurement used across the country. Everybody sort of has

their own thing. The national measurements that people refer to are just that,

they are national measurements. They do not really give you the local flavour

that you need to be able to do it. So, we have talked about developing some of

our own local measurements in consultation with our community partners so that

they are onside with how we are going to measure this. I think the important

thing for us this year, to give you an answer to your question is, number one,

we will do the consultation, get an update from our community groups and

stakeholders as to how the initiatives have worked and what has not worked and

then we will tweak the process moving forward. The second important piece that I

believe we need to be doing is the measurement piece, and that has not been

finalized yet.

I will ask Aisling maybe to elaborate a little bit more than I could on that.

MS GOGAN: This year is also the year where government is committed to

release a progress report. So this is the measurement piece that the minister is

referring to. There is no one measure of poverty, so we are looking at a whole

lot of different measures to get a handle on how we are doing and what kind of

success we are having for different groups.

We will be looking at the national measures because they are the ones

everybody is familiar with but we have also - in terms of an overall measure, we

are just getting ready to release the Newfoundland and Labrador Market Basket

Measure and that is a measure that the Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics

Agency has been developing in conjunction with Statistics Canada that will allow

us, right down to the community level, to look at who is living in poverty. It

takes a kind of federal Market Basket Measure definition, but it makes sense for

the Province.

The national measure does not work that well in terms of areas like the Coast

of Labrador; it does not work that well in terms of reflecting our high home

ownership rate in rural areas, or the transportation costs that really exist in

rural areas. Also, the really innovative thing is it does not use survey data,

it uses tax filer data. So that is why we can get right down to the community

level with it, and it will be on community accounts, along with the other

measures.

In addition to that, we have other ways that we are tracking our progress. We

can look at our Income Support caseload, for example. We are seeing real

successes in terms of Income Support clients starting work. Already, if we look

at 2007 compared with 2006, and look at some of the initiatives we have, we can

see the real impact they are having. If we look at similar months, there is

roughly a 40 per cent increase in terms of the numbers starting jobs and that

sort of thing.

So, our progress report will be looking broadly at both the initiative level

but then also at some overall measures so we can get at both the successes we

have and other areas where we need to look at what else we need to do.

MR. BUTLER: I know, I think it is the coalition of the religious groups

here in town, they were calling for a social audit. So, it is good to see that

there is a report coming later on anyway.

The other thing, each and every year at those estimates, when we come to

poverty - I know it is a difficulty situation, it is hard to define it, and I

know in some documentation - like in Baie Verte there was a certain figure of

the dollar value after tax they look at, and I will just use random figures,

$22,000 or $23,000. If you go into Grand Falls it has gone up, compared to the

city it is higher. Even though your government is doing a lot of things, like

free school books and various other incentives for those people, you just

mentioned transportation and so on, but then again, unless there is a new

scenario, unless they get up to that level, even though all those things are

good for them but it is unfortunate. Their lives are better for their

families and them, but then again, in order to say they are below the poverty

line or above the poverty line they have to make this amount of money. Do you

know what I am saying? They are still in poverty according to that scale. I am

just wondering if you could - I know I have asked ministers before, but nobody

could define poverty. I mean, you are trying to do it and handle the situation,

but I was wondering if you could just comment on that.

MR. SKINNER: I cannot define poverty for you; I will say that right up

front. I am going to throw this to Aisling in a second, but I just want to sort

of give you a bit of commentary.

The Poverty Reduction Strategy is all about preventing, alleviating and

reducing poverties. So any of the initiatives that we bring in as a government,

when they go through our deputy ministers committee, our inter-departmental

working group, our ministerial committee, we look at those three factors,

basically. Is it a prevention measure, is it an alleviation measure or is it a

reduction measure, because we feel all three of them are very important?

The kinds of things you are talking about in terms of: when are you in

poverty and when are you out of poverty? People try to draw that black and white

line, using things like - what you are talking about in terms of income means

tested, what is referred to as the LICO Method, the low income cut off, we find

- I say we, based on discussions I have had with Aisling, that is the we I am

talking about. We find, or Aisling has educated me to the point where that is

not necessarily a good measurement and she referred earlier to the Market Basket

Measure which talks about being able to purchase the goods and services you need

to be able to provide a quality of life for yourself.

I will throw it to Aisling maybe to elaborate on what that Market Basket

Measure tool is and what it is composed of and how it relates to quality of

life.

MS GOGAN: The Market Basket Measure approach allows you to look at what a

basic basket of goods and services costs in a community. You can debate what

should be in the basket and that debate has happened at the

federal-provincial-territorial level and we have sort of accepted the basket

they agreed on. It is one that does have a bit of a social inclusion lens in

that it does not just have the bare necessities, it has cable television, it has

reading materials, small amounts for recreational activities, and those sorts of

things. Again, it is just one measure and one way to look at what it costs to

live in a community and whether people can afford to purchase those things.

One of the other things you need to do, particularly in considering

prevention, because we worry - if you really just focus on those measures, you

are never really going to show your progress towards prevention. If we are not

preventing poverty we will always be in this situation of having to try to

reduce it and alleviate it. We need to also be looking at what we are doing to

prevent poverty, and there we can point to best practices and what research

shows works. When we talk about poverty, we talk about social inclusion, and

that is really important from a prevention point of view but also from an

alleviation point of view. You can look at it from both ways.

So, I guess when we report in our progress report we are going to be trying

to show all of those things. We will be using a host of measures to kind of

quantitatively show that we are making progress in terms of the income levels

and whether or not people can afford to live in their communities at a standard

that we would all like to see people living at. We are also going to be trying

to get at some of the prevention, the breaking the intergenerational cycle and

some of the things that we are doing there. Sometimes you need to present

qualitative as well quantitative information. We will be looking at both.

In terms of how you define poverty, you can debate that forever. Canada is a

country that has come under a lot of international criticism for spending all

its time and energy debating how to define poverty and how to measure it, and

not acting. I have clear direction from the ministerial level that we need to be

acting and doing something, not sitting around debating how to measure poverty,

but yet we also need to measure it. So we are trying to ensure that we are doing

both.

MR. BUTLER: Newfoundland and Labrador, I am saying we have a huge problem

- I think it is anyway - with youth who are under- and unemployed. I was just

wondering, what are the numbers now of people who make application to your

department for assistance, who would be, say, thirty or under?

MR. SKINNER: While we are looking for those numbers, I will say to you,

Mr. Butler, you are correct. The number of youth who apply for Income Support is

a significant percentage of new applicants. We have specific measures that we

have developed and targeted. Specific programs, services and supports that we

are identifying to youth, because we know from a historical perspective, that if

a youth gets on Income Support and they are on it for six months, they are

inclined to be on it then for a two-year period, and if they are on it for two

years, they are probably on it for five years. We have recognized that we need

to get to youth before they get to a point where they have to apply for Income

Support. Some of our interventions are designed around that.

Also, youth who are on Income Support, we are becoming much more, I use the

word interventionist or proactive in terms of trying to engage those youth in

alternative choices that they could be making other than Income Support, or

trying to decrease their reliance on Income Support by getting them in other

programs.

I am just going to look for the numbers. If you will bear with me while I

have a quick look at this, I will try and give you some numbers to quantify.

These numbers are April 2008 numbers, so they are fairly current. Youth being

identified as twenty-nine and under; we have currently on Income Support 5,664

individuals, which equates to about 19.5 per cent of our caseload. In terms of,

do we have a number of new applicants? How many would new applicants be? - if we

could find that. The other number I will try and get for you is in terms of new

applicants on a monthly basis into the system, how many of those would be youth.

Just to see if we can find that for you as well.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. SKINNER: You do not have it on that one?

I do know it is a high percentage, and I do not want to quote you a number

because I am afraid I might be wrong, but I have seen numbers that show to me -

it is high enough that it caught my eye and it causes concern for me. We have

specific programs, as I said, that we have discussed at the departmental level

to address that.

MR. BUTLER: What percentage of your caseload would you say that are

clients, unfortunately, who are there for the long term and probably cannot be

trained or retrained? Do you know what I am saying, people who are in the

system, unfortunately, and they are there for the long term? What percentage do

you think that would be?

MR. SKINNER: I have had this discussion with Mr. Penney in the past,

because I asked him that very question. He has thirty-plus years of experience

of working in this system. I am going to, if he does not mind, I am going to

throw it to him and ask him to respond to you, Mr. Butler, on that.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

MR. PENNEY: Mr. Butler, you and I have had this discussion before. At

this point in time, and I have not been close to this lately, as I understand

it, about 60 per cent of people who receive Income Support indicate that they

can work. Now, that does not mean 60 per cent.

MR. BUTLER: Sixty that can work?

MR. PENNEY: Sixty percent of people can work. They say they can work. Now

that does not mean that they are job ready. Some of those individuals would need

significant help to actually get attached to the labour force. If you look at

our labour market today, which has changed significantly over the last ten

years, we see some real opportunities here to introduce some new programs, some

new services, so that people can, in fact, who have some, I would say,

challenges to participating in the labour market. We are focused on putting the

right supports and services in place so that they have that opportunity. Those

opportunities were not there ten years ago because the labour market - we had

too many people, too few jobs. Today, that situation has turned around. So when

we say that we want to position ourselves to be able to be more helpful for

individuals to get jobs, that really means something to a lot of those people

today. So, 60 per cent say they can work, with the right supports.

MR. BUTLER: Very good.

The other thing, this past Saturday I attended a Youth Works, it was called,

at Ascension Collegiate. I mentioned it and, as a matter of fact, did a member's

statement on it. There were various groups from your department, different

agencies there, and employers and so on. When you referred earlier to the career

workstations, I guess - because a lot of young people now are out there and as

soon as they finish high school - believe it or not, because I have them in my

district, I am sure everybody has them - rather than proceed to some other

training or what have you, I am going out west. When they get out there they

soon find out, there is a job there if all the circumstances are lined up in

their favour, but many of them find themselves in a position that they have to

come back home.

I had three young ladies in the last month where their parents had to send

them money to get them to come back. I guess this career workstation and

some of them, their families are probably clients with your department. I guess

this is the type of thing you would be doing, more or less guiding the young

people not only young people or others, so that they will make the right

choices and be trained. We are talking about looking for more people in the

construction trades and so on here at home, but too many of them are leaving our

Province and heading out west because they think the big bucks are there - and

they are there - but they get caught in it and they find themselves in a very

awkward position and have to return home.

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Butler, we call them, now, Career Work Centres as

opposed to stations, just as a point of clarification. Last year we called them

Career Information Resource Centres. We are not trying to confuse people, but we

are trying to find a name that relates and we are having

MR. BUTLER: It is the same thing.

MR. SKINNER: We are having some difficulty finding a name that relates to

what the function of this space is going to be.

To your point, I would make the point to you and to the other members

opposite there, that even when they are out of high school I think it is almost

too late to be getting to them then. We need to be getting to them earlier. We

need to be getting to them when they are in Grades 7, 8, 9 and 10. We need to

have our children start thinking about career and education, the two being tied,

and being tied to success and being tied to being able to achieve in life

earlier in their lives.

These Career Work Centres will deal with the clientele that you are talking

about the young man or the young woman who may have gone out and worked for

a couple of years and realizes I have to go back and get some skills training

because there Career Work Centres will have trained career development

specialists and trained career counsellors on staff. There will be a bunch of

resources available in these Career Work Centres, state-of-the-art resources, to

assist people. There will be all kinds of labour market information. There will

be all kinds of career planning resources.

It is a multi-faceted office that we will have, that if somebody wants to

start a career, if somebody wants to upgrade in their career, if somebody wants

to change their career to something different, if somebody needs to get an

educational plan designed or developed, that would be available to them as well.

The other thing we are hoping to do is, not wait for people to come in to the

door, to come into the career centre, but to get out into the community. In last

year's budget we had approval for I believe it was ten regional career

information resource officers who will work with our school districts to get out

into the schools and make children - young men and women who are in high school

and junior high school - aware of the services that we as a department are able

to offer. So, if you have a young man or a young woman in Grade 9, 10 or 11 who

is looking to do something, they can come to our Career Work Centre before they

finish school and get more information about the kinds of education and skills

they will need to complete that career, to be ready for that career, or the

kinds of opportunities that are available in terms of labour market

opportunities and salary opportunities and promotion opportunities within that

career. We are trying to make it much more an integrated type of function,

people coming to us and we going to people, and getting the message out there

that this information is available.

Our biggest weakness, I think, is people don't know we have the information

available. We need to get it out to people. We need to get it out into the

communities so people start their planning decisions earlier because they have

better information.

It is about getting better information into their hands, and we don't do a

great job of that. We are hoping to get better at it.

MR. BUTLER: A few years ago your department, I guess, was in a trial

arrangement with Telelink. I was just wondering how that worked out, and if you

are still involved with those people. I don't know how long ago that was now.

MR. SKINNER: I will ask Roxie to speak to that. I am now aware of that.

MS WHEATON: We did have an arrangement. This was about almost three years

ago. This was pre the introduction of our new service delivery model. We used

Telelink, which is a call centre company, to arrange for all of our calls to

come into there so that we could get a handle on how many of our calls were

repeat calls. That was very helpful.

We have always had not always, I guess, but for probably about twelve or

thirteen years - a small contract with Telelink to assist us with our

out-of-hours emergency services. We are using them less and less because we

actually moved to a model about a year-and-a-half ago where, instead of using

Telelink to do the bulk of our calls for out-of-hours, we actually have paid

staff out in the Carbonear office, but we still do use Telelink to respond to

our calls after midnight.

MR. BUTLER: Seeing you mentioned the Carbonear office - whenever someone

says something, something else comes up - there is nobody there to deal with any

income support questions on behalf of clientele, is there?

MS WHEATON: No, that is not correct.

We have twenty-six locations, and while primarily people find using our

toll-free number as the best way of accessing their services, because,

regardless of who you are speaking to they can access your file, we make it

quite clear to clients that if you need to walk in and see someone face to face

- so in the Carbonear office if you walked in, for example if you were a victim

of violence, or if you were about to become homeless, or you had a number of

issues, any one of our staff out there would be expected to help you through

that.

In addition to that we just recently hired, for the Carbonear office, a

liaison social worker, and that social worker is intended to help individuals

with more complex situations; t