Social Services Committee — Department of Education has a budget of about $796 million, it is quite a large budget — 2 May 1991

1991-05-02

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

May 2, 1991

SOCIAL SERVICES ESTIMATES - EDUCATION (UNEDITED)

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Ladies and gentlemen, I would at this time like to

call the Social Services Estimates Committee to order and welcome you all. First

of all let me introduce to you the official Members of the Estimates Committee.

To my immediate left the Member for Humber East, Ms Lynn Verge. Right across

from Ms Verge is the Member for Carbonear, Mr. Art Reid, Mr. Aubrey Gover from

Bonavista South, Mr. Doug Oldford from Trinity North, Mr. Jack Harris from St.

John's East, Mr. Charles Power from Ferryland, and we have also with us Mr. Jim

Walsh from Mount Scio - Bell Island, and of course our secretary, Deputy Clerk

of the House, Ms Elizabeth Murphy. I want to welcome also the Minister and his

staff, and at this time ask the Minister if he would be kind enough to introduce

his staff to the Committee, and if he could have an opening statement of

approximately nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

MS. VERGE: But who's counting.

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and

Members of the Committee. Perhaps I will first of all introduce my associates

here. To my immediate right is Dr. Keith Winter, the Deputy Minister. Bob Smart

on my left here is the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for Finance and

Administration, and then on my far right is Cyril McCormick Assistant Deputy

Minister responsible for post-secondary education. Behind me is Edna

Turpin-Downey, who you have met before, who is the Assistant Deputy Minister

responsible for Primary, Elementary and Secondary education, and Aubrey Halfyard

who is the Director of Financial Services and Operations.

I am pleased to be here really, much more pleased

than I was last year. I was rather nervous last year. I do not know why I was

after the session was over, but I was. I am pleased to be here to answer your

questions. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to give a long statement this year. I

had a long statement if you would like to hear it, but perhaps I will make a

very brief statement and then get right into the questions so that we can get to

the meat of the issue.

In preparing the Budget this year I think there

were a number of guidelines that provided a framework for us in the Department

of Education. We certainly had to face up to the fiscal situation in the

Province and we admit that education needs more money, but this year we had to

balance that need with the capacity of the Province to fund education and other

services.

Another guideline was that we tried to exercise

restraint in a manner which had the least impact on students possible. We are

not going to say that we were successful totally in eliminating negative impacts

as some of the decisions were made. We tried to minimize the impact on students

in the classrooms and in the college programmes that existed.

I guess a third guideline that provided the basis

for our Budget was that we attempted to rationalize the post-secondary system

with the actual labour force needs of the Province in mind. We had a White

Paper, as you know, we issued a White Paper a year previously, and in exercising

restraint in the post-secondary system we focused on rationalizing programmes in

a manner that was consistent with the needs of the Province.

So these were the three general principals that

guided us in the preparation of this year's Budget.

In certain areas we were able this year to increase

spending. I will not list these. Even with the salary freeze there were a number

of areas where we felt the needs were such that we had to increase the actual

amount of funding. There were other areas where we attempted to freeze and to do

the best we could within the context of the guidelines with a frozen budget.

There were some areas as a result of the salary freeze where there were some

actual reductions - I will not list these. Mr. Chairperson, if that is enough I

will attempt to introduce my other comments in answers perhaps later on in a

summary form.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr.

Minister.

First of all if I might before I move to the

Vice-Chair to open on the estimates, if I could have someone to move the minutes

of May 1.

On motion minutes adopted as circulated.

Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

I thank the Minister and the Education Department

officials for their presence here. I have a set of questions about the

Department staff. I will get right into them now.

The other day in the House of Assembly the Minister

admitted that the Department recently eliminated six permanent positions in the

Division of Communications and Publications and laid off the people who had held

those positions. The first question is, if those cuts were intended to be

counted in the cuts announced in the Budget on March 7, why were salaries for

the positions listed in the Departmental salary details for 1991-1992? Subject

to that change, subject to the elimination of those six positions, is the

information in the salary details accurate? Or, will there be other deviations?

If there will indeed be other changes, if there

will be other positions eliminated, how many and which ones? When will the

announcements be made?

Last year the departmental salary details listed

334 permanent positions in the department. This year the salary details which

were, of course, only published the other day indicate 308. We now know there

will be at least six fewer to bring it down to 302 and perhaps lower, which is

at least thirty-two positions fewer than last year with 334. We know now 302 and

perhaps fewer this year. After the Budget Speech the Minister said that only

seventeen positions would be eliminated from his department this year but we

know now these numbers are about double that and perhaps for all we know now it

may be more.

Last year the Department had a budget of $4.1

million for temporary employees, that budget is now down to $1.2 million, which

is about a $3 million reduction, it is a cut of over 70 per cent. How will that

be accommodated? How many temporary positions have been declared redundant or

are being eliminated? Will the Minister provide the Committee with a list of the

temporary positions last year and the names of the people who held the

positions, and the temporary positions that have been or are going to be

declared redundant or eliminated with the names of the people who will lose

those jobs? And finally, will the Minister provide a list of the temporary

positions that will be left, with the names of the people who occupy the

temporary jobs?

I will stop there because I realize that I have

asked several questions, but I have more to come on substitute teacher funding.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms Verge.

Mr. Minister.

DR. WARREN: On the first question, I tried to

take account and some of them I can answer. Others I will have to defer to my

officials and provide the data later.

On the six: one person is retiring this fall. One

was on contract and there were four people who received layoffs, some of whom

will bump - of the six you asked about. That was included in the Estimates

because we have been working through using a number of factors in arriving at

our staff. One is that we are given a global amount of money and we have found

that as a result of this fact we had to make some additional changes. These were

part of the budgetary process, we anticipated that. We perhaps could have made

the announcement two or three weeks ago, but for a variety of reasons the layoff

notices were not issued until last week. But it was part of the process of

looking at the total Budget and estimating this year what our needs will be and

what our costs will be.

I think the Department last year - I pay tribute to

my officials on this, we lived within our Budget. This year the Department of

Education has a budget of about $796 million, it is quite a large budget. You

have a lot of staff changes every year and we are going to have a substantial

number this year with people going and coming, hiring and leaving. But we try to

live within the budget, and we now believe that we are within the budget. There

will be some people going, I do not know how many. You asked how many are likely

to go. There will be no additional layoffs -

MS. VERGE: If I might clarify, Chairperson, I

am not interested in people coming and going, I am interest in the complement of

jobs or positions.

DR. WARREN: Well we do not expect any

significant reduction in the number, three hundred and six you said. One of

those was a contract. We do not expect any significant reduction now as a

result. We have made the determination that we can live within our budget with

the 300 approximately that we have. There will be quite a number of changes

though throughout the year, I want to stress that. In a department such as ours

people leave and we may not replace that person who leaves. We may decide that

if a person leaves we can re-allocate the responsibilities to somebody else and

hire someone who is perhaps more urgently needed at that point in time. So we

have a lot of that going on, but we do not expect any great fluctuation in that

number this year.

We went down from 349 if I recall - 349 to 308. I

will give you additional information, which I think is very pertinent, that of

the forty positions that are listed about twenty-eight to thirty were vacant

positions.

Last year we lived within our budget because we

kept a large number of positions vacant when we could get by without filling

those positions, so really as the result of the fiscal restraint this year the

number of actual layoffs of persons in Education was only, and I say only

respecting the fact that one is too many in terms of the person involved, there

were eleven actual layoffs. Perhaps a maximum of thirteen, Dr. Winter? Something

of that order.

There were eleven to thirteen actual persons laid

off and the rest of the forty positions were held vacant throughout the year

because we felt we could get by in a very difficult year last year without

filling these positions. Perhaps thirteen is the figure I would give you, actual

layoffs as a result of the fiscal position the Province was in. Now, how many

temporaries? I am afraid I cannot provide you with the names of the temporaries

and the numbers. I do know that we have released a number of temporaries and we

will not be hiring temporaries this year in the same way. We just do not have

the funds to do it. We will be hiring students, of course, and if you want to

get to the student issue later I can provide you with some data on that, for

marking and so on. But with temporary employees we have to reduce very

substantially our hirings this year. You asked for the names of temporaries we

now have?

MS. VERGE: I did not expect the Minister to

have this but I would like the Minister and staff, when you have a chance in the

next few days, to table a list of the temporary positions and the names of the

people who held the positions last year, and a list of the status quo.

DR. WARREN: We have released a number of

temporaries. I do not have the exact number because I would not have that at my

disposal immediately. There were about nineteen temporaries and, as I said,

about thirteen full-time persons and the rest of the positions were vacant.

MS. VERGE: The Budget last year was over $4

million and now it is $1.2 million.

DR. WARREN: May I have just a moment to consult

with Mr. Smart?

I apologize to the Committee. The major reduction

in the funding for temporaries is a result of moving student assistants to

another subhead under grants. Last year all the temporary positions, the $2.5

million that we allocated to student assistants was in that category and as a

result there is not the significant reduction that I indicated. That explains

that.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

My next question is about funding for substitute

teachers. The Estimates for this year show $415 million for teacher salaries.

How much of that is for substitute teachers?

DR. WARREN: We had an estimate some weeks ago

but I think when the Budget was released negotiations were still ongoing with

the teachers and some possible changes in the payment of substitute teachers was

being contemplated at that point in time. I think at that point in time $10

million was put in for substitutes, but that is an amount within the total

Budget. Really, that is a global Budget and what we have said in substitutes is

that we will allocate to school boards the same number of days that were used

last year. What it cost we do not know because we do not know what number school

boards will hire, what grade levels they will hire. The significant factor is

that we have indicated to the school boards that we will be allocating the same

number of days as were used last year. I think the figure is, perhaps, around

80,000 substitute days. The amount of money is hard to project because we do not

know who will be hired at what level and it is included in that $400 million and

some odd total salary budget.

MS. VERGE: Did the department tell boards that

the vote would be the same as last year, at least $12.8 million?

DR. WARREN: No, we told the boards that the

same number of days would be available as were available last year.

MS. VERGE: And it is reasonable to expect that

would cost more than $12.8 million.

DR. WARREN: Not necessarily. I will say that

the second thing we are doing this year, Ms Verge, is, as a result of the

collective agreement we are setting up a committee to study the whole substitute

teacher issue and to see if there are ways and means which we can use to perhaps

control the growth of the substitute teacher expenditure. I think there has been

a concern over the last, I will say two years but I know that that concern was

there before the last two years, about the growth of substitute teachers. And

there may be other ways of providing these days with some control of the cost,

but the committee is being put in place now to look at ways and means of

improving perhaps the whole substitute teacher programme. But we have guaranteed

school boards the same number of days and the amount of money is included in the

total salary budget.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr.

Gover.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would

like to ask the Minister a question as it relates to the Bonavista campus of the

Eastern Community College. As the Minister is aware, due to the recent

re-organization which took place, there were changes at the campus at Bonavista.

And as the Minister is no doubt aware as well there is a new regional high

school being constructed at Bonavista in close proximity to the Eastern

Community College campus there. In fact it is my understanding that the plans

call for a link between the new high school and the current campus of the

Eastern Community College at Bonavista. I understand that this will result in a

sharing of facilities and in fact, if my information is correct, will be the

only high school campus situation in the Province with the link. So I just would

like the Minister to comment on how he sees the role of those particular

institutions given the fact that they will be unique in Newfoundland and

Labrador at this point in time.

DR. WARREN: In answer to your first question,

Mr. Gover, we indicated in the budget that we were going to review the mandates

of some of the college campuses. Perhaps I was wrong in the House when I

indicated that some of these campuses were underutilized. They were

underutilized for traditional programmes. Baie Verte was another college,

Springdale, St. Anthony, Bell Island and Bonavista were the others. They were

underutilized in terms of their traditional role.

MR. GOVER: Explain yourself can you?

DR. WARREN: I have used the word underutilized

in the House and I have perhaps used the wrong term. They were underutilized in

terms of their traditional mandate, and I look at a former Minister of Career

Development, which was to offer trades programmes, and they had not been fully

utilized, St. Anthony for example, in that respect but they were utilized very

extensively for adult education programmes in the evening and community future

programmes. Bell Island is a booming campus at certain times. Certainly Baie

Verte is, but it is not through traditional mandate.

So, Mr. Gover, in response to severe questions

about the viability of these campuses we undertook this year to do a thorough

review of their mandate. Now we are very optimistic that they can become very

active adult learning centres, but with a new mandate, so that is in answer to

your first question. There are a lot of needs out there that can be met in the

colleges. On Bell Island, I do not know if I should use specific things about

what might happen on Bell Island, but one thing I have heard is that they are

examining the possibility of putting the community library in the campus and

also, the city council is using it for offices and so on.

The new mandate for these campuses that may not be

utilized in the manner in which they were traditionally anticipated, but I will

get past that because I want to get to your second thing, I am equally

interested in what you say about the new high school. This will be a new

development.

The Integrated Education Committee has allocated

funds, and this will be a pilot, to build a new school adjacent to the campus,

where we can share the facilities of that campus, and if there are a lot of

night programmes going on that is fine because it will not interfere with the

school's use they are examining.

Some suggested that instead of building a new high

school in Bonavista, the school board should take over the campus. There are

some problems with that I have been told by architects and by others. That is a

possibility they suggested that they examine, but I think the Integrated

Education Committee is attempting to put on that campus a high school which will

utilize fully the very extensive facilities that are in the college.

Sharing seems to be the word, interdenominational,

interinstitutional, I am very encouraged by that and I think it has real

potential in Bonavista to provide for the students of Bonavista, the adults,

many evening programmes and some traditional trades programmes for the high

school students and provide them with access to a broad range of programmes that

they would not otherwise have. I am very encouraged by that announcement and I

congratulate the Integrated Education Committee and the school board concerned

for their initiative and we are working with them of course on that.

MR. GOVER: Yes, Mr. Minister. Just to get back

to or, to take up on a point where you left off about interdenominational

sharing.

Having reviewed the budget estimates for this year

- you can correct me if I am wrong certainly - I see that the capital for new

school construction has remained at $27 million. I believe that $27 million has

been the figure in the budget since the new Government has taken office and is

up from $20 million from the year that the Conservatives left power, so there is

a significant increase in the level of capital for new school construction

around the Province. But given that increased amount and given the role of

interdenominational sharing, I wonder, could the Minister give us his views on

the need for new facilities in rural Newfoundland, how the current level of

funding can address those needs and how interdenominational sharing can

complement the increased amount in the budget?

DR. WARREN: I thank you for the question

because it gives me an opportunity to say something about sharing itself; I will

be very brief on sharing itself, I will get to the capital.

One of the most exciting things that I have seen

happening in the past few months in this Province is the willingness of boards

and even the desire of school boards to start looking at ways in which they can

make better use of the resources that they have to offer in an enhanced

educational programme. I have really been encouraged, it has been going on for

some time. Some of the former Ministers, the Vice-Chair and Mr. Hearn, saw it

develop in the earlier years, but in the past year, for a variety of reasons,

including the fiscal restraint, we see dozens of examples of where boards are

seriously looking at the possibility of sharing. In some areas there is some

controversy as we have seen in the press in the last few days. It may be not as

much as interdenominational sharing as intercommunity problems that exist. That

has been a tradition in this Province and that might contribute to the

controversies that have existed. But I think denominational sharing is an idea

whose time has come, and we are looking forward to the Royal Commission Report

to examine models for future sharing.

Having said that, in the area of capital, the

interdenominational sharing movement creates a special challenge for capital

costs, $27 million. We increased it in the first year we were in power from $20

million to $27 million and we kept it at $27 million even this year when there

were tough times keeping it at $27 million. But that is not enough money. We

will admit that the $20 million that was made available three years ago was not

and the $27 million is not enough. I can tell you that if the IEC and the CEC

and the Pentecostal council were to total their amounts of money, they would be

perhaps in the $150 million to $200 million of needs in the Province.

So if you were to look at the three councils

independently their long term needs might probably be four times or five times

the amount of money available. What they do, of course, is that $27 million

provides an opportunity to borrow. But the challenge now is to look at the needs

community by community, and if there is going to be sharing, that creates a

whole new environment for capital. I am pleased to report to you that we put

money in the Budget this year to develop a ten year capital needs plan. There

have been suggestions in the past that if we develop this plan there might be

new financial ways of financing a long-term plan. We have started discussions

with the Churches. I think our committee is chaired by Dr. Winter, and Gerry

Fallon is Co-Chair, and we have started discussions about a long-term plan for

capital in elementary and secondary schools.

The challenge is to look at it in the new context.

Really, I do not know how it is going to evolve because if you have two high

schools in a community now, do you renovate both or do you, in the process of in

the new context, can perhaps one high school serve the needs of all students.

And with declining enrolments we have excess space in some communities, so we

have a whole new set of conditions and I cannot tell you how long that committee

is going to be working, but they are off to an excellent start in trying to

provide for the Province a ten year plan for capital construction, and then, of

course, we will have to see if the Government can find a new way of funding it

instead of every year providing $20 million or $27 million. Maybe there is some

way, like we do in municipal government, where we can fund long-term capital

needs. I am giving you a long answer, Mr. Gover, but it is not a matter of just

totalling the needs of the three councils now because they control capital

funding. As you know the money is given to the councils. It is within the new

context of getting together to discuss areas where perhaps joint initiatives

might be the best way to go, and I am encouraged that the committee is working

and will present to Government, as soon as possible, a long term needs study.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I would

like to welcome to the Estimates Committee hearings the Member for St. Mary's -

The Capes, who is usually extremely punctual. I am very surprised, actually.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since I

asked the Minister of Social Services I might as well not let him off the hook

either. The Minister's office, in your estimates, has a salary vote for - this

is 1.1.01 - of $151,500. The detailed salary estimates have a total of $142,168

in terms of permanent employees. How is that difference of $10,000 accounted

for?

DR. WARREN: I would have to get some advice on

that. The $151,500 down to $143,000. That is the $8,000. And you know what the

$8,000 is used for. That is the car allowance.

MR. HARRIS: And that comes out of salary?

DR. WARREN: Well, I don't know if it comes out

of salary. It is other earnings. It is listed under other earnings on page 1 of

the budget in the Department of Education estimates. I see here $143,300, $200

under overtime, $8,000 for other earnings - I guess other income, is a better

way to describe it.

MR. HARRIS: Oh, I see. So that -

DR. WARREN: And that gives $151,000. It is paid

to me.

MR. HARRIS: I understand that. But it is

considered salary budget and not under transportation and communication.

DR. WARREN: No, it is other income. It is an

allowance in lieu of car.

MR. HARRIS: And taxable in your hands.

DR. WARREN: It is taxable, yes, I can assure

you it is taxable.

MR. HARRIS: I am sure it is taxable, yes. Okay.

Again, under the Minister's office there is listed in addition to yourself three

other salary units. Are there any other salary units in the Minister's office.

DR. WARREN: The answer is no, I am told.

MR. HARRIS: The Minister of Social Services was

very coy when I asked him a similar question but we did find another person

working in his office.

DR. WARREN: I have a secretary, a Departmental

secretary she is, as distinguished from a personal, political secretary. Mrs.

Ingerman is my (Inaudible) secretary and Mrs. Gulliver and my executive

assistant, Mr. Comeau. That's three people.

MR. HARRIS: I am just going by the detail now,

as this is all I have in front of me.

DR. WARREN: Yes. Three persons.

MR. HARRIS: So you have an executive assistant,

okay, fine. And then you have a secretary to the Minister, and a Departmental

secretary to the Minister.

DR. WARREN: A Departmental secretary to me. We

have two secretaries. A political secretary, and I guess a Minister may have two

political secretaries. Am I right on that? In my case Mrs. Ingerman is the

Departmental secretary to the Minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was the practice.

DR. WARREN: So each of us has two secretaries

and an administrative assistant. But one of course is a political secretary who

works in the district, works -

MR. HARRIS: You are almost as confusing as the

Minister of Social Services. Let's go down the list here now. We have Minister.

Well, we have you looked after. Okay.

DR. WARREN: The Minister, the executive

assistant -

MR. HARRIS: An executive assistant. Now that is

your political assistant, right?

DR. WARREN: Mr. Comeau, yes.

MR. HARRIS: And there is a secretary to the

Minister.

DR. WARREN: The secretary to the Minister is

the political secretary.

MR. HARRIS: Yes.

DR. WARREN: And then the Departmental secretary

to the Minister.

MR. HARRIS: Right. And that is it. You do not

have a third secretary that -

DR. WARREN: No, no.

MR. HARRIS: No, okay. Because I think Mr.

Efford does, and he was calling that his political secretary.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We will have another opportunity,

Mr. Harris, to review Social Services.

DR. WARREN: Is it clear now, Mr. Harris,

because I probably confused it by talking about the difference between the two

secretaries. One is a departmental secretary, who has been with the Department

for some time and works for the Minister and then the political secretary who

arrived with me and is working in the district -

MR. HARRIS: And that is the person who is

called secretary to the Minister here?

DR. WARREN: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: Then there is no other secretary in

addition to that?

DR. WARREN: No.

MR. HARRIS: Okay. If we can move to the

Literacy Policy Services on page 165, I see a $200,000 reduction from the actual

expenditure in 1990-1991. How can the Department justify that kind of decrease

in our Province when there is so much emphasis being placed on the needs here,

is there something I am missing here?

DR. WARREN: Yes, there is something you are

missing. Last year was the International Literacy Year and the Government

allocated a special one year fund for events last year. We did not eliminate the

whole $500,000; it is my understanding that we kept an extra $100,000 for this

year, it is not a lot of money for literacy.

Literacy is done in the colleges and in many other

ways, but this was the departmental literacy budget, this is not all that is

spent on literacy, this is what the Department has as a literacy office, but

last year we added an extra $500,000 for special events to help celebrate

International Literacy Year and this was not made available of course in

1991-1992.

MR. HARRIS: Well, there appears to be an

additional-

DR. WARREN: $100,000.

MR. HARRIS: -$100,000 over last year's budget-

DR. WARREN: Yes, we added an extra $100,000

this year to do a few extra things. In fact we have a person who came in to work

with us last year on special events in our office; we have a very small literacy

office in the Department itself, because we have tried to get literacy

programmes done through the colleges and through all the other agencies, but we

do have a policy office.

We have one person who is an adviser on literacy

policy and last year we brought in a second person and that person is staying on

for a period of one year to complete the activities that were initiated during

International Literacy Year, so we do have an extra $100,000 there.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you. The grants and subsidies

of $350,000, how many different agencies or groups does this go to, is that one

or two groups or is that spread out?

DR. WARREN: No. We receive proposals and they

are evaluated and I would think, fifteen to twenty groups receive funding. I

know that some of the centres receive funding and by the way, we work closely

with the Federal Government in this whole area of literacy so our money is used

to match dollars from the Federal Secretary of State, so I would think fifteen

to twenty groups would receive grants from that amount, at least that; it is not

just one or two groups, but our primary focus again in literacy, is through the

colleges.

MR. HARRIS: The colleges themselves initiate

adult education programmes aimed at illiteracy (inaudible)?

DR. WARREN: A, B programmes, yes, all kinds of

programmes, community future programmes, all kinds of adult programmes. Let us

take Eastern Community College with Dr. Frank Marsh as the President; they are

doing a lot of work in the schools with all kinds of short term programmes.

MR. HARRIS: How about extension programmes?

Would these be purchased services from community futures groups?

DR. WARREN: Pardon me?

MR. HARRIS: Community futures, you mentioned.

Is this a -?

DR. WARREN: Yes. They are using our facilities.

Cyril, would you like to comment on (Inaudible)?

MR. HARRIS: Are they actually buying literacy

services with their money?

DR. WARREN: They are buying -

MR. HARRIS: Literacy services.

DR. WARREN: - literacy programmes. And I might

say that the most recent controversy - and I do not want to raise controversial

issues necessarily throughout the night - is whether private colleges should get

into literacy programmes. They feel they should also offer adult basic education

programmes. And you have heard in the press recently their request that they be

authorised to offer these. But right at the present time the programmes are

offered through the public institutions, (Inaudible) programmes.

MR. HARRIS: Page 167, the DECs, receive grants

and subsidies of $1 million. What is that principally used for?

DR. WARREN: That is to fund a number of staff.

They have an office. Actually the three denominational education councils share

a common facility with respect to facilities.

MR. HARRIS: Is this because you cut their

budget or something? To make them share?

DR. WARREN: No. I smile when I say that because

they do share at the top and we are having this controversy about sharing

throughout the Province. But you have the Roman Catholic Council, the Integrated

Council, and the Pentecostal Council with a common facility. They are over on

Crosbie Road. And they have a number of staff, they have an executive director,

each of the three denominations, and they have some other staff. I do not know

how many staff. I probably could get it for you. About ten. So that $1 million

goes for staff, facilities and travel, because the Denominational Education

Councils have certain functions specified in the legislation and they work with

school boards. So it is used for that. And it has remained $1 million for a

period of time.

MR. HARRIS: That is ten staff for all three, is

it? Ten staff altogether, is that what you are saying?

DR. WARREN: Yes. A total of ten staff.

MR. HARRIS: I notice that there is a

significant increase in the next item on page 167, 2.1.06.04. An increase of

nearly $1 million in supplies. Is there an explanation for this? Price of

pencils gone up?

DR. WARREN: Yes. I am pleased to say that we

lost $1 million last year and that is why the figure was down a bit, and we got

it back this year, for supplies and for new books and all of these things. I

think last year what we did was use the previous year's budget to buy things,

and the total amount was reduced by $1 million, but we recovered that amount for

this year, because we want to ensure that we increase the supplies and materials

in our schools.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr.

Power.

MR. POWER: Thank you, Chairperson. I am going

to ask the Minister a question that is not related to post-secondary, not

related to detail. I get the feeling that the Minister and the Government would

like to do away with the denominational educational system. I for one - not my

caucus, I do not speak for them, at least not yet. Just a little hint to my

Chairperson (Inaudible) keeps this thing alive.

DR. WARREN: I like that. There might be some

disagreement in the room because of that.

MR. POWER: But I for one have believed for a

fair bit of time, and certainly am reasonably convinced, that the denominational

education system is wasteful, unnecessary, and it does not do anything to

improve in any substantive way the educational system in Newfoundland. We spend

this year about $762 million. We are still substantially below Canadian averages

in an awful lot of areas and I think it is time for this Government - upfront,

directly, through the front door - to do away with the denominational system.

But I think you are going to do it - I think you want to do it - in a slow,

dragged out, fiscal restraint, rationalization restructuring process. I think

that is only hurtful to the students, teachers and people who are involved

today. I would just like to get the Minister to show some real leadership and do

for education in times of restraint, when we do not really have enough money to

do all we would like to do, to let's make sure at least we use the money we have

as wisely as possible.

And I think that is one place to start. And I think

the Minister wants to do it, I think the Government wants to do it, but I do not

really think you have the guts to do it. Now tell me why not. Or am I

misinterpreting Government?

DR. WARREN: That is quite a statement. I might

say that is the firmest statement I have seen made by any political person in

this Province in the last few years. I think it is the clearest statement of

personal position that I have seen or heard made by an elected official. People

who get out of politics sometimes state their positions quite clearly. But that

is a very clear statement of your position.

The Government's position is a little different

from that. The Government's position is that the system is deeply entrenched in

the culture and the Constitution of this Province. In the culture because it has

served the Province in difficult times, some would say reasonably well. But for

whatever reason it is deeply entrenched in the culture of the Province. It is a

very sensitive issue and many people feel very strongly about it, so it is

deeply entrenched in the culture.

But perhaps equally important, the system itself is

entrenched in the Constitution, as you know as well as I do. It has its roots

deep in the laws of this land, protected by Term 17 of the Terms of Union of

Newfoundland with Canada. Confirmed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Confirmed in an amendment that the former administration brought in to extend to

the Pentecostal assemblies the same rights that the other denominations had. So

the system is deeply entrenched in the Constitution of the country.

The question today is not: do we keep or do we

abolish the denominational system? Our position - and I guess as Minister, I

have been stating this position - the question today is: how can we change the

system so that it can better meet the needs for better education, with declining

enrolments, where you have a number of small schools, and with the fiscal

restraint. So the question is not do we keep or abolish. The question that I

keep putting to the public of this Province - and we have asked the Royal

Commission to examine - is how can we rationalize the system, how can we change

the system, to better meet the current needs?

No, Mr. Power, the Government's position is not

that the system should be abolished. It should be changed, streamlined. We are

waiting for the Royal Commission to give us the proposals. But that is the

Government's position. Sharing can perhaps provide for the system the benefits

of cooperation and also the benefits of having a system that focuses on values

and morals and some of the issues that many in society believe are important in

education today. Whether or not this is something that reflects a lack of

courage on the part of the Government or not I leave others to judge. We think

we are moving in the right direction and we are actively going to promote the

whole interdenominational sharing thing. We started it in St. Fintan's and

McKay's. On the West Coast was our first example of where two denominations

wanted to build separate schools. We worked closely with the school boards and

with the denominational councils and as a result of our discussions one school

system emerged with the elementary school offering education for everybody,

operated by one denomination, and the high school operated by another

denomination offering education for everybody. That is the kind of joint service

and sharing. At the school board level there is all kinds of sharing. We think

it is possible at the district level, at the school level and that is the

initiative. I am taking a long time to answer your question because it is a very

important question and I feel I should explain the Government's position.

We do not know precisely what models are most

appropriate and that is why we established the Royal Commission to recommend for

us the kinds of changes that will take us into the 21st century but it is a very

important issue, Mr. Power, and I appreciate your own position.

MR. POWER: One very brief comment: my idea of a

nondenominational system does not mean you cannot have morality and values

taught in a school system.

DR. WARREN: I understand that.

MR. POWER: I am sure the Minister in any other

jurisdiction in Canada I suspect -

DR. WARREN: You are talking about one system.

MR. POWER: I think morality and values can be

taught just as well in Saskatchewan that is nondenominational as it can in

Newfoundland with the denominational system, there is a process to do it, but it

does not have to be organized along religious lines.

Could the Minister tell me what would happen if a

group of parents or teachers were to open a public school non-affiliated with

religion? Would it be funded on a pupil-teacher ratio the same as the

denominational schools?

DR. WARREN: I might preface my answer to that

question with a comment. As a Minister I have expressed concern on a number of

occasions for the non-adherents, whether they be non-Christian or non-religious.

We have in this Province the only strictly denominational system in the country.

We do not have schools for others. In Ontario the separate school system

provides education for the Roman Catholics and the public for others. In

Saskatchewan you have a dual system. We in this Province have the most

denominational system in the country and we do not have schools for others.

Traditionally, there have been no provisions for funding other schools. You have

to get authority from the Department to open a school and I guess we would have

to approve the curriculum and the teachers and so on. My own view is: let us

take a particular group, non-adherents and they made that proposal. I would

encourage the Government to consider any application for funding because at the

present time they attend denominational schools but their system is not

entrenched in our legal system. I do not know if the Government would ultimately

fund the school. I think the Government might look at whether there are other

schools available, would this be a duplication or triplication, because we are

trying to discourage further proliferation of schools, so we would look at it in

that context. If they were non-adherents, however, I would encourage the

Government to look at the possibility of providing funding for them. People can

change their religion at any time, and declare their position as has happened in

the Province many times. The freedom of religion is very important in this

country. But I would say that we would look at very carefully whether that

school would result in further fragmentation, whether it would have the numbers

to offer a broad programme. All of that would be looked at before we made a

decision on whether we would fund it.

It is an interesting question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A very brave question with a very

brave statement, I guess, and certainly an equally interesting answer.

Mr. Oldford.

MR. OLDFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am in

what I feel is an awkward situation here. I have all my former political bosses

around me and... the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes was my boss at one time.

DR. WARREN: Oh no!

MR. OLDFORD: Humber East, Ferryland district.

Of course, even Dr. Warren. So I do not know if I should ask him about some

things that did not happen when I was in the Department, or if I should change

it now and go the other route. Should I put him on the spot? Ask him about

reclassifications and things like this? But really, I would not want to get into

that now.

There is one thing I wanted to ask the Minister and

it pertains to the White Paper and this affects my district to a great degree.

Are the changes in the structure now of these two community colleges, on the

fast track? And if so, when do you feel that it will be finalized with the move

of the headquarters to Clarenville? I have a couple of other things. Maybe you

could make notes and I will go through those.

Last night we did a review of the Social Services

estimates. One of the things that we found there was a change in emphasis from

community development projects to more vocational training for social assistance

recipients. I would like to know if you anticipate that the $3.5 million that

they are going to spend will have any affect on, say, a campus like the

Bonavista campus, or the Bell Island campus? Are there going to be discussions

between the Departments of Education and Social Services with a view to

accessing some of these finds?

Another point is: I have been looking through the

Budget and I found a couple of areas where - I am sort of interested in

scholarships - and 2.1.07 I think refers to bursaries and 3.4.02 refers to

scholarships. I am wondering if the electoral scholarships are included in that,

and for what amount? I have a page of these (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Page 179, 3.4.02.

MR. OLDFORD: 2.5.01, Student Support Services,

I have a question about that too.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps if the Minister might

deal with -

MR. OLDFORD: Okay. You can deal with those and

then I will find those in my....

DR. WARREN: Two or three things, and then I

will ask you to repeat some of the questions. But I will indicate that the White

Paper's implementation is moving along quite well. We did move it up. I

indicated recently that we did move it up because of the fiscal position in the

Province this year. And we just announced last week the interim boards that

would put the new structure in place. We have had an implementation committee,

chaired by Mr. McCormick, and with representatives from a number of Government

Departments working with the colleges to facilitate the implementation.

I might say that what we are doing - and I do not

want to look at any former Ministers here - is fine-tuning the system. I think

Mr. Power realized perhaps that in his period, and Mr. Matthews, who was the

former Minister before I entered the position, they were concerned about some of

the anomalies in the system. And what we have done is try to fine-tune it. It

looks like a rather significant restructuring and undoubtedly some will see it

that way. But I think it is a development of the system, building on the past

rather than a major reform. And we are moving it along quite well, and if you

have any additional questions about timing we are hoping to have new boards in

place this fall. We have interim boards now in place. We have to make some other

decisions in the next few weeks. But it is moving along quite well.

On the social service recipients, I must say I have

not been briefed on that, and I will have to get some information. One thing

that has interested me since I became Minister of Education is the necessity for

various Departments to work more closely than they have in the past, with no

reflection on people here. Health, Social Services and Education - some problems

are problems that require deals or agreements between various Government

Departments. And this is the one that you mentioned. With Social Services, I am

sure our Department people have been involved, but I have not been briefed on

the extent to which what Mr. Efford is planning will impact on the colleges.

Perhaps, is there some - anything else you would

like to add, Mr. McCormick?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: That is the answer. We have a

liaison set up with this Department under the SARs programmes, whatever that is.

Social Assistance Recipients programme, and the others. So we do have a liaison

with Mr. Efford. I think that kind of liaison with other Departments, among

Departments of Government, is essential in the future.

Scholarships: Scholarships are in three or four

different places in the estimates. The K to XII are centenary, electoral. Let me

just say I am pleased to say that last year we changed the scholarship system

very significantly. We increased the amounts of money for the first time in

twenty years or more, and we tripled the number of electoral scholarships. I

guess I would be less than honest if I did not say that I hope in the not too

distant future we can add to the amounts of money and increase them even beyond

$1,000. These are in what subhead? All of these, and the Jubilee, and the

Pearson, there is about $245,000 for these.

Then you have another

section there where you

provide bursaries for students who live away from home. That may be one of the

other sections.

MR. OLDFORD: Okay. Could I have the subhead

number?

DR. WARREN: 2.1.07 is the one where students

leave home and get grants to attend high schools in bigger communities because

they cannot get the programme in their schools.

MR. POWER: I used to get one of them.

DR. WARREN: You got one of those?

MR. POWER: In 1965 (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: I did not get one - I needed it.

And then there are the post-secondary scholarships which are... what number is

post-secondary? The post-secondary is in 133.4.02. These are the post-secondary

scholarships, $133,800. Dr Barnes, Dr. Blackhall, junior senior Jubilee,

sciences, these are all post-secondary, adult education, and then on top of that

we have scholarships under the Canada Offshore Development Funds. I am taking a

period, Mr. Oldford, to focus on that. We have all kinds of scholarships which I

do not think the public know of or are advised of in science and other areas

through the Atlantic Accord Career Development Awards. Sixteen hundred and sixty

from April '86 to May '91 totalling $4.5 million. We have all kinds of awards at

the university level, at the college level in the institutes mostly for science

and technology, offshore related engineering business and so on.

So you are right, this scholarship money is spread

throughout the whole estimates. Perhaps in another year I should try to bring

them together to focus on excellence because scholarships are - we think we have

to reward people who do extremely well. That is a long answer to your question,

Doug, but if you have an addition question that I did not answer, I will try to.

MR. OLDFORD: I have a couple more, but maybe

your officials can answer those for me. 2.5.01 says -

DR. WARREN: By the way, Mr. Oldford was a good

employee. I am sure we all agree on that.

MR. OLDFORD: I did not spend much time in the

Department the last two years.

MR. POWER: He obviously did not do political

science.

DR. WARREN: That was before he asked these

nasty questions, Charlie.

MR. OLDFORD: Yes, I received good training

under Mr. Power here.

Okay, 2.5.01 was the other one: Student Support

Services. In the revised budget for 1990 - 1991 there is a $140,000 contribution

from the Federal Government but yet there is nothing in this year's estimates. I

wonder why that is.

DR. WARREN: I am told that amount was for

student retention programmes from the Federal Government last year, and we are

now finalizing the projects for next year. The amount of money will be added.

The Stay in School Campaign, and I might say that Stay in School Campaign has

been very successful, that and other initiatives including the expanded high

school programme. We have many more students staying, and that was the Federal

money I am told.

MR. OLDFORD: Okay, I have one more point and

that is 3.4.03: Tuitions and Allowances.

DR. WARREN: I would like to say that is the

student aid and grants.

MR. OLDFORD: What I meant is the

Federal/Provincial formula again, and it seems as if you put $1.4 million extra.

DR. WARREN: Well, that could go higher than

that, Mr. Oldford.

MR. OLDFORD: But the Federal contribution did

not change very much and I was wondering is there a set formula for that?

DR. WARREN: No, I do not think so. I do not

know what these Federal amounts are. That is the contribution to the

administration of the fund. These are our dollars, and you might know that last

year it was budgeted at $17.4 million but the actual expenditure was $19.4

million because you cannot determine the amount of student aid, it is an open

ended programme. This year we have budgeted $20.7 million because we expect more

people availing of that, but the amount could easily be as high an increase as

$2 million like last year. But that amount of Federal money is for contribution

from the Federal Government to help the administration of the programme.

MR. OLDFORD: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Oldford. Mr.

Hearn.

MR. HEARN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

have a few questions for the Minister that he should be able to answer within a

couple of hours.

First of all I was looking at a few figures on

teachers salaries. I notice that the teacher salary vote is up about $10 million

this year, does this reflect the freeze or will the freeze have any variance on

the amount budgeted?

DR. WARREN: It reflects the freeze, Mr. Hearn.

MR. HEARN: Okay, so that is pretty accurate.

DR. WARREN: Yes. It would have been much higher

had we not had the salary freeze.

MR. HEARN: Okay. On Sub-head 1302, page 165.

Communications and Publications; salary vote is much the same as last year, just

a small increase. I understand just recently a number of people have been let go

from that section, so does that change the figure?

DR. WARREN: Your colleague asked that question

earlier and I indicated yes, it does.

MR. HEARN: It did. How many more similar

figures are changed because of people being laid off?

DR. WARREN: That was the result of the - and I

will repeat, a couple of things that I said earlier; that was as a result of the

fact that we were trying to balance the total global budget that we have with

our deeds and as I said, the decisions were made, could have been announced two

or three weeks ago, but they were announced last week. We do not anticipate any

significant reduction in the full time staff, there may be some people coming

and going but that reduces the number in the Department to about 302 I think the

figure was, and we figured that would be the complement for the year; no

additional reductions. We now feel we have made the adjustments that will permit

us to live within the global budget that we have as a Department.

MR. HEARN: The people who leave the Department,

does that mean you are not going to replace them?

DR. WARREN: No. There will be people leaving

and there will be replacements for people and it may be that the people leaving

however, may not be replaced themselves. I explained earlier that there may be

people who leave and we fear another priority is higher and therefore we will

re-allocate the work of that person who leaves and perhaps employ somebody else

in a higher priority. I guess the bottom line is that we are given a budget and

last year, thanks to my associates here, I want to pay tribute to them, we lived

within the budget and it is our intention to live within the budget this year;

there may be some who will go and we will replace them with some other people we

think are higher priority.

MR. HEARN: The Minister is unlike many of his

colleagues in that respect. Now how many positions have been lost in the

Minister's Department, in total?

DR. WARREN: Yes, I will repeat these and I hope

I get precisely the same figures that I had earlier. I do not want to appear to

be saying this is good, because any position losses for the individual's concern

is unfortunate.

We had a lot of vacant positions last year and that

is why we could live within our budget and we eliminated about thirty vacant

positions and we laid off about thirteen persons, and that includes the six who

were laid off, so we had a relatively small lay off of actual persons, but I do

not want to deny that we eliminated a lot of vacant positions that were not

filled during the year.

MR. HEARN: How many of these were in the

primary, elementary, secondary section?

DR. WARREN: We can count them up and let you

know.

MR. HEARN: About forty-three?

DR. WARREN: Of the eleven or of the-?

MR. HEARN: Well of both, of the forty-three,

the total.

DR. WARREN: Well thirteen actual persons, but

it was widely distributed; some of the vacant positions were at the school for

the deaf and in others as well there were a number there; we will count up the

number of vacant positions and let you know.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister, if any of the

questions under advisement that (inaudible)-

DR. WARREN: We will take that under advisement

Mr. Hearn.

MR. HEARN: You will have to table the

information at a later date, I can appreciate that.

DR. WARREN: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We would incorporate them all;

you could incorporate them all regardless of (inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Sure, we will do that, we will

submit them to you; Is someone taking notes of this? Yes. Okay.

MR. HEARN: For the records, the Minister

mentioned closer liason with the other Departments. I am not sure if the

Minister is aware or not, but the Minister has the disadvantage I suppose or

advantage, whichever way you want to term it, of having both departments, but in

the primary, elementary and secondary

section there were always

interdepartmental committees set up who worked very closely together - I am

thinking about such things as the hospital schools, teacher assistance program

where we worked very closely with social services and so on. These committees

worked very closely together in the past. I do not think it is fair to say the

departments did not work closely together because they did.

The Minister mentioned how he interfered out in

McKay's and St. Fintan's area to basically bring them into line. I am not saying

it is wrong. I am just saying what he said. The Minister has been known for not

interfering or saying that he should not interfere or that he will not

interfere. I can see the position he is in

whereas certain boards and what have

you have certain autonomy, but I believe in the old philosophy also or the old

saying `who pays the piper calls the tune', I think there has to be a certain

amount of accountability. There comes a time when you do not go in and tell

people what to do, you do not have the authority to do it, but you can interfere

to a point and sometimes you have to interfere. I am not saying that is wrong.

But you did basically say earlier that you interfered in McKay's and St.

Fintan's. I am wondering why you would not interfere in some other areas, for

instance one area that certainly comes to mind is the Southern Shore area where

they are having a lot of problems, where from my own personal point of view they

have made a real mess of the attempts to realign up there. I think somebody more

objective than the individuals involved locally should step in. I think the

Department should get involved in something like that to show some direction and

leadership because there is a tremendous amount of waste and poor decisions are

being made all over the place. I do not know how long they can go on.

DR. WARREN: I like the substitute word that you

used that I interfered. I indicated that we became involved in discussions with

the demoninations. Mr. Hearn writes well and sometimes he uses words well in his

songs, but this is not an appropriate term to use to paraphrase what I said. I

will not go back over that, he and I understand each other.

He raises a very important question for any

Minister of Education. It is inevitable that in a shrinking system with school

closures on the horizon, that controversies will develop because often

communities are threatened when schools are closed. We have a rapidly declining

student population. We are down to 127,000, we were at 162,000 twenty years ago,

and now we are going to go down to 100,000 at the turn of the century, this is

our projection. So, we are going to have many other communities where very small

schools exist and the possibility of sharing, consolidating, or amalgamating or

whatever term you want to use is going to be put forth and proposed. Certainly,

the pressure is going to be on Ministers to intervene rather than interfere.

I guess, I would say to you Sir that the law and

tradition has it that school boards make decisions about school closing, about

school restructuring, and we intervene only when some real impasse develops. We

do offer our services in a consultative way. We have people in the Department,

you know the persons perhaps I talk about, who have a wide knowledge of the

situation and sometimes they do provide information. I support this. I support

the practice and the legal position that school boards have the authority to

make the decisions with respect to school restructuring and they should make

these, they know the local situation and if you do not trust the school boards

to make the right decisions then you should change the law. The law at the

present time gives school boards that right. Maybe the Department could get

involved in discussions that would try to facilitate a compromise if - I know

one situation right now in the Province where there is a difficult situation and

our people have been meeting and offering their help in trying to resolve it -

now if that is what you mean by involvement I think that is appropriate. Really,

the final decisions have to be made at the local level with our present legal

situation. They elect members to the board. Let me take the board that you are

talking about -

MR. HEARN: The unfortunate thing about that is

what causes the real problems, and I am saying this quite objectively from

experience within and outside, one of the real problems caused is -it is

changing a little bit because people are becoming aware of the power of school

boards and when an incident occurs then the next school board election you get a

lot of people keyed up and eventually in some areas you are getting very good

boards. St. John's perhaps is an example over the last few years where you are

seeing real battles for school board positions, which is good. But you still

have a tremendous number of areas in the Province where during school board

elections there is very little attention being paid, then you have the appointed

personnel on the board - many of whom are there for a short-time with no real

attachment or in some cases no real knowledge of the areas - they in turn ask

somebody who is going to go along with their wishes maybe to volunteer to go on

the board and board meetings have become nothing but a process of nodding heads

at the recommendations, in many cases, of superintendents. There are areas where

superintendents actually run the total show. I have attended meetings where I

thought the superintendent was the chairman and the only person around, who just

dominated everything, and everybody else said yes. If he is right it is great,

but if he is not or she is not, it is a real problem. I can quote examples, some

of which I have been involved with from both sides of the coin, poor decisions

were made until people got involved themselves and in some cases changed the

membership on the board or in some cases lobbied to the point where people had

to listen and some others had to be put in their places. But we do have systems

whereby the superintendent or strong individuals on the board just dominate,

whatever they want goes. That is unfortunate.

DR. WARREN: I am not trying to be political

here. I have seen a significant change in school board members in the Province.

I have seen, for a variety of reasons, school board members, perhaps because

they were involved in a protest at one point in time, I found school boards are

much more active now. Let us take school closing which causes the most

controversy. We have a set of guidelines for school closing. The board has to

consider a request, it has to announce it, it has to receive information and

briefs, there are guidelines for process -

MR. HEARN: Just let me interrupt for one

second.

DR. WARREN: It is yours.

MR. HEARN: No, no, I was going to say we

brought them in. But I caught a board last year trying to circumvent them. Now I

happened to be at the meeting where they were going to close the school without

notice. Some of them did not even know they existed.

DR. WARREN: Well, there have been occasions

when I had to remind the board we have these guidelines, which you were

responsible for, and I think they are an excellent set of guidelines. They do

provide for public input. Now I think in the last few years our school boards

have acquired a great deal of sophistication when it comes to running it. Now

you might still find examples where the superintendent is a very strong person.

You will find examples where the Chairman or Chairperson of the school board is

a very strong person or you have a person on the board appointed, very strong

and does dominate. Well we know governments in Canada where you do have very

strong people who direct. But I believe we have moved a long way to making our

boards more representative of the people, now not enough, but perhaps we will do

a great service if we did more to encourage more parental involvement in this

Province and more public involvement.

Perhaps, Mr. Hearn, we should look at school

councils much more actively as a training ground, putting in place in this

Province school councils at the school level in a much more formal way so that

would give people an opportunity to get involved at the school level and then

perhaps at the school board level. But I found a tremendous change in school

board members. Many of the school boards are very active. They hold open

meetings, and I think that they are in the best position to make decisions about

school organization, and the law says they shall organize the means of

elementary and secondary education. And as a Minister, I guess, if I received a

formal request for involvement then I would consider it and see if there is some

way we can provide help to help the local people resolve the issue rather than

going in and making the decision for them. I think the local board which is a

corporation - school boards are corporations, they are legal persons and they

have duties, and I think they have the authority to make the decision. The

department is there to help, where possible, and if I receive a formal request -

and I gather I am going to get one tomorrow - then we will look at ways in which

we can help the boards resolve the problems they have.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr.

Reid.

MR. REID: Yes, I have a few questions on the

Budget, but I want to continue on this line of thought because I know exactly

where Mr. Hearn is coming from, and I think, Mr. Minister, in my particular

situation as it relates to St. Clare's High School in Carbonear. There has been

study on top of study done in the Carbonear area and there have been assessments

done. Upwards of 90-odd per cent of the people in the community agree with

sharing with the integrated system, and the school board in that particular area

just refuses to even recognize the fact that the population wishes to do that.

We do not have any control over that school board. We have our two

representatives on it that are representative of the group of citizens who want

to do the sharing, but then, of course, the majority of the board comes from

outside of the Carbonear area and we have a superintendent who is a pretty

influential character as, I suppose, Mr. Hearn was referring to and you were

referring to. I think we could take it a step further. I am hoping that when the

new Education Act comes out this year that there are going to be steps towards

making some of the positions on the school boards electable rather than

appointable as a lot of them are now, and I think that we talked about that some

time ago.

The other problem I have with it is that, I believe

in what Mr. Power basically said, and as long as school boards, whether

integrated or Roman Catholic, have that authority to be able to say to the

populace that they represent, that we do it our way and you do not have a say in

it, I think it is going to take a much longer time for this integration process

to evolve and I do not know how you feel about that. Well, I do know how you

feel about it because we have discussed it on a number of occasions, but it is

difficult for me as a politician, and I am sure for you as Minister to have to

deal with these questions on a day to day basis, because as you said, whatever

was happening out there in Newfoundland in the past couple of years or so, it

seems to be a mushrooming effect, not only in the busing situation that we have

now and some problems there which will iron itself out I am sure, but within the

whole idea of integration and shared services. I just want you to make a quick

comment on that and then I am going to get back to some of the other questions.

DR. WARREN: I think parents and the public

generally are acquiring much more power in education in this Province and the

Schools Act, hopefully will enhance that. For example, parents are now involved

in making decisions about placements of their children.

MS. VERGE: Oh?

DR. WARREN: Well, I know lots of schools where

parents are consulted as part of teams who make decisions on how their students

are educated and the new programmes; it is happening and we are hoping to put it

into legislation, by the way.

The former Administration did not, and I do not

want to react to the Vice-Chair person's remark or response, but we hope to put

in legislation the requirement that parents be involved and that parents can

appeal decisions about their children's placement-

MS. VERGE: Some parents have appealed.

DR. WARREN: -but I find increasingly that-

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

DR. WARREN: - and I think Dr. Turpin-Downey

would say that we have teams of people who work together, schools and parents,

to determine what is the best kind of education for children; not in every

community in every school, but I do not underestimate school boards or parents,

we are moving in the right direction. Where some school boards might dictate to

parents, I think parents make their views known now; they contact the media and

sometimes you do not agree with their position, but I think their position is

going to become clear in the future, and as the Provincial Government has to

listen to the public, I think school boards are going to be listening more; more

parents are going to be involved at the school level, more parents are going to

vote, more public members are going to run, and if we have total school board

elections, I think that will encourage more to run and that is a proposal in the

Schools Act, 100 per cent elections.

There is some opposition to that by the way; I was

a little surprised at the opposition we have had to 100 per cent election, but

twenty-five years ago, another Commission of Inquiry recommended a third

election; the Vice-Chair here, I think was the Minister of Education when they

moved to two-thirds, and I am hoping now to complete the cycle to move to 100

per cent school board elections and I think that will give more people the sense

of having some power, you know that they can influence things.

I think 100 per cent elections will enable parents

to feel that they have more support; maybe the Vice-Chair did not go over to

two-thirds but I think she did; so that is a general comment on that.

MR. REID: I want to get off that just for a

second-

DR. WARREN: You would like to ask a question.

MR. REID: Mr. Minister, it has been two years

now, and I have been dying to ask this question and I am honoured to have the

opportunity to sit on the same committee with the last Minister of Career

Development, Mr. Power. I do not know if anyone has asked this question yet, but

I have been sitting here for two years and I want to ask the question I am going

to ask you right now.

For some years we had a Department of Education in

Newfoundland and was the Department of Education and then some years of late we

changed the Department of Education when we divided it into Department of Career

Development and Department of Education.

When you came in two years ago, you changed it or

somebody changed it, whether the Premier or whomever it was and did away with

the Department of Career Development. You have had two years as the Minister of

Education, do you actually see a need of a second department, diversifying or

breaking up your department into a career development department? If you do,

then I am sure you will want to make comments on it. If you stay firm with the

idea of the Department of Education, tell me what has happened to all the money

that was in the Department of Career Development's budget over the years that it

was there and has been gone for the last two years. I am here looking at the

Minister's expenses for example for the Department of Education and the

Department of Career Development for the past ten years. It is surprising to see

the amounts of money that has been spent over the years by two separate

Ministers as compared to one Minister in the last two years. Would you like to

make a comment on that?

DR. WARREN: I will try not to be political. Let

me give my normally conciliatory reasonable answer to that question. Perhaps

there were some advantages to having a separate department for a period of time.

I think when you want to focus on a particular need there may be some reason to

have a separate department. We wanted to focus on career development - he is not

listening - I am giving you the answer. You have been asking the question for

two years and waiting to ask the question. I am going to repeat now what I said,

as the Premier says.

MR. REID: I am sorry (inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Okay, blame it on your colleagues.

I think, Mr. Reid, at times when you need to focus

on a special need there would be arguments for having a special department or a

special division and perhaps four or five years ago there were some advantages

in pulling out the career development and giving it a special Minister with a

special mandate, someone who is new - well, I had better not go beyond that. I

think there are some advantages to what the Government did some years ago, but

my own view is that in a Province like this there should be one Department of

Education because education now takes you from the cradle to the grave, I could

use other terms, and I think it is important that the systems be integrated. It

can be done with two departments but I think there are advantages in having one

Department of Education. It is a big department. I do not criticise the former

administration for having two departments. I think it helped to focus on career

development and the deputy here and others who were working with career

development, I think, had an opportunity to promote the special needs for a

period of time. Now, I favour one department and I think you will find, Mr.

Reid, the trend across Canada now is to move back to one department. It has

happened in two provinces recently and I gather it is contemplated in another at

the present time. I think you will find that the number of separate ministries

in provinces such as this with relatively small populations will decline.

Saskatchewan, I think, may have two departments with one Minister -

Department Official: No (inaudible).

DR. WARREN: No, just one. Alberta still has

two. British Columbia is moving towards one, they have two. Manitoba has one.

Ontario has a number, three. I think in Nova Scotia they just moved to one. So,

there are a couple of provinces that have moved. I will not criticize the former

administration for having two.

Now as to the money, I thought I was spending a lot

of money because I am the first Minister to visit on the average a school a week

in Newfoundland.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: I knew that was going to happen. I

got the expenses too because I heard someone ask this question yesterday. There

were two departments and the amounts of money were more than double what the

Minister is using for transportation and communication.

I think the figure that I got for last year and

this year is about $27,000, but I gather there were two Ministers and two

separate offices so I will not comment on that, other than my travel has been

extensive, but it has been all over this Province. Only two trips were outside

of the Province. I tabled the information yesterday. I have taken my political

staff a few times and some from the other department, but I think, Mr. Reid,

these were two separate departments, and with two separate departments you would

automatically spend more on communication and transportation. My figures are

low, I will say that the figures are relatively low with all the travel I do.

That is all I am going to say, Charlie.

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I move now

that we adjourn for ten minutes or so for a break, Mr. Chairman, if you do not I

am having my smoke anyway so it is up to yourself.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will take the suggestion from

the hon. Member for Carbonear and we will adjourn until quarter of nine. I would

like to ask the Committee to consider the fact that - and I mentioned it to the

Minister earlier - that we would stay on a few extra moments, as we would like

to get the Estimates of Education through this evening if at all possible. So if

we are here until midnight or one o'clock in the morning it really does not

matter, we will continue.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Would you like to say something, Mr. Minister?

DR. WARREN: Yes, during the break we did a

calculation of a question asked by Mr. Hearn. Seventeen of the forty-odd

positions were in elementary and secondary education I have been told by my

officials.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: How many of the thirteen layoffs? We

will get that for you shortly.

AN HON. MEMBER: Of people?

DR. WARREN: People, yes.

None of them, they say, were in Kindergarten to

twelve. The six this week were in communications and information that covered

the whole department, and a number of the domestic workers were at the school

for the deaf, a number of the thirteen; one in school supplies, that is

elementary and secondary.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you, Mr. Minister.

MR. HEARN: Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr. Hearn.

MR. HEARN: I was wondering just on that? If one

did an assessment of the salary headings in the different divisions they would

find that in most of the areas in primary, elementary and secondary the salary

votes are down considerably, which would lead one to believe that a lot of

positions were axed and I do not think you would find the same in career

development. So I think when an assessment is done there seems a lot more

dollars came out of the salary vote in the primary, elementary and secondary

than in the post-secondary perhaps. That is something to look at within the

departments themselves. That is something we will look at another time.

DR. WARREN: I have a little bit of information in

answer to your question, Mr. Hearn. We did an analysis of the gross current

account for elementary and secondary and the percentage increase over 90 - 91

budgeted was 5.9 per cent and the percentage increase over 90 - 91 revised was

5.5 per cent in this year's and at the post-secondary level the percentage

increase was 2.1 per cent in the current account budgets for post-secondary.

MR. HEARN: Teachers salaries, most of them-

DR. WARREN: Teachers salaries would be a lot of

them, yes.

MR. HEARN: Primary, elementary, secondary, all of

them actually.

DR. WARREN: Yes, a high proportion was teachers'

salaries.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you, Mr. Minister and

Mr. Hearn.

Ms. Verge?

MS. VERGE: Thank you. I would like to bring the

Minister back to our discussion about funding for substitute teachers. He said,

when the Budget was brought down on March 7th, the Government had in mind $10

million for substitute teachers, but within days, through negotiations with the

NTA, there was an agreement to provide boards with the same number of substitute

days next year as this year, and last year that amounted to $12.8 million, so

obviously that means at least $2 million more than the Government originally

budgeted on March 7th.

Has Treasury Board approved an extra $2 million for

the Department or has Treasury Board ordered the Department to find that $2

million from within the total in the March 7th Budget?

DR. WARREN: The answer is that Treasury Board

assumes that as in previous years with a Budget of $415 million for salaries,

that quite often they are plus or minus $5 million, so they assume that that

will be included in the $415 million; it is such a big amount that an extra $2

million or $1 million or so is not considered a significant amount in that

context and also the amount for substitute teachers is never parcelled out.

I think what we said last year it cost $12.2 but that

is within the global budget; it is all included in salaries and approved as a

global budget, that is included; substitutes we costed, but they are included in

the total budget, it is not a deliberate Treasury Board decision to spend a

certain amount.

MS. VERGE: Okay. I have two questions now taking

statistics. First, how many teachers and administrators with professional

certificates will be employed full time in the next school year, in the

1991-1992 school year, and what are the corresponding numbers for this school

year that are full time teachers and administrators?

DR. WARREN: I am going to have to ask my

colleagues to get the exact figures, but we estimate about 133 fewer teachers

and administrators than last year; our initial estimate was that about half the

units would be taken out of central office and the other half from the

classroom.

Now some of the central office units as you know, were

used in the classrooms in the past so they would stay, the total number however

is about 133 fewer; now I guess the numbers would be around 8,000 last year - is

this the actual number here? The actual received this year is 7,989 for

1990-1991, and 7856, 133 fewer; 7,856 for 1991-1992.

MS. VERGE: Okay, the next question. What will be

the average salary for the teachers and administrators in 1991-1992, and what is

the average salary for teachers and administrators this year?

DR. WARREN: I will get that and table it for you;

I will take notice of that.

MS. VERGE: How much of the 1991-1992 teachers

salary budget has been ear-marked for salary increases negotiated for last year,

for 1991, bearing in mind that the collective agreement has not yet been signed.

I assume it will be signed soon and it does provide for increases for last year.

DR. WARREN: I guess I will have to get my people

to do some calculations here. $7 million retroactive at the signing went to

teacher's salaries. Teachers received 3 per cent in the first six months and

then another 3 per cent beginning March 1 in the collective agreement. Of

course, that is frozen for the year. In other words the amounts negotiated for

the next year will not accrue to teachers. The 3 per cent last September, based

on last year, and then the agreement provided for 3 per cent March 1. When they

signed the retroactive payment for teachers was about $7 million, and, of

course, the next year I think there was a 4 and 3 per cent and these are

deferred because of the freeze this year.

MS. VERGE: So, is the answer $7 million?

DR. WARREN: The $7 million was retroactive pay for

teachers, yes.

MS. VERGE: I would now like to switch to the

Minister's plan to amalgamate Fisher Institute with Western Community College

headquartered in Stephenville. Will the Minister explain the Department's

rationale for that merger, and will he say what jobs will be eliminated from the

system, and in what places, as a result of the consolidation?

DR. WARREN: There are a number of reasons which we

annunciated last year for combining the two. One reason is that the

organizational structure was perhaps top heavy in this Province in

post-secondary and we could streamline and reduce the number of boards and

reduce the people at the top level.

MS. VERGE: The Minister will have to tell everyone

here that institute, and community college board members serve without any

remuneration, without even a per diem.

DR. WARREN: Yes, they do, but you still have

senior administrative staff, two presidents, for example, reporting to the

individual boards, but, I think, the major reasons were that we had on the West

Coast an overlapping of mandates. Perhaps one of the former Ministers might be

able to confirm this, or Dr. Winter and Mr. McCormick will confirm if I have it

right, the traditional mandates were that the institutes would offer longer term

programs and the colleges would offer shorter term one year programs. We found,

in this Province, that did not materialize and that we still had colleges

offering two year programs, certificate programs, and we had some of the

institutes offering one year programs. The traditional mandates were not fully

implemented and we felt that we could rationalize the system by combining the

two, reduce the number of boards, and then we would have for a region, say the

West Coast region, we would have one system serving the whole region. The

students could move more easily, you could make better use of planning and

student support services, and programs would be articulated between the colleges

and the institutes. The institute in Corner Brook was a relatively small

institution. There were how many students?

MS. VERGE: About 700 full-time.

DR. WARREN: And in order to provide the student

support services you had to employ perhaps an excessively large number, we felt,

of people or you just could not provide those services. We feel with the one

board, and with the one college, we can justify a more efficient and effective

use of planning and student support services than we can with a small

institution such as Fisher operating independently of Western Community College.

MS. VERGE: How many full-time students are there

at Marine Institute in St. John's?

DR. WARREN: The Marine Institute in St. John's has

about the same number and we are affiliating Marine with Memorial University in

the White Paper.

MS. VERGE: Marine will be kept a legally

autonomous institution, will it not, with it's own Board of Governors?

DR. WARREN: There are going to be some significant

changes at Marine as well.

MS. VERGE: What kind of administrative legal

changes?

DR. WARREN: We will be affiliating the two. There

will be certain programs at Marine and at Cabot which will be with the new

centre for engineering technology combined. What we will be doing is eliminating

the overlapping between Cabot and Marine, so the Marine enrolment may be reduced

slightly as a result of this.

MS. VERGE: Why did you not decide to legally

amalgamate Marine and Memorial by making them into one body corporate with one

board of regions and one president?

DR. WARREN: That is our intention. That is

precisely our intention, and you have indicated that. We have called it

affiliation because we do not want to lose the industry specific nature of

Marine. Ultimately they will be controlled by the one board of regents, and I am

delighted to say that ultimately we will have degrees in fisheries. I have

always felt that in this Province, we perhaps were negligent in not providing,

in addition to the programs offered at Marine, degrees in fisheries, and high

level research in stocks and all the issues in the future of the fisheries. I

think the affiliation that we proposed with the one board of regents handling

all, with Marine having its own advisory board from the industry -

MS. VERGE: That comes as news to me. From what the

Minister has said previously I had understood that Marine's autonomy would be

maintained and that Marine would continue to have a separate board of governors.

DR. WARREN: It will be industry specific with its

own advisory board but ultimately it will be a part of Memorial University.

MS. VERGE: Will that legal change be made at the

same time as the other mergers?

DR. WARREN: We will be introducing in the House

appropriate legislation to make the changes.

MS. VERGE: At the same time as the mergers of

Cabot with Avalon and Fisher with Western?

DR. WARREN: Hopefully, the legislation will be

ready shortly to introduce in the House the appropriate amendments.

MS. VERGE: So, you will be combining Marine with

Memorial through legal amalgamation at the same time as you legally merge Avalon

with Fisher?

DR. WARREN: A portion of Avalon with Cabot and a

portion of Avalon with Eastern, and Fisher and the other.

MS. VERGE: Many people in Corner Brook, including

community leaders, have advocated that the Government, instead of combining

Fisher with Western, look at linking Fisher with Grenfell College of Memorial

University since both institutions, both Fisher and Grenfell are in the same

place, very close to one another, within a stone's throw of each other, and have

more complementary purposes and mandates than do Fisher and Western, and many

people feel that the choice to combine Fisher with Western was motivated through

petty partisan politics and is regressive for the cause of education when if the

true desire is to improve education and to effect some economies of scale the

better choice would have been to link Fisher with Grenfell. I would like the

Minister to respond to that suggestion.

DR. WARREN: I will not get involved in petty

politics but one could speculate about why Fisher was separate in the first

place but I would rather leave that until later and not get involved in that

debate. Perhaps, I should say we are going to do both. We are going to make it

easier for persons to transfer from the institute programs one to another and

from institutes to university and from university to institute. So I think we

are moving in the direction, even with the consolidation on the South Coast, we

are going to try to improve the linkages between programs within colleges and

institutes, it is called a common programme of studies, and in certain subject

areas it will be easier for people to move, and to move from the institutes and

the colleges to the university.

MS. VERGE: I have to interrupt, I am not asking

the Minister about transferability (inaudible).

DR. WARREN: May I finish?

I have a whole series of comments on your questions.

We looked at all the options. We even visited other provinces to look at the

options and one option was to link Fisher and Grenfell, but the Government felt

it was better to link Fisher and Western and then to create more programs so

that students could move back and forth and get some credits.

I might say too that the Government is considering a

change of name to the colleges. I do not think we have announced this, but one:

we are considering a change of name, this will be on the record, the name we are

considering for all of our five colleges now, is Colleges of Applied Arts,

Technology, and Continuing Education.

MS. VERGE: Nice and succinct.

DR. WARREN: Yes, it is descriptive of their role.

MS. VERGE: I say to the Minister that his

rationale for amalgamating Fisher and Western is full of holes. He uses a lot of

jargon such as rationalization and articulation but the two main campuses are

sixty miles apart and surely student services and supports have to be located

where the students are, and if there are 700 students at Fisher Institute in

Corner Brook, the student services and support for councillors have to be where

the students are. It is not going to do the students on O'Connell Drive in

Corner Brook much good if there are wonderful student supports in Stephenville

or in Port aux Basques. However, if the Government had amalgamated Fisher

Institute on O'Connell Drive in Corner Brook with Grenfell College up the hill

on University Drive it would have been very easy to unite residence facilities,

counselling services, the student aid advisory service, student programs,

cafeteria services, gymnasia, swimming pools and other recreation facilities. I

really cannot understand why the Government would turn down such a sensible

option for a merger as Fisher with Grenfell since the two are so closely allied

in function and are so physically close to one another and opt instead for an

artificial concoction which they have embarked upon.

DR. WARREN: The Member and the Minister have had

this argument over and over and let me tell her the Government has made the

decision that this is the most appropriate way to go, and the Member perhaps

does not understand the reason. We have found that the people in the West Coast

do understand, many areas, some in Corner Brook, still prefer to have their own

institution. Western covers Stephenville, Port aux Basques, and Western was

already in Corner Brook, so you had Western in Corner Brook and now we are going

to combine with Fisher. The Western Community College includes a campus in St.

Anthony and the whole West Coast and the Government has made a policy decision.

The Member does not agree with it, there are others who do not agree with it,

but I would emphasize that this is a government decision, Chairperson, and I

think we have gone on and on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I think what the Minister

said is that Clyde Wells made the decision. I have not debated it the way I

would have liked to because I was locked out of City Hall last October when the

Minister went there supposedly to explain it and defend it in an open forum.

DR. WARREN: The Minister had nothing to do with

the lockout. Mr. Chairperson, the character comments, I think, are unbecoming of

the hon. Member. She knows the truth. The Minister had nothing to do with the

lockout. The lockout was decided by the local people. They decided who was to

attend. The Minister is available to meet with her or anybody anytime and

continues to do it. So, I prefer to correct her statement.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister, I do not think we are

gaining a whole lot here dealing with the Education Estimates at this particular

time. We are debating and things are becoming repetitious and the

Vice-Chairperson knows that she has belaboured that point and the Chair does not

want to belabour it any longer so I will move along to Mr. Power.

MS. VERGE: Well, if I might interject Chairperson,

I can use my time however I wish.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, yes, I realize that.

MS. VERGE: I do not think my time had run out.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I gave you sixteen minutes. Mr.

Power.

MR. GOVER: Her time had run out, she had nineteen

minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: I agree with the Minister and the

Chairman that we have gone a long way from the Estimates to allegations of petty

politics. In fact, when I look at that geographic representation: the Premier is

from the Bay of Islands District, the Minister of Justice is from Humber West,

and there is a Liberal Member in Stephenville. Certainly the Cabinet Members, I

would suggest, are more closely affiliated with Corner Brook and Stephenville so

I do not know what petty politics is at work there. It boggles the mind. Cabinet

Ministers, if one goes by the traditional mode of operation, you would think

they would be following the Member for Humber East's suggestion if petty

politics as opposed to good educational value had anything to do with it, but

obviously the Cabinet has decided to go with good educational value as opposed

to petty politics but I will leave that aside.

I would like to ask the Minister about a subject of

concern, I suppose, for everybody involved in education, which is the student

retention and drop-out rates. I suppose one of the greatest tragedies in our

society is when students decide to leave school without an appropriate or proper

education to give them a grounding to compete in today's job market either in

Newfoundland and Labrador or indeed elsewhere in the country or in the world. I

wonder if the Minister would take a few minutes to outline what changes have

been introduced by him to ensure that retention is raised and dropout is

lowered?

DR. WARREN: The good news is that the retention

rate has increased very significantly, it is still not high enough, but we are

now at the level of Ontario which has always been looked at as a goal; we want

to improve that, we want to retain 100 per cent, not just 70 per cent, but we

are -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: - really making tremendous progress. I

want to say that this is not as a result of any action specifically. We have

taken a number of actions as had the former administration, the former Minister,

and they expanded the high school programme and for a whole variety of reasons

the retention rate has gone up dramatically. We are increasing the retention

rate in some of the science programmes and this Government is doing something

specific in that area in computer studies and so on, but we are very encouraged

by it.

As you know, education is the best investment a

society can make, and in order to compete, we have to provide people with a good

education and if they do not get a good high school education, then they are not

likely to be able to advance beyond that or even to go back and continue their

education later on, so I could get you the statistics but I think if you were to

take any class from Grade IX through to high school right now, most people reach

Grade IX; from Grade IX through to the end of high school, perhaps 65 per cent

to 70 per cent of our people are completing some kind of high school programme

and by the turn of the century, our goal is to increase that to as close to 100

per cent as possible.

I think there are a number of things that will help

that. Sharing among small schools to provide a broader programme will help in

the future; the Federal Government is helping us with the school retention

programmes, more guidance and counselling in our schools; all of these things

will do a tremendous amount to improve the retention rate, and certainly we have

to make education exciting for students today, we have to provide the broad

programmes, and good teaching is the key, we are working on all of these things.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have another

question which is a general question relating to education and the Minister

perhaps, could give me his views on the comments I am about to make.

I noticed from a review of the budget documents since

we have been in power, that the actual expenditure on education current account

for 1989 when the Government first came to power was $653 million and the

projected expenditure on education in the current fiscal year is $719 million on

current account, which is an increase in expenditure of $66 million for

education on current account. While that has been happening, I notice that in

EPF, a programme to finance health and post-secondary education, federal

transfers to the provinces, that in 1989 the actual transfer to the Province was

approximately $224 million and this year the estimated transfer to the Province

is $210,400,000, a decrease of some $14 million. As well, in 1989 the actual

amount spent on equalization from the Federal Government to the Province was

$942 million,

whereas this year equalization has been projected to go down to

$934 million, a drop of $8 million. So while our Provincial expenditures on

education, and I commend the Minister that in this time of restraint generally

and at a time when transfers from the Federal Government are diminishing, we see

an increase on current account of $66 million and a decline in Federal

transfers, EPF, and equalization to the Province of $22 million. I would like

the Minister's views on how Federal withdrawal, or reductions in the transfers

to have not provinces, such as Newfoundland, are having an impact in the

education field?

DR. WARREN: That is a question that concerns most

of us in Government very much, especially those of us who are responsible for

health, education, and social services. One of the fundamental principles of

this country is equality of opportunity. Even the Constitution states that

people in this country have the right to reasonably equitable levels of service

with reasonably equitable levels of taxation. Now that is in the Constitution,

and if the Federal Government continues on its present direction it will almost

destroy that founding principle of this country. I think there is a difference

between the philosophy of the United States and Canada. In Canada in health care

and education we believe in equality. Irrespective of where a person lives they

should have a basic level of health and a basic level of education, and the

trends that have emerged from the Federal Government recently are totally

inconsistent with some of the founding principles of this country. That is a

philosophical statement which I firmly believe in.

The reductions: in some cases they provided the same

amount of money but the increases have been less, or there have been fewer

increases in actual dollars, and this creates for provinces such as Newfoundland

tremendous fiscal problems. Nearly 50 per cent of our funding has come from

equalization payments and from EPF funding, and other transfer payments. If the

Federal Government continues to reduce its input that will make it very, very

difficult for us to provide the kind of equality of opportunity that is

essential if Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are going to play their rightful

role in this country.

I saw some figures the other day from EPF and I just

happen to have them with me. EPF transfers for post-secondary education in

Newfoundland between 1990 and 1994-95, as a result of the freeze on EPF funding,

we will lose about $81 million over what we would have received had the

increases continued as they were in 1990-91. Now, that is a lot of money for a

Province like this. We have relatively high taxes. We have relative difficulty

in borrowing and we are losing federal transfer payments, and that is a matter

of serious concern for not only me as Minister in this Province, but I have

talked to Ministers in provinces where they receive equalization payments and

they are very, very concerned about what has happened. We understand the Federal

Government has fiscal problems but this is inconsistent with the basic

principles that underline this country and what is happening with federal

transfer payments, so we are going to have to find the money elsewhere. I keep

saying that education is the best investment a society can make and if our

people are going to compete they must be educated. We are going to have to look

carefully at other sources of revenue. We are going to have to certainly try to

streamline the system. We are going to have to be more efficient and that is why

the sharing issue, and streamlining the post-secondary system, implementing the

White Paper, is so important for us to avoid duplication and any excess cost

that result from inefficiencies. We are going to have to do that.

And one other point: Chairperson, I will try to stop

at this point. Health care costs are rising dramatically in this country. Health

care and education are about the same level of current costs right now in this

Province. But in other provinces, and here the health care costs are going up

dramatically, there are more senior citizens, we have an aging population. So we

are going to be under tremendous stress when it comes to competing for those

dollars Provincially. Because health care costs are increasing dramatically, and

will. And the number of people voting. And I would say the competition is going

to be tougher, because the number of people who are voting, there are more

people older and there are fewer families with children. And therefore education

is going to have to compete for scarce dollars much more actively.

So we have to assure the public that we are getting

good value for our money so that we can compete with health and other important

government services for scarce dollars. But the Federal trends are very

disconcerting for a lot of us who are Ministers in provinces that have

substantial Federal transfer payments.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Power.

MR. POWER: I suppose much of what the Minister

says is a matter of

interpretation but I am not sure but I see a fatalistic view

of where education and health are going in this Province. But I suspect it is

very close to a belief in some Ministers' minds. When you question them in the

House, when you talk to them privately, when the Minister says there is going to

be continuing competition between health and education for Federal dollars which

are reducing, less Provincial borrowing power, less Provincial means to raise

revenue. Then what is really going to happen to our system?

Is our system going to get continuously worse? I mean,

I have concerns when I listen to the Minister. I know he says the right things a

lot of the time, but sometimes I know he has to say the right things. He is a

Minister in a Government that has fiscal problems and he has to say them, and if

I was the Minister I would say them. But the reality I believe is that a lot of

the reorganization, a lot of the rationalization, is not necessarily going to

improve the standards of education, it is going to try and save some money. And

when I talk to the Minister of Health in my Opposition Health Critic role I know

when he tells me he is going to have a better health care system, I know he is

not. I know he has big troubles trying to find money to operate a big system and

he is downsizing it. But when you are downsizing it something has to suffer.

My thought process is that when I look at where we are

to in Canada, and I see Newfoundland being less able in years ahead to compete

with Canada, to be able to stay up to the national standards, I go back - and I

have said it before - I think we made a mistake in 1949. When we negotiated our

Terms of Union much the way Quebec is trying to do now I think we gave away the

wrong things and we kept the wrong things. We gave away fisheries' jurisdiction,

which might have helped us, and we kept health and education jurisdiction which

maybe we would reach Canadian standards somewhere down the road. I do not ever

see it happening now, in health or education. And I think that is very sad.

Barring tremendous revenues coming to this Province from some strange source

that has not been found just yet, I think that is where we are to.

To the specifics of the post-secondary system, the

downsizing, I want to ask the Minister: what is likely going to happen to the

smaller vocational schools? What is going to happen to Bell Island, Bonavista,

St. Anthony, Springdale and Baie Verte, for instance? They are small schools,

underutilized maybe part of the programme. I just wondered of some of those

schools are not going to ultimately be closed simply because they are not having

enough participation. And sometimes I think that maybe the private sector, some

of our private schools in this Province, might be able to help. They might be

willing to go into a Baie Verte, a Springdale or a Bell Island and actually,

using the CEIC programmes, be able to better utilize those resources than we are

doing as a government. So I want to ask the Minister about that. The

post-secondary small school systems in particular.

DR. WARREN: Chairperson, before answering this

question, I was interested in earlier comments. I have said consistently that we

need more money for education in this Province. It is underfunded. It has been

underfunded for a long time, it is underfunded now. We have put more money each

year into education. And I might say, as a proportion of the current account

budget, the proportion has gone down from about 27 per cent in the late

'seventies, early 'eighties to about 23 per cent in current account right now.

We are about 23 per cent, and it has levelled off. The last couple of years the

proportion of the Budget going to current account education is about 23 point

something per cent .

We need more money. But I again say that we have to

get better use of the monies that we are spending. And that is why I think

rationalization is important. Rationalizing the post-secondary system, the White

Paper, looking at interdenominational sharing, combining where possible schools.

It is not a matter of saving money, it is getting better use of the money that

we are spending. So I think we have to stress - whether it is school busing or

wherever - getting better use of the money in addition to getting more money.

Because it is going to be hard to get a lot more in the near future, as

important as it is.

Now regarding the small campuses. I am glad the Member

raised that, because I want to allay these fears of some who say that this is

the year of review and these centres are likely to close. I have heard that

said. Our own position is that we are optimistic that they will become very

viable centres. They may become more adult learning centres, with Federal

funding. There is one good thing in the Federal Government that I should have

mentioned to Mr. Gover earlier on. As a result of certain recent legislation, we

are likely to get more funds from the Federal Government - and I thank the

Federal Government every chance I get for additional funds - for retraining, for

CEIC and other programmes. The fishermen's - what is the name of that bill that

retrains...?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: C-21 will provide funds for

retraining. And we think these smaller campuses can become adult learning

centres, drawing on Federal funds, with a core of Provincial funds and perhaps

offering programmes where the fees will pay for themselves. We have offered

programmes in the public institutions where people have been prepared to pay

fees like they do in the private sector -Relatively high fees. Now the private

sector, I could talk to the Member about that, but I do not see them taking over

these campuses, but I see the private colleges continuing to play a major role

in this Province. But I do not see them taking over these campuses. I see these

five or six campuses becoming, as Baie Verte is today and some others, very

active adult learning centres, drawing on other funds as well as Provincial

funds.

MR. POWER: Just one other fairly brief question on

the post-secondary system.

I think one thing that the Minister should remember is

that in all of the downsizing, especially of consolidating of the boards, is

that one of the reasons we did that - and we did it knowing that it had some

extra cost - but we also realized that the rural nature of Newfoundland, and the

fact that community decisions should be made locally, and obviously we had five

community colleges and we had three Provincial institutes - we wanted to get as

much local input as possible. But I hope the Minister does not lose that concept

in putting a large board together for the Avalon.

We were always afraid that some of the smaller places

- will the Marine Institute really get a fair hearing when it goes into the

Board of Regents to look for a bit of money for a new computer or a new

programme or something? And there was always that concern. So I think the idea

of community should always be remembered.

I guess the second brief question I want to ask: one

of the better things I thought we did when we were starting off the system was

first and second year Memorial University courses at the vocational school

campuses. Could you tell me where that is to now? Because I have sort of

forgotten exactly how many campuses receive that benefit. Is it working

successfully? Are the students passing those first and second-years with an

equal or higher standard than they would if they were at the main campus?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. POWER: How many do we have now?

DR. WARREN: Yes, I will answer that. A very brief

comment on your first question. There were proposals a couple of years ago for

one college for the whole Province but the Government rejects that. We believe

in having colleges close to the people so that is why we are retaining the five

rather than - you know, there are some people who suggested one college with

nineteen campuses. We believe that local boards should be close to the people

and we support that principle that the former government enunciated in its

decision.

Now what was your second question dealing with?

MR. POWER: First- and second-year (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: The first-year programmes have been a

real success. The students coming out of Burin - and the former government

planned the Burin campus to move ahead; we were in power and implemented it - I

am told that the students coming out of Burin are first-class as are the

students coming out of Grand Falls and Lewisporte. And then we reintroduced

Labrador West. And these programmes are first-class programmes. Students compete

very well, they get a lot of individual attention. More students go to first

year in the local communities because they want, before they come to the larger

city or come to St. John's to Memorial, to have a shot at a university

programme. If they do well locally then they continue on to Memorial or some

other university.

And these programmes offered in the colleges are

successes in our view, and we hope to expand them in the future.

MR. POWER: We have four now, do we?

DR. WARREN: We have four, yes. The university in

Lewisporte -

MR. POWER: Doing first and second year, or just

first year?

DR. WARREN: Lewisporte, and in Grand Falls, and

then we opened Burin and Labrador West. And there is pressure for - some perk up

when I say this - other first year programmes as soon as possible. Burin has in

1990, 114 full time students.

MR. POWER: That would be higher than normal

participation rate, I suspect.

DR. WARREN: Yes. Grand Falls, 184; Labrador City,

128; Lewisporte had the smaller number, 67; and of course we have had Grenfell

with 997. So all of these initiatives increase participation in post-secondary.

And we have to decentralize post-secondary education to give people closer to

home the programmes so they can get a good shot at it.

MR. POWER: I was not going to ask any other

questions, Mr. Chairman, just a brief one.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Go ahead, Mr. Power.

MR. POWER: Is there a magic number? I think the

costs were somewhere like a half a million dollars to set up for library and lab

facilities. Is there a magic number? Is 67 too small to warrant that? Is 100 the

right number? Have you looked at any kind of ratios?

DR. WARREN: No, we have not, but we know that you

need a certain number to make it viable. They are costly and there are some

people who suggest that in lieu of that we should give the students the money to

come to bigger centres, but we as a Government, support the earlier initiative

of trying to provide more post-secondary closer to the people so that they can

do it not only cheaper but also experiment and try things before they move out

of their own home community. We have not decided on a number but you are

probably right, for a viable program you probably need 100. It depends on the

number of courses you offer. They share faculty between those two programs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Hearn.

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I listened with some interest to the Minister making

some of his comments, especially when he was talking about the Federal

Government and their lack of attention to education, and their cutbacks. I

wonder if the Minister would tell us how many fewer dollars he is getting this

year from the Federal Government than he did last year?

DR. WARREN: I cannot give the Member the dollars

for equalization payments. I do not have these and the general revenues, but I

know in EPF transfer payments the figures, I think, are $124.8 million in

1990-91, and $125 million in 1991-92. It is going to be about $125 million so

the amount remains stable even though costs are going up, and if we had

continued without the freeze the amount would have gone from $131 million in

1991 to about $150 million, but it is going to remain at about $125 million. The

cuts are in the rate of growth, as I have indicated, and not in actual dollars.

We are getting basically the same dollars from the Federal Government under EPF

transfers for post-secondary education.

MR. HEARN: It is extremely interesting when the

Minister talks about freezes and cuts. When the present Government freezes it is

not a cut but when the Federal Government freezes funding it is a cut. I suppose

the bottom line, regardless of whether it is a freeze or a cut, means fewer

dollars, but to zero in and blame all the problems on lack of improvements in

the education service because of actually not an decrease at all but the same

dollars from the feds, when the Minister himself is chopping in areas of

provincial funding, to me is extremely hypercritical. He talks about the basic

level of education being maintained across the country, and I agree with that.

All our children should have a basic level of education but then the Minister,

himself, his Department, and the present Government, goes out and slashes and

cuts and eliminates the Department and what have you, I wonder how the Minister

feels? Is he embarrassed as he goes around the Province and meets people who

want to talk education, and he thinks back to the months proceeding the last

election, and the election campaigns, when the focus, more so than in any other

area, was on education? The Premier for months zeroed right in on education and

one of the key areas was on equal opportunities around the Province, and

equalization, a program which we developed and brought in, full equalization

immediately. I can still see headlines coming out of Lewisporte. Equalization

was the big thing, universities all over the place. What do we see? We see a

feeble attempt at equalizing, just picking up what was in the Budget already

when the Government took over and there has not been a cent added since. We see

the Department of Education at the primary, elementary and secondary level in

particular slashed to the core, one of those days that is going to cause all

kinds of problems because there will be no real liaison between the field and

the Department at all as is quite evident out there now.

We see school boards with their budgets being cut, not

frozen but cut, because of the declining enrolments they have fewer dollars this

year. We see the school tax authorities which were lambasted by the candidates

in the Minister's Government during the campaign and here in the House when in

Opposition, lambasted out there, embarrassed, the worst thing in the world was

the school tax authorities, and they were going to get rid of them. The Premier

himself hinted at that and wormed his way out of it by putting in 'change

significantly'. Nothing has been done, the Minister has been on his knees every

night praying that the school tax authorities collect more money to take the

heat off him.

We see all of this happening and still it is the

Government that was going to do so much for education. The Department of

Education and the educational progress outside Confederation Building has been

stifled considerably. The only thing I guess that amazes me more than what the

Government has done is the lack of reaction by the NTA who during the time of

the last couple of years preceding the change in government, when they were

getting their improved

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	1991-05-02
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_socialservices_ga41session3_1991-05-02_ssc-edu_.htm
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	0f0698f61b01d5c19c9e732c74f68510717fabd7

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