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April

27, 2016

SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

The

Committee met at 5:35 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Dempster):

We'll get started, if everybody is ready, seeing the time of the evening.

Welcome, everybody. I'll ask the minister to introduce himself and his staff can

introduce themselves. Then we can move to this side. When you're speaking, I

would ask you to just say your name for the purpose of the Broadcast Centre

downstairs. I think that's it.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Andrew Parsons, MHA, Burgeo

La Poile, Minister of Justice and Public Safety and Attorney General.

I guess

we'll go to my immediate right and then flip over to my left; I guess that's how

it works.

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

Jackie Lake-Kavanagh, Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Safety and Enforcement.

MS. JACOBS:

Heather Jacobs, Deputy Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Acting.

MR. GREEN:

Andrew Green, Manager of Budgeting.

MS. LANGOR:

Fiona Langor, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Corporate Services,

Acting.

MR. STANLEY:

Todd Stanley, Assistant Deputy Minister, Courts and Legal Services.

MS. RYDER-LAHEY:

Pamela Ryder-Lahey, Chief Executive Officer, Supreme Court of Newfoundland and

Labrador.

MR. MOLLOY:

Donovan Molloy, ADM, Criminal Operations.

MS. MACINNIS:

Wilma MacInnis, Director of

Court Services with the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. JOYCE:

Luke Joyce, Director of Communications.

MR. SAMMS:

John Samms, Executive Assistant to the minister.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Paul Davis, MHA for Topsail

Paradise, Leader of the Opposition.

MR. COLLINS:

Sandy Collins, Office of the Opposition and retired politician.

CHAIR:

Welcome back to the Chamber.

MR. REID:

Scott Reid, MHA for St.

George's Humber.

MS. ROGERS:

Gerry Rogers and I work for

the good people of St. John's Centre.

MR. MORGAN:

Ivan Morgan, Researcher, NDP caucus.

MR. LANE:

Paul Lane, MHA for the

District of Mount Pearl Southlands.

MS. PARSLEY:

Betty Parsley, MHA, Harbour

Main.

MS. HALEY:

Carol Anne Haley, MHA, Burin

Grand Bank.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

Would

the minister like to have a few words before I ask the Clerk to call the first

subhead?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Sure. I'll be very quick.

We've

all been through this stuff before. I'll try my best to answer any questions.

Thankfully, I have good staff here that will follow up if there's anything I

can't answer. If there's anything we can't answer, then I will make sure that if

you ask, I'll provide the information. Going back to what we've done in the

past, anything I provide to one side, we'll provide to the other side as well.

I'm

hoping, if you don't mind, that we can start with Donovan Molloy in the back.

He's got a function involving the Crown prosecutors, ADMs from all across

Canada. I'm hoping we can ask him and he can go back to that important matter.

Then we'll go right back to the front and let her go.

CHAIR:

What subhead, Minister, are

you referring to?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would be subhead

2.2.01, Criminal Law.

CHAIR:

Just for procedural purposes

here, we'll have the Clerk call that subhead.

CLERK (Ms. Proudfoot):

Subhead 2.2.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.2.01 carry?

ahead, Mr. Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The

first line, 01, would be under Salaries we're not going to take a lot of time

in this particular area, but I do have some questions on it. The salary budget

last year was at $6.2 million and the actual revised estimate was $6.1 million.

Can you tell me where those savings or reductions occurred?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It would have been savings

due to vacancies, delayed recruitment and some new lawyers were hired at a lower

starting salary as opposed to higher up in steps. That would be the savings on

that one, I believe.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry, vacancies and delayed

recruitment?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, vacancies and there

was some delayed recruitment, I believe.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So are there vacant

positions there now?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I going to turn to Donovan

on that one.

MR. MOLLOY:

Mr. Davis, there is

currently one vacant position. We were, as you may recall, flying prosecutors in

and out of Labrador on occasion well, more than occasion, I guess, last year.

We had put certain people in the Goose Bay positions, but they were working from

the St. John's office. I'm very happy to say that we're quite stable in the last

year in the Goose Bay and Wabush area. We have one vacancy. The lady who was in

the Labrador position went off on maternity leave. We had someone backfilling

but then that person got a permanent position.

We have

an articling clerk in Labrador who we want to keep, so rather than trying to

find somebody in that six-month window, which is very hard to recruit anybody

anyway because that's all that's left in a term, we decided to wait. The clerk

is getting called in June. We're going to submit an RSA to keep him on. He's

worked out fine and has expressed an interest in staying in Labrador. We

purposely waited to fill that position.

MR. P. DAVIS:

We know there are changes

coming to courts in different parts of the province. What's the impact on

salaries or on positions when it comes to prosecutions and the Crown attorney's

office? What's the impact on the closures of some of those courts?

Harbour

Grace, for example, is there a reduction in prosecution because of the closing

of the Harbour Grace court that's going to be absorbed somewhere else?

MR. MOLLOY:

No, Harbour Grace, maybe in the early '90s, was staffed locally. We had an

office there with a full-time assistant. At some point in the '90s, to the best

of my recollection, they decided to close that office and have matters in

Harbour Grace prosecuted out of our main office in St. John's. That's been the

practice for as long as I can remember.

The

only change for us is, of course, that person won't be driving back and forth to

Harbour Grace as often.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Just to be clear then, there

was a prosecutor who was assigned specifically to Harbour Grace court or were

there a number of prosecutors who would travel out there?

MR. MOLLOY:

We tend to try and have it confined to one person, simply because it's better to

have continuity in any area, it leads to more efficient processing of cases, but

there were circumstances when that person might have a matter in St. John's or

there might be some conflict that we would send a different prosecutor out

there. The intention was to have it, at all times, mainly concentrated with one

person in the St. John's office.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What happens to that one

person? There are no job losses in that particular field or in that particular

branch.

MR. MOLLOY:

No, I suspect, assuming the matters are going to be dealt with in St. John's,

that those matters will be distributed in the same way now that other cases in

St. John's are distributed. Meaning they'll be assigned to prosecutors by their

managers in accordance with the current system. So that person's employment will

not be affected. I suspect more people will be handling the files. That's the

only difference I anticipate.

MR. P. DAVIS:

The Salaries under this

section, do they include as well, support staff or support staff for

prosecutors, or is this just simply I see a bunch of heads going up and down.

MR. MOLLOY:

Yes, my understanding is it's for all prosecution staff, whatever their

function.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You said in Harbour Grace

there's one person who provided support in an office in Harbour Grace.

MR. MOLLOY:

No, that was back in 1992. They had a permanent office with a resident Crown

attorney. I'm not familiar with the reasoning at that time, but they decided to

close that office and have the prosecutions conducted out of St. John's.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What about in Labrador West

and Wabush? Is it a similar circumstance there?

MR. MOLLOY:

I think it's been since 2007, when Wabush was established as its own centre as

opposed to simply being a circuit point, that we had a permanent Crown attorney

there. The Crown attorney in that office does a number of circuits and also is

routinely back and forth to Happy Valley-Goose Bay in any event, because the

Wabush judge was sitting in Goose Bay prior to the recent announcement for a

significant portion of each month. So we're exploring options, but that person

may be able to continue to work out of the Wabush office.

MR. P. DAVIS:

As I'm looking further down,

I see in Transportation and Communications there was $294,000 budgeted last

year, $445,000 actually is the revised estimate of expenditure, but $326,000 is

budgeted for this year. Is that related to this discussion we're having now?

MR. MOLLOY:

the budget historically this was an amount that at least this is my simplified

understanding of it wasn't used, or the average of what wasn't used, and so

that amount was deducted.

Ms.

MR. P. DAVIS:

No, that's fine. It's not a

big difference.

I don't

know if the minister, if this is a place to answer this question, but I'm trying

to grasp an understanding of how prosecutions and court will operate for Wabush.

The Wabush court is closing, we understand. Then the prosecution cases, what

would happen with those?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What we're going to do there

obviously, we have to work with the judiciary on it. It has to be done in

consultation. We do have some prior practice we can go back to.

Up to

2007, it had been a circuit court for 15-20 years. So I guess in this case, now

that there is a prosecutor living there full-time so depending on how we go

about this, working with the caseload that's there, it will likely be the same

prosecutor, as I think Mr. Molloy said, that has been commuting back and forth

between handling matters in Happy Valley-Good Bay and in Wabush. So we're trying

to figure it out there.

I guess

the big change not even a big change in some ways because the court hasn't

been permanent in many ways, given that the judge and the Crown prosecutor have

been leaving to handle matters in Goose Bay which has a much higher caseload.

These

are things we'll still be working through, obviously working with the judge and

the administrators up there. We have Ms. MacInnis here also. So these are things

we'll figure out as we move forward.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I don't know if it's of this

area. Do the prosecutor and judge actually live in Labrador West?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, that's my

understanding.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Even though I know the

Wabush court is planning to close, you still haven't sorted out exactly how that

is going to (inaudible).

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, this is the thing.

We've given the notice there. They do live there but they have been commuting, I

understand, for some time. They do a fair amount of work in Happy Valley-Goose

Bay. So it's a matter of looking at what we've got there.

Again,

I can't talk about their personal circumstances, what their plan is, but I think

if we work with the judiciary and work with the people there, I think you can

still handle the caseload that's there. Instead of having a full-time court, it

may go back to a circuit court. I don't want to say anything definitively, given

that I have a duty to consult with the judiciary on that. It's our belief that,

given the caseload which has declined pretty significantly since 2007, we can

make sure the cases are heard, probably using the same exact resources that are

already there.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

Purchased Services, what is that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Purchased Services; rent.

MR. P. DAVIS:

The reduction from $856,000 to $557,000 is expected to be what?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I might defer to Virginia on

this one.

The bulk of the money that was in the Purchased Services budget, a lot of it

relates to rent. Some of it also relates to witness fees which are paid out of

that budget.

After

some discussions back and forth with the Office of the Comptroller General, it

was determined that some of those expenditures should properly be charged to

Transportation and Communications. So there was some change between the two

budgets to reflect the proper appropriation for it.

During

a line-by-line review by the Department of Finance, it was also determined there

were some historical dropped funds there and those were removed as part of this

budget.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You mentioned rent is a good

part of it. What rent is that? What rent is changing that would have an impact

on that? I probably know.

Atlantic Place is a big

component of it.

MS. JACOBS:

Yes, Atlantic Place is a big

component of it. We also pay rent in Happy Valley-Goose Bay for the Crown

attorney's office and in St. George's, Stephenville, Gander and Marystown.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Is there something changing

on the contract with Atlantic Place, because it's $300,000 difference, which is

a fair bit. Is there something maybe the most major one, I would think, the

most major rental would be Atlantic Place. Was there something changed in the

contract there?

MS. JACOBS:

The contract, I believe,

expires this fall coming and where Transportation and Works is currently in

negotiation with Atlantic Place.

CHAIR:

Can I just remind Heather,

before you speak, say your name for the purpose of the Broadcast Centre

downstairs.

Thank

you.

MR. P. DAVIS:

The only other one was on

Property, Furnishings and Equipment. Is that the normal property, furnishings

and equipment? Is there anything else there?

I'm

sorry; on Purchased Services, that doesn't include I noticed there's a line

for Professional Services. It's not a big amount, $59,000. That's staying much

the same, but are there any other services other than that in Purchased

Services? There's nothing in Professional Services or outside counsel or any of

those types of ?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No. Outside counsel I think

is mostly under a different heading, if I'm correct. That's under civil. Am I

right?

MR. P. DAVIS:

If outside counsel was

brought in, for example, in a conflict matter or something like that, where

would that be?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's a good question.

MS. JACOBS:

As you can see, this amount

in Professional Services for Criminal Law is fairly low. So if outside counsel

is brought in for prosecution we would use the money there, but quite often the

money comes out of Civil Division, Professional Services, just because the

amount here is not as much. In Civil, I believe it's usually $1.5 million, but I

believe we have more money this year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You'll probably have to

remind me of that when we get to Civil.

MS. JACOBS:

Sure.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I think that's all.

That's

2.2.01, and I think that's all the questions I have at this point in time.

CHAIR:

Okay.

So we

can move to Ms. Rogers if it's okay with Mr. Davis he has two minutes left on

the clock and we'll cover 2.2.01 here. Then I understand that's it for this

gentleman.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Madam Chair, I'm sorry.

There

was another area I wanted to ask questions on. I can do it after, if you want.

It's up to you.

CHAIR:

Is it the same? Is it

pertaining ?

MR. P. DAVIS:

On the same area, yes.

CHAIR:

You may as well, yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

On protection orders;

there's a concern in Labrador West that was a concern about processing on

Emergency Protection Orders, Child Protection Orders and so on. How would that

change? What would the implications of not having a court in Wabush be? Would

that be part of Prosecutions or would that be another area? We can leave it

until later if you want.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Feel free if Donovan or

anybody else wants to speak to it. I will say it will probably be back similar

to what it was in 2007, before that. It's the same thing.

I don't

have the exact times here. Wilma or Donavan might be better able to talk about

when the court sat, when there was nobody there or there or whatever else. Maybe

Donovan can speak from the criminal side of it.

MR. MOLLOY:

Mr. Davis, Prosecutions doesn't have any involvement in the procuring of

Emergency Protection Orders. It's either done mostly by the applicants

themselves or a police officer on their behalf. We only become involved if a

person is charged by the police with the breach of an Emergency Protection

Order. I don't know if that answers the question.

MR. P. DAVIS:

It does. It's not your area

is what you're saying. So I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to

inquire on how that would happen.

The

concern that's been raised with us is in the case of Wabush, so remote. Back in

2007 there were no EPOs.

MR. A. PARSONS:

What we can do is go back to

when we do courts we can make sure we bring that up because Donovan doesn't

have any handling in that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sure, okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We'll make sure we do discuss that when we go back to the Provincial Court

heading.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sure.

Thank

you, Madam Chair.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms.

Rogers.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you very much for

being here this evening. I can imagine how tough some of the decisions have been

in many of the departments with the current fiscal situation that we're in. So I

want to thank you for your dedication and your hard work, and probably some real

creativity to try and continue to fulfil your mandate, even though there is such

a strain on the fiscal situation within our province.

actually have no further questions. All the questions I did have on this topic

area have been answered. So I'm fine, thank you.

CHAIR:

Is it the wishes of the

Committee that we continue on in the two, or do you want to go back now and

start from the beginning?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Donovan owes you.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. MOLLOY:

Thank you very much for allowing me to go first.

CHAIR:

Okay, I'll ask the Clerk to

call the first subhead.

CLERK:

Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Oh, I have an error here. We

should have called for

CLERK:

No, we can do that when we

do the totals.

CHAIR:

We can do that after? Okay.

ahead.

CLERK:

Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 carry?

Can we

start with Ms. Rogers this time?

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you very much.

Under

Transportation and Communications there's a change there, an increase of

$30,000.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think that has to do with

the minister living over on the beautiful Southwest Coast. But, no, I think that

has to do with the transportation that may not have been there with previous

ministers, I think, having been closer to St. John's. So I think that's pretty

much all of that actually, an estimated increase which, again, hopefully after a

full year we can figure out and have a better gauge of where we are on that.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

And

what a trek you have as well.

MR. A. PARSONS:

It's 890 kilometres.

MS. ROGERS:

One way?

MR. A. PARSONS:

One way.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes, that's a lot.

That

was the only question I had there.

Under

General Administration, 1.2.01, under Salaries, we see a reduction there of

CHAIR:

Excuse me, Ms. Rogers; we're

still on the we didn't call the second one.

MS. ROGERS:

Oh, I see. You're going to

do each one separately?

CHAIR:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. Fine.

CHAIR:

Well, we could do all of the

one if you want. That's fine; we've done it different ways in Estimates.

MS. ROGERS:

I'd be fine with that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I might say, it doesn't

matter to me. Whatever is easier for you guys or the Chair, it doesn't matter to

me.

CHAIR:

Okay.

We'll

get a vote for all of them inclusive, but I'll ask the Clerk to call the second

subhead.

CLERK:

Subhead 1.1.01 to subhead 1.3.01.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Shall

1.2.01 to 1.3.01 inclusive carry?

Okay,

Ms. Rogers.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Under

Salaries you see a reduction of $151,000 there.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I am correct and I hope

they'll correct me if I'm wrong there was a vacant communications position

that we decided not to fill and to get rid of, I think. Also, there was a

vacancy in the ADM position for a little while but that's now been filled. That

might explain the discrepancy there.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

And the

vacant comms position, would that be part of the 650 jobs that were announced as

being cut?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think so. That's my

understanding.

OFFICIAL:

An attrition position.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Attrition. Sorry.

MS. ROGERS:

So it's an attrition?

Okay.

Thank you.

And

then 1.2.02, Administrative and Policy Support, the Salaries there; we see a

significant drop in '15-'16. Can you explain that $1.3 million?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think and again,

Virginia will save me if I'm wrong it has to do with the Domestic Violence

Court. There was some delay there in getting that started. So that's why there's

been it went down because the positions weren't filled and there have been a

number of positions. I think we can probably get a list of those positions as

well.

MS. ROGERS:

That are now filled?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, that we're creating and

we're in the process of filling. Most of them, I think, are filled now. So we

can get that list. So that explains why the number is back up. I think that was

October 2015 is when they started getting filled.

There

was also a vacant clerk typist position and something to do with student budget

I also believe. It might have gone to other divisions.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Can you

give us an update on the rollout of the court now? So St. John's is fully in

operation?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Because we see also well,

let's get at that and then we can go back to this.

Where

are we on the West Coast and Labrador? Can you give us an update on that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes. St. John's is up and

running. Actually, the stats I have here in front of me say they've heard 32

cases total; 22 active, three have been sentenced and seven have opted out.

Stephenville; there's been 12 cases total, seven active and five opted out.

Stephenville; in the short period of time I've been here I've seen Stephenville

starting to get up and running now. I know a lot of staff have actually been

travelling to do the training that comes with it. Part of my mandate, obviously,

was to and part of what we said we'd like to do is increase it to Labrador and

to Central.

believe, actually, last year I might get it wrong on dates during the summer

I think staff internally did some work, and met with the different interest

groups and stakeholders to work on what the model is going to be and how we're

going to do it. So that's something, again, I can't put a timeline on it, but

the plan is obviously to do that.

Central

is the same thing. Right now we're trying to figure out how we're going to do

it, where would you put it in one of the courthouses that are out there. You've

got different options there. So that's what we're trying to figure out.

So it's

something I'd like to see. And I think with these courts I don't think anybody

disputes the value of it. But it's like anything, too, I think you've got to get

the members of the bar on board as well and get some education there. It's not

something that everybody is obviously used to.

St.

John's is already started. I think Stephenville as people get used to it on

the West Coast, it will see an uptake there and hopefully we'll see more go

through there.

MS. ROGERS:

And so can we go back to

Labrador?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Where is that at now? What's

the process?

MR. A. PARSONS:

We're still, internally,

trying to figure out what we want to do there, how we want to roll it out.

Obviously, there are some different challenges up there. We have a pretty busy

courthouse. It's not ready to roll out by any means yet, I don't think. It's

like anything. I hate putting timelines on anything if I can't guarantee what it

will be.

Given

that we have two models, or two up and running now and we have the two left

and again, we all recognize that Labrador has some different challenges also

when it comes to the hiring side of the individuals that you need as well.

It is

going to happen; there's no doubt. Prior to me ever being here, I know staff

have met with a lot of the groups whether it was the Innu, Nunatsiavut Jackie

did a lot of the work, so she is probably better off speaking to it.

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

We had some meetings in

Labrador there the fall and we met with representatives from Nunatsiavut. We met

with the deputy minister and probably about six or seven of her staff. It was a

really, really productive discussion. One of the comments that they made is that

they were more interested in broad, overall issues of violence in the community

and not just violence against women or intimate partner relationships. We

thought that was interesting.

We also

met with the Chief Qupee from the Innu Nation and a couple of representatives

from the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation as well. That was a really productive,

constructive discussion, very positive. One of the things that they did say is

that they were quite interested, but there was obviously a lot of ground to

cover and a lot of discussions that would need to take place. But the initial

discussions were very positive.

MS. ROGERS:

So is there any money in the

budget this year for the rollout of the Labrador court?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, there has been budget

monies allotted to continue studying it and figure out what we want to do.

MS. ROGERS:

So how much is that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think the rough figure is

$300,000.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

That's

to continue to study (inaudible)

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would be both; that

would be Labrador and Central.

MS. ROGERS:

And Central, okay.

Again,

it's the assessment but not for any kind of implementation.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I don't want to say that for

sure. I don't want to go out and say implementation because I'm not convinced

that that's entirely possible this year, but again it's one of those things I

haven't had an opportunity. I've been planning to get up to Labrador myself in

February then between weather and everything else. I want to get up there

myself. I've been up there before, but I want to get up and have the same

conversations myself. Hopefully I can get up when the House closes; it's kind of

difficult.

I'd

like to get up there depending on when the House closes, it might even be a

summer visit. I don't want to move forward myself without even going up and

maybe talking to the people on the ground.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great.

If we

go back to Salaries, from the original budget of '15-'16 to the estimate for

'16-'17, we see a drop of almost $720,000.

MS. JACOBS:

Part of that is all the money for the Family Violence Intervention Court was put

into Administrative and Policy Support. When the court was started up in St.

John's and Stephenville, we transferred the salaries out to the proper areas;

for example, Victim Services, Probation, Provincial Court, Legal Aid,

Prosecutions and CYFS. So the money is now transferred out to those particular

heads.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great. That makes

sense. Thank you for working so quickly on that, once it was rolling again.

I see

my time is up.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Mr. Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You're probably going to

hear this question a fair bit tonight. I'm not sure if I should ask it at the

end or at the beginning or throughout. So you can judge yourself accordingly, as

long as I get the information before the end of it.

While

we're on 1.2.02, Salaries, you said the $720,000 difference is salaries that are

transferred to other budget heads. I understand that. The salary changes here,

the $720,000, are any of those positions being eliminated or lost through

attrition or vacant positions or otherwise?

MS. JACOBS:

Not at this juncture, no.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What does that mean, not at

this time?

MS. JACOBS:

No, Mr. Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

It was at this time that

MS. JACOBS:

No.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Is there a plan? Well, is

there anything budgeted here for reductions in the department in the months to

come?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can speak to that.

Obviously, everybody knows, and you remind us in the House every day, we have

this one budget and then we have the next budget coming up. I can say,

obviously, we're not looking at cuts, per se. That's not where I'm going.

Where I

am right now, I guess being five months in, I'm still trying to get a handle of

the department to see where I do think there are things we can do differently.

That's not code for efficiencies or anything else. I just think getting in and

trying to ask a few questions is there something we need to change the model

on? I don't know. Is there something we need to add people to, change people?

Right

now, I'm still at the process where, quite frankly, when you first get in trying

to get your head wrapped around it and keep up with it. Then lately we've been,

obviously, bogged down between the House of Assembly and the budget. So once

that moves forward, I want to get back to looking at sort of the fundamentals of

the department on the different aspects, some that aren't concentrated on enough

and maybe other things.

Going

back to what Ms. Jacobs said, I would say the answer is no.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. I understand.

If I

can paraphrase, the change in the Salaries is not a reflection of any job

reductions or employment reductions. Having said that, you as the minister,

which I would expect you to do, will go back to the department and look at how

operations are conducted and if there are more effective or more efficient ways

to do that, that could result in a job loss, you wouldn't say that can't happen

or won't happen and I appreciate that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, I guess I've been

around long enough to know that I've got to be careful with what I say.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Absolutely do.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Because those words can be

taken the wrong way.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I've learned that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm not looking actively to

find jobs to get rid of, but I think anybody that looks at their department, or

anybody who looks at anything, you are looking at is there a way we can doing

things are we doing things the best way they could go? So it's not something

I'm actively looking at. I don't want to

MR. P. DAVIS:

I wasn't trying to suggest

you're trying to find a way to eliminate jobs.

MR. A. PARSONS:

No.

MR. P. DAVIS:

It's just how you do

business and if that change in business results in a loss of a job or a position

then

MR. A. PARSONS:

I guess if I were to look at

something and I think it can be done differently, differently by hopefully

better, then I'm going to examine it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

Under

this area there's Revenue, federal and provincial revenue, can you explain that

to me?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

Under

the provincial revenue, I believe the understanding of that is that it's

budgeted revenues from Commissioner of Oaths, Notary Public applications as well

as autopsy reports, which is kind of morbid the fact that the number actually

increased. So that makes up that information there.

Under

the federal revenue which is $30,000, I'm very happy to report that we reached

out to our federal Minister of Justice back when I got in, probably within the

first three or four weeks. So we've gotten $30,000 in funding to do a drug

treatment court feasibility study. That's something I've been meeting with

members of the bar and administrators on. We've secured the funding so that's

something that we'll be, hopefully, getting done. The feds do cover the cost of

the feasibility. So that's the first step in, hopefully, moving forward to

explore that model.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What happened in the Revenue

from a budget of $63,000 to a revised of $240,000 and now budgeted $210,000?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I would say that the

$210,000 is probably a best estimate based on what we had last year. The

significant increase, if I'm right, is from increased autopsies, Notary Public

applications and Commissioner of Oaths.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Really from $63,000 to

$240,000?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I know I felt the same way

when I looked at it.

The

$210,000 would be a guess but I mean, obviously, like any kind of revenue when

it comes to autopsies, I obviously don't want to see that revenue increase.

MR. P. DAVIS:

No, absolutely.

Madam

Chair, maybe if we go back to 1.1.01 and 1.2.01, we could just clear those up.

Actually, I think you've covered everything I have on 1.1.01.

Only

that, in the Minister's Office, no change in staffing levels? There is a small

increase in salary but there is no staffing change?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No staffing change but the

salary increase would have been with one of the previous ministers didn't have a

constituency assistant. So now we're factoring in it's the same makeup. It's

myself, the EA, you have your executive secretary, Ms. Rhonda Stewart and that's

it. It's the same staffing level.

MR. P. DAVIS:

In Executive Support under

1.2.01 and that's all my questions on 1.1.01, Madam Chair, but on 1.2.01, the

$150,000 you said was a position that was vacant, an attrition position, no

other position changes under that area of Executive Support?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, it's a new ADM at a

lower salary scale. There was the one vacant communications position that was

removed.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Maybe

in the short time I have left we can move ahead now to 1.2.03 which I think is

the next area. The first three would be completed, unless Ms. Rogers has to go

back there or wants to go back there, maybe she will.

CHAIR:

You can finish up your time

if you want, Mr. Davis, because we'll continue on before I call it up to 1.3.01.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Under

Salaries, we see an increase in salaries there. Can you explain that one,

Minister?

MR. A. PARSONS:

1.2.03, Legal Information

Management?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes.

MS. JACOBS:

We had wrongly we had an

Aboriginal research position that we had the salary put in the civil division.

So now it's properly put over into Legal Information Management, where it should

be.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, so it's just a move to

another subhead.

MS. JACOBS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You guys do that a lot.

MS. JACOBS:

We're tangly.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Supplies, what would be

supplies under Legal Information because it seems to be as very high number for

supplies, relative to other areas? Why would that be so high?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think that's the

subscriptions to the different materials that make up the law libraries. As we

know, we've seen an increase in that. Even when you go from hardcopy to

electronic now, the publishers are still going to find a way. I guess we've seen

that, whether it's Memorial University or anywhere. So that's my understanding.

Is it

all subscriptions? Mostly?

Obviously, there are still the usual supplies like paper, pen, whatever, but I

think the increase is mainly due to the subscriptions.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So subscriptions wouldn't be

under Purchased Services, it's under Supplies?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Purchased Services is

actually storage and record retrieval.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Your cost more than doubled.

It's a relatively small amount compared to some other areas, but it's more than

double last year and the estimate for this year is double what it was last year.

Do we

have that many more records or is it a contract?

MR. A. PARSONS:

As time goes by we are

storing more.

I think

looking back, the historical trends show that the new number is probably a

little more accurate than what was actually budgeted, previously.

I can

see this is something we've seen when you do a line by line through government.

What we're paying for record retrieval is crazy. It's a huge expense across

government. The storage is one thing, but the record retrieval is a big cost.

So the

$25,000 is probably the more well, that's obviously what we spent, but the

$20,000 is hopefully something more accurate.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Would they be long-term

contracts? Is that how they work?

MR. STANLEY:

The contracts are tendered. I don't know if they're long, long-term. They may be

three, four or five years but that's about it. It's not a 10 or 15 or 20 year

contracts.

Most of

the expenses are in relation to the retrieval and putting it back, as opposed to

a monthly cost for storing boxes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms.

Rogers.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes, just to bring us back

to 1.2.02, Administrative and Policy Support. Under Purchased Service we see a

sharp reduction in revised for '15-'16 and then also a reduction for '16-'17

compared to the original budget for '15-'16.

Can you

just tell me what some of those Purchased Services might be and why the

fluctuation?

MR. A. PARSONS:

(Inaudible) I think the big

one might have been funding for copiers which again is another huge expense. So

it's the funding for copiers, previously budgeted and was paid through this

division. Now it's reallocated throughout the department. That's the big thing

there.

The

other part of Purchased Services obviously, we've got some money set aside

there for funding allocated for possible expansion of the Domestic Violence

Court. There will be some necessary for that and the possibility of counselling

services that would go with that.

MS. ROGERS:

So the community groups that

provide the the empowerment groups, that kind of thing, does that come under

Purchased Services for the Domestic Violence Court?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great.

And all

that copying we were supposed to become a paperless society, hey. We were

supposed to have more leisure. We have neither. It was all supposed to be that

way.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can remember, it wasn't

that long ago, hearing we were going to move towards paperless and no.

MS. ROGERS:

And computers were going to

give us a four-day week. They've given us a seven-day week.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

1.2.04

under Administrative Support; we see quite a reduction there under Property,

Furnishings and Equipment.

MR. A. PARSONS:

There was a delay in the

purchase of vehicles for the Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Division and the RNC.

I think the actual expenditure and Virginia might be better talking about this

than I am because there's a bit of a convoluted explanation to this.

MS. ROGERS:

I remember a little bit of

it from last year, I think.

There was $771,000 budgeted last year for vehicles, mostly with the RNC and Fish

and Wildlife. We projected $619,000 because we were waiting on approvals for the

vehicles. We've actually spent $689,000.

The

budget for '16-'17 is reduced. That was a

Budget 2015 decision.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

wonder, Madam Chair, are you wanting to call at the bottom?

CHAIR:

Yes. You're done in

section

Okay.

MS. ROGERS:

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I guess before you call it,

I don't know if Mr. Davis has any more

MR. P. DAVIS:

On 1.2.04?

MR. A. PARSONS:

1.2.04, before you call it,

you might want to have a

MR. P. DAVIS:

No, she asked the question

and it's a fairly there's a difference that Vanessa explained. I'm fine with

that one.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay.

MR. P. DAVIS:

On 1.3.01, do we want to do

that one first?

MS. ROGERS:

Sure, yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Because that will end that

section, right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Did you want to go ahead,

Gerry?

MS. ROGERS:

Sure, thank you.

The

provincial revenue, we see an expectation that there may be more.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, there's been a change

in the fees there. I think it used to take in $7 from the City of St. John's,

MUN and the hospital parking lot tickets or fines. That's been increased to $9.

MS. ROGERS:

Of the tickets that they

issue, the province would get $7 of that. Now they're going to get $9 of it.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We do the processing, I

believe, and the collections. And in the City of St. John's we were doing the

prosecuting, but we're moving away from that September 1.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great.

I'm

good. Thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay, I'll ask the Clerk to

call the

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm sorry

MR. LANE:

I have questions as well.

CHAIR:

Okay, my apologies.

Mr.

Davis and then Mr. Lane.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

1.3.01 on Salaries, same questions as before; any position adjustments or

changes under that heading?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, I don't think so. Is

there? No.

MR. P. DAVIS:

No. Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The salary variance might

have been due there were some vacancies there, I think, for a little while.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

You're good?

MR. A. PARSONS:

And I will say that Ms.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Don't remind her.

CHAIR:

Mr. Lane.

MR. LANE:

Yes, just out of curiosity,

I was listening to the conversation. I'm just wondering how autopsies wind up

being a revenue to the province? I'm just wondering how that works, just out of

curiosity and education.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If reports are requested

there's a fee that comes with it, I guess, through the Office of the Chief

Medical Examiner who does the autopsies.

MR. LANE:

But who would be asking for

an autopsy that we would be charging a fee to?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I would assume the health

authority, probably. I don't know if there are private requests for autopsies as

well. I think there are private requests sometimes for autopsies. So there's a

fee that comes with that.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

And if

it comes from health, it's showing as a revenue on your budget. But obviously

it's an expense on the health care budget, right, a wash?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Again, I wouldn't call it a

cost per se; it's a time thing. It has to be done by Dr. Avis's office, so it is

a revenue. It sounds weird saying it when you're talking about autopsies as a

revenue generator, but there is a significant amount of work. From what Virginia

tells me there are actually quite a few requests.

MS. ROGERS:

So if my mom dies and I want

an autopsy, then do I pay for that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Autopsy report.

MS. ROGERS:

Report, okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think there's a difference

between the autopsy and the report. Am I right?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

If an autopsy is required under the legislative provisions of the Chief Medical

Examiner's office, there's no charge for that. But if somebody wants the report,

then afterwards, if they're looking for it, there may be a charge for a report.

They don't charge for autopsies.

CHAIR:

Are we good now with

section

1 up to 1.3.01? Yes.

Okay,

I'll ask the Clerk to call them again.

CLERK:

Subheads 1.1.01 to 1.3.01

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 to 1.3.01

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against?

Carried.

motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 1.3.01 carried.

CHAIR:

The next subheading we've

done, but we won't call that. We'll continue on and do it at the end.

I'll

ask the Clerk to call the next one.

CLERK:

Subhead 2.1.02.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We didn't do 2.1.01, did we?

CHAIR:

Yes, we did that with the

gentleman that left.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That was Civil Law, wasn't

it?

OFFICIAL:

That was Criminal Law.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That was Criminal Law

OFFICIAL:

Sorry, you're right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

this is Civil.

OFFICIAL:

Yeah, Civil Law.

CHAIR:

I'm glad somebody is awake.

MR. A. PARSONS:

How dare you skip over my

Estimates here?

CLERK:

Subhead 2.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.1.01 carry?

Mr.

Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The

same questions as other headings. Under Salaries, any position changes under

Civil Law.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay, that's where we talked

earlier about there was an Aboriginal research position. That was the change

there. But I can probably go out and do you know what? To save us some trouble

going forward, how many positions did this budget in our department? It's 31?

Thirty-one positions, I think, total.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay so

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah. Am I right to say

that?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Do you have a breakdown of

those available?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, I can definitely get

you a copy of that. Some were vacant, some were filled. I think there were 17

associated with the courts, am I right? Close?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Minister, do you have that

as FTs or, actually, people?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm pretty sure that's

people, isn't it or positions. Now, again there were a number of them vacant

too, I think, wasn't it.

Let's

see. There are nine vacant, four layoff notices issued, 17 notice of notice

issued and one called continued arrangement. It's a total of 31, but what I can

do is I certainly don't mind providing a sheet with this information as well.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What was the last one you

said, one what? Notice of

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, there was a layoff

notice issued, notice of notice issued and then continued arrangement.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What's a notice of notice

issued?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Oh, that's the prosecutor in

Wabush. There is not a position gone there. She's not losing her job, but

there's a change, I think, in the status of it. Where she's in Wabush, where is

she going to go. That's one of the ones we are still working on.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So you said 37 in total?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Thirty-one.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, sorry, 31 in total.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Nine vacant, four layoffs,

actually got notices; 17

MR. A. PARSONS:

Notice of notice.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Notice of notice.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's the courts, I

believe, and sheriff's officers involved with the courts.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Which is the next heading,

which we'll get to.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I want to discuss that a

little bit further.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Under Civil, there are no

impacts?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Also, in Professional

Services we see a big change from what was budgeted to revised to the estimate

for this year. Can you explain that one?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What is it we're

anticipating this year?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'll let Mr. Stanley answer

that; he'll do a better job than me.

MR. STANLEY:

This year, based on our past

experience with some of the expenditures we're having in various files relating

to mostly energy related matters but also files for where it's Attorney General

appointments of counsel in court, we went forward and asked for additional

funding, just in anticipation of some of the files that we see coming. Based on

our historical numbers, as you can see, last year we exceeded the budget as

well.

Just

for reference, this budget supports both government's outside counsel retentions

but it's also the budget that is used to pay for counsel when the court appoints

counsel in criminal matters. That's something we're seeing a lot of growth in

and we have no control over it. We're basically just required to pay the bill

when they come.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm sorry, maybe you can explain to me in a little bit more detail when that

would happen. I know it happens from time to time but, generally, when does it

happen?

MR. STANLEY:

There are a couple of

mechanisms under which an individual who is charged with a criminal offense can

apply to the court and ask for the court to appoint them, or appoint for them a

counsel at the expense of the Attorney General. There's a provision under our

Legal Aid Act , if someone is charged

with a homicide they can opt sorry.

Traditionally, there's a provision under the

Legal Aid Act . It's still there for

people to apply for to get their own counsel. What we're finding is that we're

having a number of instances where people are claiming they can't find counsel

at the rates that we used to pay for outside counsel under legal aid, which was

about $60 an hour. So people were claiming they couldn't avail of counsel under

the Legal Aid Act ; therefore, they

wanted the court to appoint counsel paid for by the AG at market rates.

In the

last couple of years we've had a swing where we've had a number of these people

appointed where we're paying we're paying significant amounts of money per

hour for these criminal appointments, and these trials, once someone gets

appointed, can take a couple of years to wind through. So we've had some

significant bills come in, and we're anticipating some significant bills on that

next year.

minimize or reduce this activity, that's one of the reasons why we increased the

legal aid's outside counsel rate last year to $115 an hour, to try to keep it

within the legal aid system as opposed to coming straight to the Attorney

General for funding. We're starting to see some benefit of that, in that we're

getting more people willing to take up certificates at a legal aid rate.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Legal aid rates now are $115. Where do market rates run?

MR STANLEY:

For criminal, locally we can see up to $200 an hour. Maybe even a bit more,

depending on who the practitioner is. Actually, we've seen, I think, up to $300

an hour for one or two people but the usual rate is something (inaudible).

MR. P. DAVIS:

Does legal aid have a

conflicts office?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, they do, here in St. John's.

MR. P. DAVIS:

And that hasn't been an

avenue when a person can

MR. STANLEY:

Well, when legal aid if an individual gets assigned legal aid counsel and then

has a problem with that legal aid counsel and wants another lawyer, legal aid

will assess. They will use the conflict office if they think that the reason the

person wants to get rid of their first legal aid lawyer creates a potential

conflict.

Legal

aid is always very sensitive to conflict issues, but a lot of the times we have

these individuals who've gone through three, four, five lawyers at legal aid and

then claim they can't form a solicitor-client relationship with anybody at legal

aid. They can't form a solicitor-client relationship with anybody in the private

sector at legal aid rates; therefore, they want the Crown to pay for the lawyer

of their choice.

We have

those applications. It's sort of a yin and yang thing. We're back and forth with

the courts fighting them. Sometimes they're successful, sometimes not. Not every

one of those applications is successful.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Is there a time or a case

where an accused would say I need two lawyers? Does that happen?

MR. STANLEY:

When we've done these AG retentions, we have agreed to pay for a second counsel

on a file where it's a significant matter, such as a homicide. We usually

require some kind of a discount for the second counsel.

We've

also been agreeing, actually in the last year or so, to pay for a paralegal just

in an attempt to keep the cost down of the overall processing. Because of the

amount of paperwork and everything that can be involved, records and disclosure

for a significant criminal trial, like a murder, can be substantial.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I might add, I do have a

list here of all the legal expenses paid out. So I'll make sure I provide that

as well, money paid out, mostly for civil, but obviously it covers off just

about everything. It's mostly counsel but I think there are some consultants,

expert witnesses and stuff. So I'll make sure that I do provide that.

I know

when I was there I used to ask for it all the time.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

I have

a couple of minutes left in my time here. I'd like to move to 2.1.02, if I may,

Madam Chair, under Sheriff's Office.

You

mentioned there are a number of sheriff's positions being eliminated. Can you

outline that for me?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, let me see now.

I think

the total is eight positions from the Office of the High Sheriff. I think most

of these people are engaged in bumping. So I don't know if there's actually

anybody there are vacancies that are there. I understand that these people,

when they go through the process, will not actually end up out of a position or

job.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So there are eight

vacancies?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Eight positions.

MR. P. DAVIS:

There are eight vacancies

they will move into.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Would I be right in thinking

there will be a reduction of eight positions when this is all done?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, and I think that's

associated with the courts.

MR. P. DAVIS:

There are eight positions

but there are eight vacancies. Essentially, what's happening is you have eight

vacancies that are being eliminated. No one is losing a job.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes. Well, what it is, there

are the four courts: Wabush, Harbour Grace, Grand Falls-Windsor and Grand Bank.

So I think those eight positions are tied up mostly with that, and there's one

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry, which ones again?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What I'll do, I'll let Ms.

Jacobs talk because she's got it off the top of her head better than I do.

MS. JACOBS:

There were six positions associated with the closure of the courts. As Minister

Parsons indicated, there are vacancies that if they, for example, want to move

to another position, there are vacancies in other areas to be able to fill.

There were two other positions, I believe, in headquarters. There was a vacant

IM position. As well, there was a realignment of duties and there was one layoff

in that position, in a management position.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So it's the Information Management, six sheriff's positions, and what was the

other one?

MS. JACOBS:

Manager of Judgement Enforcement.

MR. P. DAVIS:

In the case of a sheriff's

officer, say in Grand Bank, what are their options? Are you saying they can bump

to Gander or Corner Brook or St. John's?

MS. JACOBS:

Sorry; in Grand Bank, I believe they'd all be absorbed, maybe over in the

Provincial Court there because the Provincial Court won't be closing in Grand

Bank. It's the Supreme Court there.

MR. P. DAVIS:

The Supreme Court, yes.

Okay.

Grand Falls-Windsor?

MS. JACOBS:

The Provincial Court is remaining open there. So I'm assuming, Mr. Davis, now

I'm not 100 per cent positive, that there are vacancies there.

I think

maybe what you're getting at, if in Wabush, would the person be willing to move

to Happy Valley-Goose Bay?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes.

MS. JACOBS:

I don't know the answer to that question at this time.

MR. P. DAVIS:

If they did, if they bumped

to a vacant position I know it's hypothetical and difficult to answer and if

you'd rather not, I understand. But if there was a vacancy in Happy Valley-Goose

Bay, then does the employer relocate the employee at the expense of the

employer?

MS. JACOBS:

I think I'll leave that to

my HRS friends because I'm not sure of the answer.

MR. A. PARSONS:

We can ask Dan on that one,

though. There might be some HRS tie-up in that. I definitely don't want to speak

for that crowd.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Of course the same thing for

Harbour Grace if someone had to relocate because of a

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

There are three

positions in Harbour Grace that would be identified that would have

opportunities elsewhere.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Mr. Davis, in the interest

of time, can we now move to Ms. Rogers?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, certainly.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

I'm hoping that we can stay

within up until 2.1.04 and we'll call that before we move on.

MS. ROGERS:

Sure.

If we

go back to 2.1.01, Civil Law, you had mentioned that some of them were energy

cases. Can you tell us what energy cases they might entail?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm going to refer to a

resident expert Mr. Stanley.

MR. STANLEY:

The biggest expense that we

have is in respect of arbitrations with the oil companies in respect of

basically the ongoing maintenance of the royalty regimes we have offshore. So it

isn't litigation that is actually in the courts; it's actually through the

arbitration processes that are in the arrangements or the agreements with the

oil companies.

I think

the biggest ones last year, we had one to do with Hibernia and I think there was

one on White Rose. We're finding that it's a constant turn, that there's always

issues and we try to negotiate them and if we can't get them, then we are in

arbitration.

MS. ROGERS:

So you go with outside

counsel for that?

MR. STANLEY:

Oh, sorry; we handle those

files with a combination of outside counsel and internal. We're trying to move

it to internal more and even going to look at doing a business case to see if we

can possibly even staff up to avoid the costs, because they're becoming bigger

files than we were expecting them to be and we're consuming a fair amount of

resources on outside counsel.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you.

Is this

where the tobacco file would be?

MR. STANLEY:

It is. We actually didn't

have any expenditure last year on tobacco-related matters at all.

MS. ROGERS:

Is there an expectation that

there will be this year?

MR. STANLEY:

The matter has kind of been

in abeyance because we've been waiting for a decision or two from the Supreme

Court on preliminary jurisdictional matters. I think the decision has been

received or it is anticipated shortly, so we could have expenditures this year

but we're not expecting it to be significant.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Will it

be with the same law firms who were initially handling this file?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, we haven't changed

those retentions at all.

MS. ROGERS:

So that would be Roebothan

McKay Marshall, and then Humphrey, Farrington & McClain?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, in the US.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. STANLEY:

Yes.

Yes,

sorry, it is the same firms; we haven't changed those retentions.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, so we expect some

activity after the federal court decision?

MR. STANLEY:

We've been waiting for the entire matter has been held up with preliminary

matters. I'll have to double check, because actually I haven't looked at it

recently. We were awaiting decisions from our Supreme Court. I think we got a

decision, but then it may be under appeal. But it's all preliminary stuff on

jurisdiction and who can give affidavits and requests the churn.

MS. ROGERS:

So this can still be a

really long time?

MR. STANLEY:

Oh yes, this is a marathon, not a sprint for this kind of litigation.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I might jump in there, I

think the tobacco companies are very consistent in that they like to expend as

much resource as possible to extend their cases long, which means their product

continues to sell.

MS. ROGERS:

Who can stand the longest,

huh? Okay.

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible).

MR. A. PARSONS:

What?

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Pretty much.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you.

So if

we can move on to 2.1.03?

MR. A. PARSONS:

2.1.03?

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay.

MS. ROGERS:

The only issue that I'm

drawn to here is Purchased Services. I can see that there was a spike there in

the revised in 2015-16?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, that would be banking

fees.

MS. ROGERS:

Banking fees? They are high.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Again, we know that this

division there is a government rate that comes with the banking fees. But across

government, again, this is another one of those areas where I think a lot of

departments are dealing with it. I think it's something that needs to be looked

at.

I will

say, while we're on this topic, obviously Mr. Scott and his department aren't

here but the good news is we're very lucky that we've got probably, if not the

best, one of the best Support Enforcement Divisions in Canada. The rate of

return is tremendous. They always get high marks, so we're pretty lucky to have

them. And the people that use the service get good return on that. So they've

been doing good work for a number of years.

MS. ROGERS:

And what would you attribute

that to?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think it starts with the

leadership within the department. I think Mr. Scott again, I used to deal with

him back before I was ever in this. I just think he's a good manager. He knows

what he's doing and it leads to perhaps higher productivity. It's just a case of

a good leader. We've got good systems in there. It's just a good department.

Maybe we have people in this province that want to pay their child support, I

don't know.

MS. ROGERS:

I was just wondering if that

was part of it.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Whatever they are doing, it

seems to be working because they do extremely well there. Again, it's one of

those things where obviously we don't see any revenue but that revenue is going

to the parents, which is excellent.

MS. ROGERS:

It's going to be interesting

to see what happens now in the downturn in the economy, particularly those

people who have been commuting back and forth to Alberta and whether or not

there'll be any who've lost their jobs, whether there'll be any impact on that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

There's no doubt and that's

why I think it's also important. We've seen movement in the past but you have to

continue at it when it comes to interjurisdictional support orders. We have to

have that co-operation. We've been dealing with Alberta, which is obviously one

of the big ones, but I think you're going to see more co-operation amongst

provinces to make that easier to get through. We don't need parents having to go

through a lot of rigmarole to get the money that their children are entitled to.

But

again, I agree, when you see that downturn that's going to you may see a lot

of applications to vary, changes there. Will they go through the normal route of

every year submitting their notice of assessment, or not submitting it and

getting the 10 per cent? If they're losing their money, they're going to have to

start making their applications to have their own varied because you can't just

say that you're going to pay less because you're getting less. It still has to

go through that route, which is difficult for everyone involved.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

2.1.04,

under Salaries we see a reduction in the revised amount and then a reduction

again in Estimates in '16-'17.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think that was three

positions that actually ended up in Support Enforcement. The one that we just

did, there was an increase there.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think that is what that

was. The budget and three staff transferred to Support Enforcement for

recalculation, but I think Mr. Stanley will also speak to it as well to provide

some context.

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, we had, under the Family Justice Services Division, a very small office in

Corner Brook that actually it's a recalculation service so people who have

support orders can submit new tax information and get the order recalculated

every year.

The

office, we realize, in Corner Brook would be better from an administrative

management point of view if we brought it under the Support Enforcement office,

which is also located in Corner Brook and does very similar work.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MR. STANLEY:

So we just moved the three people from basically one division head to another

and they physically co-located with the Support Enforcement people, and it's

working out fairly well.

MS. ROGERS:

And there were no job losses

in the transfer?

MR. STANLEY:

There were no job losses or anything out there.

MS. ROGERS:

Great.

And,

under 01, the federal revenue, we see a significant change there.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, that would have been,

I guess, catch up. That was revenue for two years. You'll see that in a couple

of headings under here as we move forward. I think Legal Aid is the other one

where you'll see like a big

MS. ROGERS:

I remember that, yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So this is the same thing.

It's caught up so the number for this year should be one year.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Thank

you.

Are we

finding that people how is the use of counselling remediation going? Is there

a big uptake? How is it working?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I guess I can speak

anecdotally; it's something I dealt with prior to getting into this. I think

it's a great service to have these people, whether it's to counselling and

mediation. I still think there's room to I wouldn't say grow, but to change.

I've seen cases in the past where I had clients that would be mailed DVDs.

Sometimes I wonder whether that's actually getting used or not. Sometimes these

people have to travel, which, again, is a cost on them.

I think

you can also and this may require coordination amongst departments. I'll just

use Port aux Basques, for example. We don't have Family Justice Services out

there all the time; they come out, I think, during circuit courts. But there's

no reason somebody, if they had to do a teleconference, couldn't go to the

hospital or to the college and do a teleconference with somebody in

Stephenville. So it takes away that travel cost which really isn't necessary,

it's not a medical appointment.

So I

think there are things we can do there. I think it's a necessary service. I

think anybody that uses it will find it and I think in many cases if you can

resolve a dispute through a method like this rather than going the full gamut, I

think it's better on everybody involved, especially when you have children,

obviously, involved in the matter.

Again,

I think we have a new gentleman that has stepped into that role there. Is it

Derrick Oldford?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes. Wilma MacInnis, who's sitting behind me, moved from Family Justice Services

to Provincial Court. So in Wilma's stead we actually have appointed sort of an

acting director, one of the lawyers who was working in that area before from the

Civil Division. He's now serving as the acting director while we have some HR

issues in positions we have to determine and that kind of thing, and then we'll

be filling the position full time.

Just to

the issue of success, the service is very successful mostly outside of St.

John's it has a very high success rate and the courts are very pleased with it.

The courts are always driving us to make this service as useful as possible

because it facilitates easier access and movement of matters through Family

Court.

In St.

John's we have a slightly lower success rate. It is still fairly successful, but

we find that you have more complex cases that are more difficult for people to

sit down and just mediate. We have more cultural issues and that sort of thing.

We are

working to try to improve and we've had a couple of HR issues in our office here

with people off. So we're working to improve the FJS service here to get it up

to the level. The Supreme Court judges here in town are constantly ensuring that

we try to maintain high levels of service.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

where are the services located in the province?

MR. STANLEY:

I'm going to defer to Wilma who used to be in charge.

MS. MACINNIS:

I've been dying to talk about Family Justice here.

MS. ROGERS:

Great.

MS. MACINNIS:

Offices across the province were located in St. John's, Clarenville, Gander,

Grand Falls, Corner Brook, Goose Bay and Stephenville. I don't know if I've

missed any, Todd.

Just

last year, actually, we went through a process just in terms of efficiencies.

Because at one point we were jointly delivered by two government departments and

there were certainly some challenges in terms of that process. So last year we

had a transition process where, as Mr. Stanley referenced, in terms of the

movement of the Recalculation Office to Support Enforcement. But, also, right

now all Family Justice Services are provided solely by Justice, plus Justice

staff.

As Mr.

Stanley referenced as well, we certainly do have good relationships all across

the province with the courts and it is a free service. Just in terms of the

promotion of that, the courts certainly do a good job in promoting that. Any

applications that are filed with any of the Family Courts, they automatically

send those to Family Justice Services before they get a date in court so that at

least we have an opportunity to contact them and say: Are you even aware that

this free service exists?

There

is certainly a lot of uptake in that. Sometimes people aren't aware so

certainly, yes, as Minister Parsons mentioned in terms of the promotion of that

as well is very important.

MS. ROGERS:

That's great. It's just

wonderful.

What

other department was involved before it was all consolidated?

MS. MACINNIS:

It was Advanced Education and Skills.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. Interesting.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Is everybody good up to

2.1.02 so we can call that and move on?

Okay.

Go ahead.

CLERK:

Subhead 2.1.01 do you want

2.1.04?

CHAIR:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

No two, you said.

CLERK:

You said two.

CHAIR:

Oh, we didn't go beyond

CLERK:

We did go, we went

CHAIR:

We did go to

MR. P. DAVIS:

Did you want to finish the

other two first?

CHAIR:

Pardon me?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Did you want me to finish? I

just had a couple of quick questions.

CHAIR:

You have a couple of

questions on 2.1.04. Well, go head.

MR. P. DAVIS:

2.1.03 and 2.1.04, actually.

I have just a couple of questions on it.

I thank

you, and I have to tell you, I was going to comment, and I will comment on this

before we finish up tonight, but I think these are two areas that are very

challenging work for officials and people who work on front lines under your

department, Minister.

I can

tell you that I personally have a great deal of admiration for them who do that.

It's very difficult work to do. I know that some of them Wilma MacInnis

is a good example of it that work very, very well. Turn around there for a

second, Wilma. She's got a great background and experience in dealing in very

trying and difficult circumstances. I'm not surprised to hear her say she has

good relations with the courts because she's got a history and record of that.

This is the type of person that we need working in these

areas, does a fabulous job and, as I said, sometimes under very stressful and

trying circumstances. So for you, minister and deputy and to your staff, I have

a great deal of admiration for all of them, but particularly these two areas. I

know they're very tough.

On positions, my understanding is the only change was three

positions moved from under Family Justice to Support Enforcement. That's all

that's taken place, as far as any changes there.

I noticed in Transportation, changes in both of them. Under

Support Enforcement it's fairly significant, from $41,000 budget down to

$14,000, and under Family Justice. Is there a change in how business is

operating? What would be the reason for each of those?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think actually these trends started back in 2013. I think they actually

started looking at different ways to reduce this cost if they could. I think

that relates to both sections there, Support Enforcement and Family Justice

Services. They're going on historical trends.

I thank you and I agree 100 per cent with your opening

comments there about the staff in both of these divisions. I mean, that's tough

work. When you're dealing with Support Enforcement, we all know some of those

phone calls they get are not pleasant. You're dealing with upset people and

people going through serious times.

I think, especially on the Family Justice side, there's a

way we can still make sure the service is accessed. I think technology can play

a big role in that. I've seen that done. I think it can still provide the same

service.

I don't know how much of it has to do with telephone costs

or whatever else, but in terms of the actual travel

MR. P. DAVIS: I

was going to ask that. I know in the last few years there have been fairly

healthy investments in technology: video conferencing, those types of things. So

that's what some of that is.

I think I see your deputy nodding her heading in agreement.

Instead of having to travel for meetings, you can do it through those types of

ways.

MS. JACOBS:

Yes, and historically, as Minister Parsons was saying, when we did the line by

line, historically, the travel money wasn't used. So rather than have dropped

balances, the money was

removed from the budget.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, I think staff in the

past have argued that they needed it, but good for you.

If you

want to call those, I'm fine with those, Madam Chair.

CHAIR:

Yes, please.

CLERK:

Subhead 2.1.01 to 2.1.04

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.1.01 to 2.1.04

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.1.01 through 2.1.04 carried.

CHAIR:

Now, I'm going to suggest

we're about halfway through that we take a five minute break; strictly five

minutes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Sounds good to me.

Recess

CHAIR:

We'll get started again.

We've called 2.2.01, so we'll move on to the next one. I'll ask the Clerk to

call the subheads.

CLERK:

Subheads 2.3.01 to 2.4.01

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.3.01 carry?

It is

Mr. Davis now?

MR. P. DAVIS:

I think so, yes.

CHAIR:

Yes, go ahead.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

understand how budgeting works with Legal Aid, but, Minister, can you give me an

overview of the current structure in Legal Aid? How many staff do you have

there? Have there been any changes in this year or in recent times, or any

anticipated changes in how they operate, or staffing levels?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I will defer to Todd on

this. He will probably provide a more conscience answer than I'm able to. I

don't think there's any change in the staffing

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry, I'm more interested

in the structure. Just explain to me the structure of Legal Aid, how it

operates, where they are located and so on.

MR. STANLEY:

Legal Aid has approximately 125, 130 staff. That's split about 50/50 with

solicitors and administrative staff. Legal Aid has a higher than you might

expect, at first instance, administrative staff for two reasons. They handle all

of their own corporate administration. They do their own HR, their own

accounting. They avail of none of government's back-office stuff, as a

stand-alone entity.

Also,

they have a fair amount of staff who are dedicated to processing and assessing

eligibility for legal aid claims, which takes a fair amount of time, having to

get the necessary information from people and do the assessments.

They

have 11 offices, I believe, around the province. I'm not sure I can identify

where they are. There are two in St. John's. They have one right now in

Carbonear, Clarenville I'm going to say Grand Bank, but I'm not sure that it's

actually in Grand Bank or if it's in Marystown Grand Falls-Windsor, Gander,

Stephenville, Corner Brook, Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Wabush.

I'm not

sure, is that the basics or

MR. P. DAVIS:

It is. I was hoping to

understand the change in the budget from $16,900,000 last year to $17 million

this year. It probably just reflects changes in the cost of operations.

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, there are actually three separate things going on in that. There was the

final addition for implementation of part of three solicitor salaries to do with

the Royal report. We had a three-year, phase-in plan for the Royal report and

this year, the last year of the phase-in, required us to fund three solicitor

salaries.

We also

put money into Legal Aid in relation to the Family Violence Intervention Court.

There also was an offsetting reduction for some of that increase with Legal Aid.

Through this budget process, they eliminated two vacant positions. They laid off

an individual and there was a solicitor salary removed from their funding

relating to the closure of Harbour Grace. Whether or not Legal Aid actually lays

off a solicitor, or however else they might manage that, is really up to them

because we just adjust the funding that they get. So, one person, I think, was

laid off as part of the budget process and two vacant positions were eliminated.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So when you go through your

process, your budget with them, do they come in and make a presentation to the

department on what they're seeking and you discuss their budget or what they've

requested?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes.

CHAIR:

You can go ahead, Minister.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I will let Todd (inaudible).

MR. STANLEY:

Legal Aid, both in terms of what they're looking for and in response to a

request from us to see what savings they could bring in, the executive of them

go through their board, get approval and they bring it in to us to say here's

what we could do and here's what we need. In the end, with us, it boils down to

the gross grant amount that we give them.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So there could become a time

they come in with a presentation, you ask them to go back and find more, change

more, look really in certain areas or that type of thing.

MR. STANLEY:

Entirely, yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry, Minister.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I will jump in here again. I

can say too that during, I guess, the short time I've been here, I actually did

take the time to go down to Legal Aid, down to the commission, and I was told I

was actually the first person to actually go and visit in ages. So I went down,

met with the board, met with all of the solicitors and had a chat. They actually

did come up to our office and meet with us as well, plus they met with Treasury

Board, if I do recall correctly.

They've

done a lot of work catching up, too, on the financial side. You'll see there in

the federal revenue, the discrepancies there I'll sort of jump ahead, and this

is what Gerry was talking about earlier where they're catching up on the

amount that is owed by the feds.

This

year it's only $2.1 million. That's because they're finally caught up, I guess,

basically filing their paperwork with the feds and getting reimbursed. It was

behind for a number of years and they are finally caught up there.

Hopefully, this will also change at some point because I think part of the

federal budget is there's actually going to be increased Legal Aid funding. The

10-year arrangement just concluded. Again, one of the holdups there is that they

negotiate with all of the provinces and they're not doing one-offs with

everybody; it's everybody at the one time.

So this

has been a contentious issue for years you go in; we want more money. So now,

this year, we do understand that there is going to be an increase. Figuring out

how much it is going to be, we'll figure that out. It's not for sure. I think we

have an idea, probably even in the range of a couple hundred thousand, but

again, we don't want to say for sure because I don't know for sure.

Legal

Aid has come in, they'll tell us I have to say they've been great to deal

with, the whole board and solicitors there. I've dealt with them in the past,

knowing the workloads that they have, and I think half of their problem in the

past has been perception.

I mean,

people have this perception; we talked about it earlier when you get an

appointed counsel. Oh, I don't want a legal aid lawyer. That's garbage, as far

as I'm concerned. Legal Aid has great lawyers. They have huge caseloads. They

have fantastic solicitors to do a lot of work and travel and stuff. I've said

that before, I'll say it again, they have a great staff. They've done a lot of

work to make sure they function as good as they can.

One of

the issues we all hear, I guess as MHAs, is we get clients come in who are

trying to access the trying to fill out the applications and get through that.

Sometimes that can be a challenge too. It's like anything. I think they're

improving on that. They have good staff doing the work there.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, I mean I agree. It was

common one time to hear complaints about legal aid. Slow response, I can't get

to speak to a lawyer. I have to make a decision or a legal decision, those types

of things. You don't seem to hear those as much as we used to or I don't anyway.

The phone will start now tomorrow because I said that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

But hopefully that's a

reflection of improvements on it.

Madam

Chair, I'd like to move to 2.3.02 under Commissions of Inquiry. Can you explain

that heading to us, Minister?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

What

you'll see there, and I think for the last number of years, it's always a budget

of $1,000 which I guess was just a cursory amount that was put in because there

was no Commissions of Inquiry anticipated or planned.

Obviously, this year part of my mandate letter, and something I've spoken about

on a number of occasions, is that I've been mandated to conduct three inquiries.

So we've allocated $1 million to hold the plan is to hold an inquiry this

year.

we've based that on, I think you'll see salary there was to anticipate

administrative support officer, anticipate 12 weeks, eight hours per day, X

dollars per hour. Then you have the T and C, Supplies, Professional Services.

The Professional Services would actually be the anticipated cost of counsel for

anybody that's involved in it. We came up with the figure of $1 million which is

anticipated.

I'd

like to think that like anything you'll do what you can to, not reduce cost, but

if you're going to need space there's lots of government-owned space out there

that you can use. I think we've had people come to us that have said look, we

have the space here you can do it. So that's obviously something that we would

consider. That makes more sense than going and renting space.

Depending on who your commissioner who's going to head up the inquiry, is it

judiciary? Is it somebody else? These are all things that we're factoring in as

we come up with terms of reference and stuff like that.

that's what's factored in there, but I know there are probably more questions so

lay them on me.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I know the three inquiries.

Do you know which one you're going to call this year?

MR. A. PARSONS:

We're anticipating that we

will go with the Humber Valley inquiry this year. I've said our logic behind it

obviously there's the federal one. I call it the Winters's inquiry, young

Burton Winters. That one involves a bit of co-operation with the federal

government, given that there's joint services there. So I don't think that one

is quite ready to go because it requires a bit more co-operation.

The

second one, obviously, is the Donnie Dunphy inquiry. We've all heard and seen,

that one requires the police report, I guess, to figure out where that goes. We

don't know when that matter is going to be heard but I don't think it's sensible

for any inquiry to go ahead until you have the conclusion of that matter, which

I can say here and I'll say anywhere, I have no idea when that will happen. We

know that matter was investigated here. It's been referred to Alberta. That will

come back at some point. That one, we don't know when that will be.

So,

Humber Valley, in terms of readiness to proceed, was the first one we think was

ready to go. You have a static set of facts and timelines. So that's the one

we've anticipated going first. I don't think it has anything to do with

importance per se. It has to do with which ones are ready.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What's the intention of an

inquiry?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, the intention of any

inquiry, I think, is two-fold. Number one, any inquiry I've ever read about or

seen, the first thing you want to do is identify a particular set of facts, what

happened no matter what it is. This province has a history of inquiries, whether

it was Cameron. I think there was the Gushue inquiry back in the day of nursing

homes. So that's the first thing that comes out.

Obviously, the set of facts has to be such that there's public interest in it

and different cases. Some of them involve loss of life, some involve public

confidence, some involve a set of facts that we feel is important enough to

investigate.

The

second part of any inquiry is to come up with a set of recommendations to

prevent said fact pattern or fact scenario from happening again.

That

would be the purpose, I guess, of any inquiry. I don't know if that's a

Webster's Dictionary version of that, but that's just sort of how I would take

it off the cuff, I guess, or that's sort of how I see it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm inclined to think when I

see $1 million to be honest with you my first thought was that wouldn't be

enough to hold an inquiry.

Do you

have any idea from previous inquiries Cameron was a very extensive inquiry. In

recent years, there were the Norman Reid and Darryl Power inquiries. Do you have

any idea what they cost?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think the Cameron inquiry

was up in the $5.7 million. That one was established July 2007 and received in

March 2009. Lamer was a three-year inquiry. It took $7.6 million.

Now, I

tend to think that the fact patterns and the time patterns are substantively

different, but I've said this before, and I think it's documented that I've said

it on I don't know if it was radio or an interview or something I did it's

not a case of cutting a blank cheque. It's not a case of skimping. I don't know

if I'm using the right words. It's not skimping, but at the same time you don't

cut a blank cheque. You have to have cost controls put in place. That's why you

do things where you have the office space and work to do what you can to keep

that.

It's

like anything that any government or any business or any person does, you want

to do what you can to ensure your costs that you anticipate stay at the level

that you anticipate. We're confident that the number we've proposed here will

cover off the cost of that inquiry and what goes into it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Madam Chair, I know my time

is up. I'm just wondering if it's okay with Ms. Rogers, if I could just continue

for another few minutes, and I'll be sure to

MS. ROGERS:

On the inquiries?

MR. P. DAVIS:

On inquires, yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, if that's okay

with the Chair.

So in

the case of Norman Reid and Darryl Power, which I think was around 2003.

MR. A. PARSONS:

2001?

MR. P. DAVIS:

I think it was 2003, maybe.

Do you

know what the cost was on that one?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It was $1.2 million.

MR. P. DAVIS:

It was $1.2 million.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The fall of 2002 was the inquiry. So Power and Reid, that's right because those

incidents both happened pretty close together. The report was submitted December

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry, when was it put

together?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It started fall 2002, report

submitted December 2003.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So fall 2003 is when the

inquiry actually began to call evidence. Is that what you mean?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, the information I have

is the fall of 2002. The report was submitted Judge Luther's final report came

out December 2003.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. So was that when the

inquiry was called and actually began? Is that what you mean or was it when the

inquiry began, in the fall?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think my information is

that it was the fall of 2002 the actual inquiry started. Again, I don't know how

long that took.

MR. P. DAVIS:

The reason I ask, Minister,

is that my recollection was it took some time to find counsel and Judge Luther

had to clear his schedule. It took several months for all that to happen before

the inquiry actually got underway.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I guess so. I'd have to talk

to whoever the Minister of Justice was at that point. I can't remember who that

feller was, but

MR. P. DAVIS:

Have you had any discussions

with any potential commissioners?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, I can say that I've

discussed internally where do you go, what kind of pool do you want to go from?

I can

tell you, I think there's a protocol that comes from, I think the Supreme Court,

that you should follow in the cases of inquiry. So, obviously, if you were to go

the judicial route, getting a justice or a judge, then obviously you have to

talk to the chief judge or justice of those courts because they've got a

schedule that they've got to maintain as well.

We do

know there's a protocol that has to be followed. I don't know, I'm assuming it

was followed in the past, but it's been made clear to me that you should follow

it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So are you having any

discussion with people or contacted anyone to say this is as potential

commissioner for the inquiry. You haven't reached out to anybody. You've only

had discussions internally is what you're saying.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I have had the chief judge

send me the protocol.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

well, what about commission counsel? Have you had any discussions there on who

would be commission counsel?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Not that far yet, although

I've had people obviously they'll say to you in passing I'm interested in

that. Everybody that's involved will need counsel, right. So we're not that far

yet in terms of figuring out who that is. And I might be wrong; I think there's

obviously some choice of the people involved.

I think

the commissioners themselves would get counsel, so they're probably going to

have a say in who that is. And then the people involved would probably have a

say in the counsel that they get because I don't know if you want to force

counsel on somebody.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

understanding is that there are precedents. I don't know if you know this or not

or maybe some of your staff can discuss it but there are precedents, such as

the case with Mr. Dunphy, where investigative steps are still underway when an

inquiry is called. And the fact there's an investigation doesn't pre-empt an

inquiry from being called.

You

said until it's done you shouldn't call the inquiry. My understanding is that

there are precedents for calling an inquiry in the circumstance that exists

similar to where we are with Mr. Dunphy.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can say I'm not aware of

that. If you have that, by all means, I would look at it. I don't know if

somebody else has any information.

I guess

from my perspective it seemed to us when you looked at it, if you have a matter

that's still going through the investigative phase where we've had an

investigation done and this investigation has been referred to Alberta but we

don't know what's going to come out of that. Again, this is a case of where are

charges laid, are charges not laid?

would seem that it prompts the very strong possibility of causing issues if you

were to go ahead and start that when the matter is still not completed. But if

there's precedent to that, I don't know. In the cases I've always seen, the

matter has been done and passed and there are no facts left to happen. But I'm

certainly willing to

MR. P. DAVIS:

But the police investigation

is actually over, right?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think the RCMP

investigation is over, yes. The RCMP has referred that to the Alberta SIR Team,

ASIRT, I think. So that's going on there.

Now,

what the return on that is, I don't know. I don't know what will come out of

that. I don't know if that will recommend no charges, charges, more

investigation to be done, we should have done some else different. I have no

clue what goes on there.

That

was sort of what prompted us to make that decision, was the possibility of stuff

happening that you can't control, you don't know where it going to go.

MS. JACOBS:

Mr. Davis, my understanding as well is the RCMP investigation is not considered

completed because ASIRT may be coming back to them saying, well, you should do

this, look at that. So until ASIRT kind of puts a bow on it, we wouldn't

consider that investigation completely finished.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

I'm

interested in the perspective of if you consider an inquiry to be a process to

identify and understand clearly the facts of a set of circumstances of an event

or events surrounding a matter, and if you look at that the intention is to find

recommendations to prevent those circumstances from happening again, in some of

these cases, particularly in the search and rescue Burton Winter's matter and

also in the matter of Donald Dunphy, wouldn't there be some urgency to hold an

inquiry to prevent a set of circumstances like that from happening again?

Because

if I hear what you're saying, Minister, there may be an inquiry called this

year. It may take some time for it to be established and set up. It probably

will run into next year and it would be some time before you called the second

one and the third one. So we're talking potentially four years from now before

the inquiries are completed. These are around matters that are important to

life. The idea and the intent of an inquiry are to prevent loss of life under

similar circumstances in the future. Wouldn't there be an urgency to get to

them?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Obviously there's a

difference in those that involve loss of life. That's even in

the Public Inquiries Act , I think,

because depending on what the fact pattern is, that can dictate what kind of

inquiry you do.

When it

comes to the Dunphy one, basically on that, as I've said, we did have a loss of

life but the matter is not closed, which is what's preventing the moving forward

on that side.

When it

comes to the search and rescue one, we do have the passage of three years, I

believe no, it might be four years. Was it 2012? 2012 I think it was, so we do

have the passage of four years there.

Again,

it's a different scenario in that when it comes to that one what I say now

might be different than the terms of reference. I'm just sort of speaking as I

see it. You have to come up with a terms of reference here, but that may require

some co-operation with the federal government. Given that we've only been in a

position really since December 14, and you're going to have to co-operate with

the federal government there as well, that presents some logistical challenges.

We made it quite clear from a long time ago that we obviously think it's

important. We want to get it done and it will get done.

Then,

when you go back to the other one that we're going to do which I still think

is a serious matter. It doesn't involve a loss of life, obviously, which I think

we're all glad to see, but it involves something we can handle in our

jurisdiction quickly. We have a fact scenario, or supposed fact scenario, that's

constrained within, we think, a certain period of dates. Again, I think it does

have issues when it comes to public confidence.

doing one before another doesn't diminish anything in terms of importance. I

think the important thing is that we've said we're going to do three; I'd like

to see all three done and done right. I don't want to do something that may

again you're not going to do it. There's a term I'd use here now, I don't want

to use it half we want to do them right. So that's our perspective.

MR. P. DAVIS:

And to be clear I wasn't

suggesting

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, no.

MR. P. DAVIS:

that you try to rush them

or hurry them, it's just that it wasn't very timely.

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, it's a fair question

you're asking.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I may

come back when Ms. Rogers is finished as well.

CHAIR:

Okay, I was going to suggest

that actually.

Ms.

Rogers.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you.

Minister, I just want to double-check. You said that you were confident that the

$1 million will cover the Humber Valley Paving inquiry in its entirety?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Oh. Okay.

Why

would you not have the Auditor General look at this issue?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think the Auditor General

did look at it.

MS. ROGERS:

So why would we move on to

an inquiry?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Because there were five

components of it that the Auditor General when he looked at it he boiled it

all down, at the beginning of the report, to five things, five questions. He

answered three and two he didn't answer. There are still unanswered questions

there, so we felt it was

MS. ROGERS:

What are those two

outstanding questions?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's funny; I don't have

that right here. But I think there was some question as to why everything was

concluded on the date that it was concluded and why we had multiple Cabinet

ministers contacting the deputy minister of a department at the time, the day

before the closing.

The

Auditor General came back the first three he came back, and it's more of a

contractual point of view and said, I found some discrepancies, some stuff

that you shouldn't do it like this. He answered those questions, but the last

two he came back and said, no, I don't know.

MS. ROGERS:

Right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The other thing I will say

is that the Auditor General and inquiries, too, there are things. An

inquiry has more of an opportunity for questioning, cross-examination, that

vehicle of truth seeking.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

I'd

like to take us back to Legal Aid. The legal aid offices in Carbonear and

Wabush, what will happen with those offices now that the courts have moved on?

MR. STANLEY:

Legal aid is still trying to determine how they're going to handle that, whether

they're going to move the positions, what they're going to do in respect of the

office that's in Carbonear. As I understand it, they haven't confirmed to

themselves what they're going to do. There was some thought that they might

leave it open as a service centre, because there is a certain almost like a

storefront retail operation with legal aid dealing with clients, but I'm not

sure if they've concluded that's feasible with the people who are going to be

travelling, the lawyers who'll be travelling to St. John's to appear. So they're

working that out.

I don't

think right now they have a strong feeling there's going to be a requirement for

layoffs. I don't think they're seeing that. I think they may be moving staff.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes, because the same amount

of work still exists.

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, the work isn't going away. It's just the physical location.

MS. ROGERS:

So if the solicitors are

moved to, for instance, St. John's, then folks from that area, from Conception

Bay North, would be required to go to St. John's to see a lawyer to get

assessments?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes. If the legal aid office moved the lawyers into St. John's, yes. In order to

meet with your lawyer, the default would be anyone in that area would have to

come into St. John's to the legal aid office to meet, but there are times these

days already where things like that can occur.

If the

local Carbonear office is in conflict on a particular matter, then there are

people now who might have to travel into St. John's to meet with their legal aid

lawyer because the Carbonear office couldn't handle the matter. So it can be

kind of complicated getting legal aid staff and people physically matched up

because they can be required to assign staff from offices all over the Island

already.

MS. ROGERS:

Do you know how many staff

are in both of those offices, Wabush and Carbonear?

MR. STANLEY:

I can get you that information. I think I know but I don't want to misstate. We

can get that information for you.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

So that

would be staff who were permanent positions in those two offices.

MR. STANLEY:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. Thank you.

There

was some talk about some of the work going to Clarenville was there, from the

Harbour Grace closure, or is everything going to St. John's?

MR. A. PARSONS:

There is some going to

Clarenville, depending on the location of the matter. That's the plan we had.

Clarenville just opened up again. When did the judge

OFFICIAL:

September.

MR. A. PARSONS:

September, yes. That's when

that court reopened. So I think there is the possibility of some of the matters

going to that court as well.

MS. ROGERS:

When we see the work kind of

splitting, going to maybe Clarenville and St. John's, will judges move as well?

How will that ?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, there's a judge in

Clarenville. There's one judge in Harbour Grace. That judge would have to be

relocated. Likely to St. John's, I would assume. That's the move there, I think.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. Thank you.

I'm

good with that.

Commissions of Inquiry; I'm fine.

The

Office of the Chief Medical Examiner; under Professional Services we see a

significant variance there.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but

I think that's the funding we put in to do a review of the Office of the Chief

Medical Examiner. That's underway as we speak, in terms of acquiring the

services of the person that will do it. That's something we're hoping to move

quickly.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

The

variance in Purchased Services; we see an increase in the revised amount for

2015-16.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I believe that's the

transportation of human remains.

MS. ROGERS:

Wow, that's a lot. There's

quite a jump there in revision.

I'd

also like to bring up the issue of the death of two women from Newfoundland and

Labrador at Nova. In the case of Ms. Strickland, the investigation was

completed. Is there a role for our Chief Medical Examiner to look at the

situation of the fact that we had two women from Newfoundland and Labrador who

both died within a few months of each other while incarcerated?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I guess what I'm saying here is just my assumption. I don't have what I think is

the definitive answer, but I think given the jurisdiction was in Nova Scotia, I

think that it would fall under there. I don't know if they've reached out to our

Chief Medical Examiner or not.

Would

there be a role? It's hard to tell. I know the two matters are serious. They're

sad when you think about it. I'm definitely aware of the case of Ms. Strickland.

MS. ROGERS:

I guess I'm looking at the role, not only of the Office of the Chief Medical

Examiner but also the role of our Department of Justice knowing that we had two

citizens, two women who were incarcerated in a facility in another province

and I understand it was federal. One of them chose to go federally so that she

could get appropriate psychiatric care, and she died in that facility. There was

another woman who died in that facility. I believe there is a provincial role to

look at what is happening. Those were two deaths within a close period of time

for each.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, what I would say on

that and we've all heard it, whether it's those cases or anybody who watches

the news. We're hearing more frequently now, people saying they sought a higher

sentence so they would have to go federal, and they want to go federal because

they get services. It's unfortunate when you're hearing that. That's something

I've recognized, and I think it's been recognized by a lot of people. We saw

that on the all-party committee. We had the opportunity to go down and talk to

the people down there.

that's something that is on our radar. That's something we've talked about. I've

been down on a number of occasions, even since then, and talked to the people

providing the services. I can't remember the name of the body; they had the

mental health day. I agree with you there. I think when you have a citizen that

leaves and has that happen they're leaving to get access to services I think

that concerns us. It might not just be a justice issue, that's a health issue.

I tend

to agree with you in theory. That's something I'm working with, and we'll talk

about it once we get the corrections I'm sure. I've got concerns about not just

the inmates but the staff, because a lot of these divisions and areas we talk

about, it's high stress stuff, and down there it's especially high stress. So

that's one of the things I've considered as well. Whether it's your inmate

population or the people who are down there providing the correctional services,

it's tough. So we need to make sure we're doing what we can there.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

2.3.04

CHAIR:

Can we just call the

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah, sure.

CHAIR:

quickly, because we have

to call the subheadings on those.

Thanks.

CLERK:

Clauses 2.2.01 to 2.3.03

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.2.01 to 2.3.03

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.2.01 through 2.3.03 carried.

CHAIR:

Did Ms. Rogers have time on

the clock?

CLERK:

She did.

CHAIR:

Yes, okay.

You can

call the

CLERK:

I already called those.

CHAIR:

Oh, you called those?

CLERK:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Okay, Ms. Rogers, I'm not

sure what you had left on the clock.

MS. ROGERS:

I don't think I had anything

left on my clock.

CHAIR:

Okay, so is it okay

MS. ROGERS:

Absolutely.

CHAIR:

Thank you for your honesty,

since I've clearly had a long day and I'm ready to go home.

Mr.

Davis, would you like to start, 2.3.04.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Did you want to call those,

or you've already called them? Oh, you already called them. You just said that,

didn't you?

Madam

Chair, I'm cognizant of the time, and I'm sure all the officials in the room and

MHAs, my colleagues, are all aware as well. Under Human Rights I just very

shortly wanted to have a discussion regarding concerns expressed about access to

services from them, and if there is anything there to deal with. I want to make

it clear to the minister that I have a number of questions regarding policing.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

And some on public

complaints, and also on Adult Corrections and Youth Secure Custody.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Do you want me to do this

and if you want, we can jump ahead to make sure you get those and then work your

way back to the other ones, whatever I don't care what order you want.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'd be fine doing that

unless

MR. A. PARSONS:

It doesn't matter to me.

MR. P. DAVIS:

If you want while we're on

Human Rights, we could come back to it.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, Human Rights I'll just

put out there, obviously I don't think there was a significant reduction there.

I think the reduction has been in non-personnel. It's been in T&C, Supplies

and that's been the normal line-by-line process everywhere. I've had the

pleasure of going over there now and sitting down with the board and sitting

down with Remzi actually I'm going to hopefully sit down with him again soon.

I think

what we're seeing is an increase in numbers. There are more people coming

forward, which you can look at it and say it's positive that more people feel

they can go to this group and have their concerns heard. The bad side is that

obviously we don't want to see more complaints. So I don't know if it's a case

of increased complaints or increased reporting.

But

again, that's something that we do take seriously. I could sit here and go on

about it, but I don't want to use up the time. What I can say is I've sat with

them, sat down with Carrie, and they've been pretty easy to deal with; a really

good bunch, doing good work.

There

was a story a little while back on that. I don't know if it was in the paper.

Was there a story on that?

MR. P. DAVIS:

There have been lots of

stories on it.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I haven't had any actual

complaints brought to me, that I'm aware of it. I haven't seen it but if there's

something brought forward, obviously, we have to look at it, consider it and

deal with it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, I appreciate that. I

bring it to your attention because I've heard the concerns in the past from

people who are long periods of time waiting for investigations to be finished

and findings, and quite often will signify that it's a result of resources don't

match the number of investigations and requests for services from them.

More so

than ever before, I think it's an important branch that provides an important

service to the people of the province.

MR. A. PARSONS:

This is a group, if I recall

correctly, that went through a significant downsize in 2013. I think we're

trying to stabilize that, but at the same time you have to look at the demand.

I'd

like to think that going forward they will come to us, if these concerns are

raised. I think we have a pretty good relationship going in that if they have

concerns, they're willing to come to us and talk about it. Are there ways we can

do things more efficiently? Are there ways we can do things differently? I'm

willing to sit down so far they've been really communicative. They've been

open to me coming over and certainly both ways.

Again,

if we see more, I hope it's people reporting it as opposed to the actual number

going up.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

Madam

Chair, I have some questions under courts as well. We mentioned EPOs and CPOs

earlier, but being cognizant of time, I wanted to have a discussion around

policing resources, as I mentioned, and also Adult Corrections and youth

corrections. So I don't know if we can

CHAIR:

What subheading are you

referring to?

MR. P. DAVIS:

4.1.01.

CHAIR:

4.1.01.

Are you

both done with 2.3.04 to 2.4.01 or will we need to come back because if not, we

can

MS. ROGERS:

I have one question on

(inaudible).

CHAIR:

Can we ask one question and

just clear up those two pages, skip over to four and come to three.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, absolutely.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

MS. ROGERS:

The Human Rights Commission,

part of their mandate is not simply to receive complaints but also be proactive

and to do outreach and education. Do you know if they are able to do that under

the current budgetary restrictions and staff that they have?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Again, when I met with them,

it's not something that I can recall being brought up. I think they're like

everybody. You can look at Justice I can remember reading the letter to Chief

Justice Green dated 2004 where we talked about Justice resources. That's been an

issue, I think, for years. It's always an issue; we always need more in Justice.

But, Human Rights itself, when I met with them that's not something they

mentioned specifically to me. If it was an issue, then I would have that chat

because, again, I agree with you that there's an awareness component and

education component.

MS. ROGERS:

Which I think is so vital.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Definitely.

What I

would suggest is if there was something there, I'm willing to listen and to

figure out ways that if we can do more there, by all means and I did actually

suggest if there were ways that, through existing Department of Justice

resources, whether its communications or whatever, then if there's a way that we

could help spread the word, do what we have to do, that's the co-operation part

that we're trying to get to.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you. I am good

there.

Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission, I'm fine.

CHAIR:

Sorry, I didn't hear you.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes, I'm fine there.

imagine the variance in the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission was

because of our change in our boundaries.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think some of that funding

was before the year-end. I think some of it might have been actually paid for by

Finance as they figured out where it went. So I think there was monies expended

before March 31, 2015, and then this year money would have been expended after.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Under

Legislative Counsel, I do have one question. Minister, it's about the request

for a buffer zone around the Athena clinic. Can you tell me where that is at?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Actually, I've asked my

staff to continue working on that. Again, I've had the pleasure of having people

come to me and feel comfortable enough to come to us and say, look, this is an

issue, because it wasn't something I had dealt with before. Again, we've had

this chat.

I know

there's legislation being drafted elsewhere. I know I have staff that are

actually working on it and I'm thinking that I can maintain the commitment that

I made I'm hoping, which is I didn't anticipate us being able to get it on the

legislative agenda for this session, but I'm aiming for a fall agenda just given

there's a lot of work being done now. That's not, obviously, to diminish the

importance.

The

other thing, though, is that having seen jurisdictions that have gone there, I

think the good news is we can use their experiences to guide us both in the

drafting, and are there things they would have done differently or changed. I am

supportive. I think it's necessary, and the stories I've heard on it are enough

to make me think that I'd like to get it done.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes, and there are people

who go to that clinic for various reasons it doesn't just provide abortion

services who are also being harassed.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's right.

MS. ROGERS:

I understand the last

contact they had with the Department of Justice, it was recommended that the

owner of the clinic go the injunction route, which would be very costly, and was

told that perhaps a buffer zone wouldn't withstand a Charter challenge. Although

we know BC has instituted buffer zones, and they have survived a Charter

challenge on their buffer zones. So I'm wondering if someone could clarify that

for the clinic.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm not aware of that,

that's for sure.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

maybe I'll see that they contact the department.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, but I can say, given

that I had the opportunity to meet and have that face-to-face contact, I'm

probably the person to deal with.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Maybe it's a case, too, of I would imagine any solicitor would suggest all

options available right now, given that the legislation's not available. I think

any solicitor again, this is what they do. They suggest the possible issues,

challenges. I would toss out that, yeah, maybe there's a Charter challenge. So I

also agree with you. I think it can withstand that, and given other places have

gone through it, we've got that opportunity to see how they did it and what they

went through.

So in

my case, what I've said to the individuals I met still stands.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great.

That's

good news. I know they would like it sooner, but the fall is not so far away.

It's an important issue and a matter of safety and dignity and respect.

Thank

you. I'm good.

CHAIR:

Okay.

CLERK:

Clause 2.3.04 to 2.4.01

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.3.04 to 2.4.01

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.3.04 through 2.4.01 carried.

CHAIR:

Now, is it my understanding

we're going to skip 3 and we're going to start at 4.1.01, that's your wishes and

we'll come back?

Okay.

Mr.

Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

minister

CHAIR:

Oh, sorry.

We just

need to call it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, sorry.

CLERK:

Clause 4.1.01 to 4.2.03.

CHAIR:

4.1.01.

ahead.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Minister, maybe we can start at Salaries, and maybe you can give us an overview

on budgeted last year, revised and estimates for this year.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think the difference

there, we went from $47 million budgeted, $45 million spent and back up to $46

million estimated. That comes down to there were savings due to retirement

vacancies, other vacancies, trying to fill positions, and then there have been

junior officers hired that are coming in at a lower pay scale. That's my

understanding.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

Then

the salary change for this year?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think that's based on

again, you would know, obviously you've dealt with this. We certainly know your

background.

In this

case, depending on what comes in, the Chief knows who's going to get hired and

not. The workforce, I believe, has stayed the same except there are the 14

OFFICIAL:

Salary increases.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, some of them are step

increases or salary increases. Again, I can't say that I know how exactly all

that works. There were 14 positions, I think four were vacant constables that

were not filled, and 10 were for the cadet recruits, was it?

OFFICIAL:

Yes, it was (inaudible).

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, they're in last year's

budget, had not been filled and will not be filled. So that's the 14 there. It's

14 positions, but there were no individuals. Actually, it wasn't a reduction in

the actual officers that were working.

I'll

let Jackie

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

The 10 new cadets that

were identified in the recent budget process, that was a part of an approval a

couple of years ago to add 10 additional cadets last year and this current year

to grow the force by 20 new cadets, 20 new positions essentially. So this past

year they graduated 31 cadets, which was the biggest class ever. They normally

have between 12, 16, 18. The current cadet group going through right now has 17

in it. That was as many as they could recruit this year. So they didn't even

recruit enough to be able to have those additional 10 cadets even in their cadet

roster this year.

The 10

cadets that were taken off the books and deferred, they are not cadets that are

currently in the program. They were originally envisioned to be an additional 10

cadets, 10 new positions that the force would have grown by. So this doesn't

affect any of the current cadets, this deferral of those 10 cadet positions.

MR. P. DAVIS:

This year's class, you say

there are 17. So all of them will be hired in September, is what you're saying.

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

In '15-'16, you said there

are 31, and then 17 if I can only get my numbers right. So this year's class

there are 17, who all will be

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

Currently, right now,

that are going through the training that will finish up the end of the summer,

exactly.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What's the target then for

'16-'17 for the cadet class?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

It depends on what they

will recruit. Their normal recruitment class is somewhere in the mid-teens.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So is there a plan then for

hires for next year? I would assume if you're going to a cadet class, I would

assume the practice has been for every class that everyone gets hired.

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

Yes, they have a

recruitment process underway right now.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, but you don't know the

number of ?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

I don't know what the

numbers will be, no. Because a few years ago they had 12 cadets go through, last

year they had 31 go through, with the additional 10 positions that were added

in. Their cadet classes typically fill their attrition needs.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So if they were able to

recruit, say, for example, 40 this year, are you saying they'd hire them all?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

Not if they didn't have

positions for them.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Right. So the positions

would depend on retirements. Is that what you're ?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

In large part, yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Do you know how many I

think I do, but I want to check the number officers are eligible for

retirement at this time?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

About 120.

MR. P. DAVIS:

That's bigger than I had.

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

110, 120, around there.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, yeah, you're going to

change it now because I said that.

That's

about a quarter of the entire service, right?

MS. LAKE-KAVANAGH:

Correct.

MR. P. DAVIS:

That's about 25 per cent.

Wow.

Minister, maybe you can elaborate on how you feel about this. Because I know for

several years, back in the '90s the RNC dropped about 100 members, dropped about

25 per cent overall. There was a lot of work over time to try and rebuild that.

That was the plan a couple of years ago, to increase 10 last year and 10 this

current fiscal year, that we're in now, to grow the force by 20. We know that's

not going to happen. Tha