Government Services Committee — 30 April 1991

1991-04-30

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

GOVERNMENT SERVICES ESTIMATES

COMMITTEE

April 30, 1991 DEPARTMENT

OF EMPLOYMENT AND LABOUR RELATIONS (Unedited)

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

It being six minutes past the hour of seven, I will

now call to order the first meeting of the Government Services Estimates

Committee.

CLERK (Miss Duff): Mr. Chairman-elect, since this

is the first meeting, the first item of business will be the election of the

Chairman and then the Vice-Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: I move the Member for Lewisporte.

AN HON. MEMBER: I second that.

Motion, that the Member for Lewisporte take the Chair.

CLERK (Miss Duff): Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Penney): Could I have a motion

please for the position of Vice-Chairman?

AN HON. MEMBER: I move Mr. R. Aylward.

AN HON. MEMBER: I second it.

Motion, that Mr. Bob Aylward be elected Vice-Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: My name is Melvin Penny, I am the

Member for the District of Lewisporte, and I will be Chairman of the Estimate

Committee for the Government Services Division. To my left is Mr. Bob Aylward,

the Member for Kilbride. He will be the Vice-Chair for the meetings that will be

dealing with the estimates of the Departments of Finance; Works, Services and

Transportation; Employment and Labour Relations; Municipal and Provincial

Affairs.

On my left are the other Members of the Committee: Mr.

Norman Doyle, the Member for Harbour Main; Mr. Percy Barrett, the Member for

Bellevue; Mr. John Crane, the Member for Harbour Grace; Mr. Larry Short, the

Member for St. George's; and at the table with us is the Clerk of the Committee:

Betty Duff. On my far right is the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations,

Ms. Patt Cowan, and her officials who she will introduce in short order.

I think we should first explain the format that we

will be using. The Vice-Chairman and I have agreed that we will be using the

established format of allowing the Minister fifteen minutes to make an opening

comment, and then we will allow a Member of the Opposition - and I would assume

it would be Mr. Aylward -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, that would be entirely up to

you if you wish to be the critic - to make a fifteen minute opening statement as

well. Then the questions will go to the Committee Members, and normally we will

go with a Government Member and then an Opposition Member and rotate back and

forth that way.

We have agreed that the first part of the questions

should be general. We will not necessarily get into the estimates. I would

prefer, at least, that we reserve the questions dealing with specifics in the

estimates until last. If you have any general questions, we will do that first.

I would suggest as well that we not get into a ten minute speech with five or

ten questions. We adopt a procedure very similar to what we use in question

period in the House of Assembly. If a Member has a question he will make it a

concise question, and we would like concise answers. I will allow a Member up to

ten minutes if he wishes, and I would appreciate it if we were to stick to that

kind of a procedure - question and answer - and I will give every Member all the

time he needs to ask whatever questions are necessary.

Members are not permitted to ask questions of the

officials of the Department. Officials can answer any questions that would be

put to them by the Minister, but they must be cautioned even then the answers

must be based on fact, not policy. Members should not ask questions of the

officials, if the Minister wants the official to answer for her that would be

her privilege. The position of the Chair of those meetings is very similar to

the position of the Speaker of the House of Assembly. It will be my job to

maintain order and some semblance of decorum, but there is a much more relaxed

atmosphere here than there would be at the Legislature. You are quite at liberty

to remove your jackets, if you wish, and if you want to bring a coffee into the

Chamber you are welcome to do that as well. It is not necessary that Members be

referred to by the district they represent. We can refer to the Members by using

their names. For the sake of Hansard I ask that when you speak please identify

yourself. That is particularly important of the Department officials so that it

gets recorded properly in the record. I see we have at least one individual from

the news media so I would like to welcome him here tonight.

I now ask the Minister to introduce her officials.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Chairperson.

I have with me Debbie Fry. Debbie is the Deputy

Minister, just newly appointed to the Department. Next to her is Mike Dwyer.

Mike is also fairly new to the Department. His area of responsibility is

occupational health and safety. On my left I have Cathy Gogan whose

responsibility is employment and careers. Behind me is Tom Hopkins who is our

financial person. Linda Black, as most of you know, is our labour relations

individual. She is on holiday at this particular time or she would be here with

us this evening.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms Minister.

If you would proceed with your opening statement.

MS. COWAN: My opening statement is not fifteen

minutes but just a very brief overview, and I think anything I have to say will

probably come out in the questions as they proceed through the evening.

We will begin by saying the Estimates of the

Department of Employment and Labour Relations show that the Department is

divided into four branches, the executive and support services which is

comprised of the Minister's office, executive support, administrative support,

and program planning and review. Funding for this branch is the normal

allocation for ongoing current account expenditures such as salaries, supplies

and other items that are noted in the Estimates. We then have our Labour

Relations and Employment Standards Division and it is comprised of the

Industrial Relations Division, the Labour Relations Board and the Labour

Standards Division. Funding for this branch in addition to the normal current

account expenditures includes token allocations for setting up industrial

enquiries, conciliation and mediation services, other than those provided by the

Industrial Relations Division, and funding for the Labour Standards Board and

Labour Standards Tribunal. The Occupational Health and Safety Branch is

comprised of the Occupational Safety Division, the Public Safety Division, the

Health and Safety Education Committees Division, and the Design and Approval

section. The above divisions represent a recent reorganization within the

Occupational Health and Safety Branch. Funding is provided for the normal

current account expenditures of these restructured divisions. Funding is also

provided under this branch for the operations of the Workers' Compensation

Appeal Tribunal and the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Safety.

Financial assistance is allocated for the St. Lawrence Miners Dependence Fund

and assistance to outside agencies involved in occupational health and safety

programs. The Workers' Compensation Commission provides 100 per cent

reimbursement of expenditures incurred by the Occupational Safety Division, the

Health and Safety Education and Committees Division, and the Workers'

Compensation Appeal Tribunal. The expenditures of the Advisory Council on

Occupational Health and Safety as well as assistance to outside agencies is also

fully reimbursed by the Workers' Compensation Commission.

Lastly, we have the branch of employment and careers

which is made up of the Employment Services Division, the Career Support

Services Division, and the Youth Employment Strategy Division. In addition to

the funding for ongoing current account expenditures, funds have been allocated

for the Graduate Employment Programme, the Student Employment Programme, a

programme for women interested in successful employment, a programme for older

worker adjustment, the Employment Generation Programme, and the Adjustment

Programme for Fish Plant Workers.

The programme funding

summary and the

summary of

expenditures and related revenue is outlined on page 181 of your Estimates book.

I will be pleased to answer any detailed questions when the time arises, Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Doyle has been given the opportunity to speak on

behalf of the Official Opposition in the opening statements.

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am not going to get into responding to the

Minister's overview of her Department or make any statement. I think we will

just go into some general questions and maybe the Minister can keep track as I

go along for a few minutes as to what questions we would like to have answered

as it pertains to her Department.

I am looking forward, Mr. Chairman, to receiving some

information from the Minister on a variety of different topics because it is

generally difficult to get detailed answers in the House of Assembly, so the

Committee system, I guess, is a good opportunity for getting some detailed

answers from the Minister on a variety of areas within her Department.

Now, the Minister I am sure is aware that she has a

very, very important department especially as it relates to the Department's

mandate to create employment. Predictably, I suppose, that is the first area

that I wish to get into with the Minister, the employment

section of her

Department. The first thing I wish to speak to the Minister about is the

Employment Generation Programme. I am sure that is predictable as well because I

have been talking to the Minister in the House in Question Period in debate as

well on the Employment Generation Programme as it relates to her Department and

the mandate that she has to try and create employment. Again, it is very

difficult sometimes to get the information that one is looking for.

Specifically, getting down to the Employment

Generation Programme itself, I am interested in why the Department of Employment

and Labour Relations would budget $2.9 million for the Employment Generation

Programme and would spend only $2.2 million last year - now this year she has

budgeted $1.5 million so we have a reduction there of $1.4 million in the

Employment Generation Programme for this year. Specifically, I am given to

understand that $700,000 was not spent from the budgeted amount of $2.9 million

of last year.

Now, I remember when I asked the Minister about the

Employment Generation Programme in the House only a few months ago and again

last year, I asked her if all the money had been spent from the Employment

Generation Programme.

She told me at that time that all of the money had

been spent except for slippage, I believe was the term that she used.

Slippage, meaning that companies who had applied for

funding under the Employment Generation Programme, who had received funding, and

possibly for one reason or another did not use that funding, that funding was

going back to Government and that was called slippage that the Minister was free

then to approve for other projects, but we find it again this year, lo and

behold, when we have a look at the Budget. Maybe there is a reasonable

explanation for it and this is what I want to find out from the Minister.

Lo and behold we find out that $700,000 of that $2.9

million budgeted was not used, now, the reason why I would find that so unusual,

I mean, is obvious; we have an unemployment rate of 23.5 per cent; we have a

very small amount of money being budgeted for employment generation to begin

with and still, in spite of that, there is even a smaller amount of $1.5 million

budgeted this year and $700,000, apparently that was not used out of last year's

budget, so, I am interested in the Minister making some comment or giving some

information on that.

Also, in commenting on the Employment Generation

Programme, I would be interested as well to get a report from the Minister as to

how many of these people who become employed on the Employment Generation

Programme continued on in the work force, because I remember one of the main

reasons the Minister gave last year or two years ago, for scrapping the old

Employment Generation Programme, I have forgotten what it was called or what we

called it, but in any event the programme was discontinued and the Minister came

in with her own Employment Generation Programme.

I know one of the reasons that the Minister gave for

scrapping the previous programme was the fact that people who had been employed

were not going on to continuous employment and she felt that under the new

Employment Generation Programme, it would address the needs of people in terms

of permanent employment and people receiving continuous employment as a result

of her new programme.

So I would be interested to hear a report on that as

to how many people were employed under the Employment Generation Programme and

how many people continued to be employed, as was the goal of the programme. I do

not want to pile it up too much, so maybe I will give the Minister an

opportunity for answering and then I will continue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, but we will allow you to

continue for the duration of the fifteen minutes before I turn it to one of the

other Members, if that is acceptable?

MR. DOYLE: No problem.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Chairman, is it alright or do I

have to say on a point of order or anything like that, do I?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, no, not at all.

MS. COWAN: Just so that I am clear, I have made a

note now of what he is going to ask but he is going to ask this again, I assume,

is he?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, he would like you to answer the

questions now.

MS. COWAN: Now, and I have permission to do it?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, of course.

MS. COWAN: Okay, great. I was not quite sure.

To the number of questions there, I have tried to

write down the questions in the order that you gave them, Mr. Doyle, so I hope I

have.

First of all you mention the fact that I did in the

House mention at one time that the money was all spent except for slippage. And

although I do not have the Hansard in front of me or anything I would assume

that I was talking about the monies that had been given to me originally for

that programme. Then you will recall that later on the Government put in place a

stimulation programme, an employment stimulation programme, in which funding was

given to Forestry and Social Services and Transportation and so on. There was

also money given to me for the employment generation programme. So that would

account for why I had spent it all except for slippage at that time when I

reported to you in the House that later on more monies were given to that

particular project.

Now, as far as why there is not more money in it this

year, we are three years into the programme now and we have enough money in

there to continue us through the sixty weeks of employment, and at that time we

will be reviewing the whole programme and seeing if it was in fact a good one.

We have done some preliminary review of that, Mr. Doyle, to date, but it really

is not significant. We have to see if the people do carry on through the sixty

weeks and then if the employer keeps them on. Because that is the significant

point. Will they stay on after that sixty weeks? And so at that time we will be

reviewing it. And then of course we will have to look at a number of other

situations that we are reviewing in our Department as to other employment

programmes and deciding where in the future it is best to spend our money. We

will want to look at whether the employment programme is one we want to target

or whether it is something with youth or with women or whatever it should be.

As far as the $700,000 that was not spent, that is

simply a matter of bookkeeping. It is one that I have never understood. When I

was president of NTA I could never figure it out either every year when we

looked at budgets. But the money could not carry over into the second year, it

had to be spent in that particular budget year. And since there was not enough

to carry people on through the sixty week programme it was not spent.

Okay. I think you asked me how many people were

involved, how many jobs we created through that. Six hundred and fifty jobs. So

we have 650 people then, employed through that particular programme. One hundred

have withdrawn, okay, so that leaves us with 550. As to the programme itself, I

guess I do not really need to repeat how it works. We had the twenty weeks of

the Government subsidy then we had twenty weeks in which the employer had to

make a total commitment to the individual, and then the individual came back

onto the twenty weeks of the subsidy programme at the end. So I think that I

have covered all your points. The reason that some of the 100 people withdrew

was simply because there was a decline in business, or sometimes the employers

would fill a position before we had given them approval, which is of course not

correct, so we could not subsidize them, or the business was sold or whatever.

So there are legitimate reasons it would appear to date for the person falling

out. Not particularly because they did not want to continue or the employer did

not want them.

I could just, maybe if I could. Mr. Wayne Mitchell has

joined us from the Workers' Compensation Commission. He had an appointment which

has kept him a little bit late. And it is customary for us to have someone from

the Commission here just in case, Mr. Chairman, there should be -

MR. R. AYLWARD: Make sure he gets docked enough

pay now for not being here on time.

MS. COWAN: Well, he is not well and he is here

under duress, I must say, and I appreciate it very much, and it shows his

commitment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: I would like to be able to continue on

into new areas, but I really cannot. I have to stick with this one for a minute,

because I have not really received any answers to the questions that I asked.

The original question was: There was $2.9 million

budgeted for the Employment Generation Programme, and there was $2.2 million

spent, which means that $700,000 from the programme was not spent. Now, I

understand the Minister says she is having difficulty understanding the

bookkeeping end of it, and what have you, but I am still interested in finding

out why $700,000 was not spent from that programme. The Minister really has not

explained it to me. Maybe one of her officials could indicate what happened

there, because when I see a budgeted amount of $2.9 million, and I see $2.2

million was spent from it, that indicates to me that $700,000 was not spent. So

I have no objection if one of the officials wishes to reply, because I am

interested in getting that information and I would like to have accurate

information if I could, because the Minister is not providing accurate

information on that.

MS. COWAN: There are none so deaf as those who do

not want to hear.

MR. DOYLE: I am asking the Minister where the

$700,000 went, and she is the one telling me that she does not understand where

it went. Now, I am not deaf, and I would like the information from the Minister.

If she does not want to answer, indicate that she does not and I will move on. I

am not deaf, let me point out to the hon. Minister, but I would like the

information.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Doyle, I do not think we need to

take on such an adversarial stance.

MR. DOYLE: I will judge whether I take on

adversarial stances. You do your job and I will do mine. Don't you worry about

my stance at all.

MS. COWAN: I will certainly answer, and I will try

to do so in a dignified and courteous manner, Mr. Chairman.

The $700,000 that was not spent could not be spent

because of the long-term commitment. We could not take that $700,000, fund so

many jobs and then carry them over into the next fiscal year. There was not

going to be the money available in the next fiscal year, nor could we take any

of that $700,000 and carry it over into the next fiscal year. So, had we started

individuals in the Employment Generation Programme with that $700,000, we would

have had to drop them at the end of the fiscal year, and that was not the aim of

the programme.

MR. DOYLE: So you are telling me that the money

was spent?

MS. COWAN: The money was not spent.

MR. DOYLE: You did not have time to spend it, is

what you are saying?

MS. COWAN: No. Well, I suppose you could put it

that way, but the fiscal year was drawing to a close, and you cannot carry any

of that $700,000 over into the next fiscal year, as you are aware.

MR. DOYLE: But why was the money not spent? Was it

that the applications were too slow in coming, the applications were too slow in

being approved, or what?

MS. COWAN: No, the applications were there, but if

we had committed to any of these individuals and the businesses involved, we

would have had to carry them on into the next fiscal year, into this fiscal

year, and the money was not available for this fiscal year.

I know you are just putting on a performance and you

do understand. You were in Cabinet, Sir, yourself and you understand these

things.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Chairman, a point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

A point of order, the hon. the Member for Harbour

Main.

MR. DOYLE: The Minister is attributing motives as

to why I am asking her questions. Now, they are hard-hitting questions, I

understand, but if she does not like it, well that is just too bad. The Minister

is here to account for her Department, and we have a duty and a responsibility,

as Committee Members and as Members of the Opposition, to get the information

from the Minister. Now, I am sorry if the Minister does not like the questions

that I happen to be asking, but if she does not feel like answering then she can

leave. She is going to get the questions, and I suggest that she answer them.

That is the point of order, Mr. Chairman, the Minister

is attributing motives as to why we are asking questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Minister care to speak to

the point of order?

MS. COWAN: No thank you. I am not going to

continue in this way.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order. I would

caution both Mr. Doyle and the Minister to ask the questions in a polite manner

and to answer them in just as courteous a manner. I would ask that we resume

with the questioning and would suggest that Mr. Doyle continue to ask his

questions in a polite and courteous manner and that the Minister answer in just

as polite and as courteous a manner.

Mr. Doyle, I am going to have to move to another

Member of the Committee we will get back to you.

Mr. Barrett.

MR. BARRETT: Ms. Minister, as you are aware I am

very interested in the Hibernia development site and what is happening on that

particular site, naturally, as it is in the District I represent in the House of

Assembly. I know there was a unique collective agreement signed at that

particular site, the Site Agreement, and employees have to be union members.

Some of the conditions of that agreement were that workers would have to have

six months residency and that the job opportunities would be open to qualified

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I was wondering if your Department is doing

any monitoring on that particular site in terms of the employment requirements

for workers on that site?

MS. COWAN: (Inaudible) native Newfoundlander. Yes,

both Mines and Energy and my Department are monitoring the number of jobs that

are there and the number of people who had to be hired, if any, from outside the

Province. I do not have those figures exactly in front of me other than we have

to date 450 jobs on site, it would look as if it was somewhere in the area of 40

per cent from the local area, and that 98 per cent are Newfoundlanders.

MR. BARRETT: Are there people within your

Department continuously monitoring the qualifications of the people who come in,

to make sure there are no Newfoundlanders who could do the jobs that are being

done by people from outside Newfoundland.

MS. COWAN: Yes, we have contacts we work through,

I forget what the area is called, where Peter Kennedy is heading up that

division and we have ongoing interaction with that particular group - the

Hibernia Monitoring Committee. We have people from our Department going out

monthly to monitor the situation regarding employment.

MR. BARRETT: Are we just permitted one question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, continue you can use up your

full ten minutes Mr. Barrett.

MR. BARRETT: The other area I would like to look

at is in terms of the occupational health and safety.

Has you Department considered having people on site

all the time in terms of the Hibernia Project? Or, what is the strategy in terms

of monitoring the occupational health and safety on the particular site?

MS. COWAN: What we have done is, we have been

working along with Nodeco and I must say they have been very cooperative. I

think we are now well into the second stage of the second working document on

the occupational health and safety there, as it relates to the more

sophisticated construction that will be coming up down the road. Right now the

construction that is going on there is a fairly basic type of construction which

falls quite easily under the gambit of what is considered normal here in the

Province. Nodeco will be hiring a full-time person who will have the

responsibility for Occupational Health and Safety. Do they have that individual

yet?

MR. DWYER: It should be done this week.

MS. COWAN: It should be done this week.

To date we have been very, very, impressed with the

attitude toward Occupational Health and Safety on that site. It is really

something that we will be able to point out as an approach that can be emulated

by others.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If I may for one second? I would

like to remind officials again that if you make any comment that is going to be

recorded by Hansard I would ask you to identify yourselves so that you will be

properly entered into the records.

Mr. Barrett.

MR. BARRETT: I guess it is part of the legislation

of the Province that companies have to have a program of Occupational Health and

Safety as part of the industrial activity on the site, but I would like to know

the Department's plans? It is a big project and I am wondering if it is just

going to be people who are gong to be visiting the site occasionally or will

there be somebody fixed to the site who will be monitoring the Occupational

Health and Safety?

MS. COWAN: There will be nobody on site all the

time but we will be making periodic inspections at the site. The main thing now

is to get the whole programme in place that applies to the most sophisticated

parts of the construction and to make sure that the employer is totally

conversant with the regulations, legislation and so on, because the onus is

largely on the employer to see that the workplace safety, or whatever you want

to call it, is carried out properly. We will be making periodic inspections from

time to time and will be available, of course, if we are called upon for any

particular expertise that we might have that the employer does not.

MR. BARRETT: Before I got involved in politics,

one of the areas I had great interest in is programmes, particularly for the

re-entry of women back into the labour force. I was familiar with some of the

programs you were involved in when I was a Member of the Department of Career

Development and Advanced studies. Have there been any new initiatives lately

with regards to providing training and employment opportunities for women?

MS. COWAN: Should I continue?

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is not necessary at the Committee

stage for the Minister to be acknowledged each time. While Mr. Barrett is asking

questions you may feel free to answer them until his time of ten minutes has

been used up.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Barrett would be familiar, from his

previous work, with the WISE program. That program has proven to be extremely

successful. In fact, I think it is probably one of the best employment

programmes, not only in this Province, but if you were looking over quite a wide

geographical area. That program aims to get women back into the workforce not by

training them in specific jobs so that they come out as a bank teller, that they

come out as a hairdresser or a person with ability to do drafting or

bricklaying, or whatever, but it takes women who for some reason have been out

of the workforce for a while, or are social service recipients, individuals who

might lack somewhat in self esteem and be hesitant to go back into the

workforce. It takes these individuals through a training program which builds up

their concept of their own abilities and trains them in how best to present

themselves to get a job and so on, and also gives them work experience. I forget

just how long the period of time is. That programme has had about a 95 per cent

success rate. That is, 95 per cent of the women in that programme have either

been employed or have gone on to further their education. Now, your average

success rate for any other programme is around 48 to 50 per cent. So, you can

see what a fine programme that is.

So rather than our Department dreaming up some new

programme, when we had such an excellent one there that originated with some

special federal funding that ran out, we have now set up that same programme in

Central Newfoundland, and are funding the core operations of that. I attended

the opening of that particular programme a while ago, and they have very, very

enthusiastic women out there getting that programme on the go. I did speak to

some of the first participants who are very, very excited about it. So that is a

real plus, and I would hope to see, funds permitting, that again we will be able

to move that programme to another community college campus in another part of

the Province and provide these opportunities for even more women.

Now, as well, we have one other programme for women

that we call a Job Bridges Programme. This is a programme that is attempting to

get women into types of work that we consider non-traditional. For example, let

us say the trades. It has been well known, although most people have chosen to

ignore it, for about ten years or more that we are not going to have the people

we need in the trades, even here in Newfoundland, and this is with males. Males

are not training for the trades like they once did. So it is very important that

we get a good number of individuals, male and female, into that kind of work. We

are training women - we are not training them, excuse me - we are subsidizing an

employer who is willing to take a woman into a non-traditional type of job and

see them through. Now, we go just a step beyond seeing that the women get into

this position, we have counsellors available as well. The counsellor can talk to

the woman about some of the problems that she might encounter on the job and to

the employer about how he or she can be supportive to that particular

individual. Our employment counsellor will check back throughout the period and

see if indeed all is going well, and do everything she can to facilitate that.

To date we have twenty-eight women who have entered into a non-traditional form

of work through that programme.

So I think that probably pretty well covers that

particular aspect, Mr. Barrett.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barrett, your ten minutes has

elapsed. I am going to have to go to another member of the Committee.

Mr. Aylward.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Doyle, if you would.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize Mr. Doyle.

Mr. Aylward, you will acknowledge then that I will

give the floor to all other Committee Members before I get back to you again.

MR. R. AYLWARD: That is right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Chairman, I have ten minutes, is

it?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, you have ten minutes.

MR. DOYLE: I wish to go for five minutes, then Mr.

Aylward can interject and go five minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If we start rewriting the rules as

we go, I think we are going to run into all kinds of problems. I think we will

stick with the rules the way we have them.

MR. DOYLE: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If you do not wish to use your full

ten minutes, you do not have to, but I will go to one of the other -

MR. DOYLE: Well, I have two or three hours

actually, just in the interest of somebody else who might wish to ask a

question.

I want to get back to the Employment Generation

Programme again, and I am still interested in finding out about that $700,000

because the information has not been given as to what happened with the

$700,000. Now I understand what the Minister is saying, that the money, nearing

the end of the fiscal year, could not be transferred over to another fiscal

year. But what I am trying to get at is why the money was not used coming up to

the end of the fiscal year. The Minister has said that there were plenty of

applications on hand. Why could not the money be taken, the $700,000, and

approve the existing applications? Given the fact that we have an unemployment

rate of 23.5 per cent I am sure the Minister was interested in getting as many

applications approved as she had money to approve them.

So I still do not have an answer as to why the

applications that were on hand, and presumably there were many, many

applications on hand, maybe the Minister will tell me there were no

applications, but she has told me already there were applications. So why was

the $700,000, even though we were nearing the end of the fiscal year, taken and

just went into limbo, it just went back into general revenue - the money was not

used. So again I am just wondering why that $700,000 was not used to approve

existing applications coming up to the end of the fiscal year.

MS. COWAN: Because of the fact that we would not

be able to continue, the money was not going to be available in the 1990-91 year

to continue those individuals who would have started late in that fiscal year.

They might have got, for example, part of their twenty weeks, but we would not

have had the money in the next fiscal year to continue the last twenty weeks.

MR. WINSOR: But wouldn't there have to be a carry

over of money?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am sorry, I am going to have to

stick with Mr. Doyle. I will give Mr. Winsor a chance later.

For the sake of the record and Hansard, I would like

to introduce Mr. Sam Winsor, the Member for Fogo, who joined us late. Mr. Winsor

will be given his opportunity to ask questions.

MR. DOYLE: In the interest of getting all of the

information that we want to get, I mean is this the way that the Committee

operated in the past? The people cannot interject?

MR. CHAIRMAN: This is the way the Committee

operated when I was chairing it, yes.

MR. WINSOR: Government Services never operated

this way before. I have been on it for two years now and the policy is kind of a

question and answer instead of this ten minute bit -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is Mr. Winsor on a point of order.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, on a point of order. In the two

years that I have been on the Government Services Committee, it has never

functioned this way when you had ten minutes. It was an opportunity to question

the Minister and there was always, as the Minister will agree, a kind of

exchange back and forth without this ten minute thing. When you develop a line,

if you have to wait until the next time it rolls around it seems that you will

never be able to get a detailed examination of what is going on. I mean this ten

minute bit might be fine for initially starting the thing to give the critic ten

minutes to lead off, but once you get past that stage it seems that for a free

flow of information the question-answer type thing would be more desirable.

MS. COWAN: To that point of order, Mr. Chairman,

my recollection from the past was that people did not jump in with a question,

that there was always one person designated to speak for his or her period of

time and then it was passed on to the next individual.

I do not recall whether there were ten minute gambits

or not, but I am certainly only too happy to go along with the will of the Chair

in that; but my recollection of the past is that there was never a free for all,

with everybody yelling questions back and forth. It was I must say, carried on

in a very polite and courteous fashion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Aylward.

MR. R. AYLWARD: To that point of order, I have

been on the Government Services Committee since it started, and as Vice-Chair

for the last couple of years. There is a difference in the way the Committee is

working now; the Chairman and I agreed on trying to work it this way because he

found it successful in his Committee last year.

Committee: having a back and forth with the Minister and a Member and then

another person and the Minister again, was the way we did operate it, not as a

free for all, it was an orderly flow, but rather than have ten minutes, ten

minutes, ten minutes, if Mr. Doyle did not want to ask another question on this

specific topic, it went to another person, and another person.

I am willing to try it the way in which I have agreed

with the Chairman, but I would think that it will prolong the Committee meeting;

if you could deal with an item and get rid of it and move on, I think you would

probably accomplish more.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To that point of order, I think

there has been some misunderstanding, maybe it is my fault, maybe it is the

other Member's fault, but I will not allow interjections, the question was asked

how the Committees performed in the past. This is the way the Committees were

organized and the way we functioned last year at the committee which I chaired

and this is the way that we have agreed to do it tonight.

The only misconception I think, is that you must use

up your ten minutes; I do not think that was what the Chair said. The Chair said

that you could have ten minutes; if any Member wishes to ask a question in one

minute or two minutes, and go on to somebody else to ask another that is fine,

but I will have to give another Member the chance to do that. Mr. Winsor, will

get his chance, and I think we will have to maintain that kind of an orderly

flow of questions in order to get an orderly flow of answers. I will not allow

it to become a free for all.

MR. DOYLE: So the ten minutes then that has been

allocated say for me has to be used by me; my colleague, say Mr. Winsor, cannot

help use that ten minutes if he so wishes?

MR. CHAIRMAN: There has been no ten minutes

allocated, that is the maximum amount that I will give you if you wish to use it

up. If you wish to use two, then I will go to another Member, and if he wishes

to use only two, then when he is finished I will go to another Member again.

MR. DOYLE: But the ten minutes is not allocated

say -

MR. CHAIRMAN: No. Ten minutes is not allocated for

you to decide who is going to ask the questions, no.

MR. DOYLE: Okay. I do not know if I could pursue

this-

MS. COWAN: Had I completed my answer? I cannot

remember where we were when this happened.

MR. DOYLE: Well, I do not know if you have

completed your answer, but I am still just as confused as ever as a result of

your answer and as I said, if the Minister wishes to have one of her officials

answer the question, because I am interested in accurate information; I do not

know, and again I am not assuming that the Minister is not giving me accurate

information, it is just that it is difficult to understand how that could

possibly happen.

MS. COWAN: Okay. First of all the $700,000 was

there because of the fact that different people had dropped out of the programme

for one reason or another.

MR. DOYLE: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: That was at the end, near the end, of

the fiscal year. Okay? So we were left with that money. We had no reason to

believe, and it has certainly not been something that has been ever practised as

far as I know by Treasury Board, to commit for the next two or three years in

the middle of one fiscal year. So I could not make the assumption that if I

spent that $700,000 then to start people on the employment generation programme

that I would have in this fiscal year the money to follow that up.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: Yes, because of the fact that we have

the twenty-twenty-twenty division. Which carries it over a sixty week programme.

MR. DOYLE: So the Minister or her Department were

not able to forecast, with the number of applications that were coming in and

the value of these applications, that there would be $700,000 left over?

MS. COWAN: You cannot forecast slippage. You do

not know when somebody is going to sell a place, you do not know if someone will

not adhere to the rules and regulations that are set down, you do not know how

the economy is going to fluctuate, so slippage is certainly very difficult to

predict.

MR. DOYLE: Slippage is one things. But that is 25

per cent of your budget. I mean one would think that when one refers to slippage

you would be talking about minuscule amounts of money. But I mean you had a

budget of $2.9 million. Now are you telling me that slippage was 25 per cent of

it?

MS. COWAN: Slippage was around $700,000 as I

indicated to you (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: That is 25 per cent of your entire

budget. Your entire budget was $2.9 million. And four sevens are twenty-eight.

So almost 25 per cent of your entire budget composes, makes up, slippage? I

mean, this is out of whack in my opinion. There is something wrong here. How

could it possibly happen that slippage would be 25 per cent of your whole

employment budget? And your Department was not able to forecast - with a really

small budget of $2.9 million - was not able to sit down in the middle of the

fiscal year or nearing the end of the fiscal year and say: look, we have this

many applications in and this is the value of the applications, and therefore we

have to knock it off right here or take additional applications in order to use

up the $2.9 million? Are you telling me that your officials within your

Department could not forecast that?

MS. COWAN: It is impossible, Mr. Doyle, to

forecast the economy, it is impossible -

MR. DOYLE: Twenty-five per cent of your entire

budget was slippage is what you are telling me.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

Mr. Doyle, your allotted time has been used up. I will

allow the Minister the time to answer the question.

MS. COWAN: There is absolutely no way, whether it

is 25 per cent, 15 per cent, 16 per cent, 35 per cent, that you can predict

slippage. The percentage means nothing. It is the number of people who dropped

out of the programme. We could not predict that. I mean, we would hope that no

one would drop out but we know such things as, say, the building being sold,

let's see, we have the list here, a decline in business, the position had been

filled before the employer was given the go-ahead by our Department -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: That's quite correct. Business has been

sold or leased, the business was seasonal, the employer was not willing to

participate -

MR. DOYLE: Would you not say that your employment

programme was a dismal failure if 25 per cent of them dropped out?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

I recognize Mr. Crane.

MR. DOYLE: This is unbelievable, totally

unbelievable, I have never seen this before (inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I have recognized Mr. Crane.

MR. DOYLE: This is totally unbelievable. In a

Province with an unemployment rate of 23.5 per cent you had 25 per cent slippage

in your Department.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Mr. Crane.

MR. DOYLE: This is unbelievable.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am sorry, Mr. Doyle, I am going to

have to ask you to keep cool and to have no further outbursts of that kind.

Mr. Crane.

MR. CRANE: Ms. Minister, getting back to the

Employment Generation Programme last year you budgeted $2.9 million and you

spent $2.2 million, this year we are budgeting $1.5 million, does that mean

there is not much interest in the programme or what?

Employment Generation, I am just picking up from where

Mr. Aylward left off. I am not interested in the $700,000 I think I understand

what you have been saying on that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: Well, I know that.

- but why budget only $1.5 million this year when you

had $2.9 million budgeted last year?

MS. COWAN: Yes, because we were into the final

year of the programme, into the final twenty weeks for most people and at that

stage we wanted to stop and evaluate before we continued spending more money to

start new jobs and to start up the same 20/20 cycle again.

MR. CRANE: So, what you are telling me now is

there is no new programme in place for this year just tapering off from last

year's.

MS. COWAN: Yes, we will be continuing that one,

tapering it off evaluating it and then if necessary introducing a new one or

deciding to put money into something that might be better should this prove not

to be a really good programme.

MR. CRANE: This Job Bridges Programme, it does not

appear in the budget this year or maybe I just cannot find it.

MS. COWAN: It is under the WISE, Women Interested

in Successful Employment, it is included in that.

MS. CRANE: How much money is budgeted for that

this year since I have not been able to find it?

MS. COWAN: Two hundred and fifteen thousand.

MR. CRANE: What was budgeted last year, Ms.

Minister?

MS. COWAN: It started late in the year and I shall

have to ask Ms. Gogan if she has that information.

MS. GOGAN: The same amount was budgeted last year.

MR. CRANE: So, you are operating on the same

budget as last year. You are talking about the other programmes being 95 per

cent successful, what is that programme like? Is that a successful programme?

MS. COWAN: We do not know yet because it is so

new. It started toward the end of last year and we have to evaluate it. It is

not going to be the kind of programme that you find people rushing out to get

involved in because what we are doing here is talking about breaking down

stereotyped attitudes and so on. So, we have first of all to find the employer

willing to take on an individual female in a nontraditional role and we then

have to find the interested woman to take the job.

MR. CRANE: I imagine you will find the women a lot

quicker to take the job than you will find somebody willing to hire them.

MS. COWAN: Well, the pay is usually much better in

these jobs.

MR. CRANE: Moving away from Hibernia and Bull Arm,

your Department has often been criticized for the inadequacy of the occupational

health and safety programmes. I am sure every week in the House Mr. Doyle is

criticizing your occupational health and safety programmes. Are you doing

anything to improve it, Ms. Minister?

MS. COWAN: Well, first of all -

MR. DOYLE: A point of order, Mr. Chairman. I

cannot allow the comment to stay on the record that I have been criticizing the

Occupational Health and Safety Division of the Minister's Department. I do not

know where the member would get that idea, that I have been criticizing that

Department. It has never happened. I responded to a statement by the Minister

yesterday in the House, but it was in no way critical of Occupational Health and

Safety in Newfoundland, except that there was not enough money going into it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Crane.

MR. CRANE: Yes, Mr. Chairman. If Mr. Doyle is

saying that is the first time he has commented or criticized the Occupational

Health and Safety Programme in that Department, then I say there is something

gone wrong, Sir, radically wrong. I am sure I have heard you many times in this

House.

MR. DOYLE: I have never criticized the Programme.

I like the Programme.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order, just a

difference of opinion between two hon. members.

Would you continue Mr. Crane?

MR. CRANE: Okay. I asked you a question.

MS. COWAN: Okay, fine! Thank you.

There have always been a number of questions asked

about the Occupational Health and Safety Division of the Department. There have

not been as many from Mr. Doyle, perhaps, as I would have anticipated, but

certainly the media has focused on it.

I think it is important for me to say, at this

particular stage, that what I inherited in Occupational Health and Safety in my

Department was a disaster, and it has taken at least two years to get on top of

it. Mr. Dwyer was brought into the Department and has been applying his

expertise to making that Division much more on the ball.

One of the things I would like to demonstrate that we

have now that I think is going to be very good - I cannot believe that

Occupational Health and Safety continued in this Province the way it had and

nothing was done, like Mr. Dwyer has now put in place. What we have done is

looked at the statistics from Workers' Compensation - they have always been

there, they have always been available - and we have been able to build a

computer programme which spotlights the areas of highest accident. Then we are

able to set up a programme of visitation. Would you believe that in the past the

inspectors just went hither and yon as the urge struck, or as a call came in.

There was no organized, orchestrated manner in which workplaces which had bad

records, were visited in a systematic way. We are now doing that. It has just

started and, you know, there are going to be a few little quirks and so on in it

that have to be ironed out. But we are hoping that that is going to greatly

improve the services of inspection.

Now, if after a period of time we are able to evaluate

this, we will probably be able to say then, yes, we need more inspectors or the

inspectors we have now are adequate, or whatever. This is going to give us very

good information as to the number of inspectors, because we are often criticized

- and I have criticized the Department myself - because we do not have enough

inspectors. But before we could just go out and hire people, willy-nilly, we had

to make sure we were going to use them properly once we had them. If this

programme works well in the St. John's area it will then be moved to other parts

of the Province and we will be able to have a very systematic inspection service

set up.

We, of course, still have an individual on hand to

respond to emergency situations so that we do not have all our inspectors out in

the field at once and not reachable.

MR. CRANE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Winsor.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, I want to, in turn, revisit the

Employment Generation Programme.

The Minister has said there was $700,000 that was left

over. Now, what I find intriguing about this is when we questioned her last year

in the House the Minister constantly said that only if there were slippage would

there be new funds approved, and what is amazing about this is that did not

become apparent until towards the end of the fiscal year. It is a policy of

Government that if money is not spent in one fiscal year, if a program is

approved it is allowed to be carried over into the next year, for example in

water and sewer.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) every year.

MR. WINSOR: Every Government. For example, if you

do not use your water and sewer money and the contract runs out because of bad

weather that money is carried forward and it is done in the next year. Now, why

could the Minister not do the same thing with her Employment Generation Program,

commit no new expenditures for the next year, not five cents, because she had

$700,000, and if it cost $10,000 to finance a job the Minister could have

carried it forward and had seventy new jobs done for that period of time. The

Minister knew well in advance that there was some $700,000, and is not the real

reason why the Minister did not approve any more, is because the cutbacks had

come about and the Employment Generation Program had not been a success? When

the Minister stood in the Colonial Building and boosted about her new program,

and how the other program was the one for, I think she used the words, Tory

hacks, and this new program was going to be so good and so effective. What we

see here is a down sizing and a down scaling of what she said was going to be a

good program. Now, the Minister has had two years to have the program in place

and it is time for the Minister to reveal some statistics to us, and one of them

should be the success of her program in her first year because sixty weeks have

elapsed. The Minister said what we did in the old program was we put people on

for ten or twenty weeks, and then they were on UI and they never returned to the

workforce. Now, how successful has her program been? How many jobs were created,

and how many of them were maintained as a result of the program? The Minister

should have these figures for the first year of her program. The Minister can

take some notes on this because I do not want to give up my ten minutes.

MR. BARRETT: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. BARRETT: The hon. Member indicated there was

carry over from Municipal Capital Works. I think it should be clarified that the

financing for Municipal Capital Works is through the Municipal Finance

Corporation and it does not really matter which year it is spent.

MR. WINSOR: The same thing applies to roads.

MR. BARRETT: No. It is carried over but it has to

come out of this present year's Budget.

MR. WINSOR: Exactly. That is what I mean.

MR. BARRETT: The Municipal Finance Corporation is

a different thing.

This is not a point of order. I know it is not a point

of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Stop eating up his ten minutes.

MR. BARRETT: The Municipal Finance Corporation is

different.

MR. WINSOR: To that point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the point of order.

Mr. Winsor.

MR. WINSOR: It does not really matter. The Member

for Lewisporte knows that the Change Island's road did not get completed last

year and it is going to be carried over into this year. It is not under the

Municipal thing. It is a thing the Department of Highways does and it is a

routine thing. I do not want him to cut into my time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no point of order, just a disagreement

between two hon. Members.

MR. WINSOR: In looking through all the Minister's

employment programs,

Section 4102, we find there was budgeted $1 million and

$700,000 was spent. The Student Employment Program was pretty well even. In

Youth Employment Strategy, and this is one I want to come back to, there is

$306,000 of federal revenue that was budgeted and some $57,900 was used, a

difference of about $250,000. I wonder if the Minister could explain why that

$250,000, or thereabouts, give or take a few cents, was not availed of?

Could the Minister also explain why of $534,000 only

$304,000 was spent in Women Interested in Successful Employment? Can the

Minister explain why of $1 million budgeted only $750,000 was spent for the

Programme for Older Worker Adjustment. The Employment Generation has been

discussed. In the Adjustment Programme for Fish Plant Workers, $9 million

budgeted.

MR. DOYLE: (Inaudible) money (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Mr. Winsor, I must recognize that you came in late to

this meeting. But it was explained by the Chair that in order to facilitate free

flowing questions and answers we would prefer that you asked a question, got an

answer, and asked another question and got an answer.

MR. WINSOR: But then I lose my ten minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no losing ten minutes. We

will stay here till whatever time, we will come back tomorrow night, and we will

come back the next night -

MR. WINSOR: Okay, we are going to have to.

MR. CHAIRMAN: - and we will be at this for the

full fifteen days if that is what you wish. But I have to give other Members the

same kind of an opportunity. So I would prefer if you would ask your questions

and would get an answer.

MR. DOYLE: (Inaudible) ten minutes between you and

the Minister (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: And the employment services for

adjustment programme was reduced by some $1.7 million. And in total for

employment services there was $17,200,000 budgeted, some $14,250,000 spent, a

difference of about $3 million at a time in our Province when unemployment rates

are at an unprecedented high. We have never had anything that exceeded it,

perhaps in the 'thirties. But other than that we have never had anything quite

so high. Can the Minister explain why all these amounts of money were budgeted,

and the revised budget of what actually was spent, in a time when workers needed

jobs, why didn't the Minister do it? And again I want to ask the Minister why

could she not take her $700,000 - I want to keep that in mind -

MR. DOYLE: Twenty-five per cent.

MR. WINSOR: - the 25 per cent - and carry it

forward to the next year. Finance a number of jobs last year out of this year's

budget. Because the money had to come anyway to finance the ones that were

ongoing.

MR. DOYLE: And that is common practice.

MS. COWAN: Alright. (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Yes.

MS. COWAN: Okay. First of all let me say to Mr.

Doyle and to Mr. Winsor that there is no party being given here by the Liberal

Government for people in this Province. We are not spending our money in an

irresponsible manner. We are trying to be responsible to the taxpayers. And I am

not about to commit monies that I am not sure will be there in the future.

Now let me just talk about -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: These are grants, sir, not loans. And

as was pointed out very succinctly and aptly by Mr. Barrett it is a totally

different situation than the municipal financing situation. The terms and

conditions of this particular programme did not allow me to carry money over

into the next fiscal year. Now, I could have gone into Cabinet and said: now,

you know, gentlemen, we must get votes, we must have all those people out there

working, it does not matter if the programme is successful or not, but let's get

them out there, let's get them to work, let's get them on UI as fast as we jolly

well can, just like the last government did, and everybody will be happy.

But no, that is not the approach we are taking. We

have committed ourselves to developing long term programmes. We want to evaluate

this programme now and that is why we did not put extra money into it. If it

turns out to be a top-notch programme then more money -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: We put in enough money to see the

programme through, see the individuals and the businesses through who started in

last year. And that is what we will do. We will then evaluate it. Somebody is

making a big fuss about 25 per cent slippage. Again, that is just absolute

nonsense, smoke and mirrors as the Opposition likes to use (Inaudible)

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

MS. COWAN: The explanation for that now, Chair, I

have given on several occasions and I do not think that I will go into that

again. I will go through Mr. Winsor's, through the different items that you

mentioned as you spoke during your ten minutes. I will have to ask first of all,

Mr. Hawkins to respond to the first question regarding the spending of the

federal monies in the Youth Employment Strategy.

MR. HOPKINS: With the permission of the Chair, I

would like to come back to that question; I would like to talk to Miss Gogan

about it because off the top of my head I am not really sure why that happened,

but -

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has no problem with that

request, does the Minister?

MS. COWAN: Oh no, that is fine with me if Mr.

Winsor does not mind.

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible), question?

MR. WINSOR: (Inaudible) obviously, I want the

answer.

MS. COWAN: Yes, okay. Your next question was

regarding the programme for older worker adjustment, the Power Programme? We

have absolutely no way of predicting how many people will have to avail of a

Power Programme. We know an approximate number like we know that employed at

that company are so many individuals over the age of fifty-five, but we have no

idea when the company closes whether those individuals will find more work, or

whether they will need the Power Programme, so we take I guess what you would

call the worst situation and put in as much money, assuming that the majority of

people will need the Power Programme and then it is great if they do not need

that money, that means that they have found work elsewhere and do not have to

avail of the Power funds.

The Employment Generation Programme, we have talked

about the adjustment programme for fish-plant workers, the money is not needed

now, the contracts are about to run out in those particular areas, Grand Bank in

June, Gaultois in June and Trepassey in September, so there will not be the

amount of money needed there, as first anticipated when the programme was put in

place a year or a year and a half ago.

MR. WINSOR: So is the Minister saying that there

was no need for that, the $9,000 there were not enough applicants to avail of

that amount of money and only $7,300,000 was spent?

MS. COWAN: That is millions, by the way.

MR. WINSOR: Million, that is what I said.

MS. COWAN: I thought you said thousand - maybe I

said thousand.

I will have to ask Cathy Gogan as to why that was;

Cathy?

MS. GOGAN: There is an agreement with FPI and

National Sea and the Provincial Government, $15 million for extended notice for

the fish plants and that is in accordance with the agreement, it is not

individual subsidies for people, it is extended notice for the fish plants.

MR. WINSOR: So the fish plants did not choose to-

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sorry, Mr. Winsor; I allowed the

first interruption because of clarification. I have to turn the questioning over

to another Member of our Committee. I think the Minister -

MS. COWAN: I did not answer his last question, am

I able to do that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Of course, continue.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Winsor, under the Career Support

Services, actually what we have there now is some federal funding which does not

appear on the Budget which is going to allow us to keep an extra individual whom

we thought we would not, which bolsters up that particular division and as well,

we have developed a means of working in a more complimentary way with the

Federal Government, so we feel that with the monies that are being expended this

year, by the Province, plus this extra bit that is put in by the Feds -

MR. WINSOR: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On a point of order, Mr. Winsor.

MR. WINSOR: I did not asked the Minister what her

expenditures were for this year, I asked her why there was a reduction of

$528,800 as was budgeted, to the $454 that was actually spent; I am asking about

last year's budget.

MS. COWAN: I beg your pardon; I am sorry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order, simply a

point of clarification.

MS. COWAN: A point of clarification; alright Ms.

Gogan, to you.

MS. GOGAN: In the Career Support Services mainly

due to a change over in staff when somebody resigns it takes approximately three

to six months to replace that individual, and we did have some staff changes in

Career Support Services.

MS. COWAN: Apparently Ms. Gogan has, Mr. Chairman,

the answer to the first question that Mr. Winsor asked that I had referred to

Tom Hopkins.

MS. GOGAN: There is a federal/provincial agreement

called the Canada/Newfoundland Youth Strategy which is one of our major funding

programmes in this Department. The Federal Government puts $9.275 million in

annually, and the Provincial Government $3.625; it is a 70/30 cost-shared

agreement. There was a project, Natural Economic Life Skills, to be delivered

through the Department of Education that the Federal Government was extremely

interested in funding. However, because education is a provincial responsibility

they could not directly fund the project. We estimated that it would be

approximately $306,000, and like any of these programmes you can never come up

with the exact amount because you are talking about individuals, and that one

was approximately $250,000 so we got $250,000 revenue rather than the $306,000.

The money was for a very specific purpose so we could not have used it for

anything else.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would caution Members that this is

what happens when we take ten minutes to ask multiple questions - we have to

have multiple answers, and then with the interjection for clarifications. I

would suggest that for the duration of this Committee meeting we not allow this

to happen again, but if you want to make a point or ask a very quick question

for clarification I will allow it.

MR. WINSOR: Perhaps I misunderstood what Ms. Gogan

said. I understood her to say that they could only avail of $250,000. What I am

saying is that $250,000 was not spent. It seems to me that $57,000 was spent of

the $306,000 budgeted, if I am reading it right. The bracketed figures always

indicate revenues, do they not? And it appears as if $306,000 was the budgeted

federal income of which $57,900 is spent. Is that the way -

MS. GOGAN: I will have to have our Director of

Administration check that out, but I know the money was spent because I signed

everything.

MR. WINSOR: The $250,000?

MS. GOGAN: Yes, federal revenue.

MR. WINSOR: Because unless there is a mistake in

the estimates it appears as if only $57,000 - are you following the estimates

that I am looking at?

MS. GOGAN: Another problem that arises sometimes

with the estimates is at the time of the year when they are prepared all our

claims have not come in and we have a fantastic number of claims. And just to

refer back to the $700,000, approximately $200,000 of that can be accounted for

in that manner; it is more like $500,000 that is the accurate figure.

MS. COWAN: If I may too, there has been an

enormous number of programmes, and I have some here that have been approved just

with federal money. So, as Ms. Gogan says, it obviously has to have been spent.

I have a packet of paper here very thick just outlining projects, so it was

obviously utilized.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Short.

MR. SHORT: You mentioned the Programme for Older

Worker Adjustment. In terms of the Budget of 1990 the revised figures show

$750,000 and the budgeted figure for 1991 is $1.68 million. Did I understand

you, Ms. Cowan, to say that there is no way of knowing what would happen? What

is the reason for nearly doubling the budget? Maybe you could describe the

programme as well.

MS. COWAN: Well, in the first year of the

programme we had assistance to provide to people who were working at Albright

and Wilson and that covered thirty-two workers; at Dunville Mining, two workers;

and at Newfoundland Hardwoods seven workers. So, that was not a large number of

workers drawing on the power programme.

Coming up this year we are going to have approximately

117 fish plant workers; Daniels Harbour - the zinc mine there that has closed -

twenty workers; and at Baie Verte, seventy workers; so that is 207 workers who

may avail of power this year once their UI runs out where we only had forty-one

workers last year availing of it. We hope we shall not have to spend all that

money because if we do not spend it all that means those individuals have found

employment and do not need the power programme to keep up a certain standard of

living.

MR. SHORT: What does the programme do? What is it

all about?

MS. COWAN: Well, what happens with this programme

is that it is focused at individuals who are fifty-five years of age or over, as

you may be aware, that is the group in our society who have an extremely

difficult time finding employment. Of course, in Newfoundland it may be even

more difficult because of our poor economic situation. When their UI benefits

run out there is a programme that kicks in and the amount of money they get is

based on a number of situations that are set before a particular committee. It

has representatives of both the Federal and Provincial Government on that

Committee.

So, first of all a person has to be affected by a

layoff that is of a major, major concern. You would look at something like the

Albright and Wilson closure and you realize there is absolutely no work for

those individuals in radius of that particular plant, so that helped certainly

to qualify them. They have to be between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-four

at the time of the layoff and they have to have worked fifteen out of the last

twenty years. So, that is part of the criteria. They have to be Canadian

citizens or landed immigrants, and have to exhaust all their UI benefits first,

and have to have absolutely no prospect of re-employment. The Committee then

evaluates all these situations and decides who will get the money. As far as

what benefits are offered, the basic benefits equal about 70 per cent of UI

benefits that the individual received at the time of layoff and those are

payable till the time they are 65 and they are indexed according to the pension

index that the Canadian Pension Plan uses. And there is an incentive in the

programme that the individual is allowed to earn so much money, which is rather

unique to programmes of this nature because usually you are not allowed to

pursue anything else. So there is a certain amount of money they are able to

make at another source, perhaps by doing an arts and crafts type project or

whatever. So that is sort of it just in a nutshell.

MR. SHORT: So this programme is fairly new then in

terms of -

MS. COWAN: Yes, it has been signed - I do not know

when it was signed. A year ago, I think. Probably shortly after I came into

office that was signed.

MR. SHORT: What kinds of things would these people

do. What would they be -

MS. COWAN: Different -

MR. SHORT: The people that are, say, laid off from

Long Harbour or whatever, right? What would they be involved in with the

programme? What kinds of opportunities? I mean, they are not just given money.

MS. COWAN: Yes, they are just given money to live.

MR. SHORT: Oh, I see, so it is not a programme to

put them to work (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: It is not a job subsidy type programme

or anything. Because part of the criteria for the programme is that there is

just absolutely no work for this person to avail of anywhere. So that the vast

majority of these individuals are just not going to find employment in the

immediate area.

MR. SHORT: So it will probably help get them up to

age 60 when they can draw Canada Pension (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: That is right, age 65. It is not a

programme we ever want to use. I think you would probably refer to it as sort of

a programme of last resort. This is not just for Newfoundland, by the way, this

is a programme that is used right across the country.

MR. SHORT: Okay. I want to get into workers'

compensation afterwards but I will leave that for another round of questioning

if you would like.

MS. COWAN: Okay.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am glad you did not, Larry,

because I was going to get into workers' compensation myself now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If I may be permitted, Mr. Aylward.

After Mr. Aylward is finished his questions and gotten his answers we will

recess for five or ten minutes for a coffee break.

MS. COWAN: Could I have a point of compassion or

something here? It would be really nice I think -

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point of compassion.

MS. COWAN: - yes, if we could have any questions

for workers' compensation. If, Mr. Chair, you could see any way of doing it so

that our representative, Mr. Mitchell, can leave. Because he is not particularly

well. If that does not cause a problem to you, Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has no problem with it if

there is no objection from the Committee.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am intending to keep him here

all night.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) what we are going to

talk to him about.

MR. R. AYLWARD: They are more policy questions

rather than details, so I do not know if Mr. Mitchell even needs to -

MS. COWAN: To be here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, if you wish you can address

your questions related to workers compensation and I will give each one of you

an opportunity, for a minute or two or three or whatever you want. And then we

will let the gentleman leave and then we will recess for a coffee break. Does

anybody on the Committee have a problem with that?

Mr. Aylward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: (Inaudible) he was going to be noble, I

expect.

MR. WAYNE MITCHELL: I thank hon. Members for their

consideration. I would expect that with the medication doled out by our strong

medical profession I would be able to stay as long as the Members feel that my

presence is warranted. So please do not change your

schedule on my account, but

I do thank you for your consideration.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Aylward.

MR. R. AYLWARD: If you follow the reports most

recently on what is happening with the workers' compensation, especially the

fund and the deficit, if you talk to employers in most any industry, most any

segment of our industries, they feel that they are at their limit of

contributions now. I talked to small store owners who, I would say very seldom

have need for a - it certainly is not a high risk occupation like lumber woods

or anything. They have had significant increases over the last several years.

But there is a definite concern of people who come to

me who are receiving benefits now legitimately, who are permanently injured. And

they are nervous now that because the fund is in such trouble, because it is

underfunded or it appears to be going bankrupt, that they are concerned that

they are not going to have benefits in the future to be able to provide for

their families.

What plans do the Minister, the Department or the

Government have to try to get the fund in shape so that whatever benefits you

are offering in the future will have enough money to cover these benefits that -

well, some that you are paying out now, but certainly for the future injuries of

people also?

MS. COWAN: That is a very good question. I think

first of all, and I did mention it in the House but I will mention it again, -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Minister, I must ask if you

could lean into the microphone. Where you are used to speaking here in the House

from a standing position, Hansard is having problems recording with that voice

level.

MS. COWAN: Okay, yes, sorry. Thank you, Chair.

First of all I guess it was very positive that the Commission recognized the

financial position they were in and found a way to state it. Admitting you have

a problem is the first step. I understand that they are making a presentation to

the Statutory Review that is in place now with some suggestions as to how they

as a board feel that the fund can be brought into line without greatly impacting

on the benefits that are received by individuals or greatly impacting on the

amount of money that the employer has to pay.

One of the terms of reference of the Statutory Review

Committee was to look at the whole funding area. So really it would be premature

for me to guess. One of the reasons we had the Review Committee of course - or

one of reasons we gave them, not that we had it, it was time to have it - but

one of the reasons that we gave them that particular terms of reference was

because we as a Government were concerned about the escalating dollar problem at

the Commission. And I look forward now to hearing from that review and hope that

they will have some good concrete suggestions for improving the fiscal position

without impacting horrendously on service.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, I suppose there are two ways

to impact on the bottom line. You either reduce liabilities or you increase your

revenue.

MS. COWAN: Not necessarily. Certainly that is an

area that has to be looked at. But there are also ways of operating workers'

compensation which could make it more effective. For example, it is shown that

by hiring additional personnel who are able to deal with individuals as soon as

they get there with the accident, so that they do not have to wait for ages,

then they are likely not going to be needing long-term care way down the road.

And so they are looking at a variety of situations. So it is not just that

simple. I do not know whether you would like to elaborate on that at all, Mr.

Mitchell.

MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me. I would caution Mr.

Mitchell. I would say this only because he came in late. That as an official of

the Department he would be permitted to make comments on fact only. He would not

be permitted to speak on policy.

MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Tell us what great fellows PCs

are, tell us something like that.

MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on a

couple of matters of fact pertaining to Mr. Aylward's comment. The annual report

does in fact demonstrate a significant deterioration in the financial position.

The Board of Directors of the Workers' Compensation, with the help of a

consultant, have spent considerable months over the last year trying to deal not

only with a good estimate of where we stand financially for our liabilities now

and into the future, but also in terms of developing alternatives for

consideration. There is a document to be released publicly very shortly which

will advance to the Review Committee, that has been appointed by Government,

various alternatives to deal with that funding position from where the board

sees it. That will deal with things on the revenue side, it will deal with other

matters on the expenditure side, and as the Minister has suggested it will deal

with organizational, or operational things that can be looked at. That should be

available publicly in short order once we meet with the various stake holders.

We will then be giving that to the Review Committee to facilitate public debate

on Workers' Compensation and how to resolve the financial dilemma as reported in

the annual report.

MS. COWAN: If I could comment? In addition, of

course, to what the Commission has suggested, other individuals who are making

presentations will be making suggestions as well, which the Review Committee

will be taking into account.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Do you want to have a break and we

can carry on later?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, it was the decision of the

Committee that we would release this gentleman from his obligations. Does

anybody have a question to ask very quickly before we recess?

MR. MITCHELL: I believe the Minister will probably

be able to handle it because I wanted to get into what is happening in Worker's

Compensation, some of the changes that have happened with the boards and

commissions, so if you are comfortable with that kind of thing. Over the last

couple of years I am thinking about.

MS. COWAN: I am not quite sure what you are

getting at but if it is directly administrative type of things I am not familiar

with what happens over there administratively. It would not be in my gambit.

MR. SHORT: I just wanted somebody to perhaps

elaborate on what changes have been made in Workers' Compensation over the last

year or so? By way of an example, I spent four years working on a particular

case, even outside of politics and after I got involved in it, and it took me

four years to get the case to a point where the person finally got a settlement.

I found that in the beginning there were a lot of difficulties in the system.

The system did not work for the person who was injured and it took all kinds of

time, but I believe over the last year or so there have been some changes that

have worked to the workers' benefit. I was wondering if somebody could elaborate

on those type of changes that have been brought about in the last year or two?

MS. COWAN: I must say we have had fewer and fewer

of those. There was an awful backlog of them a couple of years ago but they seem

to be dissipating now which is positive. I will turn that question over to Mr.

Mitchell because he will be able to tell you the steps that one has to go

through at the Compensation Board.

MR. MITCHELL; Mr. Short, for the two years that I

have been Chief Executive Officer at the Commission, working with a new board,

we have tried to put client service first and foremost from the point of view of

delivery of services as expeditiously as we can. That starts right from upfront

adjudication and rehabilitation with the injured worker, moving it through our

system as fast as we can, through an internal review process, if people are

dissatisfied with our decisions by virtue of decisions from a hearings officer

that we have at the Commission. And if people are still dissatisfied with that

decision there is an External Appeal Tribunal that exists to meet justice in the

Workers' Compensation field. There was an initial backlog but the process of all

the various aspects now provide for a smoother working through of that system to

the extent that there is not a horrendous backlog right now. Obviously the

demands are such that we can only respond to a limited extent and we are

continually trying to deal with it as fast as we can through that particular

internal appeal system that we have.

MR. SHORT: In terms of the tribunal stage, there

is still an option there for the Workers' Compensation Commission to come back

and disagree with a decision that has been made at the Tribunal stage.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, there is a provision

under legislation referred to as

Section 21(7) where it says that a decision of

the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal that is inconsistent with policy or

established law can be reviewed by the Workers' Compensation Board of Directors

but only in those limited circumstances. There have only been several cases that

have fallen under that ambit that have been referred to the Workers'

Compensation Board. So, the legislation is very clear in terms of what can be

referred back to the Board.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Short.

MR. SHORT: One final question: has the

relationship between the Workers' Compensation Commission and the Appeals

Tribunal improved? It seems as though there was not an excellent relationship

there.

MS. COWAN: I have not had any complaints in the

last little while. I would say for about the last six months or so. There were a

flurry of complaints there and we took some action to clarify the situation

between the two and things have been operating, I think, in a very smooth

fashion. Certainly, I have not been getting a lot of complaints about it. The

relationship between the two bodies again has been examined by the review

committee.

MR. SHORT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Winsor.

MR. WINSOR: The Minister has alluded to the fact

that there are some things that could happen to offset this $129 million deficit

-the accumulated deficit, I think, is somewhere in the range of $129 million. In

view of the recent cutbacks in health care in this Province, does the Minister

expect that this could possibly rise? In fact I met a gentleman, two or three

days ago or whenever, who has been waiting something in the range of fourteen

months or fifteen months to get some back surgery looked at and this is not

uncommon, I am sure every Member here knows that. It seems to be because of a

lack of surgeons and other things, but there is an inordinate amount of time

getting into medical institutions in this Province. So, essentially if someone

hurts themselves then they are taken off work and they are on Workers'

Compensation benefits for an extended period of time, even before they can get a

good diagnosis, especially if it is back, legs, or anything in the orthopaedic

line.

Now with massive cutbacks, does the Minister think

that this salary bill or benefits might even increase as a result and is she

concerned about it?

MS. COWAN: What we have to look at here, is again

the comment I made to Mr. Aylward earlier, is getting these people looked at

more quickly.

MR. WINSOR: How?

MS. COWAN: Well, by hiring more people for example

at the Worker' Compensation Commission. They already have hired one extra

individual this year who will more quickly diagnose and start -

MR. WINSOR: Are you saying medical people?

MS. COWAN: I guess they are probably adjudicators

are they when they first come in? I am not familiar with the terms - who assess

the type of damage and then get the person to receive attention.

Just one other point I wanted to make, it is the

future liability here that is the problem, like with the pension plans it is not

the present that is the tremendous problem, it is what has been committed to for

the future.

MR. WINSOR: I am not sure if the Minister

understood what I am saying.

MS. COWAN: Maybe I did not. I am sorry. Go ahead.

MR. WINSOR: Right now there is a long wait now for

some -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The Member for Fogo seems to be having some problem

with getting his question out and he is indicating to the Chair that it is

because of some confusion coming from his immediate left.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Throw the two of them out, I would

say.

MR. WINSOR: My question is, there has been a

reduction in the number of people working in the health care profession in this

Province. Presently there is a long wait for people who are in receipt of

benefits or who have been injured in getting to medical practitioners,

particularly specialists or occupational therapists or whatever, to get

rehabilitated.

In light of the fact that she has a future deficit of

$129 million, does not the Minister think that because of the cutbacks in

health, an already bad situation is going to be made even worse?

MS. COWAN: I am clear on what you are saying now.

I could not speak to that because that is really a question that would be more

in the area of the Minister of Health, but I will ask Mr. Mitchell, he can

perhaps make a comment on that.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, in response to the

question, in stating the financial position of the Commission, one of the

reasons that we outlined in the annual report that was tabled in the House of

Assembly for the rising unfunded liability at the Commission, was the increase

in duration at the Commission, that is the number of weeks people are on claim

vis--vis, what they were on years previous. It is a very difficult area to

pinpoint precisely as to what causes duration; part of it as the Minister says,

if we deployed people differently or had more people, we could move people

faster through the system.

Unquestionably it is access to medical manpower; it is

access to diagnostic and health facilities which exist in the Province and the

Commission has been rather inventive over the last year or so in trying to work

out priority access arrangements with various health care providers in the

interest of providing as expeditious a service to injured workers as possible,

through arrangements with several of the institutions, we will continue to do

that, because that is the way in terms of reducing the duration.

But unquestionably, medical supply and demand in the

Province and health care delivery have an impact upon duration. To what extent

that is the only factor, or a major factor, is a debatable point, I think.

MR. WINSOR: So the end result could very well be

that an already bad situation could be made worse if people cannot get a kind of

immediate access to early treatment and then the continuation of it.

MR. MITCHELL: We constantly strive to try to get

the medical attention and the health care delivery as quickly as we can with our

consultations with the various health care providers in the medical profession

in the Province and we will continue to do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we will recess for ten

minutes. I would like to invite the hon. Member for Bonavista North, Speaker of

the House of Assembly of the great Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to

join us at the Government caucus room for coffee.

MR. DOYLE: Doughnuts and sandwiches, also.

MR. CHAIRMAN: As well, the Executive Assistant to

the Minister, is quite welcome to join us and the gentleman who is here

representing The Evening Telegram.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before we get back to the questions,

I wonder, is there anybody in the Minister's department or any of the Officials

who has lost a Visitor's Pass? It was found on the floor of the caucus room.

MS. COWAN: Oh, Wayne.

MR. R. AYLWARD: He has already left, he did not

get to the Common Room.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Unless I have totally misinterpreted

what is happening, this is going to fool-up the security system, so I will see

that the card at least, gets returned to security, but I do not know about the

wearer.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) who it is.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. They will know who, but not

where.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Let us save it for Clyde,

tomorrow, we will put it on him, maybe he will take off then.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barrett had indicated that he

wanted to ask some questions but he is not here, so I am going to have to go to

Mr. Doyle.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Oh no.

MR. DOYLE: Before I start I am just going to make

one comment on

Workers' Compensation. I know Mr. Mitchell is gone but

I just wanted to say, probably more for the benefit of our friends in the press

than anyone, that Workers' Compensation, and the Commission itself, falls under

an awful lot of criticism. I was really, really surprised when I read the report

of the Workers' Compensation Commission and there were 19,500 claims registered

with the Workers' Compensation Commission and 19,200 of these have been

approved, so there were only 300 claims that had not been approved out of the

19,500. It is fine to criticize, and I am sure there is plenty about the

Workers' Compensation Commission to criticize about, but it should also be

noted, when it is fair to do so, that there were 19,500 claims and 19,200 had

been approved. That is really amazing when you get right down to it.

MS. COWAN: (Inaudible) ten minutes, too. That is

positive and I thank Mr. Doyle for making that comment. In fact there was one

other time that he has complimented me. This was the second and I appreciate it,

so thank you, Mr. Doyle.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to make one other

comment before I turn it back to Mr. Doyle. I would like to reiterate that there

is no ten minutes allocated. I have suggested that Members ask a question or

two, or three. I will not allow any one person to monopolize the Question Period

in excess of ten minutes. I am not suggesting that a Member question for ten

minutes. He can ask one question and take thirty seconds, but it is just that

nobody will monopolize it beyond ten minutes.

Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: I really would like to go back to the

$700,000 but I do not think there is any point. I think I will just leave it and

maybe find out who is in charge of the Employment Generation Program over in the

Department of Employment and Labour Relations. Maybe I will have a talk with

that individual and see if I can flesh out a little bit more on this $700,000

because it still appears very strange to me. It is not $700,000 now, it is down

to $500,000 which sounds a little bit better. There is $500,000 now that was not

used in the Employment Generation Program. I am interested in finding out if we

have an Employment Generation Program this year because the signals I am getting

is that we do not. The $500,000, I am given to understand, although it is still

my contention that it was not used, the Minister is somehow connecting that up

to the amount of money that has been budgeted this year, so I guess the question

I want to ask is: do we have an Employment Generation Program this year, because

the Budget indicates that we have $1.5 million allocated for employment

generation this year? First of all, do we have a program?

MS. COWAN: We are completing the program that

began last year, so we are into the final weeks this year.

MR. DOYLE: So, we do not have a program per se

this year?

MS. COWAN: We are not looking for applications,

and filling applications this year. We want to evaluate the program to decide if

it is effective before we continue to put more money into it.

MR. DOYLE: So, the $1.5 million in the Budget

Estimates that we have allocated this year is really to take care of last years?

MS. COWAN: The people who started on the program

last year, the sixty week program.

MR. DOYLE: So, we have that much established, we

do not have any money allocated this year for Employment Generation.

MS. COWAN: We have money allocated to continue

through the program that began last year.

MR. DOYLE: To approve the applications?

MS. COWAN: We do not have new money to create new

positions.

MR. DOYLE: Okay. That is totally unbelievable.

Again, I say it, it is totally unbelievable. I mean we have an unemployment rate

of 23.5 per cent. We have 52,000 people in the Province currently unemployed.

Now over a two year period the unemployment rate has gone from 18.5 per cent up

to 23.5 per cent that is a 5 percentage increase in a two year period. The

Minister is telling us this evening that she scrapped the original employment

programme that was there when she went there, which had $7 million in it, put in

$2.9 million and has now budgeted this year $1.5 million, which will not address

an Employment Generation Programme this year but which will take care of the

programme that was on the go last year. She has stopped the programme to

evaluate where it has gone.

We do not have any money allocated for employment

generation in the Employment Department. This is not just the Department of

Labour. We are talking about the Department of Employment which is what it is,

Employment and Labour Relations, without a budget for employment. Now, if you do

not have a budget for employment within the Employment Department how do you

justify the creation of a Department of Employment? I know the Economic Recovery

Commission and all the rest of it is there and the Minister will tell me that we

have an Economic Recovery Commission and it has been mandated to bring the

unemployment rate down and that is fine and dandy, that is great. But we also

have a Department of Employment that when the Minister went in there two years

ago, had a $7 million budget for employment generation alone, and then she

brought it down to $2.9 million, then she brought it down to $1.5 million, and

lo and behold she is telling me tonight that there is no money this year for

employment generation, that we have put it on hold and are evaluating what we

have done so far.

I would say to the Minister, that is just not good

enough with an unemployment rate at 23.5 per cent. It is totally unbelievable.

Because we are at the point now, because as I said, with 52,000 people

unemployed, the unemployment rate has reached crises proportions, Government has

just finished a massive layoff within the public service but still there is no

real job creation effort within the Minister's Department.

Now, I know we have always had a high unemployment

rate and we are probably going to continue for a long time to come to have a

high unemployment rate. I agree, we do have one, but we have never seen in

recent years such a small, such a minuscule amount of money put into employment

generation.

Now when you are in a recessionary period, as the

Minister knows, that is when Government generally tops up the employment

generation efforts. In a period of recession you will see more money going into

employment generation. It just stands to reason that while you are trying to get

over the short-term problems of recession the Government will try to keep people

going and try and create some kind of short-term. I know from the Minister's

comments before that she is saying that the Government is committed to

long-term, well long-term is fine and dandy and I agree with that, but you know

the Economic Recovery Commission has been mandated for an eight year period.

The Premier said that before you bring the

unemployment rate down to anywhere around the national average, it would

probably be six to eight years. The Minister, in a television interview a couple

of weeks ago, said the same thing, it is probably going to be a number of years.

Well, it is not going to be a number of years at this rate it is going to be

never because there is no money to put into employment generation.

Again, as I have said, at a time when the effects of

Hibernia - Hibernia was supposed to create 2,500 or 3,000 jobs in a two or three

year period, well that has been totally negated by the layoff of 2,500 to 3,500

people, we have not been able to get a handle on that so the effect of Hibernia

is negated. So, how do you justify not putting any money into employment

generation?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

You time has elapsed, Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: Is my ten minutes gone?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Sir.

MS. COWAN: Well, first of all, Mr. Chair, I will

once again mention that Employment Generation is one programme. It is not the

only programme in my Department that leads people to employment. It is only one

small programme. It is this kind of programme that the past Government adored.

They adored this programme because politically it was so much fun to be able to

hand out to your friends and supporters cushy little subsidies to help them

survive.

MR. DOYLE: You should be ashamed to say that.

MS. COWAN: Our programme is aimed at specific

groups of people. We are particularly concerned with youth; we are particularly

concerned with women; we are particularly concerned with fisheries at this time

because of the crises in the fishery in this Province, so what we are doing now

is a number of things. If you look at the youth employment strategy, it is not

covered by the freeze. We have put $3.625 million into that particular programme

and the positive thing about this is that we are in the third year of that five

year programme, so it is around this time that we will start to see a lot of

these young people becoming employed and hopefully that will in some way impact

in a positive way upon the statistics which are indeed quite frightening,

particularly in the area of the unemployment of youth, the people between the

age of nineteen and twenty-five.

MR. DOYLE: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I would remind Mr. Doyle there were no interruptions

when the question was being asked. I would expect the same courtesy be given the

Minister to answer the question.

MS. COWAN: We have continued to put money into the

Women Interested in Successful Employment Programme because we find it has an

extremely positive success rate. We evaluated that and know it is a good

programme. We are not going to continue programmes that we do not have concrete

proof are a good way to spend the taxpayers money. I have no intention of going

to Cabinet and saying I want more money for a programme until I can tell Cabinet

these are the reasons I want it. It was great, it gave people long-term

employment, it did what we wanted it to do and that is what we are doing with

the Employment Generation Programme. We will see it through to its end and

evaluate it. If we find it was a very, very good programme and there is a need

in the Province, there is a very good chance that we will have to institute

another one.

You will recall last year the Employment Stimulation

Programme was put in place and as the year progressed and we saw there was a

great deal of unemployment in the Province, we did bring the Employment

Stimulation Programme into place and in that way helped a number of individuals

who were without work in the Province, or who had not qualified for their UI. We

tried to meet what was an emergency situation.

I will have to remind everyone again that we are in a

recession in this Province. We have just had three mines close; we have also had

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I would like to remind hon. Members that this is a

forum provided to ask questions and to get information. This is not a place to

play any kind of political games and I will not allow any more interruptions

like this. I would ask the Minister to continue with her answer.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are in a

recession; we have seen a collapse in the fisheries in this Province; we have

seen three mines close in the last little while. Because of the horrendous debt

of the Provincial Government, which was not of our own making, we have had to

lay off people in order to meet our financial obligations and commitments and to

be able to borrow at a half decent interest rate, which we would not have been

able to do if we had continued in the same manner as the past Government.

Even so, Mr. Chairman, I must say that the

unemployment rate is not as high today as it was in 1985 in this Province when

the fishery was having the best year it had ever had. Now I am not trying to

negate in anyway the unemployment rate. It is not good and it is of extreme

concern to our Government, but what I am trying to do is show Mr. Doyle up for

what he really is, and that he is just playing political games for the benefit

of the media.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I would remind the Minister that we want only answers

to the questions. I would suggest that she not make comments like that again.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Mr. Barrett.

MR. BARRETT: I would like to get into some of the

details of the estimates, and the Minister will probably have to refer to the

officials. I would like to start off by complimenting the Minister on the fact

that in these times of restraint she was able to maintain the budget in two

areas - not that I do not have interest in all the areas of the Department, but

in regards to our youth, in that she was able to maintain the same level of

funding for the Student Employment Programme, which is a very valuable

programme, to assist our students who are attending post-secondary institutions.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is all federal money is it?

MR. BARRETT: That is all provincial money.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is it?

MR. BARRETT: The question I would like to ask in

this particular area - I know that the deadline for applications is the 15th of

May. I would like to know when the decisions will be made on that particular

programme. The Minister can take note of that and answer it.

As a person who was involved in the post-secondary

education field the one that is of great assistance and is a great programme is

the Graduate Employment Programme, because we all know one of the handicaps that

the youth of the Province have when they graduate from post-secondary

institutions is the fact that doors are shut because they do not have any

experience. They may have the training, but they do not have the experience, and

I would like to compliment the Minister and be positive that she was able to

maintain the same level of funding in this present year for the Graduate

Employment Programme. I know it is hard to predict because it is a client driven

type of programme, it is not the kind of programme that a business applies for

funding, but I would like to see more and more programmes that are client driven

rather than wage subsidies for businesses, and sometimes I think these are

abused, but in this particular case, it is a client programme and the clients

naturally can apply through businesses for subsidies and give these youths very

valuable experience.

The other area I would like to look at is in the

Inspection Services, Health and Occupational Safety. I note that most of the

account centres in the Occupation Health and Safety have been increased -

MS. COWAN: The most - which?

MR. BARRETT: Most of the account centres in the

Inspection area, Occupation Health and Safety Services, most of the account

centres there, particularly in the salary areas, have been increased, does this

mean that there were not any layoffs in those particular areas? I noticed that

the only area that is down is the area of mines, which probably is an indication

of the fact that we did lose some of the mines in the Province, which means that

we probably do not need as many staff, but it looks like all those account

centres have been increased and I am just wondering if there were any layoffs in

Inspection Services?

MS. COWAN: (Inaudible).

MR. BARRETT: Okay; you can probably take note of

that particular question. The other one is in the Electrical Inspections; I know

that in the area of the Province that I represent that there will be a

tremendous increase in activity and I am wondering if the Department officials

have looked at the expanding of the staff or re-allocating the staff in the

Clarenville office, because there is a fair amount of activity or there will be

a fair amount of activity and lots of jobs created in the Come by Chance,

Arnold's Cove, Sunnyside area over the next two or three months, and then it is

going to be a tremendous increase, and we need to facilitate the development of

that part of the Province to make sure that we take full advantage of the job

opportunities that will come because of the spin offs from the Hibernia project.

The other area is the Assistance to St. Lawrence

Miners Dependents. It is a new programme to me and I would like the Minister to

probably give me a little bit of information. I know it is to assist the widows

of St. Lawrence Miners. Do the allowances for these individuals go up each year

or are they frozen at the same levels as when they were awarded?

The other one is -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barrett, I am sorry, I must

interrupt; I have been trying to follow what was happening. I had already ruled

that I would prefer that single questions be asked and single answers be given,

rather than make a ten minute presentation and the Minister then have to come

back with answers to six or seven questions. I think that is what you are doing,

so would the Minister like to answer the questions that have been asked already?

MS. COWAN: Okay. I have a whole bunch of them

here. First, I was just consulting with Mrs. Gogan, who says that we do not have

the exact date, Percy, for the close of applications but it is some time in

early May and then we will be as quick as we can, to get them out because we

realize a lot of young people are anxious about that.

Now there is the $600,000. I heard someone say that

was Federal money, it is not. That $600,000 is provincial money. There is also

Challenge '91, which is a federal programme and puts a tremendous amount of

money into the Province for student employment in the summer, and for which we

are very grateful to the Federal Government.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible), yet?

MS. COWAN: Yes. It is $11 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. COWAN: Okay, so that is the first question.

The Graduate Programme is aimed at those individuals who cannot get a job

because they do not have experience. They are fresh out of school and just

cannot get experience, so they are given a certain period of time, I believe it

is three months, out of a post-secondary institution to try and find work and if

they have not been successful then we will try to match them up with an employer

through a subsidy situation. We have been able to create in the past year

sixty-five jobs and anticipate the same for the coming year. That programme is

proving to be very valuable.

The increases in inspection: I am going to let Mr.

Dwyer respond to that, Mr. Barrett.

MR. DWYER: The increase in salary dollars from

last year is directly due to the filling of some crucial positions that were

difficult to fill last year, one being the Manager of General Inspections which

was allowed to be vacant in excess of one year, that is now filled, which

indicates an increase in excess of $50,000-odd. Another area which we are sort

of proud off is the medical and hygiene section. We have had trouble for years

hiring and maintaining qualified industrial hygienists. We have filled one

position through the recent redundancy policy. We expect a recent graduate from

the U of T who we put through the Public Service Commission to be on staff

within a couple of weeks. So, basically there have been some crucial positions

there that have been filled that were either difficult to fill or were vacant

waiting to be filled from last year.

Thank you.

MR. BARRETT: Have there been any layoffs in the

Health and Safety Inspection Division?

MR. DWYER: There were basically two lay offs in

the occupational health and safety area of my branch and they were largely due

to the three mine closures in Baie Verte, Daniels Harbour and St. Lawrence. We

were forced to reduce a manager of mines, and a mining engineer and subsequently

we moved the mining people in under the general inspection area. So we do not

perceive any negative repercussions because of that because the workload in the

mines area is just not out there this year and we do not foresee it in the next

couple of years.

MS. COWAN: Okay, we have the number of inspectors.

I suppose, you were thinking in terms of electrical inspectors, boiler and

pressure vessel inspectors and so on and wanted to know if there was a great

demand or need for them in the Clarenville area?

Yes, Mr. Dwyer.

MR. DWYER: Basically, we have just restructured

our Electrical Inspection Division and we were forced to re-direct some of our

head offices. We have reduced three or four clerical staff, like for argument

sake, Springdale, Gander, Stephenville, Holyrood, however, we were able to

maintain the inspection staff themselves who now operate from their home rather

than from a Springdale office or Gander office. We have been tracking over the

past year as to the frequency of inspections in the different periods of time so

we are able to see exactly where and when we need more inspectors and are able

to project in that manner. So, that basically justifies the keeping of the

inspectors we have. There is only one ill-repercussion, we may be looking at one

seasonal position for six months. That was it. So, we did fare fairly well in

that area.

In the boiler pressure vessel section, we maintained

the eight inspectors, we did not lose anything in there. The elevator section,

we maintained our inspection staff there and the same thing with the building

the director of Engineering Services. And what we did we combined it with the

director of Electrical Services, and subsequently the new division is called the

Public Inspection Division. So I do not think overall in my branch that the

recent cuts really affected us as badly as one would have expected.

MR. BARRETT: You probably would have to hire one

seasonal person in the electrical inspection. Would you anticipate that will be

in the Clarenville area?

MR. DWYER: No. Well, as it is now we have budgeted

enough money, we have enough money to keep what staff we have on now due to a -

I believe there was a recent retirement in one of the other areas. So right now

we do not envision any layoffs whatsoever with the staff and with the work load

that we have now.

MR. BARRETT: Okay.

MS. COWAN: I think, Mr. Chair, if I may be

allowed, that Mr. Dwyer's comments show that he has the Occupational Health and

Safety division well in hand. I am very pleased with the progress we have made

there and look forward to a lot more progress.

Now, going on to the assistance to the St. Lawrence's

miners dependents. That came about as an agreement made in 1973 between the

Aluminum Company of Canada and the government of Newfoundland at that time. And

that was to pay special assistance to the victims and widows and the dependents

of miners who had died as a result of diseases developed from working in the

fluorspar mine there. That agreement actually expired June 30, 1985 but the

Cabinet of the day approved the continued assistance and we have continued with

that assistance on the same basis as the former agreement. It is not indexed or

anything of that nature. The number remains frozen. There are no new people

added to it since 1973. So the demands on the budget are gradually dissipating,

I suppose, because some of the people unfortunately are getting on in years and

are passing on. So in the month of March for example we paid out to 138

individuals in St. Lawrence. So that was an average of about $40.88 each.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Winsor. Is it the wish of the

Committee to proceed with general questions or to go to the subheads?

MR. WINSOR: I am not finished.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It was just a question, Mr. Winsor.

MR. WINSOR: Oh. On the entire area of health and

safety and programmes the Minister's Department has been reduced I think from

186 employees to 174, of which I think only two came from the employment side

and the other ten came from the enactment of labour laws. The Minister's

Department has also, in health and safety inspections, reduced the numbers from

twelve to eleven in that particular division. In the electrical inspections it

has been reduced from thirty-nine to thirty-two, now granted some of them are

clerical.

If the Minister is wondering where I am getting the

information I am using Departmental Salary Details for last year and the two of

them, and a comparison of each one shows that there are some twelve positions

eliminated. Health and safety inspections being one. The Minister has

acknowledged in the House that one of the areas of jurisdiction of her

Department now, through the Atlantic Accord, is the Hibernia site, Bull Arm or

Mosquito Cove, call it what you wish, perhaps I suspect since Churchill Falls,

the most labour intensive potentially dangerous site that we have had in this

Province. How can the Minister have a reduction in health and safety inspections

by one in that? I think it is reduced from eight to seven, if I recall, at a

time when if there was ever a need to have increased safety and surveillance in

light of what we see with the Workers' Compensation Board, the number that is

going up astronomically, the Minister's Department in the areas of occupational

health and safety and inspections, generally seems to be on a decline, ten

people less. Now, some of them are clerical but there has been field staff loss

as well. Is not the Minister at all concerned that with this major development

taking place in the Bull Arm area, Come by Chance - my friend from the Sunnyside

area, my friend from Bellevue would want me to mention his district since it is

the closest district to it. I am sure he wants me to ask the question for him,

he is very much concerned

MR. BARRETT: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

The questions presently being asked by the hon. Member

for Fogo were already the first series of questions that the hon. Member for

Bellevue asked.

MR. WINSOR: These are different questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Are you addressing the point of order?

MR. WINSOR: No. There is obviously no point of

order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

MR. WINSOR: I am greatly concerned that there is

not an increased number. The Minister has a major development taking place and

she has downsized the staff. How can she justify that?

MS. COWAN: First of all, Sir, I have not downsized

the staff. That is a vacant position and I will let Mr. Dwyer elaborate on that

in a minute. There was no layoff there.

MR. WINSOR: You say it was a vacant position? If

it was not filled the Minister's Department in its salary details last year

indicated there were eight occupational health and safety inspectors, and this

year there are seven.

MS. COWAN: There are still eight.

MR. WINSOR: No. There are seven occupational

health and safety, one, and there is one health and safety inspector, two, if

this is right, if this is worth the paper it is written on. How many are there?

Are there seven or eight? Last year there was twelve in the Department and this

year there are eleven.

MS. COWAN: Seven and one is eight. There is no

change there. Are you looking at Page 147?

MR. WINSOR: I am looking at Page 147 and then I am

looking at Page 128 of last year.

MS. COWAN: Page 128 of last year. Oh, you have

last years?

MR. WINSOR: I have last years, too, and I see a

decline in numbers by one.

MS. COWAN: I am not sure what that would be. There

has been nobody leave.

MR. WINSOR: Well, if the Minister wants to borrow

my book she certainly can. I am concerned that in light of the increased

activity that is going on there, how can the Minister justify downsizing that

Department, or not hiring extra inspectors? If they were busy last year then the

amount of work they have to do this year has quadrupled because of the massive

industrial expansion that is taking place. Is the Minister not concerned that

she has enough staff?

MS. COWAN: The Minister is feeling very, very,

positive about her Occupational Health and Safety Division because of the fact

that it is finally in good hands.

MR. DOYLE: The Minister should administer it.

MS. COWAN: The Minister should be administering

Occupational Health and Safety, is that not interesting?

Anyway, we were finding that in the St. John's area

the inspections were not taking place in the manner in which we would like them

to be taking place. In fact, when we looked abroad at other provinces, to look

at the productivity of their Occupational Health and Safety Inspectors, we found

that ours had fallen way behind that of the other Occupational Health and Safety

officers in other provinces in the Maritimes, so our job then was to try to

change that; and this is leading up believe it or not, to your answer, Mr.

Winsor.

What we have done is, we have set up a pilot project.

This project, and I elaborated on it before you came in, is based on figures

that we have been able to gather from the Workers' Compensation Commission that

were there in the past, but no one ever bothered with; we have fed them into a

computer and we have been able to develop a programme so that our inspectors can

now visit more frequently the areas of highest accident, so they are now going

out in a systematic, carefully controlled manner; before they went out

willy-nilly.

Now, Hibernia: What we want to do is evaluate this

pilot and see if indeed we do have enough inspectors; our best guess is, no, we

do not, but again I am not prepared to throw around money of the taxpayers of

this Province until I can go to Cabinet and say we cannot meet our commitments,

we should have made so many visits last month and we were only able to make

three-quarters of those or whatever, I need more Occupational Health and Safety

Inspectors. At this time I could only say it based on rumour and hearsay.

At the Hibernia site at the moment, there is not a lot

of sophisticated construction taking place, it is basic construction and putting

through roads and building a few basic structures and so on -

MR. WINSOR: 500 men.

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	1991-04-30
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_govservices_ga41session3_1991-04-30_gsc-elr_.htm
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	27de8c8011df26ae644f1574e3fdad7091aea9a4

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