Social Services Committee

2018-03-28

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

PDF Version

March 28, 2018

The

Committee met at 5:30 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CLERK (Barnes):

Good evening, everyone.

This is

the first session for the Social Services Committee in the third session of the

48th General Assembly. So under our Standing Orders, I have to call for

nominations; we have to elect a Chair of the Committee. So I call for nomination

of the Chair.

MR. WARR:

I so move Carol Anne Haley.

CLERK:

Okay. Are there any other

nominations for Chair?

Having

seen no further nominations, the Member for Burin - Grand Bank will be Chair of

the Social Services Committee for the duration of the third session.

AN HON. MEMBER:

Congratulations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR (Haley):

All right. Good evening, everyone.

I'm new

to this role, so you'll have to bear with me.

I now

call for nominations for Vice-Chair, before we begin.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I move, Mr. Davis.

CLERK:

Mr. Davis, you're not a

permanent Member of the Committee, are you?

MR. P. DAVIS:

No, I'm not, no.

CLERK:

No, okay.

We can

defer that until a later time.

CHAIR:

Okay, we'll defer.

We now

have to approve the minutes of May 4.

I'll

call for a motion to approve the minutes of May 4.

MR. WARR:

So moved.

CHAIR:

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR:

Okay, at this time, I guess,

I would ask the Committee to introduce themselves, beginning with Mr. Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Paul

Davis, the MHA for Topsail - Paradise.

MR. COLLINS:

Sandy Collins with the Office of the Opposition

MS. ROGERS:

I'm Gerry Rogers and I work for the good people of St. John's Centre.

MR. MORGAN:

Ivan Morgan, researcher, NDP caucus.

MR. REID:

Scott Reid, St. George's - Humber.

MR. LANE:

Paul Lane, MHA, District of Mount Pearl - Southlands.

MR. DEAN:

Jerry Dean, MHA Exploits.

MR. FINN:

John Finn, MHA Stephenville - Port au Port.

MR. WARR:

Brian Warr, MHA Baie Verte - Green Bay.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

I'll

now turn things over to the minister.

Minister, you can introduce your staff as you wish, and of course you have 15

minutes to speak and then the responder will have 15 minutes. I think, well, I

know, thereafter, every other speaker will get 10 minutes back – it will be back

and forth for 10 minutes.

MR. PARSONS:

Okay.

I'll

introduce myself first. Andrew Parsons, MHA Burgeo - LaPoile, Minister of

Justice and Public Safety and Attorney General.

Just

one thing off the top, having gone through enough of these, usually we'll get

requests for information. So anything that we provide to one MHA during this

process, we'll endeavour to provide to all offices to make sure – so there's no

need to – we're obviously going to make sure everybody gets the same

information.

I'll

probably say a little more at the end of this, but I think everybody wants to

get down to business. So I'll turn it over and let my staff – all the members of

the Justice league – introduce themselves.

MR. STANLEY:

Todd Stanley, Deputy Minister and Deputy Attorney General.

MR. CHAFE:

Dan Chafe, High Sherriff.

MS. STOODLEY:

Amy Stoodley, Director of Communications.

MR. ROCHE:

Don Roche, Superintendent of Prisons.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Rolf Pritchard, Assistant Deputy Minister for Legal Services.

MS. WRIGHT:

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

MS. MERCER:

Jennifer Mercer, Director of Public Persecutions.

MS. WALSH:

Paula Walsh, ADM for Public Safety and Enforcement.

MS. HEFFERNAN:

Theresa Heffernan, Executive Director of Support Services, RNC.

MS. ORGAN:

Shelley Organ, CEO, Supreme Court.

MS. HUTTON:

Dolores Hutton, Director, Provincial Court.

MS. ABBOTT:

Nicole Abbott, Manager of Budgeting.

MR. A. PARSONS:

And on that note, I'd say we'll kick off and go through the Estimates.

I guess

I'll turn it back over to –

CHAIR:

I just have one thing to

remind you of.

When

you speak, before you speak, if you could say your names so that the Broadcast

Centre can pick it up, and pick up your mics, so that they'll be able to pick it

up down there.

CLERK:

1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 carry?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Minister, just a couple of quick notes. Last year, you provided us copies of

your notes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Do you –?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I have a binder here for everybody; more is being printed. I wasn't sure about

Mr. Lane, so that's going to be provided. I have them here.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Do you want to share them now or do you –?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I have one here now. The other one is gone up to get copied so that ….

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I have one here that I can pass – I can give it to you and then ….

MR. P. DAVIS:

We'll do rock, paper, scissors or something there.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The other two will be down right away.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you. I appreciate that because that might help to explicate the process a

little bit.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, definitely.

MR. P. DAVIS:

The second thing is – just thought I'd clarify because I was going through last

year's notes. When we got into Estimates last year, we found there were some

errors in the published Estimates.

Do you

know if there is any errors in this one? Just thought if there are, that we can

clear it up before we begin.

No, we

can't clear them up or there's no –?

OFFICIAL:

I'm not aware of any off the top of my head, no.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You don't think so, okay, perfect.

I don't

have any questions on – did you just call 1.1.01?

CHAIR:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

We're just dealing with that one heading so far, are we? Because I don't have

any questions on 1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Did you want to go as far as

you go in your opening and then – I mean we can come back –

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– if you want and then –

well, you won't vote on the –

MR. P. DAVIS:

We'll vote on them all

after.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, we can do that –

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm fine with that, yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Whatever you guys want to do, I mean that's –

CHAIR:

That's fine.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

1.2.01,

Executive Support, under Salaries you budgeted last year $864,000, revised is

$1,171,000 and this year is $859,000, which is more in keeping with what was

budgeted last year. Can you explain to us the increase in the revised?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Again, a lot of these

questions – I may turn to Virginia or Nicole, but this one I believe was mainly

severance. So what I'll do is –

The change there is primarily related to a retirement. So severance and

retirement benefits go through there, and we had a couple of individuals who

finished with us this year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. And that's all within

Executive itself, right?

Yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry if we stumble a bit as

we're getting going.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah (inaudible).

MR. P. DAVIS:

Just a small one – I don't

plan on highlighting all of these, but under Executive Support there was an

increase in Transportation on the revised. Was that just regular usage, or was

there anything in particular that caused that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

One of the big ones,

actually, there was an extra FPT meeting this year on human rights. It was the

first one in, say, 30 years. Plus we had the two Justice summits. Or was there a

third one came under that?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, we've had three Justice

summits: Happy Valley-Goose Bay, St. John's and over in Corner Brook. So the

extra cost would cover those. I think last year actually we had, at least two

FPTs as opposed to usually one.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, the –

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, there was more travel

for that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah. What (inaudible) was

that, Ottawa?

OFFICIAL:

The one for human rights was

Ottawa, yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

I think

it comes under Executive Support. In Salary Details there was reference to a new

ADM for Courts and Corporate Services. Would that come under that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would fall under

Executive wouldn't it, Virginia?

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So that'll come under

Executive Support?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

MR. P. DAVIS:

And there was also reference

to a contractual position that was concluded, I think, or eliminated; $101,809.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Where's that to?

MR. P. DAVIS:

We're going through the

Salary Details.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Oh, okay.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So we're just trying to plug

them in to the particular areas.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Got you. Are you aware of a

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, so 2017 – just so you

know, in 2017 under the salary report there was a contractual position for

$101,809 under Executive Support that's not there this year.

I can

leave it with you.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, leave it with us and we can find out.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, that's fine. Yes,

absolutely.

Yeah,

and for any of that, Minister, any of that is perfectly understandable.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, excellent. I appreciate that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

1.2.02. Again, under Salaries the revised was down from budgeted; yet, the

salary estimates for this coming year is significantly higher.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, I think this is where – Virginia?

Okay. The revised is down this year because we had some vacancies and some

turnover in policy division. In addition to that, we had funding for students

which didn't get completely utilized there. So that's for the revised, and the

'18-'19 Estimates are increased because we had a one-time adjustment last year.

We took out family violence intervention court funding which is now back in the

budget.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So that was taken out last

year but put back in here this year. What was it again, sorry? Family –

MR. A. PARSONS:

Family violence intervention court services.

Domestic violence.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Domestic violence.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

There's an estimated

decrease in Employee Benefits of about, almost $50,000 this year.

Most of the funding that goes through there – or most of the expenditures that

go through there relate to workers' compensation costs for the whole department.

Our costs do tend to go up and down.

Last

year, we moved some money around as part of our zero-based budgeting in an

effort to smooth out some of the variances. And one of those changes – we added

extra money for workers' comp last year. We put it back in another place this

year. Just moving it around, try to smooth out our operating and get it in the

right places.

Generally speaking, though, our operating expenditures, the whole operating

account is an envelope that we can spend from. We're just trying to get the

numbers right in the specific lines. So that was part of that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, thank you.

Is that

a similar circumstance for Professional Services or is that something separate?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's actually the funding allotted for the SIRT team. That's where that's been

allotted, right there.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Professional Services, there.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What plan would that include this year, Minister?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think there's $250,000 allotted. We're still working towards figuring out what

we want to do there in terms of model. There have been some delays because – as

many people know, and I've said a number of times, we've been working with,

mainly, the Halifax team. They lost MacDonald, he's gone out to BC to run their

team and they just appointed somebody in the last number of weeks. Felix

Cacchione is the new head of SIRT in Nova Scotia. So we need to reach out and

have a conversation there.

It's

our anticipation that, either way, we are likely going to have to hire sometime

this year, a civilian director, which I think we're going to need. Regardless if

you go with an integrated model or if you go with a stand-alone model, you're

going to need your own civilian operation. Some of the other money will be able

to handle admin costs and everything else.

there's still a bit of work there on what model, but the plan is – I'd still

like to see it moving forward this year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

There's

a significant difference, as well, in Federal Revenue under 1.2.02.

MR. A. PARSON:

Now that is, I think, the drug treatment court money.

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS :

So, it was – that's how much we got spent. What was the difference there?

Okay. The money that we receive this year or the money that we project to

receive this year is partly for the drug treatment courts. Some of it relates to

last year. That didn't get up and running as early as anticipated, so the

projection is slightly down.

Next

year, the funding for drug treatment court will be funded by the feds is

expected to be higher at $200,000 versus the $120,000 that was budgeted for this

year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So that's fully funded by the federal government, is what you said?

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So the reason for the $59,900 revised instead of $120,000 is because there were

delays in getting progress as quickly as you wanted. Is that what I understand?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Delay in hiring, yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Delay in hiring. Thank you.

Okay.

We'll move over to 1.3.01, please: Fines Administration. There's a $100,000

decrease in revised versus budgeted for Fines Administration.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah, that would've been just turnover; people going in, people coming in,

delays in hiring, trying to get them through PSC and everything else. So that

would explain the variance there, I believe.

MR. P. DAVIS :

Do you know off hand how many people work in Fines Administration right now?

MR. A. PARSONS:

There are 14 and it's about

to go to 15. There are six financial collections officers, three clerk IIIs, two

clerk typist IIIs, two clerk IVs – if I'm going fast, you can tell me to slow

down by all means – a director –

MR. P. DAVIS :

It's in our binder anyway, I guess, is it?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It should be, I think.

MR. P. DAVIS:

All right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

And then we're hiring one more additional bilingual financial collections

officer, which is coming through some agreements with the feds. So that will be

up to 15.

understanding is that with some of these positions you have turnover, people

going in and out into other divisions and stuff. So that would explain that one.

MR. P. DAVIS :

One thing that often stays the same is change, right?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Exactly.

MR. P. DAVIS :

Minister, can you give me an idea of where Fines Administration is? What's

outstanding? Where are we compared to previous years? What your projections are,

maybe, for the future? Can you give us a bit of a narrative maybe on that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Definitely.

Right

now, the provincial receivables stand at – is this for June 30 –?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay, so as of December 31,

2017, it's at $38,364,113.

I've

got a little sheet here. The vast, vast majority of that, over $36 million, is

outstanding for well over a year. I think, in fact, closer to $30 million is

probably historical debt, decades old.

What

I'll do, because Virginia is much smarter than me and able to read this sheet

better, she can talk about, maybe, the last year and what we've done in terms of

what's been in and out.

In the past year, about

$10.4 million has been imposed in fines though tickets and others court imposed

fines that come to Fines for collection. In that time frame, we have collected –

that includes your victim fine surcharges, your tickets and your late-payment

penalties as well. Right now, were projecting to collect about $10 million. Most

of that would be current fines. There are collections on older fines as well.

So, on

average, we expect to receive about 80 per cent of the new fines collected in

any given year, and some which are just uncollectable or they're harder to get,

become part of the receivable.

So the

receivable is $38 million, but it's been gathering for years. The Office of the

Controller General is making an effort this year and has held Fines

Administration with trying to identify some of the older ones or ones where

people are deceased or where we know that the fines are not collectable, in an

effort to possibly removing some of them, which we're never going to collect

through write off, that type of thing.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So when we hear media

reports of a person stopped last night with $20,000 in fines. How old would some

of those fines be? Like are they –?

So –

MR. P. DAVIS:

Sorry to interrupt you, but

maybe you can add it to your answer.

Are

they included in the system? So if a police officer stops a vehicle tonight and

there's a fine there that's been outstanding for, I don't know how old decades

is, but if it's 20 or 30 years old, does that show up in the system?

Yes, the fines will sit there.

Some of

the fines can be collected fairly quickly, depending upon the nature of the

stop. For example, somebody who is stopped with no insurance, no registration,

no driver's licence could easily get $3,000 or $3,500 worth of fines right there

in that one stop. So if that same person is caught a number of times, it's very

easy for the number to increase to $10,000 or $20,000.

MR. A. PARSONS:

If I could jump in just to

add a couple more general points when we talk about Fines Admin.

One of

them is, sometimes when the numbers come out, we seem to think that it's all

traffic fines, but it's not. For instance, there was one caught this year that

caused some concern. I think it was $164,000 owing, but $150,000-odd of that was

from tobacco violations. They come with pretty significant fines. So that was

one of them there, because all of it is going in there.

But,

again, the two big issues, everybody hears the amount, and it's troubling when

you hear about it, but when you look at what's actually coming in and coming out

on an annual basis right now, you're batting a pretty good percentage. Was it

9.5 out of 10.4?

They

had some issues this year in terms of turnover, just some very unfortunate

circumstances at Fines Admin. Some of things is when you're bringing in new

people, with the training, that takes time. So, hopefully, if there's some

consistency there, we'll see it, but that's –

MR. P. DAVIS:

So there are still some in

the office that work every day processing fines and people show up to pay them

and they get – can you pay them online now?

CHAIR:

Actually, the time is up,

the 15 minutes.

MS. ROGERS:

He can take five minutes,

that's fine, if he wants to finish that.

CHAIR:

It's okay? All right.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, thanks.

The department will collect fines through a number of different mechanisms:

through people coming into the office; people pay online; people pay through the

mail; people will call in with their Visas or Mastercards or whatever – credit

cards; people pay through MRD when they go to renew their driver's licences;

interceptions of income tax refunds through the CRA federal setoff and in

addition to that, monies that are collected through the Sherriff's Office for

those fines that have been registered as a judgment.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Just this last question, Gerry, thank you.

Is your

office set up so that some people are working on the historic or the longer

outstanding and some others working on current? Is that generally how it

operates or is there –?

The collection officers will focus on all of the fines. They will try to recover

some of the older fines but they're also responsible for some of the newer fines

as well.

Once a

fine is registered as a judgment, the collection officer will make an attempt to

locate the person, send a letter, reach out to them. Then they will register

them with CRA. So that is part of their process, but in addition to that, they

do spend time working on the older delinquent fines as well.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Virginia.

Thank

you, Gerry, and thank you, Madame Chair.

MS. ROGERS:

If we could go back, please,

to 1.2.02, under Salaries. I believe that was the area around domestic violence

court.

Can you

give us an update on what's happening with the Labrador domestic violence court?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, right now, where we are – part of my mandate was to expand the Family

Violence Intervention Court throughout the province. St. John's is up and

running, Stephenville is up and running, which means, if we're doing it on a

regional basis, we have Labrador and Central.

Right

now – actually to be honest with you, I'm concentrating on seeing where we can

get expansion. It's more likely that it's going to happen in Central in 2018.

Labrador is going to happen, but we're facing some other significant pressures

up there, when it comes to justice in general, which we heard quite loud and

clear; you were up there at the summit too. We've got space issues.

When

we're doing these courts, they're held in the existing building. We've got some,

I think, infrastructure issues when it comes to Provincial Court in Happy

Valley-Goose Bay. You see a bail hearing coming in and that's a problem.

I don't

want to expand something unless we can fix up some of the current issues that we

have there. Even when we talk about things like retention of employees.

So it

is going to happen. We've seen some challenges where if you expand something too

quick and you don't have all the kinks worked out – you don't want to do that.

It seems to be working quite well in St. John's and Stephenville, and the goal

is still to live up to the mandate letter, which was to have four of them in

place within four years. So that's still the goal.

MS. ROGERS :

How long has it been now?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Two years and three months.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thanks.

So the

biggest challenge you have right now is space issues?

MR. A. PARSONS:

And staff issues. We just

don't have the retention there when it comes to court staff. In fact, you'll see

in another heading later on, in a lot of cases we've had to fly staff up to

Labrador to run court, and that's going to be a tremendous challenge when you're

trying to start a new type of court. It's not just the judges and the lawyers

there; it's the staff that are so important. So we think we've got a fix to that

now. I'd still like to see it happen.

Again,

I'm still confident we can make that happen but we've had to work on some more

basic issues first.

MS. ROGERS:

Was the area being

considered Happy Valley-Goose Bay?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, I think that would be

the primary area.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. And Central would be

where?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, decision made yet. There

had been some talk, I think before I was here, that it might be Clarenville, but

to me it would be Gander or Grand Falls-Windsor. So no decisions made there.

Again, I can't make them unilaterally. I have to work very closely with

Provincial Court and the chief judge, and to be quite honest with you, they've

been doing a lot of work on the drug treatment court for us.

I'm

still confident it can happen, because there are fewer issues, we'll say. No

decision made but that's still something – that's a 2018 goal.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you very much.

If we

go down to Amount to be Voted, the Federal Revenue, so that's drug court. There

was a press release issued on May 17 of last year announcing – I think it was

May 17, yeah it was. “Minister Parsons Announces New Drug Treatment Court Pilot

Project.”

Was

there a pilot project? A drug court –

MR. A. PARSONS:

Can I see the rest of the

release? What did I say?

MS. ROGERS:

I'll tell you now.

“ Mr.

Speaker, I am pleased to announce that following a tremendous amount of work by

our working group and advisory committee, the feasibility study is complete and

we are now proceeding with the planning for a new Drug Treatment Court pilot

project in St. John's.”

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, that was the planning.

MS. ROGERS:

That was the planning, right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Planning for a pilot project.

MS. ROGERS:

That's right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Again, this will be a pilot. I'm

anticipating an early, early fall commencement.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

And still more announcements to be

made on that, but that's definitely going to happen in 2018. We've had

Provincial Court working on it. Staff we hired has been around the province –

sorry, around the country.

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

And John Duggan has been playing a

big role in that as well. That's a passion of his.

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So more announcements.

MS. ROGERS:

Can you tell me what is

encompassed within the drug court, aside from the court and a judge and the

legal officers?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Well, what I would say, I can't

get into too much. I can talk about it generally. In terms of what our plan is

going to be, I haven't announced it yet and I'm not going to be announcing it on

Wednesday night.

What I

would say is that it's basically – and I've been out to the one in Regina.

Usually you have, in most cases it's a dedicated judge and dedicated staff.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So whether that's Crowns,

legal aid, private counsel. In many ways, my understanding is it works in a

system of where you work together. It has to fall into a certain category or

criteria. You look at that and then the other thing about this is you have to

work hand in hand with the health system.

MS. ROGERS:

That's right, yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Right. So that's one of the things we've been doing. It has not just been

totally Justice led. It's been working with Health, because there's no point in

doing this if individuals don't have access to the services they require,

rehabilitation. The plan is, hopefully, you'll see people come out at the other

end. Putting people in with addictions issues, just putting them through that

regular system and have them come out with a conviction and no help, it doesn't

help with recidivism.

So the

goal is to help people with the root cause of why they are there, and then

hopefully coming out of this process better off than they were before.

MS. ROGERS:

When do you expect to have the pilot project actually off the ground?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Early fall.

MS. ROGERS:

Early fall. So you are confident that those wrap around services will be in

place?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Confident. I am confident that this pilot project's going to work.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. Thank you very much.

1.2.04,

Administrative Support, what will the capital in that category be spent on?

That funding is available for the acquisition of vehicles for the RNC fleet.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, vehicles for RNC.

Thank

you.

1.3.01,

Fines Administration, under Salaries we see that $100,000 wasn't spent in

'17-'18.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can talk to that (inaudible).

MS. ROGERS:

Did you already go over that? I don't think so, hey?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What we discussed there is that we had several vacancies. Unfortunately, there

was a significant loss there with one individual. There was a death in Fines

Administration, and that took a while. That position was vacant for some time

and we had to go through a process. I think three other collectors actually left

at some point during the year.

That

time in between trying to fill the positions, that's where the savings all come

from there. So you got to go through the job competitions.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think most of them are done. From what I gather, we should be back at full

complement, all the processes done that we're all waiting for.

MS. ROGERS:

Great.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think that would explain

it.

Am I –

covered it all off? Good.

MS. ROGERS:

Under 1.3.01 again. Under Purchase Services, there's a significant jump there.

Can you explain that?

MR. STANLEY:

That's part of our allocation of funds that we expect to get in respect of

cannabis. One of the issues with implementation of cannabis, as the year goes

forward now, is going to be ticketing. So we've allocated an amount – I think it

was $500,000 that we're expecting to get.

Every

government across Canada is sort of operating on the same basis with this.

Nobody is exactly sure how much money is going to come or how much it's going to

cost. We've spread that money across a couple of areas where we think it's going

to affect – three areas we think are going to be affected by the ticketing

issues for cannabis, and one of them is here.

So,

you'll see there is both an increase in Purchased Services but also an increase

in revenue, which is matching. The idea being that we are anticipating there

will be expenditures in respect to ticketing for cannabis but there will also be

offsetting federal funds available.

MS. ROGERS:

Todd, what kinds of purchase services would you have, though, there? Is it

staffing?

MR. STANLEY:

It could be staffing. It could be the need for new ticketing implements.

MS. ROGERS:

The tickets, themselves.

MR. STANLEY:

The tickets, themselves.

Like

everyone else, we're sort of guessing as to how this is going to look in terms

of what's going to be required, especially as the federal legislation has yet to

be passed, and we don't have access yet. The federal government hasn't made

decisions on things, such as for the traffic stop side of it and those sorts of

matters.

A lot

of this is still up in the air. So we're doing our best guesstimate and trying

to spread the funding where we think it's going to be, just so we don't get –

while the off-side of the budget as the year goes forward.

MS. ROGERS:

That would be for ticketing for the violations. What areas do you think they'll

be ticketing in, predominately? Or do you have a –?

MR. STANLEY:

The way this is going to work is, actually, the federal legislation will leave a

significant area for provincial regulation for matters respecting cannabis to be

provincially enforced offences, which will be subject to ticketing and/or

prosecutions of a provincial offence.

So when

you hear every province announcing the regimes they're bringing forward – like

you hear Quebec is not going to allow anyone to have plants in the home. That'll

be –

MS. ROGERS:

Not at all?

MR. STANLEY:

Not at all.

MS. ROGERS:

In Quebec?

MR. STANLEY:

In Quebec, yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Wow!

MR. STANLEY:

So in that case, that would be a –

MS. ROGERS:

(Inaudible.)

MR. STANLEY:

– provincially imposed piece of legislation. So that when the enforcement of

that occurs in Quebec, you would have instances where that would be able to be

by ticket or by a

summary conviction offence.

What

has happened by the federal government abandoning the criminal area of a lot of

this stuff for cannabis, they are leaving it to the provinces to bring the

province's tools forward to bring in their implementation schemes, including,

for example, the handling of cannabis or possession of cannabis by minors. All

of that space will be filled by the provinces using the tools we have, which

include

summary conviction offences, but also ticketing regimes.

things that, once upon a time, might attract the laying of information and a

criminal charge, we'll instead be handling by ticketing. So we think there will

actually be a significant increase in the activity of that in respect to

ticketing activities as it goes forward, as we implement this.

MS. ROGERS:

Well, if Quebec's not going

to allow any plants in the home, it could be an answer to our immigration

problem.

Open

the doors.

Okay,

thank you.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Are you finished on that

section or –?

MS. ROGERS:

I sure am.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DAVIS:

Pardon me?

MS. ROGERS:

Mr. Warr.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes, okay, because I was

wondering about Mr. Lane as well.

MR. WARR:

To Mr. Davis' point on

1.3.01 with regard to fines and with regard to a – I'd be interested to know, if

a vehicle – someone is stopped and, for instance, he or she has $10,000 in

fines, and the vehicle is impounded, what happens in that case? Does the vehicle

stay impounded until the fines are paid? What happens to the vehicle? Is the

vehicle auctioned off to the pay the fines? What happens in that case?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Theresa, do you want to take

that?

MS. HEFFERNAN:

In most cases, those

vehicles aren't valued very high. They're often just purchased for $500 or

$1,000 and most times they're left with the towing company until they're

destroyed. There's a certain period of time, whether it's 30 days or 60 days, I

think, depending on why they were pulled over in the first place. Once that

period is up, Motor Registration can give the permission to the towing company

to have the vehicle destroyed.

In most

cases, the owners probably don't even have the cars registered, which is why the

fines are so high in the first place. So they just shift through, or rotate

through, these cars as a pastime.

MR. WARR:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Mr. Lane.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Mr. Lane, we have to get

consent from the Committee first.

MR. LANE:

Okay, I thought I –

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Okay, sorry.

MR. LANE:

Sorry about that.

Just

wondering, Minister, on the SIRT team funding, it's federal – or sorry, not the

SIRT team, I mean the pilot project for the Drug Treatment Court, that's being

totally federally funded, as I understand it. So do you know – it's a pilot, I

understand, but will that be funded like on an ongoing basis, or if you do it

after a year or two and it works out, the federal government could say, well,

the funding is over now, we would be responsible for it, provincially. Is there

any thoughts on that?

MR. A. PARSON:

Well, what I would say on that is a couple of things. First of all, being a

pilot, we have to determine the success of it. I'm very confident that it's

going to be successful, but I guess what we have to do is look at other

jurisdictions where it's not new; it's been going on for years and it's still

being federally funded. The feds have deemed this to be a worthwhile investment

in the criminal justice system.

So, you

look over in Regina, if you look over in Nova Scotia, what's going on. They've

been doing this for some time, so it's still being funded.

It's

like anything done with the feds. Yes, theoretically, they could stop that, but

then you have to look at what is the value of it, what is it – and make that

determination, but it's not something that we're anticipating any negative

action any time soon.

MR. P. LANE:

Good, perfect, thank you.

final question relates to the question that my colleague alluded to, and Ms.

Heffernan did answer. I was kind of aware of that situation with the cars and

the turnover. Somebody, basically, buys an old piece of junk, they drive it

around for six months or a year until they get caught, then the car is taken

away, then they buy another one and the cycle goes on. That's how the fines

build up.

Minister, I don't know if it's really a question for your department or maybe

for Minister Gambin-Walsh, but is there any thoughts of what could be done in

terms of having the licence plate go with the individual instead of the car and

then that would stop that from happening, that circumstance that Ms. Heffernan

just described?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It's probably a better question for Sherry Gambin-Walsh because it would fall

under her.

I know

there's been some challenges with that. I think they've tried it elsewhere and

there may be some limitations, but I'm not fully confident in my ability to

express that accurately.

MR. P. LANE:

Sure.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So, if that's the case, I'm better off saying nothing, but I don't think it's as

simple – it sounds like such an easy solution, but like any easy solution, if

it's not happening, there's probably a reason why, but I would strong encourage

you to ask Minister Gambin-Walsh during her Estimates.

MR. P. LANE:

I will.

Thank

you. That's it for me.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you,

My turn

again?

CHAIR:

It is.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Can I run back to 1.2.04? I know I skipped over it earlier, but there was a

topic that came up on vehicles for the RNC.

Can you

tell me how many vehicles – sorry, Minister, 1.2.04.

MR. A PARSONS:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Can you tell me how many vehicles they have. How many you're expected to

purchase here, but, overall, what's the current status of the fleet?

It's

been cyclical over the years, where there's been years where the fleet's been in

good shape and there are other years where the fleet had more cars in the garage

than they had on the road, at times. So I wonder if you can give me an update.

MS. HEFFERNAN:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DAVIS:

Right up in the back.

They might be looking for you.

There you go.

MS. HEFFERNAN:

Our current fleet is comprised of 144 vehicles. Approximately 132 of these are

light vehicles. The balance would include quads and snowmobiles and the like.

The

budget that we have allocated for 2018-19 should allow us to buy approximately

eight vehicles and that would include the upfit, which includes your silent

patrolman, your lights and the like.

I guess

we're falling a little bit short on where we'd like to be budget-wise. The

fleet, right now, we probably could use to update, maybe get another 30

vehicles, instead of our eight or nine, but due to our fiscal situation we have

to manage within.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, 144 vehicles, eight this year, that's about 18 years to rotate the entire

fleet, if my quick math is really – I'm sure for vehicles, they're replaced more

than snowmobiles or quads or whatever the case maybe, but it's a number of

years.

There's

been years in the past that some of you may be familiar with that the fleet was

in, I'd call it, poor condition. A lot of time spent in garages, vehicles down.

I remember days when they're wasn't enough vehicles for police officers to use

and they switched out during a nightshift and had to share vehicles and those

kinds of things.

I agree

that buying only eight new vehicles this year is going to lead to the fleet

going back in that direction, I would imagine. So is there a longer-term plan or

expectation? Do you expect any difficulties with vehicles this year or what the

impact may be providing police services with fewer vehicles or fewer

good-quality vehicles?

MR. A. PARSONS:

The first thing I would say is that certainly this is not a direction that's

coming from this year, this is a carryover that was left for the last number of

years. This is a trend, unfortunately, that's been going on. So that's the first

thing I want to put out there.

The

plan is that we have to make sure that we do the best maintenance that we can.

We know the challenges there, but it's not just within the RNC. We face the same

thing all across government. When we talk about our Vehicle Fleet Management, I

think it was something that was announced in the budget the other day, so

there's going to be a lot of work done there, basically.

The RNC

is not going to fall into that, is my understanding. It's going be outside, but

if there's money and savings to be found there, that's something I'm always

arguing for to have in Justice. I'd love to see more cars on the road.

Again,

it's something where – Theresa's quite right, the RNC, and I know the chief,

would love to have more vehicles, absolutely, but it's one of those where, as

the fiscal situation changes, we'll gauge it from there, but we have to make do

with where we are.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, thank you.

Just

some clarification on 1.3.01 from previous questions. Mr. Stanley mentioned that

you're – I think your words were: you're expected to get $500,000 this year.

Is that

to offset the cost to the provincial government? Is that money from the federal

government to offset the cost to the provincial government for the legalization

of marijuana? Is that what that is?

MR. STANLEY:

Sorry, what number again?

MR. P. DAVIS:

1.3.01, I'm sorry.

MR. STANLEY:

1.3, sorry.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Fines Administration.

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, sorry.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You mentioned $500,000

you're expected to get.

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, there is $500,000 in

revenue that we've sort of used as our benchmark that we expect to get for

cannabis from the federal government. What we've done is we've broken that down

in three places where we think the costs will be. So it's here in Fines.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. STANLEY: I

don't sound very smart now.

There's

$100,000 here, $300,000 in Provincial Court and $100,000 in criminal

prosecutions, as we except that will be required. So we booked the cost and the

associated expected revenue in there as a – I think the best description would

be a guesstimate as to what this is going to bring in when the cannabis actually

goes live.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm sorry, $100,000 for

Fines Administration, $300,000 for Provincial Court and the other $100,000 was

for where?

MR. STANLEY:

For the director of public

prosecutions, the Crown prosecutions.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. All right, thank you.

that's just the $500,000 to your department. I would imagine that's not the only

cost government anticipates.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think there's definitely

more going to other departments. I wouldn't be able to tell you that total

amount right now.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Tom Osborne would probably

have a better handle on what that total amount is, but we've only been dealing

with what we're anticipating coming in to us.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I don't know if you can make

an effort to try and get that. I could probably go to him as well.

Yeah,

we'll go to him and ask for it, if that's what you prefer.

Okay,

2.1.01, I see in Salary Details, there's been some changes in the numbers –

CHAIR:

Excuse me.

Are we

finished with Executive and Support Services?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, I see. I guess we are.

I am.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yeah.

CHAIR:

Okay.

CLERK:

1.1.01 through 1.3.01,

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 to 1.3.01

carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 1.3.01 carried.

CLERK:

2.1.01 through 2.1.05

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.1.01 to 2.1.05

inclusive carry?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

notice under Salary Details, Minister, there's some change, about $23,000 less

in Salaries last year in the revised, but back to much the same budgeted amount

this year. I see there's some changes in the numbers of solicitors in the Civil

Law division.

MR. PRITCHARD:

Thank you.

There

has been some turnover. We've had some retirements that took place earlier in

the year and a couple of solicitors have gone on maternity leave. We've also

hired a few solicitors to backfill for those positions. We also have a few legal

assistants who've been off sick for a while.

there's been some periods of time when some of the positions haven't been

filled, so that accounts for some of the fluctuation in the numbers, but,

overall, I think the numbers have stayed pretty consistent.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So there were 27 solicitor IVs and now there's 23, showing in the Salary

Details, which is a decrease of four.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think I can (inaudible) with some of the retirements at the higher end,

solicitors that's been around a while. A lot of times when you fill those

positions, you don't know what's going to come in. So you might hire a solicitor

I or solicitor II, depending on who comes in.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Mm-hmm.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That's the first thing I would say, but there's no reduction in total number of

positions that I'm –

MR. PRITCHARD:

No.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So if we have someone that's been with the department 25 years and goes out,

they're at the high end of the scale. Usually, when you hire someone new,

they're usually at the lower end which would explain the difference there.

Sometimes you can't control the number of IVs, IIIs, IIs or whatever.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So is four the highest level?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think it's five, isn't it?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Five is the highest level.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Five. You have some of them around too, don't you?

MR. A. PARSONS:

A few around.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Minister, last year, there were eight contractual positions and there are 10

this year. It's not a big difference, but what's the purpose of contractual? Do

they fill people off on long-term leave or vacant positions in some other way?

MR. PRITCHARD:

Thank you.

Well,

some of the contractual positions, for example, we have a few solicitors that

are off on maternity leave and so their replacements are contractual.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, thank you.

Minister, I'm not sure where to find it, if it's under 2.1.01, maybe under

Professional Services, but was there outside advice obtained or legal services

in relation to marijuana?

MR. STANLEY:

No, actually, we haven't retained outside counsel to advise in respect of the

cannabis matter. So we wouldn't have any expenditures for Professional Services

for that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So Stewart McKelvey hasn't been involved with that?

MR. STANLEY:

No, not to my knowledge; not on our – not for advice.

What

we've been finding is cannabis has largely been a process issue for us, as to

how we're going to handle the matter as it goes forward.

I'll

just double check with Mr. Pritchard.

MR. PRITCHARD:

I'm not aware of Stewart McKelvey having any involvement in legal advice on

cannabis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, thank you.

still under 2.1.01, Salaries, Professional Services, $2.3 million estimated, $4

million revised and $2 million again estimated. Can you explain that one for us?

MR. STANLEY:

So, every year we budget a fixed amount as an attempt to guess as to what we are

going to need every year for Professional Services when it comes to outside

counsel. We routinely find that we're probably a little optimistic when we do

the budgeting.

This

year, we had rather significant outside counsel of expenditures for a number of

matters, actually, before the Quebec courts. We had litigation in respect of

Aboriginal matters, as well as litigation in respect of both the continuing

dispute about the Wabush Mines CCAA process in Cliffs Natural Resources. There's

a bit of continuing litigation going on as well, I believe, in respect of the

Abitibi pension matter that has been going on for a while.

We've

had, I don't have the total here, but upwards of $600,000 or $700,000 we

actually spent on Quebec firms litigating in front of the Quebec courts this

year on various matters.

well, the amount that we spend every year is always slightly bifurcated because

the account covers two separate headings. We have to pay the expenses out of

this account for matters that we are ordered to pay for as the Attorney General,

which can equate to about a million dollars a year, where we're ordered to

provide counsel to individuals, according to court orders. The court orders have

to provide amicus counsel. We have to provide lawyers for matters proceeding in

front of various tribunals, such as with the Provincial Court judges under the

indemnity. Those aren't discretionary expenses. We don't enjoy the benefit of

that legal advice; we're actually just required to pay for it as part of the

function of the justice system.

The

remainder of the funding is usually lawyers that we are hiring to provide us

with advice on various matters to assist the Department of Justice and providing

advice to our clients.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

I just

want to check a note real quick here. Last year, 2016-2017, you had budgeted

$3.3 million. The actual expenditure under the same heading of Professional

Services for Civil Law was actually $3.5 million and then you re-budgeted $2.3

million.

So is

it realistic to budget then $2.1 million again for this coming year? Based on

everything you just said and how busy and how many matters you have, knowing you

spent $4 million last year, so is $2.1 million a realistic estimate?

MR. STANLEY:

So what we find every year –

we may be a bit optimistic, but what we find is the matters are, for lack of a

better description, they come in, sort of, discrete pockets and as the matter

resolves, it won't be a flatline expenditure next year. So we're not expecting

to spend a lot of money in the Quebec courts next year on litigation, and we're

doing our best to hold the line on having outside counsel expenditures as much

as we can.

What

we're hoping is – we've been doing a review of the Civil Division this year.

We're trying to make a concerted effort with our staffing to see if we can

minimize the amount of expenditure. So every year, we take our best guess and

our best attempt to keep it to the budgeted amount, and we're going to try it

again this year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Also,

under 2.1.01, I was looking at Allowances and Assistance, and I was reviewing

our discussion on it from last year, but Allowances and Assistance was revised

to $5 million and it's estimated for that again this year. Can you give me some

commentary on that estimate, Minister?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would be a fund for settlements. So a couple things here: There was a

decision made to do it at $1.5 million two budget years ago. It goes over that,

or it did that year. The same thing, there's an anticipation that perhaps that's

going to go up. Historic claims – I am trying to think now. I don't know if

there's anything else I could add to that.

MR. STANLEY:

For a number of years, we

used to have settlement budgeted actually at $5 million, and we did an

adjustment a number of years ago and brought it to $1.5 million, but what we

were finding is a number of claims that we were settling, including

predominantly historic sexual assault claims, has been increasing significantly.

So what

has been happening over the years is as we exhaust the $1.5 million budget,

we've had to go elsewhere in government under the

Supply Act to obtain funds to settle

those matters, which, amongst other things, has resulted in an increase in the

amount of public scrutiny of some of those settlements which, at times, is not

exactly what was expected by the parties when they're trying to settle a rather

private matter with government.

So what we've done, instead

of the additional paperwork, the additional time, the additional delay that

settlement process was taking, what we've done is gone back now to revert so

that the Civil Division of the Department of Justice will have the $5.5 million

settlement fund, which is about what we've been spending every year in

settlements, and especially with these historic sexual assault settlements, what

we expect to spend, and then we'll be able to handle the matters as we've

handling them traditionally up until a couple of years ago. We'll settle the

matters as we go through our process.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thanks.

My time is pretty much up; I

got some more, but I'll pass it on for now.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms. Rogers.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you.

Sheriff's Office: Under

Salaries we see that in '17-'18 that there was an increase in expenditures of

$200,000. Can we have just an idea what that was?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MS. ROGERS:

Sorry, that's okay. Under

Sheriff's Office, under Salaries there was an increase in spending '17-'18 by

about $200,000.

MR. CHAFE:

There is a combination for the salaries at the Sheriff's Office last year. There

was the Muskrat Falls Project. We were enforcing court orders up there.

Additionally, the Sheriff's Office started serving court security on circuits in

Labrador, which was a new thing for us, which also drove up our salaries.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MR. CHAFE:

And a third influence was juries. Juries have increased dramatically across the

province in duration. That all includes salaries.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you.

So the first one, the

enforcing of the court orders due to Muskrat Falls.

MR. CHAFE:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

It wouldn't necessarily have

been the Sheriff's Office providing that service before, is that it?

MR. CHAFE:

Basically, because it was a civil matter and not a criminal matter, it's not a

typical function we do, but as enforcement branch of the Supreme Court, it's not

a typical thing we do, but it is our function.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you.

Under Transportation and

Communications, there was an increase of about $130,000 in '17-'18?

MR. CHAFE:

Again, those three factors all combined – there are only so many staff in Goose

Bay, so we had to bring people in from across the province at different times.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you.

And

then under Supplies, we see a significant drop there of about $62,000. What

kinds of supplies would they be and then why has that come down?

MR. CHAFE:

Basically, the year prior, we had hired three deputy sheriffs for Goose Bay. So

with new employees, we would have to give them all their equipment, which is

quite expensive. Now that has been annualized; so to keep that going is a lot

less than the initial set-up.

MS. ROGERS:

Right. Okay, thank you very much.

Purchased Services: A significant drop in the revised in '17-'18, then a

significant increase in '18-'19.

MR. CHAFE:

The reduction can be attributed to our zero-based budgeting and anticipating

those costs. But what we didn't anticipate was the jury piece, the juries that

have increased.

MS. ROGERS:

Right.

MR. CHAFE:

That would be a big driver

of – we have almost doubled our jury cases and the duration and type of cases

are much longer, so sequestering, that type of thing, which would drive general

purchased services.

MS. ROGERS:

So what kind of services would be purchased under there?

MR. CHAFE:

If a jury is sequestered, so

we would pay for their hotels through there. Just the necessities of life: food,

those types of supplies.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. All right, great. Thank you very much.

I'm

good there.

And if

we go to Civil Law and Enforcement, 2.1.03, Support enforcement, we see a bit of

jump there in Salaries for the revised for '17-'18.

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would be severance. How

many positions? One? One retirement?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

One retirement and a salary

continuance.

MS. ROGERS:

What's a salary continuance?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm not even going to

attempt that. I'll let Virginia ….

There is a HR policy that where a position may be eliminated, the individual

would be entitled to pay in lieu of service for a period of time. And we have a

number of cases where salary continuance was paid and it's now – it would be

terminated; it's not carried into next year.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you very much.

Family

Justice Services: The only question I have there is under Purchased Services.

We've seen an increase there of $5,500.

MS. ORGAN:

All right.

That

increase was due to a rental increase in our facility in Marystown for Family

Justice Services. It was an unexpected rental increase that went up this year.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you very much.

I've

also heard there's sometimes a little bit of a problem with waiting rooms in the

Family Justice Services. Has that been an issue, or space in Family Justice

Services, in those spaces used?

MS. ORGAN:

Not that I've aware of, and

I've been to most of our divisions and I can't think of one where there would

be.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you very much.

Access

To Information And Protection Of Privacy, under Salaries we see there was a drop

in the revised of about $300,000 and then for the estimate it's back up to

pretty well close what the original budget was for '17-'18.

MS. WRIGHT:

That's just due to staffing.

There was a staff turnover. So they're now at full capacity. They have hired,

there are three new staff to support government departments and municipalities.

They have filled those positions. It is two ATIPP coordinator liaisons and one

municipal analyst. They're now at full capacity.

MS. ROGERS:

Are we seeing an increase in

ATIPPs?

MS. WRIGHT:

We are. I do believe I have

MR. A. PARSONS:

I have some information here

I can put out. It's just general about ATIPP, and Kendra will stop me if I'm

wrong.

This

year, just when we talk about training, they did about 65 sessions during the

entire year, working with a lot of municipalities. They did a lot of work

outside of St. John's. There were some government department coordinators –

education in the University of Alberta. They did an online course, I believe.

There

were department coordinators being certified with the International Organization

of Privacy Professionals. They took over 1,600 phone calls as it related to

guidance for public bodies. They did preliminary privacy impact assessments,

over 70 of those relating to government programs and services; reviewed over 80

Cabinet papers; posted over 700 government department ATIPP requests online, and

right now it says there are over 2,000 requests received by all public bodies.

That's the annual.

I think

Mr. Malloy, the Commissioner, would say there's a significant –

MS. ROGERS:

Increase.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– increase with the advent

of the act in 2015.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you very much.

Purchased Services; an increase in 2018-19.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think Virginia might be

able to better handle that.

While the ATIPP office was

staffing up and finalizing the new positions that had been approved a number of

years ago, they had also gotten monies approved for training. And with the lower

number of staff, they didn't require all that training monies.

They've

now staffed up and the money has been put back into their budget to allow for

all the training they will have to do (inaudible) we provide.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great.

Thank

you.

Criminal Law, 2.2.01, again under Purchased Services, we see an increase –

CHAIR:

Ms. Rogers.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes?

CHAIR:

We're gone ahead of ourselves.

MS. ROGERS:

Have I gone ahead of myself?

CHAIR:

We're still at 2. –

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great.

I'm

fine for that.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you.

MR. LANE:

Minister, I'm just

wondering, in terms of – I guess it would fall under Salaries, I suppose, for

Civil Law and so on. I'm just wondering if there's anything in that or if there

are any plans, whether it be in Salaries or whether it be in Professional

Services or what have you, where we have the upcoming Muskrat Falls inquiry.

I'm

wondering will there be any dedicated resources from the department, not just

involved in the inquiry itself, I suppose, but to be monitoring the inquiry with

the view of if any matter should arise in the inquiry that would lead to the

need for any kind of potential civil litigation and/or investigation by

authorities and so on. Is there anybody dedicated to monitoring that and taking

action on behalf of the government, the people, if something should arise

requiring action against any particular individual, corporation and so on?

That's

a mouthful I know.

MR. STANLEY:

As we get a little later on

here, there are dedicated resources that we have in the budget for the actual

Muskrat inquiry. Government will have – and we can talk about it then – but

government will have dedicated counsel at that inquiry on a day-to-day basis as

was done in the past with every inquiry like that.

wouldn't have dedicated resources on top of that just to watch to see what's

going on. We'd expect that counsel to feed back to us if anything is arising. We

expect everyone is going to be keeping kind of an open watching brief in the

media as to everything that's going on at any event should that arise.

MR. LANE:

Okay. Because the commission, of course, we know through the terms of reference,

which is the same for all inquiries as I understand it, that the commissioner

would not be able to make any recommendations regarding any civil litigations,

criminal investigations and so on. But there's nobody per se from – in terms of

any resources, outside of the people who are involved in the inquiry itself, no

dedicated resources to kind of be viewing this with a goal of if anything should

arise, taking some action, unless somebody happens to raise it or someone else

picks up on it and makes complaints. Is that accurate, or –?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Can I jump in on this one?

MR. LANE:

Sure.

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, I mean you don't hire lawyers on top of lawyers. The lawyers we have

dedicated doing that, they'll keep us advised. I'm sure we will be seeing this

every single day.

there's anything else to come out – I wouldn't doubt if something were to come

out that – if a private individual has a concern, from watching something that

they can report that to, like you say, civil or criminal, it can be reported and

we'll deal with that accordingly. But, no, we wouldn't have somebody watching

from the outside.

Our

people that we're paying the money for will be down at the inquiry doing it

every single day, and, as Todd said, they'll be feeding into us. We'll be

knowing what's going on everyday.

MR. LANE:

Okay. Well, that answered my

question.

Thank

you.

other question – again, relating to the resources and so on – is there going to

be any – and maybe you're not in a position to say or don't want to say, but

I'll ask the question anyway.

terms of the Humber Valley situation, are there any resources in this year's

budget to start anything on that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, it's still there in the mandate. There's still a desire to do it. You'll

note my original mandate letter came with three inquiries.

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So we've got one done. You

still got the two left that we'd like to do but two more have been added on top

of that.

MR. LANE:

I understand.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So right now, there's the allotments for two. I've spoken about the Search and

Rescue one. We're still waiting on the Senate report on that. The Senate right

now, actually, just finished out in British Columbia and they're on their way to

do some work up in the Arctic. So we're going to see what comes out of that and

then we can make a decision on what needs to happen that way.

As for

Humber Valley, that's still, we're treating – these inquiries are pretty

intensive and so what I would say is that we're going to – it's still there,

it's not gone anywhere. I had an updated mandated letter and it's still there.

MR. LANE:

Thank you.

That's

all I have.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Mr. Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah.

CHAIR:

Do you have more?

MR. P. DAVIS:

No, no, I have a couple of

things.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thanks.

wanted to go back to 2.1.02. Am I gone back too far I wonder?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Is that the Sheriff's Office?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, just one quick comment

on it, Minister.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yup.

MR. P. DAVIS:

On Transportation and

Communications – so I looked back through last year's Estimates as well. And

last year, '16-'17, was budgeted $109,000, actual was $309,000 and '17 you

budget $266,000, so we're up to $396,000.

So I'm

just wondering, $218,000, we went from '16-'17 what was budgeted to a higher

revised amount. Then '17-'18 the same thing happened and has us up to almost

$400,000. Now you're budgeting a little over half that again for next year. So

I'm just wondering if that's an increasing trend that's expected to continue, or

is $218,000 going to be enough for this year?

There

you go.

MR. CHAFE:

Sorry about that.

There's

a combination of things that have been happening. The year that you're

referencing, we were asked, because of an (inaudible) that was going to come

down, to provide security on the circuits in Labrador. But that was ahead of

getting approval for three additional staff. So that was the beginning of that

deficit.

actually had to staff those circuits out of Corner Brook, which was quite

expensive. And, of course, Muskrat Falls was unexpected and some of the juries.

So we anticipate, unless something else happens, we should be okay this year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Minister, under Revenue - Federal, there's $252,000 budgeted for last year but

it was zero. Sorry, did you ask about that one already, Gerry?

MS. ROGERS:

No, I didn't actually. Somehow I missed that one.

Okay. The revenue in that particular case relates to a MOU with the federal

government under the Contraventions Act

for the ticketing of federal offences. The start-up on that one is still

happening. A number of positions have been hired. Not yet in the Sheriff's

Office but in other areas we have hired some bilingual staff to assist with the

contraventions and we're still working with the federal government to complete

the ticketing, complete the training and get that up and running.

So we

did have revenue budgeted for that purpose. We won't receive all the revenue

because we didn't spend necessarily that amount of money this year. And we may

not receive it this year. We may receive it next year due to the delays in the

timing in getting the actual submission into the federal government.

MR. P. DAVIS:

You're actually going to

provide a service to the federal government, is that what I understand, and this

offsets those costs to providing that service?

MR. STANLEY:

I want to answer this one because this is one I was chasing for a while.

Under

the federal Contraventions Act , the

way it works is we provide ticketing services to the federal government and the

mechanism whereby the federal government can actually ticket for federal

offences, which hasn't been present in the province before. There have been

various federal legislative offences and/or offences on federal land that they

actually didn't have the ability to ticket for because we didn't have a tie-in

to our system. Some of the aspects of the tie-in that required, for example,

being a federal matter, we have to have bilingual tickets, we have to have the

ability to process tickets and handle members of the general public who may get

tickets on a bilingual basis, et cetera.

Last

year, I believe it was, we negotiated the contraventions arrangement with the

federal government. We have expenses in respect to the provision of the

services, the purchases of new tickets, hiring bilingual people. They fund it

and provide us with the funding for it, so you'll see there in Purchased

Services – I believe it was – for the budget for 2017-18 we had a significant

amount of money but then we had to offset $252,000 in federal revenue.

We were

slower off the mark getting going with the program than we intended to be, so as

a result we didn't quite spend as much as we thought, but we also didn't get to

claim as much back from the federal government. They don't send the money unless

you spend the money.

We're

in the process now, we've got the court offices that we needed to get staffed up

with bilingual people, including a bilingual court clerk hired, for example, in

provincial court in Wabush and a couple of other places. We've got the bilingual

ticketing sorted out and the next step will be for Dan's office to have someone

for enforcement, on the enforcement side to be able to provide bilingual

services.

The

federal government is very enthused about this, including – you wouldn't think

about some of the places where this affects but this was actually an issue on

the base in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The security on the base in Goose couldn't

ticket for traffic offences on the base because they didn't have the authority

to ticket because we didn't have this arrangement.

Now

we've got that sorted out, so there are a number of places where you're going to

see more tickets coming through and hopefully more ticket revenue for us for

processing the tickets.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Military police you're

referring to.

MR. STANLEY:

Military police, yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

There's a military presence

here as well in St. John's, right?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

That's part of what the

increase in Purchased Services was as well, I guess, was it?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I know that your colleague

earlier talked about the number of jury cases and the costs associated so the

Contraventions Act is part of that.

So the $252,000 back in this year is part of that $448,000 or to offset some of

that $448,000?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes, a part of that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

Over in

the Support Enforcement there was a comment of a position that was eliminated –

or salary continuance.

What

position was that?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Kendra Wright.

MS. WRIGHT:

It was the manager position.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I can hear you. Manager of Support Enforcement.

MS. WRIGHT:

The manager of Support Enforcement.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Just a second now. Has that position been replaced?

MS. WRIGHT:

No, that position was eliminated.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Okay,

and now I'd like to go to 2.1.05. I'm sorry if I missed it. Were you asked about

the salary revision from last year to this year?

MR. A. PARSONS:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm sorry, I had to step out for a second. I missed it. But I don't know if you

could briefly – sorry.

MR. A. PARSONS:

The salary change in ATIPP.

MS. WRIGHT:

Oh, the salary change in ATIPP, they were down three staff persons. They're now

at current complement. They finished hiring just last month. So they have three

new staff: two ATIPP coordinator liaisons – they assist government departments

with meeting their ATIPP obligations; and then the one municipal analyst – so

they assist the municipalities.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, the analyst assists municipalities?

MS. WRIGHT:

There's one dedicated municipal analyst who assists municipalities with the

unique challenges they face. This includes providing advice, training and

developing municipal-specific training and guidance materials.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Has there been an increase in ATIPP for municipalities?

MS. WRIGHT:

Well, they provided 28 sessions outside of St. John's this year in presentations

at various municipalities. So I think the goal was they wanted to get as many

municipalities trained –

MR. P. DAVIS:

Mm-hmm.

MS. WRIGHT:

– and then they'll assist as the requests come forward.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Minister, I know you referenced the increase in ATIPP requests I guess since you

came into government three years ago. Does it continue to be an increase now? Is

it stabilized at all?

MR. A. PARSONS:

(Inaudible) I believe the trend continues. It's still going up.

MR. P. DAVIS :

Thank you.

Minister, in the salary report there was an ATIPP facilitator that was there

last year that we don't see there this year.

MR. A. PARSONS:

You got that, Virginia?

That position still exists but is currently vacant.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Also in

TCII, there was an ATTIP coordinator terminated without cause. Has that position

been replaced?

I can't answer if the person

has been replaced, but they are not actually staff persons belonging to the

ATIPP Office. Each department hires their own ATIPP coordinator, but they are

not staff Members of the ATIPP Office within the Department of Justice and

Public Safety, so you would have to ask that question directly of the

department.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I was going to say, I think

what you're telling me really, really nicely is we should ask that department,

so that's okay.

What would happen, if

there's a gap or if there's a person missing or there's someone on vacation

within the department, that' s where we have the ATIPP analysts who are called –

what we call them are floaters

MR. P. DAVIS:

Mm-hmm.

They are assigned to assist various departments. So they will go out into the

departments to assist if there's a vacancy or a vacation or there's a big

request and they need an extra person to be assigned.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. So knowing that, under

2.1.05, how many staff come under that 01, Salaries?

You

mentioned you're three staff down: two new ATIPP coordinators and a new

municipal analyst. So what's the total staff compliment there? That's within

your own department, Minister, I believe, is it?

I believe, if I counted

right, it's seven.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Forgive me for asking but …

I do stand to be corrected, the current director, the current manager of ATIPP

services is – the ATIPP coordinator is vacant. She is temporarily assigned as

the director so she is performing both duties, basically. She's the manager and

the director at this time.

MR. P. DAVIS:

This 2.1.05, Minister, is

this in your department because you have a responsibility for ATIPP or is this

under every department?

MR. A. PARSONS:

It falls under JPS.

MR. P. DAVIS:

How is this – because it

does say: “… for the administration and coordination of the Access to

Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 2015, including public release of

requested information.” I thought departments actually do that. So what's the

role then of the staff in your office?

MR. STANLEY:

This office handles both

providing advice to departments and backup, as Kendra said, but also the public

release part of that is that this is also the office that goes through the

process required to post certain ATIPP requests online.

We have

a facility where ATIPP requests are actually posted online. That isn't an

automatic process, not every ATIPP request goes up because some ATIPP requests

are by people requesting their own personal information, so those don't go up.

Then, depending on the nature of the ATIPP request, posting some online may

require screening the ATIPP request again for personal information.

It is a

bit of process in order to facilitate that, but that is the part of the public

disclosure that's done by this office.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So if I understand

correctly, besides the posting then, you also provide advice to departments.

Would that be ATIPP coordinators within departments?

MR. STANLEY:

Yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. I'm just trying to

understand the relationship, Todd.

Knowing

how ATIPP coordinators operate and they're supposed to operate under a level of

confidentiality in the roles that they have and so on. I'm just trying to

understand how that relationship then works with your department.

MR. STANLEY:

Well, the only issues that would come forward for consultation would be ones

that the ATIPP coordinators in the departments themselves didn't feel that they

could handle. Also, there's a little bit of work that goes on sometimes with

ATIPP requests being referred between departments.

happens, not infrequently, with Justice where a department goes through their

ATIPP request, realizes that there is Justice advice in the ATIPP request and

then they flip those parts over to us just to check to see if we believe the

advice is, for example, solicitor-client privileged or the like.

The

purpose of this office is just to make sure that whole engine within government

is working appropriately and providing advice to the departments as they need

it, in addition to the floaters as Kendra mentioned.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So if I could just ask one

more question, Gerry.

If a

department came to you looking for advice on a particular ATIPP request, would

you know who the requestor was?

MR. STANLEY:

No. Actually, I'm the one who reviews the ATIPP requests for Justice. I never

know who the requestors are from Justice's ATIPP requests, let alone the ones

that are coming from other departments.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So when an ATIPP coordinator

comes to you for advice on something, you wouldn't know who the requestor is?

MR. STANLEY:

I do not get to see – I have to approve all the ATIPP requests that go out

through the Department of Justice. I do not see the names of who the people are

making the requests. The ATIPP coordinator screens all of that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Excuse me, if I could jump

in just for a second.

We've

been at it about an hour and a half. Is it alright, Madam Chair, if we take a

quick recess for bathroom breaks?

CHAIR:

Sure. So how long did you want?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Five or 10 minutes is fine.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Five minutes, yeah.

MS. ROGERS:

Can I just ask one quick

question, than I think we're done with this?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Finish off this, yeah.

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah.

Back to

your High Sheriff's Office. You had mentioned that there were three different

functions for that increase and one of them was enforcing court orders around

Muskrat Falls.

Can you

just describe what they would be doing then, what roles they would be filling

there?

Thank

you.

MR. CHAFE:

Basically, under the

enforcement function of the Sheriff's Office, which we do regularly, but

generally, it's to serve documents, right. So it's subpoenas, summonses and

those types of things.

In this

particular instance, our function occurred after there was an injunction, which

took place, and beyond that. As things escalated, the judge basically ordered us

to serve those individuals with subsequent instructions basically to say if the

individuals wouldn't leave, they were to be arrested and brought before him.

other instances, we could even serve individuals to say because of the court

order, they were in breach of the injunction and to appear before the judge at

another date.

Basically, as our enforcement function, we had to follow the instructions of the

order itself. We were given very specific things to do with each order.

MS. ROGERS:

It would be then to go where

the land protectors were –

MR. CHAFE:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

– whether it was inside the

camp –

MR. CHAFE:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

– or at the gate of the

camp, not just in the court?

MR. CHAFE:

No, it was in the community.

In the

original injunction, it gave very specific limitations, like one kilometre from

the gate and as things progressed they gave them an area that they could protest

that wouldn't impede the functions that were happening there.

As each

individual went to court, sometimes there were other instructions. So there were

named individuals. There were people we had to know who they were and there were

unnamed as well. So if there was a zone that no one was supposed to be in and we

were monitoring that, we may serve an unknown person and then they would have to

appear and then they became known. It became very complex, but that was our

function.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Thank

you very much.

MR. LANE:

So tell us then, did these

people (inaudible) and so on, people that were flown from St. John's or whatever

to Labrador or do you have sheriff's officers there that just sort of left the

court house and just went down the road and did it?

MR. CHAFE:

It was a bit of a logistical challenge. So what we did in this instance was, we

did fly people in from across the province because we're a Monday to Friday, 9

to 5, sort of organization. This turned into a 24-hour operation.

What we

did is we did fly people in from other places depending if it was a Monday or –

on a weekend we would have the staff that were available anyway, but what we did

is we backfilled. So the out-of-town staff would take care of the courts and

then the local staff would take care of these orders because they knew the

people, they were familiar with the community and they were the most best suited

for this type of work.

MR. LANE:

Thank you.

Minister, I had one other question if that's okay or do you want to –?

MR. A. PARSONS:

Okay.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

This is

on the ATIPP, actually. This is more of a policy question. You can answer it or

not, that's up to you. I'm going to ask the question anyway.

changed the ATIPP Act recently in the House of Assembly, as you know, Bill 33, I

think it was 33, to allow Muskrat Falls Inquiry to be exempted and so on.

At the

time when that happened, our Privacy Commissioner had suggested that we should

have removed the Energy Corporation Act

from

Schedule B, I believe, of the ATIPP Act in order for the

Energy Corporation Act to more

reflect so that ATIPP would apply to Nalcor and we could potentially at least

get more information, or at least have to go through the Privacy Commissioner to

sort of screen these things and make it a little bit more open and transparent.

That

never happened, obviously, in the House in that bill. I'm just wondering why

that didn't happen and if there are any plans to make that change in the near

future. I know that's a policy question but I'm ….

MS. WRIGHT:

You're correct in that that

was part of the consultation process. When the bill was sent over for

consultation there was a response back. The

Energy Corporation Act doesn't fall

to the Department of Justice and Public Safety. It's not a bill that falls under

our department. We don't have responsibility for that act. So the department

can't make the amendment. It would have to come from the Department of Natural

Resources.

I can

follow up to determine – that's a policy question for the Department of Natural

Resources because the Energy Corporation

Act falls under them, so it would be a policy question for that department.

MR. LANE:

Well, actually – and I'll just ask this. In the letter that the Privacy

Commissioner, in that response, which I have a copy, basically the issue was, it

wasn't about changing the Energy

Corporation Act . It was that in the ATIPP Act it says the ATIPPA legislation

shall supersede all other legislation with the exception of

Schedule B.

Schedule B it lists certain things.

Energy Corporation Act is one of those in that schedule. So what he had

suggested was take the Energy Corporation

Act out of the ATIPPA act as not being superseded; therefore, ATIPPA would

apply. So it wouldn't actually be a change to energy corporation, it would be a

change to ATIPPA.

I'm

just wondering –?

MR. A. PARSONS:

(Inaudible.)

MR. LANE:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

There are a number of exemptions there that are under that

Schedule B. What I

would suggest is that each one of them is the policy mandate of that particular

department. There might be one there for child, youth and family services or

CSSD. There might be one there for Health and Education. Energy falls under

Natural Resources. So there's a whole bunch of them there.

Even

though ATIPP falls under us, you wouldn't just go and remove something based on

that without – that wouldn't be our decision to make. That would be a decision

that would have to come from the responsible department that governs that piece

of legislation.

Do you

know what I mean? Like, we wouldn't go eliminate one to deal with –

MR. LANE:

You'd have to consult with them, obviously, right.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, but again –

MR. LANE:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Again, we wouldn't lead that. That would be led by that department.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Okay. So we're done with Civil Law and Enforcement?

Okay.

Shall

2.1.01 to 2.1.05 inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.1.01 through 2.1.05 inclusive carried.

CHAIR:

We'll just take a 10 minute

break and be right back.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Thank you.

Recess

CHAIR:

Okay, we'll resume with Criminal Law,

CLERK:

2.2.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.2.01 carry?

Mr.

Davis.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, 2.2.01, under Salaries; a little bit of fluctuation, revised is a bit

lower than anticipated and the estimate for this year is a little higher. I

don't know if there was anything in particular causing that.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Sorry about that, Sir. Just

repeat that again.

thought Gerry was up.

MS. ROGERS:

I was.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, were you? I'm sorry.

thought Gerry ran out of time. I thought you used your time.

MS. ROGERS:

No, you did; you ran out of

time.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, okay.

I'll

just sit here and listen to you ask the questions.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can still answer that

question if you ask it.

MS. ROGERS:

Just ask it again.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Ask that one again.

MS. ROGERS:

Ask it hard.

MR. P. DAVIS:

No, go ahead, I'll follow.

You go ahead. (Inaudible) 40 seconds than in 10 minutes.

MS. ROGERS:

It's all right; you owe me.

The

Purchased Services, we can see the revised budget in '17-'18 that there was a

significant increase and now the budgeting for the estimate for '18-'19, if we

could know a little bit about what that is.

MS. MERCER:

We had a significant increase in our rent for our largest office, which is our

St. John's office. As well, I think there's some money in the estimate that's

captured under the federal cannabis dollars that my colleagues mentioned

earlier. I think that pretty much covers …

MS. ROGERS:

Jennifer, so for cannabis

dollars, or dollars for cannabis, what would that entail then – for what?

MS. MERCER:

Virginia can jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong, but we had a federal

allotment of money which we've parked, I think, in three places, with the

anticipation that we'll use it for various things with the cannabis ticketing,

cannabis prosecution.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

MS. MERCER:

Not under the CDSA because that's handled by the federal crown, but other

cannabis impaired-related things. Really, I think, as the minister said, it's a

bit of a guesstimate at this point what and how we'll use it, but that's I think

where we parked some of it. Virginia, if that's correct?

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Where

is that office in that place where the rent went up so much?

MS. MERCER:

It's in the same building as

the provincial courts so Atlantic Place, downtown.

MS. ROGERS:

So Atlantic Place.

The

rent increased significantly?

MS. MERCER:

Virginia, I'd ask you to

give me details, but yes is the short answer.

Yes, the rent did go up in

Atlantic Place. There was a new lease agreement signed this year. You will

notice that the rent is not actually in the budget right now. It's a bit of an

accounting exercise, so forgive me as I try to explain this one. All the rents

or all the leases have now been transferred over to the responsibility of

Transportation and Works.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

The budget for these items,

for next year, has moved to Transportation and Works. For comparative purposes,

budgeting has also moved over last year's budget or our 2017-18 budget over to

Transportation and Works so that you could compare the two years. What you'll

see here, the variance relates to the unbudgeted amount of rent that we had to

pay for Public Prosecutions office, so they only moved budget and this is the

extra piece.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, so the $252,400 does

not cover rent?

No.

MS. ROGERS:

But the $209,000 covered

rent.

Covered only that part of

the rent that was not budgeted.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

So then

that's a significant increase in an estimate then if the rent doesn't come under

there.

It also includes the

$100,000 that we have allocated to the criminal division related to cannabis.

The other dollars in Purchased Services there will relate to copiers. It will

relate to witness fees.

OFFICIAL:

Travel fees as well.

Travel fees for witnesses

may fall under there as well.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

So there are a number of

other items that will fall there, but the only place you'll see rent here is

under the projected, revised number and that was the unbudgeted amount because

the lease was not signed until into '17 and '18.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, thank you very much.

That

$100,000, though, has come from the federal government, has it?

That's correct. So the

province has to commit and allow for provincial expenditures. Then when the

money is spent, we can request reimbursement from the federal government. Part

of the $157,000 in revenue includes that $100,000 for cannabis.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, great. Thank you very

much.

We're

going to call that

section after we finish that section, is it? So I'll stop

then.

Thank

you very much.

Paul?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

So I'm

just trying to follow the Purchased Services. So it was $152,000; revised was

$209,000. And revised $209,000, as I understand you're saying, is because of

partial rent increase but now that's moved out of that – that's no longer under

that budget line anymore.

So now

it is $252,000, so we take $100,000 out of that is the cannabis funding. That

brings it back to $152,000 which is relatively what was budgeted for last year,

but now it doesn't include rent.

What

does it include? What's the difference – like if you take the rent out of

$152,000 and now this year you have it back to $152,000 without the rent.

MR. STANLEY:

I'm going to jump in while Virginia is going through the paper. The $152,000

from last year didn't include rent either.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh.

MR. STANLEY:

They have actually restated

last year's numbers. So if you go back and pull out last year's Estimates book –

actually if we got the paper, I think you may find that number was different

last year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Oh, I have it here.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DAVIS:

I heard that.

Oh, it was so. Last year it

was $557,000.

MR. STANLEY:

Right.

So in the budget numbers for

2017-18, this year when they produced the Estimates book they actually restated

the rent amounts throughout to provide comparatives.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

So you got a new lease, how

long is that lease for?

MR. STANLEY:

Yeah, we signed it for 10

years and that was about two rental years ago, so there's about eight years

left, I think.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Ten years –

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. STANLEY:

Okay, eight or nine years left, there was a bit of retroactivity when we signed

it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, so it's recently

signed but there's a bit of retroactivity back a couple of years.

I'm

just curious when you say there's a rental increase. I would have thought with

today's market and from what I understood from talking to people who are in the

business, in rental businesses, that there's not a big increase in commercial –

MR. STANLEY:

Well, when we were doing the negotiations for the rent that was an issue as to

the landlords for anything up to that kind of length of a rent were looking for

– this is utilities included rent or lease, amongst other things. So they're all

trying to price in the expected increases in electricity costs.

There's

some negotiation going on as to how we were going to do it. Whether we would

flatline the lease, the new lease amount, across the entire tenure or would we

have it on an escalating basis when we were doing it.

So I

think the lease we finally agreed upon had a fixed rental for the first year and

then the rental accelerated in the second year and then in the fifth or the

sixth year – we did it in sort of in stage. So we couldn't get a flatline lease

based on the same terms; they did want increases. And I think people are finding

across the province that there are people, for those kinds of rents, are pricing

in – if it's utilities in, you're pricing in the possible electricity increases.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

MR. STANLEY:

That was a commercial negotiation.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Even though I thought I

heard recently, or a few months ago, the Minister of Natural Resources make a

comment that commercial rates were going to stay within Atlantic average, but I

guess (inaudible).

MR. STANLEY:

Apparently the landlord didn't believe that we were negotiating the rent.

MR. A. PARSONS:

There's a bit of a

difference.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, fair enough.

Yeah.

So $557,000 down to $252,000, that would make sense then why that rental was

taken out. I think the question on the Federal Revenue was asked on $100,000.

That is for cannabis, but that still leaves about another $25,000 additional

amount in there, or $20,000.

MS. MERCER:

I can answer that.

Presently, we have a part-time flagging coordinator. Flagging is a program that

runs across the country with corrections and various prosecution services so

that there's an exchange of information dealing with high-risk and dangerous

offenders who are moving from province to province.

We're

federally funded, or we have been federally funded for a part-time position. Now

we've sought and gotten an increase to have a full-time flagging coordinator in

the province, and that's funded by the federal government.

MR. P. DAVIS:

What is that again?

MS. MERCER:

It's someone who coordinates with corrections and other prosecution services to

flag high-risk and dangerous offenders who might be moving from province to

province and throughout the country. So that if somebody's coming into

Newfoundland who has a serious criminal record, that person would be flagged and

that information is shared with us.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Again, is that –

MS. MERCER:

And likewise.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Is that like another example

of a federal service that's embedded, if I can use that, within your system and

they're paying you for that service within your own system?

MS. MERCER:

Practically, yes.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay. Thank you.

I think

that's all I have on that one.

CHAIR:

Okay, we're completed

Criminal Law.

Shall

2.2.01carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

Those against?

Carried.

motion, subhead 2.2.01 carried.

CHAIR:

We'll move on now to Other

Legal Services.

CLERK:

2.3.01 through 2.3.06

inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.3.01 to 2.3.06 carry?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Minister, I think it was in a –

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DAVIS:

Pardon?

MS. ROGERS:

Isn't democracy grand?

MR. P. DAVIS:

I thought it came back to my

turn and I wasn't finished with him.

MS. ROGERS:

No (inaudible). Well now they have, look at that.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, go ahead.

MS. ROGERS:

Go on.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I think you had a minute and

a half left.

MS. ROGERS:

We can see in Grants and

Subsidies that there's almost $200,000 less in the Estimates for '18-'19.

MR. STANLEY:

As part of everything that

was announced yesterday in the budget by Minister Osborne, government has been

doing both an attrition management plan as well as a discretionary core

operating reduction. That has been posed both on departments and has been

implemented on the required of ABCs. The reductions to Legal Aid's funding

budget are of $100,000 respective each actually, in respect of attrition and in

respect of core operating funding. Legal Aid has indicated –

MS. ROGERS:

Co-operating funding?

MR. STANLEY:

Core operating funding

sorry.

MS. ROGERS:

Oh, sorry. Okay.

MR. STANLEY:

Legal Aid has indicated to

us that they expect to be able to absorb these without a detrimental impact on

their current operations.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay. So even though the

choice of counsel now has been changed and that will be handled in-house. We do

know Legal Aid has had to turn away people that previously were eligible for

legal aid and that there is a bit of a waiting list and so they voluntarily felt

they could give up almost $200,000.

MR. STANLEY:

I'm not sure if I'd

characterize it if they were asked as being voluntary.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, yeah.

MR. STANLEY:

Just to be clear, the

changes that were implemented for choice of counsel has sort of a long tail to

them because there are existing certificates that still have to go through the

system –

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah, right.

MR. STANLEY:

– and will be expected to be

expended. Including, for example, for appeals of some of the convictions that

we've seen, some of those things are going to take a while to go ….

MS. ROGERS:

And that would come out of

the Legal Aid budget or is that outside?

MR. STANLEY:

If someone had his Legal Aid

certificate for their defence at trial, then the certificate would continue if

they filed an appeal. So the changes that were made in the legislation will have

a budgetary impact to Legal Aid –

MS. ROGERS:

Mm-hmm.

MR. STANLEY:

–but it's going to take a

year or two to get that through the Legal Aid system. They will still be paying

out for outside counsel on certificates that are already outstanding, and those

are going to have a bit of a distance to them or a bit of length to them, a

delay before we get to the point where the full effect of the savings we expect

to realize from the choice of counsel provision are realized in Legal Aid.

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah, I guess so. It's a

little bit of concern, though, if we see a reduction in the overall core funding

for Legal Aid when those issues are still outstanding.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes, the fact is Legal Aid

wholeheartedly support the choice of counsel, and the fact is they're going to

see more money in their budget. That's why they're actually expanding their

footprint. They're going to have more to do.

Everybody knows what we're dealing with, the type of fiscal situation, but Legal

Aid is quite confident that they're actually going to be able to continue to do

more. There are no positions being cut. They have to expand their footprint in

many ways. There are going to be more lawyers hired.

I'm

unaware of the things said earlier about people being turned away. I'm not aware

of that particular one, but we're always going to deal with the situation where

there are people around that threshold that feel – that want to be there. That

always has been there and probably always will be. I know it exists in every

single province.

Right

now, Legal Aid has told me they have no concerns about being able to handle the

caseload they have. In fact, the numbers went down over the last year. There was

a spike there, the numbers have gone down. The number of cases they will have to

take with this choice of counsel provision, the money that they'll retain within

their budget will be more than adequate to handle that.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Thank

you very much.

Commissions of Inquiry, that's the Muskrat Falls Commission of Inquiry. I have

no questions on that, my colleague may.

Other

Inquiries, $1 million estimated. That is being budgeted for?

MR. A. PARSONS:

That would be for the

inquiry into the children in care, the Innu Nation.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, the Innu Nation.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you.

The

Office of the Chief Medical Examiner; we all saw in the media some of the

problems that resulted in the report. There's a significant jump there in the

revised amount.

Can you

tell us a little bit about what happened there for that revision? Then it looks

like you've settled not that much beyond what the original budget was for

'18-'19.

With the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, we have recently changed our

contractual arrangement with the Chief Medical Examiner. Prior to this year, or

up until December of this year, we had a tripartite agreement with Dr. Avis and

with MUN, who employed him. So we were paying Dr. Avis for part time, so to

speak, and we were then paying MUN for part of his salary.

That

contractual arrangement has now terminated and the additional salary dollars

that we have spent out this year were in relation to closing out that particular

relationship, paying out any monies owed to him for vacation pay and so on.

We have

now entered into a contractual arrangement with Dr. Avis on a professional

services basis and you will see that the money for next year, a fair bit of it,

is parked into Professional Services and that is to pay Dr. Avis for his

full-time services with the department.

MS. ROGERS:

All right, thank you.

Then

the Human Rights Commission, we see a significant drop there in their overall

budget. Can you tell us why that might be?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I think the increase there

might have been – there was an increase in adjudication, more matters – they're

able to resolve a lot at the earlier stages, basically, through conflict

resolution methods, but there are certain matters that are still continuing to

go on, so the adjudication costs have gone up. You'll see that went from $18,000

to $32,000. That's not anticipated this year. You also see the Purchased

Services went up there significantly. I think that was due to a (inaudible).

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. A. PARSONS:

They had (inaudible) space

.They actually were over in the Beothuck Building and now they're over in the

Natural Resources Building.

MS. ROGERS:

Mm-hmm.

MR. A. PARSONS:

So there's no actual change

in their funding per se. There's been savings there that we've achieved by

moving them over there. They're quite happy with the move from what I gather,

but that's the only change there.

MS. ROGERS:

They've had some cuts over –

cumulative cuts – over the last few years. Do we know about if there's any

waiting lists or are there any backup on cases? How are they doing with their

additional mandate to do educational programs?

MR. A. PARSONS:

What I can tell you is that

I literally receive very few, maybe zero, complaints about wait lists. I've not

heard of any issues on that. I met with the board, I meet with Carey Majid quite

often.

there's a concern, it's not being brought to me and, generally, in this line of

work, no news is good news. So if we're not hearing any complaints – I think

their method of handling disputes has really improved in that they're trying to

handle more things at the earlier stages rather than when it gets tangly and

you're getting into the actual, more like a court situation.

Again,

I know they've been out on the West Coast. Rolf, do you have the numbers with

you?

MR. PRITCHARD:

We have been advised that they currently have 200 active complaints that they're

dealing with. There were actually 1,500 contacts made that, I guess, would be

distilled down into 200 complaints. Those are the broader numbers.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I know that their awards

program has generated a lot of attention over the last couple of years and

they've been trying their best to do some outreach. We've had some changes in

the board as well. Ramsay has been there for the last number of years and now

he's moved on. So just trying to get a –

MS. ROGERS:

Who is the chair of the

board? Has that been appointed yet?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I don't think we're –

MS. ROGERS:

Not yet.

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, we've had to go through

the IAC for that so there is no new chair. Right now, I think Kim Mackay is the

vice-chair and she's acting as the chair.

MS. ROGERS:

Yeah.

Thank

you.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'd like to go back to

2.3.02, Commissions of Inquiry. The budget announced $33.7 million for the

Muskrat Falls Inquiry. Justice LeBlanc issued a comment on that today, Minister.

I don't know if you've had a chance to see it or not. He says that what the

Commission actually submitted to government was significantly lower than $33.7

million that was stated in yesterday's provincial budget. That's what his

comment says today.

wonder if you could help us out with that.

MS. WRIGHT:

When the inquiry was announced, the Department of Justice worked with the

Commissioner to establish a budget. The model that we used – certainly we had

just come off from preparing for the Dunphy inquiry. So what we needed to do was

we had to build a budget, so that included we had to determine what the staff

would be and where the location would be.

When we

built in the budget, it came to approximately $20 million. That's everything.

They have 14 staff there right now that will accommodate also professional

services. So under the Public Inquiries

Act the Commissioner has the ability to engage his own staff. He can also go

out and seek experts that can audit, it can be assessments. So there's an amount

that we had to put in for Professional Services. We had to make sure that we

built in enough.

while the Commissioner might have – I think we worked with Virginia and the

Commissioner, it might have been $16 million or $17 million. We had to build in

a contingency because the Commissioner – this is not his forte. This is the

first time he's done an inquiry and we all worked together in trying to build a

budget that would be appropriate, that would also build in a contingency because

if there's not enough money then it would be the Department of Justice and

Public Safety that would be looked to, to absorb those cost overruns.

With

the zero-base budgeting and with core operating reductions, we don't have any

monies within our divisions that would be able to absorb any cost overruns for

the inquiry.

that's how we came to the $20 million amount. And, certainly, if it comes in

lower, that would be the best-case scenario. We hope that will happen. So that's

what –

MR. P. DAVIS:

So what's the other $13.7 million? Because –

MS. WRIGHT:

That's for next year.

What we

did to get the amount for next year – so this year it was $20.2 million and next

year it was $13 million. All we did was – the $20 million takes into account

that it's April 1, 2018 going to March 31.

would've looked at it to determine that some of the salaries would drop. They

won't need all of those salaries to continue because it's assumed that the

Commissioner, once the hearing phase is done, he'll be in the writing phase

towards the end of 2019. So he won't need the staff of 14 people. So the

salaries would've been reduced.

With

respect to some of the Purchased Services. Right now, we had to go into leased

space, so we have to prepare the hearing space. That's over in the Beothuck

Building. The hearing space is going to be on the third floor and the office

space is on the fifth floor. We had to buy certain items. For example, we've got

HMP building eight to 12 desks, I believe. I just want to get that for you.

HMP is

building the counsel desks; they're building eight to 10 counsel desks for the

counsel commission. They built the judge's dais. They built some rolling

bookcases for the judge's desk and also for standing counsel. So we've had to do

a lot of stuff to get that hearing space prepared.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes.

MS. WRIGHT:

But when we looked at 2019-20, we took our budget for 2018-19, applied it for

nine months, but we would've taken out some Salaries and some Purchased

Services, for example, because you don't need to buy new chairs in 2019-20. So

that's kind of how we built that budget.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Well, let me –

MS. WRIGHT:

So we don't intend – right now, when we build the budget, we have the ability in

the budget process for 2019-20 to revisit what the actual budget will be for the

Muskrat Falls Inquiry for year two. We won't really know until we kind of go

through this process this year to have an actual, more accurate figure for next

year.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So Judge LeBlanc also referenced government's own costs; costs for government to

participate in the inquiry. So we have the inquiry itself – when I read it –

MS. WRIGHT:

Mm-hmm.

MR. P. DAVIS:

– to be honest with you, when I read $33.7 million, I read it to be that's what

the cost is going to be for what's happening under Judge LeBlanc's umbrella. And

I think that's the way a lot of people took it.

So what

I understand is that he asked for a lot less than that, is what he's saying. So

are you –

MS. WRIGHT:

That's correct.

So if

you look at the line items, we only have Commissions of Inquiry, which is

Part I

under the Public Inquiries Act , and

then we have Other Inquiries, which is

Part II.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Uh-huh.

MS. WRIGHT:

So we also have the missing

and murdered inquiry that is going on. Certainly, they were here already, but

there are still more institutional hearings; I think there are other things that

are coming forward. This also includes – there's an amount in the Salaries for

government's – we have our own; we'll have a lawyer on behalf of government who

will appear –

MR. P. DAVIS:

So this is under Other now

that you're talking about?

MS. WRIGHT:

Pardon?

MR. P. DAVIS:

Is the missing and murdered

under –?

MS. WRIGHT:

No, the missing and murdered

is going to be the $3 million. There's an additional $3 million. In that $23

million, $20 million is earmarked for Muskrat Falls –

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

MS. WRIGHT:

– and $3 million is

earmarked for government participation costs for missing and murdered and also

the Innu inquiry.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, let me put it this

way. Can you give me a breakdown of what the $33.7 million is?

MS. WRIGHT:

Yes, I can.

The

$33.7 million is $20 million for 2018-19 for Muskrat Falls.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

MS. WRIGHT:

And $13 million for 2019-20.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, but does that include

funding then for the missing and murdered – is that included in that as well?

MS. WRIGHT:

No. So if you look at

2.3.02, you will see Amount to be Voted is $23,268,300.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yes.

MS. WRIGHT:

Twenty million of that is

for Muskrat Falls; $3 million is for government participation costs for missing

and murdered, and for Innu. Again, that's just a lump sum figure. It's hard for

the department to put any cost on it because we're not aware, really, what's

expected of us. So it's just earmarked in that account because it's Commissions

of Inquiry.

We only

have the two line items, you'll notice: Commissions of Inquiry – we weren't able

to break it down to actually highlight Muskrat Falls, Innu, missing and

murdered. We weren't able to break it down. All the money has to go in under

Commissions of Inquiry or Other Inquiries.

It's

based upon how the Public Inquiries Act

is set out.

Part I is Commissions of Inquiry;

Part II is Other Inquiries.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

Justice LeBlanc said that the budget that the commission submitted to the

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for '18-'19 and '19-'20 was

significantly lower than the $33.7 million. So what was it that he submitted?

MS. WRIGHT:

We worked with Justice

LeBlanc. The budget submitted, we worked with numbers – I mean, his numbers

might have been around $16 million, $17 million, but we only work for one year.

We didn't budget for 2019-20 with Justice LeBlanc.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay, and I'll just quote

from what he says.

MS. WRIGHT:

That's why he would say it

was significantly lower. That is just the number applied by the Department of

Justice and Public Safety to just get a ballpark figure of how much it would

cost for the remaining – because it's a 24-month mandate for the Muskrat Falls

inquiry, we had to kind of ballpark what it would be for the remaining months in

MR. P. DAVIS:

My time is almost up, so let

me just quote what he says and then maybe you can tell me where this is wrong

then.

“The

budget that the Commission submitted to the Government of Newfoundland and

Labrador ('Government') for Fiscal Years 2018/19 and 2019/20 was significantly

lower than the $33.7 million that was stated in yesterday's Provincial budget.”

question to you is: What is it that he submitted that he's referring to there?

MS. WRIGHT:

Approximately $16 million or $17 million for 2018-19.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Uh-huh.

MS. WRIGHT:

And an additional $9 million

or $10 million for year two, for a total of approximately $25 million.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

So the

rest of it would be contingencies and government's cost to participate?

MS. WRIGHT:

The $3 million that we would have added in. In addition, it would be $471,000

that the Department of Justice has earmarked for its own counsel to appear

before the inquiry, as well as –

MR. P. DAVIS:

How much was that, sorry?

MS. WRIGHT:

Pardon?

MR. P. DAVIS:

How much was that.

MS. WRIGHT:

Within that $20 million,

it's $471,000.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So that would be in-house

counsel or would that be contracted?

MS. WRIGHT:

In-house counsel. And that would include staff to help assist with some filing,

writing briefs, et cetera, just like a normal practice for other solicitors

within the department.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

My time

is up and I'm sure Ms. –

MS. ROGERS:

No, you go ahead. I am

finished with that section.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Okay.

The

Other Inquiries, 2.3.03, there's $1 million to be voted on there. There are

Salaries, Transportation, Professional Services and so on. So what does that one

cover?

MR. A. PARSONS:

I can jump in here.

At this

point, given the fact that we're so early in it, it's a bit different than the

other one in the sense that there are three parties who are working with the

feds as well as the Innu Nation. In many cases, it's a placeholder. Right now,

there was an MOU signed, but there's been not a lot of progress on the federal

end to see where this is going to go.

In many

ways, it's the same as every other year leading up to this. I remember a lot of

years I asked – there was a placeholder amount always put in for Commissions of

Inquiry. I think it was $100,000 but, in most cases, it was never spent.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Uh-huh.

MR. A. PARSONS:

In this case, we have $1

million there which we anticipate – if the inquiry gets off the ground – we will

be able to cover off those costs. But the fact remains that we're still very

early on in that stage.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I apologize for the

confusion. I'm just trying to follow this.

The $3

million referenced earlier on missing and murdered and Innu, I thought was under

2.3.02.

MR. STANLEY:

The amount of money under 2.3.03 is actually the amount that would be the

Commissions of Inquiry's costs for the Innu inquiry if it goes forward. So this

would be what we would call – the term I use is – the bench and behind-the-bench

cost. So this would be what would be used to set up the inquiry, the back-office

stuff, similarly with, basically, the $20 million that we're spending this year

to give for the inquiry costs for Muskrat.

The

heading up above, 2.3.02, we've included an amount in there of $3 million. That

is a combined amount that we're just putting in as a contingency to cover off

our appearances in front of and dealing with both the missing and murdered

indigenous women and girls inquiry and possibly the Innu inquiry.

Because

we're assuming that if both of those inquiries get going at the same time – I

mean the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry has been, one

can best characteristically describe it has bit of a stutter step to get

rolling. But we expect if that inquiry is going and the Innu inquiry is going at

the same time, we are probably going to establish one office to try to deal with

both, because there's going to be significant overlap as to the materials and

the information that's going to be required in the processes.

So the

money for our participation in the Innu inquiry is actually booked up above,

despite the fact that the money for running the Innu inquiry is booked down

below.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Just a comment before we

just move ahead, just kind of a sidebar matter here.

We've

probably got 35 minutes left on the clock, if you don't include the break time

that we had. And I've got some questions that I want to focus on that is towards

the end of the Estimates in Corrections and in policing.

So,

Minister, I just throw it out to you because I like to get to those. So if we're

coming to a point that we're not going to have time to get to all of it, you

could probably signal that maybe we should go to them or – I'm just giving you a

heads-up that if you're about to say, that's it we're done, give me a heads-up

so if we possibly can move over those.

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, I will not give you a

heads-up; I'm just cutting it off.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah.

MR. A. PARSONS:

No. Fair ball, I get it.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Yeah, all right.

Thanks.

Gerry.

MS. ROGERS:

Paul, I went as far as Human

Rights as well. Did you want to do that?

MR. P. DAVIS:

(Inaudible.) I'm good there.

MS. ROGERS:

You're good there. Okay.

MR. P. DAVIS:

I'm good there. I'm

cognizant of the time.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay, yeah.

I have

a question of the Office of the Public Trustee. We see a significant revised

amount there from '17-'18.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Oh, that's –

MS. ROGERS:

It's 2.3.06.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I'm not saying anything.

MS. ROGERS:

Under Salaries.

MR. STANLEY:

Do you mean in Salaries –

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. STANLEY:

– or in Revenue?

MS. ROGERS:

Yes, Salaries.

MR. STANLEY:

That would be an amount that

was inserted.

That's

an amount that was put in to right-size our salary budget. I think if you review

the Estimates from last year, there was a comment made –

MS. ROGERS:

A (inaudible).

MR. STANLEY:

You said it, yes.

MS. ROGERS:

Okay.

Thank

you very much.

And

just, the huge difference in Provincial Revenue.

MS. A. PARSONS:

I can jump on that.

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Basically, that office is

running really well under John Goodland and staff. Plus, there's some historical

legacy monies that have been received from the States, but they've gone up quite

a bit. Some of the older files managed to be settled. He's gone back – you'll

see this year it's $800,000. I would love to see that number, we would all love

to see that number approach that again, but that's sort of being safe there.

MS. ROGERS:

That's revenue that's held in trust, is it? It's not actual revenue that's

available to us?

MR. STANLEY:

No, that's actually revenue

to the province under the way that the public trustee works. The public trustee

is actually funds held in trust for various estates can approach $30 million or

$40 million at a time. I'm just checking, someone will correct me if I got that

wrong.

This is

actually revenue that the public trustee enjoys, either from the 8 per cent that

we now charge on the administration of estates, or on old estates the act

provides under the Public Trustee Act .

I think it's after 10 years if an estate – monies are available there and they

had not been claimed, they can come to consolidated revenue –

MS. ROGERS:

Yes.

MR. STANLEY:

– with the flag that if we eventually have to pay it out, we got to put it back

in. Yes.

So what

John Goodland has been doing – they've also got a new computer system in the

last couple of years. They're basically reprocessing all their old files to get

the situation cleared up. You'll see that we've sort of flat lined his revenue.

It's far above that in a particular year, like last year, but we can't count on

that. That's why we're not booking $1.7 million in revenue next year because

he's actually processing the files but that's sort of a blip in the revenue

curve that we're expecting from operations.

MS. ROGERS:

I'm good for this section.

MR. LANE:

Well, I'm going to say it's quite – I kind of already asked about it, Minister,

but seeing as how we're on it, I can't let it go by without at least going there

again one quick last time.

On the

inquiry, the Muskrat Falls inquiry, I just want – again, just total

clarification on my part. You might have been clear but I want total

clarification on my part.

concern I have with the inquiry, a concern a lot of citizens have with the

inquiry, that I've talked to at least, is they have a fear that this inquiry is

going to occur, it's all going to be about lessons learned, where to from here,

and there will be no accountability to anybody who may or may not have either

been negligent, incompetent and/or involved in anything that would be considered

against the law.

You're

saying there are no resources here totally dedicated to – do it be people

involved with th

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	2018-03-28
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_socialservices_ga48_2018-03-28sscdepartmentofjusticeandpublicsafety.html
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	3a616cd016f65dd1a78428140975435c09cb796f

Source file is stored in the law ingest library (html).