May 5, 1992

SOCIAL SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE - EDUCATION

Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Mr. Douglas Oldford,

MHA (Trinity North) substitutes for Mr. John Efford, MHA (Port de Grave).

The Committee met in the House of Assembly at 7:00

p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Noel): I am Walter Noel, Chairman

of the Committee and with us tonight we have Ms. Lynn Verge, the Member for

Humber East who is Vice-Chair; Mr. Bill Ramsay, LaPoile, and Mr. Doug Oldford,

who is filling in for Mr. John Efford, who is unable to be with us tonight. I

have a letter here somewhere for Mr. Oldford. Mr. Jim Walsh, the Member for

Mount Scio - Bell Island and Mr. Garfield Warren, the Member for Torngat

Mountains who is a member of the Committee and Mr. Loyola Hearn, the Member for

St. Mary's - The Capes. Mr. Hearn is a guest of the Committee I guess, as a way

to describe it. He will be free to ask questions if anybody has any objections,

but he would not have a vote if we get into any votes. The other member of the

Committee is Jack Harris, who is the Member for St. John's East, who might well

appear during the evening.

The way we proceed is with a maximum fifteen minute

presentation by the minister, and a similar amount of time to respond by the

first speaker for the opposition and then we try to go in ten minute segments

including both questions and answers, and we go on as long as there are any

questions to be asked.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I do not think.

AN HON. MEMBER: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I do not think there is anything

else to add, is there? We do need to pass the minutes of last night's meeting if

you would.

On motion, Minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Mr. Minister, if you would

like to introduce the people with you and let us have the benefit of your views,

please.

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Chairperson and

committee members, and my friend, Mr. Hearn, who is my member, as I have a

residence in his district, so I am pleased to see him here in that capacity.

Chairperson, sitting on the left is Cyril

McCormick, deputy minister; on my immediate right is Bob Smart, assistant deputy

minister and to the left, Frank Marsh, assistant deputy minister and Dr. Edna

Turpin-Downey, to my right and the back, and with your permission I would like

to introduce Wayne Comeau, who is my executive assistant; and Angela McCarthy,

who is a Co-op student, an outstanding student I might add, I would like to say

that and I told her if she really wanted to see democracy in action, come to

this meeting. She is from Gonzaga and comes in to the House, I think, so many

afternoons a week. I said this is a model of democracy; I know how this

committee operates and -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: She is doing the Law course?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: The Law Co-op course, so we are

pleased to have her sit-in and listen and enjoy the proceedings. Chairperson, I

put together some notes on things that I might say in an introductory statement,

but I think my preference tonight is to open up with questions. I have a long

list of things that I think are highlights of this year's estimates and perhaps

they will come out in the - I think that last year every thing I covered in the

introductory statement came out in the questions, and at the end, if you will

give me a few minutes, I will probably highlight two or three things if they are

not introduced in the questioning, so my preference tonight is to get right into

the discussion of the estimates.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

I have just had a note advising that Mr. Harris is

ill and will not be attending this evening.

Who wishes to open -

MS. VERGE: I propose that Mr. Hearn, our

visitor, lead off. He is the official opposition education critic.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hearn.

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

and members of the committee. It is certainly a pleasure to be here and as the

minister said, I believe the committee is the prime example of democracy in

action because if anybody comes to the House I am not 100 per cent sure whether

you would appreciate the kind of democracy that goes on there, even though you

look beyond perhaps what is obvious to maybe what is not so obvious - the real

workings of the House - to see that the parliamentary system is at work and the

democratic system is at work; but it is pretty hard to find it sometimes, and

you wonder how serious people are.

At the committee level I find, whatever the

committee might be, I have had the opportunity to travel around on different

committees where you have small numbers concentrating on a certain topic and

being very serious about it. You do get the flow back and forth, and you get the

participation levels, and then you get discussions and you see the power plays

and everything else that make up our democratic system. In the end you usually

see, as in all democracies, that the majority wins, which makes you wonder

sometimes why you bother at all.

Anyway, with that said, I should allude to the

fact, I suppose, that the minister is a constituent of mine, or at least a

partial constituent. I do not think he has voting rights yet. It would be

interesting if he had, because there are polls in that area I win by a shutout,

and it would be interesting to see if it changed. It would be embarrassing if I

did, maybe.

On more serious matters, in the present year's

budget for the department, there are a couple of glaring concerns that I have.

Maybe another concern that has arisen in recent days is as a result of what is

shown or not shown in the budget. Perhaps we will get into this because it is

fresher first, and that is the recent decision by the University Senate to raise

entrance requirements to a 70 percent. I questioned the minister on it yesterday

and he seemed to be concerned about the implications also. I have no problem

with trying to raise our standards of education in the Province - absolutely no

doubt about it; but I am not sure whether we are going to raise educational

standards by raising entrance requirements that block certain people from

entering post-secondary institutions whereby they increase their educational

standards. I think this is what might be happening here. I am wondering about

the real reason.

We can say that the standards of entrance in other

provinces are higher than ours and we must try to compete because some of our

students, thinking that we might not be a top-notch university, will opt to go

to others that have higher entrance standards and what have you. That is all

well and good, but what we also have to remember is something that none of us

are proud of, the fact that our level of education in the Province, the number

of those who hold university degrees, the number of those who have attended

post-secondary, the number of those who have a high school education, etcetera,

would be below, I guess, every other province in Canada, or certainly most.

I am not using that as an excuse, because for years

I have argued that it is not perhaps our educational system that has really

determined our standard, when I hear figures of 40 per cent or 50 per cent - I

even heard today somebody mention 60 per cent of our people are illiterate. I

dispute that, and I have always disputed it in the fact that when a lot of

people talk about illiterate it is as if we are know-nothings. If we have a

large

section of the population of our Province who have not had the opportunity

to obtain a Grade IX or Grade X education, it is not necessarily because we have

had a poor education system per se. If we look into the history and geography of

how Newfoundland was developed in comparison to the more newly settled

provinces, there is some difference in what we had to face in our development

and settlement and the delivery of education programs than take for instance

Alberta, where people only moved there a short time ago in comparison to

Newfoundland. We look at the geography that we have, and when we realize the

total lack of communications; our transportation systems over the years; the

delivery systems that we had to use, or which we did not have at all, can

certainly explain - and of course the other thing, the isolation, where people

only saw what went on in the area and were quite happy with it. If your father

fished so did you fish. Whether you had Grade I or Grade X or no grade, it did

not make any difference. If you knew how to cut bait and bait a trawl and use

the jigger, I mean, that was the name of the game. If you could bake bread and

knit sweaters as a woman, I'm not trying to demean anybody, that was a way of

life. Maybe it was a lot better way of life than we have at present.

Education was not of any great importance as such.

Then it became important. Even in those days education was important, yes, but

maybe not formal schooling. Eventually it changed but it took a long time and

our communication systems - it is only in very recent years that we have had

ready access to many parts of this Province. Even today it is pretty hard to

deliver proper education in some of our areas, as everyone knows. That easily

explains why a lot of people did not get a high school education.

Because of that we are still, I guess, on the

average behind a lot of the country. There is one way to bring up our average,

and that is to give as many people as possible the opportunity to get as much

education as possible. I always say I am never worried about how good a person

is coming into a program; it is how good the person is going out that makes the

difference. That could be from the minor hockey team - and I always use the

example of the time I was coaching a senior all-star team, and this young fellow

tried out, and several were cut and he wasn't. Everybody was saying: how come

you kept this young fellow? Simply because he came and he worked hard, he was

dedicated, he did everything he was told, and he had the right attitude. Even

though several supposedly all-stars were dropped and he was kept, and, you know,

people questioned it, at the final series at the end of the year, and in fact it

was the all Newfoundland playoff, the Most Valuable Player on the team, or in

the tournament, was that young fellow. Simply because he did not have the

wherewithal perhaps coming in, but he had everything it took to develop.

We have many people, especially in the rural areas

of this Province, who might find it very hard in the circumstances in which they

go to school to come up with a 70 per cent average. But given a chance they

might go from there. I have real concerns that we might be moving too far too

fast.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: So that is one of the topics that I

think we should talk about.

A couple of others, quickly, I only have ten or

fifteen minutes, most of which is gone.

MS. VERGE: I think the member should share with

the whole Committee what the member for (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Yes, I will. The member says: I know

you are retiring in June. That is not factual. I did not say anything about

retiring at all. I hope you ask the question before that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: The question is, I guess: does the

minister have that same concern and are we maybe moving too far too fast, or

does he think that we have reached the level now whereby 70 per cent is not

going to inhibit anybody? Because even some university education, it is shown,

shows that people who have any university education or trade school or whatever

have better chances in the employment rolls than people who have none. So even

if somebody gets in there for a while and maybe even can't make it, he or she is

better off than shutting the door and not letting anybody in. Or is it because

we have to find a way to cut down on enrolments to fit our budget and this is

the easiest way to do it? That is a major concern that we have.

Board funding is certainly a big concern. Despite

all the assurance the minister has given, boards are still saying they are in

desperate need of funding. I think the present setup of wiping out the school

tax on one hand and putting in a mechanism that really rips off the people on

the other hasn't done anything at all to help the average person and hasn't done

anything to help boards. Certainly that is something I think now, as we have

seen it unfold, he should comment on.

A number of headings in the minister's Department

show the salary vote is down. Does it mean more layoffs? We have some real

problems in the field now with lack of proper liaison and follow up and new

programs, the development of new programs, etcetera, and are things going to get

progressively worse?

So these are just a few of the things, the major

things. There are specific questions which we can ask later on, but certainly I

would be interested in the minister a little later on when he speaks covering

some of these.

DR. WARREN: Thank you. Do you recognize me or

do I just carry on?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I recognize you, Mr.

Minister, to respond to the member.

DR. WARREN: I will take two or three minutes to

respond to the members concern because I share these concerns and have for a

long time. I was part of the university in my former life, and I believed in a

relatively open door policy for admission, and supported for years providing

everybody with an opportunity. As a university professor I didn't focus on the

admission requirements as much as perhaps I would at the present time. But I

think things have changed in this Province and I think it is not just a matter

of saving money, or it is not just to keep up with other provinces. We know that

Memorial has had a relatively low admission requirement, in fact, as I said in

the House the other day, it has the lowest of the forty-six universities studied

in the Maclean's magazine study.

I think the reasons are more than that, certainly

one being the good use of resources. When you have limited resources it is

important to make effective use of these limited resources the best you can.

That is a concern at the university. I don't think they are trying to cap

enrolments or keep people out. I think they found that there are a large number

of students who were admitted in the past who had little chance of successfully

benefitting from their university education. They did three major studies, and I

don't have all of the studies. I read the major thesis that was done by a person

named Wilson, but they had two other studies done, and the chances of

successfully completing a program - and this is for the general, we are not

talking about the business school - we are talking here about admission

requirements for the general arts and science degrees. I think they found that

one in seven, only, completed the program in a reasonable period of time. Now

maybe you say that one who completed should be given that chance, but that is

not a very effective use of resources. Perhaps there are other ways of helping

that one. Beefing up the high school program as we are doing, building on the

past, providing opportunities for mature students to get in, making sure the

colleges have programs in them so the students who want to increase their grades

to meet the new average have every opportunity to do it, perhaps closer to home

and not having to come to university and fail for a number of years.

So I think the studies they had done demonstrated

that too many students were being admitted who had little reasonable chance of

benefiting from the university experience. These studies concluded that it was

good for the student because the increased entrance requirements might result in

a student applying himself or herself a little bit more. The studies indicated

that it might be good for high school students because they would then seek a

higher level of excellence. It is certainly good for the university in that you

are applying your limited resources more effectively, and there are some who

will say that it is good for the Province because we need to promote excellence

in all our educational institutions, and by raising it to 70 per cent you are

enhancing excellence.

So the short answer is that today I think it is not

an unreasonable position for the university to take. The university has that

authority. I will, however, monitor it as a minister. The department will

monitor what is happening. We will be communicating with the university formally

in the next few days asking them to provide us with the data that they had which

looked at the effects of the proposed regulations on rural and urban students. I

would like to know the possible impact on students in small schools and large

schools, and I would like to look at the effect on certain groups with certain

social economic backgrounds. I want to monitor that. The university has done a

report which says that this regulation will not differentially - I think is the

word they used - affect urban and rural. In many rural parts of Newfoundland

right now the students are achieving the 70 per cent and will not be

discriminated against. It doesn't discriminate on the basis of social economic

background or on male or female students. But I, as minister, and the department

will be writing the university and asking for further information. It is not to

be introduced until, I think 1993, and we will be asking the university to

monitor it because I share some of the members concerns.

Now I will try to be brief on the other two issues

that he raises, Chairperson, because I know there are other questions on board

funding. Yes, some boards are experiencing some problems at the present time. We

have tried to monitor the cash flow problems of school boards. There are some

parts of the Province where the school tax revenues are up to 15 per cent below,

someone told me today 17 per cent in one case below what was anticipated, what

could have been raised this year. In other parts of the Province, I was in

Dover, Bonavista Bay on Friday night and sat next to the superintendent of the

Nova Consolidated School Board and he said their collections are right on. I

gather the collections are down in certain areas of the Province where they are

having tremendous economic problems in the fishery and with unemployment, and

they would have been down anyway. But I want to assure the member that I have

told the school boards what we will do, we will guarantee the boards that they

will receive, between January and June 30, the monies that they would have

received, every one of them, from the school tax.

We are looking at the options. Perhaps I should say

one other thing, that we will be in a position within a few days, I won't say

two or three days, but perhaps in the next few days of announcing the next step

in what we are going to do to ensure that we collect the monies. If these monies

are not forthcoming before the end of June, the government will provide the

additional funds for school boards so that they will receive between January and

June 30 all the monies they would have received from the school tax, and then of

course July 1 we will start the new grants system which puts $1 million a month

more into the operation and maintenance of schools for the nine months, or $9

million for this year and $12 million for the school year.

On the liaison, perhaps I will leave that one until

later. You may want to be a little more specific. I don't want to take too much

time because I am looking forward to other questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Minister. Who would

like to have the next round? Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: I have lots of questions here. I

will ask them fairly briefly so I can get a lot into my short time. Would the

minister tell the committee when he will be releasing the report of the Royal

Commission on Education? Will he tell us his intentions for the government's

response at the same time that he releases the report to the public bearing in

mind that he has had it now for a bit more than a month? Will he at the same

time table the government's response to any of the recommendations? Will he

announce a deadline for responses? Will he indicate whether the government

intends to act on any of the recommendations before the next election?

DR. WARREN: That is five. I have been counting

the questions.

MS. VERGE: Okay, I will pause now.

DR. WARREN: I don't know if I can remember all

five questions. Five or six copies of the report have been in the hands of

government for about a month. The printing, I understand, of the main volume is

just about done. We are moving to get the printing done on an executive

summary,

and I am rather pleased to add that I have decided to have a number of copies of

the executive

summary translated so that we will have a French language version

of the executive

summary to release at the same time. My expectation is that all

of it will be done - the printing of the

summary and the translation - and we

will be ready within the next two to three weeks to release the report.

As to what the minister or the department will be

doing, we will announce at that point in time precisely how we are going to

handle the report. The government will not consider and arrive at any position

on the report. We want to get the report out early. The member has been anxious

to get other reports out. We want to get this report at the earliest possible

time.

MS. VERGE: I think you have already missed

that. Early would have been April 1. This is May 5 now.

DR. WARREN: We have to do printing. The member

must realize that. I have five copies of the report. I have the key. I have one

of them locked in my office and I carry another key with me. It takes a few

weeks to get the printing done, to get the translation done. I guess you would

support that.

MS. VERGE: That is a good stalling tactic. It

is original. I will give the minister credit for that. The government did not

try that for any of the other reports that have been delayed.

DR. WARREN: I could refer to reports the member

held back, but I don't want to get down to that level tonight. We are moving, I

can assure the member, and I have no reason not to be perfectly straightforward

with the member. As soon as the printing and the summaries are done, and the

translation is done, we will release the report. This is our intention, and we

have no reason not to.

Having said that, we will announce at that point in

time precisely how we will handle the recommendations; whether or not there will

be a period for official reactions. All of these details will be announced in

due course. I am anxious to get that out to the public. In fact, I have been

anxious to get the report out because it is late in the school year and I would

like to get it out before things start to clue up in the educational system. We

are printing a substantial number of copies, and copies will be made available

widely throughout the Province. We will get the discussion going as quickly as

possible.

MS. VERGE: I pointed out before that the Wells'

administration for the past three years has consistently delayed the release of

major reports. I would predict this will be released just after the House of

Assembly closes for the summer and just as the school boards and schools are

winding down for the year.

DR. WARREN: Would you take me out to dinner if

you are wrong?

MS. VERGE: Yes I will.

DR. WARREN: Thank you.

MS. VERGE: I would be glad to do that.

DR. WARREN: It's a deal.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

Now, an important part of the mandate of The Royal

Commission had to do with education administration - the administration of the

primary, elementary, high schools. It is generally expected that The Royal

Commission will recommend a major reduction in the number of school boards, a

major consolidation of boards, and of course we have been trending that way for

quite a while with declining enrolments and so on.

To what number does the minister think we can

realistically reduce? Would the minister see us feasibly reducing the number of

school boards to five, consistent with what the government has done with

Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador; consistent with the Budget Speech

announcement for consolidation of hospital boards; consistent with what the

minister himself did with community college boards? Would five be a number to

aim for for school boards?

DR. WARREN: Chairperson, the commission was

asked to look at the organization, administration of education; to look at a

number of very important issues. As a minister I am not in a position to say

what would be the ideal number. If I were here perhaps in my former capacity, in

my former life, I could give the view, but I am not going to get into it today

as to what the commission might recommend or what the commission should

recommend. The hon. member can surely wait another two or three weeks then she

will find out what the commission recommends and she can then make her own

comments on what is appropriate. It would be inappropriate for me to speculate

about the number of school districts. We have put in place an outstanding

Commission of Inquiry, three outstanding persons, and it would be inappropriate

and perhaps very undesirable for me to speculate about what they should

recommend.

MS. VERGE: The Budget estimates we have before

us give a global amount for community colleges and institutes. Would the

minister table for the committee an itemization of the allocations for each

institution with the figures for original estimates and revised estimates for

last year?

DR. WARREN: We have been handling the

post-secondary system in a number of ways. Perhaps as the Minister of Elementary

and Secondary she may not be aware that what we do is have a global budget -

MS. VERGE: I was the minister for

post-secondary.

DR. WARREN: Post-secondary, were you? Well, not

since the colleges - were you?

MS. VERGE: No. We were studying it at the time.

The Bay St. George Community College, the College of Trades and Technology and

the Fisheries College existed at that time.

DR. WARREN: Let me inform her that things have

changed since she was a minister. The global budgeting approach is used in the

post-secondary college system. We sit down with the colleges and develop a

budget and we are in the process of doing that.

MS. VERGE: When will you finalize the

allocations for each of the community colleges and institutes?

DR. WARREN: Two to three weeks.

MS. VERGE: That seems to be the magic date for

decisions in education. Okay. The CTBS scores. Why were the most recent CTBS

scores for the non-educators and those who have not had the pleasure of working

in the Department of Education not released? That is an acronym for a Canadian

test of basic skills which for the last many years has been administered to

students in our Province I think at Grades 4, 8, ll, and Grade 12 levels. I

understand the most recent CTBS scores for our Province have not been made

public. Would the minister now make them public?

DR. WARREN: We have the report printed and a

news release with the report will be going out I would think within two or three

days.

MS. VERGE: Not two or three weeks?

DR. WARREN: Not two or three weeks but within

two or three days. In fact the member may have it on her desk. Today, I think,

we asked that copies of this report be sent to the members of the House and then

we will release it to the public.

MS. VERGE: No, I do not have it.

DR. WARREN: We have Profile 91 which has just

come off the press in the last few days and we are distributing it to members of

the House of Assembly.

MS. VERGE: Rather than tantalize us, since the

minister thinks it is in the mail, I wonder if the minister would give the

committee tonight the most recent CTBS scores?

DR. WARREN: I would prefer to wait until we

give them to members of the House of Assembly and release them to the public.

Some of these are available if she wants a briefing on the individual scores.

MS. VERGE: I would like the minister to table

for the committee in a way that does not consume too much of our short time - on

paper - the most recent CTBS scores for students in our Province.

DR. WARREN: You want me to table them now?

MS. VERGE: Yes. If you do not have it at your

fingertips I would certainly understand but usually in these committees -

DR. WARREN: I have the general trends and the

developments. I think I could perhaps recall for you, or perhaps Dr.

Turpin-Downey would be a more logical person to give you a

summary of the

findings. It is my recollection, and I read the findings some time ago, that in

certain areas there are fluctuations over the years. In certain areas we are a

little up and in certain areas we are a little down. Across the country the CTBS

scores are used in several provinces, not all provinces any more, some of them

are judged to be inappropriate. In the area of math for example I think we are

down a little as we are across the country. Math programs are changing. I think

the member recalls the introduction of a new math program some five or six years

ago. We have some problems with the math and I think the CTBS scores this year

are down a bit, and we are beginning to analyze. We have a couple of experts in

the area of math in our Department. Dr. Fagan is doing an analysis. We have, I

think, some problems in the area of mathematics, and we are looking at the

two or three areas we are up. I could get the information but perhaps Dr.

Turpin-Downey would do that.

MS. VERGE: No. We have a very short period of

time to ask questions. All I would like the minister to do is to table a written

summary of the CTBS scores. The way they have always been made public in the

past.

DR. WARREN: I will table the full report. That

compares with other years. This full report, in the next day or so, yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: I would like to distribute it to

members of the House first.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

DR. WARREN: I would prefer to do it in a

(Inaudible) - I think the hon. member who was the Minister of Education had a

news release with the last one when he was the minister, and we do it through a

news release, after we have distributed it to members. I do not think anybody

has this report yet, neither side of the House. I was going to do it through the

normal process.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Okay.

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

Ms. Verge. We are through that ten minutes. Are there any other members who

would like to ask some questions? Are you indicating, Mr. Ramsay?

MR. RAMSAY: Yes. I have a number of things.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Ramsay.

MR. RAMSAY: Mr. Minister, I note the

achievements and challenges document that your Department has prepared. When I'm

going through that document with reference to the overall initiatives in

education, I wonder about the process of reporting on the effectiveness of the

various initiatives that are implemented. What type of analysis is done of your

initiatives that you have undertaken with changes to the various programs? An

example being, I suppose, the recent announcement of changes to the economic

aspects of secondary education. I just wonder about what has been set up in the

way of an analysis process following that implementation this September. The

economic education would be I guess increased number of credit requirements in

economic oriented course material for high school students. Likewise, the

changes in maths and sciences.

As we approach the future I suppose it seems that

we are going to have to adapt the educational requirements of students to effect

the necessary changes so they can deal in the so-called global economy. The

of course, is the effectiveness reporting, or the way of determining just how,

other than through test results. Like what we were just discussing through the

Vice-Chair. Departmentally, how these are analyzed and I guess that would apply

to any of the initiatives that have been noted in this document that you have

prepared.

Another thing that I note in here. The changes of

public examinations from provincially administered to locally administered

exams, and the question of how that initiative has affected, I suppose, the

overall performance of students, as to whether there is any variation in the

level of achievement of students, or the testing and the quality of testing. I

note there is some explanation there of data and the way data is handled with

respect to that, and the methods of analyzing the quality of this testing.

I think as we go forward into the future the idea

that we have of creating a national educational test, so that there becomes a

Canadian standard, is something worthy of note and I wonder what the

government's position on this is, if you could comment on that. I will just

leave it at that now, Mr. Minister.

DR. WARREN: The report that the member is

mentioning is a report that was stimulated by a question in the House of

Assembly last year, when we were talking about achievements and challenges in

education. The department put together a

summary of some of the achievements and

challenges from 1989-1992.

I guess what we were saying is that even though a

Commission of Inquiry is in place we did not stop everything. One of the

criticisms of Royal Commissions in the past has been, that when you set up a

Commission of Inquiry you put everything on hold, but we did not and I am

delighted with the number of initiatives the department has taken in the past

two or three years while this commission is studying. Now our expectation was

that what we did would be consistent with many other recommendations of the

commission, but we undertook major changes in education, math, science and

technology for example. I could list them and I think these are basic. We

reviewed these in this report.

One of the most exciting things that we have done

as a department - and yesterday I met with some students going to the mainland

in Enterprise Education exchanges - one of the most exciting things we have done

is in the area of entrepreneurship, Enterprise Education and Economic Education.

I can provide you with a lot of details of what has happened in the Province. In

fact we have changed the graduation requirements so that in the future people

have to do at least one course in the area of economic education. That is one of

the most exciting developments. The math/science things are great too, but the

developments in the area of Enterprise Education, Co-op Education,

entrepreneurship are some of the most exciting from the student's perspective,

from the teacher's perspective in terms of relevance to the future development

of this Province.

If we are going to develop as a Province

economically, we have to change the attitudes. Yesterday I said to the students

with whom I met, I think it was yesterday, who were going to Nova Scotia: we

have to create an enterprise culture, an entrepreneurial spirit not only among

our working force but in students and the course work we are doing and the

schools which I visit - and I am proud to say that I visited a fair number of

schools this year - I see exciting things happening in these areas and I could

give you a lot of details on what is happening.

The attitudes of people towards these courses and

towards looking at development in this Province, small industry, is just

outstanding. I will just be brief on the National School Achievement Indicators

Project; that is a project of the Council of Ministers of Education, the

Vice-Chair here was a Chair of that group at one point in time, and they are

putting together a study of numeracy, literacy in the country, and they are

going to measure achievement in, I think it is thirteen year olds and sixteen

year olds in these areas, to see how well we are doing as a nation.

Now I have some concerns about that project and I

have expressed those concerns nationally because you cannot measure educational

achievements only in grades. You have to think of attitudes and especially

grades in those subject areas. I have some concerns, I have expressed them and

we are addressing these concerns. All provinces are in now with one exception, I

think Saskatchewan has some reservations about it since the change of

government.

What we are doing in education is, we are saying:

we have to test the results. We have to be more accountable and one way to do it

is to look at some of these results. We are participating, we will have a sample

done here of the levels of achievement in this Province and we will be able to

see where we stand in comparison with other Provinces, but I think in the

future, if we are going to compete with Japan and Germany and the United States,

we have to promote excellence at all levels in the school system and the Council

of Ministers hope this will help us promote higher standards, higher

expectations in education; it is an exciting initiative.

We, in this Province of course do our own testing

through the test of basic skills; we have our own public examinations which we

are trying to improve; we have the school excellence programs ongoing, we are

evaluating progress school by school and how well they are doing. What about

morale in the school? What about the programs?

There are a lot of exciting things happening. We

did not put things on hold when we appointed this Royal Commission. We moved

ahead, knowing that maybe some things may not be totally consistent but that we

are making changes. Some real changes have been made in the school system. In

the next year or so, with The Royal Commission - remember, Mr. Ramsay, I said

the other day that perhaps the slogan should be: Fasten your seat belt. We are

going to have a little turbulence for the short-term; but we are going to have

some more changes in education in this Province to make sure that our people are

prepared for the next century. We have to improve further aspects of our

educational system.

MR. RAMSAY: Mr. Chairman, if I might bring the

minister back to - I thank you for your answers - back to one question which I

asked. Of course, when he gets excited about something you can see he just

fastens his seat belt and away he goes.

The only other question that you left either bit

unanswered was with regard to the evaluative process of course initiatives and

initiatives that the department has made.

DR. WARREN: Let me just add one final comment

to conclude my other earlier statement. That is that I think we should challenge

our students more. I think students are capable of doing much more in school, in

colleges and in universities than they are doing, and I think we should

challenge them. I think the big criticism of our high school program, as good as

it is - and I always pay tribute to the former administration for expanding the

high school program - the big criticism is that we are not challenging students

adequately, particularly the more able, the talented and the gifted. I think

students want to be challenged and should be challenged more.

I have been advised by Mr. McCormick here that we

have advisory committees in place with each new initiative in enterprise

education and co-op education, and these committees will be helping to assess

the results of these initiatives.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Ramsay.

DR. WARREN: Representatives of the private

sector are on these committees.

MR. RAMSAY: As well.

DR. WARREN: As well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Warren.

MR. WARREN: I have a question or two for the

minister. Recently, in the last few years, a number of teachers throughout the

Province have been charged through the courts for sexual abuse and child abuse.

Yesterday I think one of the superintendent's of a school board on the West

Coast pressed a panic button that there is a lot of concern in our Province. I

am just wondering: As the Minister of Education, as a department, what avenues

has the minister explored, or what paths will he follow in trying to get to the

root of this problem, because I am concerned, as many others are. It is only

just a couple of days ago that we saw a teacher in Norman's Cove being

convicted. This is one of several over the last number of years. I am just

wondering if there is another Mount Cashel out there and we are not doing our

job in trying to bring this and tackle this head on. I am just wondering if we

are doing enough. I would like to ask the minister, as the Minister of

Education, where we have in particular a lot of children involved, is the

minister to the point that he is going to go one step further, and whether there

is going to be a commission or an investigation throughout the schools? I think

there needs to be something done. I am just wondering what the minister is going

to do?

DR. WARREN: I thank the member for the

question, because we as a department are concerned about the developments of

recent years. We have already taken a number of initiatives. We have not

considered investigations because we have had an ongoing investigation in the

major issue which has sensitized many people in this Province to this, the

tragedy of child abuse generally, and child sexual abuse in particular.

We have undertaken a number of initiatives and I

would like to list two or three. I will ask Dr. Turpin-Downey to expand on what

I have said, particularly with respect to yesterday's story and the concerns

that we have as a result of what we knew and what we know and what should be

done.

Over the past two or three years, and perhaps

before, perhaps over the last five years, the Department has been working with

school boards and teachers on in-service education in this area. I could expand

on that, but there are in-service programs. Experts are invited in to these

in-service programs, and they were going on before I became the minister, I'm

sure. Teachers sponsor some, the Department sponsors some, trustees sponsor.

Trustees have had a number of conferences where this has been an issue. So there

has been an ongoing public education among educators on this issue.

One of the first things I did when I became the

minister was to call Dr. Crocker, the new Dean of Education, and suggest to him

that there are two or three issues that I felt should be included in the

pre-service education of every teacher. The three or four topics that I

mentioned were: child abuse, human rights, gender equity, multiculturalism. I am

delighted to inform the member that Dr. Crocker advised me recently that they

now have a course on child abuse, getting at the root issue, so that teachers

will have the basic information. Now they have courses on gender equity, I am

pleased to tell the Vice-Chair, as well, a new course was introduced. It wasn't

my prompting. I think I probably encouraged it. I won't take any credit for

these new courses but I did call Dr. Crocker, convened a meeting with him, and

focused on child abuse, human rights, and gender equity.

The Faculty of Education now has a program, has at

least a course, and tries to sensitize all prospective teachers to the nature,

the root causes, the community causes and so on. That is the second thing.

The third thing is that we have drafted a policy

statement on child abuse, child sexual abuse, it may be. I will ask Dr. Edna

Turpin-Downey in a minute to tell you where that is, as I have not checked to

find out where precisely that policy is. We want to have a policy. Many school

boards have policies in place. I have met with the trustees on it. Michael

Harrington, who is the trustees' lawyer, was at a recent meeting where we were

talking about this, and I was there to participate. So, the school boards are

anxious to do it.

We are drafting a policy from the Department that

ensures that this issue is dealt with. In that policy there will be information

on not only diagnosing and getting help, but on how one identifies such cases,

and how the person should report. What the law says on reporting. Because we

know what the Hughes Inquiry said about lack of reporting. We have a law on the

books, across Canada by the way, in other provinces, which has not been applied

either. So we are developing our own policy statement on this.

Now yesterday, or two or three days ago, I gather

there was a story on a particular school. I do not want to focus on that school.

But I tell you that we have been in contact with that school. The school has not

requested additional help. The Department of Social Services has been in contact

with that school. I talked with the minister about it today. They have had

people into the school from the regional office, I gather even their people from

the Department of Social Services who are in the region.

Dr. Edna Turpin-Downey has been in conversation

with that board so she is the right person to give the information on how we

have been involved. I certainly am concerned; I'm pleased the member mentioned

this. I would like for her to comment first on the policy that we are developing

on child sexual assault and child abuse generally; and secondly, to comment very

briefly on the school. I do not want to focus on the name of the school but on

what we have done and what we have been asked to do and what information we

have. Doctor?

DR. EDNA TURPIN-DOWNEY: There actually is a

draft policy in the system at this point in time. It was a policy that was

developed by all of the agencies together a year and a half or so ago. What we

are trying to formalize is put in place proper reporting procedures. But I think

the critical concern of the schools and school boards at this point in time is

actually dealing with the students who suffer from this. Quite frankly, a

tremendous amount of in-service has been done with teachers, again through the

various agencies in combination with the NTA and the Department of Education.

With regard to the situation on the west coast,

that really only came to our attention today, in the sense that we were not made

aware of it. So I called the superintendent and he said: gee, a response team

was called in a month and a half or so ago, and chaired by the pastoral person

working with the school board. They had the three school counsellors, two

program coordinators, the mental health worker from the hospital, Social Service

workers, coordinated by the principal, where this response team was brought in

to work with the students. There are twenty-five students in fact in that one

particular school but no teacher was responsible for this abuse. It is actually

a convenience store owner who had porno video tapes and there is no question

that twenty-five children were definitely sexually abused.

The superintendent obviously in calling in the

response team knew that they could only help those children during the school

hours, four or five. So what they are doing now is working with the community to

see what kind of support services can be given to the parents at home in dealing

with those children. They have been severely traumatized. There is no question

in the superintendent's mind or in the principal's mind.

DR. WARREN: Was Social Services called in, was

I correct in making that...?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Yes. In fact, it has been on

the go for a couple of years, but Social Services could not get evidence to

prove that this was actually happening. None of the students confessed this or

admitted it.

DR. WARREN: There's still no conviction either,

is there?

MS. VERGE: Yes, there is.

DR. WARREN: There's a conviction.

MS. VERGE: But that's only one case.

DR. WARREN: No, the school is addressing it -

my understanding is the school has been working on this with a response team.

MS. VERGE: I talked to the principal of the

school this morning.

DR. WARREN: Well.

MS. VERGE: And there is not an adequate

response.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: There are about twenty-five or

thirty children who are victims of one offender, who was featured in a t.v.

story last night, but there are about thirty or thirty-five victims of another

offender convicted about three years ago who are in that Stephenville Crossing

school system, and that is only one community in that school district.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Oh, absolutely.

DR. WARREN: Absolutely, (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: We have other recent media stories

of convictions in De Grau, in Lourdes, in Cape St. George. A community worker in

Stephenville said to me this morning the problem is just out of control. This

worker said to me: the Appalachia RC School Board and Social Services basically

are carrying out a public relations campaign instead of mounting an intensive

effort to provide counselling for the victims.

DR. WARREN: Well, you've made a number of

statements. I understood that the board itself had a response team in place to

deal with as many victims as possible. It is also my understanding that The

Department of Social Services was called in. I asked the minister today and he

said, yes, they are examining the whole issue. They have only recently been

advised of it and they are -

MS. VERGE: But, with respect, there have been

many cases of child sexual abuse uncovered -

DR. WARREN: Well, I would not have that

information. That's Social Services (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: - in that region in the last several

years. We all know about Father Ron Kelly. That case was dealt with, in a manner

of speaking, twelve years ago.

DR. WARREN: I wouldn't know about that, as

Minister of Education. Social Services has access to all this data.

MS. VERGE: It was highlighted in the Hughes

Inquiry, it was on t.v. night after night.

DR. WARREN: Sure, well (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: That's only one region, and it is

typical.

DR. WARREN: I think though, Chairperson, with

respect, we are talking about what the school, can do in the school, and in

answer to the question I wanted to indicate that we are concerned about it. We

have a number of actions ongoing. I think it is a problem, though, in answer to

the question again, that must be addressed by the community, by the various

departments of government. It is my understanding that it is being addressed.

Perhaps it is taking too long. We know lots of cases where actions should have

been taken years and years ago, but that action wasn't.

I assure you as the Minister of Education, we are

concerned about it, I am concerned about it. The Department is doing everything

possible to ensure that teachers are aware of what can happen, that they have

good background training in the area, and that they know the reporting

procedure, and that they will be involved with psychologists and with others in

the community in an attempt to provide help for students who are so damaged.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Minister. I think I

should intervene at this point. We are three minutes over the time slot for this

particular question period. So are there any other members who wish to intervene

at this point?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: I have to offer an apology. I cut in

on the member's time, so I will forgo my next time and allow the member to carry

on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I do not think we have any

problem. I was indulgent because of the nature of the exchange (Inaudible) that

time. But what we try to do is keep to ten minute segments, including the

questions and the answers. But if we do not have any difficulty then nobody will

have any difficulty. But if we stick to the ten minutes it is fair to everybody.

Who would like to go next?

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, it is our intention to

allow as much debate back and forth as the government members to the Opposition.

Somewhere along the way this evening I would like to not just deal with the

issues at hand that are cropping up. I would also like to deal with the

estimates and the numbers.

We want to allow the other members of the

Committee, the Opposition members, as much time as possible. I guess our

interjections will come every once in a while when we want to deal specifically

with something in the estimates, so that at least we might be able to check off

a few items. I realize historically that these sessions have been wide-ranging

and debate has been wide-ranging. I have never agreed with that and I think the

very first estimates committee I ever attended I felt that we be as wide-ranging

as we wanted as long as we are dealing with something in the estimates. I said

that from the very first meeting I attended, and I do not feel any different

today.

Our intention is, again because of time

constraints, to try to allow our colleagues on the other side of the House to

have as much time as possible. But somewhere along the line, from our side, we

would like to see us at least getting through some numbers and dealing with some

numbers. So we would prefer - once in a while, maybe, just to interject, but I

think our intention is to allow it to go as much as possible to our colleagues

on the other side. But as I said, I am on record from Day 1 saying we are here

to discuss estimates, and that goes back, Day 1 as in spring of 1989. I am not

here to debate that issue, but I am just saying: carry on.

MS. VERGE: No, if Mr. Warren does not want to

resume questioning, I can have a few minutes and perhaps he can cut in on me -

MR. WARREN: I want to finish what I was just

starting -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well if nobody has a problem, we

will give Mr. Warren another ten minutes. Mr. Warren.

MR. WARREN: Yes. I just want to continue where

we left off. I believe the lady spoke and said that you had some kind of a

policy in a draft stage for the last year and a half. Now I think that is the

time frame she used, a year and a half in a draft stage. That shows, to me, that

you are not moving very fast and I just want to use that comment, and you know,

if we are going to deal with this issue and you are concerned about this issue,

surely goodness a year and a half at the draft stage is a long time to be

dealing with such a very important issue.

MR. WALSH: Could I give you -

MR. WARREN: I will finish my comments and then

you can speak afterwards.

MR. WALSH: It took seventeen years to get this

far so we are not doing too badly I guess.

MR. WARREN: The minister, in response to

questions from the Vice-Chair, earlier, used and I would probably say the same

thing she said, an excuse, blame it on the printing for the commission report

not to be released. Well, if it is printing fine and dandy, but the minister

also mentioned that it has to be translated and I think he said it was going to

be translated into the French language. I would like to ask the minister, what

about the native people in this Province?

Surely goodness you are not going to forget those

people if you are going to make a translation of such an important document. I

would suggest sir, that if it is delayed this long to get it translated into

French, I am willing to wait a few more days for it to be translated also into

the native language.

DR. WARREN: I had not planned to do that. There

are two official languages at this point in time. We know that there are quite a

number of aboriginal languages and once you get into translating -

MR. WARREN: There are only two. There are only

two.

DR. WARREN: - these, time would be involved, so

our intention is to do it in Canada's two official languages at the present

time.

MR. WARREN: I would suggest to you sir, that

there are more native people in this Province than there are French.

DR. WARREN: I appreciate your comment.

MR. WARREN: My other comment which I would like

to make is in

Section 2.1.0.3. -

DR. WARREN: Now we are getting to the

estimates, good.

MR. WARREN: - Native peoples education,

$1,916,000. Could the minister advise us where the provincial contribution is

towards native education? Maybe you can identify it in some other sub-head, but

I see all that money there is completely 100 per cent federal funding. A final

question to the minister would be that, I notice in heading 3.1.0.8., there are

a half-a-million dollars there for Hibernia training, and I would like to ask

the minister: due to the uncertainty with the Hibernia project, has the minister

rethought this program, is this program still going to continue to go ahead on

schedule, with the uncertainty of the Hibernia project?

DR. WARREN: On the native training, that is

additional money. The Province puts in the cost of teachers salaries and grants

to school boards. I could get you a figure but many millions of dollars are paid

by the Province for the education of aboriginal peoples as they are throughout

the Province. This is additional federal money that we are pleased to say, goes

into native education. Could I pay tribute to the member?....because last year

we had a problem on the coast and he and I worked very closely together to get

some housing, and I want to pay tribute to the way we worked together and shared

in that initiative, because there are tremendous problems and I want to tell the

member that I am looking forward to seeing what the Royal Commission said about

native education.

He knows that I am concerned about it.

I got a thrill yesterday, and the member got a

thrill, when it was announced that Mrs Beatrice Watts would receive a honourary

degree. To me she has been one of the outstanding persons in helping to develop

programs for our schools on the coast of Labrador and I think it is a tribute to

Labrador and to her that Memorial has acknowledged her contribution. I am

looking forward to the report of the Royal Commission to see what they say about

it. I have some concerns. Perhaps he and I can sit down sometime and exchange

views because I have some concerns about the problems that face that area. We

are putting a substantial amount of extra money in but we are not achieving the

goals that he and I want to achieve. I think perhaps some new approaches are

necessary. We are working with some of these communities now but I think we have

to do some new things and perhaps on another occasion he and I can chat about

what he feels can be done to further enhance education for our native peoples. I

am very anxious to do that.

Now, on Hibernia, no, we have not cut back any on

the training components. We are optimistic about the future of that project. In

fact the delay might help us a bit in providing the kinds of education that are

necessary. With the federal government we are providing all kinds of programs.

There is a silver lining they say to everything. We have been able to provide a

better quality program with the unions, with the Hibernia consortium, and as a

department. We are all working together on training and we think it is essential

that we continue that, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Ramsay.

MR. RAMSAY: I just want to get into the

estimates here in a similar area, 3.l.07 Page 173, Career Awards Program under

the Offshore Fund. I think that is the Atlantic Accord Career Awards Program. I

note there is something there I wanted to question. The projection last year in

the budget was $l.196 million and the question is why was only $1 million spent?

Was that by application of business to that program? I am sort of wondering what

the reason is? Why was the amount spent less than the amount allocated,

especially considering that is funding for students under engineering and other

co-op programs at Memorial University?

DR. WARREN: I admit I did not know that. I hope

the deputy minister has an explanation for that because these career awards are

exceptional awards. We are providing all kinds of encouragement now through

scholarships and so on for people in math, science and engineering technology.

Why did we spend less than was budgeted in 1991-92? Deputy, now you earn your

salary.

MR. McCORMICK: Mr. Chairman, I suspect it was a

matter of a cash flow. The Career Awards Program has about five components to

it. One has to do with supporting co-op students at our post-secondary

institutions on work terms. One is actual academic achievement at various levels

in the science and technology related programs. Another is faculty awards at the

institutions so they can go and do courses and get work experience in places

that have offshore related projects or training. Another we introduced last year

is entrance scholarships to post-secondary institutions for high school

students, one for each electoral district, I think it was. The problem with it

is our fiscal and academic years overlap so that the allocation of awards in

some cases, especially at the University where there are three semesters, may

very well overlap from one fiscal year to another. I think the fund is $15

million for a period of years out of the offshore development fund, and the

allocation is approximately $1.3 million per year. If there are some drops

towards the end of one fiscal year we pick it up at the beginning of the next

fiscal year. There is never a loss of funds on it. So some may or may not

utilize their award within the fiscal year, and we would allow some carry over

to the other fiscal -

MR. RAMSAY: (Inaudible).

MR. McCORMICK: It might end up adding another

year to the program or something like that if the accumulation goes on and it is

not awarded any particular year. It doesn't affect that he lost the money. There

is a $15 million amount of the offshore fund that is allocated to go towards

training that is related for these particular categories.

DR. WARREN: I must say that is encouraging. I

find that encouraging because we need to get every cent we can to our students

who qualify for these scholarships.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I wonder if the committee would

mind if I asked a brief questions.

MS. VERGE: Sure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I was at a very interesting

meeting this morning with a lady who has a son with an attention disorder, a

learning disability. She got together a group of support workers, about eight or

nine people I guess in total, and talked about the problems of dealing with this

young person. One person at the meeting was a teacher who was about to retire,

and as far as she knew this was the first person who had come through that

particular school with this problem. Other people who were more expert in the

field, say that there is something like an average of between three and five

people in the average classroom who has this sort of problem, something like 10

per cent of the school population. It is very important for these people that

their problems are dealt with specifically because if that happens, then they

can learn properly and function normally. That might be taking it a bit too far,

but in that general direction, but if that doesn't happen they end up being sad

cases. It was suggested that the government should undertake the Department of

Education and the teaching profession to ensure that there are in services how

to train teachers in dealing with children with this sort of problem. One lady

doctor who was there said that in the past few years the number of children in

the Ontario school system, I believe it was, with mental problems is believed to

have increased from about 5 per cent to 20 per cent. Apparently a tremendous

increase in the number of people identified as having mental problems in the

school system in Toronto or Ontario. Is that something that the department is

aware of and maybe looking into dealing with?

DR. WARREN: I will give you a short answer and

perhaps Edna will want to supplement or expand. I have met with groups of

parents, many groups, and the group that I have really appreciated meeting with

in the last - groups such as the parents that you mentioned. This whole question

of disabilities is taking on increased visibility and significance. We now

realize that everybody has the right to an education and we should put support

services in place to guarantee that. Parents are very supportive arguing that

government should develop new policies, new programs. We have some programs in

place, but these are complex areas and it is often very difficult to assess,

diagnose and provide remediation for these programs. However, I want to pay

tribute to the parents because they are doing what some parents did in the past,

increasingly they are advocating changes in education and I have met with them.

At the most recent meeting I attended the one

request was that I approach the university about requiring all teachers to have

some exposure to the theory and practice in this area and I have done that

recently. Again, as I mentioned, Dr. Crocker is the dean and he advised me that

in developing new programs now, they are looking at the possibility in fact of

requiring all teachers to have some instruction in this area; that would be the

start. That is only one step along the way but I have always felt that all

teachers should have special education training because all teachers should be

special education teachers, taking each student, but they tell me at the faculty

that quite a number of students take these courses now but they are looking at

changes to make sure that more teachers take them, that is the first thing.

Secondly, we have some support programs in place.

We have a special education policy, where we outline procedures for dealing with

these situations, we do not have enough specialists in all areas but we have a

fair number of psychologists, therapists and guidance counsellors in place. I

know that we do not have enough but I think we are beginning to make some

progress in this area.

I would like Edna to expand or comment on that.

DR. E. TURPIN-DOWNEY: With regard to children

with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders, the preceptionary

reality is numbers are on the increase, and I think in some cases numbers are on

the increase simply because the so-called medically fragile babies are living

longer. The medical care has increased substantially so these children remain

alive with very good health care up until the time they are able to cope on

their own. Then of course, the diagnosis has improved substantially in the

school system; the reporting procedure has improved substantially, so yes, in

that sense, the reporting, the fact that these children are living longer, the

diagnosis of these children's specific problems has improved. The reason why I

think the numbers of the children with the problem, particularly the attention

deficit problem, is that mothers who have been on drugs - and there are high

numbers of adolescents as well as single parents and these kinds of people on

drugs and on alcohol - and that is definitely affecting the babies. So we are

only now seeing the children I suppose, who were born to these kinds of people,

okay, when drugs really became big, let us say ten, fifteen years ago, whatever,

but I think you are now seeing the spin-off of that, but clearly, the fact is

that they are being identified.

Also, the term learning disability is a lot more

acceptable and a lot more favourable than special education or opportunity class

children, as they used to be called, so the term learning disabled and

particularly attention deficit is better than hyperactivity, okay? New labels

that seem to be more acceptable to larger numbers of parents, but yes, we are

definitely aware of the numbers, definitely aware of the need for further

supports. The diagnosis has improved; now we are doing our best to improve the

supports through the policy of individualized program planning for those

students.

DR. WARREN: I am delighted to add just one

final comment, and that is the post-secondary institutions are now providing

support for such students when they get out of the regular school system. The

Blundon Centre, I think, at Memorial, and the other colleges now have support

services and are providing help for students who may have certain kinds of

learning disabilities that are not visible.

DR. E. TURPIN-DOWNEY: We are having our first

graduates this year who had severe learning disabilities at Memorial.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Now, Ms. Verge is next.

MS. VERGE: I would like to ask the minister

about the denominational education system, specifically about the provisions in

the Constitution of Canada for a Newfoundland and Labrador denominational

education system.

The Premier, in approaching questions of

constitutional reform, relies very heavily on opinion polls in the sense that he

frequently cites public opinion polls.

The minister will recall when the Premier staunchly

opposed the Meech Lake Accord and succeeded in thwarting it, he constantly

referred to public opinion. I have heard him much more recently in this round of

constitutional amendments.

MR. WALSH: A point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Walsh.

MR. WALSH: I am not sure where we are going

with the line of questioning and I have to tell you, I probably spent as much

time with the Premier during the Meech Lake period as anyone else, and I do not

recollect him using a whole lot of opinion polls in his quotes. Nor do I

recollect that he has used a lot of them in this House, except on occasion when

he has been referring to our polls and the polls for the opposition being equal,

although the numbers being in reverse; but that is the only time. I have not

heard him on as many occasions as you are referring to, and only because this is

Hansard, Mr. Chairman, I do not want something to be read into Hansard that to

me is inaccurate.

MS. VERGE: With respect, I think I am entitled

to use my ten minutes. The member can have a turn afterwards.

MR. WALSH: No, no, Mr. Chairman. Yes, you are

entitled to use the ten minutes, but not entitled to put on record something

that one, is not correct, and two, leaves Hansard with a thought pattern that

really does not exist. It is an inaccuracy and it should not be there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Walsh. I think

that is a point of clarification rather than a point of order. If nobody has an

objection, perhaps Ms. Verge would get on with her questioning.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

I am confident Hansard will record verbatim what I

say as well as what the other members say.

At any rate, to the best of my recollection the

Premier has frequently referred to public opinion on issues of constitutional

reform.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect,

on a point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Walsh.

MS. VERGE: The Member for Mount Scio - Bell

Island is not making a point of order.

MR. WALSH: Yes he is.

MS. VERGE: The Chair has ruled on it.

MR. WALSH: I am making a new point of order.

With all due respect, and to the best of your

memory, it is just another way of saying the same thing you said before. It is

inaccurate and you should not be saying it.

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

make the same ruling on that point of order, and I would ask Ms. Verge to get on

with her questioning please.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

There is a difference of opinion between two hon.

members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MS. VERGE: I would like to put to the minister:

What information does the minister have about the opinion of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians about our denominational system; and what information does the

minister have about the opinion of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians about the

alternative of a public education system?

DR. WARREN: I could be facetious and ask: What

subhead of the estimates is that under?; but I will not do that. I will respond

to the question, because we are dealing with the estimates and I do not know

where in the estimates we are dealing (inaudible).

MS. VERGE: If I might interject -

DR. WARREN: Okay, let me continue.

MS. VERGE: The precedents of the House

committees clearly show that questions about departmental policy on all matters

within the department's responsibility are quite in order, and we usually ask

these type of broad policy questions in connection with the minister's salary

head.

DR. WARREN: What is the question?

MS. VERGE: The question is, what information

does the minister have about the opinion of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians

about the denominational education system in this Province?

DR. WARREN: And what are the findings?

MS. VERGE: And part two, what information does

the minister have about the opinion of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians about

the alternative of a public education system?

DR. WARREN: I will answer the question

directly. The department has not done any polls.

MS. VERGE: That is not what I asked. What

information does the minister have?

DR. WARREN: May I give the answer? She can ask

the question but the minister has the right to give the answer that he or she

wishes, with respect. The department has not done any polls about the

denominational issue so officially we do not have a departmental poll. The task

force that the minister was privileged to serve on, thanks to not the Vice-Chair

of this committee but to another former minister, did an opinion poll study on

the denominational system. The results I do not recall precisely but I gather

there was substantial division of opinion. Perhaps 50-something per cent

favoured the denominational system and 40 per cent perhaps opposed the

denominational system in that task force poll. I have other information about

another study that was done, not by the Department of Education, of opinion

polls and I refuse to report on that. I am not at will to do that. In fact I

have conducted some polls and I have knowledge of these. I conducted two polls

in another context of denominational views and let me say that

whereas there is

considerable division of opinion more recently the polls that I am familiar with

have indicated that there has been a move towards increased support of

interdenominational sharing. The questions that deal with sharing reflect a

movement in the Province of public opinion. Where it is demonstrated that the

quality of education can be enhanced through a different type of system the

public tend to support that system. I think the percentages of the general

public have increased. If you break down the opinion polls by age, by social

economic occupation and by even denomination, of course, the poll results vary

significantly. The older the population the more supportive the persons are. The

CBC poll, the task force poll, the Warren polls, the two polls that Warren did

some years ago, reflected the older the participant, the person polled, the more

supportive they were of the current system, and the higher the level of formal

education the lower was the level of support for the denominational system and

the higher was the degree of support for other systems. There were certain

denominations where the percentage of support in the polls was substantially

high. In the Pentecostal denomination traditionally the level of support for the

current denominational system is relatively high. The Roman Catholic is more

divided, and the integrated, I think, in the polls I did some years ago is

perhaps evenly split on the support for the current system and for some other

system of education.

MS. VERGE: What level of support was there for

a purely public education system in the most recent polling the minister knows

about? He tantalizes us with a suggestion that he has been unofficially notified

of some recent polling, and he did concede that he knows of 'another study ' but

he is not at liberty to divulge that. That is quite tantalizing.

DR. WARREN: Yes it is. I do not want to mislead

the member and say that I do not have other knowledge. I am trying to be

perfectly frank without providing the member with the information. On the public

MS. VERGE: But why would the minister hold back

this information? Surely the public is entitled to know.

DR. WARREN: In time the member will become

familiar with the results.

MS. VERGE: Is that in the next election

campaign?

DR. WARREN: This government that I represent -

and I will be political - we do not govern on the basis of polls or when an

election is, we do what is right whether the election is tomorrow or next week,

we have operated on that basis for three years from today. Three years ago today

we were appointed. This government does what it thinks is right and will

continue to do that irrespective of when the election is held. That is for the

record. Three years today.

MS. VERGE: Ah hah. Next I would like to ask the

DR. WARREN: On the poll. She asked me a

question. I wish she would give me an opportunity to answer.

MS. VERGE: Well, I would be glad if the

minister would answer but he's using up my time saying nothing!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, your time is used up, Ms.

Verge. I wonder would people like to take a break now for ten minutes or so? We

will have a recess. We will perhaps come back at about 8:50 p.m. or so. Is that

suitable?

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Who would like to begin?

MS. VERGE: I have lots of questions here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: I was just asking the minister about

the denominational education system and his knowledge of public opinion. He

avoided giving me a straightforward answer but did, to repeat my verb, tantalize

us by saying that there is another study of which he is aware but he cannot tell

us at this stage, but fasten our seat belts because we are in for turbulence. I

would like to ask the minister what steps would have to be taken to amend the

Constitution to abolish the denominational education system and establish a

public education system in this Province?

DR. WARREN: I never speculate on that. I don't

want to, as a minister, outline what would happen. That is not an option that

the government or the minister has considered. I have some knowledge of Terms 17

and 93 and what has happened in the history of constitutional law. But as a

minister it is difficult. It is the kind of question that the Minister of

Justice or a former Minister of Justice perhaps would -

MS. VERGE: Or a former education professor.

DR. WARREN: - be in a better position to answer.

Or former education professor. I guess in this Province the history of the

denominational system is that changes have occurred by consensus and by

accommodation. Even compromise. It is not a bad word. The Canadian compromise is

not a bad word. I think the strength of the denominational system in this

Province is that over the years, despite the legal ground, the legal

foundations, the strength of the system is that it has adapted, it has been

changed to meet changing conditions. Twenty-five years ago, twenty years ago, no

constitutional changes were necessary, and substantial changes took place in the

denominational system by consensus largely, and by negotiation. That has been

the approach. I think it is a strength of the system.

Now when it comes to constitutional provisions, I

suppose this is a

section of the Constitution that would be peculiar to this

Province and to the federal government. So I assume - and again, I am probably

skating on a bit of thin ice here - any constitutional change in this Province

that does not impact on other provinces directly would require passage by the

House of Assembly and by the Parliament and the Senate of Canada. That is all

that would be required. I would think that in any major change, if the Province

were to act unilaterally, that other provinces would intervene. Their

concurrence, the 7-50 or whatever the amending formula is, is not necessary. But

again, as a department we have not, or as a minister I have not, considered

that. It is not likely something that the government would consider,

unilaterally changing the denominational system.

MS. VERGE: How does the minister feel about the

provincial government having a referendum on the question of abolishing the

denominational education system through constitutional amendment and

establishing a public education system?

DR. WARREN: Perhaps before I give the direct

answer to that I would say that we have a public system now in one sense. This

system is supported by the public. I know the words "public system" has

different

definitions in England. A public school in England is a private

school. In the United States a public school is a state school and private

schools are denominational schools. In Newfoundland I guess we do have a public

system operating within a denominational framework.

As to a referendum I would have to give some thought

to that. I think it would be a government decision and I would not want to

speculate on what might be the advantages and disadvantages of that. I would

have to think about that a little more than I have in the last minute. I think

an issue like this is a very sensitive issue. You have entrenched constitutional

rights, so I am not sure that a way to resolve any disagreements about the

future of the system - as I said, in the past we've been able to change the

system through consensus and accommodation. It has changed many times.

In the member's definition of public school we had a

public school system in Newfoundland from 1836 to 1843, I think, where we had

just one set of school boards, one system. Then in 1843 the split was a dual

split, and in 1874 - 1876 the non-Catholics split. So we have had a public

school system in that sense.

MS. VERGE: Okay. If I might interject. I am

enjoying the minister's history lesson but I have a very short amount of time

and I have a lot of other questions.

DR. WARREN: Okay.

MS. VERGE: But thank you.

DR. WARREN: Thank you.

MS. VERGE: Our current denominational education

system provided for by the Constitution is being carried out in such a way -

some would argue, dictated by the Constitution; there are others who would

differ - as to exclude people. Currently many citizens of our Province are

deemed ineligible to stand for school board election. Only adherents to eight

Christian denominations which have constitutional rights in education are

eligible to stand for school board election. Others, other Christians, people

professing no religious adherence, people of other religions, are excluded. How

does the minister feel about this and how may they be included, if there is not

a constitutional amendment?

DR. WARREN: We have the most denominational system

in Canada, as the member knows. We have probably the only system in Canada that

does not have a system for all others. All of our schools are denominational

schools. In some provinces you have a majority school and a minority school. But

in Newfoundland all of our schools are denominational. A few private schools,

but we do not have a system for others.

In a sense the system discriminates - and I use that

word advisedly - against non-Christians and nonreligious. The basis of the

system is that parents have the right to choose the education for their children

and if you grant these rights to certain denominations, I guess my view, and

this is an issue that the government has not addressed, I am speaking now quite

frankly government certainly does not address these issues. My view is that the

system discriminates against non-christians and non-religious, in that they do

not have the rights that others have. They do not have the rights to attend

schools, certain schools that others have, others have prior rights, let us put

it that way, and you know, that has been a matter of concern for me in the last

two or three years and we have looked at ways of changing that.

One of course, is to establish another system for

non-adherents and that is not in my view, a reasonable option in this Province

at the present time with our limited resources, with our declining school

enrolments, with our small schools, the establishment of another school system

for others, for non-adherents to the present system is not a viable option, so I

think we have to look at other ways of doing it and -

MS. VERGE: But what are some of the options? Is

anything achievable short of Constitutional amendment?

DR. WARREN: Yes. I believe that even today there

is sensitivity to the rights of non-adherents, non-christians and non-religious.

Some school boards have moved now to make it possible for persons to run for

school boards. My preference would be, and again this is not government policy

and I should not perhaps be getting into areas where we do not have policy, but

my preference would be to open up the school system to grant to non-christians

and non-religious greater rights in selected areas, certainly the right to

choose schools of their choice, the right to become involved in school board

elections, the right to run for membership on boards. I know this is a sensitive

issue, I know I am discussing issues now with a substantial division of opinion

in the Province, but my preference would be to move in that direction.

The integrated board for example in St. John's, makes

it possible for any person, irrespective of his religious background to run for

membership on the school board and they elect a number at large to represent -

this is not an issue in many parts of Newfoundland and Labrador but it is an

issue of principle, that is why I address it as an issue of principle.

MS. VERGE: But the minister has not answered my

question about what alternatives are there to include these people and I would

suggest there are a growing number of people who do not align themselves with

any of the eight christian denominations with constitutional rights. They are

now excluded. They are not allowed to run for school board election, they are

sometimes turned down by the closest school to their home.

DR. WARREN: I understand that and as a member, the

Vice-Chair, who was a Minister of Education, I remember her comments on this

some years ago because she was asked this same question over and over, and

without being disrespectful, very few changes occurred in her period as

minister, and I am sure she personally wanted to make some changes but she found

out how complex, and I am speculating here, I do not have any inside information

but I speculate that the member would like to have made some changes and could

not, because of the difficulties.

Now I think changes can occur in two ways, by

consensus or by agreement and negotiation, but if they do not occur in that way,

I guess as far as I would go now is to say that we should look at other options

to guarantee.

MS. VERGE: But what are the other options?

DR. WARREN: Well the other options I suppose, are

to try to get some constitutional amendments or I guess an option that

government has is to provide some Legislative guarantee of these rights and then

let the courts ultimately decide whether or not it is constitutional. You see, I

guess what I would say, and we are getting into a bit of history and

constitutional law here, which you perhaps are, I know, more versed in than I

am, but it seems to me that a constitution that was designed to suit the needs

of 1867 and even 1949 may not be appropriate today in education.

MS. VERGE: And what may have been appropriate when

I was minister may not be appropriate today. The opportunity to reform may be

much greater today.

DR. WARREN: I would say yes, and we, if I might be

a little political, in the last two or three years have made some very

significant changes in education in the post-secondary system, and it is the

government's intention to continue to ensure that we provide an educational

system that guarantees quality and equality. I have no doubt that over the next

few years - I don't want to in any way threaten or speculate about what the

government might do because we haven't considered the report but I think, I

really believe, that the time has come for significant changes in our

educational system, to focus more on quality education in the classroom. There

may have to be some legislative changes.

MS. VERGE: Speaking of which, where is the

schools' act that has been promised for lo those many years?

DR. WARREN: For thirteen years the schools' act -

MS. VERGE: Three of which -

DR. WARREN: Three of which you were the minister.

MS. VERGE: Six of which -

DR. WARREN: I am pleased that the member asked

that question. When the schools' act was just about ready, about a month ago,

along came a certain report, the Royal Commission Report and I guess, after

reading that report, even though there are many sections of the act that have no

direct connection with the report, I thought we should put The schools' act on

hold until the Royal Commission Report was released. I have notified all

persons, groups and stakeholders of that. I wrote the DECs and GAC and informed

them.

MS. VERGE: I know the groups.

DR. WARREN: I guess events overtook the schools'

act and now, despite my disappointment, because there are a lot of sections in

the new act which I felt needed to be implemented after thirteen years of

trying, it is going to be put on hold for another short period of time.

MS. VERGE: Actually, to be fair to myself, I think

the process of revising the schools' act only started the last couple of years I

was minister.

DR. WARREN: When was that, by the way? When do you

remember?

MS. VERGE: It was 1979 to 1985 is the period I was

there.

DR. WARREN: 1979 to 1985. That is how long it has

been.

MS. VERGE: No, I think it started about 1983.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We have to be fair to the other

members.

DR. WARREN: Yes.

To conclude, it is on hold for another short period of

time. I am not in a position to say how long, but I felt that with the Royal

Commission Report dealing with all aspects of education, when I read the report

I felt I should not move forward until this report has been discussed and

debated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Warren.

MR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a couple of short questions for the minister. I

will ask him all the questions I have and he can answer them after I am

finished.

Could the minister confirm or advise us, with respect

to special education, has he given consideration to giving the school boards

block funding for special education?

Also, just after Easter - and the minister probably

wasn't aware of it any more than a lot of other people on the Avalon Peninsula

were - St. George's Day, which has been declared a provincial holiday, I notice

there was a lot of confusion or a lot of concern about this particular St.

George's Day which was celebrated on a Monday after the Easter holidays, for

some reason the school was open because the actual day was during the Easter

recess. Can the minister advise us as to how this confusion came about because I

think it was most unfortunate, as one parent anyhow. I am just wondering if it

was legal the way it happened and I am concerned as to whether the school board

took the action without getting legal advice on that particular day?

DR. WARREN: The first question deals with the

grant system. I want to advise the member that we are reviewing the grant system

totally. We have, as I said, next year another $12 million to put into the

maintenance and operation of schools. This is a very substantial increase and

most of that money is going to go to boards in the Province that have been

disadvantaged in the past as a result of the school tax, areas that you

represent where there is criticism of the school tax system. We not only

eliminated that system and replaced that money but we added another $9 million

for this year, nine months, and $12 million, that is $12 million for the school

year. That gave us an opportunity to look at the whole grant system and to

ensure there is greater equity. The first principle is to provide more money for

areas that have greater needs and that in the past were disadvantaged.

By the way in rural Newfoundland, as you know, there

was less money from the school tax so we will, in the new grant system, attempt

to address that inequity and provide more money guaranteeing every board at

least what they would have got from the school tax. We are going to increase

substantially the funding for school boards in rural Newfoundland. That is the

first principle in the new grant system. We are looking at block funding. We

have talked with the school boards about block funding. If you use the formula

to give block funding to a board then they have a lot of flexibility. If they

can save money in one area they can use it in another. Now, I know this is

(inaudible) at the present time but looking at the whole block funding I am not

sure you can do it for all of special education because we have 1000 special

education teachers. That is off the top of my head, and you would not want to do

that in block funding. You want to pay teachers in accordance with the scale but

I can see an area like student assistants - we are now increasing the funding

for student assistants. This is another thing I could have mentioned at the

beginning, we have reclassified student assistants. We have increased the

funding for student assistants from up to $4.8 million and now we are looking at

the possibility, with school boards, of using an objective formula to grant

school boards that amount of money and let them decide whether they hire people

short-term or long-term. It went up from $3.5 to $4.8 million this year. This is

in the freeze and I am pleased with this. In the freeze we have reclassified

student assistants and increased the vote from $3.5 to $4.8 million. Now here is

an area where we are exploring with school boards the possibility of using an

objective formula based on need for student assistants, and to grant them a

global amount of money and let them decide how to spend these funds. I think

that is one area where we are looking at global funding. We have not looked at

transportation because that is difficult but I think the global funding approach

has some real advantages and we are examining these at the present time.

Now, on the confusion - you have your ear to the

ground, I think, as you normally do, I might say to the member. I got a couple

of calls on the confusion that day. The night before a person called me and

said: my husband is in hospital but I thought I should call you to find out if

school is open. He knows you but I do not know you and I want to see if school

is open tomorrow. I tried to explain that the school year is determined by

statute and school boards have the right within these to decide on opening or

closing and holidays.

I am pleased to say that in many cases the boards have

gotten together on it. They now try to close and open at Christmas and in the

new year and at Easter at the same time, but there are still some holidays on

which one board decides to have a holiday and another not to. I think the only

statutory holiday that school boards must observe is November 11. They must

observe that.

I would encourage boards to do what you inferred in

your question, and that is try to get together and have basically the same

holidays, for a variety of reasons. I gather in St. John's the two boards are

consulting each other on holidays.

Easter and Christmas they have the same, but on St.

George's day I got the feedback you got - confusion.

MR. WARREN: One final question to the minister, if

you do not mind, Mr. Chairman.

The minister spoke about the elimination of school

tax. I think I might have asked the minister the question in the Legislature

some time ago, but I do not think I got a fair answer from him, or a correct

answer, in my estimation.

In my district, from Rigolet to Nain, in those five

communities there is no school tax. There has been no school tax because the

provincial government gets a grant in lieu of taxes from the federal government

and directs it to the school boards through The Native People's Agreement. This

was helping things in place of the school tax.

The minister is going to give school boards x number

of dollars to offset the school tax that was soon to be collected throughout the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Is the minister going to say to the

federal government now that this money that you are giving under The Native

People's Agreement, which I think is going to expire in 1993, now can be used

for other essential purposes in those designated communities, and as we have

said in the Legislature, we will now replace this with our new tax system

because we have brought in the personal income tax. It has been increased to

offset this cost and everything else. If not, I would just like for the minister

to clarify that.

DR. WARREN: I do not think it has any impact on

the federal funding. In the case of Labrador East Integrated and the Roman

Catholic School Board for Labrador, what we are going to do is provide them for

operation and maintenance through the new grant system at least the amount from

the provincial government that the boards that had the highest collections in

school taxes got.

I have the figures here, but I will not get into them,

but there were some school districts in the Province getting $100 and maybe

Labrador East - I would like to have the figures. Perhaps if you want me to get

them I can - in Labrador East I do not know what it was getting precisely from

the school tax, but it was much less than St. John's. St. John's was getting -

the last figure I saw for 1980 was perhaps $380 a year from the school tax per

student. Labrador East was probably getting -

MR. WARREN: One hundred and forty?

DR. WARREN: I think I should look it up, because

the member asked a very good question and it illustrates how the new system will

work.

Do you have the figures for Labrador East - the school

tax? I have some of them here. The name of the school tax authority in Labrador,

Central Labrador, Labrador East, in 1990 - just look at the difference what the

boards were getting from school taxes. That board was getting $177 and the

average for the Province was $231; that was in 1990 now, the last year for which

I have figures. St. John's was getting $376; so the difference was $200 per

student per year between the Central Labrador School Tax Authority and the St.

John's School Tax Authority.

What we are going to do with the new system is bring

the amounts for Central Labrador, including the Coast of Labrador, at least up

to St. John's. So these boards are going to get, from the new tax system - from

the general revenues which are collected from income tax and payroll tax and so

on - double what they got from the government for operation and maintenance of

schools.

MR. WARREN: Okay. So is that is on top of the

agreement -

DR. WARREN: Those federal amounts will continue to

be negotiated.

MR. WARREN: On top of what they are getting now

presently under the native peoples agreement?

DR. WARREN: Yes. They will get additional money

over and above - the agreement won't be taken into consideration in levelling up

Labrador schools. The agreement will be set aside and that will be additional.

We are looking at negotiating another agreement. What we will do is level up

Labrador and perhaps they will get for the operation and maintenance of schools

nearly double what they are getting at the present time from the school tax.

MR. WARREN: If that is the case, Mr. Minister, I

am sure Mr. McLean will be quite pleased to know what you've just said. Because

if that is the case they are going to be extremely happy.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Warren, of all the decisions that

we've made politically in the last year, outside St. John's in particular, the

support for this change and for the new money, I must tell you that I have had

more support for this levelling up. People felt that when we eliminated the

school tax all the government could do this year, a tough year, was to replace

the school tax money. We are adding $12 million. Rural Newfoundland will get $12

million - most of it will go to rural school boards - more for operation and

maintenance than they would have gotten from the school tax next year.

MR. WARREN: Yes. But you are saying that they will

get practically almost double what they are getting now and -

DR. WARREN: Well, for school board operation and

maintenance -

MR. WARREN: Right.

DR. WARREN: - in Labrador, I do not know what the

figures were last year. But they were only getting (Inaudible).

MR. WARREN: Okay. But it will not affect the

native peoples' funding that is already agreed on?

DR. WARREN: The native peoples funding is over and

above that.

MR. WARREN: Okay.

DR. WARREN: They will get from the government very

much more for the operation and maintenance of schools. We did not this year.

That is a very significant increase in funding for operation and maintenance of

schools, especially for rural Newfoundland.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Warren. Mr. Walsh.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, as opposed to breaking

with what we have been doing all night, things are going very well. Personally,

again, tonight I would like to finish this Department if at all possible. We are

willing to carry on with what we are doing currently. Hopefully around 9:45

p.m., if that is a feeling, if we want to finish at 10:00 p.m., we could switch

over to the actual estimates. If not, around that time if it looks like we can

do it around then, or someone's in full flight and we want to hold on for a

little bit after ten to get through the actual numbers, I just wanted to say

that we are more than willing to carry on with the format we are following, with

the intentions of hopefully finishing tonight.

I mentioned to the minister earlier that I apologized,

and to the staff - unfortunately it was prior to my colleagues from the other

side of the House being here - that it is our intention to hopefully deal with

this Department tonight. So we are going to carry on with what we have been

doing and allow our colleagues from the other side to keep going with their

questions so we can deal with the estimates.

DR. WARREN: I talked to our members here and we

are all prepared to answer any questions you have and stay.

MR. WALSH: Okay, fine.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. My information is that

instead of an increase in revenue of $12 million, as the minister is claiming,

there will be an increase of $1.8 million. I would like the minister to take us

through the school board revenue for 1991-1992 by category. The operating grants

from the Department of Education, the bus transportation funding, capital

funding, equalization grants and school tax revenue. Then give us information on

the revenue split for 1992-1993. My information is that when you do a full

assessment of revenue of school boards in 1991-1992, and then if you project

revenue under the proposed new arrangement for 1992-1993, the difference is far

short of $12 million.

Mr. Smart is shaking his head, so I would call upon

the minister and Mr. Smart to give me an itemized accounting of the comparison

to support the claim of the $12 million extra.

DR. WARREN: I anticipated that question so I have

a few statistics. The total gross expenditure on education in 1991-1992 is $778

million, gross. It is going up to $826 million.

MS. VERGE: Yes, if I might interject. Teachers'

salaries -

DR. WARREN: I will get to that, I have the

salaries.

MS. VERGE: - amount to the bulk of spending on

education.

DR. WARREN: I have that broken down here.

MS. VERGE: But as everyone here involved in

education understands, the accounting for teachers' salaries is done separately.

DR. WARREN: Yes. I will get to that.

MS. VERGE: When I was talking about revenue I was

talking about revenue other than teachers' salaries, which actually are paid

directly by the Department of Education. I am talking about revenue for the

salaries of other personnel and to meet other operating requirements, as well as

capital funding.

DR. WARREN: As I was saying, the total gross

educational expenditure last year was $778 million. It is going to $826 million,

which is a 6 per cent increase. That includes the money that we are this year

putting in to replace the school tax.

MS. VERGE: But that's for post-secondary and adult

as well as for -

DR. WARREN: Yes. I will get to elementary if you

just give me a minute.

MS. VERGE: Okay, good.

DR. WARREN: We have a 6 per cent increase in the

gross educational budget for next year over last year. That is with the freeze.

That includes, however, the money to replace the school tax. So the new money -

if you took out the school tax replacement money - in the education budget this

year is 3 per cent increase. I have the figures for Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan

is cutting its education budget, Nova Scotia is cutting its education budget.

We, even if you took out the school tax money, are increasing the education

budget in a freeze year, a very difficult year, by 3 per cent.

Now let's get to primary, elementary and secondary.

The amount for teachers' salaries last year was $409 million, and this year it

is $418 million. That is a 2.2 per cent increase in the vote for teachers'

salaries. Even though we have a freeze we have a 2.2 per cent increase. I do not

think the public realizes this. That's for steps in the teachers who are moving

up. So there are probably 2,000 teachers who would get a step increase next

year.

The total increase in primary, elementary and

secondary - that is the total including teachers' salaries - is from $534

million to $574 million.

Let's take the school board operations. Now I am

getting to where the member asked as I am delighted to provide this data. This

year the school board operations, including the school tax, are going from $82

million to $118 million.

MS. VERGE: Wait now. Just for clarification.

DR. WARREN: Yes.

MS. VERGE: That figure, $118 million this year.

DR. WARREN: Includes the school tax replacement.

MS. VERGE: Oh, when you say "this year" you mean

1992-1993.

DR. WARREN: Eighty-two million dollars last year

in school board operations, 1991-1992. It is going to $118 million in 1992-1993.

Now we will go the estimates, because I think that's where the member was asking

me to go through the estimates.

MS. VERGE: Just so we have apples and apples, what

was the revenue from school tax to school boards in 1991-1992?

DR. WARREN: In 1991-1992 you add to the $82

million, about $30 million went to the school tax.

MR. ROBERT SMART: One of the problems you'll have

here is -

MS. VERGE: Yes, I know, the fiscal year and the

school year are different.

MR. SMART: - comparing government's fiscal year to

the school year.

MS. VERGE: Yes, okay. I'm talking provincial

government fiscal years, 1991-1992.

DR. WARREN: About $30 million. So you add the $30

million to the -

MS. VERGE: Is it $30 million or $35 million?

DR. WARREN: Well, $35 million minus the amount

that is used for administration.

MS. VERGE: But what was the net that the revenue -

DR. WARREN: About $30 million last year,

1991-1992.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Now, in the new Budget year,

1992-1993, there will still be school tax for three months.

DR. WARREN: The school tax for the calendar year,

half the year, and there will be school tax for the fiscal year, three months.

MS. VERGE: Yes, so what is the estimate for school

tax revenue in this new year, 92-93?

DR. WARREN: I would say for three months about a

quarter of $32 million net, after you pay for the expenses so whatever a quarter

of that - $7 million or $8 million; so they would get that. Now what we have

done in the budget, is increase - let us go through each of the sub-heads.

Operating is frozen because we froze the grants per student so the amount is $39

million and is only a slight increase.

MS. VERGE: The minister just lost me. Earlier, the

minister said that operating grants to school boards last year were $82 million

DR. WARREN: Yes.

MS. VERGE: - and in the new year -

DR. WARREN: This year $118 million.

MS. VERGE: -$118 operating grants plus school tax

replacement.

DR. WARREN: That includes the school tax

replacement.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: That's right. I think it is easier to

understand when one goes through the sheet indicating the headings. In operating

grants, we have a frozen amount, that is the amount per student, $280.00.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Last year there were operating

grants labelled as such and there was equalization labelled as such.

DR. WARREN: Yes, that is here too.

MS. VERGE: How much was last year's equalization?

DR. WARREN: I am getting to that in a minute. I am

going through the headings in order on page 166 -

MS. VERGE: Okay, I have a different -

DR. WARREN: You referred me I think to 166?

MS. VERGE: No, I didn't actually, I had a separate

list here.

DR. WARREN: Well, page 166, the official amount,

the operating grants to school boards were frozen so it is about 39.2 million in

91-92, and 39.5 million in 92-93, no change. Student assistance I mentioned

earlier, we are going to put that into operating grants, that went from $3.5

million to $4.8 million; that is the reclassification of the 400 student

assistants and even though many people did not get an increase this year,

student assistants are one of the two or three groups who would get an increase

because of reclassification.

Now the complex one is the next one. Last year, it was

$10 million for equalization, it went to $45 million this year. That $45 million

includes from the government the $10 million that we had last year in

equalization, that leaves $35 million; that $35 million is made up of about $27

million to replace the school tax for nine months, because that is

three-quarters plus $8.8 or $9 million to level up, and the $8.8 million, that

is about $9 million for nine months is about a million a month, which means that

when that is annualized, that $45 million, if that were for the whole year,

would be up to forty-five plus - probably forty-six - more than that because

this is for nine months, so this year, for nine months we are increasing the

equalization - another way to look at it is from $10 million, if you took out

the nine months $27 million or $28 million for tax equalization replacement, you

have then a difference of $8 million or $9 million for levelling up, and of

course, transportation; what we did last year was, I think I can tell the public

through the House, that last year we were able to generate some savings in

transportation.

We went out and talked to school boards and I must pay

tribute to the boards. We provided some incentives. School boards last year

started to share busing; there were six areas in this Province, where the

department officials, and I pay tribute to them, went out and met with the

boards, rationalized the transportation system and there were some savings and

this year, in fact yesterday morning met with the school board and we will be

looking this year to save perhaps up to a half million dollars as a result of

rationalizing the school transportation system.

We have heard as a department, and I think perhaps

some of it is myth, we have heard substantial criticisms of the proliferation of

buses, the numbers of buses in certain areas that are denominational buses going

in different directions. The Department in these tough times has decided to

address this problem. I assure the public that this year we are going to be very

pro-active in this area to ensure that we get better value for the school bus

money that we are spending.

MS. VERGE: Of course, this started during the

previous administration. I know in the Corner Brook area, the area that I

represent, there was a joint Integrated-RC school board bus that has been

established about five, six, eight years.

DR. WARREN: Yes, in some areas this has been there

for some time.

MS. VERGE: What about capital?

DR. WARREN: Capital. When we took power three

years ago today the amount was $20 million. It had been $20 million for perhaps

two or three or four years under the former administration. One of the first

things that the government did was to grant $21 million extra over a three year

period, for capital. We gave $7 million in the first year of the three grant,

plus the amount for insurance, which is higher - I think it is a $1.5 million

this year. So we have since 1989 increased the former administration's capital

grants by $21 million.

MS. VERGE: But there was a pulling back for

1992-1993.

DR. WARREN: 1992-1993, no, that was a three year

commitment to put $21 million more into it. We said that in the Budget.

MS. VERGE: Yes, but for the new year (Inaudible) -

DR. WARREN: It's back to $20 million.

MS. VERGE: Yes, exactly.

DR. WARREN: Yes, it is at $20 million.

MS. VERGE: So there's a $7 million cut from last

year to this year.

DR. WARREN: No. The amount was a three year grant

to give $21 million extra to capital. We said that in the Budget. Let me add one

other thing which I am delighted to speak to, and I know Mr. Walsh is watching

the time.

This government decided a year ago to develop a

long-range plan for capital construction. We will have in place within the next

year a long-range plan for schools in this Province, looking at the Royal

Commission report, and we are doing an assessment of all the buildings, so that

we can put in place a ten year plan. This year we are going to focus on

completing that long-term capital.

Maybe the government has to look at long-term

borrowing. In the past most of the capital construction in school buildings has

been short-term. Boards have borrowed short-term. Perhaps we need to put

together a ten or fifteen year capital plan and go to the markets and get

long-term funding, build schools now and have them, particularly with the Royal

Commission report. So this year we are doing that in addition to carrying on

with the program.

MS. VERGE: So that is a hint.

DR. WARREN: That's not a hint.

MS. VERGE: One hint about -

DR. WARREN: That's public knowledge.

MS. VERGE: A scoop for The Evening Telegram. Okay.

I have five more topics, and I will try to be brief. The minister could go on

and on because he is so knowledgeable -

DR. WARREN: I love it, I love it!

MS. VERGE: Yes, I know.

DR. WARREN: Especially the good news.

MS. VERGE: But since Mr. Walsh is so impatient to

get finished I will try to be brief.

Early childhood education.

DR. WARREN: Yes.

MS. VERGE: Studies long ago demonstrated the value

of good education of children at the earliest possible stage, pointing out that

the prime years of learning are the years from birth to age five, the pre-school

years, the years that precede our present schooling. We have heard about some

community initiated, largely volunteer run ad hoc head start programs,

pre-school programs. Day care has developed slowly and doesn't accommodate a

very large percentage of pre-school children.

There has been no recent mention by the minister of

initiatives in the field of early childhood education and I am wondering what is

going on. What priority does the minister and this administration attach to

early childhood education?

DR. WARREN: I will give a relatively short answer.

I think it is an important issue and I regret that in these tough times we do

not have the money to do in pre-school what needs to be done in this Province

and in this country. We have a kindergarten program. I think New Brunswick is

the last province to develop a kindergarten program.

MS. VERGE: PEI.

DR. WARREN: PEI may have one now. We have had a

kindergarten program for some time but some provinces have not had it. I regret

that we do not have more money to put into initiatives, at least pilot

initiatives in pre-school. I think the early years are critical years,

particularly for disadvantaged students. I saw a film last night and I saw

examples of what can be done. Burnt Islands is an excellent example of where a

pre-school program is in place and it has done wonders for young people. Mr.

Ramsay you know as it is in your district and you and I visited there. Burnt

Islands are really achieving extremely well, thanks largely to the school board

there, the parents and the principal who have done things not only in the

regular grades, like providing food, breakfast, and hot lunches and so on, but

they have started to work with parents.

There are two challenges in education. If Dr. Kitchen

were to say to me tomorrow: if you had $100 million where would you spend it? I

would look at the two extremes. Now, I am speculating here. I would look at

adult education because I think we have a major problem in this Province and in

this country in adult under-education and illiteracy. I would put some

additional money there and I would put some additional money into pre-school. We

just do not have the money and the former administration did not have the money.

MS. VERGE: I am glad to hear the minister say

that.

DR. WARREN: I want to pay tribute to boards. I do

not want to cut you off Madam Vice-Chair but I think the boards are doing a lot

of good work already in this area with limited dollars and I think after we get

past this period of fiscal restraint I would hope that when additional monies

become available in the next few years we would put more into areas of the

Province which are more disadvantaged. Again, I do not think we can afford for a

long time a universal pre-school program. I would start with areas where I know

it will help. School boards are doing some of that now. I think the potential of

that, to increase retention, improve reading, and have parents involved is

tremendous. I am not tantalising again but we have asked the Royal Commission to

address that issue and it will be speaking to that issue as well. I do not think

I will be giving away any secrets when I say that the Royal Commission Report

will have something to say about the initiative in this area.

MS. VERGE: It is good to hear the minister

acknowledge the critical importance of -

DR. WARREN: And vital importance.

MS. VERGE: - a good learning environment and good

supports in the early years but we need more than lip service being paid to this

issue. I know the minister does not have an extra $100,000.

DR. WARREN: A $100 million.

MS. VERGE: I am sorry, $100 million. He probably

does have an extra $100,000.

DR. WARREN: Yes, I do.

MS. VERGE: But the minister nevertheless is

presiding over a huge budget. What is it? Roughly over $800 million. Surely the

minister and the government can make moves to foster the Burnt Islands

experience. Coxes Cove is another community where, thanks to the initiative of

an elementary school principal and former late departed fired mayor there has

been a beneficial early childhood education program with a co-operative

community, parent-school social services effort. How can the department, foster,

encourage, reward, and support that kind of experience?

DR. WARREN: We are supporting it. Your point is

well taken if I might add that comment. We are supporting