April 17, 2002 SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

MADAM CHAIR (Ms Jones): Order, please!

The first order of business will be to elect the Vice-Chair for the

Committee. I will now call for nominations for the position of Vice-Chair.

On motion of Ms Hodder, seconded by Mr. Hedderson, Mr. Manning was elected

Vice-Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: First of all this morning, we will start of by having the

Committee members introduce themselves by name and district, and then we will

ask the minister to introduce her officials.

MR. BUTLER: Roland Butler, MHA for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. MERCER: Bob Mercer, MHA for the District of Humber East.

MS M. HODDER: Mary Hodder, MHA for the District of Burin-Placentia West.

MR. MANNING: Fabian Manning, MHA for the District of Placentia & St.

Mary's.

MR. HEDDERSON: Tom Hedderson, MHA for the District of Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much.

We will now ask the minister to introduce her officials.

MR. HEDDERSON: (Inaudible) at 10:30 a.m, so I will be skipping out around

10:15 a.m. Hopefully, I will be back around 11:00 a.m.

MADAM CHAIR: Hopefully, with the co-operation of the Committee, we will

be able to conclude our business in due course and you won't have to

(inaudible).

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, I will have to attend to myself. I will have to

check.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much.

I will now ask the minister to introduce herself and her officials, after

which time, Minister, you will have fifteen minutes to introduce the Estimates

from your department, and the critic on this side will have ten minutes to speak

to your response, and then we will call the subheads for discussion.

I would like to ask everyone to identify themselves whenever they speak, for

the record of Hansard. Minister Kelly, whenever you are ready.

MS KELLY: Thank you very much.

My name is Sandra Kelly and I am the Minister of Youth Services and

Post-Secondary Education and also the Minister Responsible for the Status of

Women and the MHA for Gander District. The officials with me this morning,

starting on my far right, would be: Catherine Gogan, the Assistant Deputy

Minister in Planning and International Education; Carol Ruby, the Assistant

Deputy Minister of Youth Services and Career Development; my Deputy Minister,

Bruce Hollett. To my near left is Bob Young, in Finance and Administration, and,

I think, to join us, or who is already here maybe and just had to step out for a

moment, is Jack Thompson, who is the Director of Finance.

My comments this year, I think, I will keep a little more brief than I did

last year. The department was brand new last year and I felt like I had to cover

every single detail. So, I think I will just do a brief overview of some of the

things that we have done in this past year. In looking back, I think we have

accomplished a lot and certainly were able to bring forward the major

initiatives that we intended to.

The department was established about fourteen months ago. One of our main

priorities was to establish the Youth Advisory Committee, and that has been

done. They have met three times and, I have to say, provided extremely valuable

counsel both to me and to the department on issues that are important to the

youth of our Province.

The Committee, we did as we intended. We had a public call for young people

to express their interest. Then we took all of the applications and we have a

Youth Advisory Committee that is very representative of the youth of this

Province with Aboriginal representation, gender equality and regional

representation.

We have young people from age fourteen or fifteen up to twenty-seven, I

believe: some who are in high school, in post-secondary, either at university,

the College of the North Atlantic or a private college; some who are finished

and some who are out into the workforce. We have a young woman who is very

involved as a shop steward in her workplace. I think we have a very good balance

of young people to give advice to our department, and they are certainly doing

that.

We have established the Youth Investment and Opportunity Corporation in this

past year. It really has generated significant work experience and education

funding for students through some programs that were already very

well-established, like SWASP. We have put some new programs in that are very

similar to SWASP, but very targeted. We have been doing some work in particular

in areas like year-round SWASP so that students who are not at university or

post-secondary in the wintertime but are there in the summertime, we are able to

help a bit. Just in this last week or so we have, with the Department of Health,

announced a program for fifteen social work students in their fourth year at

university, to be able to give them work experience in rural areas, and we did

that just about a month ago, I believe it was, for helping students get jobs in

high schools to help students who need help preparing for their public exams. We

felt that would be a good area to help students get experience, if they are

intending to go into the education field, and would be very helpful to our high

school students.

I think most of you would know a lot about our community youth networks that

are around the Province and they are working very, very well. I spent a lot of

time this year visiting them and opening some of the new sites, or their new

facilities, as they are up and running. I have to say, they are very, very

successful. The Social Policy Committee has also visited a few of them as we

have been going about the Province.

I think the major program that we have recently announced, the major work we

have been working on in the past few weeks and months, has been the reforms to

our Student Aid Program. I think the main focus of this revolves around the

sharing of responsibility for reducing student debt amongst governments,

students and institutions.

I have to say, I think the changes were very well-received by students and I

think that was because students were so involved in the decision-making process.

It involved debt reduction grants for students upon graduation; incentives for

timely completion, which is very important, because we have too many students

who are running up much more debt than they should because they are in school

longer than they should be.

We have certainly put in place, I think, provisions for extenuating

circumstances to make sure that any of the new incentives for timely completion

did not impede students who had extenuating circumstances, like disabled

students and single parents and students with special medical circumstances. We

put in enhanced interest relief to match the federal program because, before

there were two programs and it was very confusing. We also allow students now to

retain more of their study period income. We used to demand 80 per cent to be

accounted for and now it is only 50 per cent and students are pleased about

that.

We increased the accountability for students to say that a full-time course

load was not going to be 60 per cent, it would be 80 per cent, which means,

instead of three courses a term, students would have to do four courses a term

at least, and hopefully five. Unless, as I pointed out, there were extenuating

circumstances, that would be the expectation.

Enhanced communication with students. We intend to do a much better job so

that students will understand the system. We will be going into high schools and

doing a lot more work and publicity around our new program. We also felt that we

needed to put enhanced career and financial counselling in place. We will be

doing that from two perspectives, in training guidance counsellors and others in

what the new program is all about so they can better counsel students in high

schools. We will also be adding staff in our Student Financial Services Division

so that while students are a part of the system they can receive better

counselling. So that is the main pieces of the Student Aid Program.

In this year's budget, I think most of you would realize that we made some

very significant investments in post-secondary education. We provided another -

actually, it was $3.5 million for a further 10 per cent tuition reduction for

Memorial students. We will be having a Round Table with the students at the

university in the upcoming weeks to decide - because last year a comment or two

was made around: Was tuition reduction the best route to go? Many feel that it

is but we want to make sure that the university and the students are able to

discuss whether that is the best route to go.

MUN Medical School tuition continues to be frozen, as does the College of the

North Atlantic tuition and Marine Institute. Memorial's tuition rates are now

the lowest in Atlantic Canada and almost the lowest in the country. The College

of the North Atlantic tuition rates are also amongst the lowest in the country.

I think though we need to point out, because many times when you talk about

being the lowest financially, many people take that to mean that there is a

difference in the quality. I want to assure everyone in this Province and in

this room that the quality of our public institutions is amongst the highest in

the country. There is no doubt about that. I think this year we have seen our

college receive the largest ever awarded international education contract in the

history of this country in Qatar, to build an institution in Qatar. Certainly,

indicators like that I think verify the statements that I have just made.

Also in this year's budget, Memorial's Operating Grant includes an extra

$1 million for high priority capital projects. We know that we would like that

to be higher. They certainly have higher needs both at the College of the North

Atlantic and at Memorial, but with the fiscal situation this was the most that

we could provide for very high priority capital projects.

This budget also continued to fulfill an obligation that we had to provide a

further $3 million for the Opportunity Fund. Again, this year we were able to

carve out an extra $500,000 for the Canada Foundation for Innovation projects.

This was outlined to us last year as we put the new department in place. Both

the university and the College of the North Atlantic outlined to us that in many

instances they are able to avail of research grants when they have some matching

funds. In the past, they tell us, they had not been able to lever these funds

because they did not have the ability to put their share in. So last year, by

putting in $500,000 the university was able to lever an additional $1.2 million

through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Our hope is that both the College

of the North Atlantic and Memorial will avail of this $500,000 in the upcoming

year to lever a higher level of funds.

Madam Chair, those are most of the comments I would like to make. I certainly

am open for questions.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much, Minister.

Maybe I will ask the Clerk to call the first subheads before we entertain

comments from the committee.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would just like to welcome the minister, her staff and the members of the

committee here this morning. Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education is

certainly an important department to many people in the Province, and most

importantly our students. I certainly welcome the opportunity this morning to

ask some questions but before I get into some of the different parts of the

department, I would just like to run through some of the costs and the budget

figures and revised figures first just to open up some discussion on those.

In the Minister's Office we had a budgeted amount last year of $50,000 for

Transportation and Communications. The revised was $65,000 with an estimate this

year of $46,000. Could the minister just explain why the increase of $15,000

there?

MS KELLY: Well, partly the reason for the decrease would be the fact of

the 8 per cent decrease that all of us have been asked to accommodate in our

budget. Last year also, it is certainly correct I think that we had extra travel

expenses in that the committees that I am a part of were travelling more,

especially social policy which would be accommodated there. I think all of those

have been done except for one to Western Newfoundland which will come out of

this year's budget. But last year, because I needed to be visiting the college

sites, the university sites, and the community youth network sites - and also

accommodated in that was some travel on behalf of the women's policy office

because of the fact there isn't a travel budget accommodated for me there. So

what I tried to do was always, when I was travelling, do it on behalf of both

Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education; and the women's policy office as

I got out to visit all of the women's centres in the Province. I think I was

in every one of them last year, so that expectation will not be there this year.

I anticipate and hope that I will be able to accommodate my travel within the

budget that is outlined.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, minister.

Is there anybody at the Minister's Office level, I guess, or within the

department, on contract with your department for consulting services?

MS KELLY: Not on a contract, no. I think from my memory of last year, and

there may have been others down through the department, but two that I would

know of would be a contract at the very beginning of the department when we were

putting together materials and a backdrop, I guess, for attending career fairs

in that there was a contract awarded for development of that, and recently a

contract to help us unroll the new student aid package. I guess it mostly

revolves around this here as the work that was done in this past year. Those are

the two major ones that I would know of. Mr. Hollett, are there any others?

MR. HOLLETT: There are a couple of other contracts that we did let last

year to engage people to examine specific policy questions that we had, that we

did not necessarily have the expertise within the department. For example, we

hired somebody around looking at whether or not we could or we should consider

having more applied degrees in the public college system. Those would generally

be small contracts. We also would have hired a couple of people to facilitate

planning sessions for us, planning days for the department, that sort of thing.

MR. MANNING: On this particular one, Minister, can you tell me how much

it costs to have this consultant hired for this?

MS KELLY: I think the whole contract was around $48,000, if I remember

correctly. That includes the television ads, the radio ads, the development of

the print material and also, I guess, the backdrop that would go with this

program too, because we will be taking this out to the high schools and to

guidance counsellor meetings and that sort of thing.

MR. MANNING: That would be all included in the $48,000?

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. MANNING: What company was that?

MS KELLY: Of the two I just described, one was M-5 and one was Total. I

think the first one was M-5 and this recent one was Total. I think they may be

called Total Communications. I am not sure of the exact name of the company.

MR. MANNING: Are we going to go, just for clarification, Madam Chair,

subhead by subhead? Because I may finish up on subhead 1.1.01., while somebody

else may have a question on that, before I move on to something else.

MADAM CHAIR: We can discuss all the subheads under the first head that

has been called.

MR. MANNING: Okay, I just wanted to be clear on that.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. MANNING: Can I defer to - well, I will just finish up my ten minutes.

I guess that is the best thing to do, because somebody else may have something.

MADAM CHAIR: For the record, I would also like to welcome the Member for

Trinity North, Mr. Ross Wiseman, who has just joined us.

I understand that we will now move to the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne,

Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to the Minister's Office, Salaries, in this

one right here it says, $216,000 in salaries. We have recorded, well, budgeted,

$249,000 and change, and now it is $245,000. There must have been other

positions. I assume they were temporary or whatever. What other positions are in

the Minister's Office that would account for the difference between $216,000

and $249,000?

MS KELLY: Well, through this year, actually, my staff has stayed exactly

the same. The only thing that may have changed was, we had a changeover in

communications staff. So, I would assume that it would be the difference in the

salary position in that area. Other than that, my executive assistant - and

there was also a change in my political assistant. Any of those changes, I

think, would be in that area.

Is there anything else here that is different, Mr. Hollett?

MR. HOLLETT: The Budget was restated, actually. What happened at the

beginning of the year, last year, where we had created a new department, some of

the positions that eventually ended up in the department early in the year were

not there when the Estimates were done last year because we had created the

department immediately before. The difference in the amount that was shown in

the Budget for the Minister's Office last year versus what is shown here now

restated was the transfer of a secretarial unit from Industry, Trade and Rural

Development, the old Department of ITT, to work with the communications director

in the new department. So, the initial Estimates did not include a secretary for

the Director of Communications.

MR. HEDDERSON: So that would account for the $26,000? That is the

difference?

MR. HOLLETT: That is the difference, right.

MR. HEDDERSON: So, he or she would be with regard to communications.

MR. HOLLETT: She is the secretary to the communications director.

MR. HEDDERSON: She is still in that position -

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, she is.

MR. HEDDERSON: - and will be for the coming year?

MR. HOLLETT: And she was the secretary to the Director of Communications

in the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology prior to that.

MR. HEDDERSON: So it was a transfer, more or less.

MR. HOLLETT: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: Ross, do you have anything?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: No, not on that category.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, Minister, under Executive Support, we have an increase of almost

$20,000 in .03 Transportation and Communications. Again, I would just like to

ask you to explain that. I listened to your answer in the Minister's Office. I

guess, when you travel, your people travel with you, but it went from $77,700 to

$96,700. Could you explain that for me, please?

MS KELLY: Well, I think most of that would be the increased travel

activity that I have already outlined, getting out around the Province; because,

I think, being a new department and bringing everything in and not being exactly

sure what we were going to be responsible for, as we became responsible, of

course, for all the community youth networks and for visiting all of the

campuses of the College of the North Atlantic and Memorial University, and out

meeting, putting together a Youth Advisory Committee - because I have tried, as

they are meeting, and my staff, too, to get out to at least part of their

meeting. So, it is just due to increased travel activity being higher than we

expected it to be.

MR. MANNING: In 06., Purchased Services, with a budget of $27,900,

revised to $9,400, there was a considerable drop, a good deal somewhere, so I

would just like to know why there is a considerable drop in that.

MS KELLY: Well, it was mostly due to a lower volume of printing, I

understand, than what we expected we would need. I do not think it is down,

actually, that significantly. I think we have used most of it. I am not sure if

there is any other reason that you can -

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MS KELLY: Okay. Are there any other...?

MR. HOLLETT: No, it is essentially printing. Printing of certain

documents last year was not done, but typically is done in a year, and we have

provided for it in the Budget again this year. It was just less printing.

MR. MANNING: So, the printing was not needed in the last fiscal year?

MR. HOLLETT: There was not as much printing of documents and materials as

had been provided for in the Budget. It is a category that has been, I

understand, in previous years, up and down, and that was the allocation. We did

not require it all, so when we had to try and restrain money in the course of

the year that was one of the areas we just said, well, we will hold the line on

that one.

MR. MANNING: Under subhead 2.1.01., Youth Services, the budget for

Salaries was $420,500, which went up by a little over $50,000. It is revised

back down this year almost $30,000. Could you give some elaboration on that,

please?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hollett.

MR. HOLLETT: Again, this was some moving around of positions from one

department to another on the establishment of the new department. When the Youth

Employment Programs came from the Department of Human Resources and Employment

to the new department, initially, at budget time, there was not a person

associated with that. Early in the new fiscal year we had an individual whose

position was transferred from Human Resources and Employment to Youth Services.

So that is part of the reason it went up.

As well, we have had some adjustments in Salaries of people going from the

Youth Services vote and being moved over to the LMDA Secretariat in the

department. Again, it all relates to the structuring of the new department and

moving the positions into the department from one division to another. That

happened in about four or five instances in the department's estimates related

to the creation of a new department.

MR. MANNING: Okay, so that is why we have a revised estimate this year of

$393,900 because some of these positions have moved to another part of the

department.

MR. HOLLETT: Well, have moved from the Youth Services

section of the

department to the LMDA Secretariat.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

Also, under Youth Services, .09, Allowances and Assistance, there is a

considerable drop in the budgeted amount from $495,000 to $345,000. Could you,

once again, elaborate on that somewhat?

MS KELLY: Oh yes, Allowances and Assistance.

It is mostly doing with tuition vouchers, I understand, and that would be the

program that we have Tutoring for Tuition in high schools, which has been an

extremely successful program.

MR. MANNING: Okay, we have a budget of $495,000, is it that people are

not - I understand the program also and there is a considerable drop. Is it that

there are not enough people taking part because my understanding is that there

are?

MR. HOLLETT: There are indeed more people taking part, Mr. Manning. What

happens is that once we issue the tuition voucher it does not actually record as

an expenditure then. They are only recorded as expenditures when people cash

them in and bring them to an institution. We know how much is outstanding and

while we provide a budget estimate, it is really an estimate of how much is

going to get turned in during the course of the year. This $345,000 is actually

how much is turned in to institutions during the course of the year.

MR. MANNING: Why wouldn't they be turned in? For what reasons? People

did not go to post-secondary or -

MR. HOLLETT: There could be a number of reasons. People may have, for

example, not gone on to post-secondary education, but more likely they may have

received scholarships or other forms of funding so that they (inaudible) this

year, and they may require them in the future. They do not stale-date really. We

will reissue them and honour them at a later date if people do not use them for

a year, two years, three years, four years.

MR. MANNING: So they can be carried over into another year?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes. The voucher stays with the student and they can use it

when they need it. So if they do not need it until their third or fourth year

sometimes, that is indeed what happens.

MR. MANNING: So in reality you could have a budget of $495,000 this year

which could come in a little larger if people cashed in, but at the same time it

is brought over from last year.

MR. HOLLETT: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS KELLY: I think there are also instances where they have not completed

high school. They get them for several years in a row. So you could have someone

in -

WITNESS: Level II students.

MS KELLY: Yes, Level II students doing this. Then they are still in high

school and in some instances accumulating more in their last year also. That

will help them out as they go through. So that instance also would cause them

not to put their tuition vouchers in.

MR. HOLLETT: Actually, this is an estimate of how much would be cashed,

not how much we will issue. I guess that is the best way to look at it.

MR. MANNING: Yes, okay. It is a considerable amount. I just wanted

clarification.

Do you have anything on this particular one here?

WITNESS: I was going to go back to the executives.

MR. MANNING: Okay, I will just defer.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Bruce, just to clarify a point you just made. The

$495,000 for 2002-2003, is an estimate of what you anticipate to be redeemed and

not an estimate of what you anticipate giving out. Can you break that down for

us and tell us how much of that $495,000 would be new vouchers given and how

much of that $495,000 would be vouchers that you think are out there in

circulation to be redeemed from previous years? Do you have a sense of what that

might be?

MR. HOLLETT: I do not have those figures with me but I know that they are

available in the department because I have asked that same question myself. So

we can get that information for you if you wish.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Could you do that? In the meantime, I would appreciate

knowing the figure, but do you have some sense of - because when I look at

$495,000 from last year and you actually cashed or redeemed $345,000, that is

just a significant drop. It tells you that there are a fair number of vouchers

out there that do not get redeemed very quickly. So that would suggest, or at

least I think it might suggest, that there are a fair number of vouchers out

there in circulation that are not yet redeemed from last year and maybe the year

before that. If we are investing new money, then how much of this is a new

investment versus what is already out there in circulation? Do you have some

sense of what the ratio might be?

MR. HOLLETT: I believe probably around 50 per cent to 60 per cent is

redeemed within the first two years. That is my understanding.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just look at the Youth Services, 2.1.01. There is a

National Child Benefit Program mentioned in there. Basically, just looking at

the breakdown, with the National Child Benefit, I think, you are making a

commitment that you are investing $1.8 million. Is that provincial money,

federal money? Where does that show up on the allowances, grants or whatever?

MS KELLY: The National Child Benefit, I understand through my department,

is mostly for the Community Youth Services Network. The details of it - Mr.

Hollett, I guess, or Mr. Young or Mr. Thompson could give you the details of it.

I have not analyzed that myself.

MR. HOLLETT: That program was transferred to us from the Department of

Health but I believe - I need to check exactly on this - the $1.8 million there

was a commitment that the Province made as part of the National Child Benefit

Program, and the federal government made other investments as well. This piece

of it, the Community Youth Network, is a piece of the entire National Child

Benefit which the Province has committed to.

MR. HEDDERSON: I am just seeing what piece it is. So the Province, you

are saying, is putting in $1.8 million. Has that been matched or what is the

deal or the details?

MS KELLY: My memory of it is the National Child Benefit is federal

dollars.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay. And we put in $1.8 million of our own funds?

MS KELLY: No, the Community Youth Network is funded through the National

Child Benefit which is federal dollars.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so that $1.8 million is federal dollars?

MS KELLY: Yes, that would be my understanding but we will certainly make

sure that we check back, but my memory of when we signed the National Child

Benefit, that it is the same right across the country.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to that $1.8 million, that funds the community

based organizations. I understand that something like nine projects, if I am not

mistaken, in Labrador, the Grenfell region, western, central, eastern and St.

Johns's, right?

MS KELLY: Yes, it does not fund youth programs outside of the Community

Youth Network. As you know, we have hundreds and hundreds of youth programs that

are funded by the provincial government under another subheading but under the

Community Youth Network, it is all that that particular funding is for.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so it is allocated. Nine projects is what I see for

$1.8 million. Is there just simply a division, nine into $1.8 million, or is it

according to the needs? With regard to those projects, how do they break down?

MS KELLY: It is funded differently in each, of course, according to the

budgets that are put in, where they are located, because obviously there are

different rentals for facilities in different communities. The salary levels

would be the same, but different youth networks run different programs. Also,

under the fact that there are nine, some of them have more satellites than

others. If I remember correctly, on the South Coast of Labrador there are three

satellites from the main Community Youth Network facility. In Central

Newfoundland, I believe there are two. No, maybe three, actually. I should

remember from visiting them all. It just depends. There are more satellites in

some areas than in others.

MR. HEDDERSON: The decision for funding would come from your department,

or is it in consultation with, you know, federal agencies, other provincial

agencies or other departments? Who oversees that? I know it is your department,

but is it an advisory panel? Who does the allocation of the funding?

MS KELLY: There was an in-depth study done as the program was put in

place provincially. The Community Youth Networks were put in areas with the

highest need, with the highest percentage of youth at risk, or youth unemployed,

who needed these services. Actually, we would like to have a lot more of them

and we have certainly had a very high number of requests for them, especially

since the success has been demonstrated throughout the Province, but, with the

funding that is available, this is as far as we were able to bring it.

The initial decisions were not made by the Department of Youth Services and

Post-Secondary Education. They were made by Health and Community Services, where

the program originated before this department was put in place.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to those nine projects, is there any way that

we could get an idea of what the funding was for each of them? Is there a

printout?

MS KELLY: That certainly shouldn't be a problem. They all have budgets

identified. Some of them, it would appear, when looking at the Budget, have much

less funding than others, but that is only because some are more up and running

than others are. I think in this upcoming year, actually, you will see the true

budget picture because all of them now, I think, are at the stage of having

their facilities rented, their staff hired and their programs up and operating.

Some of them, for part of last year, only operated on a full scale for half the

year.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so in the budget item, then, that would be under

Grants and Subsidies, that one point. I assume that was what was given last

year. I assume it is the same this year. Would that be correct?

MS KELLY: Yes, that -

MR. HEDDERSON: That is a steady amount.

MS KELLY: Yes, that is correct.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the Youth Services, as well, again the salary units,

I am just referring to this book right here. Under Youth Services, we have total

activity in outlining the employees in that particular

section as $102,000. I

see here under Youth Services last year, $420,500 in salaries boosted to

$470,400 and cut back now to $393,900. Now, I think you have already explained

why there is a cutback. Again, I wonder why this book just records $102,000

whereas, wow, you know, $420,000. Again, I will leave it up to the minister to -

MS KELLY: I would assume that some of that is because we were at the

start of putting a new department in place and many, last year, of the salary

units were resting in other departments and would have been transferred over

during the year. If you have any further comments, I assume that would be the

reason. If there are other reasons for the differences in those two figures, I

am sure the officials could point it out.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, we could get a printout of the difference of

$102,000 and the $420,000, as to who has been hired and what positions and that

sort of thing? That could be provided to us?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, we can indeed provide that. The main difference there

would be that the Salary Details book presents funded, permanent provincial

government positions. To the extent that we have temporary employees and

positions that are funded, for example, through federal-provincial agreements,

they would not show up in the Salary Details book, but within the Estimates that

would be a true and full reflection of exactly how much you spent in salaries in

that particular section. For example, we get funding for the Community Youth

Networks from the federal government. That would also cover the salary of the

Community Youth Networks co-ordinator that we have in the department. That is

the way that works.

MR. HEDDERSON: We did mention the Tutoring for Tuition Program. Has that

been extended down to Level I's as well? I know Level II's and Level III's

are usually part of it. Is that being pushed back to Level I as well? I am just

curious.

MS KELLY: My understanding would be, with the funding that is allocated

and is done by school boards, that it would go to Level III and then to Level

II. It would only be in instances where the funding would be there. I think that

would be very rare, that you wouldn't find Level III and Level II students

availing of it to the degree that there would be significant amounts left for

Level I. So, while I think it is possible, it does not happen very much.

MR. HEDDERSON: With the Tutoring for Tuition Program, I know one of the

problems experienced when I was involved with it was getting volunteers with

regard to teachers, and setting up and that sort of thing. Is all the money for

tutoring just going into the vouchers or is there some support with regard to,

you know, making arrangements to train teachers, to train students, and that

sort of thing? Is it all just for delivery of it, the vouchers, and has anything

changed in the program? Because before it was simply put in the laps of the

teachers and they were asked to co-ordinate it, but I found that it did not

always work out and some of the teachers did not have the skills to pass on to

the tutors to pass on to whatever. So, is all the money dedicated for it or is

there training or administrative and that sort of thing? What is the breakdown

of that?

MS KELLY: No, all of it goes for tuition and, actually, we would like to

be able to put more in there. This is the first, actually, that I have heard

that there might be a need to do otherwise, and I have been very involved with

the program this year. It may be that the difficulties you are outlining may

have just been at the start of the program until people were used to it. I will

certainly be checking now to see if there are any expressions of concern coming

from our school boards or our teachers, but, from my perspective, teachers and

school boards and administrators have been glowing in their comments about the

program as I have been out about the Province. So, all of the funds go into

helping students save money for their post-secondary education.

MR. HEDDERSON: I just bring it up, Minister, simply because I was

involved in one of the first of those. Those were some of the problems that were

arising. It is getting increasingly difficult to get the commitment of even

teachers after school hours, due to different reasons that we will not go into

right now. Again, I just thought I would bring that to your attention because I

think it is something that has to be looked at because it is an excellent

program and I certainly would like to see every bit of the money go towards the

tuition vouchers. To make sure that the program continues, perhaps that might be

some consideration for you here as well.

MS KELLY: Could I make a further comment on that? I would assume that the

increase in the teacher education or the teacher in-service budget that has been

done over the last few years certainly might have been able to accommodate that.

That would be done under a different budget heading in the Department of

Education, but this budget is purely in place to assist students through the

Tutoring for Tuition Program.

MR. HEDDERSON: Minister, any chance you get, put a plug in for those

teacher volunteers who are running the program, because they are really doing

stellar work out there, staying behind after and being present and taking their

dinner hours and lunch and recess minutes to basically take care of the program.

MS KELLY: There is no doubt that teachers have been extremely supportive

and have actually, when I am out and about, especially to youth leadership

things where many of our teachers are helping students on weekends, at many

things that I attend, one of the things that they bring forward to me very

consistently is both the SWASP program and the Tutoring for Tuition Program.

That was one of the reasons we extended some of the Tutoring for Tuition

Programs at the university level this year to bring students back who are hoping

to go into the education field, because we felt it was so valuable.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the Youth Services as well, we are looking at youth

programs. Is that employment programs? What other programs are there? I am

looking at Grants and Subsidies of $2.6 million and change, $1.8 million of it

which is what we have already discussed. Tutoring for Tuition is there, the

National Child Benefit Program that we discussed. What others fall under this

category?

MS KELLY: I need to just check here to see, would that also be the area

where the funding for our various youth programs come in place, like the Boys

and Girls Club, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Encounters with Canada. There are a

fair number of programs that we help subsidize throughout the year that would be

included under that heading. Most of this funding has been done for some time

now, so it is almost a routine one whereby the decisions are made, as I have

outlined, for programs that have been identified and very successful in this

Province for a number of years: Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Duke of Edinburgh, Boys

and Girls Club, the TI Murphy Centre, and programs like that. Most of the other

funding would be, as you have said, Tutoring for Tuition and our Community Youth

Networks which is done through the National Child Benefit Program.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, Minister. Basically, I am just looking at a whole

range of programs here: Tutoring for Tuition, Graduate Recruitment Program,

Graduate Employment Program, the JEEPS, Opening Doors. Are they in another

heading or are they all under that one heading?

MS KELLY: No.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hollett.

MR. HOLLETT: All of those are in other departments, the (inaudible).

MR. HEDDERSON: On your Web site they were all under the same -

MS KELLY: They would be in the Department of Human Resources and

Employment.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay.

MS KELLY: Actually, in the list that you just outlined, the Graduate

Employment Program would be run through our department. I know that I sign off

those applications as students graduate, go out and seek employment and, where

they meet the criteria, the places of employment they go to are eligible for a

grant of up to $10,000 for the student's first year of employment. It has been

one of our very successful programs, actually.

MR. HEDDERSON: I just got this off your Web site, which is Employment

Programs, and we have Department Employment Programs and External Employment

Programs. Under the department, Opening Doors, you say, you administer but

someone else funds?

MS KELLY: Yes, Human Resources and Employment. In some instances they may

administer some of them too. We work jointly on them. It depends on, when a

student comes forward, what their particular needs are and where they would fit.

MR. HEDDERSON: JEEPS?

MS KELLY: JEEPS would be done through Human Resources and Employment,

many times, though, in conjunction with us.

MR. HEDDERSON: The SWASP?

MS KELLY: SWASP is totally done through the Department of Youth Services

and Post-Secondary Education.

MR. HEDDERSON: The funding as well?

MS KELLY: Funding as well.

MR. HEDDERSON: That is not under this heading.

MS KELLY: No, SWASP would be under the Newfoundland and Labrador Student

Investment and Opportunity Corporation that we put in last year.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, so that is the next one there. The Tutoring for

Tuition Program is under this heading of Youth Services?

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: The Graduate Recruitment Program?

MS KELLY: The Graduate Recruitment Programs is certainly administered by

our department. I am not sure if the financing is done through Human Resources

and Employment or through ours. I would have to check.

MR. HOLLETT: The Public Service Commission.

MS KELLY: Oh, that one is done through the Public Service Commission, Mr.

Hollett tells me.

MR. HEDDERSON: I beg your indulgence because they are all listed off here

and I am not sure. I guess the only way to do it is to ask.

MS KELLY: That is correct.

MR. HEDDERSON: The Employment Generation Program?

MS KELLY: That one, I am not sure. That is probably through Human

Resources and Employment.

MR. HEDDERSON: The EAPD, the Employability Assistance for Persons with

Disabilities?

MS KELLY: That one is done through Human Resources and Employment. Oh,

through the Public Service Commission, I am told.

MR. HEDDERSON: Basically, these are listed off on your Web site as

opportunities that people can - that you just pass them on to the next

department or whatever. These are not what you are responsible for; it is just

what is available?

MS KELLY: It is what is available, but in many instances we would work

very closely with the students and the departments. We would be, in many

instances, the lead department for communicating this to students. What we have

been trying to do on our Web site is, even though there are various programs

like in every government, all over government, we want to make sure that there

is one repository of information for students to be able to go to and find out

what programs are available to them and what information they need to access the

programs. So it is more or less what we commonly now call one-stop shopping.

MR. HEDDERSON: I was just wondering, because I was not sure if you were

administering them or whether you were financing them, both, or -

MS KELLY: A combination of all of it.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, a clearing house in some ways.

MS KELLY: Exactly.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just to get back to Youth Services, and I will leave it at

that, the only allowances under heading 09. would be, then, I assume, the

Tutoring for Tuition. Everything is dedicated, so the allowance is there. That

takes care of that whole section. There is nothing else there.

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the Grants and Subsidies, the $1.8 million we

referred to before. What is the difference in that? What other programs are

covered by that?

MS KELLY: Under that, there would be the TI Murphy Center, which is

$276,000 a year. Youth organizations are $558,300 a year, and that would be

mostly what I have outlined to you: the Duke of Edinburgh, Boy Scouts, the Boys

and Girls Club, that sort of thing. Community Youth Network, as you have said,

is $1.8 million, and Allied Youth is $30,000.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, I will leave it at that for that

section and I will

pick up at the Investment and Opportunity Corporation. Ross, or someone over on

that side -

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Just one quick question, Minister, on the Youth

Services category. This reflects a conversation you and I had one time last year

about the 4-H movement. Just more for my information, did that program get

brought under your department after? Because it was under forestry, I believe,

or somewhere. Did that ever get grouped under Youth Services?

MS KELLY: No, but we have worked very closely with them. We have not been

able to identify funds to the extra salary unit that would be needed to bring it

under our department. So the Department of Forestry and Agrifoods have very

kindly continued to find the funding for that position, but there wasn't an

ability there to be able to transfer it. So, while we work closely with them,

the funding for it has remained in Forestry and Agrifoods.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: In terms of an appropriate category, if the funding is

there in that department and it seems to be kind of an anomaly under that

department, because it is a youth program, if the funding is in one department,

isn't it just a simple matter - not meaning to over-simplify it, but it would

appear to be a simple matter - of transferring the funding to another department

so it is more appropriately categorized. It would be like saying the College of

the North Atlantic is going to go under the Department of Health tomorrow. That

program is a youth program. If it is currently being funded in another

department, isn't it a simple matter of transferring the funding over and

having that program under this category consistent with the thrust of having a

single department responsible for those kinds of initiatives?

MS KELLY: Yes, it does sound like it is fairly simple to do, but the big

problem has been that the funding for the program is not under a heading

specifically for 4-H in Forestry and Agrifoods. Because they believe very

strongly in the program, they have accommodated it in their budget throughout

the year.

From my perspective, we would certainly want to be able to get the extra

funds. As a matter of fact, I know that the program could use more than what is

currently in there. We do, within government, try to find the funds and it is

more a matter of finding a little bit here and a little bit there to make sure

that we are able to continue that valuable program which, in particular in rural

agricultural areas, is very important. We would like to, in future years, be

able to strengthen it. At this time we were not able in this past year to

identify the funds to be able to do it. We are very grateful to the Department

of Forestry and Agrifoods, that they are able to continue to find the funding to

be able to do it without really having a heading for that salary.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I apologize if it got covered before I came in, but I

am going to go back for a moment, Madam Chair, to the Executive Support

category. We talked about Professional Services, where the figures, both

budgeted and revised from last year and again the estimate into this year,

remain a constant figure. I am assuming that is a normal service that is

provided annually. Can you break that down for me? If you have already done it,

I apologize.

MS KELLY: No, I have not. Mr. Hollett, would you be able to do that?

MR. HOLLETT: That is a provision for consulting services that has been

constant. We have not changed it either up or down. That is an allocation every

year, if we need to hire a consultant for a particular purpose or get some other

contract work done. That is what that is there for.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Could you give us an example of the kinds of categories

that you used that money for last year?

MR. HOLLETT: We did discuss that earlier but, for example, one of the

contracts that we currently have ongoing is that we have an individual examining

whether or not, for example, we might do applied degrees through the College of

the North Atlantic system. Sometimes we would hire facilitators when we have

departmental planning days. We would hire a consultant to facilitate that

session for us. Those are the types of things that we would use that money for.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

Madam Chair, are we moving on to 2.1.02?

MADAM CHAIR: You can discuss any of the subheads under this particular

section.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Maybe we can talk a little bit about this program. The

corporation was established last year. You mentioned SWASP was one of the

programs under that category. What are some of the other ones under that

grouping?

MS KELLY: Under the heading - actually, I have the exact amounts here.

Last year under the Graduate Employment Program, we put in about $1.5 million

there. Through SWASP, very close to $2 million. Our high school program,

$500,000. That is one that most MHAs, I think, would be very familiar with where

we try to - in each of the electoral districts - have high school students gain

some employment because many times we are finding that, for grade twelves in

particular, they are finishing school and university students have been out for

two months so most of the jobs are gone. So we are trying to get some better

work experiences for our senior high school students.

Small business co-op placement, we put $360,000 into last year. The

Conservation Corp, $450,000 for jobs that are provided all over the Province

through that particular program.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Just to pick up on a couple of points you just raised.

You commented about the high school program and you talked about the

distribution in electoral districts. Is that how the SWASP program works as

well? Is that done by electoral district or is that done by -

MS KELLY: No, the SWASP program is administered through the department

and through the Community Services Council. That is done by application from

mostly service groups and other community groups.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Can you give us some sense in terms of the demand? We

can understand from the dollars quoted here of how much money actually gets

spent for the program. Do you have some sense of how much you are able to

accommodate based on the percentage of applications approved versus those that

you cannot accommodate? Is it an oversubscribed program?

MS KELLY: That was part of the reason the Student Investment Corporation

was put in place, so that we could take that very successful program and build

on it. Last year I think we did put more into it than we usually did, and we did

it through several ways. One, we were hearing from students - the evaluation

that was done by both the applicants, the sponsoring agency and students, was

that it was an excellent program but university students were telling us that

they would have wanted programs that lasted longer than eight weeks. Some of the

employers were also saying that they needed to have the students on to do the

planning of the programs, and the evaluation and clean-up at the end. In many

instances last year, especially where the work experiences were very pertinent

to what students were studying through their post-secondary education

institutions, we put twelve-week grants in place rather than eight weeks. That

gave students more money saved or tuition vouchers towards their education and

offered them better work experience, and was better for the employers. So not

only were we trying to increase the number of students who could avail of the

program, but to make it a longer program so it was of greater financial and

educational value to them.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Some of these student loan programs are administered by

HRE as well. How does that work in terms of your coordination between this

program? Can you provide the funding here under SWASP? The Community Services

Council administers it, approves the funding and does the processing of the

application, so you are the funding agency and not the agency that approves it

or processes the applications?

MS KELLY: No, we work very closely with the Community Services Council in

both the evaluation and the implementation of the program. We actually, through

the SWASP program, hire senior students who are employed - because we do not

have offices out in the regions of the Province, we hire the students and work

with Human Resources and Employment. We have supervisory students in each of the

regions administering these programs, both on behalf of the department and

Community Services Council. We work very closely and it has worked very well

actually. We have just started the process now for this year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If I were to ask the question: How much money is

invested in student employment programs? Then the answer would lie in this

figure here. Somewhere else in the Estimates, if I were to look under HRE, would

I see a different figure, another figure in addition to it or is this the pot of

money that goes into student employment programs, period?

MS KELLY: This is the pot of money that goes in but, of course, we work

very closely with the federal government. So there are also student employment

programs that would be administered by the federal government but we would work

very closely with.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I asked the question because in some of my experiences

- I have dealt with staff at HRE around student employment and then there is a

federal program but, from a provincial perspective, this is the full pot of

money that is used for student employment programs?

MS KELLY: That is my understanding, yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Whether it is a SWASP program or whether it is direct

grants to profit or non-profit and private business to employ students, it all

comes out of this money?

MS KELLY: That is correct, other than the federal programs.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The SWASP program is this voucher system, I understand.

Is that correct?

MS KELLY: Yes, and there are several types of SWASP programs depending on

whether it is the private sector or the public sector that are administering

them, and the federal government also has a SWASP program. Some of them are done

on the basis of a total tuition voucher with just a stipend each week, and some

of them are done on a 50/50 basis I understand. I don't have all the details

here with me.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The administration is done by HRE or the students who

are hired. They work out of HRE offices, I understand, as well.

MS KELLY: They work out of HRE offices but they are employed by the

Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education. I guess there are

four agencies that work very closely in the summertime to administer this. It

would be the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education, the

Community Services Council, the federal government, and the provincial

Department of Human Resources and Employment; because they obviously have

regional offices throughout the Province. I would never advocate that we would

set up independent offices. It would just take too much money away from what we

could be giving to students.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The other question I posed a moment ago with respect to

satisfying the demand that is out there for the program. Do you have some sense

of the numbers of applications that were not approved last year and

historically, do not get approved because you just run out of money?

MS KELLY: Last year we had probably the highest success rate that we have

ever had because of the extra money that was put in. I cannot tell you the exact

percentage, but I think out of the - you also have to remember that it is not

only the number of applications we get, it is the number of good applications

that we get. We do get applications that we feel are not valid. We need to be -

and I feel we need to be - even more careful. I have met and discussed this with

the Community Services Council that we need to be making sure that our young

people are getting valuable work experience and that it pertains to what they

would like to do. It either gives them good work experience or pertains to what

they want to be doing while they are seeking their post-secondary education. We

cannot, in some instances, approve SWASP applications that just do not make

sense.

Last year, I think it is fair to say - in my evaluation and my discussions

with the staff and the Community Services Council - most all of the applications

that were evaluated met our criteria, were able to be funded. Now in some

instances we may have had groups asking for four employees and we were only able

to give them two or three. In many instances, I know, through the evaluation it

was felt that they did not need four employees. Many times groups were applying

for more than they needed, I think for reasons most all of us would know,

thinking: Well, if I ask for four, I will get more than one; and this sort of

rationale. We put an evaluation of applications in place to try and determine

what makes sense. I think, on the whole, last year we were able to satisfy most

of the need, much more so than in previous years.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: On that point, minister, the criteria to look at - and

I appreciate the comment about trying to match the student with some meaningful

employment given their course of study and what they may want to do in their

lives. The other part of that is in many parts - particularly in rural

Newfoundland, and I can think of three very distinct parts of my district in

particular where you have small all-grade schools - there are no business

opportunities in those areas and you are dealing with a community organization

whose primary interest is to get some employment for the students so that they

can have some financial assistance to go back to school.

The meaningful part of the employment is secondary, just getting a voucher or

getting some money into student's hands so they can get back to school in

September is the critical issue. It might be a church group who wants a

graveyard cleaned up or some organization who want Coke bottles picked up from

the side of the street or the road. So the meaningful employment part of it is

secondary. If a tremendous emphasis is placed on the meaningfulness of the

employment experience then there is going to be some of those kinds of

communities and students who are going to find themselves disadvantaged because

there will not be meaningful employment in the community in which they live. It

is not financially viable to leave - and I will just use a couple of examples in

my district - or viable to drive from Southport in the Southwest Arm area to

Clarenville for meaningful employment. You would rather stay home in Southport

and not have any expense during the summer other than staying at home with your

parents and clean up a church yard or rake some debris from a graveyard. At

least it gives them that income and that voucher that they might have when they

go back to school in September.

If that becomes one of the overriding considerations than large numbers of

people are going to be disadvantaged through that process. How do you reconcile

that with the criteria that you have already established?

MS KELLY: We have done a lot of work to reconcile that and actually did

some pilot programs this past year. We actually put a small program in place

last year because of our concern of what you just outlined, to make sure that,

for instance, a student who is at the College of the North Atlantic and taking a

skill trade, that person's choice would have been to go back home and do the

type of work you have outlined or to stay in an area where they could get

employment experience that would have been very valuable to them as a part of

the trade they are studying. In that instance, we were able to accommodate them

to give them an enhanced SWASP grant so that they would be able to pay the extra

expenses of having to stay away from home, really. So in instances where we see

that the student has lined up very valuable work experience, we are trying now,

as much as we can through the College of the North Atlantic and other

educational institutions, to be able to accommodate that.

We are not saying that in instances you have described of being able to clean

up graveyards, et cetera, that it is not meaningful work. In particular, I feel

that when it is a student's first job - almost any type of job where, you

know, you have to show that you are responsible by showing up for work everyday,

accomplishing the tasks that you have set out to do. In my estimation, it would

not be good if a student had to do that same job for four years in a row and

they were planning on going into a skilled trade or into social work or almost

any area that they are training for. It would not give them the type of

experience that would be valuable to them for getting a job upon graduation.

That is why we are doing a lot of research and a lot of work around where we can

provide experiences, even in rural communities. That is why, just last week for

social work students, we put a program in place where we can employ fifteen

social work students in their off-term in rural areas. That is for several

reasons. It is to give rural students, who are studying social work, the ability

to be able to work in their communities. We hope that by doing this some of

those students will gain experience that they will want to go back to rural

areas upon graduation. It is a very two-pronged approach. We feel that if we do

a lot more work in this area we will be able to identify better opportunities.

Many of our communities have fish plants. For instance, most of the fish

plants would have an electrician on staff. Now if you have a young person, a

young man or woman who is studying electrical to become an electrician at the

College of the North Atlantic or a private college, we want to be able to work

with private employers at the fish plants to say: Could you hire through our

SWASP program? We would help you hire an apprentice electrician for the summer

or a young person graduating from Grade 12 who thinks they would like to go into

the electrical area. So we have to do a lot more identification of

opportunities, and it is more difficult in rural areas. We are working both with

the zonal boards and with the Strategic Social Planning Regional Committees to

identify better opportunities for our rural students.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: On the SWASP program, this matching process - I

appreciate the value in having the student do some recruitment themselves and

try to find potential matches of employers who may want to sponsor their

application. Just this past year I had some experiences with students who are

attending school here in St. John's and because of application deadlines - and

again (inaudible) to get students or their potential employers and meet with

them and talk to them about whether or not they could provide that opportunity,

and have some discussion with them. I found some difficulty in being able to do

that because of the inability to get back out into the community. Has there been

some discussion around, or have you given any consideration to having a

mechanism where in fact employers could register and make application to become

a sponsor of a student and some matching being done then by either yourselves or

these students that you hire by HRE?

MS KELLY: Yes, we certainly had that discussion. We are looking at

programs and hope, actually, to do some through technology to be able to have a

program where both the employing agencies and the students would be able to

apply on-line and have matches done. As you have described, there have been

difficulties with that in the past. I am not sure we will be able to do it this

year. We tried to get some research done this winter. We had hoped that the

Community Services Council might have some current research that was already

done on it but we were not able to find any. I did find a program in the

Northwest Territories that had some pertinence but it required a lot more

research. So our hope is, in the future, that we will be able to do a better

program there, especially I think, we need to tie it into career plans that are

developed when they are in their senior high school years. I think in that

instance we would be able to do a lot more work.

We have also had some preliminary discussions with the new program that was

developed here in Newfoundland which is now being used worldwide; a software

program developed by Bill Barry. What was it called? I just read it last night

actually.

WITNESS: The Real Game.

MS KELLY: The Real Game, yes. We are hoping that we may be able to add on

to that program so that we can tie it into our SWASP programs and our summer

career employment programs and probably have the best program then in all of

Canada. So we will be continuing that research in the upcoming year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

MR. MERCER: Yes, just a couple of questions on student aid. I noticed in

your salary estimates there that your student aid permanent employees is perhaps

the biggest block of money you have in terms of permanent salaries within your

department, and a very significant temporary and other employee block of funding

for student aid.

One of the most frustrating departments to deal with in government is student

aid. You cannot ever get anyone to answer the phone. You always get lots of

voice messages, and maybe in a few days you will get a call back and maybe you

won't. Many times I have had to call the minister's office actually to ask

someone in student aid to give me a call. If it is difficult for me it must be

horrendous for the students, and I am sure this is not the first time you have

heard this. Are there any plans to - and looking at this, it seems like it is

not a people problem unless you have an horrendous number of people trying to

get through. It seems like you have the employees there but is there something I

am missing here? Is the volume of requests to student aid so overwhelming and

overbearing that people cannot get anyone with a real voice at the other end of

the line to answer them?

MS KELLY: I will be most pleased to answer that question because as you

have outlined, as MHAs, in particular in September month, I think it has always

been a difficulty for us.

My hope would be that, in speaking to all the committee members this morning,

they have probably had less difficulty this year than they have had in previous

years because we started last September with a call centre at the student aid

division. So no more should there be no answer on the phone. Because it is a

call centre, it should always be answered live. There should be no answering

machine and voice messages, et cetera, left. Hopefully, that part of the problem

has been taken care of.

The volume of requests, of course, in this Province has gone up very

significantly over the past decade because we have so many more students going

to post-secondary. We have more students completing high school and, I think,

close to 80 per cent going on to post-secondary, one of the best rates in the

country. Of course the problem was greatly exacerbated in this Province because

of the fact of the higher number, but also because we have such a high number of

students who have to avail of the student aid system because of the lower

salaries in this Province. Parents are often not able to help their children as

much as they are in some of the bigger, higher employment provinces of this

country. So, we do have an increased volume of requests.

Our whole new program that I was pointing out to you when I talked about why

we needed to put the program in place wasn't just to help students graduate

with less debt, but was also to be able to have a smoother running system. My

hope is that all of the new programs that were just brought in - many of them

will be automatic. Students will not have to be calling about nearly as many

things. We are doing a better student loan application process. We are putting a

better appeal system in place. Many students now will receive an automatic

exemption. If, for instance, they are disabled, they are not going to have to go

back every single year and appeal their case to student aid. My hope is - and

especially we have put more staff in. The reason why you see the great numbers

that are there is because you do not need as many permanent staff because there

are very high points in the year that students need extra assistance. Through

August, September and October, of course, are when most students are entering

the system. That is when you would have more temporary employees employed in

your call centre to help address the needs so that you do not run into the

problems you have just experienced. My hope is that, when I sit here next year,

you will not be able to ask that question. I think we have addressed some of it

this year. I have certainly seen myself that the numbers have gone down, and

other MHAs have told me this, and parents and students have also told me that

there has been a vast improvement since we put the call centre in place. Now,

with the new program we just announced several weeks ago, my hope is that you

will be getting very few calls through your MHA office next year.

MR. MERCER: Well, that would be a relief because that would probably cut

out about 25 per cent of my workload.

MS KELLY: Mine too.

MR. MERCER: On the appeal process, one of the things that I have observed

with the appeal process is that at the first level there is really no appeal.

There is no review. It is only when you go to the second level of appeal and

appear before the committee that anyone really looks at the actual information

that was submitted and makes a decision. Maybe that is only my impression, but

in all the appeals that I have been involved with, the first level of appeal

really does nothing. It just simply comes back with a perfunctory answer. It is

only when you go to the second level and you ask it to be examined by a group

that they actually look at it. In most cases when you go to the second level -

at least in my case I have a high percentage of success, but I have a zero level

of success at the first level. If we are not going to be doing anything really

at the first level of appeal, why do we have a first level of appeal?

MS KELLY: My hope is that, with our new system, you will also find that

will be greatly improved. Also, you will find that the time period will be

greatly improved because one of the complaints that I have been hearing from

students is that they are often having to go to the bank or somewhere to borrow

money while they are waiting for their appeals and that to go through. Both of

those problems, I hope, will be taken care of with our new system and with our

better application process.

I think that many of the difficulties that students have been finding the

need to go through an appeal have been because the appropriate information is

not always there. We also want to do a better job with students in high school

in imploring to them that, if you are going through this system, you have to

take it seriously and give us the information we need to be able to help you.

Many times students are not putting in the information that is needed and they

are not treating the application form seriously enough. They think, all I have

to do is fill in part of this and I will be able to get a student loan. Many

times they are causing the extra delay themselves, so we are trying now to work

with the guidance counsellors and to get into high schools and meet with Grade

12 students who are going on to post-secondary and will need to avail of the

student aid system to tell them: If you give us the right information, we will

be able to help you more quickly and you won't have to be going through the

appeal process.

Is there anything else I should be adding there?

MR. HOLLETT: Part of the additional resources that the minister talked

about earlier would be that we are creating a special assessment unit within the

Student Aid Division. Hopefully, we will preclude a lot of those initial

rejections that require people to go back then through the appeal process;

because many of them, when they do go to appeal, are successful, there are

certain characteristics to those that, by having a special assessment unit,

instead of bumping them back out with a refusal, it would go to this unit before

that happens. So hopefully that would reduce the numbers even further.

MR. MERCER: It just seems to me that a lot of the problems in not getting

a student loan is the incorrect filling out of the application, and that

sometimes happens. Recently, I had a gentleman who applied for funding to go to

a heavy equipment school in Badger; shall we say, a somewhat senior student. He

filled it out in pencil. No, no, you can't do that. It was sent back to him.

By the time he sent it back in with some more information, he had missed

something that he should have put in. Anyway, by the time he went through all

the hoops of getting the application correct, the last letter was: Sorry, your

course is now expired and you are not eligible for the program because you have

taken the course and the program is finished, so we cannot pay you money after

you have finished the program.

That is a little bit frustrating for an individual. It would seem to me that

even if the application was incorrect in the first instance, the application

date that it was received should have been the date of application, not the date

in which it was finally received with all the I's dotted and the T's

crossed. So, in this particular case, the individual ended up with taking the

program in Badger, having applied for it back in August, shall we say, and when

the program was finished in December, and he still never had all the I's

dotted and the T's crossed in his application, he was told: Sorry, you are no

longer eligible because the program is over, and we cannot fund you for

something that you have already taken. So, that is a bit of a problem.

I think it is so easy to just simply take an application, fix it up, and then

send it back to someone without taking into account the real needs. That

individual perhaps had been out of school so long that he did not have all the

skills, perhaps, to make what we would consider a suitable application.

I guess what I am pleading for is a little bit of heart.

MS KELLY: I hope that you would not have to plead for a little bit of

heart, because this is the first instance that I have heard that this could have

happened, and I would think that maybe there might have been another reason. If

that was the reason, I agree with you; we need to go back and take a look at

that. I wouldn't mind sitting down with you afterwards when you are able to

give me the appropriate information, because obviously you would not be able to

give me that here in a public forum. I would be most pleased to refer it to my

officials because maybe the person was ending up to be not eligible anyway, even

when the other information was provided. We would need to take a look at the

whole picture there. I agree with you, that is a problem that we would need to

take a look at. I am surprised to hear that could happen.

MR. MERCER: I will get that to you, and I will get all of the

correspondence from the Student Aid Division to my office and to the individual.

I shall do that.

One other point I want to speak about on the student aid, recently there was

a lot of chatter in the news about monies that were available which students

were entitled to receive but which they, for whatever reason, had not. What

steps have been taken, or has your department taken any steps whatsoever, to

ensure that those students who were eligible to receive funding, which they did

not, are now receiving it? What are we doing about that?

MS KELLY: That is the deferred bursaries you are referring to. The

department, actually, not through this specific department but through the

Department of Education, after that program was discontinued, I think, for three

or four years, sent letters out each year trying to notify students that they

were eligible for this deferred bursary. Of course, all that was happening was

that the letters were coming back, that they were unable to find these people.

What we have endeavoured to do now is to speak about this program more

publicly so that parents are telling their children who live away from the

Province about this program, because that is where most of the problem is. We

have also put all of the information on our Web site. We have also, as students

are calling in, or parents, they are calling the Student Aid Division, so we

have all of the information and everybody able to give it to them over the

telephone to find out if they are eligible. So, we are receiving large numbers

of letters or telephone calls from parents now just asking for the information

of, what do they tell their young people who are living away from home about how

to access? So, we are able to give them the information.

MR. MERCER: Are you getting much of a result from that?

MS KELLY: I think we are. Actually, many students I am finding, in the

e-mails that I am getting, and the telephone calls through my office, are

students who are not necessarily eligible but at least they are checking. So,

the fact that so many people are checking now is that we are finding some

students who are eligible.

MR. MERCER: One last question, and it is not on student aid: On the

program offerings by the private college or the public college, the College of

the North Atlantic, what role do you play in approving or recommending the types

of programs that they are offering? And what, if any, consideration do you take

into account for what the private schools are offering?

MS KELLY: The College of the North Atlantic is run by a board. So, we do

not have in the department the ability to be able to say to the board: You

cannot or can do such and such a course. But, of course, under the mandate of

the board, they very clearly have the responsibility to be responsible, I guess,

is the best way to put it, from the perspective of looking at all of the

research that is done through the department and through the federal government,

the statistics that are available about the numbers of students in the Province.

Our graduate indicators that we put out each year certainly is a document that

they are expected to use in determining whether a course needs to be taught,

whether a course should be dropped, whether it should be suspended. As we

receive concerns either from the private college association or individual

private colleges, from parents, from students themselves or the general public,

we certainly speak to the college about it to make sure that the courses that

they are offering are pertinent. We have had some discussion with them in the

recent months around skilled trades. There has been a lot of public discussion

in this Province about the fact that some people feel there are instances we are

not training enough people in the skilled trades. So we are obviously doing

research around that, both in my department and in the Department of Human

Resources and Employment, and we are finding, actually, that we probably do have

the numbers of people who are going through the apprenticeship, going into the

first year skilled trades, but they are coming out and not necessarily being

able to move through their apprenticeship program on to journey person status in

this Province. Because of our small private sector, many are leaving the

Province and sometimes not coming back to do the journey person. They are doing

it in other provinces where they have been able to get the number of hours to be

able to move above the apprenticeship stage. So, it is something that we are

investigating right now and we working both with the College of the North

Atlantic and the private colleges, individually, and with the association.

MR. MERCER: I agree with you. I think in the College of the North

Atlantic we have sadly neglected some of our trades to the point where I suspect

now the number of tradespeople that we have available in the Province is perhaps

not always sufficient to meet the demand, particularly if there is another

development like an Inco or a Voisey's Bay or whatever, so I applaud that.

The basis of my question was: Now that we appear to be getting back into some

of the trades - I am thinking about the welding program which is going to be

offered in the College of the North Atlantic in the West Coast, Corner Brook

area. In the intervening time that we have been out of that type of a program,

the private colleges have come in and set up and prepared to go forward. I know

in my area right now there is tremendous discussion about the ACOA providing

funding to the public sector college CONA with money for that particular program

while one of the private colleges who have geared up and become accredited are

now saying: What is going on here? We have set up. We have the equipment in

place. We have become accredited and now the Province is back into the game.

That is why I am asking the type of discussions which might be had between

the private and the public. Is there any kind of attempt to match programs to

areas, as to who is doing what, or are we just going to continue to offer

programs that are being offered by the private sector or the private sector

being offered by the public sector? It seems to me that we need to perhaps get

our mind around that one a little bit.

MS KELLY: I agree with you, Mr. Mercer. It is a difficulty right across

the country. As a matter of fact, we have started to talk to some of the smaller

provinces to see if they have been able to find a solution to some of this. We

are in the middle, actually, of a discussion right now. I have been receiving

copies of letters that some of the private colleges have been sending to federal

agencies about this, and we are involved in the discussion. We, of course, have

no say in what the outcome will be of the ACOA discussion but we certainly are

having the private college association, the College of the North Atlantic and my

department to sit down together to find out, are there solutions that we can

bring forward in this area?

As you bring it forward, I think it is important to have all of the details

also because we have people publicly saying that the colleges in Western

Newfoundland are starting to offer welding,

whereas that is really not correct.

They have offered welding in the past. They suspended the program when it was

felt that we had too many welders in the Province. They are now feeling that,

with the research they have done, there may be a need to start the program

again.

We need, as a Province and with these two groups, to be sitting down to

determine if that research is correct because what you are saying about

tradespeople and the possibility of needing many more of them in the very near

future is somewhat accurate but not completely accurate. When we go to look at

our numbers of tradespeople available, we have the numbers we need right now.

There may be very specific instances of people who are really specialized or

they are not right in the region you need them but they are certainly within the

Province and should be able to move where the jobs are. This is a much greater

problem in the rest of Canada, to be truthful, than it is right here. We have

many of our tradespeople who have had to leave the Province, as Mrs. Hodder

would well know, to be able to seek employment in other areas because we have

not had the employment opportunities here.

We know we have the experience of Hibernia to know how many Newfoundlanders

would like to return home, who have the trade skills and experience that we will

need as projects start. That does not mean, as Voisey's Bay or other projects

should come on stream, that we do not need to be training up people especially

in Labrador, in our Aboriginal population.

All of these plans are in place and ready to roll and we will be able to meet

the need as these projects come on stream because obviously there is a

construction phase to them before we even get into the implementation of the

project stage. We anticipate being able to meet all of these needs, but the

biggest problem that you have outlined between the private sector and the public

sector is something that we are working on right now. There is not really any

easy solution to it.

MR. MERCER: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Mercer.

Are there any other questions or comments?

The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have certainly listened to Mr. Mercer and I think we all are fully aware of

the percentage of calls we get related to your department. I guess that is why

there are so many questions, especially when it comes to student aid. I have a

few for student aid that I will hang to until later.

I would just like to refer, if I could, to subhead 2.1.02., Newfoundland and

Labrador Student Investment and Opportunity Corporation. Just for clarification,

I guess, on March 22, you issued a news release, Minister, announcing the

establishment of the corporation with an initial allocation of $4 million. On

May 10, 2001, you issued a news release updating the House on Student Investment

and Opportunity Corporation with an initial investment of $8.8 million, that was

announced during the Speech from the Throne.

In the budget detail we have $4.8 million and then the revised is $4.8

million and change, and then in 2002 we have $4.8 million. From the $8 million

to the $4 million, I am just looking for clarification on that.

MS KELLY: Clarification on that, I would like to outline to you, is that

$4.8 million is the money that the provincial government normally put into

student employment each year. An extra $4 million was put in to start the

corporation last year so that we could put in new programs and expand some of

our programs in place. We used some of that money last year and we will be using

more of it this year. There wasn't a new allocation of another $4 million this

year. That is what brought it up to $8.8 million, I think it was, last year. It

was the usual $4.8 million that we put in every year and a $4 million pot of

money was put in there to start the corporation for us to be able to help

students more in the Province get meaningful work experience and to pilot some

programs that we would like to try and to make sure that students get good work

experience.

MR. MANNING: So, if this $4 million was used for that purpose and the

budget is still $4.8 million this year, in your pilot projects that you used the

$4 million for, or whatever, to invent these projects -

MS KELLY: Correction there; we did not use all of the $4 million last

year. That money is still available. It is still in the Student Investment and

Opportunity Corporation and able to be used. Because of the way that fund is set

up, that $4 million, the part of it that was not used, did not expire on March

31. I think we used about half of it and the other half is available now to be

used this year and in upcoming years as we roll out new programs and do new

research.

MR. MANNING: So that $2 million is not budgeted in this year's budget

detail.

MS KELLY: Not in budget detail because it is in the Investment

Corporation, but this is the $4.8 million that we spend each year on programs.

MR. MANNING: You're talking about your programs here, your student

employment programs?

MS KELLY: SWASP and that sort of thing, yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

On subhead 2.1.03., Labour Market Development Agreement Projects, I find

budgeted $2.4 million for salaries, revised $2.4 million, and estimated this

year for $2.4 million. In the salaries, departmental details, we have $2.4

million but we have no permanent employees. Under temporary and other employees,

$2.4 million, is everybody who is involved with the Labour Market Development

Agreement all temporary employees? There are no permanent employees involved

there?

MS KELLY: It is mostly contract employees, and it would be done under

contract for the duration of the agreement and employees would be seconded into

that agreement. Mr. Hollett, would you have further information?

MR. HOLLETT: In 2.1.03., that is the projects that are actually

administered by various government departments. So a lot of the projects, these

are LMDA projects that, by their very nature, may well have a significant

portion of that as a salary component. So these are not necessarily employees of

our department, although our department might be the sponsor of a couple of

programs. For example, examining youth apprenticeship in the department. We have

applied and received LMDA funding to examine or research youth apprenticeship.

That would be part of that $2.4 million. So these are all over government,

essentially.

Any department which has a project that qualifies for LMDA funding would

apply. It is voted through here, and this would show the salary component or

whatever on those particular projects.

MR. MANNING: So these people would be employed throughout government but

paid by your department. Is that what I am -

MR. HOLLETT: They are paid by the LMDA project, but because our

department is responsible for co-managing the LMDA with the federal government

the projects flow through us. So it is federal money that flows through our

department.

MR. MANNING: So this $2.4 million is 100 per cent federal?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, it is.

MR. MANNING: On the LMDA, my understanding is there is somewhat of a

change of how - I do not know if administer would be the right word but

certainly there seems to be some involvement from our Regional Economic

Development Boards at the table in regard to looking at projects, approving

projects, to see exactly what would be funded.

My understanding now is that HRDC - has more or less, over the next little

while - will be removing the RED Board from the decision-making process. Knowing

full well that the RED Board is a major initiative of the government over the

past couple of years, I am just wondering what reaction, Minister, the

department has in that regard because the RED Board plays a (inaudible) role in

many parts of the Province in relation to looking at project applications, or

whatever the case may be. Now, I understand that they may still play some type

of role but it seems to be diminished a fair bit. I am just wondering, is that

because - not to put words in your mouth - of the fact that the feds are

providing not only this $2.4 million but a fair amount of the money for the

Labour Market Development Agreement? What role do people who are out in the

field - not necessarily government people (inaudible). It concerns me, and it

certainly has been raised to me by people in my own district, the fact that they

are not going to have a say anymore at the table in relation to projects for the

area.

MR. HOLLETT: The issue that arose here; this issue is on all regional

assessment committees for LMDA projects because the LMDA is managed by regional

committees around the Province. The regional committees for LMDA, the overall

steering committee in each region, comprises HRDC as the funder because LMDA is

100 per cent federal money, the provincial government, and then community

partners like the Regional Economic Development Boards. Most of the regional

offices also had regional assessment committees for assessing specific projects.

For example, if a community organization or private sector employer were to

submit an application for funding under LMDA, it would go to an assessment

committee.

The difficulty that arose was there was a legal opinion at HRDC which

essentially said that was a violation of the act, to have people who were not

either working directly for HRDC or working directly for the Province to be

looking at each individual specific application of private sector applicants.

When you include people who are not working for government a situation could

arise where somebody might say - for example, a private sector company could

say: You have access to my financial information and yet, in a lot of cases, you

could be my competitor in the community. So it was a private information issue.

We had - and when I say we, both Cathy Drummond, who is the regional head of

HRDC, and myself as the two co-chairs of the LMDA committee - met with the RED

Boards on a number of occasions to discuss this with them and how we would get

around that problem. While they had to be removed from the assessment committee

by and large they were okay with that, but there were some cases where they were

concerned about it but we tried to, through the establishment of the steering

committees in each region, ensure that the RED Boards still had a very

significant role in determining what types of projects in the community would be

funded. It was simply a case that they would not have access to the financial

information of private sector applicants. So, that is what happened.

MR. MANNING: In regard to the private sector applicants versus the public

sector, the fact is that these people who had been sitting at the table over the

past couple of years are not going to be at the table anymore? Would that be

correct?

MR. HOLLETT: They will still be at the table in terms of the regional

steering committees and in advising on and discussing what types of projects

should be approved for a specific community. The only place we have asked that

they not be at the table is actually sitting down with the detailed financial

information that would be included with an application from a private sector

applicant. If a company in a community put in an application then nobody other

than the government employees on the assessment committee should be the ones who

look at that. What may happen in the various regional committee structures that

they have, because they are fairly autonomous, they may decide they are not

going to be involved in any assessments, but that will be a decision of the

local steering committee, including the RED Boards; all the community partners.

The only piece that they have been excluded from is seeing the detailed

information that is provided by private sector applicants.

MR. MANNING: Did I hear you correctly when you said, Mr. Hollett, that

(inaudible) would be 100 per cent funded by the federal government?

MR. HOLLETT: Yes, it is.

MR. MANNING: I want to skip ahead, if I could, to heading 3.2.02,

Physical Plant and Equipment, under Memorial University.

MS KELLY: Which one was it again?

MR. MANNING: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 3.2.02.10, Grants and

Subsidies. We had a budget of $3,000 which was revised up to $6,000 -

MS KELLY: Three million.

MR. MANNING: Three million, I am sorry. Three million up to $6 million

and a new budget of $4 million. Just for clarification on that. It is doubling

the amount, plus we have $1 million extra this year.

MS KELLY: The $3 million that was budgeted last year and the extra $3

million that went in was the Opportunity Fund; $3 million that government put

in, which I outlined in my opening remarks.

The $4 million that is budgeted for this year is an extra $1 million - that I

also mentioned in my opening remarks - to help with priority capital

expenditures. I think I mentioned in my opening remarks that certainly more is

needed but this is the most that we were able to put in this year. We would have

liked to be able to put in more because we know there is great infrastructure

needs at Memorial University, both need for new infrastructure but also for

revitalization of some of the buildings and structures that are already in

place.

MR. MANNING: The Opportunity Fund, I guess, is based on the money that is

raised. The government matches dollar for dollar, is that correct?

MS KELLY: Yes, up to, I believe, $27 million or $30 million. I forget

which now but there has been an agreed to ceiling there. It is $29 million, my

officials tell me.

MR. MANNING: I am just moving around here because I have some financial -

under Student Aid, 3.4.03, Newfoundland Student Loans Program. There is a

budgeted amount of $29,900,000 and we have a revised amount of $18,480,000. Is

it the fact that - clarification on that, please.

MS KELLY: What was the exact number?

MR. MANNING: 3.4.03, Newfoundland Student Loans Program.

MS KELLY: 3.4.03; I am on the wrong page here, I think.

MR. MANNING: Newfoundland Student Loans Program, 09, Allowances and

Assistance.

MS KELLY: Yes, okay.

The differences there are partly the same as last year. We have moved from a

system where the private sector banks were administering the program, into

government administering it themselves. Also, it is very hard to know at the end

of each year when students are going to start paying back their loans. Many

times upon graduation we think they are going to start paying back their loans

but then they go on and do a Masters Degree or go on and do an IT program. So it

is very hard to estimate each year what will happen, but a lot of that is

because of the changes in switching from CIBC back into administering the

program ourselves.

Are there any other comments that should be made there, Mr. Hollett?

MR. HOLLETT: A number of other factors as well contributed last year.

Interest rates were lower than we had anticipated at budget time. We pay the

interest on all the funds that are outstanding while students are still in

school. Lower interest rates helped us there.

The same thing with interest relief; interest relief costs were lower again

because interest rates were lower. We had less in requests last year for loan

remission than we had budgeted. The last big piece in terms of the savings was,

as the minister mentioned, where the responsibility has come over to the

Province from the banks now. There was a lot less in loan defaults in 2001-2002

than we expected. We had anticipated that more people would go into default and

the Province would have to pay the banks, but there was less of that. So that is

what happened.

MR. MANNING: You had budgeted $26 million-and-change for this year -

well, $3.5 million less than last but considerably more than what you used last

year. Interest rates have certainly been raised but is that one of the reasons

why you have an extra $9 million there, almost $9 million from what you used

last year?

MR. HOLLETT: A combination of factors: $3.9 million of the increase from

$18.5 million essentially last year to $26.1 million in the current year; $3.9

million of that is because of the program changes the minister announced a month

ago. So that is an enhancement of the program. The rest would be loan defaults

which - we had less months last year of loan default opportunity than we will

have this year because of the timing that it came over from the bank to the

Province. It was really only about half a year last year that we could have had

loan defaults that we would have been responsible for. This year we will have a

full year. Interest rates are on the rise. So it is a combination of the new

program, program enhancements, higher interest rates and higher expected

defaults. That is essentially the increase. Again, some of these - because of

the variability of interest rates it is fairly difficult to project student aid

requirements with accuracy.

MR. MANNING: Yes.

MS KELLY: Another thing that my hope will be is that our new program will

improve the student default rate. Of course, because there are more jobs

available in the Province now than we have ever had really, and some of them

higher paying jobs, our hope is that the student default rate will not be as

high as it has been in other years. That is one of the main reasons that we put

the new program in place, to do something about the student default rate and to

give more help to students so they will not have to default.

MR. MANNING: Moving along to Industrial Training, 3.5.02. I am asking the

same question on two things here, so I will combine them for - also on the same

page, Canada/Newfoundland Agreement on Economic Renewal, 3.6.01.

Under Training Programs, we see an increase of $400,000 on our budget and

brought up to $3.9 million this year for Purchased Services. We have the same

thing in the next section, 3.6.01, an increase of, give or take, around $160,000

in Purchased Services with no budget for this year. Some clarification on those

numbers, please?

MS KELLY: I can just tell you that the reason there is none budgeted for

this year is because the Economic Renewal Agreement has expired. For the details

of the increase from the Budget to the Revised, Mr. Hollett will be able to

provide those details.

MR. HOLLETT: Under 3.5.02, Training Programs, the increase from $3.5

million to $3.9 million, that is money that we get from the federal government

under the LMDA for training their clients, essentially. At the beginning of the

year we would estimate, with HRDC, how many people they are going to be

referring for training or for apprenticeship training and we would negotiate an

amount with them that would compensate the Province for the costs that we incur

to train their clients. If, during the course of the year, there needs to be an

adjustment of that, then we go back to HRDC. We would renegotiate this, what we

call a contribution agreement, and the money would increase. That is what you

see happening here. We went back to HRDC part way through the year and said: You

are not giving us enough for that. We need more because there are more people,

for example, or because the costs are higher. Renegotiate, and it went up. That

is what happened.

MR. MANNING: It would be the same thing under the Economic Renewal

Agreement, I guess, would it, where we had the increase there in Purchased

Services?

MR. HOLLETT: Under Economic Renewal Agreement?

MR. MANNING: Under Economic Renewal Agreement we had an increase in

Purchased Services of around $160,000. 3.6.01.06, Purchased Services.

MS KELLY: Which one was it again? 3.6.01 -

MR. MANNING: 3.6.01, Economic Renewal Agreement, under subhead .06

Purchased Services. It went from $597,400 to $757,400.

MS KELLY: We will have to get that information for you because I do not

have the details here. It is not one that is foremost in my mind right now. I,

frankly, cannot remember. So we will get that information for you.

MR. MANNING: If I could go back for a second, under Student Loans

Program, and take a moment of your time just to - maybe you can help me here.

I had correspondence from a former student concerning the Newfoundland

portion of a student loan as it relates to the interest relief. He had success

in receiving relief on his Canadian portion but denied relief on his

Newfoundland portion because of some rules. Just quickly: I have been paying on

my Newfoundland portion religiously since the repayment period had begun, which

is almost four years now. He never missed a payment he tells me. The provincial

government rules state that you can apply for interest relief for three months

at a time up to a maximum of eighteen months. The rule also states that you must

apply for that relief in the first three years. Once past the three-year period

you can no longer apply for interest relief, even though he will be paying on

his loan for many years.

For many years following the three years this person will paying on their

loan but the rule - I am just wondering, and this is just an example here. When

he called student aid, basically the answer given was: It is the rule and we can't

do anything for you. I understand the rules are there for a reason. I am just

wondering, has the department given any consideration to extending that period

past the three years? For the simple reason, if a person leaves their

post-secondary education and goes out into the workforce immediately and has a

couple of good years and is paying on their student loan, as this person did

religiously, and then in three-and-a-half, four, or fifth year runs into a

problem where he loses his job or whatever the case may be, he needs that relief

at the time, he can go to the Canadian Government and get it but he gets turned

down by the Newfoundland Government.

MS KELLY: You just described exactly why we changed it, why we brought in

this new package; and the new interest relief program is there. Our interest

relief program now is exactly the same as the federal governments. As of the

date of the announcement, which I think was three to four weeks ago now,

three-and-a-half weeks, that person would be eligible now to apply and receive

the same consideration as they did under the federal program under our new

program. So that problem has been resolved.

MR. MANNING: When a student applies for a student loan parental income is

taken into consideration. I have found in my dealings, and maybe other members

have too, that the debt that some of these parents have is - students feel it is

not factored into the loan application - and it is done for four years, I

believe. I am just wondering, has any consideration been given to that in regard

to dealing with - a parent may not necessarily, even though, yes, we have an

income on this side here but our debt on this side - basically, it does not

weigh out to assist their students as much as maybe the numbers should. I am

just wondering, from a department point of view, do you run into that problem

very much? I did in a couple of situations and I am just wondering what is the

department doing to look at that?

MS KELLY: It certainly is a problem that I have run into both as minister

and as an MHA in my own district. It is something that we certainly would have

wanted to try and be able to put the thresholds at a different point, but we are

not able to with the financial circumstances of the Province.

We also are in discussions with the federal government and through the

Canadian Council of Ministers of Education on this topic because this threshold

is the same, I believe, right across the country. It is something that we want

to talk to the federal government and other provinces about, which we started to

do actually just last week in Toronto. The whole student aid system across the

country, the parts that the federal government are involved in and are the same

in each province, are being reviewed this year. Some of the preliminary work has

already been done. Alberta has been one of the lead provinces on it and we have

certainly been very involved in it. In order to relieve that problem we

certainly would have to put a lot more money into the student aid system. In

many instances, I believe, what is occurring here is that students are not being

denied going to post-secondary education, it is the fact that they are having to

seek loans through the private system rather than through the Canada Student

Loan system, and their parents are being held partly responsible for it; they

are having to co-sign and go to the charter banks with their students, so at

least that piece of it, we know that students are not being denied an education

but they are graduating with debt that both them and their parents are being

responsible for. We are looking at the threshold and trying to figure out how

much more money we would have to put in depending on how we move the threshold.

We are certainly doing the research. Whether we will have the ability to put

more money into the system to do anything about it remains to be seen.

MR. MANNING: Thank you.

I will pass for now.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I just have one question, but before I ask that I want to thank the minister

and her staff for the wonderful response that I think all members have received

here this morning. I had a couple of questions on student aid but they have been

answered due to the questioning of my colleague for Humber East.

The one that I have is 3.1.03., for the Veterinary College in P.E.I. Last

year it was budgeted $482,900 and it was revised $516,200 and this year the

estimate is $543,400. My question is: That $543,400, what share is that of the

operating cost for that college in P.E.I., and how many seats are we provided

for that?

MS KELLY: I can answer that question for you. I cannot tell you the exact

percentage of what it would be in the budget. I know it would be very low. The

agreement that we have with the Atlantic Veterinary College is that they will

reserve two seats each year for Newfoundland students. We pay for, really, eight

students per year to be in that system. So that amount is for that reason and

also for our share of the fact that it is a school that does research and so on,

and for our students to be able to participate in those particular programs. In

that school, actually, we have someone on the board, not the board of the

college but the board that decides the number of students and so on. We have

been very fortunate, as a Province, in that while we pay for eight seats we

normally have far more than eight seats there. We have a lot of Newfoundland

students who are interested in going into that particular field and what they

do, actually, because they have such high grades, they do some of their

pre-education or some of the work experience they require to get into Veterinary

College in other agricultural provinces in Atlantic Canada. By doing that for

one year, they are able to apply as non-Newfoundland residents and they are

having a very high success rate of getting in. Most times we have far more than

eight in the system, but we only pay for eight, so I think we are getting very

good value for our dollars this year.

This is the first increase they have had in five years and, before they were

allowed the increase, the other provinces outside of P.E.I. put the stipulation

in place that they had to increase the amount of revenue that was coming into

the college from non-governmental sources and they actually exceeded the

expectations and 31 per cent of the revenue is non-governmental that is going

into the college, so we actually put in less than what we were anticipating

being asked for.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Butler.

The hon. the Member for Trinity North.

MS KELLY: Excuse me one moment.

My officials tell me that what we put in is 4 per cent of their budget.

Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Minister.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

If the Chair will allow, there are a couple of questions that I want to raise

but I want to continue in the same vein, if I could, before I go back to another

point that the Member for Port de Grave was pursuing with the Veterinary

College.

I just want to get an understanding of why there would be a different

treatment for different programs. For example - and I acknowledge this is an

appropriate place to have it accounted for, and an appropriate manner in which

to account for the spending, and we haven't done these yet, but when we look

at the Health and Community Services Estimates, within those figures somewhere

will be a cost that is attributed to the Province's contribution to Dalhousie

University for programs in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech

language pathology, and there have been some sub specialties where there are

some technologists required at the Health Corporation of St. John's where the

health system has, in fact, had some sponsored programs in Ontario. I cannot

just tell you the name of the institution but it is a similar kind of situation

as we are talking about here at the Veterinary College.

I guess my question is: Why would we not, as a Province, categorize and

expend those sorts of things in this grouping as well under your department,

because now it is reflected as a health expense? When we start talking about

expenditures on health care, in that is now chewing up that part of that budget,

and I recognize that it is public expenditure, period, so it does not increase

the share of the amount of money that the Province has, but it just

appropriately categorizes because we do not misrepresent what we are actually

spending on health services. Can the minister comment as to why she would not

have pulled those sorts of things back into her department as well?

MS KELLY: I would be most pleased to comment on that. I have asked the

same question myself and we continue to have discussions about it, actually, to

see where it should best lie. One of the rationale is from a recruitment

perspective that, through the Department of Health and Community Services, they

would be doing most of the research and the background work on the recruitment

needs, the needs for the occupations that you have outlined, and that is mostly

why it sits there. I think, really, it could sit in either department in a very

valid way and one that, you know, we will continue to have another look at.

From this perspective, it is because it is a college perspective that we are

involved in the administration of, and it is more education to education,

whereas in the Department of Health it is done from a recruitment perspective.

But, you are correct, it could be done from either. We have had some preliminary

discussions with the Department of Health and Community Services. Right now, we

know the money has to be spent no matter which headline it comes in under.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I guess my comment was more to, as we talk about how

much we spend on health care, we need to ensure to represent appropriately

comments when we say we are spending this much on health care when, in fact, we

are spending so much on education. To me, I would suggest it is appropriately

grouped right here.

MS KELLY: Yes, another point of view that I did not make is that, because

the Department of Health one is tied into recruitment, there are also grants

tied into that one,

whereas these students do not receive grants to go to

school. This money that is allocated here is strictly to the institution,

whereas I believe in the Department of Health and Community Services, along with

the seat placement, most of the money that they put in, in some instances, goes

partly to students also,

whereas this one does not. It is strictly to the

school.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Not to contradict the minister, necessarily, that may

have been a valid statement several years ago, but it is my understanding that,

as of about four years ago, the bursary component has now disappeared so what

you have with the Dalhousie arrangement is exactly what you have with the

Veterinary College because it is basically payment for the seat.

MS KELLY: Yes, for occupational and physiotherapy it is, but the

Department of Health and Community Services also administer the program for

medical students whereby some - I am not sure if they are called grants, what

the incentive program is called, but that does pay to students also residence

and that, either grants or salary subsidies while they are in school, and all of

that comes in under that one heading in the Department of Health and Community

Services. What we would have to do is separate programs in the Department of

Health to do what you are advocating. We have certainly had that discussion and

will continue to.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I think that might be very appropriate, Minister, to do

that, actually.

If I could go back, in response to questions from my colleague from Placentia

& St. Mary's, to 2.1.02., Newfoundland and Labrador Investment and

Opportunity Corporation. Correct me if I am wrong, Minister. From my notes, as

you were answering the question from my colleague with respect to the funding

and the amount of money - because he read out some news releases that came out -

talking about accounting for basically $8.8 million. Firstly, have you tabled in

the House the annual report for this corporation yet?

MS KELLY: No, we do not have a year in under our belt yet, I would not

think. As of May or June, I think, we would have one year. We haven't been in

place for one year. Well, actually we do have one year but from the date of the

first meeting of the corporation. It is probably not the Board of Directors.. We

would have put it in place just before the year-end Budget of 2000, so it

probably would have been put in place legally the end of March, 2002. Then we

would have started putting programs in place and a meeting of the Board of

Directors probably in late April or early May of last year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The corporation was legally established as a corporate

entity in March of 2001 -

MS KELLY: Yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: - so therefore it has now completed one twelve-month

period as a legal entity. Therefore, an annual report will be provided on that

particular year of operation, I assume, accounting for the funds in that fiscal

year. Would that be the case?

MS KELLY: Yes, but it certainly would not have been tabled yet. We are

only about two to three weeks into the new year.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So let me just link the two here now. When that report

gets tabled, will we see that in that twelve-month block of time there was $8.8

million invested in that corporation or given to that corporation, and we will

see how it was expended? Will we see that?

MS KELLY: Yes, we certainly should see that but you will not see that all

of the $8.8 million was spent.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: What I am trying to established here is, and get a

better feel for, I guess, is, if you had $8.8 million put into that corporation

in that twelve-month period from March of last year to March of this year, and

the budget here suggests, or this document we are looking at here suggests, that

there was $4.8 million spent under that category, then where did the other $4

million dollars come from? Because it is not is the Estimates for here.

MS KELLY: The other $4 million that would have gone into that last year

was the end-of-year funding that the government decided to put into this

particular corporation so that we could put in place new programs and pilot new

programs for