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September 30, 2020

SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

The Committee met at 5:31 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Bernard Davis, MHA for Virginia Waters -

Pleasantville, substitutes for Pam Parsons, MHA for Harbour Grace - Port de

Grave.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Derrick Bragg, MHA for Fogo Island - Cape Freels,

substitutes for Christopher Mitchelmore, MHA for St. Barbe - L'Anse aux Meadows.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Brian Warr, MHA for Baie Verte - Green Bay,

substitutes for Sherry Gambin-Walsh, MHA for Placentia - St. Mary's.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Alison Coffin, MHA for St. John's - Quidi Vidi,

substitutes for Jim Dinn, MHA for St. John's Centre.

CLERK (Hawley George):

Order, please!

Good evening, everybody. My name is Kim Hawley George; I'll be clerking the

Committee tonight.

This is the Social Services Committee and the first matter of business for the

Committee is the election of a Chair for the Committee.

Are there any nominations from the floor?

AN HON. MEMBER:

I nominate Perry Trimper.

CLERK:

You can use a personal name, yes. It's different in a Committee.

Are there any further nominations from the floor?

Are there any further nominations from the floor?

Mr. Perry Trimper has been elected or acclaimed as Chair of the Committee.

Mr. Trimper, could you come and take your place, please?

CHAIR (Trimper):

My first order of business is to identify a Vice-Chair, so I will seek

nominations from the room.

Do I have any nominations for a Vice-Chair?

Ideally, somebody from another political stripe.

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

It should be somebody from another political party.

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

I think somebody has identified …

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Okay.

Any further nominations?

Any further nominations?

Seeing none, I would like to identify my Co-Chair, Ms. Conway Ottenheimer.

Thank you.

So now we will just get started.

We will start with some introductions.

CLERK:

Yes, (inaudible).

CHAIR:

Okay. All right.

Thank you, everyone. As this Estimates deals with Justice and Public Safety, I

will turn it over to the minister responsible for 15 minutes of opening remarks,

and perhaps introduce your team, Sir.

Over to you.

MR. CROCKER:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly won't take the 15 minutes.

Thank you for the opportunity this evening; it's always a pleasure. I think this

is my sixth Estimates or seventh Estimates. My first time in Justice and Public

Safety, so it's been a learning experience for me as well, going through the

Estimates of Justice after being just about five or six weeks in.

I will now actually turn it over and ask the group this evening, the great group

from JPS that are here with me, if they could introduce themselves. If we can,

we'll start way down to the end with a man that doesn't really need a whole lot

of introduction, I don't think.

MR. BOLAND:

Thank you, Minister.

Joseph Boland, Chief of Police for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

MS. KELLY:

Hi, Tara Kelly, ADM of Public Safety and Emergency Services.

MS. NESBITT:

Megan Nesbitt, ADM, Corrections and Community Services.

MR. CROCKER:

Again, Steve Crocker, Minister.

MS. MERCER:

Good evening, Jennifer Mercer, Deputy Minister and Deputy Attorney General.

MS. BARRON:

Danielle Barron, Director of Communications.

MR. GREEN:

Andrew Green, Departmental Comptroller.

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

Good evening, Chantelle MacDonald Newhook, ADM for Legal Services.

MS. WRIGHT:

Good evening, Kendra Wright, ADM for Courts and Corporate Services.

MR. STRICKLAND:

Evening, Lloyd Strickland, Director of Public Prosecutions.

MS. CLARKE:

Lesley Clarke, Media Relations Manager.

MS. ORGAN:

Good evening, Shelley Organ, Chief Executive Officer for the Court of Appeal and

the Supreme Court.

MS. TURNER:

Joanne Turner, Director of Court Services with Provincial Court.

MR. HAYWARD:

Good evening, Thomas Hayward, Manager of Budgeting.

MS. CHAYTOR:

Hi, good evening, Kerry Chaytor, Executive Assistant to the minister.

CHAIR:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Perhaps, Minister, did you want to have some opening remarks?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, sure.

CHAIR:

Do that first, and then I'll go to my right and we'll have introductions and

some opening remarks from the Opposition.

MR. CROCKER:

Okay. Thank you, Chair, and I thank the team here.

I won't take a whole pile of time, but throughout the evening I will certainly

take the liberty to pass some questions on to the fine folks that are next to me

here this evening.

Just as some quick overview: The Department of Justice has, approximately, a

$260 million budget. Some things this year that we will find throughout the

Estimates: a $1.5 million impact from the ground search and rescue inquiry;

there has also been $1 million set aside for the treatment, experiences and

outcomes of Innu in the child protection system. We've also allocated $200,000

this year for a review of the Access to

Information and Protection of Privacy Act . As well, you will see some

capital expenditure on the RNC fleet.

As of September 20 of this year, across the department we have 1,623 PCNs. Of

that, 1,339 are full-time staff, 251 are temporary, 33 currently are 13-week

hires and another 33 people are on contracts. These numbers do not include the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

One of the common themes, I think you will notice this evening as we go through

the process, is variation in salaries this year and that variation in salaries

is due to the 27th pay period in this fiscal year. That will have a

department-wide impact of some $4.77 million.

I would also like to note that there are very little actual COVID impacts

tonight when you look at dollar figures throughout this budget. It's about a

two-week impact of COVID, but I think what you will find, if you deviate into

some more discussions around policy, which I'm more than willing to do, there

will be some impacts to implementation of programs and other things due to COVID

and impacts, obviously, on the court system and other parts of the department

that are not reflected here in actual dollar figures but are reflected in other

ways.

With that, I will certainly turn it back to you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR:

Thank you, Minister.

I'll now turn to the Opposition folks on my right. If they could, first of all,

introduce themselves, then I'll look to representatives of the Opposition

parties to have some remarks.

I'll start right here with my Vice-Chair.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Helen Conway Ottenheimer, MHA for Harbour Main.

MS. DRODGE:

Megan Drodge, Researcher for the Official Opposition.

CHAIR:

And over to the Leader of the Third Party.

MS. COFFIN:

Alison Coffin, MHA for St. John's East - Quidi Vidi and Leader of the New

Democratic Party.

MR. FLEMING:

Scott Fleming, Assistant, employee of the Third Party.

CHAIR:

Minister Bragg.

MR. BRAGG:

Derrick Bragg, MHA for Fogo Island - Cape Freels; Minister of Transportation and

Infrastructure.

MR. WARR:

Hi, good evening. Brian Warr, MHA Baie Verte - Green Bay; Minister of Children,

Seniors and Social Development.

MR. DAVIS:

Bernie Davis, MHA for Virginia Waters - Pleasantville; Minister of Tourism,

Culture, Arts and Recreation.

MS. HALEY:

Carol Anne Haley, MHA Burin - Grand Bank.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you very much.

I still assume I can invite my Co-Chair to have some opening rights as

representing the Official Opposition then turn to the Third Party.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

I'm just going to make a brief comment and say, first of all, I'm very happy to

be here. I see that we have a great contingent on government side and I feel

that it would be a great evening in terms of the support and the information

that we've received, so I'm looking forward to that. Other than that, I'm ready

to go.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Coffin, do you have some opening remarks before we get into – I'm going to

go by subject headings all the way through.

MS. COFFIN:

Very brief, because I know that we may be here for a few hours this evening, so

I appreciate everyone coming.

Thank you so much for all the hard work that you do, I really appreciate that.

Please bear with us a little bit, I understand that some things have been moved

around, so you might have to explain some of those things for us. But I

understand that there are some really interesting new initiatives, I look

forward to having a chat about that.

Thank you for your time and your service. I do appreciate you being here.

CHAIR:

Okay. Well, thank you very much.

All right, we'll get started and we'll go heading by heading. I'd ask that for

each person who's going to speak, for the purposes of the broadcast, if you just

identify yourself and then proceed with a question or an answer.

So I'll turn to the Law Clerk and she's going to guide us through the sections.

So we're starting with …?

CLERK:

1.1.01 to 1.3.01.

CHAIR:

Do you have any questions on those sections?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

First of all, I understand that I

have to say my name before each question, so I'm just going to, in terms of

expediency, just say Helen, if that's okay?

CHAIR:

Sure, okay.

Helen, you're up.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

First of all, thank you for providing a copy of the briefing binder. We just

received that and I'd like to thank the minister for that.

Is the attrition plan still being followed? These are some general questions I'd

like to ask first.

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, the attrition plan is being followed. The structure of the attrition plan

has changed some, and for that, actually, I'm going to start the evening off by

turning to a person who I'm sure I'm going to turn to a lot tonight, that would

be our controller.

MR. GREEN:

For attrition, we have different allocations in this fiscal year and next fiscal

year. So we have to achieve $242,500 this fiscal year and $222,500 next fiscal

for a total of seven positions.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

How many people are employed in the department?

MR. CROCKER:

Right now, as I said in my opening remarks, I think it's roughly 1,600.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Sixteen hundred.

Okay, thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

I can get you the exact number, Helen: 1,623.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

How many vacancies are not filled in the department?

MR. GREEN:

As of today, there are 104 vacancies.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

How many retirements have occurred in the last year?

MR. GREEN:

Last year we had 35 retirements.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

MR. GREEN:

So far this fiscal year we've had 19.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Have any positions been eliminated?

MR. GREEN:

We eliminated two positions last year through attrition.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

How many layoffs have occurred in the department in the last year?

MR. GREEN:

None, to my knowledge.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

In terms of new hires, how many have taken place in the last year?

MR. GREEN:

I don't have that information, but we can provide that at a future date.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

Just to add, the complexity of the new hires, because the new hires would be

considered RNC and Corrections, so we can certainly provide that for you.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

How many contractual and short-term employees are there in the department?

MR. CROCKER:

Currently, there are 251 employees who are classified as temporary, 33 who are

on 13-week hires and another 33 people who are on contracts. Again, these

numbers do not include the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

I just have a couple of more general questions.

Did your department receive any funds from the COVID fund?

MR. GREEN:

None, to my knowledge.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

How has COVID impacted service delivery?

MR. CROCKER:

Some of the challenges around COVID, you would've seen in the courts where we've

had to close the courts and it would have impacted a lot of things. It impacted,

I think, a number of the programs that we were developing and trying to spread

across the province, and getting those programs actually implemented.

Chief Boland, maybe, if he would like to just give some indication of how it

would have impacted his employees, because his employees would have been people

who would not have really had the opportunity to change the way they work, and

they would have done exceptional work.

So I don't know if Chief Boland would like to talk about how COVID would've

impacted the force.

MR. BOLAND:

COVID was interesting for us. In some cases it affected our service delivery.

For instance, our counter service in all our detachments was closed, but it also

gave us an opportunity to really move ahead with some technology, especially

with online reporting. We were able to then use the information – we saw more

people take advantage of reporting, especially the smaller offences, online. And

it gave us an opportunity for intelligence to be able to attack that.

So it did have – certainly, we're a young police service. I think we're the

youngest police service in Canada. A lot of our officers have small children,

and when you go back to the start of COVID there was a lot of unknown and fear

amongst some of the young parents. So we did our best to try to accommodate

that, and I think we fared fairly well.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

Helen, I don't know if there are other divisions that – like prison, like adult

corrections. Megan could probably address some COVID changes and the courts,

maybe?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

The court system, if possible.

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah, sure. If you don't mind they can, yes.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes, I'd appreciate that.

Thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

Do you want to go, Megan, and talk about corrections?

MS. NESBITT:

From a corrections perspective, the same as policing, we go 24-7 operation. It

certainly changed the way that we work in terms of PPE and various things that

we had to implement within our institutions, the safe work procedures.

(Inaudible) we were able to react very quickly to all of this.

We did see in the initial stages of the pandemic a reduction in the number of

inmates within our institutions, for a number of reasons. Some temporary

absences were issued where possible and where offenders were eligible. Of

course, the closure of the courts and the cases not going through had impacted

the numbers within corrections as well. We had worked very quickly to get the

required personal protective equipment and whatnot in place and ensure that we

had what we needed to be able to keep our inmate population and our staff safe

throughout a global pandemic.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Great, thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

Lloyd, do you want to address the prosecution side of impacts from COVID?

MR. STRICKLAND:

Sure. Our operations are conducted in court, so our appearances were contingent

upon what the court was willing to do and when they were willing to do it.

Obviously, much of that early on was conducted online and by telephone. So we

had to follow the court's directions in terms of our operations, and we

co-operated to the extent we could.

MR. CROCKER:

Thanks, Lloyd.

Shelley, maybe, for court impacts.

MS. ORGAN:

(Inaudible) just noted that the courts, the first couple of months after COVID

began, so April and May our operations were cut by a great deal. We did hear

emergency and urgent matters. They included criminal and family matters, as a

priority.

As we learned and purchased PPE and moved things around in our courthouses and

determined how many people could actually sit in a courtroom safely and in our

courthouses, we began to open up our operations gradually. We are fully

operational now. We do have some courtrooms that we can't operate due to the

size of the courtrooms and for safety reasons, for physical distancing.

I'm sure everybody is aware that our jury trials in St. John's, we've been

holding those at the School for the Deaf. That's working out quite well. Our

first jury trial, operationally, went very well. We conducted jury selection

there, it went very smooth, and we're about to have another jury trial start up

there in two weeks.

In our outside courthouses, they do have bigger facilities. They're fairly newer

courthouses as opposed to the St. John's courthouse. We are attempting to hold

our jury selections and jury trials within the courthouses, and that means using

several courtrooms for the selection and some broadcasting capabilities there

will be utilized.

We do have two jury trials coming up in October – besides St. John's, of course

– one in Grand Falls-Windsor and one in Corner Brook. We've made arrangements to

do both of those within the courthouses. One of our jury selections in Grand

Falls-Windsor, for instance, will be held on a Saturday to accommodate that.

I don't know if there are any questions but I think those are the highlights.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

Any further questions?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Would you say that COVID has resulted in the budget of the court having to be

increased?

MS. ORGAN:

It's hard to say right now. I do know we have spent a fair bit of money on PPE

and sanitizing supplies and that type of thing, just to make sure that the

people coming into our courthouses – as you know, most times they don't have a

choice; you have to come to court. We want them to feel safe, so we have made

some arrangements – for instance, School for the Deaf.

I don't think it's going to be significant and I don't think right now that if

things go the way they are, that our Purchased Services or our Supplies or

Property, Furnishings and Equipment will be exceeded from what we are allotted.

CHAIR:

Andrew.

MR. GREEN:

With respect to all PPE purchases across the department, we're assessing what we

had to buy versus any savings that we would have achieved through shutdown.

We're monitoring that. It's very fluid at this stage, but right now we feel that

our budget savings are going to offset our PPE expenditures.

CHAIR:

Okay. I guess in fairness, I should be turning to Ms. Coffin. We'll go back and

forth. I apologize for that. First time as a Chair.

MS. COFFIN:

Fine job as a first time as a Chair. I think they get 10 and then we get 10?

CHAIR:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

I did notice there is a bit of an absence. I think the Member for Mount Pearl -

Southlands was going to attend as well. I'm not sure if he realizes it was a

5:30 or a 6 o'clock. Just so you know.

CHAIR:

He's not a Member of the Committee.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, my bad. He would have to have leave.

Okay, so I'm eating up my 10 minutes now, aren't I? But that's okay.

My first question is a general question. I assume this budget is built on a

zero-based budget?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

Were there any cost savings achieved this year, overall? Was there an overall

cost savings?

MR. GREEN:

Our budget was –

MS. COFFIN:

I'm thinking you're going to be answering a lot of the questions, Sir.

MR. GREEN:

Yes.

There were no real cost savings. We were pretty flat in terms of our budget from

year to year. The only differences would have been what Minister Crocker

addressed earlier, which were the two inquiry funds and the ATIPPA review.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So those are the two news ones.

I'm noticing now that there's – well, I guess if it's kind of flat and we've

added a couple of things in, what went away? Let's start with that.

MR. GREEN:

There were no changes from last year to this year. The only real change is that

we took in the Fire and Emergency Services, Newfoundland division. That

increased our budget.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. We will get there. I have some questions on that.

Thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

I guess if I could just add, a lot of that, where it's just moving in, it would

be reflected in the book but it's so new in the division I wouldn't put Andrew

too much on the spot on it.

MS. COFFIN:

That's fair, but I think that came out of Transportation and Infrastructure?

MR. CROCKER:

No, it came out of MAE.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, okay. All right, so you wouldn't have that from a past life?

MR. CROCKER:

No, I wouldn't. No.

MS. COFFIN:

However, I guess one of the other questions I'd like to ask is: Has any of the

capital cost – and I'm assuming most of the capital cost associated with the

previous budget and the previous iteration of this department, has that all been

moved to Transportation and Infrastructure?

MR. GREEN:

So all capital expenditures have been moved to Transportation and

Infrastructure, with the exception of our RNC vehicles. We have a capital

allocation for the replacement of RNC patrol vehicles, and now with Fire and

Emergency Services, we have a capital allocation for fire trucks.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. So the provisions for the new penitentiary would fall under that

infrastructure?

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah, the new penitentiary would – we'd be involved in the process. Obviously,

members of the steering committee would certainly come from Justice and

different aspects, too, because I know we are incorporating some correction

officers into the steering committee on that so that we are actually getting

front-line concerns addressed in the design of the new build.

I think on Monday morning you will get the opportunity to spend some time with

my colleague behind you and he can answer all of the prison questions.

MS. COFFIN:

Wonderful. I do believe Labrador West will be having a conversation, extended

I'd imagine, with you and I may sit in on that for a bit of fun because I do

believe those are P3s.

Okay, so that's a good place to start. Are there costs associated with the

set-up of the steering committee that are captured in the Current Account?

MR. CROCKER:

It would all rest in Transportation and Infrastructure at this point in time. I

guess it's similar to somebody building you a house that's turnkey.

MS. COFFIN:

Yup.

MR. CROCKER:

It will be theirs until they give us the key.

MS. COFFIN:

Well, technically, I think until we pay the last payment in 35 years.

MR. CROCKER:

Valid. Just like my house.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, as long as we know what we're getting into. I hope it's not like easyhome

financial.

Okay, let's have a chat now. I know we've noted this and I think, perhaps, we've

already found an answer, but for the record let's have a little chat about the

budget highlighted contributions to the provincial government to maintenance and

expansion of the Family Violence Intervention Court and the Drug Treatment

Court. The spending was down by approximately $700,000. Can you provide an

explanation for why that might be the case?

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah, I can. I'll give the high-level one and I guess if you want to go deeper

we can go to officials.

Family Violence and Drug Treatment are two of the things that would have been

impacted by COVID because it's about outreach. I think one of the larger

challenges that we're facing with the expansion of both of those – outside of

the larger urban areas in the province – is actually the wraparound services,

because it's easy to bring the Drug Treatment Court or the Family Violence Court

outside the city, but you also need one-on-one counselling.

The John Howard Society is a great partner of ours when it comes to – I think

it's primarily, well both, I guess, correct Jen – they're here in the city. The

Drug Treatment Court and the Family Violence Court are working, but they do

become more challenging as we go out. These are two that would have definitely

been impacted this year by COVID over the last seven months with the expansion

because, obviously, keeping what we have going over the last seven months has

been challenging, let alone trying to expand.

MS. COFFIN:

I guess kind of jumping off from that, I notice that 1.2.02 provides for the

policy, planning and operational activities. So this is all our expenditures in

the Family Violence Court and the Drug Treatment Court, is that it or are there

others captured elsewhere?

MR. CROCKER:

1.2.02.

MS. COFFIN:

1.2.02, yes. That's under general administration.

MR. GREEN:

So that would be the Finance and General Operations division, policy and

planning and then we have some block funding for Family Violence Intervention

Court, block funding for Drug Treatment Court and we have block funding for Guns

and Gangs initiative.

MS. COFFIN:

We're giving them guns and gangs?

MR. GREEN:

That's just a federal program and the block funding sits in this division.

MS. COFFIN:

So where does that sit, the block funding? I'm sorry –

MR. GREEN:

Those blocks sit in Salaries.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, okay, that's interesting. So if I was to look, where would I find that?

MR. GREEN:

1.2.02.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay that's it; $1.8 million is our total spending on that?

MR. GREEN:

That's our budget; our expected spend in those areas.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Excellent segue into my next question. Given COVID, in particular, but also

because we are in perhaps one of the most significant recessions that we will

ever be in – let's hope this is it – one thing that we are going to see an

increase in this time is family violence and intimate partner violence and drug

use. What I am hearing on the street is that the drugs that are coming in are

horribly cut and far more dangerous. That tells me that we are going to have a

greater need for both of these things.

Can we expect to see an increase in these budgets?

MR. CROCKER:

I guess that would really depend on what we see coming through the court system

and the opportunities to do this, because, really, if you think about the Drug

Treatment Court, I think of the drug challenge, I think it would depend on the

seriousness and it would depend on the willingness of the people involved. This

becomes people of organized crime, I think – and I'm really gone out of my

league now, Chief, but some of the challenges, you're absolutely correct.

We saw a seizure last week in Hare Bay, a rural community of 900 people, $1.4

million worth of cocaine.

MS. COFFIN:

That's where you hide.

MR. CROCKER:

Absolutely. There will be ramifications, I think, flow through the system. I

don't know if anybody can address that. Chief, if you want to talk about what

you're seeing, to the extent you can, obviously.

MR. BOLAND:

Yes. I think, to your point, we're definitely seeing an increase in the amount

of drugs that are coming by all kinds of means, whether they're coming by the

ferries, through Port aux Basques or they're coming through terminals like

Oceanex or they're coming through UPS or Canada Post. We're definitely seeing

the impact of a downturn in the economy and we're seeing the violence, as well,

that has come with it. That goes to intimate partner violence, domestic

violence, home invasions, armed robberies, you name it, across the board.

It also gives us an opportunity as an organization to look at the level of crime

that we have, the types of crime and then can we reallocate the resources that

we have to address that level of crime. It certainly is a concern and it's a

high priority for us.

MS. COFFIN:

I'd like to see more dollars in prevention than an expectation that we reprofile

dollars, that I imagine we are using for very good reason, into addressing some

emerging issues.

MR. BOLAND:

Andrew, you might be able to speak a little bit more about the Guns and Gangs

money, but even as that money comes in, there are opportunities there for us to

be able to take some of that money and shift it into areas of concern, as we see

the types of crimes that we're seeing on our streets today versus even a year

ago.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. Thank you.

MS. WRIGHT:

Can I just add something just with respect to the drug treatment program

(inaudible). The drug treatment program, the way it works is that (inaudible)

charged with the crime, but only certain crimes actually qualify for the

program. I just wanted to clarify that.

MS. COFFIN:

Appreciate that, thank you.

MS. WRIGHT:

(Inaudible) with Chief Boland and some very significant crimes that may occur.

If you are receiving money, like, for example, trafficking, that wouldn't fall

under the drug treatment program.

For example, the drug treatment program is all about trying to get at the

underlying issue of drug addictions. People do a lot of petty crimes, which

fuels their drug addiction. That's the nature of the program with respect to

drug treatment. Maybe a shed or just petty theft. I don't want to diminish the

program by any means.

MS. COFFIN:

I understand.

MS. WRIGHT:

But very much so, it depends upon the offence and whether or not it qualifies

for the drug treatment program.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Coffin, your time is expired for this.

I'll turn back to Ms. Conway Ottenheimer to continue.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

One final general question before I go to the subheading of Minister's Office.

In the budget document, $508,000 was budgeted for a reintroduction of the

electronic monitoring program.

MR. CROCKER:

Right.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Can you please provide details on that?

MR. CROCKER:

The electronic monitoring program was brought back I think last year. I think we

have a contract now for 33 –

OFFICIAL:

Thirty of the 50.

MR. CROCKER:

– 30 of the 50 units. There are currently three in service as of yesterday.

One of the challenges we have around that was developing COVID protocols, and

obviously the downturn in the court system and less people being convicted and

people who actually can take advantage of this. I think it's something that will

ramp up now rather quickly as the courts have reopened and we can find people

that are suitable for this type of monitoring. It has many advantages and it's

something that we're certainly looking forward to using.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under 1.1.01, Minister's Office, under Salaries, can the minister explain why

salaries are forecasted to increase by $9,100 in 2021?

MR. CROCKER:

The increase on that would be primarily related to the 27th pay period.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

How many support staff are in the minister's office?

MR. CROCKER:

Political support staff?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. CROCKER:

One.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. And otherwise?

MR. CROCKER:

One.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Has there –?

MR. CROCKER:

Two; one political and one public service.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Public service.

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Has there been an increase or reduction in support staff over the past year?

MR. CROCKER:

I think it would've gone unchanged. Yeah.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under 1.2.01, Executive Support, specifically Salaries, looking at fiscal

'19-'20, there's an increase from the budgeted amount of $1,054,400 to

$1,177,398. Can the minister please explain why this occurred?

MR. CROCKER:

That variation is due to backfilling of an ADM position. The previous ADM is on

extended leave.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under 1.2.02, Administrative and Policy Support, under Salaries, can you explain

the variance in the salaries here?

MR. CROCKER:

The $700,000 variance?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. CROCKER:

That would have been due to the delay in the implementation of the Family

Violence Court, would have accounted for about $390,000 of that. Originally,

when the Democratic Reform Committee was a creature of government and not of the

House, there was $250,000 budgeted for staffing of the Democratic Reform

Committee. There were $90,000 incurred in that, and that money and the

information has been transferred to the House, correct? It has been transferred

to the House of Assembly.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Last year, there was $1,783,200 budgeted; however, only $1,082,545 was spent, a

difference of approximately $700,000. Then we see in 2020-21, the budget is

increased to $1,871,500. Why the variance there?

MR. CROCKER:

That would be based on, if my understanding is correct, the Family Violence

Intervention Court getting up and running, and fully running. Again, the impacts

of the 27th pay period, because the 27th pay period is going to mean – I think

it's almost $5 million it impacts to the department. That's going to be a

consistent throughout the Salaries.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Now, I understand from a previous response that the Family Violence Intervention

Court – it's included under Salaries, if I understand that correctly.

MR. CROCKER:

Yes.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

The intent was to have four Family Violence Intervention Courts. This has not

happened. Can you provide any details or an update on that?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes. That was one of the ones I sort of alluded to, I think, earlier from

Alison's question. It's been obviously delayed by COVID because the ability to

do outreach. The other challenge with this is the fact that community supports –

once you go outside of St. John's or Corner Brook or in Stephenville, finding

the supports necessary to do this outside counselling – I mentioned earlier

about the John Howard Society who are a great partner when it comes to this

court.

It is our plan; we have the money available. We have almost $400,000 this year

to actually do that. It's certainly something we want to do, we're working

towards, but there are challenges when we go outside of the larger centres.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

But it is an objective that you will be seeking?

MR. CROCKER:

Absolutely.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. CROCKER:

We've seen the benefits of this and of the Drug Treatment Court. So, yeah,

absolutely. I guess to the point, one of the unfortunate parts of COVID is it

has, I guess, increased or at least uncovered a lot of violence that may not

have been exposed previous.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under 1.2.04, Administrative Support capital, I noticed there's an increase this

year of approximately $439,000. What is being planned there?

MR. CROCKER:

That's the RNC fleet purchases, the capital purchase.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

I might go back just to 1.2.03. Under Salaries, last year $468,000 was budgeted

but only $370,637 was spent. Was that because a position was left unfilled,

there were vacancies or some other reason?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, that variance is a vacancy within the division.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

Andrew, you have a …?

MR. GREEN:

So from budget to budget it's down again. That is one of the areas where we

achieved one of our attrition positions.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under Purchased Services, last year went over budget by approximately $7,000,

almost $8,000. Can you explain what was purchased that wasn't budgeted for?

MR. CROCKER:

What number? Sorry, Helen.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

That is 1.2.03.

MR. CROCKER:

Three.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes, under Purchased Services.

MR. GREEN:

That would be records storage and document retrieval increases.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under 1.3.01, Fines Administration, can the minister provide an update of what

is outstanding to be collected in terms of fines?

MR. CROCKER:

Do you really want to know?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

No, probably not, but tell me anyway.

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah, it's approximately $42 million. We can provide you with a more detailed

breakdown with, I think, the top five, Jen?

MS. MERCER:

Ten.

MR. CROCKER:

The top 10, because as it's been explained to me, these are older than most of

us here. In a lot of cases, a lot of them are tobacco excise tax related, the

bigger ones, because if somebody –

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. CROCKER:

My apologies.

I think it's been explained to me that if somebody is caught bringing contraband

tobacco into the province, the fine is 20 times the tax. So somebody gets a

whopping $500,000 fine. To quote the minister, I think, from last year, getting

blood from a rock is impossible in a lot of cases.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Can the minister provide an update on how the legalization of cannabis has

impacted the Fines Administration division?

MR. CROCKER:

I think I can, but maybe I can turn it over, because it hasn't had the impact

that we expected.

Jen?

MS. MERCER:

That's correct.

When legalization was initially contemplated, Canada thought they might issue

tickets for some of the cannabis offences. We entered into cannabis ticketing

agreements and blocked money in a variety of divisions through the department,

from Public Prosecutions to Fines Administration, with the intent that there

would be costs associated with ticketing, collecting, that sort of thing.

Canada has not opted to do tickets for cannabis, so there's very little impact

in the Fines Administration section, other than I think we've taken out what

we've blocked and frozen over the last number of years, which is about $50,000.

We will take that out for next year because we don't anticipate that program

will come into force.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Coffin, you're on for 10 minutes.

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you.

Let's pick up where I left off last time. We talked a little bit about

prevention and some of the other things, some of the other ills that could

potentially come from the COVID, which would be additional family violence and

additional drug use.

Have we put any more money into prevention and prevention dollars? I know that

we said that some money is being moved around, but overall prevention, do we

have anything like that? I don't know if this is the right spot for it in

Justice and Public Safety, but just to help people who are going through

addictions.

MR. CROCKER:

Right, so, I'm not sure actually that would really fall into Justice as much as

it would fall into other departments, like my colleague in Children, Seniors and

Social Development or Health or more broader all-of-government approach.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. CROCKER:

Right down to the Status of Women and other areas.

MS. COFFIN:

Absolutely. I think I'm right in that I probably should have asked that in a

different – and I'm sure there's going to be ample opportunity. I think Health

is tomorrow night. I'll save it for then.

There is something that triggered an interesting question for me when we talked

about more drugs coming into the province. One thing that has happened recently

is Corner Brook has created a dock for export and import.

I'm wondering if anyone has thought to some prevention or additional security or

scrutiny on such a conduit, let's call it or potential conduit.

MR. CROCKER:

I'll deflect to the chief but he's probably not going to give away his strategy.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes would be good, it is on our radar.

MR. BOLAND:

That's always on our radar and we work hand in hand with the RCMP and CBSA. We

have two drug dogs that we can deploy either down at the ports or up at the

airport. The same thing with the RCMP. They have their own dog teams. I don't

think CBSA has right now, but that's certainly a big priority for us right now,

entry points into this province, when it comes to drugs.

MS. COFFIN:

Good to hear, Sir, thank you.

Let's move to Administrative and Policy Support, 1.2.02. I noticed that Grants

and Subsidies, there's $450,000 there. What's that for? What are the Grants and

Subsidies for in particular?

MR. GREEN:

We provide a grant to Newfoundland Search and Rescue Association, NLSAR, for

$191,000. We provide grant funding to communities with community constable

positions. We provide $55,000 to four communities for a community constable and

the remainder is, what we would call, ministerial discretionary grants, which is

about $39,000.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. And they can be used for what, Sir?

MR. GREEN:

They would be used for – I mean, we usually get requests in for, say, a school

wants to raise money for something; we could use it for those.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, good to know. Thank you.

Federal and provincial revenue associated with the courts. I noticed that the

provincial was set at $210,000; it went up to $775,000. What revenue –?

MR. CROCKER:

Sorry, what was the number?

MS. COFFIN:

1.2.01 subsection 02 under Amounts to be Voted, provincial went up.

MR. CROCKER:

Revenue?

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, Revenue.

MR. CROCKER:

That's Guns and Gang.

MR. GREEN:

So revenue on that line includes, for federal revenue, it's the Guns and Gang

funding and the Drug Treatment Court. So that's the offset for the expense.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. GREEN:

Then on the provincial side, we would call this division more of a catch-all for

any – if we have any insurance claims from the RNC, for instance, the revenue

comes in, they don't really have a line for that, so it just kind of gets put

into our general, what we would call a general revenue account. We collect

Commissioner for Oaths and Notary Publics. So that's what would be included in

some of that.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. Because I noticed it went from $210,000 up to $757,000. So what ever we

were doing, good job there. I'm hoping that's positive, the money coming in is

from good causes.

MR. GREEN:

I think on the provincial, it's all coded to the one place, but it is a

breakdown between federal and provincial. So if you want we could provide a

breakdown of what was provincial and what was federal after.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, sure. I noticed that there was no additional federal revenue, but there

was a significant jump in the provincial revenue by about almost $500,000. So

that was unanticipated, right?

Okay, good. Let's see what else I have here. Legal Information Management,

spending on Salaries was significantly lower, and I do believe my colleague

mentioned this. I guess the follow-up question would be: How has this impacted

the delivery of Legal Information Management services and the provision of

service at the law libraries?

MS. MERCER:

We still have an exceptionally strong Information Management led by a wonderful

manager. She has worked diligently through COVID, along with our law librarian.

While we still have the law library on the 5th floor, and many books, we also

use our computers and some subscription services, and we contribute to law

libraries across the province in courthouses. But I would say our level of

service continues to be extremely high. We're working to fill some vacancies

there as well.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. That's good to hear. I'm glad to hear that the service is being

maintained.

Let's see. This is an interesting thing, because it's under General

Administration and we talked earlier about the Capital budget has been moved

out, but I notice that 1.2.04 is a Capital budget there. It increased from

$312,000 to $824,000. It's Property, Furnishings and Equipment under a Capital

budget. I noted it says: “Appropriations provide for facilities planning and the

acquisition of tangible capital assets.” So is that hardware? Is that desks?

MR. CROCKER:

RNC vehicles.

MS. COFFIN:

That's the vehicles. Oh, nice. Good job. You're getting new vehicles. Okay,

that's great. The ride along was really good. I was in a vehicle that had

200,000 kilometres on it, so that's kind of nice.

Under Fines Administration, 1.3.01, I did note that we had significantly less

provincial revenue than we had projected. That's down by about $400,000.

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, I think this has been a persistent problem. It's the St. John's city

council parking meter problem downtown, because we would collect – I think it's

$9?

MR. GREEN:

Yes.

MR. CROCKER:

For every ticket that the city of St. John's would issue the province would get

a surcharge of $9, and if the city is not issuing tickets we're not getting our

$9.

MS. COFFIN:

Wow, that's a lot of tickets that I didn't get this year.

We're expecting it to go back up again, so I'm guessing the city has a better

handle on it now?

MR. CROCKER:

Well, they do because they have the app now. So hopefully –

MS. COFFIN:

Right. Darn, I can't hide.

MR. CROCKER:

– they will start issuing tickets again.

MS. COFFIN:

Churchill Square is so far so good, just so you know.

Let's see, I think that may be – the federal one was down as well. What are we

getting in Fines Administration under federal? Are we getting a surcharge on –?

MR. CROCKER:

As the deputy, I think, said for Helen a little while ago, that was money that

we had anticipated receiving from cannabis ticketing.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, right.

MR. CROCKER:

But where it hasn't been ticketed, as we had anticipated, the revenue obviously

hasn't come.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

Okay. Property, Furnishings and Equipment, I was kind of curious about – and I'm

flipping back over here. Under Purchased Services, under 1.2.02, $400,000.

What's those Purchased Services? Is that ASL? Is that – I'm guessing, you know?

MR. GREEN:

The Purchased Services here would be the existing Family Violence Intervention

Court funding, so that would be our John Howard Society. When we talk about the

392 up above as a block, once we implement that, those new courts, that money

moves down probably into Purchased Services, if that's where we go. If we hire

then we will leave some of it up in Salaries, but that's how it works. It's

mostly Family Violence Intervention Court.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, that's good.

Thank you.

CHAIR:

(Inaudible), no?

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, I think we're close to done on this section.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MS. COFFIN:

So I'll flip it over there.

CHAIR:

(Inaudible.)

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes, just going back to 1.2.04, Administrative Support, with respect to the new

vehicles for the RNC, how many were purchased and what is the current size of

the RNC fleet?

MR. BOLAND:

We purchased 16 vehicles and seven of them, I think, Andrew, were blocked. It

had nothing to do with Snowmageddon; it had to do with a railway disruption in

Quebec. They didn't get here, so we didn't get them in time for the budget. The

vehicles that we didn't get will come out of this year's fleet.

Is that correct, Andrew?

CHAIR:

Andrew.

MR. GREEN:

Yes, that's correct.

MR. BOLAND:

We worked very hard over the last year to try to correct a budget, I think, that

needed to be right-sized in relation to our fleet going forward. We're very

happy with the current arrangement of the money that we spend on purchasing

versus the money that we spend on repairs.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

MR. CROCKER:

If I can, Chief, we've gone from what I think used to be a purchase of 12 to a

purchase of 16, which gives you, sort of, the fleet renewal that's required. I'm

sure you'd ask for more if everything was equal.

MR. BOLAND:

We worked it out over a four-year period to make sure our fleet stays refreshed.

Basically, what we did, we corrected a problem we had with spending good money

on vehicles that really should have come off the road.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Thank you.

Under Fines Administration, 1.3.01, last year in Estimates we talked about the

ability of people to volunteer to pay off large fines. Could the minister

provide some commentary on that concept?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, that program has been in development.

COVID has really hampered that program because, obviously, the organizations

that would have benefited from that program or the partners that we would have

went out – say it was going to be a service club that we're going to be able to

partner to take somebody who could work off some fine time. These groups have

been pretty much shut down since the 1st of March. So, really, that's been

greatly impacted by COVID when it comes to implementation.

It's still something that we certainly want to do because, obviously, it won't

get at the $500,000 tobacco violation, but it certainly can provide some relief

for people to, I guess, work off situations so they can get a driver's licence

or get the ability to get a car on the road properly, but it will be that lower

end. I don't think for a minute it's ever going to get into the millions,

because it's going to be people at the lower end, I feel, that would be able to

avail of this.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

MS. MERCER:

Interestingly as well, since we have announced the fines-option program we've

had a lot of inquires about how to become involved, and as a result of that

we've got people on payment programs now. While they're not into the FOP proper,

they are making small payments and reducing their debt and then accessing

driver's licence or whatever the case may be. So that's a positive, even though

we acknowledge we are still trying to get it up and officially running.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

That's good to hear.

Thank you.

CHAIR:

I'm going to return to my Speaker duties and look over at my colleagues and ask

them to respect the conversation. Thank you.

Any further questions, Helen?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Not under this heading, no.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms. Coffin, any further questions on these sections?

MS. COFFIN:

I'm good with this section.

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay. With that, I'd like to recognize the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands,

Mr. Paul Lane.

Mr. Lane is not a Member of the Committee but with leave of the Committee he may

be interested in asking any questions. I'm seeking leave of this Committee.

AN HON. MEMBER:

Leave.

CHAIR:

Everybody's in agreement.

Sir, would you like to ask any questions. We are dealing first of all with

1.1.01 through to 1.3.01.

MR. LANE:

Thank you.

First of all, I apologize for walking in a little bit late. The email I had said

6 o'clock but I guess it must have started 5:30 or something did it? Okay.

Anyway, I'll know for next time.

I don't have line by lines. I'm following along with the line-by-line questions

and I'm making my notes accordingly. My questions are somewhat more general.

Minister, the first question I have for you – and, really, I'm going to ask this

question at every Estimates to every minister of every department. COVID-19, as

terrible as it has been and as challenging as it has been, I believe it has

provided some opportunities as well. I think a lot of people may agree with

that. Opportunities within government in that it has demonstrated clearly that

there are things we were doing in the past or the way we were doing things in

the past can be done differently.

Now, obviously, that's not going to apply to every circumstance and there have

been situations in various departments where the general public have perhaps

seen a decrease in service or a temporary delay in service because of COVID,

but, no doubt, there have been opportunities in terms of people being able to

apply for things online – communicate to different government departments online

and so on.

We've seen opportunities where meetings that perhaps would've taken place,

people travelling around the province and so on, now everybody is using Zoom,

thus saving the government and the department money. We're seeing situations

where there are employees who are working from home, which then leads to the

question: If they can work from home now, can that be a permanent thing? By

doing that, can we save money on consolidating office space and so on? There is

a whole list of ways where we're doing things differently that I think can be

more efficient, save money, but at the same time provide the services that

people require.

I'm just wondering – sort of a broad brush, I'm not asking for every specific

now. In your department and the divisions within your department, what, if

anything, have you guys been doing in that regard in those areas? Are they

working, and are there plans to make them a permanent feature of how your

department operates, i.e. online meetings via Zoom, employees working at home

and so on?

MR. CROCKER:

Thanks.

Unfortunately, Wednesdays will be 5:30, every other day it will be 6 – for the

start, sorry. Actually, as we started the evening, we went through each division

and we talked about COVID impacts. So there have been COVID impacts. Yes, like

every single government department, I think being forced to go to Zoom will

change the way business is done forever and a day, and that will certainly

achieve savings.

We've seen other things throughout being done differently, whether it's in the

courts, whether it's with the RNC in corrections. Certainly, there have been

things that we've noticed. Not necessarily all monetary, but in a lot of ways

there are – well, I guess they are monetary. The monitoring program – if we were

a little bit later in the monitoring program than we were pre-COVID, it really

shows advantages that a program like that could have.

The chief referred to the fact that being such a young force – the RNC, the

memberships – how quickly they adapted to technology was really positive. So,

yeah, I think every single government department – and I think it's a great

question to lead with because I think, overall, as we go forward some of the

lessons from COVID will be savings for a long time to come.

CHAIR:

Mr. Lane, if I could ask you to ask your question and then while you're waiting

for an answer, I'll get you to relocate to another desk. Broadcast is having

some challenges spotting you in that corner.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Mr. Brazil's chair would be working fine. Ask your question, if you like, and

then while we're ….

MR. LANE:

Okay. All right, not a problem. I sat here because I asked the Clerk earlier

today and she said: Stay in your own desk. So that's why I'm here, but anyway,

no problem.

The next one is around the Fines Administration. The $42 million you referenced

in uncollected fines, I do recall the answer from last year from the previous

minister about people being able to, sort of, work off their fines, if you will,

and you just answered that to my colleague from Harbour Main, I believe. On the

larger ones you've referenced, that's obviously not going to work in those

circumstances.

I'm just wondering, instead of just continuing to carry this over year over year

over year, at what point in time do you make a decision that there's something

we can do to get the money back and we're going to do it, or we're just going to

write it off and be done with it? I'm just wondering, does that ever happen or

does this continue in infinity?

MR. CROCKER:

I'll quickly give my opinion on that and then I'll turn it over to the

accounting people.

I agree with you, a lot of those dollars are dollars that we're never going to

achieve and it just infuriates people, and I'm sure it infuriates everybody in

this Chamber when you hear of it, but the reality is it's not achievable. In any

other business or any other situation it would be wrote off, but my

understanding from asking that question previous is our FAA makes it near

impossible to actually write these things off.

OFFICIAL:

That's my understanding.

MR. CROCKER:

And you're right. If somebody has a $500,000 fine, you can evaluate what the

chances of getting that are. I'll almost bet you that 99.9 times out of 100,

you're not getting it. So, yeah, my understanding is the FAA becomes the

challenge here.

MR. LANE:

Okay, thank you.

I'm wondering about the vehicles, the fleet for the RNC. At one point in time

there was some talk of – I think it was St. John's, Mount Pearl, Paradise, maybe

CBS, I could be wrong on that – the municipalities were going to purchase some

police cars and then the RNC were going to provide the manpower, something to do

with extra traffic enforcement or something. Did that happen or didn't it?

MR.

BOLAND :

No, it didn't happen. We still have discussions ongoing with them. Traffic is a

huge issue on the Northeast Avalon.

MR. LANE:

I'm sure it is.

MR.

BOLAND :

Entering into agreements with municipalities is not simple when it comes to

policing. You're making an agreement and then what's the expectation to a

council in regard to the resource you're willing to put forward. So it's not as

simple as we initially thought.

They were wanting to purchase the vehicles but, first of all, we have to have a

guaranteed resource to meet what their requirement was for their donation.

Traffic is certainly a high priority as well. I think what you will see in the

near future from the RNC is an expansion of our traffic unit; albeit, I'm not

sure it will include any kind of MOU with municipalities.

MR. LANE:

Okay, thank you.

Looking at the time, I'll get one more question in and then we can move on. I'm

just wondering, Muskrat Falls – and I'm not sure if this is the opportune time

but, anyway, it's a question.

We know what happened, of course, with Muskrat Falls and we know at some point

the government did make a decision. They were going to get the RNC involved and

they were going to seek legal advice within the department about civil

litigation and all this good stuff. I haven't heard of anything since.

Definitely, nobody has been charged, not in the media at least, and I haven't

heard of anybody being sued or whatever. Is this still ongoing or is this

concluded, or at what point in time do we expect it to be concluded that there's

going to be action or not?

MR. CROCKER:

The RNC hasn't concluded, Chief, if I can say that. I think a lot of the

conversation around Muskrat Falls internally has been pre-empted by COVID

because I think the Muskrat Falls report came out on the fifth or sixth of March

and we found ourselves quickly, weeks later, into a pandemic; but, no, I would

say it hasn't concluded.

MR. LANE:

Any idea? Any possible timeline?

CHAIR:

Thank you, Mr. Lane, your time has expired.

MR. LANE:

All right, I'll wait until next time.

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Any further questions?

Helen?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms. Conway Ottenheimer.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Not under this section, no.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Any further questions from the others on this section?

Mr. Lane, if you had further questions on this section, I would seek leave again

from the Committee to allow you to continue.

Am I seeing leave?

AN HON. MEMBER:

Leave.

CHAIR:

Okay, please proceed.

MR. LANE:

Okay. I'm not going to take up everyone's time here but I'll just finish the

question that I was kind of into. I understand COVID, Snowmaggedon, all that,

all very legit, I totally understand and appreciate that. I'm just wondering, is

there any sense of a timeline? Because I've certainly heard from – maybe you

have as well – members of the public, whether anything happens or not, who

knows, but there are certainly people that have very decided opinions what they

think should happen. On the potential criminal side and the potential civil

litigation side, any timelines as to when this could be concluded one way or the

other?

MR. CROCKER:

On the criminal side, on the RNC side, we would not have any insight into that.

Criminal investigations, the independence of the police remain with the police.

MR. LANE:

Okay.

MR. CROCKER:

I guess, on the civil side, if something is going to be pursued here, there are

reasonable time limits, I would think. I can certainly do some more checking on

that and certainly provide you with an update.

MR. LANE:

Thank you.

That will be it for me for now. Thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Any further questions from the Committee?

Seeing none, what I would like to do is we'll vote on this section. I'll turn to

the Clerk and we'll vote on these sections that we've just been discussing.

CLERK:

Thank you.

1.1.01 to 1.3.01 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 through to 1.3.01 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

The motion has been carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 1.3.01 carried.

CHAIR:

Now, we will turn, Clerk, to the next section.

CLERK:

2.1.01 to 2.4.01.

CHAIR:

Just to alert everyone, I would propose that at 1900 hours, 7 p.m., we will take

a 10-minute break or so just to let people stretch; not too much of a masochist

here.

I'll now turn it over, then, to Helen.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under 2.1.01, Civil Law, can the minister please explain how this year's budget

of $5,476,800 was calculated?

MR. CROCKER:

I'm sorry, Helen …

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Can the minister explain how this year's budget of $5,476,800 was calculated?

MR. CROCKER:

The Salaries budget?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes, under Salaries.

MR. GREEN:

That would be the effect of the 27th pay period.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Under Professional Services, can the minister please explain what matters

required outside counsel over the past year?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

Thank you for that question.

With regard to Professional Services, any retentions of external counsel we'd be

happy to provide you with a list as to which counsel were retained.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Why did the Professional Services, revised budget increase to $5 million? That's

under Professional Services.

MR. CROCKER:

That would be due to significant increased expenditures to outside counsel.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under Allowances and Assistance, what is this for exactly? Why the increase?

MR. CROCKER:

The increase?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. CROCKER:

That is put there as a contingency because what you've seen happen above there

with the increase from $2.8 million to $5 million, we put it in there as a

contingency in the event that we need to use it for external legal services.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

What was the cost to the department to hire outside lawyers, specifically?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

With regard to the Professional Services expenditures, those would be primarily

for retention of external counsel. We can undertake to provide you with a list

as to which firms were retained.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Why was there a need to hire? Could you just provide an example for when outside

counsel was necessary?

MR. CROCKER:

Outside counsel would be necessary in things like we see the tobacco litigation

that's been ongoing, I think, for many, many years. Outside counsel would be

involved in Opioids, the class-action suits we're involved with there.

MS. MERCER:

Do you want me to jump in?

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah, sure, Jen.

MS. MERCER:

I'll quote Chantelle's predecessor. Generally, outside counsel falls within

three categories: counsel with particular expertise, as the minister said in

class-action lawsuits like Opioid, tobacco, trade, that sort of thing. The

second heading would be AG-funded counsel. At times, the court orders

appointment of counsel for different accused persons or other litigants. So we

fund that. Then, the third thing that falls, I think, under this heading is

expert witnesses that we sometimes retain for litigation.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Getting back to the minister's response with respect to the litigation of the

tobacco health care cost recovery litigation, how much is that costing us on an

annual basis?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

With regard to the tobacco litigation, that's been ongoing for approximately 25

years, and it's the most complex, multi-party litigation in Canadian history.

While I can't tell you exactly what its cost is on an annual basis, I can tell

you that in this past year, for example, we've paid for disbursements related to

retention of certain experts. We can certainly provide you with details about

that.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you very much.

Under

section 2.1.02, Sheriff's Office, first of all, with respect to Salaries,

can you please explain this line item?

MR. CROCKER:

The increase you mean?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. CROCKER:

Again, it would be the 27th pay period.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Why is Transportation and Communications increasing to $325,100?

MR. GREEN:

For Transportation and Communications, that would be our cost to send – it would

be cost for landlines and mobile phones, plus the costs for the sheriff to

accompany the court on circuit courts and for transports.

What we saw for the previous five years was an average spend of about $330,000

on that line. So we built the budget based on that. There were some things that

happened last year that didn't achieve the budget, so we'll readdress to see if

the trend is going downward or if it will continue at $330,000.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under Supplies, why is that increasing to $207,500?

MR. CROCKER:

That was a late arrival of uniforms due to COVID shut down. So the uniforms were

due in before March 31, but they didn't show up until after, so it was brought

forward.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under Revenue - Federal, could you explain the $109,900 figure, please?

MR. CROCKER:

It's the bilingual services.

MS. MERCER:

So several years ago we determined that we were unable to enforce federal

legislation by ticket in the province, so we entered into a MOU with Canada and

they provided certain funding to allow us to process tickets issued under

federal legislation.

For example, on the base in Goose Bay, if there's a traffic ticket issued, that

actually falls under the Contraventions

Act . Again, we blocked some funding throughout different heads in the

department largely to hire bilingual staff because, of course, when we're

Unfortunately, we've had challenges staffing those bilingual positions. I think

in this particular instance that is federal money that was contributed to staff

a bilingual position in the Sheriff's Office. I don't think we've been

successful in doing that so far. Continuing to try and trying to recruit, of

course, as well.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

The position has remained unfilled. Is that correct?

MR. CROCKER:

The qualification is not filled.

MS. MERCER:

That's right.

MR. CROCKER:

The position would be filled but the bilingual person wouldn't necessarily be

there.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MS. MERCER:

If we aren't able to meet the parameters of the federal funding, of course, we

can't claim that funding from them.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

How has COVID-19 changed the jury selection process? I know we discussed it in

general previously, but I'm wondering about how it actually has changed the jury

selection process.

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, Shelley.

MS. ORGAN:

Yes, in some cases, in the last jury trial we held we actually did a

pre-screening day. So the day before the actual jury selection, those potential

jurors who did not get an exemption through the Sheriff's Office for routine

exemptions and needed a judicial exemption, they appeared on the day before. For

this past jury trial we did, we actually did 40 exemptions on the day before,

which meant there were, I think, 38 people that didn't show up then on jury

selection day because their exemption was taken care of. That's one procedure we

have in place, and that's being done Canada wide.

For St. John's, for instance, we moved the trial and jury selection outside of

the courthouse so that we can allow for physical distancing. At the School for

the Deaf, we use the gymnasium, which can seat 100 people exactly at six-feet

distancing each chair. Then, we used four extra classrooms that were broadcasted

through the courtroom so that those people – we had 10 to 14 in a classroom as

well.

That is one for St. John's. Then, outside of St. John's, we are using the

courthouses and using several courtrooms and broadcasting, just so we can

physical distance the people showing up.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Thank you, Ms. Organ. You could be a good MHA because you ended exactly on the

time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Oh, oh!

CHAIR:

Thank you very much.

Ten minutes now for Ms. Coffin.

MS. COFFIN:

Ending exactly on the time is not necessarily what we are prone to do.

Let's go back to 2.1.01, Civil Law. I noticed we had $10,000 in anticipation of

greater settlements. Can we get a little bit more of an idea of what ones we are

expecting?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

With regard to settlements, those are privileged. They're subject to settlement

privilege, and that's a privilege that extends to both the plaintiffs and the

defendants, whichever the Crown may be – oftentimes the defendants. In either

case, those are privileged, sorry.

MS. COFFIN:

Fair. Totally fair.

Instead of going line by line, I have a couple of questions that I'm hoping I'm

going to put in the right section. It's more of a general thing.

One of the things in particular, was Justice Leo Barry issued a list of

recommendations on the report on the Dunphy shooting. Can we get an update on

what's happening with those recommendations?

MS. MERCER:

I might pass that to the chief, actually. The last time I looked, we had

accomplished a significant number.

Megan, do you have those numbers? Or perhaps the chief does.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MS. MERCER:

Yes, okay.

I don't know if the chief can speak generally.

MR. BOLAND:

Yes, I think probably what would be prudent here is that we can provide you with

what the recommendations were and what we have done so far with those

recommendations.

MS. COFFIN:

That would be great, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

On to the next inquiry. The mandate letter of last year talked about a public

inquiry into Humber Valley Paving. Any plans on doing that now?

MR. CROCKER:

No, I guess the time for that inquiry has passed. There are significant

inquiries that need to be done and I think inquiries, in a larger sense, have

been prioritized. Right now, you see us moving into the search and rescue

inquiry and working towards the children-in-care inquiry as well.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, great.

Dr. Matthew Bowes, chief medical examiner of Nova Scotia, had reviewed the

provincial office of the chief medical examiner and offered a list of

recommendations for the office involving more resources. Can you give us an

update on the implementation of those recommendations?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes. There are 50 of the 65 either in progress or have been implemented.

Currently, there are two pathologists working at the OCME and the manager of

corporate services, and there's recruitment ongoing for a forensic pathologist.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Transportation and Communications, have we addressed the transportation and

communications for the Sherriff's Office? There is a change there? 2.1.02.

MR. CROCKER:

That's the right-sizing?

MS. COFFIN:

That's the right-sizing, okay.

MR. CROCKER:

That was a right-sizing. We've been spending around $300,000. So we actually

found the source of the funds to get it to where it should be. They've been

trending down, I think. I'm just copying from what Andrew would have said

earlier, that we'll continue to monitor it if it trends down, but that is the

average over the past number of years is around $300,000.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, that's very reasonable.

Let's move over to Support Enforcement. Purchased Services declined to about a

third of its allotment, down from $76,000 down to $24,000.

MR. GREEN:

That's for the banking fees on the trust account. What we're going to do this

year is we're going to monitor those banking fees and we're going to fund them

through savings within the department.

MS. COFFIN:

Fifty thousand dollars worth of banking fees is a –

MR. CROCKER:

What happens, and you need to realize, my understanding of those banking fees is

that's the banking fee when you have a parent who is putting money into support

enforcement. The province covers the banking fee so that the recipient – say,

would be a child – doesn't have the deduction in their payment from the parent

in – we're picking up the banking fees. So instead of putting a surcharge on the

recipient, which is typically a child, the province is actually taking the

expense.

MS. COFFIN:

So that's going through like a regular bank.

MR. CROCKER:

Bank, yes.

MS. MERCER:

All court orders for support are automatically included in the Support

Enforcement Program in this province. If a payer makes a deposit, obviously

there's a banking fee attached, and then we take that money and transfer it to

the recipient – often as the minister said, children – another banking fee

attached. We actually do fairly well in keeping the banking fees – and have

done, traditionally, fairly well in keeping them relatively low as compared to

other banking fees that could be charged.

But, yeah, they ran at about $50,000, but we don't charge that to the recipient,

right?

MS. COFFIN:

I appreciate that. I imagine the recipient needs the money far more, right?

MS. MERCER:

Right, exactly.

MR. CROCKER:

(Inaudible) when I asked the question first, and obviously that would be $50,000

that we would be taking, in all likelihood, from children.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah, no, I won't let that happen. Thank you.

MS. WRIGHT:

(Inaudible) banking fees include 2 per cent and –

CHAIR:

I'm sorry, Kendra, can you start again? We need you to identify …

MS. WRIGHT:

Just to give you an idea because I know it's frustrating when we talk about

banking fees.

Every time a cheque is cleared, there's a fee. We have to download the RBC

downloadable software to use within the offices. There's a monthly fee charged

to that. There's 2 per cent on every credit card that's paid; a lot of the

debtors use credit cards, so we cover that 2 per cent fee. There are a lot of

fees like that and over the year it ends up to be – in this case, it was

$58,000.

But the banks, where it used to be a cheque, even if you're paying through EMT,

there are still fees being charged by the bank.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

MR. CROCKER:

(Inaudible.)

MS. WRIGHT:

Yeah, so those are all of the fees. That is exactly what is targeted there. So

we are a facilitator; monies in, monies out. We aren't the bank. But as a

result, really, we're doubling up on fees on both ends.

MS. COFFIN:

Right, okay. So I need to get elected as a federal PM in order to change the

banking system. Okay, it's on my hit list.

Why have Operating Accounts been halved? The cost there under Operating

Accounts, 2.1.03, subsection 02 Operating Accounts, we went from $100,000 down

to – that captures that …?

MR. GREEN:

The banking fees we would have put in a one-time adjustment last budget, so that

one-time adjustment came out and went back somewhere else in the department.

We're going to monitor it this year to see if we can fund it from within,

permanently, through the ZBB process for the next budget cycle.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. Oh, I've got time; look at that.

Access to Information and Protection of Privacy, 2.1.04, we had almost $170,000

not spent in '19-'20. Is that vacancies not filled or was that attrition or …?

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah, that was due to vacancies. The division had two vacancies.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, that's good.

Professional Services, $200,000, is that the ATIPP statutory review?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, that's a review.

MS. COFFIN:

How much of a review do you get for $200,000?

MR. CROCKER:

Well, we found a very co-operative judge who has started the review using space,

I think, that was left over from the Muskrat inquiry. It's unfortunate when

we're reusing materials from a previous inquiry, but we're cutting every corner

we can.

MS. COFFIN:

I'm not quite sure cutting every corner we can gives me the reassurances around

the privacy and information.

MR. CROCKER:

We're cutting the corners in cost of – we're using the same space we used for

Muskrat; we're using the same equipment we used for Muskrat. We find ourselves

in a situation where we didn't have to start up a brand new inquiry.

MS. COFFIN:

Yes. We're repurposing existing (inaudible) better –

MR. CROCKER:

We're repurposing.

MS. COFFIN:

– not cutting on an ATIPP inquiry.

Speaking of, you found a judge – should I defer? I have 20 seconds; it's not

going to be a snappy one.

CHAIR:

Okay.

I would thank everyone for their attention.

I'm going to suggest a 15-minute break. We will see you back here at 1916.

I'd ask everybody, please put your masks on if you're going to get up from your

chair and move about.

Thank you.

Recess

(Technical difficulty.)

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

(Inaudible) steps are being taken to ensure enforcement procedures are executed

in a timely fashion?

MR. CROCKER:

I'll defer that to –

OFFICIAL:

Megan.

MR. CROCKER:

Megan.

OFFICIAL:

Yeah, sure.

CHAIR:

Megan.

MS. NESBITT:

Thank you for the question.

Enforcement services from the Sherriff's Office have continued throughout the

pandemic to the greatest extent that they can. Some of the enforcement orders,

of course, are court orders so we've seen some reduction in numbers for those

things.

Enforcement orders typically cover a number of different areas: criminal orders,

civil order and things from the general public. Of course, with the pandemic and

the slow in things in the first few months we have seen a reduction, but the

services are still being provided and enforcement certainly is very important to

continue those services to the best of our ability as safely and as effectively

as we can.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Support Enforcement, 2.1. 03, under Purchased Services, there's a decrease in

the budget of $52,500. What accounts for that figure?

MR. GREEN:

That was a one-time reduction from last year's budget to this year's budget.

It's for the banking fees. Last year, we funded it from within, one time. That

money moved back into the areas that we used. We're going to try to assess a

permanent allocation for the banking fees this fiscal year, but we will cover

through savings.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under 2.1.04, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy, has the number of

ATIPPs received in the last year increased?

MS. WRIGHT:

All the government received 2,879 ATIPP requests and of that it was 160 for our

department, which was a 19 per cent increase from the previous year. In the

previous year, it was 129, I believe.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

What support is being provided to municipalities and other public entities in

responding to ATIPP requests?

MR. CROCKER:

I think when you go down through the line there, one of the line items,

Purchased Services, is that the one that is affected primarily by

municipalities? I know in the conversation I had with the ATIPP division when I

got there is we're providing the services as well as we can. I think one of the

challenges is being requested to do – because the more sophisticated towns: St.

John's, Mount Pearl, CBS, even your larger towns: Bay Roberts, Carbonear, those

type of towns are typically fine and actually have the staffing to do this and

to make their request.

A lot of the training actually is being done – to Mr. Lane's question earlier –

online and by virtual with the town manager/town clerks. A lot of communities

have been meeting with our staff now virtually over Zoom or Skype or whatever

medium. So the support is there for towns. We work with MNL with regard to

ATIPPA training, but the level of sophistication sometimes, as the smaller the

town gets, the more challenging it gets.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Currently, core public departments post their ATIPPs online, but the same is not

true for publicly funded entities. Has consideration been given to expanding the

online posting of ATIPPs?

MR. CROCKER:

So what I would encourage anybody to do as we go into the review is if there are

suggestions that people would have it would be – because there is a consultation

piece of the ATIPPA review right now. To your point, Helen, absolutely, that is

something that could certainly be brought to the Commissioner as he reviews the

ATIPPA legislation.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Can the minister please give an overview of how proactive disclosure works

within government? How often are documents posted? How is the decision made to

post the information?

MR. CROCKER:

I'll turn to Kendra on that one.

MS. WRIGHT:

With respect to proactive disclosure, there are certain pieces of information

that departments are regularly trying to get posted on their website, so it's up

to each individual department. I know we certainly have been looking at that

within to determine what types of information requests. We're currently doing

that analysis to determine what are the types of requests we're getting all the

time.

I know that if you look at the ATIPP requests that are posted, once they are

completed, you'll see there are themes. That's what we're doing now is we're

looking at the themes and then we're going to bring it into – executive ATIPPA

would like to bring forward some ideas with respect to assisting departments to

proactively disclose. Some of that will be to look at, like I said, those

requests that are being posted, the ones that are always being posted every

month. They want to look at trying to get some sort of a guidance document out

to assist departments to just be proactively disclosing, as opposed to be

resulting in a request.

MR. CROCKER:

Right. We see it here in Estimates;

whereas, I think one time Estimates binders

would've had to been ATIPPed, that no longer happens. I think departments

provide their Estimates binders to the Opposition quite freely, because we know,

to your point, it's going to be an ATIPP request if we don't. So to save

everybody the trouble.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you. It makes sense.

Under Salaries, are there any vacant ATIPP positions?

MR. CROCKER:

There are two. There's a senior policy analyst and an ATIPPA coordinator

liaison.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under Purchased Services, in '19-'20, $63,500 was budgeted but only $32,900 was

spent. Can the minister please explain the savings of over $30,000?

MR. CROCKER:

That would be the municipalities, right?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. CROCKER:

That would be Municipal Training. To your earlier question, that's money that's

budgeted for Municipal Training that hasn't been availed of.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Now this year there is $72,800 budgeted. Can you please explain what purchased

services are being planned?

MR. GREEN:

This is one of the areas where we took money out one time and moved it somewhere

else. That money came back in. That's their allocation, the $72,800. Last year

there was a one-time adjustment. The plan would be for the municipality's

training. In that line, we would look at the rental of space. It could be a

hotel ballroom if you're having consultations, and it could be the rental of

audiovisual equipment and stuff.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Thank you.

A final question under this heading is: What is the $200,000 amount for under

Professional Services?

MR. CROCKER:

That is the review. That's for the commission.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

That is the review, okay. I thought you said that.

Thank you.

I still have a bit of time here. Okay.

Under Criminal Law, 2.2.01, under Purchased Services, there are planned savings

of approximately $90,000. How will this occur?

MR. GREEN:

Are you asking about the decrease in Purchased Services?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MR. GREEN:

What happened in Purchased Services was the RCMP used to pay for witnesses and

then that allocation we could charge to the Purchased Services account. We hired

a witness coordinator a couple of years ago, so it now gets charged to travel

and communication as third party travel. We've moved the money up from Purchased

Services into travel.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under Revenue - Federal, please give an overview of this line item.

MR. GREEN:

In the revenue for last year's budget there would have been cannabis ticketing

and the flagging program. We've removed the cannabis ticketing line and then

what remains is the flagging program, federal revenue. So there's an expense up

above offset by federal revenue.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Time over to Alison Coffin.

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you.

I realize the question I was going to ask before the break goes in a different

section. I have other questions I want to ask.

Let's start with, kind of related to the mandate letter. Can I get an update on

how the work on the Committee on Violence Against Women and Girls is

progressing, please?

MR. CROCKER:

That has become an interdepartmental Committee, shared responsibility with the

Minister for the Status of Women. We are scheduled to have a meeting in the

coming weeks. Two of us are new to our portfolios but the work has continued at

the deputy minister level, at the official level.

It's very important and very timely if you think about some of the things we've

seen through COVID, and even most recently you'd only have to look at VOCM's

website to see some of the things that we've seen. I'm not sure if the right

word is very disturbing, very concerning. This is certainly something where I've

had initial conversations with my colleague for the Status of Women and

something that's on our radar.

I know Chief Boland, as well, is a member of that Committee. Chief?

MR. BOLAND:

Yes, I am, and I think COVID stopped a lot from the meetings, the in-person

meetings. I still have conversations with my staff, especially my Intimate

Partner Violence staff, and they have different persons that we're working with

in the community that certainly are either a part of that Committee or very much

are interested in the workings of that Committee.

We're looking forward, as well, to getting the Committee up and going.

MS. COFFIN:

The new iteration of it.

Are there any particular things that are being looked into right now? What are

some of the things that are being discussed at the deputy minister level or –?

MR. CROCKER:

Well, expansion – no, sorry, that's family violence. Sorry.

MS. MERCER:

I can jump in.

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah.

MS. MERCER:

Some of the topics we've been looking at are Clare's Law that we're working on

within the department, MMIWG. I say that from a deputy minister level with my

colleagues and, of course, the chief as well. His Intimate Partner Violence Unit

has a newly minted sergeant female officer.

MS. COFFIN:

Nice.

MS. MERCER:

Which is excellent, if I can say that.

It's always front of mind, I think, throughout many of the divisions within the

department and importance is certainly noted.

MS. COFFIN:

Lovely. And thank you for that.

I did have a follow-up question, also from the mandate, and thank you for

bringing up the MMIG, yes? I'm hoping I'm getting the acronym right.

CHAIR:

MMIWG.

MS. COFFIN:

IWG, thank you.

It says here, along with your colleague, the Minister Responsible for the Status

of Women, you would advance necessary work in response to the final report. Have

any initial discussions been on that? I see that as separate and distinct, and I

see it as separate and distinct because it's in a totally different paragraph in

the mandate letter.

MS. MERCER:

Since the report was issued, Justice, OSW, or the Status of Women, and also IAR,

as they are now, Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation –

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. MERCER:

– we have been working together at the level of deputy minister, policy analyst,

sitting on FPT committees, attending MMIWG sessions that have been offered

virtually during COVID, actually, and we'll have to meet and formalize, now that

the mandate letters have come out, how we are going to approach that, under the

guidance of the ministers.

MR. CROCKER:

(Inaudible.)

MS. MERCER:

Yes, one of the challenges, of course, if I can say that, is that – yeah.

MR. CROCKER:

(Inaudible) so one of the challenges that's – and you can imagine working with

13 provinces and territories, and the federal government as well, at a table of

trying to implement. We have our local work that can be done, but when it comes

to a national level it's much more complicated getting everybody to a decision

point. Is that fair?

MS. MERCER:

Yes, and different provinces and territories have different approaches that they

wish to take. So yes.

MS. COFFIN:

I've had some experience with FTPs and yes, I think –

MR. CROCKER:

Getting everybody on the same page is –

MS. COFFIN:

Yes. I don't know if you know The

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , but I think they sum up bureaucracy rather

nicely.

Okay. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

What else did I want to talk about here? Yes, let's go to

Legal Aid Act . Removing the

counsel-of-choice provision from the

Legal Aid Act , have there been any long-term implications or short-term

implications as such?

MR. CROCKER:

I'm going to say no. I think it was a good decision, stand by the decision. I

think this has just gone to show that we haven't heard much on it. It just shows

the quality of lawyers that we do have at legal aid in the province.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

So you see no impact to accused right to a fair trial?

OFFICIAL:

No.

MS. COFFIN:

No?

Any cutbacks to legal aid that might – I don't see anything over the last year.

Maybe a decrease of $100,000, so there have been no cutbacks as a result of

that. Okay, that's nice.

Let's talk about the restorative justice program for offenders not accused of

serious or violent crimes. It was something that, I believe, was announced in

March 2019. Has there been any headway on that?

MR. CROCKER:

Adult Diversion? Yes, there has been headway, primarily in Corner – I keep

looking at Jen, my apologies. I'm looking for the nod. If I go off track, she

will tell me.

That's probably with the institute in Corner Brook, correct?

MS. MERCER:

Right.

MR. CROCKER:

I think there have been 122 referrals or uses of it to date. Obviously, you're

really talking about, I guess, minor crimes. It's the bar fight or things that

can be handled in this way. Yes, it's been used approximately 120 times to date.

MS. COFFIN:

By single individuals? I'm assuming that someone doesn't get to do that twice,

hey?

MS. MERCER:

We've set it up with our Corner Brook Crown's office – and, Lloyd, feel free to

jump in if I'm misstating something – together with our adult probation office

on the West Coast. They're working in partnership. The way the program is

working: The Crown, as is the Crown's right, assesses the file and uses its

quasi-judicial discretion to determine whether it should go to court or referred

to the program. Adult probation officers are then assessing it and working

through restorative justice principles to have the file dealt with

appropriately. Then, in that case, the charge is withdrawn before the court.

We've looked at about 120 referrals, I will say. I believe there have been some

repeat referrals, and the policy doesn't foreclose that and, generally,

restorative justice principles don't foreclose that.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. MERCER:

I think we are at a point where we probably, but for the pandemic, would have

been looking at, sort of, an evaluation in the spring. Megan and Lloyd would be

responsible within their divisions.

We'll look at evaluating now. I think we probably need to tweak some of the

guidelines and finesse it. Ideally, we would be using this across the province.

It will reduce the number of people in court, and for restorative justice

reasons it is a very positive thing.

MS. COFFIN:

Absolutely. I'm actually quite interested in this. Have you had, not a formal

evaluation, but any even just anecdotal evidence from individuals on how they

perceived the program and their engagement in it and any success? Anecdotal at

this point, I imagine.

MS. MERCER:

I think with any program there are hits and misses.

MS. COFFIN:

Yeah.

MS. MERCER:

Right. I think we need to sort of look at why we're getting those misses. Do we

need to change our policy to address those things? How do we get more hits?

MS. COFFIN:

Okay. Thirty-five, that's not bad.

Let's see, how about this – I probably should have asked this when we were

talking about fines. Have we talked anything about looking at allowing people

who owe large amounts of money community service to work off that? I know that

had been conceptual. I don't know if that had been put into practice. If it had,

did it work?

MR. CROCKER:

That's really been challenged by COVID because, obviously, the person taking

advantage of that would be someone on the lower end of fines. The deputy did

explain, I think it was in an earlier question, about we have seen that. Even

the idea of this program has had people coming to us or to the courts and making

smaller payment arrangements. So we've enticed, but COVID has been a total

challenge to this because if you're a service group or an organization that

would have availed of this program, you've pretty much been shut for seven

months.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MR. CROCKER:

The user of this program has been, I guess in a lot of ways, dormant this year.

MS. COFFIN:

Right. I would absolutely advocate for community service in picking up masks.

MR. CROCKER:

Yeah.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

I turn back now to Ms. Conway Ottenheimer.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

2.2.01 under Criminal Law, under Salaries. In '19-'20, Salaries were under

budget by $132,534. Can the minister provide an explanation for that, please?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, vacant positions within the division.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

How many Crown prosecutors are employed by the department?

MR. CROCKER:

Over to Lloyd.

MR. STRICKLAND:

I understand we have 50 positions in the province.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Is the present allocation of prosecutors adequate to meet the need of criminal

cases before the court?

MR. STRICKLAND:

Yes, the present allocation is sufficient. We do have issues now and then

filling positions in certain places, but the allocation as laid out is adequate.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under 2.3.01, Legal Aid. How many lawyers are now practicing at legal aid?

MR. CROCKER:

Chantelle.

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

I believe there are approximately 75 legal aid lawyers located across the

province.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Is there a wait-list?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

I'm sorry, a wait-list for …?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

A wait-list in terms of retaining counsel. Do clients have to wait for a lawyer?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

To my knowledge, there's not a wait-list; however, I can certainly make that

inquiry with the Legal Aid Commission and get back to you.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Is there a backlog?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

Again, to my knowledge, there's not a significant backlog. There is a process

that's undertaken when an individual applies for legal aid. There's an

assessment process in order to determine their eligibility. That's a step that

takes a certain amount of time. Then, of course, as matters wend their way

through the court process, that can take a period of time as well; but, to my

knowledge, those who are requesting legal aid services and who are eligible to

receive them are doing so in a timely fashion.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

I'm just wondering: Has Legal Aid been impacted by COVID?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

I think it would be fair to say that they have been impacted by COVID to the

extent, in particular, that the courts have been closed. I know they maintained

1-800 services, for example, throughout the shutdown of the courts, so that

individuals who are either current legal aid clients or those who felt they were

in need of assessment for eligibility to receive legal aid had somebody on the

other end of a phone line throughout the closures that were rampant throughout

the province.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Is Legal Aid following an attrition plan?

MR. GREEN:

Yes, Legal Aid also has attrition allocations applied to their budget.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

A final question on Legal Aid. The Grants and Subsidies, how is the grant amount

determined?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

With regard to the grant, under the Law

Society Act , we have a Law

Foundation. The Law Foundation is mandated to collect money, basically, from the

private sector, the private bar and that money is in turn designated for certain

heads according to the Law Society Act.

One of those, the most significant, which is the Legal Aid Commission.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

All right, thank you.

Under 2.3.02 Commissions of Inquiry, this may be on record but I'll still ask

it. Now that the inquiry is completed, what was the total cost of the inquiry?

MS. WRIGHT:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Kendra, can I get you to repeat. I don't think your mic was on.

MS. WRIGHT:

$19,461,472.41. That would have been spread out over three fiscal years.

MR. CROCKER:

The final fiscal impact is what you would see in the document.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Would it be possible to get a breakdown of the expenditures?

MS. WRIGHT:

Yes, we can provide that, absolutely.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Would we be able to get a breakdown of legal services provided for either each

individual or group that was granted standing at the inquiry?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, I think that's available.

MS. WRIGHT:

Sorry, I …

MR. CROCKER:

Who got what?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Legal services provided for each individual group that got standing.

MR. CROCKER:

I think that's actually available. That's been released, yes.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, great.

MS. WRIGHT:

(Inaudible) we can only provide what government paid for, so there'll be certain

entities that appeared before the Commission of Inquiry for which we did not

pay. So people got standing but they did not seek legal funding so we can only

provide who we provided legal funding for.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

I understand, thank you.

Under 2.3.03, Other Inquiries, with respect to the two inquires, the Innu

children in care and Search and Rescue, is it possible to obtain a budget for

each inquiry?

MR. CROCKER:

It should be. SARS is underway so that would be possible. There's still work

being done working towards the Innu inquiry. Andrew, could you …?

MR. GREEN:

The breakdown here for the two inquiries would be $1.5 million for SAR and then

$1 million allocation for the children in care inquiry.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under Salaries, when will hires take place?

MR. CROCKER:

For the SARs inquiry it would already be happening. Go ahead, Jen.

MS. MERCER:

Just further on the discussion about ATIPPA. We are really trying to find

efficiencies between the SARS inquiry and the ATIPPA statutory review. For

example, Justice Orsborn who is doing the statutory review is in the Beothuk

Building, old MFI space. As is Judge Igloliorte who's doing the SAR inquiry.

They're sharing some clerical; they're sharing photocopiers and that sort of

thing. We're trying to be as budget conscience with this as possible, but, yes,

that salary would encompass Judge Igloliorte. I think we have one staff already

and another to follow.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

How exactly, though, were the budget numbers established? Can you give us some

indication –?

MS. WRIGHT:

What we did was (inaudible) MFI inquiry, we knew kind of the budget lines and

what is required. When you look at your salaries you know you need clerical, you

know you need outside counsel. The goods and services, you need paper and

binders so we just built the budget that way, but keeping in mind as the DM just

mentioned that we have shared space.

We already have the MFI public hearing space which is going to be used for

consultation and public hearings. All the furnishings are there. We have a lot

of – I'm going to call it – office infrastructure. We were really trying to find

efficiencies because we had purchased all that already for the Muskrat Falls

inquiry. We were looking to reapply it and reuse it for the next inquiry: SAR

and also ATIPPA review.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under Salaries, the $644,000, we're not able to really get a breakdown in the

salary are we or is that something that is not able to be determined at this

point? We have $644,400. Any of the details on that?

MR. GREEN:

For the salary breakdown, we would have built in some assumptions on what we

thought would occur. We can take a look at providing what those assumptions were

for you at a future date.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Final question: When will the inquiry start? Do we have a timeline for either,

for both?

MR. CROCKER:

Effectively, SARS has started, the justice is in place and the preliminary work

is ongoing.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay. Any the other …?

MS. MERCER:

Flesh that out a little bit if …

MR. CROCKER:

Sure.

MS. MERCER:

Judge Igloliorte started at the end of August – I'm looking for confirmation –

yes, the end of August. He has been retained to develop the terms of reference,

which is sort of the typical approach. We have seconded a solicitor from Justice

to support him and also he has Paul Carter, who would be familiar to many people

from the Muskrat Falls inquiry, to assist.

So the work has started. I think he is doing some literature review, as I

understand it at this point. This is a part two inquiry, too, so it will look

much different than Muskrat Falls.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you very much.

Ms. Coffin, do you have anymore questions?

MS. COFFIN:

All right.

Let's start with, a while ago the government support program was providing free

legal advice for the victims of sexual violence. Is that funding captured under

Legal Aid or is that something unto itself?

MR. CROCKER:

That would be captured under adult corrections.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay.

Can you tell me a little bit about that? How much advice do individuals get?

MS. NESBITT:

The program: We entered into a partnership with the Public Legal Information

Association of Newfoundland and Labrador and with the Newfoundland and Labrador

Sexual Assault Crisis and Prevention Centre. The program is eligible to any

victims of sexual violence, age 16 and up, all across the province. They have

been holding some education sessions. All the solicitors are trained in

trauma-informed training that are working with the program as well. As of right

now, the program provides up to four hours of free legal advice to individuals

that require.

MS. COFFIN:

Can you tell me how many people have availed of that?

MS. NESBITT:

I'm looking to my colleague, Kendra, to see if …

MS. COFFIN:

I think she's looking it up.

If you have a year over year that would be interesting to see. I mean, if it

increases it could mean two things, one of which is people realize the program

is available and start availing of it or it could mean that there is a greater

demand. That's why I asked.

MS. MERCER:

That's a very good question.

MS. WRIGHT:

(Inaudible) 161 clients as of July.

MS. COFFIN:

In total?

MS. WRIGHT:

Yes, I think so.

MS. COFFIN:

How long has the program been going?

MS. MERCER:

(Inaudible) third year (inaudible); however, it was a late start by the time

Newfoundland got the money in year one. However, we do work with PLIAN. The

service is being offered through PLIAN.

MS. COFFIN:

PLIAN?

MS. MERCER:

Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador –

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, got you.

MS. MERCER:

– and the sexual response. So it's a joint arrangement. We've been working with

them. Also part of the pilot, too, is that they've been doing outreach. They've

also been going to other places in the province and that includes Labrador. They

also went up to the remote communities. There's been a lot of outreach.

One challenge, too, is when you're dealing with different cultures and the

reporting of sexual assaults has been a challenge. They're also looking at ways

to assist in increasing the reporting and to get people to seek help and

determine if they do need help. They definitely are working towards that. Part

of the program and the funding also has an evaluation piece and so PLIAN is

certainly working on the evaluation piece.

We look forward to that, getting it, and it will also be helpful as we move

forward. Hopefully, as the federal government assist, too, in providing funding

that will be a useful report to continue the funding for such a good program.

MS. COFFIN:

We anticipate that it will continue? You said third year of three right?

MS. MERCER:

Yeah, we're in the third year of the federal funding so that in and of itself –

with respect to the federal government, we did get coverage again for this year

and it was a very late stage. So certainly the department, in working with the

federal government, will – it's a wait and see, but definitely the results of

the evaluation piece will be useful for us to determine the program and where it

needs to go.

MS. COFFIN:

I would certainly look forward to hearing how well that works and if there's

anything we can do to continue it. It certainly sounds like it's helped 160

people, so good. It's unfortunate that that many need it.

MS. MERCER:

Well, I think, too, PLIAN, in getting their funding, they also get federal

funding, too. So whether it comes in through the Department of Justice or

directly to PLIAN, that will be certainly something that we might see a change

going forward, too.

MS. COFFIN:

Okay, good.

Maybe I'll see you in six months and we'll do this again.

I did want to ask, the tobacco lawsuit file, how's that going?

MR. CROCKER:

I think I'm going to go to you, Chantelle.

It's been going.

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

It's been going.

The tobacco litigation commenced approximately 25 years ago. It is the most

complex, multi-party, national litigation in Canada's history.

MS. COFFIN:

Right.

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

We are at a point now where we have certainly crossed some important thresholds.

I'm not permitted because of solicitor-client privilege to get into the details,

but I can tell you that it's a file that we are very much engaged on with our

provincial-territorial counterparts and there's regular work being done on that

file.

MS. COFFIN:

That's wonderful to hear it advance. I can't wait and see a settlement because I

imagine that finding the fees and recovering those fess, we're probably not

going to get enough community service.

MR. CROCKER:

I'm going to go off on a tangent just quickly for a second about what I learned

when I came to Justice because this is one of the files I chatted quickly with

Chantelle about.

We've learned so much from tobacco that we may settle opioids before we settle

tobacco. Opioids are two years old?

MS. MACDONALD NEWHOOK:

Yeah.

MR. CROCKER:

And we're almost as far along in opioids as we are for 25 years of tobacco

because we've learned so much from tobacco.

MS. COFFIN:

Excellent. So that's going to make the vaping challenge even better.

MR. CROCKER:

Probably.

MS. COFFIN:

That's coming next and then we got big oil, right?

Okay, I think that's the specific questions for this particular

section so I'll

save those. Let's go over and look at some of the numbers.

What do I have here? Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 2.3.04. They were

going to get $63,000 in Property, Furnishings and Equipment and they're getting

$300. It went from $60,000 down to $1,000 down to $300. I guess whatever the

$60,000 was, it was deemed unnecessary?

MR. GREEN:

That would have been funding for a federal agreement to buy a computer software

system.

MS. COFFIN:

So we didn't get it?

MR. GREEN:

I think the agreement wasn't signed with the federal government in time to make

the purchase last year and it wasn't done in time to allocate the funds in the

budget. So what we'll do is we'll just make the purchase and we'll find the

money from within savings, but we'll still receive the revenue to offset the

purchase.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, okay. That's nice to know. So we'll get this. Okay, that's lovely.

The Operating Accounts have been cut by about $70,000. That seems to be a big

chuck. What's being taken out there?

MR. GREEN:

For OCME, that would be the one-time funding for the federal agreement that was

removed.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh, right, okay.

Then we had a projected savings of – under Purchased Services, we purchased

$200,000 worth of extra purchased services. What did we get for $200,000?

MR. CROCKER:

This is the variance due to increased need for pathology provided by Eastern

Health.

MS. COFFIN:

We had more suspicious deaths?

MR. GREEN:

In the Purchased Services for OCME, we have the transportation of human remains.

That's a cost that we pay for any service provider, ambulances outside of the

North East Avalon. We have a contract service provider within the North East

Avalon. So those costs are fairly expensive and we can't determine what those

costs will be every year because it's based on who passes away.

MS. COFFIN:

And where I guess?

MR. GREEN:

Yes.

MS. COFFIN:

All right that makes sense.

Human Rights, Professional Services increased by $25,000 over last year and we

also had Operating Accounts went up. That was budget to actual. What's the

rationale behind that, I guess?

MR. CROCKER:

The Professional Services?

MS. COFFIN:

Yes and then we can go to Operating Accounts if you want.

MR. CROCKER:

The Professional Services is due to an increased cost for the number of

hearings. What was the other one?

MS. COFFIN:

Operating Accounts.

MS. MERCER:

(Inaudible.)

MR. CROCKER:

That's the total.

MS. COFFIN:

Oh that's the total there?

MS. MERCER:

(Inaudible) as the minister just said –

MS. COFFIN:

Got it.

MS. MERCER:

– so when you have increased hearings, the adjudicators are lawyers on the

roster paid a per diem amount per the Treasury Board guidelines. It would just

be their invoice services that would come out of that account.

MS. COFFIN:

Got it. Okay, that's the

summary. That totally makes sense.

CHAIR:

Thank you, Ms. Coffin.

Ms. Conway Ottenheimer.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Under 2.3.05, Human Rights. How many complaints in '19 to '20 thus far?

MS. MERCER:

In last fiscal, they had 113 official complaints but they actually had 1,272

inquires. Those inquires that come in annually would be related to, obviously,

complaints, whether somebody is going to have a complaint under the legislation.

It could be presentations, media requests. So it could be a number of things

that would come in, but 113 official complaints were filed.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

How many cases have been settled, mediated in the past year?

MS. MERCER:

I'm going to have to get you that information. I can get you that information.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Great.

MS. MERCER:

I was so busy getting the number of complaints I never thought about how they

follow through the process and were completed, but we did provide that last year

and I can get that.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Are there any decisions of adjudicators outstanding?

MS. MERCER:

The way it works is that you will have complaints that are filed and they will

roll over annually. It just depends on the lawyer, obviously, the complainants,

the complaints, the investigation reports and then how the matter proceeds

whether it goes through a board of inquiry.

During COVID, the entire Human Rights Commission were able to work from home.

The only issue was with respect to were the parties ready and were they prepared

to meet and whether they have to go through a mediation process first before

meeting for the board inquiry. That all got delayed.

I will tell you that there was a bit of a delay for the last six months. They're

working through that now, and they're working with a lot of the parties now to

start rescheduling. They are one entity we have that is very focused on working

with technology and, true, because we have lots of complaints from all over the

province. While they're housed here in St. John's, they can essentially be

virtually anywhere in the province. They are working towards that.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

I was going to ask that question with respect to COVID. So there is an

additional backlog due to COVID?

MS. MERCER:

I don't know that I would refer to it as a backlog per se. I think it has more

to do with the scheduling of certain matters is probably delayed but they do

have two lawyers that are assigned for the board of inquires. Those lawyers are

working hard to work with all the parties to get the matters scheduled but if

the parities have lawyers, the courts are also working to get matters scheduled,

criminal courts and family courts. Backlog, yes, but I think a lot of it is just

scheduling delays related to all the parties.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under Salaries, why the increase of $70,000?

MR. CROCKER:

That would be the 27th pay period.

MS. MERCER:

Yes. Are you talking about the increases?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Yes.

MS. MERCER:

The increases; they had one additional policy person in the past year but now

that's right-sized, and the current increase would just be a reflection of the

27th pay period.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under Professional Services, can you explain what the $43,700 was spent on?

MS. MERCER:

That activity line covers the board members, the Human Rights Commission board

members. They meet five or six times a year. They try to only meet once or twice

in person. There are six representatives who are from various areas of the

province.

It also is the cost of holding the board of inquires and also the cost of the

adjudicators. The adjudicators are on a roster and their lawyers, and they're

all paid. So they will hear these matters. Some matters might be two or three

days. There was one significant matter that lasted a couple of months, and so it

would be the invoices. That number is going to vary, depending on the matters

that are heard in a year and the invoices that are submitted by the lawyer or

adjudicators, but who are all paid in accordance with the Treasury Board

guidelines.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Under

section 2.3.06, Office of the Public Trustee. Where does the revenue come

from under Provincial, that $1-million figure?

MR. CROCKER:

That's the Public Trustee's administration of estates. The fee that would be

charged or – it's 4 per cent, is it?

OFFICIAL:

Yes.

MR. CROCKER:

There's a 4 per cent surcharge when the Public Trustee administers an estate.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

How many estates are under the jurisdiction of the Public Trustee?

MS. MERCER:

I can answer that.

Currently, there are 932 active files of the Office of the Public Trustee. Right

now, he has 297 matters that are with respect to guardian of a minor; there are

208 with respect to deceased persons; 242 with respect to the mentally disabled;

and 185 other, but the majority of that would include survival of actions, for

example. That accounts for 932.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under

section 2.4.01, Legislative Counsel. Under Salaries, is there a vacancy?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes, there's a vacant solicitor position.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Has it been filled?

MR. CROCKER:

Yes.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR. CROCKER:

(Inaudible.)

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Under

section 3.1.01, Supreme Court. How have court operations been impacted

specifically due to COVID? In other words, the wait-list. I'm specifically

concerned about the wait-list.

MR. CROCKER:

I will refer to –

MS. ORGAN:

We did have a recovery list, what we call, and we turned that into a recovery

docket.

I can tell you that all of our matters that were adjourned for the duration of

the closure, I would say, have been recovered. They have been touched by a judge

and parties have been spoken. The matter has been called in court. There's been

a case management, pre-trial conferences and settlement conferences. Things of

that nature have been done with every case except for there are about, I guess,

eight to 10 jury trials to be set down, and they are currently being set now for

the new year.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Thank you.

Has COVID resulted in the budget of the courts having to be increased?

MR. CROCKER:

Thank you.

COVID wouldn't be – I think as I said in my opening remarks. COVID wouldn't

really be reflected substantially in this budget. There are about two weeks of

COVID in this budget.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay.

MR.

CROCKER: I don't know, Shelley, if there are – your anticipation?

MS. ORGAN:

No, there isn't. No, we're not anticipating any.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

Are there any cases being challenged under the Jordan case, the Jordan decision?

MR. CROCKER:

No.

Lloyd?

MR. STRICKLAND:

No. I wasn't sure I heard the question. Are you asking if there was a Jordan

issue because of COVID?

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Have there been any cases challenged under the Jordan decision?

MR. STRICKLAND:

There's one outstanding challenge. I thought the question was in relation to

COVID, and we haven't seen anything specifically related to COVID.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, thank you.

CHAIR:

I just want to ask, Helen, are you done with sections two because I think you're

getting into three.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Oh, am I gone ahead? I'm gone ahead am I? Okay, so three is Supreme Court.

CHAIR:

Okay. All right, perfect.

MS. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER:

Okay, yes.

Sorry about that.

CHAIR:

Ms. Coffin, do you have any further questions on sections two?

MS. COFFIN:

No, I think I'm quite comfortable with 2.1 through five.

CHAIR:

The twos?

MS. COFFIN:

All the twos. I'm good with the twos.

CHAIR:

Mr. Lane, do you have some questions?

MR. LANE:

I have a couple.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. LANE:

The first one Helen just asked actually about the Jordan. Is there anything at

risk, if I could put it that way? Are we getting close to any Jordan challenges?

Not because of COVID but just in general.

CHAIR:

Again, it seems, Mr. Lane, I think this is more appropriate for the next

section. If we can just hold that one.

MR. LANE:

Okay, all right.

I'm just wondering under ATIPPA, you mentioned, Minister, that there's a review

taking place now. I do seem to faintly recall seeing something come across the

wire at some point but so much stuff comes across the wire you lose track of

some of it.

Can you provide some information as to exactly where we are with that? When is

there going to be public consultations or is there already, or is there going to

be a

schedule out there? How will people know how to make presentations and so

on?

MR. CROCKER:

I'll defer to the deputy on that, but it has started. It is under Justice

Orsborn.

MS. MERCER:

It's a five-year review required by statute. Justice Orsborn started, I'm going

to say, just after Labour Day. As I said, he has established a small office in

the Beothuck Building, one staff being shared with the SAR inquiry. I think he

is corresponding now with departments, entities and will establish his

consultation process. That is independent of the ATIPP of