Resource Committee — environment and conservation climatechangeand energyefficiency — 11 May 2015

2015-05-11

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

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May 11,

RESOURCE

COMMITTEE

Pursuant

to Standing Order 68, Eddie Joyce, MHA for Bay of Islands, substitutes for

Christopher Mitchelmore, MHA for The Straits White Bay North.

Pursuant

to Standing Order 68, Kevin Pollard, MHA for Baie Verte Springdale,

substitutes for Tracey Perry, MHA for Fortune Bay Cape La Hune.

Pursuant

to Standing Order 68, George Murphy, MHA for St. John's East, substitutes for

Lorraine Michael, MHA for Signal Hill Quidi Vidi.

The

Committee met at 6:05 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Cross):

If everybody is ready, then I

guess we will get started.

The

first item of business, we need to have a mover and a seconder for the minutes

from this morning's session.

MR. JOYCE:

So moved.

CHAIR:

Moved by Mr. Joyce, seconded

by Mr. McGrath that the minutes of this morning's session be adopted.

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

I am not sure if we had to

vote, but we cannot go wrong if we do.

motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR:

We are together this evening

for Estimates we are going to start first with the Estimates for the Office of

Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, which is under Executive Council on page

2.6. This is where we are going to

go start and I will do the other couple of little chores before we start now.

We will

ask the members to introduce themselves, and then I will turn it over for the

minister to make opening comments or introductions.

We will

start with Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE:

Eddie Joyce, Bay of Islands.

MR. MILES:

Peter Miles, Opposition

Office.

MR. MURPHY:

Ian Murphy, Opposition

Office.

MR. MURPHY:

George Murphy, MHA for St.

John's East.

MR. MCGRATH:

Nick McGrath, MHA for Lab. West.

MR. HUNTER:

Ray Hunter, MHA for Grand

Falls-Windsor Green Bay South.

MR. POLLARD:

Kevin Pollard, MHA for Baie

Verte Springdale.

CHAIR:

Minister, if you will

introduce your staff.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Minister Dan Crummell,

Responsible for the Office of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

MS JANES:

Jackie Janes, Assistant Deputy Minister in the Office of Climate Change and

Energy Efficiency.

CHAIR:

This will not be quite as

complicated as a little later on, but what we usually do is remind members who

are here with the minister two things I guess.

We remind everyone who are asking questions that all questions are

directed to the minister and then if he chooses, he can deflect them to members

of his entourage, his department; and then subsequent questions, if it is about

the same item, can go to that person but, generally, it will come back, at the

minister's request, to him at any time.

We are

governed by Standing Order 65 to 77, in case you brought your book and want to

make sure we all in order.

Basically, we offer the minister an opportunity to open with a couple of

comments. The way we worked this

morning, which worked sort of relatively well, is we alternate ten minutes

fifteen for the first time for the member for the Official Opposition, and then

ten minutes each after. If we ran

out of a

section we ask everybody to start in the front sections of the

Estimates and we move through so after we complete each part, then we will call

the line item and eventually get to the end as opposed to just having open

free-for-all, all the way through.

That worked rather well this morning and got us through in an orderly fashion,

so we will keep it moving that way this evening.

MR. JOYCE:

I missed that, so I cannot

ask probing questions starting out?

CHAIR:

Can you

MR. JOYCE:

Ask probing questions.

I do not have to go through line items if there are probing questions.

CHAIR:

You can ask probing questions

if it is in any of the particular categories.

MR. JOYCE:

They are in all of the

categories.

CHAIR:

Okay.

If the

minister does not mind jumping from place to place, then we will just call the

line items at the end. We will see

how it goes and if it is only a couple

MR. JOYCE:

I can assure you, Mr. Chair,

I am not going to be lying down and just going from line for line and say that

is it.

CHAIR:

No, no, that is not what I

meant.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay, Sir.

CHAIR:

What I meant is we just had

the different categories and what happened this morning, I called all of

section

2 and we moved through all of that and then went to

section 3, so there might

have been five or six categories in each one.

MR. JOYCE:

I am not doing that.

CHAIR:

That is okay; whatever is

comfortable, we are willing to be flexible.

Minister, you can start, page 2.6 on Office of Climate Change and Energy

Efficiency.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Okay, I will just say a

couple of words at the beginning.

Good evening, everybody and thank you for coming here.

First of

all, I would like to thank Jackie for being here and her staff, a wonderful

group of people who are doing some very good work.

There are eight people, I believe, within your branch and department.

It is a very economical and efficient office, hence the name, but good

work done by all. It is important

work.

There

are a lot of things that are happening in this world today, in terms of a global

sense, and climate change is one of the greatest challenges that are facing our

Province today. It is truly a

cross-country, horizontal issue with implications for all people and all

communities, all sectors of our economy, right across this country and certainly

right across the world.

Climate

change certainly brings both risks and opportunities.

It will impact sectors of the economy in all parts of our society.

More extreme weather will impact our infrastructure in communities.

We all know that too well from hurricane Igor.

The changes in rainfall and temperature will affect our resource-based

sectors such as forestry, agriculture, fisheries, and tourism livelihoods of

people who depend on them. We have

actual statistics that are showing increases over the last twenty years of

rainfall and temperature as well in this Province that are measurable.

It is interesting to know that.

Businesses will need to evolve to compete in a lower carbon global economy.

Supply chains are impacted.

Consumer preferences change and warm weather will more likely bring more pests

and diseases to our Province like Lyme disease and a potential impact to human

health.

So to be

effective, our role as government is we need to minimize risks and cease the

opportunities. We must balance

economic environmental considerations to ensure our Province's approach is both

environmentally sustainable and economically prudent.

One

important aspect of advancing energy efficiency, which can deliver multiple

benefits, includes lower household fuel bills and improving business

competitiveness. So there is a whole

wide range of impacts and opportunities that we see as people in this Province.

It is important that we have an office that helps us, as a government, as

a people, to try to deal with that moving forward.

This is

what our department does. I am not

going to get into a prolonged

preamble.

I will put it to the floor now, Mr. Chair, to take some questions on the

Estimates.

CHAIR:

Mr. Joyce, are you ready for

the first

MR. JOYCE:

I am just going to ask some

probing questions first, Mr. Chair, and it is all throughout because it is all

contained in the budget.

Current

greenhouse gas emissions in the Province, how does Newfoundland compare to other

provinces on the greenhouse gas emissions per capita?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We are certainly doing our

fair share. What we have seen in the

last year, and the federal government statistics have shown, we are actually

down in greenhouse gas emissions versus the previous year I am correct in that

one, Jackie and by a significant amount.

Now, we did have the offshore that was down for a little while in terms

of production, but we have also seen other changes to how our industries have

performed in the last year: the mining industries in particular, the forestry

industry.

greenhouse gas emissions actually have gone down in the last little while.

How we compare to other provinces in terms of per capita we are little

higher than the Canadian average, but for a small population and a handful of

large industries, I think is where we have to be right now and should be.

We have seen progress.

MR. JOYCE:

Do you have an energy

efficiency or conservation target set for Newfoundland?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE:

Any targets set for energy

efficiency or conservation for the next number of years for Newfoundland and

Labrador?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, again, we have targets

set for the Province. We have

targets set for 2020. We had targets

set for 2010, correct?

MS JANES:

Yes, the target for energy

efficiency is for 2020, but for greenhouse gases it is 2020 and 2050.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right, exactly.

Targets have been set and our goal is to meet those targets.

MR. JOYCE:

Are the targets public?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That information is public,

absolutely.

MR. JOYCE:

How about the targets that

you set prior to and if you met those targets, are they public also?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Go ahead.

MS JANES:

Yes, there was a target to

reduce greenhouse gases, to stabilize greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2010.

The Province came within 0.4 per cent of meeting that target, which was

pretty spectacular given that the 1990 base year figure did not include offshore

oil because of course there was no offshore oil industry there.

So it came very close but it has a target now for 2020, which is the next

one.

MR. JOYCE:

Are there any plans to set up

an energy conservation Crown corporation?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Crown corporation no plans

right now.

MR. JOYCE:

Any new environmental

initiatives in the budget for this year?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We are speaking to Estimates

here, and I know there are some questions that you have on policy and we did our

little

preamble and I expect you to have your

preamble there as well.

Our plan is to continue on, the plan that we have had for the last little

while, and Jackie you might be able to expound on that.

Certainly large industry is a priority for us in terms of consulting with

them to make sure they understand the implications of our greenhouse gas targets

and what needs to be done, and what their roles and responsibilities will be in

helping us meet those targets.

That has

been a priority for us as well, the greening of government, making sure

government is fully aware of what our targets are, where we need to be, and we

are working with different government departments and entities to make sure we

get to that good place; also, our communication with the public and trying to

create awareness about the impacts of climate change and how energy efficiency

can help that.

There

are a number of initiatives out there that we will continue to do and there are

timelines set around some of them. I

encourage you to ask questions on the actual expenditures.

MR. JOYCE:

This is an expenditure are

there any expenditures in this year's budget for any new environmental

initiatives?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I would not say there is

anything new.

Jackie,

would you say right now again, there is a plan set that we are following right

now. Go ahead.

MS JANES:

It is not new, but it is the second year of a two-year home energy conservation

pilot project. The first year was

last year, and the second year is this year.

There is also the tail end of a pilot project in schools.

It runs for the academic year, so there is a little bit of money for

that. It does not, though, appear in

the office's budget; it (inaudible) in the Department of Education's but the

office is a partner on that initiative.

MR. JOYCE:

Can you tell me much funds

are in this year for any new environmental initiatives in this year's budget?

MR. CRUMMELL:

If you look at the line items

here and we look at Professional Services, that is where the bulk of our money

is and that is where the bulk of our money is being spent.

In terms of our initiatives that are out there, our core staff is eight

people that we have working for us, certainly working on all of these projects

and also other things as well.

In terms

of the programs that Jackie referenced, that is where a lot of (inaudible).

MR. JOYCE:

Can you tell us how these

funds are going to be in 2.2.04.01, Salaries, in Professional Services can you

give us a breakdown of that over $300,000 being spent?

MR. CRUMMELL:

For instance, we do have

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro who we are doing a pilot project with right now.

It is the first year of a two-year project to determine how homeowners in

the Province would change their electricity consumption behaviour.

It is about providing real-time information with home consumers to help

guide their use of electricity. That

project estimate that we have in this budget this year is $200,000.

The $200,000 was allocated for the first year of the project.

The final invoice came in at just a few dollars over than expected.

That is

just one example of what we say Professional Services.

In Newfoundland Hydro we did engage with that and used them as a

resource. Caneta Research, National

Energy Code for Buildings in 2011 Newfoundland and Labrador, there was $83,000

that was spent last year and $80,000 to be spent this year.

Again, the initiative to compare our current construction practices in

the Province of 2011 National Energy Code for Buildings.

We have Conestoga-Rovers & Associates updating the industry duration

frequency curves. I spoke of that in

the House the other day.

We also

have some Multi-Material Stewardship Board.

That last one was for $38,000 for 2014-2015.

The Multi-Material Stewardship Board, we engaged in a waste audit of West

Block of the Confederation, the Petten Building, and a few other government

entities that we looked at just to get a sense of where we are in terms of a

greening government. So we hired

them on contract to provide us that information.

The

Government of BC, a small one for $625, common provincial-territorial reporting

guidelines we accessed them for some information and that is what is cost us.

It is

pretty much straightforward, I think, Jackie.

MR. JOYCE: This

$200,000 for hydro. Can you explain

isn't that a Crown corporation?

You are paying them to do some work for your department.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, the project that we wanted to do, which we see great value in there is

only one hydro company in the Province, that is who they are.

It is Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

So we wanted to do this pilot project to see how homeowners would react

to having real-time information in their homes in terms of their energy

consumption, to see what changes would happen over the I think it is a

two-year program, Jackie? It is a

two-year program. What changes in

behavior would happen if they just had information about what they could do to

save electricity and also changes in habits if they had both provided to them

that is correct, exactly, yes.

It is a pilot project over two years.

We advertised that at length over the last number of months.

We have how many people?

MS JANES: We

have 750 participating households.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, 750 households are participating in this study.

MR. JOYCE: You

mentioned there is an awareness program for schools.

How much money is in this year's budget for it?

MS JANES: It is

$60,000.

MR. CRUMMELL:

What is that?

MS JANES: It is

$60,000.

MR. CRUMMELL: It

is $60,000.

MR. JOYCE: How

much was in last year's budget?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE: How

much was in last year's budget for the same program because it is a two-year

project?

MS JANES: It was

$140,000 but it is in education (inaudible).

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right. It was $140,000 last year.

It was an educational program.

MR. JOYCE: It is

$60,000 this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, correct.

MR. JOYCE: Last

year, there was $350,000 budgeted for energy efficient retrofits in selected

government buildings. What

government buildings were

retrofitted and was the money spent?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is not money that was in

our budget. That was in TW's budget

and that would be something that would be better suited to ask them exactly how

that was done. We do monitor what

happens there, but certainly that is a line item in their Estimates.

MR. JOYCE:

So it was not in yours?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

What is

the cost of the two-year pilot project for real-time efficiency display monitors

in homes?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is the project that we

were just referring to with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

The total again over two years is

$350,000.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

How many

years did you say? Three years?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Total of $350,000 over two

years.

MR. JOYCE:

The climate change advisory

board, is that up and running now, or is there any money put in the budget to

get it up and running?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Are you talking about the

ministerial advisory committee?

MR. JOYCE:

The advisory committee, board

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, that is active.

There has been correspondence.

We have meetings and talk about things in Cabinet, but absolutely.

MR. JOYCE:

Is there money in the budget

for that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, there is no allocation.

MR. JOYCE:

No allocation whatsoever

there.

Government is going to create a culture of conservation, an announcement in 2007

Energy Plan. Is there any follow-up

on that through energy efficiency; is there any follow-up if anything was

involved is there any money in the budget this year to do any consultations or

see if there was any follow-up, if there was actually work in the Energy Plan?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Our initiatives to change the

culture have been around Turn Back the Tide, which is an online tool that people

can go in, look and see what is happening, what needs to be done and how they

can save money. Jackie, the HotShots

is ours as well.

MS JANES:

Yes, I think the minister identified some of the key activities; one is the Turn

Back the Tide public awareness campaign, which was designed to raise awareness

about climate change and energy efficiency but also gives people information on

what action they could take. At the

heart of that, there is a website that is designed to give practical,

user-friendly information and advice to people who do want to take action.

addition to that, there are the initiatives that we have already referred to.

There are the initiatives that the office has undertaken in partnership

with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development where we

develop new resources for school children and for teachers on energy

conservation, and curriculum resources as well.

So we picked a couple of courses, one for Grade 6 and one for Grade 9,

science courses, and looked at how we can provide materials to teachers that

would align with the curriculum, but enable them to teach the students about

energy efficiency more effectively.

That

initiative also involved sending resource packs to all public schools in the

Province and doubling the amount of presentations on energy conservation that

the utilities were providing under takeCHARGE!

They had capacity constraints so they could only do around 150 a year.

We contracted the Conservation Corps so we doubled that number.

In fact we have done, in addition to that, there is another 170.

We have also done some contests for different grades at school to

encourage them to engage in efficiency.

Then the

other big initiative is the pilot program that the minister mentioned.

It is designed, as he said, to try and identify whether the provision of

a real-time energy monitor in a home will lead a household to change their

behaviour and conserve more energy.

There are three groups of 250. The

first group just gets the monitor and that is it.

The second group gets the monitor and they get regular communications

about efficiency, the importance of it, and how to use their device.

The third group just gets the information, but does not get a monitor.

The idea is at the end of the pilot project to see what was the best way

of trying to generate behavioural change, and to see if that change will endure

over the year in order to promote a culture of conservation.

MR. JOYCE:

Thank you.

Is there

any money in the budget for any energy-efficient vehicles?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We consult government.

We advise government. It is

particularly TW that looks after the fleet and does the purchasing for the

fleet.

There is

a commitment in the Blue Book to investigate the use of electric vehicles.

We have been working with them for a few months now to determine what

would the right fit be and how would it work.

There are stumbling blocks we ran into if we wanted to get a few vehicles

on a pilot basis. The City of St.

John's looked into that as well recently.

The

stumbling block there basically has been the providers, the maintenance, and the

local suppliers, being able to supply new vehicles and maintain those vehicles.

There is one company now that is set up that does sell used vehicles,

that does do some maintenance on these vehicles as well.

We are looking into it and it is something that we are

MR. JOYCE:

So is there any money in this

year's budget for it?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Well, it would not be in our

budget. We would consult TW.

That is a question that you would have to ask TW.

That is not something that would be in our budget.

We do

not purchase vehicles or lease vehicles.

We are a small shop that advises government departments on how to green.

CHAIR:

Okay.

I will move on to Mr. Murphy.

MR. MURPHY:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Chair.

I guess,

Mr. Minister, just to start off, you have eight people in your Climate Change

office; how many people in your department working right now, altogether?

MR. CRUMMELL:

There is six; there is two

vacancies right now.

MR. MURPHY:

What are the two vacancies?

MR. CRUMMELL:

There is a director that has

been posted as well and

MS JANES:

It is just about to be.

MR. CRUMMELL:

a Policy and Program

Specialist. We have had some

changeover in the last little while and that is why there are two vacancies.

MR. MURPHY:

How many altogether in

Environment and Conservation?

MR. CRUMMELL:

In Environment and

Conservation?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

How many total employees?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

I mean, this is an outside

entity from Environment and Conservation; this has nothing to do really with

Environment and Conservation.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That would be a question you

can ask me

MR. MURPHY:

So did you want me to wait

for Environment and Conservation before I ask that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Two hundred and odd with our

crowd I would have to look at numbers but it is over 200 (inaudible) something

like that.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Just on Climate Change then, in subhead 2.2.04 you mentioned the Caneta

project do I have the spelling right, $83,000 contract?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

What was the nature of that

contract?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Jackie, maybe you can expound

on that a little bit.

MS JANES:

Government is committed to

examining the case for adopting the national energy codes for buildings that the

federal government developed in 2011.

At the moment, there are no minimum energy standards for larger

commercial buildings in the Province.

The challenge is we do not know what the cost and benefits of adopting

that code would be, clearly as a small jurisdiction and sometimes with different

products and services available here.

That

piece of work was to develop some archetypes to assess what the costs and

benefits might be for different types of buildings, say, a large office building

or a warehouse, buildings of different size and scope, so that we could then

have an evidence base with which we could consult external stakeholders on the

possibility of adopting that minimum standard.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Was

Caneta the only company that was asked to do this, or was this tendered?

MS JANES:

It was tendered.

MR. CRUMMELL:

It was tendered.

MR. MURPHY:

It was tendered, okay.

I want

to ask you a little bit about the greenhouse gas emissions and how you monitor

the industrial changes. Maybe you can

give me some background on that.

MR. CRUMMELL:

I have no problem going

there. Again, this is Estimates and

we are talking budget numbers, but I have no problem

MR. MURPHY:

You did mention it, yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, I hear you.

I mean

obviously the federal government plays a lead role in determining greenhouse gas

emissions and there is a modeling that they follow.

I will let Jackie jump in here now to get it to that technical level.

Go ahead.

MS JANES:

Yes, under the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change they have inventory rules and all parties

to that convention have to follow them.

The federal government does follow those rules.

There is sort of a standard methodology for calculating greenhouse gas

emissions.

At the

federal level often it is based on sales of fuel and fuel type.

So if you have a certain fuel type and you know the carbon intensity of

that fuel type, from that you can derive how many greenhouse gas emissions there

were.

It is a

large industry. In particular, there

is a federal requirement that if a company emits more than 50,000 tons of

greenhouse gas emissions in a year, it is required to report on an annual basis

to the federal government. We have

those figures provided to us by the federal government.

At a

provincial level, of course, we generate our own projections on a bottom-up

basis. We also look at companies

that emit less than 50,000 tons so we have a full picture of our emissions.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

I was just wondering, when it comes to the scope of that the regulations

around emissions is what I am getting at.

I cannot help but think too that it must be a chore on government to

actually set the number because some of these numbers can be affected.

The

simple shutdown of an oil field, for example, due to maintenance might end up

affecting your overall data at the end of the year, or there might be a downturn

in the mining industry. For example,

we lost the Cliffs mine and everything.

How

would they affect your numbers? Are

they factored out in any way? How

would you do that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, absolutely.

We can pretty well predict what is happening in industry based on past

history. We only have a handful,

literally, of big industry in the Province, six or seven.

MS JANES:

Well a few more than that.

MR. CRUMMELL:

A few more than that, less

than fingers and hands basically. So

we can look back at their history and see what they have emitted in the past

that is measureable, and predict what is going to happen in the future.

Obviously, yes, if there is a downturn in commodities and production goes a

little lower, if their production goes down, they do not emit as much.

You are exactly right about that

There

are models that we follow to plan ahead, to see where we are going to be.

This is information that we gather actually, and give it back to the

federal government to let them know what is happening in our economy with regard

to industry, and big industry in particular.

It helps build their numbers when they go to the international

conventions. They are going to go

there and say here is what Canada is emitting; here is where we want to get to

and whatnot.

I do not

know, Jackie, you might be able to add to that as well?

MS JANES:

I think the minister has

covered it. You are right,

greenhouse gas emissions do oscillate with economic activity.

If there is growth in the mining industry, obviously that can be an

energy-intensive process; any energy-intensive industry.

In this

Province, 50 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from the large

industrial sector. When you do have

something like one of the FPSOs going for scheduled maintenance, obviously in

that particular year emissions may fall while that platform is not producing,

but they will go up again once it starts producing.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

For instance, if I just may

add quickly, just like Vale, when they go fully on stream they are producing

there now and actually refining there now but at a very small level, a very

small scale. If you look at

Holyrood, we know that is going to be pretty much decommissioned in 2020, so we

know that there are going to be less emissions coming from Holyrood.

We can predict what is going to happen in out years with some of these

large industries.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

I am just wondering overall now.

For example, when you get the data for this year it is probably going to

be on the low end because of oil field shutdowns and the downturn in the mining

industry. Minister, I guess the

question is when the federal government waves the flag on climate change and

greenhouse gas emissions they are going to have a lowball number more or less.

I guess that is probably the best way I can do it.

Would

you go by the high standard in the busier economic times as that line in the

sand we cannot cross? What is done

there?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I guess the best way to

answer that is we represent about 5 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in

Canada. It is less than 5 per cent.

It is 4 per cent and a bit.

It is probably not likely to change dramatically in the next while.

Hebron

is coming on. Vale is coming on.

It might go underground at Voisey's Bay.

If the mining ramps up in Labrador of course that is going to change

things. In terms of setting our

targets and whatnot, in terms of the Canadian scope, we are only so much they

can apply there.

We do

have to challenge. We need to set

our targets. We need to find targets

that make sense and live with them.

We have to be part of the solution, just like any other jurisdiction in the

world, no matter how big or small they are, need to be part of that solution.

Yes, it is a difficult question.

George, I know what you are saying.

How do we get to those numbers?

Well, we do it with the best information we have as we go forward.

That information changes over time and you understand what is happening.

MR. MURPHY:

What is the department

looking at, Minister, when it comes to, for example, cap and trade carbon

credits?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We have looked at everything,

but we are getting into policy questions now.

We would like to stick really to what we are talking about here now which

is Estimates.

We have

looked at everything, George. We

have actually analyzed what other provinces are doing and there are a mixture of

things that are going on out there.

We are doing our due diligence on that.

We will let the people of the Province have input on that when it is

time.

MR. MURPHY:

All right.

Turn Back the Tide, the PR campaign; how is that working out?

Do you have an update on that or is that too much of a policy question?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, not at all.

I just want to make sure this moves along.

We have Environment but to make sure.

General questions like that is no problem at all.

Basically we know that this program actually has won many awards for us and has

been recognized as being leaders in Atlantic Canada and Canada in general.

I am correct on that, yes.

We had

140,000 page views since it was launched in 2012.

The campaign videos have been online and viewed approximately 1,900

times. The Facebook page has about

2,000; 1,700 followers. We have

about 600 or 800 Facebook users per day featuring over twenty-five news articles

since its inception. We do know that

it is recognized out there and people see it.

Commercials on TV certainly create awareness around that and drive people

to the site.

We won

two Pinnacle Awards in 2014. The

Pinnacle Awards showcase is the International Association of Business

Communicators Newfoundland and Labrador.

Jackie,

is there anything else you would like to add to that?

MS JANES:

I would just like to say

there has been a full evaluation of the campaign and it is available on the

office's website. It was only posted in the last couple of weeks so it is fairly

new. That goes through what the

targets were for the campaign and the success of the campaign.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

CHAIR:

I guess we will move back to

Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE:

You have eight employees.

Are they all full-time employees and no temporary employees?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right now we are moving

people from contractual to permanent.

We are in the final end stages of that process right now.

Jackie, you might want to add to that as well.

MS JANES:

When the office is originally

established, the first rule establishes contractual post.

The intention was to make them permanent, but because the office was

fairly new there was a desire to try and make some rapid progress.

It was quicker to put people on contracts than to establish permanent

positons because you have to create the job advertisements and it can take a

while to get the post classified.

Now that the office has existed for a number of years, it is sort of on an even

keel in terms of understanding what its operational needs and requirements are

in terms of the skills and expertise that you need to man the office.

In last

year's Budget, government approved the making of the posts permanent.

Those posts have been going through a classification process.

They have only just completed that process.

So the

intention is to seek approval to fill those posts on a permanent basis.

They are all still contractual, with the exception of one that was made

permanent last year, but this year they should change their status.

MR. JOYCE:

How many employees do you

have, eight?

MS JANES:

Eight.

MR. JOYCE:

How many are contractual?

How many are permanent?

MS JANES:

There is only one permanent employee, currently.

The other seven are contractual.

MR. JOYCE:

How long have they been

contractual?

MS JANES:

Since the office was established. I

cannot say definitively because some posts were added and a few came a bit

later, but the office was established in 2009.

MR. JOYCE:

So all of these seven

positons were contractual?

MS JANES: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Still

working but not gone through the Public Service Commission for hiring.

MS JANES: We did

actually do competitions in many cases through the Public Service Commission.

Not in all, but in many cases for those posts.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

That is strange. It is

strange to be so long without having to go through the Public Service Commission

to get people hired full time. When

you have people in contractual that long it

MS JANES: Well,

the people in those posts do not have a right to the post.

When it is advertised, there will be a full competition.

MR. JOYCE: My

question is: Why wasn't it done sooner than letting someone stay there for four

or five or six years on a contractual basis?

Now, all of a sudden, you have all the experience and you can go apply

for a job that only you have been doing for five or six years.

MS JANES: It was

considered at an earlier stage but because of budgetary issues, it was decided

to defer that decision until a later time.

MR. JOYCE: So

will all those positions be made permanent?

MS JANES: All of

the position but not the position that I hold.

That is just a normal ADM position.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

All the other ones will be.

MS JANES: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: I

missed how many how many are contractual now did you say?

I missed it.

MR. CRUMMELL:

There are seven contractual and one permanent.

All are going to be permanent the jobs will be permanent.

Again, just to reiterate what Jackie said, there will be a competition.

MR. JOYCE: Seven

years later.

MR. CRUMMELL: It

is what it is. There are people on

contract within government in different capacities.

This is no different.

It is a relatively new department.

It has evolved a certain way.

In 2012-2013, when we had tough budget times, I guess the decision was made back

then to keep these jobs at a contractual level and not bring them to a permanent

status. I am making that assumption

based on what I think probably happened.

MS JANES: Not

all of the posts have been held by the same people.

MR. CRUMMELL:

There have been people moving in and out.

Not all the people are still there that has been there for the last seven

years. There have been changeovers

in those positions and rehires and competitions and all of that.

MR. JOYCE:

So did they go through a

competition? If they are on a

contractual basis, obviously they can go through the Public Service Commission.

MS JANES:

Some did, some did not.

Some of the competitions we have had recently, in the last year, we have

had like three or four posts turnover.

A lot of

the people who come into the office come on secondment from other departments

for a period of time and then they go back to their entity so you can kind of

build capacity elsewhere in the public service on climate change and energy

efficiency. It has been a bit of a

hodgepodge.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay, fine Sir.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Mr.

Murphy, anything further in

section 2.2.04?

MR. MURPHY:

No, just one more thing.

I made a notation here around climate change.

I guess Ms Janes already touched on it a little bit, but I would like the

minister to comment.

Whenever

you find something that is important enough that it is going to impact the

Province, for example, like warming temperatures, obviously there would be a

risk, I do not know, of mosquitos bearing West Nile virus for example.

How do you communicate that message to other departments, for example, so

that it does not impact their budgets or that something is going to impact their

budgets? Is something set up through

the office to warn various departments of impacts to their own budgets?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Go ahead, Jackie,

(inaudible).

MS JANES:

Yes, I mean that is part of

the office's role, is to try and understand how climate change is going to

impact the Province, and to engage with the other departments to integrate those

issues into their day-to-day work, be it policies, procedures, legislations, or

programs.

We try

and build their capacity in understanding so they can integrate that into their

planning and decision making going forward.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Those are all the questions that I have.

CHAIR:

Okay.

CLERK (Ms Barnes):

Subhead 2.2.04.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.2.04 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subhead 2.2.04 carried.

CLERK:

The total.

CHAIR:

The total.

Shall

the total carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, Office of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, total heads, carried.

CHAIR:

We are done with the Office

of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Thank

you to Jackie. I guess the minister

will bring in his second crew a crew of one?

No, there is more.

We will

just start off again, fresh. I will

do the introductions on this side again so that everybody knows who everybody

is. We will start with Mr. Joyce

again.

MR. JOYCE:

Eddie Joyce, Bay of Islands.

MR. MILES:

Peter Miles, Opposition

Office.

MR. MURPHY:

Ian Murphy, Opposition

Office.

MR. MURPHY:

George Murphy, MHA, St.

John's East no relation.

MR. MORGAN:

Ivan Morgan, Researcher.

MR. MCGRATH:

Nick McGrath, MHA, Labrador

West.

MR. HUNTER:

Ray Hunter, MHA, Grand

Falls-Windsor Green Bay South.

MR. POLLARD:

Kevin Pollard, MHA, Baie

Verte Springdale district.

CHAIR:

Minister, you can introduce

your group.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Dan Crummell, Minister of

Environment and Conservation.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Jamie Chippett, Deputy

Minister, Environment and Conservation.

MR. FIRTH:

Ross Firth, Assistant Deputy

Minister, Environment and Conservation.

MR. GOEBEL:

Martin Goebel, Assistant

Deputy Minister, Environment.

MS JOHNSON:

Colleen Johnson, Manager of

Finance, Budgeting and General Operations, Environment and Conservation.

MS COLLINGWOOD:

Jennifer Collingwood,

Communications Director, Environment and Conservation.

CHAIR:

We will go the same route.

If the minister has an opening comment, we will entertain that now before

we go to

MR. CRUMMELL:

I would just like to say that

I have been here for a few months now with Environment and Conservation.

Again, it is a wonderful department.

They do great work protecting not only the environment here in this

Province, but certainly protecting the people of the Province from any heath and

other risks associated with development and whatnot, when it comes to

developments that are happening on our Province.

There is

quite a bit of information here so I think we are just going to get right to it.

I thank my staff for preparing for today.

CLERK:

Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 carry?

Mr.

Joyce.

MR. JOYCE:

I am going to start with a

few program questions, generals all throughout the budget.

I heard the minister say it earlier; how many employees are in the

department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The number is a little over

300. I think it is 304.

MR. JOYCE:

How many are temporary?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Temporary employees are

fifty-one.

MR. JOYCE:

Fifty-one?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Fifty-one.

MR. JOYCE:

How long have they been

temporary?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I would assume at different

times and different places.

MR. JOYCE:

Can we get a list of all the

temporary I do not know if you give the employees, their names, or the

positions they held. Can we get a

copy of that?

MR. CHIPPETT: From

a position perspective just to clarify where the majority of those are you

will see throughout our Estimates there are a series of federal-provincial

agreements, for example, or co-operative wildlife projects and so on.

The staffing depends on having those agreements in place.

A large number of those fifty-one would be based on those types of

activities.

MR. JOYCE: Can

we get a copy of the positions?

CHAIR: One

interjection. When someone is

identified from the minister can you just state your name?

It helps the Broadcast Centre.

They got you quickly that time, Mr. Chippett, but if there is somebody

from the back or further down they might not have gathered as quickly.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Permanent, we have 136; temporary, fifty-one; seasonal, 114, of course we have

the parks and other ecological reserves; and contract, we have three.

MR. JOYCE: You

said there are fifty or forty-something temporary in place.

Can I get a list of the temporary employees?

MR. CRUMMELL: I

do not see any problem with that.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Do we

have the same number this year as last year?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Our head count is approximately the same.

I think it might be down a little bit because of some of the things that

the deputy minister had mentioned.

Some programs are no longer in effect right now or agreements in effect.

So we are pretty much in the same space I believe.

MR. CHIPPETT:

In terms of the numbers in the Salary Details, there is a big difference that

shows up there for permanent employees because the Lands Branch moved from our

department over to Municipal and Intergovernmental Affairs.

That is the biggest difference.

There has been some movement around of positions, but largely we are

pretty close to the same headcount.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay, but we will get a copy.

Perfect.

1.2.03, Policy Development and Planning, is there any money in this year's

budget to clean up contaminated sites?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, absolutely.

Actually, if you look further into 2.1.01, Pollution Prevention, that is

basically where the monies are captured there.

So like Buchans, Hopedale, New Harbour, 2014-2015, and the monies that we

are going to be spending next year would all be captured in those budgets.

MR. JOYCE:

Can you give us the name of the site?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Actually, we just completed

Buchans last year. We only had

$54,000 spent last year in 2014-2015.

For instance, in Hopedale we have budgeted $2.6 million.

There will be another $3 million in 2016-2017.

In New Harbour there was just $11,900 spent last year and they are coming

to the end again.

MR. JOYCE:

Is that the two or three

sites going to be done this year?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE:

Is that the three sites that

are going to be done this year?

MR. CRUMMELL:

There is more work being done

across the Province, but those are the biggest ones that are out there right

now.

MR. JOYCE:

Can you show us where in the

budget and what projects it is going to be used for under this heading 2.1.01,

as you just mentioned?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again the question?

Sorry.

MR. JOYCE:

You mentioned there are other

projects.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Basically, we have 182

potentially impacted sites in the Province.

There is not dedicated work going on in every one of these sites, but

certainly we are doing an audit to incorporate that into impacted sites like the

building assessment program. That

will be made public in the coming weeks.

So there is work being done around that, but these

MR. JOYCE:

My question again: Is there

any money going to be spent on those 180 sites?

If there is, can you show me where in the budget.

You just named three sites with this amount of money.

Are all the monies going to be used for these three sites?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The money that you see in

2.1.01 incorporates everything that we do within that department, including the

money that was spent on remediating sites, as well as our costs.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Once again and I know it is a budgetary issue can you give me a list

of what sites are going to be done because it is easy to just say we will put

the money in the line item. I am

asking for a breakdown of that line item.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Sure.

MR. CHIPPETT:

In terms of specifics, just

to make the clarification, there is remediation and actual clean up, and then

there are assessments to see what would need to be cleaned up.

MR. JOYCE:

I understand that, yes.

MR. CHIPPETT:

In Professional Services and

Purchased Services in 2.1.01, the majority of funding there for this year is for

Hopedale. I think that is about $1.5

million in Purchased Services and about $200,000 in Professional Services. That

is cleanup at Hopedale. That is the

biggest priority for this year. Then

on top of that there is $50,000 in Professional Services to do site assessments

to be determined.

Basically if there is a change at a site that we already know is impacted or if

there is a new site, that $50,000 would allow us to do environmental site

assessments to determine what degree of liability

MR. JOYCE:

Is there any site assessment

done for the Abitibi mill? Are any

of these funds going to be used for the former Abitibi mill in Grand Falls?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The lead on that is

Transportation and Works. We

certainly consult and work with Transportation and Works to help them with their

RFP proposals, and provide scientific knowledge and expertise around that, but

that would be TW that would be carrying that line item.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Was there any money in the budget last year, or was there any carry-over

from this year to do an environmental assessment?

The Department of Environment does the environmental assessment.

Transportation and Works may be the lead in bringing up proposals but

for the environmental assessment. It

was said in this House that the environmental assessment will be carried out by

the Department of Environment and Crown Lands.

MR. CRUMMELL:

We do assessments of impacted

sites. We do the work around that to

determine what we think costs would be.

With regard to Abitibi, again, it is TW that owns that building.

That is something they would do the work on, either contract that out

we just provide advice.

MR. JOYCE:

In Come By Chance there was

supposed to be an assessment done.

Is there any money in this budget or this line item for that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

They are independently owned

companies and they own the property there.

We would work with the companies to help them and guide them through our

Pollution Prevention Division, but no, that is something that the companies

would be responsible for.

MR. JOYCE:

I just want to show where it

is at. Part of the transfer was the

government committed to do an environmental assessment so

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, and that is the

commitment in the terms of Come By Chance, part of the purchase agreement, the

proponent, the developer, is the one that had to take on that responsibility to

do that work, not us.

MR. JOYCE:

Do have any and I am sure

the department does. I am sure there

is money in it somewhere, in the line item.

What is the cost of the liability?

Again, this is stuff that is said in the House of Assembly and in the

media. So there are no funds last

year or this year for the Come By Chance environmental assessment, or do you

have a liability, did you do any work

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again, the work that we are

doing right now on an Impacted Sites Liability Assessment Program will capture

all the impacted sites in the Province.

With regard to Come By Chance, that work is ongoing and it is being done

by the owner of the Come By Chance refinery, but there is nothing captured here

in this. That is not where that

would be. The monies here, besides

the impacted sites that we talked about that are being remediated, it is salary

items and cost items for our employees to be out in the field to do the work and

working with companies to provide advice on how they go about their business.

MR. JOYCE:

I hate to disagree with you,

but Purchased Services is not employees. Purchased Services is going out

MR. CRUMMELL:

What number is that?

MR. JOYCE:

Purchased Services, line item

2.1.01, Purchased Services, when you purchase services that is not your

employees, that is you go out and complete stuff, so obviously (inaudible)

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is good for you to note,

but again that is where the Hopedale contaminated site work is captured; the

monies there are captured in that line item.

So of that $1.6 million, $1.3 million is with Hopedale.

MR. JOYCE:

So I can say with certainty

that there is no money in this year's budget, in either line that I asked the

minister to show me, for Abitibi or to Come by Chance.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again when you look at

Abitibi, TW is the department that you should be asking that question.

That is not something that is for our department.

It will be captured under the Impacted Sites Liability Assessment, and

that project is still ongoing. It is

coming to a conclusion. We will have

that ready for the Controller General and the Auditor General in short order in

the next few weeks, and that will become public after they receive that

information.

With

regard to Come By Chance, again the owners of that facility are required by the

purchase terms to do that work, and again we are providing advice to them.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

I only

have another few minutes left before I move on.

Do you have an inventory of environmental liabilities in the Province?

Is it expressed anywhere in the budget where there was work done on it

for a list of liabilities?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again, what you will see here

in these line items are actual costs that we are incurring to do some

remediation on some of the impacted sites in the Province.

The assessment program, which we have just basically concluded and are

now putting the final touch on, is what is going to capture exactly what you are

talking about there.

MR. JOYCE:

Can we get a full list of all

environmental liabilities in the Province?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That work is being done right

now and we will be providing a list to the Comptroller General and the Auditor

General in the near future.

MR. JOYCE:

You do not have a list now

that you can

MR. CRUMMELL:

That work is still not

finalized. That is something that we

will take to them first before we make that public.

MR. JOYCE:

Is there any line item there

that you would need for emergencies like oil spill capacity in Newfoundland?

Is there any line item in here for that, for oil spill capacity?

MR. CRUMMELL:

When you talk about oil

spills, whether it is on land or even on sea, it is the requirement of the

polluter to have that captured and do that work.

On land,

we certainly come in and do the assessment, provide advice to whomever did the

polluting, as to what needs to be done to remediate that site or to transfer it

to a landfill, any of the contaminated materials.

We would work with the contractor usually who would get the contract to

clean up any spill that would occur.

Offshore, it is a federal government responsibility.

It is not our responsibility, but we do that within the scope of work

that we have captured in our line items in our Pollution Prevention budget.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Subhead

2.3.01, Environmental Assessment: Environmental assessment timelines, are there

any consequences if the department misses an environmental assessment timeline

or is there some way to put some predictability into environmental assessments

to be done?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again, the only thing I will

say to that is the vast majority of environmental assessments are down within

the forty-five day period. When

there are extensions made, it is the proponent that would normally, nine chances

out of ten, ask for that extension.

It would not be us looking for that extension.

Usually, if it is reasonable, we would grant extensions to that.

There

are times we need to gather more information internally.

It may go on for a little while longer.

Again, that is more of a policy question in terms of what goes on there.

In terms of time frames, we run a very efficient shop.

MR. JOYCE:

Subhead 3.1.01, Parks and

Natural Areas.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Go ahead.

MR. JOYCE:

The fee increases, what is

the projected income by fee increases?

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is $150,000.

MR. JOYCE:

Was there any consultation

before the fee increases went in, or it was just a decision made by the

department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We did pre-Budget

consultations, just like we do everywhere during Budget periods.

We talked to the people of the Province; we asked them what they would

like to see, knowing there is a revenue shortfall: fee increases, taxation,

cutting costs. So people of the

Province were aware that we were looking at these things.

In terms

of the campers and the individuals themselves that I have been in contact with,

that have contacted my office, the vast majority are pleased with a number of

initiatives that we have incurred this year including the new information

systems that we have in place, the reservation systems.

They are very pleased with that.

The

people I am talking to, again, who have contacted my office were understanding

that it has been a while since fees have increased, and again they are a very

competitive level. The 30 per cent

fee increase, the feedback that we are getting is certainly not onerous on the

general population.

MR. JOYCE:

I will just finish up one

what line item does that show up in, the $150,000 increase?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE:

Where does that show up?

MR. CRUMMELL:

General revenue.

It would

show Revenue Provincial

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible).

MR. CRUMMELL:

Sorry oh, it is not

(inaudible) here. That would go to

our general revenue for the Province, so that is not captured here.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

I am

fine.

CHAIR:

Mr. Murphy.

MR. MURPHY:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Under

3.1.01, under Professional Services there was $72,000 spent in 2014-2015 and

nothing into this year. Can you tell

me what happened here?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Actually, that was the

funding for the World Heritage site nomination at Mistaken Point.

That work was done. It

provided for putting that document together and a management plan as well.

That was a one-time cost.

MR. MURPHY:

Who did the work on that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I know WaterWerks

Communications did some work on that as well.

I think there might have been some other small contracts out there, but

WaterWerks did

OFFICIAL:

WaterWerks.

MR. CRUMMELL:

WaterWerks.

MR. MURPHY:

Was that tendered?

MR. CRUMMELL:

What is that?

MR. MURPHY:

Was that one tendered?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Absolutely.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, $604,100 was budgeted for and you came in on that one;

Purchased Services this year is $601,800.

Can I get a breakdown as regards what is happening here in Purchased

Services?

MR. CRUMMELL:

In Purchased Services

Jamie, maybe you might want to jump in for detail.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Last year we got a three-year

funding allocation for the Mistaken Point World Heritage bid.

That was just a variation in the cash flow based on the estimates for

different products for the dossier submission.

Last

year, we would have had the bulk of our expenditures in terms of layout of

documents, printing of documents and so on.

Obviously there is a little bit less for this year, but it is just an ebb

and flow in the cash flow for that project.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Was that done internally by the Environment and Conservation department,

or was that tendered out? How was

that service done?

MR. CHIPPETT:

Normally, Purchased Services

are done externally. I am not sure

exactly what the individual pieces of work would be under that, but it would

have been contractors most likely.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Were they tendered out?

MR. CHIPPETT:

In most cases, unless they

are very small dollar figures, there would be an RFP or a tender.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Thanks for that.

I am

going to come back to the first section, 3.1.01. I will come over to 1.2.01

under Executive Support. There is

about a $103,000 difference in Salaries from year to year.

I wonder if we can get an explanation on that.

The actual budget was $1,042,000 and $939,000 was budgeted for this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

So we are looking at 1.2.01?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

So you are looking at okay,

yes I have it.

MR. MURPHY:

The Salaries line.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, for sure.

Basically what we are looking at there in the revised budget for

2014-2015 there is a difference of $18,000 there.

Is that what you are referring to George?

Are you referring to number one?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes, Salaries.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Okay.

That decrease actually reflects the re-profiling of funds through Parks

and Natural Areas for two interpreters at Mistaken Point.

So, we have removed money from here, and re-profiled it over to Parks and

Natural Areas again for Mistaken Point.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

So that is moved over.

Under

Transportation and Communications, $59,100 was budgeted and you only spent

$45,000. You have budgeted $49,100

this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, the decrease reflects

that the budget has been reduced to reflect expenditure in the requirement

areas. We had a hard look at that,

like we are always challenged to do.

The difference between last year and this year just reflects less travel

required.

MR. MURPHY:

Line 02 under Revenue

Provincial is dropped by $27,000-plus.

MR. CRUMMELL:

You are looking at the

decrease from $164,000 to $136,000 and back to $169,000.

The decrease of $27,400 reflects reimbursement from the MMSB for the CEO

for the final quarter of the fiscal year that was not paid to March 31.

His invoice was not completed so it was a timing issue that we had to pay

out. Jamie, you might want to

MR. CHIPPETT:

We pay the CEO of the MMSB

and then the costs are 'JV'ed' back to us.

It is normally a $169,000 expenditure.

The invoice being late in the year was not paid back to us in the

previous fiscal year, so that is why there is $136,600.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is the CEO not the Chair.

MR. MURPHY:

I was just going to say,

because the Chair, I think, is gone on to Service NL.

I was just going to get all over that one.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, I misspoke.

MR. MURPHY:

You are off the hook.

Thanks.

Heading

1.2.02, Salaries; you have one salary here for $83,600 under Administrative

Support, line 01.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right.

We have an increase there to support summer co-op student employment.

That money was re-profiled from Sustainable Development due to savings

that we found. We think it is

important to support summer and co-op students here in the Province.

We needed some work to get done and we found the money to do it.

MR. MURPHY:

How many students and where

are the positions?

MR. CRUMMELL:

A good question.

MR. CHIPPETT:

It would be eight summer

students and four co-op students.

The co-op students are actually a new co-op program that MUN biology started, so

eight and four out of that funding.

In addition, we employ twenty-three students in our parks and seven students in

the Salmonier Nature Park.

MR. MURPHY:

So about thirty young adults

will end up working?

MR. CHIPPETT:

Forty-two in total.

MR. MURPHY:

Forty-two, okay.

Under

Transportation and Communications, as well, $127,400 was budgeted.

You still have the same budget for this year, but you only spent $115,000

here. What happened here with

Transportation and Communications?

MR. CRUMMELL:

This last fiscal there was

less cost for communications and postage costs.

We think that the $127,400 is more of a real number so we continued on

with that going forward.

MR. MURPHY:

Are you keeping that because

of previous spending historically?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, I would assume, again,

and maybe Jamie you look back and historically probably have some flows year

to year. We did not want to catch

ourselves short so we put that number back in for that line item.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

If I can come back to part of a semi-policy question; environmental

liabilities are part of the Province's debt.

In 2013, in a report of the Auditor General on the financial statements

of the Province, the Auditor General noted that, current generally accepted

accounting principles require that, if a reasonable estimate of environmental

remediation costs can be determined, and it is likely that the Province will be

liable for these costs, the amount should be recorded as a liability in the

Province's financial statements.

What

direction has the department been given as regards to including environmental

liabilities as a budget line item?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We have that program in place

now. We are coming to the end of

that assessment process. In terms of

capturing it into a line item, generally accepted accounting principles we

need to identify what that is.

Whether it is going to be a line item within Environment and Conservation or a

line item within Finance, I would assume is yet to be determined.

I will let the deputy minister speak to that.

MR. CHIPPETT:

As the minister said, we are

fully compliant with the new accounting standard for liabilities.

There are four or five different steps and I am not an accountant so I

will not go through them that include things like is a reasonable estimate of

remediation costs available? Is the

Province responsible for the contamination?

Has the Province committed to dealing with the remediation and will

economic benefits be given up?

So that

is the process that has been gone through for the 182 sites the minister talked

about. All of that will be laid out

in the Public Accounts when they are completed by the Office of the Comptroller

General.

MR. MURPHY:

Out of these 182 sites in the

Province, Mr. Minister, so far I am wondering if there are any sites in the

Stephenville area that have been assessed for risk.

I have been asked.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, I mean a number of these

sites across the Province Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and Transportation

and Works have ownership of as well.

So there are some properties in Stephenville that are owned by TW and that have

been identified.

MR. MURPHY:

That has been identified in

Stephenville?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

I am told there are about

fourteen sites over there that have some sort of a risk associated with them

having to do with the old base.

Would that be factual?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again, I would not be able to

give you details on that.

MR. GOEBEL:

The assessment would include

things like the base if the facility is owned by the Province, but there are

still a lot of the bases owned by Transport Canada and they would continue to be

responsible for it. They would not

show up in our liabilities. There

are also Newfoundland and Labrador Housing properties.

MR. MURPHY:

I am wondering about some of

the sites around Stephenville still.

I can appreciate that Newfoundland and Labrador Housing might be dealing with a

couple of them or Transportation and Works.

The

government in the past, I am told, sometime around the 1990s, I would guess,

have done some reports on the potential of some of these sites.

The question whether they should be fully remediated or not I have to

note that under the federal government arrangement, and the arrangement with the

US government, it is one of the reasons why the Hopedale site, the former radar

site, was cleaned up.

I am

wondering if there has been any discussion with outside entities from this

Province to other outside entities about getting remediation funding put in

place for potential cleanup of what has occurred in around the Stephenville

area. Do you have those reports

available?

MR. GOEBEL:

Sorry, offhand I cannot say.

I am just not sure if we have reports that you are referring to.

I would have to go back to look up those kinds of reports.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

If I could make a general

statement and again we will go back to the Estimates here.

When properties are turned over to the Government of Newfoundland and

Labrador, when properties are turned over to other entities like the

Stephenville Airport Authority, a lot of them, when they turn it over, you take

responsibility or there is some cash that changes hands, there were some

commitments that were made at that time.

Hopedale, for instance, there was money that did change hands from the

Americans. Argentia is another

example of that. That is not unusual

to have the Town of Stephenville perhaps, or Newfoundland and Labrador Housing

that took over some of the barracks that are there and turn them into housing

units, to have responsibility for any contamination on that site.

The

assessment program that we are doing right now, we will get down to the brass

tacks of that one. It should be

public in short order.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, so there has not been

CHAIR:

I think now we need to move

back to Mr. Joyce.

MR. MURPHY:

Oh, sorry.

CHAIR:

The time has expired for two

or three minutes.

Mr.

Joyce.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Thank

you, Mr. Chair.

Just one

more question on that. Is Grand

Falls-Windsor included in this assessment, 123 assessments that are being done?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The 182.

MR. JOYCE:

The 182.

MR. CRUMMELL:

I mean every part of the

Province would be you are talking about Abitibi in particular are you?

MR. JOYCE:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is a good question.

Again I would assume that is the case and I see some nodding heads here.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay, I can ask the assistant

deputy minister: Is it one of the sites being

MR. GOEBEL:

Yes, it is.

It is one of the sites that are being looked at.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay, thank you.

I will

go to 1.2.03, the Green Fund. Grants

and Subsidies were dropped by about $850,000.

Is this the Green Fund itself?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We are talking about 1.2.03?

MR. JOYCE:

Subhead 1.2.03.

MR. CRUMMELL:

You are talking about number

10, Grants and Subsidies.

MR. JOYCE:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Basically that is ACASA, most

of that monies is mostly and Ecotrust is the other one

OFFICIAL:

Which is green.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Which is the Green Fund,

exactly. So there are two entities

there that we see a change in. ACASA

is the Atlantic Climate Adaption Solutions Association.

Each Atlantic Province is a member of that association.

There has been monies allocated to match federal dollars to do certain

projects, and of course there is Ecotrust, which is the Green Fund that you are

referring to. There was $800,000

that is no longer the Green Fund has come to the end of its lifespan, so that

is the difference here.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Good catch.

MR. JOYCE:

In the revised dropped, in

federal revenue there is $70,000 and only $8,900 was collected.

MR. CRUMMELL:

The decrease of $62,000

reflects that there was less expenditure again under the ACASA program.

The way ACASA works is that we will work with the federal government out

of the Maritime Provinces, the Atlantic Provinces, to identify green initiatives

and if money is not being used, that we had budgeted, we would probably be able

to be access them dollars. Well, the

money is not transferred to us it is application driven, a lot of these

programs are

OFFICIAL:

The feds did an RFP

(inaudible)

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

The federal government takes led in that.

They do a Request for Proposals for interested businesses, entities, or

organizations that want to partake in them dollars.

Obviously, that shows the lack of uptake from interested parties.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Subhead

1.2.04, Sustainable Development, $500,000 is being eliminated from the budget.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Basically when we are looking

at this one here, the bottom line here is that we have actually moved

Sustainable Development into Environmental Assessment so that money has been

re-profiled from Sustainable Development to EA.

You will see it captured a little later on in your Estimates there.

In 2.3.01, you will see some adjustments there.

That

decrease reflects the reassignment actually of staff to and some people had

left and went to other positions within Environment and Conservation.

There are two wildlife positions that staff went to, and there are three

positions that went to Environmental Assessment as we created this new division

of Environmental Assessment and Sustainable Development.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Will the money be used for sustainable development or just moved to

another part of the department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, sustainable development

is still a priority. Actually the

Sustainable Development division works very closely with the Environmental

Assessment Division. This is very

compatible to work closely with them.

There will still be lots of work going on in the

MR. JOYCE:

Do you do environmental

assessments, say, sewer, water, or is that Government Services?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Environmental assessments,

how that occurs is a proponent or a developer who wants to do a project would

register their project with us requesting, and we would do an environmental

assessment of that. They would do

some work. There is a document that

they would provide to government.

So it is

driven from proponents, not necessarily through us.

We do assessments, but the assessments we do on occasion would not be an

environmental assessment in a true sense of the word.

MR. JOYCE:

How about Crown lands for

example, a site with cabins on it?

Does Environment do that or Government Services?

MR. CRUMMELL:

When you are talking about

cabins, Service NL plays a role, Environment plays a role, Crown Lands are there

as well, and sometimes Health has a role to play as well.

It depends on what legislation is in there.

We would

be there on a consulting basis. We

would not be there there are permits that you do have to go through us to get

on occasion. It depends on the

project that you are talking about or the cabin situation.

MR. JOYCE:

Copper Mine Brook for

example.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE:

Copper Mine Brook with

(inaudible).

MR. CRUMMELL:

The permits are done through

Service NL. In terms of

MR. JOYCE:

Assessment.

MR. CRUMMELL:

The permitting for us guys.

MR. CHIPPETT:

There might be individual

permits. I am not sure exactly what

they would be.

Just to

clarify, from an environmental assessment perspective to the minister's point,

the guidance for whether or not a project would be registered with the

department are the Environmental Assessment Regulations under the Environmental

Protection Act. So for example, to

your point about cabins, it would be based on the size.

I think there is actually a hectare limit when it is above a certain size

that you would have to register for environmental assessment.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

MMSB,

Solid Waste Management Strategy that may be under your department or passed

off; how are they performing now, and is there any audit done on it?

MR. CRUMMELL:

When it comes to the MMSB,

certainly it is not within our purview here with Environment and Conservation,

it is an independent entity, but there is significant oversight with that body.

There is an independent board of directors; they operate arm's-length

from government.

MR. JOYCE:

Who do they answer to?

What department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The CEO answers to me.

MR. JOYCE:

To you?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The board of directors, it

would be a straight line to the board of directors, a dotted line then to me.

MR. JOYCE:

I cannot ask you any

questions.

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is not a line item here in

the Estimates today, so that is not something that we would get into for

Estimates within Environment and Conservation.

MR. JOYCE:

Are there any funds

transferred from MMSB to your department or vice versa?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Just that salary would be

MR. JOYCE:

Can you show us where

obviously, there are line items.

That is why I am saying. You cannot

say it is just not, because there are.

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is just like the CEO of

WHSCC I am just trying to think now; I do not know if I misspoke on that one

or not but there are some salaries that are paid.

Occupational, Health and Safety, for instance, in Service NL is paid for by

WHSCC, all of their salaries are paid for.

So there are relationships between government departments and other

outside entities, but they are still arm's-length.

In particular, MMSB is arm's-length from

MR. JOYCE:

How can you be arm's-length

and I cannot ask questions if there are salaries in the line items on it?

Can you explain about where the salaries are in the line items?

MR. CHIPPETT:

(Inaudible) explain the

salary piece

MR. CRUMMELL:

Go ahead, yes.

I am going to let the deputy explain the salary piece and why that is the

way it is.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Just to be clear, the only salary that shows up in our line items is for the CEO

who was a deputy minister for years in government.

So that is why that relationship evolved whereby government pays MMSB for

his salary and then we recoup it through revenue from MMSB.

It is only because that individual is on the executive pay plan in the

government.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Besides that one person, is there any other money transferred from MMSB

to your department or vice versa, any funds given to them to do any projects,

any type of

MR. CRUMMELL:

No.

The only example I can provide to you is the MMSB did a bit of work for

Climate Change and Energy Efficiency; we referred to in the earlier session.

There was a small fee there for consulting with MMSB.

They did some audits on some of the government buildings for us because

they are the experts in that.

MR. JOYCE:

Can you show us where and how

much?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE:

Show us how much you paid

MMSB to do an audit, or how much and what line item?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, I think if I can recall,

I do not have it handy, but from CCEE it was a few thousand dollars, like

$10,000.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

If I recall correctly.

I think you asked that question.

MR. JOYCE:

Boil-water advisories, how

many are there in the Province now?

I am sure that is under Environment.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, that is certainly our

shop. There are a little over 200.

It is posted daily on our sites.

It fluctuates sometimes on a daily basis.

Right now there are 215. If

you go online, you can see it right there.

It tells you exactly how many boil-water advisories are there.

MR. JOYCE:

Can you show me in the line

items, which line item it is for safe and clean drinking water, the strategy for

the department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Well, our Water Resources

Management Division is responsible for this.

That is in 2.2.01. So

anything you see there incorporates into it the work we do.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Okay, I think we got a bit of

the time back Mr. Murphy. I will go

back to him now.

MR. MURPHY:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Eddie is

a great fellow.

Minister, you mentioned under 1.2.04 that this whole department had gone over to

Environmental Assessment and Sustainable Development.

Is that right?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is correct.

MR. MURPHY:

Did we lose any job positions

in the shift here? The math does not

seem to be working out right here.

MR. CRUMMELL:

I think there is one less

position with that changeover.

MR. MURPHY:

What was that person's job?

Do we know?

MR. CRUMMELL:

It was a temporary

environmental assessment scientist.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Under

the same line on 1.2.04, the Purchased Services line, $237,000 was budgeted for

and only $98,700 was spent. However,

if I look at the budgetary line item over here in Environmental Assessment we

are only looking at $10,100 that they were spending and still budgeted only for

$49,300. There is a huge discrepancy

in the numbers here.

I am

just wondering, what are Purchased Services, number one, that they are going

after what were the Purchased Services that they were getting beforehand,

before Sustainable Development was moved?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Again, just to be clear, you

are at 1.2.04, Purchased Services, under 01.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That would reflect the end of

our Caribou Strategy; we had a three year sorry

MR. MURPHY:

Caribou study, was it?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

We had a

five-year, $15 million program that we put in place to research the caribou on

the Island portion of the Province.

That has finished and has come to an end.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

I guess

they are only putting well, they are putting $49,300 in this year.

That is where we would find other studies I presume.

What is that money being spent on this year, Purchased Services in

2.3.01?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Subhead 2.3.01, okay, I got

you. Let's have a little look here.

You are

looking at Purchased Services. Again

that line item there, with the creation of that new division we certainly needed

extra funds and we are re-profiling funds to make sure that we cover historical

expenditures, as well as to create the new division.

As we make these changes and we move it over, we need to move money into

different buckets to make sure we do the work that was being done before.

That is what we think is the money we need to do that work under this new

alignment.

MR. MURPHY:

If that is the case, where

there was $237,000 that was spent or budgeted for, I should say, in 2014-2015 on

caribou, it does not seem like there is a lot there for further study on any of

the caribou. I am a little bit

concerned about the Red Wine herd in particular in Labrador.

Any comment on that can you address that as regards to funding for

further study on animals, or are we into enforcement now?

MR. CRUMMELL:

For the Caribou Strategy

moving forward for Labrador, I think it is $1.7 million or $1.8 million that we

have over three years is it?

OFFICIAL:

It is $1.9 million.

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is $1.9 million, I am

sorry; so it is even more as we keep talking.

It is $1.9 million over three years to continue to monitor, to do the

research and the science, and to identify their ranges for the caribou in

Labrador. These will be captured in

some of these line items as well.

Salaries have increased in 2.3.01.

They went up from $825,000 to $963,000.

So you can see that the bodies have come with it as well.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes, I was just curious as

regards to the Salaries line, though, when you were talking.

The merging of the two departments does not seem to add up is what

I am saying. I know that there are

salary details there.

How many people do we have working in Environmental

Assessment and Sustainable Development now that we did not have before?

Did we lose people? We lost

one position that you just mentioned.

MR. CRUMMELL: It

is three.

MR. MURPHY:

There are only three people (inaudible)?

MR. CRUMMELL:

There are three, but there are two other people moved over to Wildlife from

Sustainable Development.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay. So they are not all there?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, they are not all there.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Two went into Wildlife as well.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL: We

do have a five-year moose management plan.

We do have the caribou monitoring for Labrador.

We have people in the Wildlife Division who are doing that work as well.

MR. MURPHY: We

lost a wildlife biologist over on the West Coast last year.

Did we get him or her back?

MR. CRUMMELL: I

am not sure what position that would be.

MR. MURPHY: Yes,

we lost a biologist over there; a wildlife biologist last year.

Was it last year? Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL: We

know that within our division there might be a vacancy here or there.

I do not think there is a position that was lost on the West Coast.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL: I

do not have an answer for you because we do not have that information.

MR. MURPHY: I

will ask you in the House.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Okay. No sweat.

I do not know, Jamie, if you had something you wanted to

add to one of my answers. It is

important that we get the facts out, so, Jamie, if you could?

MR. CHIPPETT:

Just on the question around Labrador, in particular, as the minister said,

Sustainable Development worked exclusively on the Island.

So a lot of those responsibilities, now that the piece of work has been

done, will transfer over to the management people in the Wildlife Division.

There are actually separate activities that have the

funding for the George River Caribou Initiative, and for some of the monitoring

we are doing on the Red Wine herd that you mentioned.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CHIPPETT: So

all our caribou resource work is not only done in that division.

I guess the point of clarity is the Environmental Assessment and

Sustainable Development Division now focusses on policy and environmental

assessments of projects rather than the activities around research with caribou

on the Island, which were quite cost intensive, like helicopter time.

The Purchased Services you asked about would be genetic work and so on.

MR. MURPHY:

Your department, I guess,

would still hold to the same principle, though, when it comes to helicopter

leasing or rental? That would still

go through Trans and Works?

MR. CHIPPETT:

Yes, that contract is held

through Transportation and Works.

MR. MURPHY:

All right.

I want to come back to some other line items here again in the last

two-and-a-half minutes I have here of my time.

Subhead 1.2.05 in Administrative Support, under Property, Furnishings and

Equipment it showed $175,000 budgeted for in 2014-21015.

Nothing was spent, but there is still $57,900 budgeted for this year.

What did you anticipate that you were going to spend the money on, first

off?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That decrease of $175,000

reflects funds that were reallocated to Professional and Purchased Services to

cover costs associated with concluding the Salmonier Nature Park infrastructure

project.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Under Purchased Services as well, $370,000 was anticipated and $658,100

was spent. Is that the same project,

Salmonier?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Mr. Chair, $370,000 was

budgeted and $658,000 was spent. Is

that what you are referring to?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is to reflect the

construction contracts. What ends up

happening with these construction contracts as well, actually, it was for

Salmonier and it was also for Butter Pot and Seaward's.

There were bridges put into those areas as well Butter Pot Park.

There are some capital monies that were spent there.

It has

to do with the timing issues. When

you have contracts that are let and the time that the work is done, you may go

past your fiscal year. That money

that was allocated was carried forward.

The money was spent on those infrastructure projects.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

The last figure in the last forty-five seconds, I guess.

In Professional Services, $30,000 was budgeted for and $93,300 was

actually spent here.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right.

That reflects consulting contracts that we had for Salmonier Nature Park

interpretation centre as well as the Butter Pot and Seaward's bridges.

MR. MURPHY:

Who was the consultant there?

Was that tendered?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I would not be able to tell

you. That is something I do not have

handy.

MR. CHIPPETT:

It did go to RFP for the

consultants. Meridian Engineering

was successful for the bridge projects.

MR. MURPHY:

Meridian.

Okay.

All

right I see my time is up so I digress to

CHAIR:

Okay.

We are going to pause now for the break that I said we would do at 7:30

o'clock. We will pause for ten

minutes and then come back. We will

let the gentleman down at the Broadcast Centre have a slight break because they

are alone I think.

Recess

CHAIR:

Okay, Mr. Joyce, you can

continue with your line of questioning.

MR. JOYCE:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Subhead

3.1.01, Parks and Natural Areas; the natural areas system plan, are there funds

in the budget for that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

There is no specific funding

in the budget for that. This is

something that our employees are working on, on a regular basis within Parks and

Natural Areas.

The two

big projects that have been really time consuming again, we are a small shop,

and Parks and Natural Areas is a small shop as well.

Mistaken Point took a lot of resources over the last couple of years, a

huge amount of resources in terms of manpower and other dollars.

Mealy Mountains National Park; we are at the very final stages of making

that a reality. That has been worked

on for many years as well.

So in

terms of a single line item, there are responsibilities there captured within

these budgets for the natural areas system plan to keep moving forward.

We are moving forward on that and work is being done on that on a regular

basis.

MR. JOYCE:

When do you expect it to be

completed?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Now that we are almost at the

goal line now with Mistaken Point and with Mealy Mountains, this is definitely

way up there on the priority list. I

cannot give you a definitive time frame, but we are working on it very hard.

MR. JOYCE:

When do you expect the Mealy

Mountains work? That was supposed to

be announced. Is there any decision

made on that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Excuse me?

MR. JOYCE:

Mealy Mountains.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right now we are going

through one last round of consultations with groups in Labrador for the final,

final.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Pippy Park; I am sure that is under you guys also.

Where in the budget does it show for the Rod Stewart concert?

Were there any revenues?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, so when we look at

revenue, I do not know if we see we do not have a revenue line item within

Pippy Park, correct? Would that go

into natural or that goes in general revenue?

The

Pippy Park Commission actually does have their separate arm's length board of

directors. You have the head of

Pippy Park, the dotted line into me, but a straight line into the board.

They have their own budgets and accounting procedures that are audited

and work is done there go ahead.

OFFICIAL:

We give them a grant.

MR. CRUMMELL:

We give them a grant as part

of their operating costs. They

generate revenue from the golf course, from other things as well, fees and

services, rentals, and also from the Rod Stewart concert.

MR. JOYCE:

Are they responsible for all

the liabilities if any, insurance, et cetera?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is something they would

cover themselves. The promoter would

be required to have insurance for that as well.

We would have our normal insurance that they would normally have with any

of their properties that they manage and own, and also the promoter would have

the first liability.

MR. JOYCE:

What line item is the grant

to Pippy Park and how much?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Subhead 1.2.06 is where that

is captured.

CHAIR:

Page 11.5.

MR. CRUMMELL:

You see 1.2.06 and the Grants and

Subsidies. It is gone from $539,000

to $585,000, the main reason being are 3 per cent salary increases that capture

that extra $50,000.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

Just for example when you are saying and I have no reason not to

believe it. Like you said Mud

Immortal last year, is there any line item if it cost a good did it cost any

funds to government last year for the Mud Immortal?

I am sure there had to be damage done.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Anything that was taken care

of was done. It was taken care of.

There is no cost captured this year and last year.

That was two years ago now.

MR. JOYCE:

So there is no cost to fix up

that area?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I think everything has been

remediated. The site is back to its

former state.

MR. JOYCE:

Who paid for that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Who fixed that?

Ross?

MR. CHIPPETT:

Any site damage, as I

understand it I am not sure there was a lot of site damage would have been

covered off by in-house staff. More

or less cleanup was the biggest thing in terms of things left behind and so on.

Then

there was the area that the trail went over.

So we have cordoned that off and we are investigating on a regular basis

how the regeneration of vegetation is going.

In some places it is still slow going, but there are signs of positive

regrowth. There are no extra

expenditures out of our department's budget for that.

MR. JOYCE:

I would not know being your

line item or Department of Justice, are there any lawsuits pending on this now?

MR. CRUMMELL:

It is something that we are

not aware of ourselves right now.

There is one from an individual, but it is not something that we would be that

familiar with. There is one

outstanding I guess from what we are hearing.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

I am going to 3.2.01. I am

going to the caribou numbers and the moose numbers.

Do you have any idea the numbers of the caribou and the moose in the

Province now?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, absolutely.

We have a moose population at 112,000 estimated, not including the

national parks. Caribou on the

Island portion, I think, is at 32,400, Ross?

Yes, again that is the 32,000 range right now.

So that is what we are talking about with the Island and moose.

With

regard to Labrador, we have the George River herd at about 14,200; Mealy

Mountains is around 1,500-1,800, I think; Lac Joseph there is a smaller number,

but not far off that; and the Red Wine herd, obviously we are down to

twenty-four or twenty-five animals.

OFFICIAL : Less

than twenty.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Less than twenty animals right now.

MR. JOYCE:

Inspections for outfitters,

is that under your department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Can you please repeat that?

MR. JOYCE:

Inspections for outfitters.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Inspections for outfitters,

that would not be under our department.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

The soil

erosion study, what money is associated in the budget to ensure compliance this

year?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Monies associated in the

budget for compliance for?

MR. JOYCE:

Soil erosion, the study.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Soil erosion?

MR. JOYCE:

Yes.

OFFICIAL:

I think that might be Natural Resources (inaudible)

MR. CRUMMELL:

We are just having a

discussion here. In terms of that,

certainly we monitor it through Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, but

Natural Resources would be the lead on that.

MR. JOYCE:

That same wetland policy, are

there funds in here to ensure compliance for the wetlands?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Funds to ensure compliance

with wetlands?

MR. JOYCE:

Ensure the wetland policy.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Protection of wetlands

again in our general oversight that we provide, we have enforcement people who

are within Natural Resources, who are within Justice, who would enforce any

violations of regulations and protection of these types of areas.

They would be doing the work around that.

MR. JOYCE:

The last item for now is

Species at Risk under the Species Status Advisory Committee, under Endangered

Species, commissioned in 2010-2011.

How is that working now and how is that monitored in conjunction with the

Species at Risk? Is the committee up

and running now?

MR. CRUMMELL:

You are talking about WERAC

now, Sir?

OFFICIAL:

The Species Status Advisory Committee.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Oh, sorry that committee is

definitely very active. We have had

significant correspondence. We have

been out there and identified and listed this year a number of species that have

been either threatened or at risk, so it is a very active committee.

MR. JOYCE:

Are there any vacancies, and

are they all filled if there are any vacancies?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Any vacancies on that board?

MR. JOYCE:

Yes.

MR. CHIPPETT:

(Inaudible).

MR. CRUMMELL:

Go ahead.

Jamie is going to speak to that.

MR. CHIPPETT:

There are some vacancies.

One is very recent. The

department did a news release last week or so.

A long-standing member resigned because she is at university going on

sabbatical, so that is one vacancy, and there are a couple of others.

We have had suggestions forwarded from the committee in terms of people

who would work in the disciplines that they need them in, whether it be insects,

or Labrador, or what have you. We

are moving forward to address those.

MR. JOYCE:

WERAC, is that under

Environment and Conservation? How is

that going now? I know it was

dormant for the longest while?

MR. CHIPPETT:

That committee was fully populated last March between March and April, I

think, were the appointments and they had their first meeting in St. John's in

February. The minister and I

actually attended with that group.

There was some news activity around that, including the committee appointing a

Labrador sub-committee for the first time in their history.

I think, Minister, there are some events planned in the not too distant

future to announcement the progress.

MR. JOYCE:

Okay.

I see my

fifteen minutes are up, Mr. Chair ten minutes is up.

CHAIR:

Perfect.

Mr.

Murphy.

MR. MURPHY:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wanted

to come back over to some line items again, under 3.2.01, Administration,

Licensing and Operations. There is a

difference in Salaries line here that I would like to get an explanation on;

but, at the same time as that, Minister, while you are at it, the line for

Transportation and Communications as well has gone from $311,000 to $166,900.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is pretty simple,

actually. It is a decrease

reflecting savings from we are going to rely more on the online version of the

Hunting and Trapping Guide going forward, so there will be some savings realized

there.

MR. MURPHY:

For the Hunting and Trapping

Guide in Transportation and Communications?

I am just wondering about the uptake, the Hunting and Trapping Guide

itself, this is usually mailed out to hunters and trappers, of course.

They are utilizing that more online, are they?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, absolutely.

We see, even like moose licences, most people apply online and we are

moving forward into this new age.

People are starting to prefer online versions of what we provide to the people

of the Province and it is reflecting that.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, would this be affected by the same thing?

You had a $927,500 budget call in 2014-2015; this year it is only

$792,600.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, you are right.

There is a decrease of $134,900.

Again, it is the increased reliance on the online version of the Hunting

and Trapping Guide, and also we saved some money on leased accommodations, but

the big

part is the Hunting and Trapping Guide.

MR. MURPHY:

Just another question, if I

can, on Transportation and Communications.

The Hunting and Trapping Guide; is that done in-house here, is that

tendered out, or an outside contractor does that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is tendered out.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Under

3.2.02, Endangered Species and Biodiversity, there is a difference in the

Salaries line that is a little bit noticeable.

It looks like the 3 per cent.

I will get you to explain that one.

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, you are right.

MR. MURPHY:

The 3 per cent salary?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

How many

people are working right now in Endangered Species and Biodiversity?

MR. CRUMMELL:

We have four people within

that division.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

I am

just wondering when they get a call I can ask you this, I guess, and it might

be a general policy question. I am just

wondering how something and it may go through the Wilderness and Ecological

Reserves Advisory Council too. When

it comes to endangered species, you would take your advice from them and have

your people at Endangered Species and Biodiversity look at that?

Would I be right on that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Absolutely, WERAC provides us

with invaluable advice. The federal

government also has a committee that we take advice from.

Jamie, can you

MR. CHIPPETT:

That is the species advisory

committee (inaudible).

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, the species advisory

committee which is a federal government committee that provides advice to

provinces as well. We listen to what

they have to say and we act on it.

MR. MURPHY:

You mentioned at the same

time on the WERAC you had a resignation?

Was I right on that?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I think we are fully teamed

up there, yes.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

I was just a bit concerned that one had resigned.

Yes, they are doing good work and I was glad to see that finally it was

enacted again.

Under

3.2.03, Stewardship and Education, there is a difference here on the Salaries

line. It looks like you gained an

employee here or a salary increased or something.

I will get you to explain that, 3.2.03.

MR. CRUMMELL:

So you look from the decrease

from the budget and then the actual?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, there were two vacancies

for a portion of the fiscal year that had to be filled.

We realized some savings while those positions were vacant.

MR. MURPHY:

Have they been made full time

or are they contractual?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Within that division we do

have eleven permanent, four temporary, and three seasonal for a total of

eighteen employees.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, $75,000, that was the revised figure this year, but you only

had $59,200 in the budget. I was

wondering what the extra $26,000 overall was for?

I am sorry, not $26,000.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

So we spent an extra $15,000, $16,000 last year, and it was actually for

the utilization of vehicle maintenance and vehicle rentals.

It was part of our contribution to the Stewardship Association of

Municipalities. They have had a

number of projects that were funded in part by Environment Canada's

Environmental Damages Fund. We

worked in partnership with those two organizations and it required more time on

the ground with our people.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

On to 3.2.04, Habitat, Game and Fur Management; there is a difference in

the Salaries line in 2014-2015, but an increase overall to $955,000 in this

year's budget. Can we get a

breakdown of what is happening here?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right, so you are looking at

the difference between this year and next year?

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Basically, there is an

increase of $61,800. That is

re-profiling one positon from Parks and Natural Areas to Labrador.

We have seen a need in Labrador to have somebody up there.

There are a lot of developments happening up there, so we made the

decision to move somebody into that area.

MR. MURPHY:

How many positions are in

Labrador altogether, just one?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is a good question

three.

MR. MURPHY:

Three positions.

What is the job of this other person?

I know it is under Habitat, Game and Fur Management.

Would this have to do with the monitoring of the herd and the actions

that to be taken, obviously; government evidence gathering, possibly?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, you basically answered

the question. You are right.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, so that is what it is

for. We are going to hear probably

some action against whoever has been doing the illegal hunting of caribou and

such?

MR. CRUMMELL:

The enforcement piece, again

I reiterate, comes down to Justice.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

They have Fish and Wildlife

Enforcement officers.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Our people are biologists and

scientists. So the enforcement

people are with the arm of government which is Justice.

MR. MURPHY:

They would obviously be

aiding Justice.

MR. CRUMMELL:

They would certainly be part

of the consultations in talking about what is happening with the herds, in

particular, in Labrador. They have

been doing the field surveys, helping us establish the hunting seasons, the

zones, the quotas, and helping identifying the critical wildlife areas for these

species.

MR. MURPHY:

All right.

Under Transportation and Communications in the same line, $698,300 was

budgeted for, and the actual spent was $898,300.

It is an extra $200,000 more.

I am wondering what that $200,000 was.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Actually, that increase of

$200,000 reflects transportation costs.

You are talking about your helicopters now for your surveys for moose and

caribou. It also includes the two

newly created Moose Reduction Zones on the Avalon and in Central Newfoundland.

So a survey is being done there.

MR. MURPHY:

I am just curious; do you

have a breakdown on how much went, for example, to helicopters versus the Avalon

region that you just set up? It is a

bit curious. It is a pretty even

number there and I am just wondering if I can get another little breakdown.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Maybe Ross might be able to

speak to that. We would have to get

that. The majority of the money

would be for helicopter time for sure.

In terms of the breakdown from the Island and Labrador, I do not have

that here in front of us, but we could get that for you.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes, if I could get a

breakdown on the spending that happened here in 2014-2015 for that $898,300, it

would be great. On to Purchased

Services, then, just below; $115,000 was actually spent against $151,800, but

you also have budgeted that same figure for this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, that decrease of $36,800

is just less vehicle maintenance that happened this year.

The miscellaneous purchases were down in this fiscal.

They fluctuate year to year so we do not look at one year versus the

next; we look at a three, four, or five-year period to see where it usually

lands.

MR. MURPHY: S o

you keep the same number for historical purposes.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, exactly right.

Plus, with the two new Moose Reduction Zones on the Avalon and Central we

wanted to make sure that we had the resources that were adequate.

MR. MURPHY:

All right.

I see my time is up.

MR. JOYCE:

You can go ahead.

MR. MURPHY:

Are you sure?

MR. JOYCE:

(Inaudible) talk about yours.

MR. MURPHY:

May the Lord be with you,

Eddie.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

Everybody is so agreeable

here tonight.

MR. MURPHY:

Aren't they? Boy, I tell you.

I am

just waiting for the little red light. Hello?

CHAIR:

It is over on Ivan's the

light is on at Ivan's desk.

MR. MURPHY:

Oh, the wrong light is on.

Okay. There you go.

Now you have it.

Under

Wildlife, 3.2.05, Research, there is a difference in the Salaries lines.

I wonder if you can give me a breakdown here.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Okay.

The increase there is certainly the 3 per cent.

Also, the funding for the Moose Management Plan that we just announced,

the $1.5 million over the next five years; there is funding there for one

wildlife research biologist at $74,600 a year.

That is a new hire.

MR. MURPHY:

Great.

Where are they going to be based?

Are they going to be portable pretty much all over the Island?

They are not going to be centered in one particular area, but wherever

the moose are?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Corner Brook.

MR. MURPHY:

That is where we lost a

position last year. Curiosity

dictates, I suppose, did we get the same biologist back?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I would not know.

I do not know if we have done the hiring yet or if somebody has been

transferred or whatnot.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, so we have a West Coast

biology position that has opened up again.

As long as that person gets their job back, fine.

Under

Transportation and Communications, Minister, $400,000 was spent and $158,900 was

the initial ask. I am just wondering

if I can get a breakdown here. At

the same time, $263,900 is the actual ask for this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Right.

The increase of $241,000 reflects transportation for the moose and

caribou surveys and classifications.

We did six moose management areas last year, and also again the two newly

created Moose Reduction Zones on the Avalon.

That is what it captures.

ahead, Jamie.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Just to highlight, years when

we have appropriate weather conditions we not regularly, but when we do

frequently transfer the money to allow us to do more surveys when the weather

allows. There are some years when

you just cannot do it because of weather, whether it be fog, or wind, or what

have you.

MR. MURPHY:

We are not flying tomorrow.

MR. CHIPPETT:

What is that?

MR. MURPHY:

We are not flying tomorrow.

MR. CHIPPETT:

No.

Six Moose Management Areas were done.

There were classifications done on all the caribou herds on the Island

and the two zones that the minister talked about.

MR. MURPHY:

Just a general policy

question when it comes to the moose surveys.

I would presume that the most recent survey are you at liberty to

comment on the results? Some people

would argue that we have been having issues with moose, but the person who meets

one on a highway obviously is having a different kind of an issue with moose.

I am

told on one end of the spectrum that there is a lack of moose in areas and in

other areas, there are too many. I

am wondering if you can comment on that.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, certainly we hear

similar things out there of course.

The reason why we brought in this five-year moose management plan was to make

sure that we brought in the social considerations into our decision making, and

the moose reduction zones along the highways was an important piece of that.

We do hear from interested people on both ends of the spectrum, like you

do, who say there are too many moose and it is not enough.

We do

have areas of the Province that we have identified where moose are declining.

We have areas where we know they are increasing.

The South Coast, generally they are increasing.

The Northern Peninsula, they are generally decreasing from the high

densities they seen in the past. The

West Coast is stable from our surveys, from our information.

The Central is declining to stable.

So yes,

we do have some evidence to show what is happening out there in different areas

of the Province. Again, the more

information we have, the better off we are.

The increased funding for the surveys which was including our five- year

moose management plan would give us better certainty about the numbers that are

out there and we will be able to make decisions based on that.

MR. MURPHY:

All right, thanks for that.

Under

Cooperative Wildlife Projects, 3.2.06, there is a little bit of a difference

between the Salaries line here. In

2014-2015, $16,600 was the actual revised.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That basically there would be

just a decrease in revenue from partners.

We do partner with different levels of government, other businesses and

organizations out there. So, that

would just reflect some of the things that we are working together on, just a

decrease in funding from one of our partners.

MR. MURPHY:

So you would not necessarily

say that you lost anybody, but an appropriation of funding gone to another

department?

MR. CRUMMELL:

That would be correct.

Basically what we are talking we have a number of initiatives that we

deal with, with different people: the Firearm Safety/Hunter Education group;

there is a bat project that would receive some monies from us as well and

(inaudible). There is a whole

inventory of different projects that ebbs and flows in the course of time.

We see a reduction in some of this funding that is coming through from

other entities.

MR. MURPHY:

Your department may be the

one to ask about the brown bat study.

There was a cautionary note that was put out I think by Environment and

Conservation some time ago. Has any

of your staff noticed any issues with brown bats?

Have they had any reports on it?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I know that there has been a

general callout for the people of the Province to keep an eye to see if there

have been any changes. Ross, maybe

you might want to speak to that.

MR. FIRTH:

I think maybe you are

referring to the White-nose Syndrome.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. FIRTH:

We are very fortunate at this

point in time that we have no recorded cases of White-nose Syndrome for bats in

the Province, but we are monitoring things very, very closely.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes, it is a bit late now I

guess. The snow is almost gone.

Usually it was a winter problem, but nobody has found anything like that?

MR. FIRTH:

Not up to this point, no.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, that is great.

Thanks.

Coming

back to 3.2.06 then, under Transportation and Communications the $200,000 line

item there for this year, but there was only $24,000 that was spent.

I am just wondering what is happening there?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Last year that decrease of

$130,000 reflects less air services that were required in that fiscal year.

When you look at the increase of $50,000 sorry, the increase for the

following year is going to be for the monitoring of the caribou in Labrador.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, monitoring of the

caribou in Labrador.

Purchased Services too, the same line is $200,000 as well.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Purchased Services, the

increase well in Purchased Services there is a decreased based on historical

expenditures offset by funds for monitoring caribou.

Then we look at just less contracts in that fiscal year, the prior year.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, and the line down below

under federal revenue (inaudible) revenue.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That is the one you called

out earlier, I believe was it, in terms of our partnerships, just less money

from our partners.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

That is the one that you were explaining there.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

I guess

just far over now to the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science, a

change in the line item I am guessing here some of these are pretty much

jumping out there. Mr. Chair, 3 per

cent on the $190,000 for this year?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Correct.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay.

Further

down here the Professional Services, $6,300 was spent and $20,000 allocated for

this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

When we look at what was

spent so that $6,300 that was spent last year was a contract in support of the

population and health of Newfoundland moose from 1966 to 2012.

This was a contract that was a research project, I am assuming.

In terms

of what we are looking forward to for the next year, we re-profiled some money

from Grants and Subsidies to support short-term research projects with timelines

measured in months as opposed to years required for graduate student project

completion. We saw a need to have

some resources there to help students continue on with their projects, students

who are grad students

MR. MURPHY:

Under Grants and Subsidies,

though, from the actual budget of $200,000 down to $80,000 this year.

MR. CRUMMELL:

That basically reflects that

there was actually less applications in 2014-2015 than in the past.

Again, the $80,000 that we have budgeted for 2015-2016 just reflects more

closely what the actual expenditure has been over the last few years.

We did re-profile some money to go towards Professional Services, which

we just referred to a few minutes ago, which is going to give us the ability to

let grad students and doctor and thesis students to do their work and get paid

to do that.

CHAIR:

Can we check back with Mr.

Joyce now and see if he is

MR. JOYCE:

No, I am fine.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Mr. Murphy can keep going.

MR. MURPHY:

On that line, though, on

Grants and Subsidies it was $200,000 and it went down to $80,000.

The line under Professional Services is $20,000, so we are still net down

$100,000 for studies?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, I mean that is exactly

what that says. I might let Jamie

jump in; he would know more about the history of the applications.

It is application driven, these Grants and Subsidies obviously.

People are aware they are out there.

They have used them in the past and continue to use them Jamie.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Just to clarify, the

Professional Services line and the $20,000 is to do shorter term research

projects. Often when you get tied

into a graduate student whether it be masters of Ph.D., you are into three or

five year timelines. Those allow us

to deal with students or professors or companies to do a short-term piece of

work.

In terms

of the other line, obviously it is less $20,000 based on that re-profiling, and

the Grants and Subsidies were reduced somewhat closely to the levels that were

expended last year. We spent

$140,000 rather than the full $200,000 the year before.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, but we are only going

to see $80,000, so a difference of $68,000.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Yes.

I would just note that we are doing the extra work with the co-op

students and so on we referenced earlier.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

MR. CHIPPETT:

There is additional research money that could indeed involve academia in the

moose management plan budget.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, all right.

Just a

final summation I guess I do have some questions around the water items,

2.2.01. I guess we will come over

there now. Again 2.2.01.01,

Salaries, I am taking it that this is a 3 per cent increase in Salaries that is

being allotted for in the numbers?

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

It looks like it might be a

position there too; I am not quite sure.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes, the $66,700 reflects the

3 per cent salary increase. There is

also some re-profiling of Atlantic Climate Adaption Solutions Association funds

from the policy division. So, there

has been a re-profiling of monies as well.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, so it has been

transferred over to you in this particular case.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

Under Transportation and

Communications, $306,700 versus $215,000.

MR. CRUMMELL:

Last year we saw a decrease

of almost $68,000, and reduced travel in helicopter rentals.

Also, we did have a freeze on later on in the year, a discretionary

travel freeze. We did take that to

heart and we found some savings there.

In terms

of next year, or this year I should say coming up and the increase of $24,000,

we have re-profiled some of the ACASA funds from the policy division.

We offset that by re-profiling employee's benefits to cover historical

expenditures.

MR. MURPHY:

When it comes to helicopter

travel, Minister, the Auditor General I am not sure if it was last year's

report or the report before that talked about the allocation of helicopter

time between departments. He was

talking about air ambulance crossing over to Fire and Emergency Services

crossing over to Environment.

There

were issues in actually determining which department would have how much money

spent. Not only that, but as regards

to the logging issue as regards to what time the helicopter flights and

everything took place, has the department overcome that issue of the time

tracking just for fleet management purposes?

MR. CRUMMELL:

I will defer to my deputy on

that one.

MR. CHIPPETT:

Transportation and Works of

course are managing that contract and did the response to the Auditor General.

They revised the manual for administrative purposes for all those things,

whether it be timekeeping, or the people on a flight or whatever.

So that has been passed out to all departments that utilize helicopter

time. We have made sure staff all

have that and we are adhering to those guidelines.

MR. MURPHY:

Yes.

So I just want to make sure now about this because the Auditor General

said that it was an issue. What is

the process right now? The pilot

would actually have to log name and everything now?

Has your staff been given instructions as regards to be passing on their

name before they take the flight? A

flight requires some names when you have a certain number of people aboard and

other times it does not.

MR. CHIPPETT:

I cannot speak to those

details. I do not know if Colleen

Johnson, our Manager of Finance, might be able to add something to that.

MS JOHNSON:

The manual was provided to us

last year after that audit came out.

That manual was provided with direction as to how the logs are to be completed

and it is to be passed on. We did

monitor those invoices at the first quarter to ensure that we were following,

and we were. So as of now, we are

sure that we have been following the manual, what has been advised.

MR. MURPHY:

Okay, great.

Thanks for that.

MS JOHNSON:

You are welcome.

MR. MURPHY:

We had to ask you one

question anyway for the night; we cannot have you here for no reason.

Under

Grants and Subsidies, $61,400, Minister, under 2.2.01.10.

MR. CRUMMELL:

What we did here, again we

had money for ACASA we still had some monies in that budget, but we

re-profiled some of that money. We

thought there might be a need here and I think the basis behind that, deputy

MR. CHIPPETT:

Is it line 10 we are talking

about.

MR. CRUMMELL:

We are talking about line 10.

MR. MURPHY:

Line 10, Grants and

Subsidies.

MR. CHIPPETT:

That is the hurricane alert

system.

MR. CRUMMELL:

The hurricane alert system,

right. The hurricane alert system

that government initiated a little while ago, we want to continue to support

that. We had to re-profile some

money to do that, so that is what the money is for.

MR. MURPHY:

Under the hurricane alert

system

MR. CRUMMELL:

Yes.

MR. MURPHY:

Well, I guess there is

another climate change issue that we are talking about.

You see monies like that and there is a bit of a realization that we are

getting into severe weather and your department is going to be meeting some

challenges in the future. I will not

go on any further with that I guess.

Under

Revenue Federal, line 01, there was $330,000 in the budget.

There is only $30,000 here when it comes to federal revenue, a difference

of $300,000. Is this part of the

federal Green Fund contribution?

MR. CRUMMELL:

No, the $300,000 reflects

removal of revenue from the federal government as a C-CORE project was not

appr

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	2015-05-11
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_resource_ga47_2015-05-11rcenvironmentandconservationclimatechangeandenergyefficiency.html
Language	en
Format	html
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