Government Services Committee

2022-05-06

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

PDF Version

May 6, 2022

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, James Dinn, MHA for St. John's Centre,

substitutes for Jordan Brown, MHA for Labrador West.

The

Committee met at 1 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Pike):

Okay then, everyone, I'm going to call this meeting to order.

We have

one substitution today. We have MHA Dinn for MHA Brown. We don't have any

unaffiliated Members.

We can

take a break if you'd like one, or we can just go through to, hopefully, cut

down on how long we'll be here.

Just a

note to everyone, always identify yourself if you're speaking and wait for the

tally light each time. If you wave, the tally light will come on.

Consistent with protocols, we're asking that masks be worn in the Chamber by

employees unless they are speaking. It is discretionary for Members, but if

you're not feeling well and this goes on longer, you can certainly take your

mask down and breathe, because we know what that's like here in the House.

Members

and officials are reminded not to make any adjustments to their chairs – not the

Chair but to the chairs – because they're set for us. When I'm in the House, I'm

fooling around with mine all the time, up and down.

Water

coolers on each end of the House. We have glasses provided so you can use

glasses if you don't have your bottle or your cooler with you.

start the process, we just go through the identification of Committee Members;

the minister will speak. The Committee will have to move minutes and then the

Clerk will call the first subhead. I'll ask the Committee to identify

themselves. I'll ask the minister to identify departmental staff, which you can

do right away. The Chair brings the minutes of the previous meeting forward and

that's basically where we go with that.

we'll start. First, I will ask the Members of the Committee and any staff

attending to introduce themselves. Minister, you can do that too, as well.

we'll start.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay.

Hello,

I'm Sarah Stoodley, Minister of Digital Government and Service NL and MHA for

Mount Scio.

S. DUTTON:

I'm Sean Dutton, Deputy Minister of the department.

B. STEELE:

Bonnie Steele, Departmental Controller.

G. BOLAND:

Gail Boland, Assistant Deputy Minister, Digital Government and Services.

A. HILL:

Angelica Hill, Executive Assistant to the Minister.

K. DICKS-PEYTON:

Kathy Dicks-Peyton, Director of Communications.

CHAIR:

Okay. So we'll start over

here.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Loyola O'Driscoll, MHA for

the District of Ferryland.

M. WINTER:

Megan Winter, Researcher with the Official Opposition Caucus.

J. DINN:

Jim Dinn, MHA for St. John's

Centre.

S. KENT:

Steven Kent, Sessional Support for the Third Party Office.

B. POLLARD:

Ben Pollard, political staffer, Government Members' Office.

B. WARR:

Brian Warr, MHA, Baie Verte

- Green Bay.

L. STOYLES:

Lucy Stoyles, MHA, Mount

Pearl North.

CHAIR:

Okay, Minister, I'm going to

give you the floor and you have 15 minutes to speak and then we'll (inaudible).

CLERK (Jerrett):

Actually, I'm going to read

the subheads first.

CHAIR:

Okay, you can go ahead and

read the subheads.

CLERK:

Executive and Support

Services, 1.1.01 to 1.2.03.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay, thank you everyone for

joining

us.

This is our very hard-working team in Digital Government and Service NL. And I

would also like just to mention Scott Jones who is our assistant deputy minister

for Regulatory Affairs. He couldn't be here today, but Deputy Minister Dutton

certainly has all of that information as well.

I would also like to thank the Members who have joined us today. I do personally

think Estimates is a very important process. It is very important, I think, to

go through the budget line by line. So I certainly am very happy to be here and

answer any questions that anyone has.

We have already done the staff introductions.

So just to give you an overview for anyone watching or listening of our

department. So we do all of the licensing and inspections related to public

health. We do public safety, environmental protection inspections, provision of

vital document. We regulate the health and safety of employees in the workplace

with occupational health and safety, and we safeguard consumer interests. We

have Motor Registration Division. That gets a lot of media attention. So we do

driver testing, drivers' licences, vehicle registrations and photo ID cards. We

are responsible for safety on our roadways, on public highways and we do that

for a number of areas. And I guess, originally, or most recently, our department

was created with the goal of consolidating licensing, permitting, inspecting and

regulatory functions within government and then, where possible, provide a

single-window access to the public for those services.

We have over 150 pieces of legislation, standards and codes of practice which

give us that authority and we also have a lot of memorandums of understanding

with other departments. For example, with Health when we enforce or do

inspections or environmental protection, for example, the legislation and

regulations that we are enforcing belong in other departments. So there is a lot

of cross-departmental work that we do.

So we have a net budget of just over $27 million. In addition to the $8.3

million that is in our Estimates, there is also $111.4 million that does not

show up on our Estimates, but that goes right into general revenue. A big part

of that is from MRD. When you pay your now $90 for to renew your licence, that

does not show up in our Estimates; that goes right into general revenues. We

also get revenue from issuer fees, Registry of Deeds, and, like I mentioned,

Motor Registration fees.

So I would just like to highlight some changes since out last Estimates in our

department. We merged our divisions of Consumer Affairs and Financial Services

Regulation into a single division and we also received a transfer of income

support collections to our department from Immigration, Population Growth and

Skills. So I believe we have now most of the collections functions across

government. I think there are still a few left to come in, but we now hold most

of the collections

and we kind of brought Consumer Affairs and Financial Services Regulations

together. We got some efficiencies from that so I'm happy to chat about that as

we go.

Obviously, digital is a very important part of our department. I am also

responsible for the Office of the Chief Information Officer, which we discussed

in Committee recently – or two nights ago maybe.

Obviously, it's very important that we increase the number of online services

available to the public. Digital Government and Service NL and OCIO work with

all departments to increase the number of services available online.

Obviously, we were impacted by COVID-19, as were most departments, we assisted

other departments with their COVID online application forms and that kind of

stuff. MyGovNL, which I know is not at its best at the moment, we're happy to

talk about that further.

We also

oversee Occupational Health and Safety, which is a huge priority for our

department and the enforcement of that. We have legislation, codes and standards

for health and safety working conditions and the cost of all of that are

recovered from WorkplaceNL. So there is offsetting revenue for all expenditures

from Occupational Health and Safety.

We are

also responsible for the Office of French Services and I'm the Minister

Responsible for Francophone Affairs. So we do French-language training and

translation services to all the provincial government.

We are

also responsible for the Queen's Printer, which does most or all of the printing

for the provincial government and some of the agencies, boards and commissions

as needed.

So I

think most people in the province would interact Digital Government and Service

NL at least yearly so we're always looking to try to make that experience with

the residents easier and better and more efficient.

I guess

that concludes my remarks. I'm happy to answer any questions on anything that my

department – sometimes referred to as the lint trap of government – covers.

CHAIR:

Okay. Just before MHA

O'Driscoll speaks and asks questions, I need a mover for the minutes of April

11, 2022.

B. WARR:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Okay. Moved by MHA Warr.

motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR:

So now we'll continue.

MHA

O'Driscoll.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Thank you, Chair.

It is

certainly a pleasure to be here again this Friday afternoon. Thank you all for

being here. I'm sure you do a great job for the minister in all the work you do.

I would like to say that I know how much work it is but it don't; I'm sure there

is a tremendous amount of work but I certainly do appreciate it.

First

of all, to start off, can we get a copy of the minister's briefing binder?

S. STOODLEY:

Yes, we have extra copies here and you can walk away with one when we're done.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay, perfect.

I just

have some general questions first and then I'll get into –

S. STOODLEY:

Sure.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Is the attrition plan still

being followed? If so, what are the changes for last year and this year?

S. STOODLEY:

We met our attrition target

for last year and we do not have an attrition target for the upcoming year.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

How

many people are employed in the department?

S. STOODLEY:

We have a grand total – at

the moment, we have 391 filled positions in Digital Government and Service NL.

Feel

free to interrupt what I'm saying at any time, team. Thank you.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

How many retirements

occurred in the last year?

S. STOODLEY:

We had 18 retirements in the

last year.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

How many vacancies are not

filled in that department?

S. STOODLEY:

We have 71 vacancies.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

So you

have a chance to fill them this year and be able to fill them I guess?

S. STOODLEY:

A lot of them are kind of

rolling. For example, at MRD we have a lot of people that come in and lot of

people come right in and then they apply for other internal jobs in government.

So it's like a steady stream of people that we train, unfortunately – we'd love

to keep them longer. It is a challenging work environment.

So just

for example of the 71, 25 of those are in MRD and we kind of need more just

because so many flow through MRD. Then, for example, we have highway enforcement

officers and they keep moving around the province. It's a lot of movement, I

would say, of roles within the provincial government.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I'm sure people serving on

the front counter; it's not easy to keep people there. I was in the service

industry so I totally understand that dealing with the public.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Have any positions been

eliminated? If so, what are they?

S. STOODLEY:

I'm not aware of any

positions officially eliminated. We do have positions that we may not need to

fill or may be a lower priority to fill at any given time.

I don't

know if you wanted to expand on that?

S. DUTTON:

Sure.

The

minister alluded to the restructuring that took place in the Consumer Affairs

and Financial Services area. We've had some trade-off. So as opposed to

eliminating positions, we've reprioritized some of them and there are some

changes in classifications. We're going through the classification process now

on those where the duties have changed a little bit, but I guess in the big

picture we had a director for each division and two managers in one. At the end

of the process, we'd have one director and three managers so it would be

slightly cheaper in terms of the management complement and some of the staff

positions have moved around. So we've used some of the resources to focus

particularly on residential tenancies as an area where we want to increase our

staff complement to help meet the service demand.

Motor Registration, we've looked at our salary plan and we're focused on

particularly having sufficient number of staff for things like the call taking

and that sort of thing. So we've made some adjustments in the overall plan in

that respect as well.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

So I guess in that

transition, did you have any layoffs that occurred in the department now with

that last year? With the combined, when you did all that, were there any layoffs

that occurred?

S. DUTTON:

No.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No, okay, good, all right.

How

many new hires took place last year?

S. STOODLEY:

We had 20 new hires.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

How

many contractual and short-term employees are in your department?

S. STOODLEY:

We don't have any

contractual, as far as I'm aware. We do have 12 people who have come in on short

contracts.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

And how many vacancies in

your department that have been vacant for over six months or longer? Do you have

that?

S. STOODLEY:

I don't have that

information on hand. I don't know if anyone else. We can certainly provide that.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah.

S. STOODLEY:

Yeah.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

And listen, if some of these

have to go back and get us an answer then that's fine, that's okay. Just to say

that, that's all.

S. STOODLEY:

Yeah.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Did you department receive

any funds from the COVID contingency fund? If so, what for?

S. STOODLEY:

I'm not aware of any funds

that we've received from the COVID contingency fund.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

You're normally collecting.

S. STOODLEY:

Pardon?

L. O'DRISCOLL:

You're normally collecting

money.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes, I mean, the federal

government funded the VaxPass, which we talked about that in OCIO, but there's

no provincial government contingency funding, no.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

I'm

going to move on to under

section 1.2.01.

S. STOODLEY:

1.2.01.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I have some questions to go

back (inaudible).

S. STOODLEY:

Perfect, thank you.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Salaries, the budget

for Salaries increased to $1.4 million.

S. STOODLEY:

Yeah.

terms of Salaries under Executive Support, we've had kind of a transitional

deputy minister situation where we were sharing Deputy Minister Dutton for part

of the year. So now we have Sean as a full-time deputy minister. So that

aligned, considering then other vacancies throughout the year is why we need the

extra budget.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Employee Benefits, it went over budget. It was budgeted at $87,200. Last year,

$181,000 was spent. I believe that before that Employee Benefits went over

budget, could you please provide some detail – is the base budget being

increased because of that overspending?

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Employee Benefits, it

went over budget. It was budgeted at $87,200. Last year, $181,500 was spent. I

believe that before Employee Benefits went over budget, could you please provide

some detail – is the base budget being increased because of a pattern of

overspending?

S. STOODLEY:

This is all directly related

to workers' compensation charges. We had higher than anticipated workers'

compensation charges during the year, which is why it went up, and then it's

going up a bit again because we anticipate higher than what we had budgeted in

2021-2022. That is all related to workers' compensation charges.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Provincial, can you outline – there's $104,100 less received than

anticipated.

S. STOODLEY:

When I mentioned

occupational health and safety, that is 100 per cent recovered from WorkplaceNL.

So as we kind of spend more time in occupational health and safety, we get more

revenue from them for that. We had less time, I guess, to bill back for

occupational health and safety related expenditures.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

1.2.02, can you explain why the Professional Services are included here?

Additionally there are significant savings last year, and how was that achieved?

S. STOODLEY:

Professional Services, so

this is the French Language Services.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay.

For

COVID and stuff, we had fewer demand for French translation. We have an

agreement with the federal government. We have three full-time French staff. We

do some translation in-house, and for bigger projects, or if we don't have

capacity, we use the federal government. We have an agreement with them and they

provide the remaining French translation services.

We did

not need as much French translation services in the past year, which is why we

didn't spend as much.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

1.2.03, Administrative Support, Purchased Services, can you detail what

purchased services fall in this line item, what accounts for the variance?

S. STOODLEY:

We're responsible for Vital

Statistics. There's a federal government project called the death registration

project, which is meant to have an automatic way for funeral homes, that they

would go into a website, they would put in that someone has passed away, and

then that information is connected with government and health and the federal

government so that everyone knows that there has been this death.

we're trying to reduce paperwork, and we're the first province to do this with

the federal government. That is why there is an increase. We carried forward

some of the money. So essentially, we won't receive any more of the death

registration money from the federal government because the project is nearing

completion.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Federal, can you provide some insight as to where that $30,000 came

from?

S. STOODLEY:

So that is from the federal

government for the death registration project.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

From the federal government,

okay.

How far

are we going on this one? What

section – just make sure I'm not gone ahead of

you, that's all. 2.1.01.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No, that's the next section.

Okay, that's it for this section.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay, thank you.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Perfect. That's why I was

asking; I wasn't sure.

CHAIR:

Okay, are you good?

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Well, until you go to the

next section, yes.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

MHA

Dinn.

J. DINN:

Thank you, Chair.

The

Greene report recommended some form of privatization for motor vehicle and

Registry of Deeds. In a best and final offer RFP to Rothschild, PwC and Deloitte

from October last year, the government asked the bidders to devise a plan to

privatize provincial registries, along with four other entities. The proposed

completion date for the monetization of the provincial registries was November

2022, this year coming.

What

contact has your department had with Rothschild as it begins preparation to

monetize or sell off provincial assets? What is the plan for provincial

registries and what work has been undertaken so far to prepare it for

privatization?

S. STOODLEY:

We have received work from

Rothschild in terms of Cabinet documents, in terms of potentially looking at the

value of our registries. We have received that information from a Cabinet

context. We are currently evaluating the information that has been provided and

that is that state we are in right now.

J. DINN:

Okay. So you got their

documents and you know as to what they've considered the value of your services

would be and you're currently evaluating what they put down there.

S. STOODLEY:

We're evaluating what

they've given us in terms of registries.

J. DINN:

Okay. I guess what you're

looking at is whether their evaluation is correct or not?

S. STOODLEY:

We're reviewing the

documents they've provided in terms of the scope of the project in relation to

registries.

J. DINN:

Okay.

How is

the transition progressing to increase the number of services delivered online

by 75 per cent this year and what kinds of savings are these measures expected

to bring to the department and have they, in fact, materialized?

S. STOODLEY:

Sure, thank you. I'd be very

pleased to talk about all the new online services that we've created.

Residents can now apply for a charitable lottery licence online. So a lot of

this, I think as we talked earlier, we amalgamated two divisions within our

department which got rid of a leadership position and added a new lower level

leadership

position but then also allowed us to hire a new residential tenancies

adjudicator. So we kind of moved resources around our department.

You can apply for a charitable lottery licence online. We launched a new ability

to tell Motor Registration if you are transferring a vehicle online, because

before that was our longest appointment. It was like 40 minutes to transfer a

vehicle if you went in person or if you called and there was a lot of paperwork

that you had to mail in or drop off or fax. So now you can tell us about

transferring a vehicle online. That was a big priority for us and that was

launched last September, October.

So you can now do your MRD permit test online. This is, I guess, where we are

working with other departments to have other department's functionality in line.

You can get your woodcutting permit; your MCP renewal for dependants was a new

very highly used service. As part of the COVID-19 VaxPass, you could get your

vaccination record. We worked with IPGS on their Provincial Nominee Program

application. In terms of the COVID-19 government programs, there was the Small

Business Assistance Program application, the Tourism and Hospitality Support

Program application.

Within then, more focused on our department – we, obviously, have all of the

licensing for financial services. So like mortgage brokers and all of that

stuff. So there is a new online application process for the yearly renewal for

mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, real estate salespeople, pre-paid funeral

sales, licences – you apply for a licence, renew your licence, insurance broker

licences, and any of those that you need to renew you can do that online.

We also work with a lot of electrical contactors and electricians so you can now

apply for your commercial electrical permit online, your electrical permit

extension, your non-commercial electrical permit and then renew your contractor

electrical permit online.

Some of this is there is efficiency for us. It is also making things easier for

the contractors. They don't have to fill out paperwork and then there was also a

data quality benefit because they put it in, there is no one has to retype it

and that kind of stuff.

So those are recently the new online services that we have put up.

J. DINN:

Any savings so far?

S. STOODLEY:

I guess the amalgamation of the departments within our Digital Government

Service NL, doing this allowed us to move – and moving more things online

facilitated that. Now, there are still some wrinkles in our current processes.

We physically relocated people, so that team is also moved to the Mount Pearl

office. So I think there is still some normalizing, I guess, going on.

We were

able to hire a new residential tenancies adjudicator. So we're going to have

four soon; we have three at the moment. I can't tell you kind of a number of –

S. DUTTON:

(Inaudible.)

S. STOODLEY:

Oh sure, Sean.

S. DUTTON:

I guess I could add that, in

terms of savings, there's been no correlating reduction in our human resource

budget other than the attrition targets that we had to meet in past years.

Again, this digitization target of 75 per cent, that's been more than exceeded.

As a result of that, we have more of the staff being focused on higher priority

work and less of the back-office functions.

Motor Registration, as an example, we don't have people in the back rooms

stapling the sticker onto the letter to stuff it in the envelope anymore,

because that's done print on demand. So those staff are able to focus on higher

priority work like the call taking and counter service and other functions of

the division.

J. DINN:

So is the move to

digitization also, I guess, a part of a government strategy to make the services

more attractive to private capital and to make it easier to privatize them?

S. STOODLEY:

I'll say for myself that is

absolutely not a consideration. We are trying to make things easier for

residents to deal with government, and trying to make government more efficient.

Government should be easy for people to deal with. We should have less red tape.

I would strongly add that is not at all what we've thought about.

J. DINN:

If your department or if

Motor Registration is eventually privatized, would the system that you're set

up, would that go with it, be part of the deal or would any company be

responsible and more less have to come up with their own data management system?

S. STOODLEY:

All that is to be

determined.

J. DINN:

And I would guess that is

part of what you're evaluating, too.

S. STOODLEY:

Well, I guess, just for

everyone, and for those who don't know, a lot of the IT systems that we have are

very old. MRD system is very old. It's on a mainframe, which limits our ability

to do new things, like, for example, have a plate-to-owner system rather than a

plate-to-vehicle system like we have.

So we

have a big, long list of new things we'd like to do, like having electric

vehicle plates. We get requests all the time for new licence plates from

organizations. We're not able to move as fast as we'd like because our

technology is slow. I guess regardless of what we do, we will need to upgrade

our technology as well. So that's another consideration.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

What's

the update on a transition from plate-to-vehicle to a plate-to-owner system,

when it comes to –?

S. STOODLEY:

So we have not been able to

do that with our current system. We need to invest in a new system prior to

that, unfortunately.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

And

what is the status of the shared services approach to back-office functions of

government, such as financial administration, human resources, IT and so on and

so forth, and has there been any progress in implementing the policy, any

savings?

S. STOODLEY:

The big thing that we've had

progress on recently is collections. So collections, we've brought it in from a

few areas of government. It now sits in Digital Government and Service NL. I

mentioned in my opening statement we recently just brought in collections for

IPGS. I guess from an IT perspective, OCIO is essentially a core shared service.

We're now looking at how the IT and digital landscapes look when you consider,

for example the NLESD or NLCHI – I think NLCHI's been announced that it's coming

into government. So what does digital look like and IT with NLCHI coming in and

any other organization.

But I

think cybersecurity is also a relevant discussion here where government spends a

lot of money on cybersecurity, and we have lots of agencies, boards and

commissions who may not have the expertise or financial means to spend any money

or time or knowledge on cybersecurity. And given the lack of cybersecurity

experts in Newfoundland and Labrador, I think it makes sense for the provincial

government to take more of these organizations under its wing from an IT

perspective. Even for the simple, pure reason of protecting the information that

we all have. So that would be my next big priority.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

MHA

O'Driscoll.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Are we going on to the next

one? That's it for that section, I think.

CHAIR:

Oh, I thought you might've

had more.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No, I'm good on that

section.

CHAIR:

Are you good as well, MHA

Dinn?

J. DINN:

No, I have just a few more,

Chair.

CHAIR:

Okay.

J. DINN:

Are there any pilot projects

under way for introducing new safety measures in school buses, such as camera

technology, seat belts, automatic emergency braking?

S. STOODLEY:

Okay, just one second.

I used

to have something on this. We are working with the Canadian organization – Sean,

I don't know if you want to talk about school buses. Thank you, Sean.

S. DUTTON:

In terms of seat belts on buses, there was an evaluation done through the

Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety. They

completed that report and it's online at comt.ca, for anyone who wants to read

it.

I think

also you were asking about the braking; I don't have any specific information on

the braking. The standards of manufacture of school buses

is a federal matter – Transport Canada regulates that. And I am sorry, what was

the third item you mentioned?

J. DINN:

There was seat belts, camera technologies and –

S. DUTTON:

So in terms of the cameras, legislation has been passed and regulations

published around using image capture technology for highway enforcement and the

regulations have been published in the

Gazette . We formed an inter-departmental committee. Education is one of a

number of departments that would be involved, along with Justice and

Transportation.

So we are evaluating the options on the deployment of cameras for strong

enforcement around school buses, school zones, highway construction sites and

for general highway traffic enforcement by law enforcement offices. They will be

reporting back to government later this year and then that will inform next

year's budget process.

J. DINN:

And that would include cameras in the school buses? That is what I was

specifically asking about. This is –

S. DUTTON:

We don't have any involvement in our department in cameras on school buses if it

is for the behaviour of the children. I think what I am talking about is the use

for ensuring that people are not illegally passing a school bus.

J. DINN:

What policies have been put in place over the past year to help streamline the

client experience for businesses at Digital Services?

S. STOODLEY:

We have done more of the kind of online processing and applications and renewals

rather than I guess from a policy perspective. So I will mention them. For

example, you can now apply and renew your mortgage broker licence online, real

estate broker, real estate salesperson, pre-paid funeral sales licence,

insurance broker licences, financial services licences, applications and

renewals. Then from an electrician's perspective, anyone applying for an

electrical permit, extending an electrical permit, a non-commercial electrical

permit or a contractor electrical certificate, renewing or applying for, all of

that can happen online.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

When can we expect amendments to the

S. STOODLEY:

Advisory Board gave us their recommendations and we did consultations on those.

I think I did three or four virtual consultations with a range of stakeholders

and then the What We Heard document

was just recently published on our website. So I encourage anyone who is

interested to go check that out.

We are working now on taking the information we heard as well, as the

recommendations of the Buildings

that has to go

through the process.

I have

said, I would ideally target the upcoming fall sitting, but I'm not sure how

confident I am in that, but that's my ideal target at the moment.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

there a system in place now where insurance companies can tell the department

when someone has cancelled his or her car insurance policy?

S. STOODLEY:

The insurance validation

project is in its final stages. Do you have –?

G. BOLAND:

Yes, we've been working with

IBC, the Insurance Bureau of Canada, as well as all of our insurers to implement

a real-time validation process. We actually, this past fall, had to make some

more amendments to our legislation to help facilitate the authorities required

to demand the information being reported to the registrar of motor vehicles.

We're

working with IBC, like I said, and the OCIO to develop the systems required and

we are aiming for this fall to have that process in place.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

1.2.02,

French Language Services: Are there any particular efforts under way to expand

the availability of French services to the public, either in the public or the

private sector?

S. STOODLEY:

Thank you.

I have

to say, I've has an excellent relationship with the FFTNL. We did launch the

ability to get, I think, French birth and death certificates online. The

experience is online and you get the certificate in French. We do look at any

new online service and could we launch that in French and what's required for

that, considering the end-to-end experience.

That is

something we are actively looking at. We certainly want, ideally, to have as

many services in French as possible. We just have a big priority list and

looking at volumes and which thing we could do next that has the biggest bang,

has the most impact for residents. So where possible we do have services in

French.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

One

final question under 1.2.03, just to make sure I heard it correctly. The death

notification project that was referred to in Purchased Services, has that been

completed?

S. STOODLEY:

My understanding is the

majority of the IT work has been completed. We are now moving on to staff

training. So, recently, in the last few weeks, I've written the regional health

authorities asking for contacts, just to facilitate training and the person on

the ground who is going to be leading it. So all that is under way. So we're in

the kind of final, I guess, acceptance phase. Now we're working on getting the

staff trained so that everyone understands how to do the project and the IT

systems work is complete.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

That's

it for me, Chair.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

Clerk.

CLERK:

Executive and Support

Services, 1.1.01 to 1.2.03 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 to 1.2.03

carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

MHA

Reid.

S. REID:

I'm in favour.

CHAIR:

Are you okay?

S. REID:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Do you need to ask any

questions or anything?

S. REID:

No, good.

CHAIR:

Okay.

motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 1.2.03 carried.

CHAIR:

Get well soon.

Next we

have – Clerk.

CLERK:

Regulatory Affairs, 2.1.01

to 2.2.04.

CHAIR:

MHA O'Driscoll.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay, thank you.

Just a

couple of questions again.

2020, you amended a legislation to allow unlocking pensions. Do you have any

update on how much was withdrawn from the pension funds in '21-'22?

S. STOODLEY:

We do have some information,

I'm not sure if it's the amount. Just one second.

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

S. STOODLEY:

Okay, sure.

CHAIR:

Just to note that if your

officials would like to take down their mask when they're speaking, it's fine.

S. DUTTON:

So we have been monitoring the progress and I think the initial report for

six-month period from – I'm sorry, it was less than six months – from 1st of

March to June 30 last year there were 428 withdrawals and then for the period

July 1 to December 31 there were another 336 withdrawals.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay. Perfect.

These

are in different sections but I thought I'd just get these questions out of the

way and then be able to move on.

Can you

provide some information on the number of complaints received last year in the

Consumer Affairs division and how many of them were related to the pricing of

goods?

S. STOODLEY:

I might have something on that, I think. Give me a second, apologies.

Sorry,

I can't put my finger on that but we can certainly get that for you.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay. No problem.

Just

related to that, to costs and the rising costs and people, I'm going to say,

gouging customers, I'm going to say. I don't know if you call it gouging, but

prices just jump up an extreme amount. I use lumber as an example. They pay

more, but how do we track – I know they get complaints that people are charging

you more. Is there a need? Is there something that you can check to go against

that? Do you know what I'm saying, that they might not be price gouging but is

there a way that we're checking to say that they're not?

S. STOODLEY:

The wording in the

legislation is around unconscionable acts. That was in before I came in. It's

not as, I guess, helpful I think in, let's say, prosecuting someone who is

charging more in one place.

We do

welcome anyone who feels like they've been impacted in that way to reach out to

our office and make a complaint. The team, they do consider the price of things

in other similar locations. If a price was $10 everywhere then that wouldn't

necessarily be an unconscionable act, but if one place was charging 20 or 30

times the same price as everyone else, then maybe that would be considered. So

we would work with the person making the complaint to try and get together as

much documentation as we could and we'd reach out to the supplier.

I don't

know if you wanted to add anything.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

There are examples that

people ask. I would use a simple one that one of my buddies is a plumber and he

bought hot-water boilers and they're $250, now all of a sudden they're $500 and

everybody blames it on COVID. Is that actually the case is what I'm trying to

get at. Is it really the case? Because last week he could go get one, next week

he goes up and they have to charge more obviously because that's the price of

it. Is there anyway to check against that? I don't know if there is, but I mean

that's a question that certainly comes up.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes. I certainly agree and I

know the cost of everything has been going up. I've seen articles in the paper

about certain stores maybe charging more than inflation and more than what a

supply chain markup would be.

But I

guess I go back to the legislation, which I didn't bring in, around

unconscionable acts, it is – I'm not an expert on how one would prove something

would be an unconscionable act. I would say that the price increases we've seen

in Canada, overall generally probably would not, if I had to guess, would not

meet that threshold of unconscionable act, but we'd certainly welcome anyone to

reach out to our department and we would work with them on any complaints that

they might have.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

We just hear it so often,

based on COVID and is it really the problem?

I had a

question on your tech system and I know that it's antiquated and it's old. Have

you looked into seeing how much a new system would actually cost to get it where

you want to be?

S. STOODLEY:

This is more of my OCIO hat, because the Office of the Chief Information Officer

would do that kind of RFP work around the systems. I guess there's no issue with

me providing more information on that with that hat on. So we did do, maybe in

last year, a request for information – because we have four mainframe systems. I

think it was a request for information where we went out, or it could have been

an RFQ, and we went out to industry and said how would you approach this

problem. And we got a range of options from a range of vendors.

One of those was taking the code that we have and just rewriting it and plopping

it onto a better, newer code base and then we wouldn't get any more

functionality but we would have a – it is very stable. You can't hire coders

that know how to code the mainframes. So that is the problem. The security is

not the problem. It is very stable. It is just no one knows how to use it. And

there are other companies that have really old technology that pay more than

government. In my last life, we had a mainframe system so they would pay more

than what government would pay those same coders.

So we have not yet decided exactly which road we are taking in terms of

upgrading the systems and it would depend on whether we did all four or just one

of those. But I know the MRD, for example, is one of the bigger systems and it

would be, depending on what you did, it could be $5 million, $20 million –

L. O'DRISCOLL:

A big range.

S. STOODLEY:

Yeah, to get absolutely no new functionality, like you couldn't do it for less

than $5 million. Based on the information, and I don't have the exact numbers

off the top of my head, but I guess that was a range. I personally am bothered

by spending that money and coming out with exactly the same functionality. So

then what does it cost to have a new system with purpose built for what we

actually need? And that is not what we have got the prices on. So that is all

still –

L. O'DRISCOLL:

It is hard to put in a new system for a plate to vehicle or plate to owner – if

that is the only reason you are going to do it, it would be hard to spend that

much money if that was going to be the only change in your function, which I

think is a big change. I guess the other governments across Canada have

difference systems. So it would be hard just to do it or spend that kind of

money just for that change, but I guess eventually it will come.

S. STOODLEY:

And I will just respond to that, with my OCIO hat on. We have looked at what

other provinces have done and most other provinces, in that situation, they have

done a like for like, so they pay and they pick it up and drop off the exact

same functionality with just a new, better code base.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Regarding MyGovNL yesterday and the issues that you had, you did say that you

are considering changing it. What would be the ramifications of changing if you

did go and change?

S. STOODLEY:

Well, we haven't had the time – really, the team has been fully focused on

getting things back so it is up at the moment – well, not up. What has happened

is there is a problem with how many people can access it at a time. Even though

before we launched I asked very

specific questions to the vendor about volume and peak volume and they assured

me that there would be no issues.

So my understanding is

that's kind of the crux of the issue. At the moment, there is a queue put in

front of it so if someone went on right now, I think they would be able to wait

in line and do something with MyGovNL. My feeling is that is not fixed yet. So

we have not put out a press release saying it is resolved because it is not

resolved.

We're

looking at a range of options in terms of going back to the original, what we

had a few months ago, which is the same functionality. It's been four days now

and I cannot tell you when the problem will be fixed, which is itself a huge

problem. It's the biggest thing I'm working on when I'm not here in Estimates,

with the OCIO team.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

All right, no problem, thank

you.

Just

move on to 2.1.01, under Regulatory Affairs, Salaries. Last year Salaries came

in under budget by $357,000. Can you outline why and were there positions vacant

and how have you filled them?

S. STOODLEY:

This is where we merged the

two divisions in advance of 2022-2023. So there were eight positions which no

longer exist, which then became four new positions created. So we didn't get rid

of any people, just positions that changed. And then we moved a role to

Executive Support. Then the extra savings we have from that, we are then moving

to be an extra residential tenancies adjudicator position.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Purchased Services, last year it was over budget by $59,600. Can you explain

that?

S. STOODLEY:

Absolutely. As we move

things online, we unfortunately incur additional Moneris fees. Those are fees

like when you buy something on your credit card online Moneris is the company

that government has a contract with. That contract with Moneris is with the

Department of Finance. They are, my understanding is, currently or soon to be in

negotiations with them or are looking for a new provider.

So our

department has a strong interest in lower fees. At the moment, it's with the

Department of Finance to negotiate and there's very little we can do in terms of

the extra costs that were charged to process fees online.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Okay, thank you.

MHA

Dinn.

J. DINN:

Thank you, Chair.

Under

2.1.01, Consumer and Financial Services, what is the current wait time to have a

hearing at the Residential Tenancies Board and what is the current caseload

waiting to be heard?

S. STOODLEY:

Sure, just a second. So

while I look that up, we recently hired our third residential adjudicator. So we

have three of three and, as I mentioned, we have moved resources so that we're

going to have a fourth residential tenancies adjudicator.

It is a

difficult role to fill and it is a difficult job – sorry, I need to better

organize my binder here. Do you have that information, Sean?

S. DUTTON:

Last year, the average wait time was 86 days but so far, in 2022, it is 43 days.

Again, we are anticipating hiring of an additional adjudicator this year so we

should be able to further reduce the wait time.

J. DINN:

That is good news indeed for

a lot of people who call my office.

I want

to go back, with regard to the vacancies, and I think you talked about people

move in and move out or they apply for other jobs. Is that affecting services?

Because after a while, there is no continuity and there is no passing on of, I

guess for a lack of a better word, corporate knowledge or the learning. I'm

calling up one day and talking to a person, the next day that person has moved

on and I have to start all over again. More importantly, is there any way then

for that person where they pick up a lesson plan, I guess – here is what is so

far and we're moving ahead.

S. STOODLEY:

So I would say the movement

of people, particularly coming into the front-line roles in our department and

then moving to other internal roles within government, are certainly a

significant problem which last summer when we saw the MRD issues, that certainly

was a huge contributor to that problem.

We do

have very – sophisticated is the wrong word. Training programs and all that is

quite standardized. We recently did kind of a Lean review, using some of our

internal Lean experts, just to make sure that everything was as streamlined as

possible.

I don't

know if you want to add anything. It is a big problem and we do have training

and stuff.

J. DINN:

Is it more of a problem for MRD than any other department or is it specific to

Motor Registration?

S. STOODLEY:

I'll let them add to it, but

I do think it is, particularly for MRD because – well, any front-line service.

If you go to an airport, there is a sign up saying please be nice to people. I

guess there is the customer service side where people are generally a bit more

agitated, maybe, and maybe not as nice and patient as the general public. But

then there is also the challenge of hiring staff.

I know

that across Canada, there are challenges hiring and retaining front-line workers

to deal with the public. So we have those two issues coming together, plus the

media attention, I'll be honest, that MRD might get doesn't make it better. If

they hear something on Open Line

about MRD and then they walk in and things are not perfect, then no one is to be

happy. The staff aren't happy, the residents aren't happy and then it –

J. DINN:

So we need to get more

people in there permanently and make it attractive.

S. STOODLEY:

I mean, we try our best to

bring as many people in as we can. We do have a team that handles calls. In the

future, I'd like to see a team that helps via online chat. One benefit of having

more things online allows people more time to deal with or help people in

person, seniors who might not have access online, more time to sit down and

handhold and just take care of people when they see them in person.

It is a

problem and there's no magic solution. I don't know if anyone wants to add

anything.

J. DINN:

That's fine, just as long as

we acknowledge that.

I know

my colleague from Ferryland mentioned about price gouging. Have there been any

reports brought to the department accusing businesses of price gouging last

year?

S. STOODLEY:

We definitely would have had

complaints. I don't have the numbers with me, but we'll certainly get those for

you.

J. DINN:

Also, if there were any

investigations and follow-ups or fines as a result of that would be great.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes. We'll happily provide

that.

J. DINN:

2.1.02, Pension Benefits

Standards: Salaries were under budget last year. What was the reason for that?

S. STOODLEY:

We had a vacant compliance

officer position for a large portion of the year.

J. DINN:

That compliance officer

would be dealing with what? Would that be housing?

S. STOODLEY:

Pension benefits.

J. DINN:

Okay.

2.1.03,

Commercial Registrations, why did spending on Salaries come in under budget last

year?

S. STOODLEY:

We had a vacancy in a clerk

IVB and clerk III position throughout the year. We just had delays in

recruitment. There was a decrease of $117,000.

J. DINN:

Okay.

Under

that same

section 2.1.03, Purchased Services, why did the spending in that

exceed the budgeted amount?

S. STOODLEY:

We exceeded the budget there

because of the Moneris fees again that we didn't anticipate. Higher debit and

credit cards – b ecause

what we pay for an online transaction is more expensive than what we pay for an

in-person. So if you go in and use your chip and PIN on the machine, that is

cheaper for government than if you pay online.

Based on the current contract we have with Moneris – that we are not involved in

– that is how the pay rates go. So as we have more transactions online that

require payment, the Moneris fees go up. And there is also a Unisys contract. It

is not just Moneris; it is Moneris and Unisys contracts.

J. DINN:

I wouldn't mind having a further discussions about the cost-benefit analysis of

online versus actually having real people do – since we seem to be digitizing. I

am assuming you have done the analysis and you are assuming you will save money

in the long run. I guess with transaction fees you don't have to worry about

pension benefits and sick leave too. Do you know what I am saying? Like if the

Moneris fees are going up would, it be better to have people there.

S. STOODLEY:

Sean.

S. DUTTON:

Again, we haven't eliminated any positions as a result of putting any services

online. In terms of commercial registrations, we have one location on Elizabeth

Avenue. So it is not convenient for most of the population to go to the office.

The number of offices we would have to staff in order to make that service more

widely available – this is the most cost-effective way to make the service

accessible to the majority of people.

It is a cost that we have to absorb, but it helps make it more accessible. The

time it takes for someone to do that renewal online is a fraction of what it

would take to have to get to the office and provide a wet signature or write a

cheque or any of the other factors that would be involved in in-person service.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

2.2.01, Vital Statistics Registry, why was spending on Purchased Services under

budget last year?

S. STOODLEY:

So 2.2.01, Vital Statistics, Purchased Services, we had a reduction in the

number of certificates purchased. We had a registrar retire. The registrar's

names are printed on the certificates and so we didn't order as many as we

usually would because we are trying to use up the certificates with the old

registrar's name before we order new certificates with the new registrar's name.

We couldn't order too many with the old registrar's name on them because we knew

they were retiring. That's why we spent less money.

J. DINN:

Sounds good. It is efficient.

Under that 2.2.01, why were the projections for federal and provincial revenues

so far off the mark last year?

S. STOODLEY:

Sure.

Our Vital Statistics

Division, we have systems where our system talks to Stats Canada, talks to

Service Canada, talks to CRA, talks to Elections Canada. So as we share

information with those, the federal government would compensate us for providing

them records or information.

On the federal revenue, for

example, we had higher than anticipated revenue for records that we provided to

the federal government. The provincial revenue, we had a lower than expected

revenue from shipping birth certificates to individuals.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

I can

keep going.

CHAIR:

I was thinking how I was

going to reply to that last email.

ahead, MHA O'Driscoll.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I'm just waiting for the

minister; take your time.

S. STOODLEY:

Thank you.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I did have one question;

Queen's Printer, they must print the budget, obviously.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I was thinking about that

last night. I said, where does that actually get printed?

S. STOODLEY:

They stay up all night.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Well, secrecy on it, too; so

you can't go outside. So I started to think on that last night when they were

talking about it.

Under

Queen's Printer, Revenue - Provincial – you might have done that already, I

think, did you? No, maybe not.

S. STOODLEY:

No.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Could you please provide an

explanation of less than anticipated revenue last year?

S. STOODLEY:

Absolutely.

As more

things, more people search and find information online, we print fewer things

and we sell fewer things. So university libraries bought fewer books from us and

they bought fewer copies of legislation from us.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

I'll

move on to 2.2.03. Under Salaries, last year there was a saving of $70,000. Can

you explain that?

S. STOODLEY:

We had a vacant printing production worker position and we did not need as much

overtime as we had allocated.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Supplies, under the same section, last year there was a savings of $62,200. Can

you explain that?

S. STOODLEY:

We had lower printing

requests. In particular, we didn't have to print public exams because of

COVID-19. That was offset by a purchase of a replacement part for a printer.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Purchased Services,

there is a savings of $15,500. Can you explain that for us?

S. STOODLEY:

So we had lower copying,

printing charges. This is a bulk of the printing for government. If we're not

printing as much, then we don't have as many costs.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Under 2.2.04, Salaries,

there was a salary savings of $288,000. Can you explain that?

S. STOODLEY:

Yes. This is due to

vacancies and delays in recruitment of collection officers.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Purchased Services,

under the same heading, there is also a savings of $21,800. I wonder if you can

supply some detail on that.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes. So we had lower than

anticipated legal costs associated with collections activity and we had less

collections efforts during COVID-19. Actually some of the collections team were

reallocated to doing other things, as were important to the government for

COVID-19. We did not do as much collections activity.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Can you give an overview of

how much is outstanding in terms of being owed to the government? How much was

collected last year?

S. STOODLEY:

I don't have that

information.

S. DUTTON:

For the year ending March

31, the number of outstanding accounts was 86,000 for a total receivable for

$743 million, but $58 million was collected.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

That's

it for this

section for me on that section. Jim, I don't know if you have more.

CHAIR:

MHA Dinn.

J. DINN:

Actually not many more, I

think my colleague asked just about all of them. But I do have a question with

regard to the online submission of expenses for MHAs.

S. STOODLEY:

It's horrible.

J. DINN:

Okay, good.

I don't

need to go further on that, except to say that I know when I was with the NLTA,

CTF, you could submit things online boom, done. Here, it seems to be: do it

online, print it off, sign it, bring it – is there any – would you have control

over to upgrade so that it can be done totally online and save this – it's a

rather archaic process.

S. STOODLEY:

I would be happy to have

OCIO engage with the House of Assembly. I'm not sure who would – because I guess

there's a process piece there that the House of Assembly would be involved in

outlining, then the OCIO would work with them on the technology. I mean, we can

certainly get together and see if there's any way we can make that more

streamlined.

guess, from an overall government digital perspective that impacts 40 people. I

agree, it's a very poor experience for someone; 40 MHAs and their 40

constituency assistants, so that's 80 people. I guess, just to be a devil's

advocate, I could have them spend the time on things that would improve the

customer experience and resident experience of more than 80 people.

those are the types of things we think about for which service to do next. I

mean, we can certainly do that, but then we're taking away from improving

something that impacts more than 80 people.

J. DINN:

No, I'm just saying, in

terms of – I don't know what the cost is, but all I want to be able to do is

submit my line, put my digital signature and be done with it.

S. STOODLEY:

If I had to guess, and I'm

pretty sure as an MHA I've asked this before, because it is a very poor

experience, they require a physical signature. But maybe one of our House of

Assembly Committees can take that further and if that's no long required then we

can certainly look at changing the process.

J. DINN:

Okay, maybe that's a simpler

fix.

question with the print plant: Do you actually have printing presses down there

or is it digitized now? I thought they were with the dinosaurs, they're almost

extinct, not the mimeograph.

S. STOODLEY:

I know we do have digital

printers, I imagine we also have a printing press. But I don't know if Sean

knows?

S. DUTTON:

These are Xerox-type quality machines, but they're for this kind of large-scale

printing. It's not like a photocopier.

J. DINN:

No, no.

S. DUTTON:

But it's not a Gestetner machine either. So they have a variety of those

machines. There's a saddle-stich binder, things you need to make public exams,

all of that stuff is there. I'm sure that the director would be happy to offer

any of you a tour anytime you'd like. They're in the basement of the East Block.

J. DINN:

And my point was that if

it's like what I'm thinking of as a printing press, we had gone digital. It's

not the photocopier. I understand that. I just wanted to know is it gone to that

level. We're not using the old printing presses, which we used to use in the

NLTA. That's long gone. I just wanted to make sure (inaudible).

S. DUTTON:

It's for making documents that require binding, so pamphlets, brochures –

J. DINN:

Perfect.

S. DUTTON:

– things that require staples in the middle, all of that sort of thing.

J. DINN:

Thank you. That's it.

CHAIR:

Okay.

S. STOODLEY:

We're ready to go to the

next section, I think.

CHAIR:

Yeah, okay, just wondering.

Clerk,

can you recall the grouping?

CLERK:

Regulatory Affairs, 2.1.01

to 2.2.04 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.1.01 to 2.2.04

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.2.01 through 2.2.04 carried.

CHAIR:

Okay, next.

CLERK:

Digital Government and

Services, 3.1.01 to 3.4.02 inclusive.

CHAIR:

MHA O'Driscoll

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Thank you.

Just a

couple of questions. One is have you ever considered – I know I came from the

car industry – just for safety reason, motor vehicle inspections on vehicles

after a certain age, say five years, six years, maybe seven. Seven is old but

I'm going to say five years or depending on kilometres, because there are

vehicles out there, I know and we all know that they're out there. No one ever

sees them until you see them go in with – I've had mechanics or – not in where I

worked, but I've had garages that take pictures of vehicle with a Vice-Grip on a

brake line because that brake line has stopped, and there's no inspection until

the brake pads need to be done, then they have to get into it.

So I

think it went out in John Efford's days, I think. Just something I wonder if it

ever came up in consideration because it is a safety factor for sure in some of

these vehicles.

S. DUTTON:

This was eliminated when

Ernie McLean was the minister in the 1990s. We have occasionally gotten

correspondence around the point that you raised, particularly from certain

garages and that sort of thing, but at the time concern was that the inspections

weren't overly effective. They were concerned about fraud and things of that

nature. I believe they're still inspection required when the vehicle changes

hands – correct me if I'm wrong.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes, no, you're right.

If you

change ownership for sure, you need an inspection, but if somebody buys a

vehicle sometimes and keep it 10 years. Sometimes they're not safe, that's all

I'll say. And when they're telling you, they're telling you that for a reason

because they're the ones that are fixing them and they're shocked at the point

that they are. It's just something that I said I'd throw out there, because –

S. STOODLEY:

Well, if the PC caucus are

supportive of that, we can certainly take it away. I'm all for improving safety

on our roadways.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

The other side of that is

when I asked that question, obviously, we're talking about cost of living, and

that affects the cost of living for those people as well. It's a hard question

to ask but it's a safety question to ask. So that's why I'm asking it.

I'm

good. I'll just go on to 3.1.01.

Did you

have anything else to add there? No, okay.

3.1.01,

Salaries, can you provide a breakdown of the number of employees in this

division by region?

S. STOODLEY:

I don't have that to hand. I

can certainly provide that. It doesn't look like we have that to hand, we can

certainly provide that.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Salaries there's a substantial savings in this line item from 2021-22 of

$801,000 was saved in Salaries. Can you explain that?

S. STOODLEY:

Absolutely.

We had

vacancies during the year in highway enforcement officers, clerical staff, a

driver examiner and manager positions throughout the province with MRD. Those

are impacted by high turnover and delays in recruitment.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Supplies, last year went over budget by $119,000. Can you explain that one?

S. STOODLEY:

Absolutely. We had kind of

an addition and a subtraction here. We purchased licence plates for Come Home

Year and that was offset by a reduction in requirement for supplies and uniforms

for highway enforcement officers and driver examiners due to the vacancies.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

All right.

Under

Purchased Services, can you provide a breakdown of the services purchased and

the amount of each? Additionally, why did the line item go over budget by

$393,000?

S. STOODLEY:

Thank you.

Purchased Services, we had higher debit and credit card fees so that was

$373,000 worth due to greater volume of online transactions. We also had $10,500

worth of ergonomic assessments. Another thing is as we have a lot of staff

coming in and going through, if people request ergonomic assessments, those are

provided. The more staff we have coming through the more ergonomic assessment

costs we have. Then we did have $10,000 of charges for the insurance validation

project.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Grants and Subsidies, can you provide a breakdown of how and where these grants

are awarded?

S. STOODLEY:

That is an excellent

question. I'm going to refer to the team here.

B. STEELE:

Can you repeat the question.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Sure. Under Grants and

Subsidies, can you provide a breakdown of how and where these grants are

awarded?

That's

under 3.1.01, sorry.

B. STEELE:

This provides membership fees for the following – and also $10,000 grant for

SafetyNL Lids for Kids program. So we provide money to Commercial Vehicle Safety

Alliance, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, International

Registration Plan and American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

B. STEELE:

And I have the amounts as well, sorry.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Sure.

B. STEELE:

Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators is $10,200; Lids for Kids is

$10,000; the CVSA membership is $10,200; the American Association of Motor

Vehicle Administrators is $2,300; and the International Registration Plan is

$9,800.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Provincial, can you provide an explanation for the less than

anticipated revenue last year? I would think that is all the same: online.

S. STOODLEY:

Thank you.

(Technical difficulties.)

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Can you provide an update on how long someone needs to wait for an appointment

at the various Motor Registration divisions then?

S. STOODLEY:

Sure. I don't think it is that long at the moment. We have that – okay, thank

you, Gail.

G. BOLAND:

I ran a report on April 28 across our office locations throughout the province,

on average it's only a two- or three-day wait for in-person services. The

exception, of course, is road tests. In Mount Pearl there is a wait. We do have

a wait-list started and I'm working with staff now to identify a plan to address

the current wait time to get that down to something that is reasonable.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

How big a wait-list is it? Like is it (inaudible).

G. BOLAND:

Last week, there were about 60 people on the wait-list.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

How many do you do per day? Roughly? (Inaudible) different, it changes.

G. BOLAND:

Yeah. It changes every day and depending upon is it a Class 5 licence, is it a

commercial licence, is it a taxi licence. So for example a Class 5 licence takes

about 30 minutes to do. A taxi licence would take almost an hour to do. So it

depends on the type.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

We'll say that I had a dealing with – I had an ATV that – when we went though

the regulations, it had to be registered. I bought it from my brother and he

never had it registered. So I had to go through the process. It was a real good

process. Now, it took a month but that is the process because I didn't know if

it was stolen. He didn't know if it was stolen so he had to go through and check

the serial number. It was a good process and it did help it for sure.

G. BOLAND:

Absolutely. And that is something that we are looking into to, especially with

the new off-road vehicles legislation and providing that service through

MyGovNL.

S. STOODLEY:

I will just add, we do have an issue with people booking multiple driver tests,

which does cause inefficiency. We need to sort out some kind of solution because

we see someone; they book one appointment here, they book one appointment in

Harbour Grace, they book one appointment in Clarenville, they might book another

one in Harbour Grace the next day. I would prefer not to charge them or I would

prefer not to charge and have to rebate, but we do see some people – there were

tens of driver tests booked and someone then had to notice and cancel them and

that. We are trying to solve that issue, but that does lead to our inefficiency

in driver tests.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I guess with your antiquated system it can't stop you from booking at all other

Motor Registration divisions. So at some point in time that might be another

avenue for it to go.

That's fine, but it was a good experience. I will say that.

S. STOODLEY:

Thank you.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

The other question would be

on ATVs. Obviously, legislation is coming down; I mean you have people that have

never registered an ATV. It's going to be a big problem. You're going to have

enforcement; you're going to have more costs to people.

I just

think that it might be a little bit of leniency for the first time. It could be

an older gentleman in the community that never registered and is driving in – in

these rural communities, I'll say that, they're driving on the sides of the

roads or they're going in and cutting wood. You haul them in and give them a

ticket, that wouldn't be so good. Eventually it has to get there, but maybe a

warning to start.

S. STOODLEY:

I would just add that the enforcement of the legislation would rest in Fishery,

Forestry and Agriculture or with Justice and Public Safety.

I will

say that there won't be – the new laws don't come into effect until May 19, so

anyone who's registered their vehicle in advance of that won't have any

additional requirements. It's after May 19.

S. DUTTON:

I could just add that the requirements for registration have not changed as a

result of the law. So it's a long-standing requirement that, as you say, there's

probably low compliance with. And the only place where that might have an impact

on people is with respect to the training requirement. So they're not coming

into force on May 19, but at a later date once we have the training more widely

available and people will have to do the training, if they are registering for

the first time.

So a

long-time user who has not registered, this would be a good time for those

listening out there to register your off-road vehicle.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah, that's why I did mine.

CHAIR:

MHA Dinn.

J. DINN:

Thank you, Chair.

I'll

start by saying, I will agree with my colleague from Ferryland about motor

vehicle inspections after some date. New cars, they're under warranty and

they're brought back, but I think it's something to be considered down the road

to look at how we can do it efficiently and cost effectively.

The

other thing I'm going to talk about is I see increasing number of cars that have

tinted glass all around. I don't know if there's a way of having that – just as

it's illegal to remove a catalytic converter, that should be illegal, too.

S. STOODLEY:

It is illegal.

J. DINN:

So they're getting it done somewhere, and it's not just simply someone buying

the film and putting it on there, you can see it looks professionally done. But

from my point of view, I should be able to see the driver of a car, especially

if I'm a pedestrian; I want to be able to see their eyes. If they're coming, I

want to be able to see. So I don't know if there's a way of cracking down on

that, but that's got to be –

S. STOODLEY:

I will say it's illegal to

have your windows tinted at the driver and in front. I'll certainly raise that

in my next discussion with the Minister Justice and Public Safety. It is already

illegal.

J. DINN:

I see more and more of them.

The

other one, I'm just wondering – I do cycle to work. Probably the most dangerous

part is coming up on Prince Philip Drive there. As someone who lost a brother to

a cycling accident, I'll say this: A lot of cars, they'll slow down and move out

three feet; not everyone does. I'm just wondering as a fun or positive,

proactive way – we have to renew our licences every year. Maybe it's time to put

in a little quiz that make it fun – hey, complete this quiz, maybe you'll get a

free motor vehicle registration for a year, if your name is drawn or you get an

iPad or whatever else. But each year as a way of hey, did you know what you do

when you come to a crosswalk.

It just

reminds people, because bad habits get ingrained over years and you don't even

know it. I know I'm far from it, just as a thought. Especially if we're going

digital online right now, it's just a matter of here, click on this and go from

there.

How

many highway enforcement officers are currently employed by the department under

the highway safety program?

S. STOODLEY:

I'll defer to Gail.

G. BOLAND:

There are currently 13

highway enforcement officers employed throughout the province. We do have some

vacancies there that we are currently actively recruiting.

J. DINN:

Okay.

How

many vacancies would that be?

G. BOLAND:

We have five positions

currently under recruitment, and we have two positions that are inactive due to

extended leave.

J. DINN:

Okay.

But

they are replaced, though, are they?

G. BOLAND:

Yes.

J. DINN:

Okay.

Where

would those five vacancies be across the province, or are they –?

G. BOLAND:

Yeah, they're across the

province.

J. DINN:

Okay, thank you.

Provincial revenues were less than anticipated last year because of –

S. STOODLEY:

If we're still at 3.1.01?

J. DINN:

Yes, we are.

S. STOODLEY:

We had fewer requests for

expedited delivery of driver's licence cards.

J. DINN:

No one was driving.

S. STOODLEY:

People didn't lose their

licence; they weren't travelling.

J. DINN:

Yes, that's right, exactly.

The

budget for Salaries increased this year under – sorry, I'll move on 3.2.01,

Support Services. By the way, out of curiosity, I don't know if it's under your

jurisdiction or not, probably not. With the advent of driverless cars, any

discussion within your department or between departments as to how that's going

to be as the future unrolls.

S. STOODLEY:

The Canadian Council for

Motor Transportation, CCMT, along with the federal government, we kind of have

an agreement. The federal government has set standards for driverless cars and I

guess it's currently in like a test-and-learn phase, if I would call it that off

the top of my head.

There

is documentation online available that we can certainly share with you. The

federal government has set standards for what is appropriate and what is not

appropriate. At the moment, we're still – I guess all provinces are evaluating

that. Transport Canada ultimately has ownership for driverless cars and the

safety. They're responsible for like the cybersecurity, the privacy and all

those considerations. I guess we're working with Transport Canada then in terms

of how that trickles down into the provincial regulations.

J. DINN:

Will there be any

discussion, whether it's your department or an insurance company, as to

insurance rates? So for right now, if I were living over in Port aux Choix, for

example, my premiums would probably be half what I'm paying here because I'm in

a high-risk zone. I'm just wondering if there's any discussion as to what that

would mean.

S. STOODLEY:

Sure.

That is

under us, under our Financial Services Division. The Public Utilities Board

regulates insurance rates, and the Public Utilities Board legislation is under

Justice and Public Safety. In the upcoming Justice and Public Safety review of

the Public Utilities Board it will include a high level, somewhat look at

insurance I guess.

We do

have a mandatory insurance review every five years, and I think we're two or

three years in at the moment. Insurers have to apply to the Public Utilities

Board for a rate increase. There are formulas around that, and the Public

Utilities Board has to approve those rate increases. I guess that's –

J. DINN:

I was just curious as to how

autonomous vehicles might affect that down the road as well.

Under

3.2.01, Support Services, the budget for Salaries has increased this year. What

was the reason for that?

S. STOODLEY:

If we're talking about

3.2.01, Support Services, Salaries?

J. DINN:

Yes.

S. STOODLEY:

I guess it reflects the

salary plan. We had two previously unfunded positions, and now the government

step salary increases.

J. DINN:

Why was the budget for

Purchased Services decreased this year? It went from $64,000 to $62,000 and then

on to $49,100.

S. STOODLEY:

In our Gander location, we

no longer need to pay for secure cash services. We no longer need to pay an

armoured vehicle to pick up cash, because our office is now next to the bank –

OFFICIAL:

It is in the same mall.

S. STOODLEY:

In the same mall, so we no

longer need our protective cash services.

J. DINN:

Okay.

You can

always call on me and the Member for Ferryland, we'll be glad to deliver cash

for you.

Why was the provincial revenue less than anticipated last year?

S. STOODLEY:

So we had fewer inspections carried out.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

3.2.02, Regional Services: Given the move to digitizing services, are there any

plans to close some local offices and consolidate services into the remaining

branch offices?

S. STOODLEY:

So we have no plans to close branches.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

Under 3.2.01, Salaries, it was under budget. Why was that the case for last

year?

S. STOODLEY:

Sorry, is that 3.2.02?

J. DINN:

Yes, it is.

S. STOODLEY:

We had vacancies throughout the province, delays in recruitment. We had

environmental health officer vacancies, environmental protection officer,

regional support supervisor and a word processing clerk role vacant.

J. DINN:

Perfect.

And under 3.2.02, Regional Services, provincial revenue was less than expected

last year. This year we are expecting to collect only half the amount that was

budgeted last year. Why is that so? Why is that the case?

S. STOODLEY:

Just a second. So this is related to, from an accounting perspective, the

difference between if someone pays for their permit online versus in person. So

fewer permits sold over the counter, they are recorded as related revenue

whereas a permit sold online goes to the consolidated revenue fund.

J. DINN:

So it just goes to two different, okay.

3.3.01, Occupational Health and Safety Inspections: How many inspections were

completed last year and how many investigations into workplaces were conducted

last year as well?

S. STOODLEY:

I'll defer that to Gail.

G. BOLAND:

So in 2021, we completed 4,096 inspections.

J. DINN:

Any investigations into workplaces or would that be part of that as well?

G. BOLAND:

That would be part of that. In 2021, we concluded 11 prosecutions. Currently, we

have four ongoing fatality investigations: two that started in 2020, one in 2021

and one in 2022.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

S. STOODLEY:

We have many ongoing investigations.

G. BOLAND:

Yes.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

CHAIR:

Okay.

J. DINN:

You'll notice, Paul, I'm not

taking advantage of you.

CHAIR:

I noticed that. There's a

reason for that.

MHA

O'Driscoll.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Thank you.

I'll

just go back to the previous one, 3.2.01. I just have one question on

Transportation and Communications. Last year there was a savings of $57,700. I

was just wondering if you could explain that.

S. STOODLEY:

Sure, 3.2.02?

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No, 3.2.01, Transportation

and Communications.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay.

We had

fewer travel costs for inspection services, which is why we didn't spend what we

had budgeted.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

And under 3.2.02,

Transportation and Communications as well was $44,100. I was just wondering if

you could explain that one.

S. STOODLEY:

Under Transportation and

Communications, 3.2.02, we had the same again: lower travel costs related with

inspections.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Just a

couple of questions. I know that the Member there had asked earlier on

insurance. I think you were speaking about it. When you buy a vehicle, obviously

you have a loan on it. So before you take it, the dealerships will call the

insurance company, get the policy number and make sure they have it before the

vehicle leaves.

Someone

that pays cash for a vehicle, is that what you're trying to get – if somebody

pays cash for a vehicle, say $10,000 or $5,000, they go and get it insured, put

the insurance on it, public liability, then they go cancel it. Is that what

you're trying to track in regard to insurance on vehicles?

S. STOODLEY:

I guess in terms of the

insurance validation project – is that what you're referring to?

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes.

S. STOODLEY:

It's important that

insurance companies let us know when someone has cancelled their insurance.

Obviously, public liability insurance is mandatory. So we would cancel their

registrations if they cancelled insurance. We can't have drivers driving around

without any public liability insurance.

S. DUTTON:

When we did the auto

insurance review, that was one of the issues that came up in our EngageNL

survey, in our discussions with insurers and other stakeholders. The concern was

that people would go online and they could list a policy number in order to get

their registration for the year and then cancel their policy. We didn't have any

feedback loop to find out when those sorts of things occurred.

To do a

paper-based process to have hundreds of thousands of people send in their

insurance information wasn't really practical. So that's why the electronic

solution was devised, so we'd get real-time data when people cancelled a policy.

Then you'd be able to connect that with law enforcement.

So,

again, we're at the very late stages of completing the project. We just need to

ensure that we have a secure means for transfer of the information between the

Insurance Bureau and their members and the registrar.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I know the bank is looking

after their interest, when you – I keep saying mortgage – get a loan for a car

and you call out and you're going to change insurance companies. The insurance

company will notify the bank if somebody tries to change the insurance. Then the

bank will get after that person to get insurance. But I'm thinking on a vehicle

that doesn't have a loan on it and there is nothing tied to it. They're the ones

that we have to be careful with. Because you could buy a car off me today, you

go get public liability and you go cancel it. Are they calling you to say that

the insurance is gone? That's the ones that get you in trouble, not the other

ones.

S. STOODLEY:

At the moment, they would

not be able to renew their insurance, so we would find out at time of renewal

because you need an active insurance policy to renew your vehicle. But with this

new project, then the insurance companies would tell us when someone cancelled

and we would then look at whether or not it was appropriate to cancel their

vehicle registration.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Just trying to be clear

because, like I said, I go get insurance today on a vehicle that has no loan

attached to it. I go get the insurance, I get the policy number, register the

car and then go cancel the insurance. Is that what (inaudible) –?

S. STOODLEY:

That is what we are

preventing against.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

That is what you're trying

to prevent.

S. STOODLEY:

Yes.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

And that is what is going to

happen, so that is good. There were lots of times that happened. When we sold

cars, if you bought a car for cash that was up to you if you put insurance on

it. Now, if you had a loan on it, we had to make sure that if you left the lot

and didn't have insurance in place – because we'd do an online one but you'd

have to make sure it was done on a loan. But on the other one, if you left the

lot and then wrote off a $10,000 car, well, that's your loss because you didn't

have it on it, but hopefully that is changing.

S. STOODLEY:

But it is the law to have

public liability insurance.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Oh yeah.

S. STOODLEY:

This would be an extra

measure, but it is the driver's responsibility to follow the law of owning a

vehicle.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

The same thing could be said for house insurance with people losing their houses

S. STOODLEY:

No, it's not mandatory to

have house insurance.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No, but I'm saying the same

thing could be said. House insurance is something that should be mandatory, you

would think, if people happen to burn down their house and then it's gone.

Anyway, we will move on –

S. STOODLEY:

If you got pulled over

without insurance, you'd get a ticket. It is illegal not to have public

liability car insurance.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah, absolutely. That is

where your $30,000 to $40,000 people that got these fines that you can never get

to the end. They buy their car, cancel the insurance, get caught, they don't

care and they go do it again.

S. STOODLEY:

That's Justice and Public

Safety.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yeah, but you're trying to

get to it, so I see that point.

Under

3.3.01, last year there was a savings of $766,000 in Salaries. Can you explain

that?

S. STOODLEY:

So we had a vacancy for a

hygienist and occupational health and safety officer positions throughout the

year and then the delays of recruitment.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

We also had similar savings

last year and the same Estimates. So I'm just wondering have the same positions

been vacant for that period of time.

S. DUTTON:

They're not all the same every year. Some of that is we'll hire people, let's

say, in our Labrador West office, they may be there for a few years and then

they compete for a job in Corner Brook or Grand Falls and then there's a

turnover. So that's one of the types of situations we're dealing with today.

We're

also looking at doing some internal review around the resources required for the

investigations. We were talking about that a little bit earlier. We do have a

number of investigations around serious incidents that go on. They're very time

consuming and require a lot of specialized skills, so we're also taking a look

at are there things we can do to help ensure we have the right skill sets to

support our OHS officers when it goes from the inspection into the investigation

stage.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

3.3.01, Transportation and Communications, last year there was a savings of

$135,000. I wonder if you could explain that.

S. STOODLEY:

So the decrease reflects a

savings in travel costs associated with occupational health and safety accident

investigations.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

And

under Supplies, this year the budget for Supplies has been increased. Can you

give us some commentary on that, please?

S. STOODLEY:

Sure.

So we

looked at the budget required for all of our occupational health and safety

subscriptions and publications, the CSA standards,

Journal of Occupational and Environmental

Hygiene , OHS I nsider

and the Newfoundland portion towards the development of CSA standards, and we

needed an extra $7,200.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Under Purchased Services,

can you explain what services are included here and what explains last year's

savings?

S. STOODLEY:

Sure.

So the

savings, we had a reduction in in-person training and radiology services. We had

a lower requirement for witness fees and experts when we're looking at securing

accident scenes. This would include advertising, vehicle repairs and

maintenance, equipment rentals, meeting rooms, lease of office space in Corner

Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor, Wabush and St. John's; maintenance and analysis of

hygiene samples; implementation of professional development for staff; and

training.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

Under

Revenue - Provincial, how is that revenue generated and can you provide an

explanation for the less than anticipated revenue last year?

I note

that last year when we were in Estimates, I asked the same question. Is there a

pattern here or is COVID a part of that problem?

S. STOODLEY:

The revenue we get is

because all occupational health and safety expenses are recovered from

WorkplaceNL which are recovered from the Workplace Injury Fund. So, essentially,

employers pay a fee to WorkplaceNL. That goes into a fund and then that pays for

all the occupational health and safety costs that we have. The more costs we

have, the more they pay, essentially. So when our costs go down, they pay less.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Perfect.

Under

3.4.02 under Grants, can you outline the purpose of this $8,000? It looks like

only $2,500 was spent last year.

S. STOODLEY:

3.4.02?

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes.

S. STOODLEY:

Okay.

These

are grants to safety organizations: Newfoundland and Labrador Occupational

Health and Safety Association, the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering,

Safety Services Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadian Standards Association,

Newfoundland and Labrador Employers Council, NAOSH, Newfoundland and Labrador

Construction Safety Association, Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour

and SafetyNet.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

I only

have one more question in that section, then that will be done.

CHAIR:

Yes, you go ahead.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Revenue - Provincial, can

you please outline where this revenue comes from?

S. STOODLEY:

This is just revenue – this

is what WorkplaceNL pays us. We give out the grants and then WorkplaceNL pays us

back.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay, perfect.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

MHA

Dinn.

J. DINN:

Thank you, Chair.

Just

with regard to the insurance, I think it's a great idea in terms of if it's

cancelled and the registration is void, but how do you enforce it in terms of –

I guess it's like a locked door, locks on doors, really they're for honest

people. So how do you make sure that the person is not actually out driving

around in the car anyway? Or is it going to be a chance that it gets reported or

the police happens to be behind the person? Or are they notified then: I just

wanted to let you know we need a response, are you aware that your insurance has

been

cancelled? You need to renew. Or are you then going to escalate it to the point:

We'll put a boot on your car until you get the proper insurance.

I'm just curious how that would work enforcement-wise.

S. STOODLEY:

So I guess once the project is live, we will be notified that someone has

cancelled their insurance and we can cross-reference that with, you know, when

their vehicle was renewed. And then we would just pass that information on to

law enforcement and work with them on the execution and the operationalization

of that.

J. DINN:

Excellent.

Maybe that will save us some money, too, in terms of fines and that as well.

Under 3.3.01, how many inspectors are currently employed by the department in

total? I think you said – no, sorry, that was something else. But how many

inspectors would be employed there under OHS?

G. BOLAND:

Just focusing on our main inspectors, so our Occupational Health and Safety

inspectors, we have lots of different types of positions, but in Labrador, we

have one currently. We are recruiting for another. In Grand Falls-Windsor, we

have three Occupational Health and Safety officers. In Corner Brook, we have

five and in the metro area we have 14.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

I'm trying to figure out if this one was asked. With regards to 3.3.0, spending

on Supplies and Professional Services was lower than budgeted last year. Why was

the allocated money not spent?

S. STOODLEY:

So in terms of Supplies, lower than anticipated requirement for uniforms, PPE

and field supplies. Then under Professional Services, we had less than

anticipated need for witness fees and bringing in experts in relating to

accident scenes.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

3.4.01, how many dependents are currently receiving assistance through this

program? Last year it was 40. The year before it was 43.

S. STOODLEY:

Thirty-one.

J. DINN:

Thirty-one.

That's it for the questions. One last thing and I know it was brought up in the

House of Assembly, but in these Estimates there seems to be an awful lot of

vacancies throughout. Is there a problem with – I guess, does government have a

good name? I'm just trying to get an – as to why there seems to be so many

vacancies because there's a certain level of job security or have you done any

analysis as to why?

I mean, there are a lot of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and immigrants who

would certainly be able to fill these positions, I figure. But I'm just trying

to get an idea: H ave

you done an analysis as to why there seems to be so many vacant – even talk to

your Cabinet colleagues as to what the rationale is here or what's behind it.

S. STOODLEY:

I guess, just from my

perspective, there would be – when someone leaves a job, there's the timeline

associated with – we may or may not know in advance whether they're going to

leave. Then the internal process, work with HR to go through the system and then

I see it at a certain point. Then the time to post the job, all that to happen.

We can't do all of those at once, so we prioritize at any given time which ones

have priority.

I'll

let Sean –

S. DUTTON:

I guess I could add, though,

that if you look at data from Statistics Canada and the Atlantic Provinces

Economic Council, there is a higher rate of vacancy across the economy in all

employers. So it's not that we're having a unique problem. There are some jobs

that are harder to fill because they're very specialized skillsets. Anybody

listening out there who is qualified to be an elevating devices inspector, we

will hire that person to work in any part of the province; location is

negotiable. We are working to try to address those types of challenges.

I guess

in terms of the turnover, we are also looking at where we can try to shorten the

time frames on processing of some of the back office work, like a request for

staffing action approval to try to shorten those time frames as well.

There's

been a lot of discussion globally about the great resignation and those sorts of

things. I don't know if that's indicative of people not being as interested in

work that's not completely in their niche, finding other things to do, but

certainly we do have opportunities. We're posting them on the job site for the

provincial government, on the main page, and we'd certainly encourage people

interested that we have a number of openings in our various offices throughout

the province.

J. DINN:

Thank you.

That's

it for me, Chair.

CHAIR:

MHA O'Driscoll.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I just got a couple of small

questions there. Just under the insurance again.

somebody has a motorcycle and it has to be registered, obviously. When they park

that in the shed and don't use it anymore, because they're only using it for the

summer months, they cancel their insurance. It's in there stored away. How will

that work? That's something I'm just going to say directly: How will that work?

S. STOODLEY:

I guess this is with my

insurance industry hat on. Generally, I think people don't take the public

liability insurance off; they take the other insurance off. If the vehicle is

still roadworthy, the vehicle is registered for the year – at least from my

experience – people in those situations they keep the insurance on, they just

remove the bodily injury, all that kind of stuff, to save money. They only pay

the minimum while their car is in the garage and then they call their insurance

company back to say, okay, I'm going to drive it again and then they add the

other insurances on.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Yes.

S. STOODLEY:

So they don't cancel public liability.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

I'm going to say that some

people will, like on a motorcycle as an example or – I wouldn't think on a car

because, you know, just if you're storing it away, it would be in your house or

your garage or wherever, but on a motorcycle, I would think they just flat out

cancel it for six months. So you don't want the police showing up at their house

and saying you haven't got your bike insured; well, they're only driving it six

months.

S. STOODLEY:

Well, the insurance company

I worked for, we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't allow them to do that.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No?

S. STOODLEY:

No.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

Okay.

I will

go back to the Member for St. John's Centre on tinted windows. Most of that is

about enforcement and some of these side garages that are doing it. I agree with

him, sometimes you can't see anything in through these side windows or front

windows, but that's about enforcement and if the police see them they're

certainly ….

One

other thing that I will touch on is seniors. I know you're trying to get most of

this stuff online, but you just have to keep in mind that not all seniors are

able to do it. I'm sure it's never going to be shutdown totally, I wouldn't

think.

S. STOODLEY:

No, of course not.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

No. I just wanted to throw

that out there because that was some of the questions I think we asked last year

when it started.

Before

I finish, and I'm done with my questions, I would like to thank everybody on the

other side there from all the departments for all your work and being so cordial

and answering all the questions. I'm sure it's a tough job to get this done this

time of the year. It's a lot of work involved, I'm sure. Months before this

budget comes out, all the work has to be done. So thank you again.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

J. DINN:

I want to echo my colleague

and say thank you for your work. I know when it comes to registering for

vehicles or anything, it can be a frustrating experience, but I will say that

for the most part, my wife and I, we tend to do a lot of that online and it does

work effectively for those who are competent.

But I

will echo what my colleague for Ferryland says, for a lot of seniors it's a

problem and it's a problem, also, if they go to – as in our case – where my

mother and mother-in-law might come to us and they have to have an email. They

may not have an – there has to be some way that allows family members who are

able to help them to do that without having to go through that extra layer. So

it can work, it's just a matter of making it less frustrating for people and

they'll do it.

S. STOODLEY:

From a MyGovNL perspective,

on the list of things we want to do is to allow someone to have a designated

person to do things on their behalf. I don't have a timeline on that but that is

one of the next highest priority things and that would be for motor vehicle

registration and MCP and that kind of stuff as well.

CHAIR:

Okay.

L. O'DRISCOLL:

(Inaudible) it's not even a

question, but I will say when you're dealing with the public, lots of times when

they go to your counter they're the ones that don't have the information. It's

not the people behind the counter and they give you the frustration. So you're

working in there – I have to tell them to stay with it. I know working in a

service industry, it's always the person at the counter's fault, it's not

someone else.

So pass

that on that I've been there, done that and it's pretty frustrating, but you're

only following the rules. So that's where it's too, they don't have the

information.

But,

again, thank you and thanks for all your work.

CHAIR:

Okay. I ask the Clerk to

recall the grouping.

CLERK:

Digital Government and

Services, 3.1.01 to 3.4.02 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 3.1.01 to 3.4.02

inclusive carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 3.1.01 to 3.4.02 carried.

CHAIR:

Clerk.

CLERK:

The total.

CHAIR:

Shall the total carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, Department of Digital Government and Service NL, total heads, carried.

CHAIR:

Shall I report the Estimates

of the Department of Digital Government and Service NL?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

CHAIR:

I'd just like to thank our

officials and our Members for being here.

Oh,

sorry, MHA Reid.

S. REID:

I'm in favour as well.

motion, Estimates of the Department of Digital Government and Service NL carried

without amendment.

CHAIR:

I keep forgetting you. I'm

used to sitting by you, too, right.

So,

again, thank you to the officials, thank you to the Members, but I'd just like

to ask the minister if she'd like some final remarks.

S. STOODLEY:

Sure, thank you very much.

I will

say we have a very hard-working, diverse team across the province. I spent some

time with some of our occupational health officers across the province, some of

our highway enforcement officers. They are certainly very passionate and

knowledgeable and experts in their field. In our department, we have a range of

experts on a very, very wide variety of topics.

I do

thank our leadership team and our executive team because they also have to

become experts on a wide range of topics. I know it adds the complexity because

I think we have the most legislation of any department. But we also then deliver

that customer service side and those are very different skill sets. Working on

policy and legislation and then also the customer service side.

I know

it is a bit tricky. We have very hard working, a lot of really smart people on

our teams. So I just thank them for their hard work and thank you for asking

these

very important questions. I think this is an important part of the process for

people of the public to see how we are spending their hard-earned money.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR:

Thank you very much, Minister.

I would like to have a motion for adjournment.

L. STOYLES:

So moved.

CHAIR:

Moved by MHA Stoyles.

Call for a vote.

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

Thank you all so much.

On motion, the Committee adjourned sine die.

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	2022-05-06
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_govservices_ga50_2022-05-06digitalgovernmentandservicenl.htm
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	dfabb1033ebba426949235e7ebd332c727d76c6c

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