Resource Committee — Department of Natural Resources — 3 April 1995

1995-04-03

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

April 3, 1995

RESOURCE ESTIMATES

COMMITTEE

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Smith): Order, please!

This evening we will be examining the Estimates for

Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Before we begin I would like to introduce the

members of the Committee. I will start with myself and I will ask each of the

Committee members to introduce themselves. My name is Gerald Smith, I'm the

Member for Port au Port.

MR. WOODFORD: Rick Woodford, MHA for Humber

Valley.

MR. SHELLEY: Paul Shelley, MHA for Baie Verte -

White Bay.

MR. MANNING: Fabian Manning, MHA for St. Mary's

- The Capes.

MR. WHELAN: Don Whelan, MHA for Harbour Main.

MR. PENNEY: Melvin Penney, MHA for Lewisporte.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: William Andersen III,

MHA for Torngat Mountains.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to ask the minister

to introduce the people he has with him this evening.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a

pleasure to be here and nice to see that you squeaked into the position as

Chairman here without too much opposition. I was a bit worried about it there

for a while, the way some of the votes have been going today. The last one was

thirty-five to two, wasn't it? So it was close.

It is a pleasure to be here this evening with our

group to go through the Estimates for the Department of Tourism, Culture and

Recreation with yourself and the Committee. We have with us our Deputy Minister

on my right, Mr. Clyde Granter; two of our Assistant Deputy Ministers - Ms.

Batstone who is our Assistant Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs, and Mr. Mike

Buist who is the Assistant Deputy Minister for Parks and Recreation. Susan Sherk

is unfortunately not available this evening. She is our Assistant Deputy

Minister for Tourism and Craft Development.

Also with us is Mr. Rick Hayward who is our

Director of Financial and General Operations within the department who keeps us

all on the straight and narrow. I'm sure as the questioning goes on this evening

if you have any real questions that the people who are supposed to know the

answers don't know, then at the end of the day Rick will give you the answer.

Rest assured, we do have somebody here who knows the answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. To begin

we will give you an opportunity to make an opening statement if you so choose.

We will give you fifteen minutes. After that the vice-chair will have fifteen

minutes if he so chooses to make some opening remarks as well, and then we will

proceed with the questioning. Ten minutes each. We will alternate. If you want

to pass when I call upon you that is fine, you may feel free to do so.

By the way, I also should point out that if you are

deferring to any of the members of your staff we would ask that you introduce

yourselves. Just give your name before you speak. This is being recorded and

this gentleman back here won't know who you are, so it is important you give

your name before you speak.

Mr. Minister, you are on.

MR. GRIMES: Thanks again. Maybe I might just

take a couple of minutes for a few general comments with respect to the

department and the budget, this being a first opportunity for myself and I guess

a first opportunity as well, Mr. Chairman, for the new Department of Tourism,

Culture and Recreation. Because last year in the Estimates it would have been

the Department of Tourism and Culture and the Recreation responsibilities would

have still been with Municipal and Provincial Affairs

The new restructuring of government that led to the

decrease in the Cabinet from a total of fifteen, counting the Premier, to

fourteen that happened in about the mid-part of the fiscal year, in August,

early September, has come into effect. That kind of change is reflected in our

budget showing the Recreation initiatives in this budget I expect, Rick, as if

they had been here all last year. That adjustment has been made so that all of

the Recreation's accounting is done in the Estimates from last year and for the

future year.

Most of you would know from your experiences in the

Legislature that in the old Department of Tourism and Culture when it was such

before the changeover, the Wildlife responsibilities had been in this

department. All references to Wildlife from last year with the accountings for

last year and for next year are now in Natural Resources. I say that because I'm

sure the same Committee I guess will deal with the Natural Resources Estimates.

If you have questions and issues relating to the Wildlife part of it, they are

all accounted for in terms of last year's expenditures and the future planning

now in the Department of Natural Resources. That change is reflected in the

Estimates.

We basically have responsibility then in the three

different areas. Tourism and Crafts, as I indicated, Susan Sherk is the ADM and

unfortunately is not available to be with us this evening. For Ms. Batstone, for

Liz, culture, historic resources, museums and archives is really her full

mandate. We usually refer to her, I guess, generically, as the Assistant Deputy

Minister for Culture, but it does encompass a very wide range of

responsibilities, and all of that accounting is done under the budget heads for

that particular part of the department, culture, historic resources, museums and

the archives, and then parks and recreation with the ADM, Mike Buist, who has

been the most recent member to join the staff. The parks part of it had always

been in this particular Tourism and Culture Department. The recreation parts

have been added with the changeover that occurred just most recently, as I

indicated, the end of August and September.

I might point out that we are very pleased with, I

guess, the efforts that have occurred and the fiscal approach that the

government has taken in the budget generally this year to try and really keep

the reins on spending again and to allow any growth in revenues to go towards

staying within our capabilities in reaching the balanced budget that we have

presented. We were fortunate enough, in Tourism, Culture and Recreation, to

basically show the same numbers as last year.

There has been some shifting and shuffling within

the budget which is designed to try and show a restatement of our priorities in

terms of not just going ahead and recommitting to all of the programs on the

same basis as last year, but in ball park figures the overall commitment

financially in the department is the same as last year, even though many

departments actually showed some slight decreases of a percent or two, but

because this is one of the departments that the government has flagged as one of

the lead departments for economic development and opportunity in the future,

when the changes were made we ended up basically at a status quo position which

we are proud to present in these Estimates.

That is reflected in the Tourism and Craft

Development area where we look at tourism marketing, additional initiatives

there, tourism development that is also taken care of in one of the branches of

that division, more emphasis on planning and evaluation as we try to make sure

that our approaches in advertising and marketing for our potential visitors is

properly directed at the right people who may be going to consider our

particular Province as a destination, and also in the area of continuing the

efforts they started a few years ago with renewed emphasis on craft development

as a large part of that.

The culture, historic resources, museums and

archives, in this particular branch we are looking at continuing responsibility

for development organization of the cultural programs, and the administrative

and technical support of programming activities including the Arts and Culture

Centres, so the numbers again still reflect a commitment at the same levels as

in past years, even though we are still pursuing initiatives to see if we cannot

interest certain of the communities that host and house the Arts and Culture

Centres in a different administrative and financial arrangement than we

presently have, but the budget reflects our ability to continue on for another

full year at existing levels in the case that we are not in any way successful

in negotiating a rearrangement of responsibilities in those six communities.

On the parks and recreation side, I think there has

been some publicity just recently about two of the initiatives. One is the new

streamline approach to the provincial parks system, with a different number of

parks to now be enhanced by a million dollar capital program over the year, and

also the announcement just recently of our commitment to the Newfoundland trail

way, and what we think that will add as a recreation opportunity base for our

own residents, and also one of the aspects that we can promote on the tourism

side as another reason for people to consider coming to visit Newfoundland and

Labrador.

The mandate of the sport and recreation division

also includes a number of programs that have been continuing, program

development, leadership development, promotion and marketing, and special

project management in such areas as community recreation, volunteer programs,

regional/provincial/national games - we just successfully competed in the Canada

Winter Games in Grand Prairie. We of course have been the successful bidder to

host the Canada Winter Games in Corner Brook in 1999 and where that will happen

early in the calendar year of 1999, the same year that we will be celebrating

our 50th anniversary of Confederation, we think that it provides a perfect

opportunity for us to again emphasis how proud we are to be Canadians and to

show the rest of Canada what we have to offer from a sporting and recreation

point of view in a marvellous setting like Corner Brook, to show off the new

civic centre that will be there at the time, as well as to highlight the

tremendous new facilities that we have at Marble Mountain which is fast becoming

a national and a North American ski destination.

So there are a whole number of areas where that

particular division provides leadership on behalf of the government. We are just

very pleased that we have been given a mandate to try and deliver in some of

these program areas on behalf of the government for the benefit of the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador. Without going into any of the other details, Mr.

Chairman, what I would like to do is to leave it to explore what are the issues

that the Committee itself would like to really question us about. The biggest

focus, out of all that I guess, that has gotten the most media attention in the

shorter term, is that while we run these programs and we are trying to deliver

on a new mandate to have a whole integrated approach - tourism being the real

part of it but to look at the strengths of cultural tourism as a real reason why

people are coming to Newfoundland and Labrador and also to tie into that the

fact that recreation opportunities both on an individual, leisure and recreation

basis as well as organized sport, is such a terrific travel generator by itself

that if we can tie into people prior to coming to sporting or recreational

events and staying longer that we can take the culture side, the recreation side

and tie all of it into one general tourism package for the Province. We see that

as being our mandate.

While that is occurring everybody is putting a lot

of effort into the next big celebration that will occur in the Province which is

the 500th anniversary in 1997. We are quite proud as well to be leading it from

the provincial

part in terms of funding the corporation that is doing that

planning for us and to be working with the federal government to make sure that

that becomes a celebration that matches and surpasses what happened in

Newfoundland and Labrador in the come home year in 1966 in terms of being a

watershed event to move tourism opportunities in the Province to a higher and

better level.

So we are looking forward to that and I think there

are opportunities as members of the Committee, Mr. Chairman, to go through the

different budget heads to question or comment on any of those things that I

mention and any others that might be of particular interest to the members of

the Committee. We would certainly welcome the questions and try to provide in

the usual fashion very brief, succinct answers.

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

Woodford.

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Rick

Woodford, Humber Valley.

Mr. Minister, in the budget the government made the

announcement, in supplementary details, that the administration divisions of the

Departments of Environment, Employment and Labour Relations and Tourism, Culture

and Recreation would be consolidated. Would you expand on that for me and

explain because I noticed when I was going through the heads of Tourism, Culture

and Recreation that the heads are pretty well the same except for a small

variance but not a big lot. Could you explain to me what you mean by that?

MR. GRIMES: Basically the gist is that because

these three departments of government, when you analyze them from the point of

view of how many people are employed in the departments on a full time annual

basis - our own department for example has a certain component of full time

regular employees but probably doubles in size in the summer because there are

quite a number of opportunities through visitor information centres, our

museums, historic sites, parks and so on, where there is quite an employment

burst through certain seasons. The regular staff is small by comparison to many

of the other government departments. The same was seen to be true of the

Departments of Environment and Employment and Labour Relations, that the

full-time regular staff components are not great in number compared to other

departments like Municipal and Provincial Affairs or Works, Services and

Transportation.

Again, in looking at ways to better deliver the

services of government and to target the resources at programs and delivery of

services to the people, rather than on administration, it was seen in discussion

with the staff of the three departments that probably because of the numbers we

could in fact run one particular administrative division for human resources

issues that would serve the three departments, and one particular division that

could meet the financial operational needs of the three departments. By

combining the total regular full-time and part-time regular staff of those three

you would still only equate to the same number of people being served by a human

resources division and by a financial operations division as you would in one of

the larger departments of government.

Rick might be able to give you the answer in terms

of where the numbers are in the Estimates. I don't believe there has been a

total removal of all the numbers from the Estimates of the other two departments

and put into Tourism, Culture and Recreation. The intent is to have it housed in

Tourism, Culture and Recreation but to service the three departments. They are

working now themselves to try and see how the best way is to shift the people,

to decide which of, say, three directors of human resources will become the

director of human resources to serve all three departments, how the staff

realignment will occur. Then any budgets that are needed to shift, if they are

not already done so, will be shifted the same as we made the move for Wildlife

going to Natural Resources and Recreation coming from Municipal and Provincial

Affairs.

The total monies for that are probably still partly

in three different departments instead of all in our heading. Rick can let you

know if that is not the case.

MR. HAYWARD: My understanding is that in the

salary details for the Departments of Environment and Employment and Labour

Relations there is a forced reduction number there, I guess a balancing item,

that would serve the Budget process. That is where the savings are, I believe.

That is my

interpretation of the Budget document anyway. I don't have the salary

details here.

MR. WOODFORD: Would you have any numbers of the

jobs that will be - or will there be a relocation of people or would there be an

actual job loss in those departments in the administration end of it?

MR. GRIMES: That is being looked at now, Mr.

Chairman. In fact, there is a possibility at the end of the day that there may

in fact be two or three or four dislocations for those people who don't end up

being absorbed in the system in that one administrative structure. What they are

looking at now is already having meetings as to what their opportunities are

throughout the rest of government if they don't end up in this one

administrative entity for the three departments.

At the end of the day, whether or not there will

actually be any lay off notices issued, that is going through a process of study

now and we are not certain. I would have to tell you in all honesty that is a

possibility, but at the worst case scenario it wouldn't be any more than three

or four people who may not find themselves employed either in the one

administrative structure for the three departments, or through their

redeployment and re-employment opportunities within government, finding

employment in other full-time positions in government that are currently vacant

in some other department.

The possibility does exist. They don't have

definite numbers yet. Rick and others and the deputies actually I think, Clyde,

have been charged with very quickly now within the next few weeks or so looking

at the logistics of that reorganization so that these people can then find where

they will fall in the system and exercise their rights that they have for

looking for other jobs if they don't fit in this entity.

MR. WOODFORD: Minister, a couple of weeks ago I

guess you made a ministerial statement on the closing of twenty-nine parks

across the Island. At that time - correct me if I'm wrong - I can mention the

figure of a savings of approximately $300,000. In the Estimates, especially as

it pertains to 4.1.02, Park Operations, there hasn't been a change in the salary

structure there or anything like that. Would that indicate - without looking at

another head - that that money will be used for other purposes in the parks? Or

will it be used like you said the other day probably toward the announcement on

a new linear park system?

MR. GRIMES: No, actually, if you look at

4.1.02.01, which is the Salaries, when we released that general information in

the press release the revised numbers for last year were $2.65 million and now

projected are $2.461 million. That is running an extended season again in the

extra parks. Largely the savings were in the salary area, the salary expenses

related to those twenty-nine operations. We are projecting that we will actually

run this year not $300,000 but in this instance close to a couple of hundred

thousand dollars less in salaries because of the fact that we won't have to

commit bodies to those twenty-nine extra facilities. That is where it shows.

Because we were doing estimates at that time and

hadn't finished our budget submission we really probably now, if we were to make

that same press release, would have indicated that the overall savings that we

expect to achieve from that point of view is probably less than $200,000, rather

than the $300,000. The other good news in terms of it that we weren't at liberty

to release of course in the press release, because it was a budget

consideration, was getting the $1 million on the capital side to do some

improvements and some enhancements in the parks that remain in the system.

That is where the large bulk of the savings are.

You can also see a corresponding reduction in some Supplies in item .04 because

we will need less when we are operating less facilities. Altogether, it

approximates pretty close to the $300,000 that we announced in the release.

MR. WOODFORD: Under Park Operations.

MR. GRIMES: Yes.

MR. WOODFORD: Under 4.1.09, Park

Rehabilitation, the one you just alluded to, that $1 million, do you have your

minds made up, I would say you have your homework done on where you are going to

spend that $1 million and at what parks around the Province?

MR. GRIMES: Yes and no. I can say to you quite

clearly we are at this stage of the discussion. The Parks division staff has

prepared I guess their preferred list of where they would like to see $1 million

worth of improvements done. Generally speaking, the only political direction

they've been given so far from myself and Mr. Penney as the legislative advisor

is that we would like to see a commitment made to the keystone parks, because

they have to go first and foremost; and secondly, as a general rule of thumb, we

would sort of like to see some development occur from west to east in the other

parks.

Because we take the view that the parks serve the

road traffic. When you look at non-resident visitors the bulk of them get off

the boat at Port aux Basques. Their first experience with the parks is on the

West Coast. We would like to give them the best experiences first so that they

have a good impression. They've provided a tentative list but we have not yet

had an opportunity to sit back down with them and go through exactly where we

would commit the $1 million for the coming year. So yes, they do have a

divisional staff proposed list of where they would like to spend the money.

Because we haven't yet had a chance to look at that to see whether it matches up

with the type of general priorities that we expressed on just one occasion. We

have to have a couple of more discussions yet to see exactly where the million

dollars will be spent in this year.

MR. WOODFORD: But it will be mainly on the

infrastructure part?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, the idea, again, is looking at

a couple of areas in particular. There has been quite a bit of user demand for

more electrical hook-ups, dumping stations, comfort stations in terms of showers

and those types of facilities and with a limit, again, I am sure - I think we

had one division meeting, Mike, where the staff was suggesting that they would

like to get their hands on a couple of million dollars a year, and who wouldn't.

But then, in some parks if you did too much work, the view was you would almost

have to close the park, and we didn't want to be doing so much work in any one

park that you had to close the park for use for the season. So the work will be

staggered again to try to make sure that all the remaining parks in the system

stay open for the use of the travelling public while the renovation and

improvements that are to occur take place at the same time.

MR. WOODFORD: The 4.1.06 under the heading

Linear Park: this naturally, is all new money, some $420,000 there for that. Is

there anything in particular - I noticed in your Ministerial Statement, you

mentioned one item that really was of some concern to me, the one about the

bridges and culverts, and I am sure it is a concern to you in your department.

Having said that, I have to say that is, as far as I am concerned, an excellent

step, by the way, that the department and government took there with regard to

the rail bed across the Province. The concerns that I mentioned in the

Ministerial Statement the other day are still there and that is one of them. I

didn't get the chance because in Ministerial Statements you get only half the

time the minister gets to respond. I didn't get a chance to comment on that

particular one. That is, as far as I am concerned, going to be a very, very hard

one to try to keep up, all the tressles, culverts and so on across that rail

bed. Now, I know it can be done a little bit at a time and in certain areas

where it is being used and so on. Is any of this money allocated for something

like that or is it just to try to bring the thing together and get it started,

so that some other people like the development associations and councils and so

on can get their teeth into it and start something new?

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, I think the member

has described it very well in the latter, that the $420,000 here is allocated so

that we can go out and do the very extensive consultation that now has to occur.

One of the meetings I had on Saturday morning, actually, at 9:00. I met with the

council in Deer Lake, because I was on the West Coast to speak to the joint

councils, and they had their concerns about wanting us to work with them on a

bypass for the town of Deer Lake because they have other plans, very much so,

for the main line going through Main Street in the town of Deer Lake - which I

understand completely, and we have committed that one of our staff, either Mr.

Buist or Mr. Hustins, would meet with them in the near future; they are going to

write us and look at the concerns.

We have quite a bit of work to do with thirty-five

or thirty-six, I believe it is, Mike, municipalities through which the rail bed

actually passes, because we have to deal with that issue in each case. The Rural

Development Council, which was a real proponent in this project in the first

instance, has indicated that their member groups in different regions of the

Province are very interested in sitting with us now and working with us on a

basis whereby they can help us manage, control, run, restore and everything else

related to the Newfoundland Trailway. We have also had expressions of interest

from the Snowmobile Federation for the Island, where they want to work with us

much as they do in Prince Edward Island to deal with the management, control,

grooming and running of the rail bed through the winter season for the purpose

of snowmobile excursions. So what you see here largely is some monies allocated

to allow us to go through that very intensive consultation and planning session

that will have to start almost immediately. My own guesstimation is that the

first real flat-out usage of it might be the snowmobile season next year, that

there will be a lot of planning. People who will want to hike and so on through

this summer season certainly will be free to do so, but any physical

improvements of it which will be necessary over time will not really start this

year. It has been indicated to me by Mr. Buist, as the ADM responsible, that we

may have to do some initial signage things in terms of talking about using at

your own risk, some liability things, some warnings in some areas about places

where there are washouts or bridges that might not be totally safe at this point

that we have not had a chance to fix yet, so we will have to do that kind of

quick assessment, some signage, and a very intensive consultation process with

the municipalities, with the Rural Development Council, and with the Snowmobile

Federation in particular as to where we go now in terms of making this into a

year-round useable recreational park that can also be a tourism attraction for

us.

MR. WOODFORD: One other short question, and

then I will pass it along to another member, Mr. Chairman.

The actual ownership of that particular right of

way now, is that definitely in Crown lands hands now? Is that definitely passed

over to Crown lands, the whole corridor right from east to west?

MR. GRIMES: My understanding is that the whole

corridor of that rail bed, branch lines, and also the rail lands that were rail

yards, as in a place like Bishop's Falls in my own district -

MR. WOODFORD: Howley and Deer Lake (inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: And some where there were pretty

expansive land masses within the boundaries, that they have all been transferred

from CN, I guess, to the Federal Government, from the Federal Government to the

Provincial Government, and the designation has been in the Provincial Government

that all of the branch lines are within the mandate of Crown lands, being

treated as regular Crown lands in the Department of Natural Resources, and all

lands constituting the right of way of the main line, all disposition of that

has been put in the hands of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, with the main line

now declared a provincial park for protective purposes and to plan for future

development. So I am not 100 per cent sure, and maybe the deputy or Mr. Buist

can help me with terms of a `rail yard' like in Howley or in Bishop's Falls,

whether Tourism, Culture and Recreation has responsibility for the rest of the

rail yard or only for the main line going through the town. In any event, one

way or the other, in the discussions we are having with those communities, most

of them are looking, if not for the rail line itself, for the other railway

lands in their town to be passed over to the municipalities, and that exercise

will come out of this consultation as well.

MR. WOODFORD: So there is an understanding,

then, with Crown lands that any applications for anything in that corridor would

have to pass by your department before there was anything approved.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, the application process and so

on for those lands is being administered through our department instead of

Natural Resources. The issue came up, I might add, in Deer Lake again in the

meeting because the mayor and others reminded me that when Mr. Crosbie made this

announcement, actually, when the deal was struck in 1988 for the Roads for Rail

Agreement, in his press statement he indicated, the procedure that would be

followed would be that with respect to the lands for the rail line, they would

be passed over to the Province and the Province in municipalities would pass it

over to municipalities, so now we are discussing whether they actually want the

land, whether they will let us hold it and have a corridor, or whether we have

to build a bypass and so on, so we are having that discussion. That will come

out of this announcement.

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

Woodford.

Mr. Whelan.

MR. WHELAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, I noticed under 2.2.04, the John

Cabot 500 Anniversary Celebrations, there is an allocation of $1,145,400. Is

there any part of that money being spent outside the Province, outside of the

country, for example in some of the European countries? If there is, what sorts

of expenditures are they, and how are they being spent?

MR. GRIMES: At this point in time, this amount

of money that is voted here again represents the one-third contribution that

will come from the Provincial Government towards another year of operation for

the Corporation. The Corporation operated last year in the range of - $3.8

million, I guess, is their budget. We fully expect that they will be funded at

$3.8 million again this year. The only reason that $3.8 million isn't designated

in the budget with an offsetting revenue total is because we haven't finalized a

discussion with the Federal Government yet as to which of their headings their

share is going to come from. We are very positive and certain about the fact

that we will conclude an agreement with them to put in twice as much of that

money again so that they will have the total amount.

In getting to your question about the expenditures

outside the Province, in terms of the experience last year and the projections

for this year, when the Corporation expends money outside the Province so far -

and the plan for the coming year will change fairly dramatically once their

budget is assured - so far it has been targeted at efforts where the Corporation

on behalf of the people of the Province has gone out seeking to secure major

corporations, major companies, major events and so on to come and have their

annual conferences in Newfoundland and Labrador for 1997. They've had some

tremendous successes in terms of having a wide range of national and

international organizations commit to hosting their annual convention,

conference and/or meeting in Newfoundland and Labrador as part of our 500th

Anniversary.

The other external efforts that have had some work

put into them in the first year of full operation have been some preliminary

visitations in Italy relating to working with a Cabot 500 Corporation Committee

that is established in Gaeta, which is the home town of John Cabot himself,

where they have been planning for this celebration as well. Because apparently

he is a national hero in Italy and they want to tie in with our celebration and

they want to find a way - they are very interested in having Italians come to

the `new found land' that John Cabot discovered. They are also interested, of

course, for their own purposes, of seeing if they can encourage some people from

Newfoundland and Canada to visit Italy to see the home site of John Cabot. There

have been one if not two trips to Gaeta at different points in the year to try

to cement that relationship and work out how each of the committees can help

each other.

There have been a couple of visits by

representatives of the Corporation to Bristol in England. The main part of that

work has been in trying to make sure that one of the real flagship events of

that year, which is going to be the travel of the replica of the Matthew

across the North Atlantic to land at Bonavista on Discovery Day - they are

supposed to actually sail into Bonavista, I think, at 2:00 p.m. on June 24,

which is Discovery Day. The ship is now being built in Bristol through private

sources in England and the United Kingdom. We are finalizing a contract with

them so that they will sail the ship to Newfoundland and make it available for

ports of call in Newfoundland for a three-month period. That will enable us to

promote its presence and to promote, as I said, a major tourist attraction in

all regions of the Island, and possibly even into a couple of ports of call in

Labrador as part of the celebration that year. There have been some visitations

on that basis.

The shift that will occur this year that is

projected in the master plan is to begin in a real way to do some direct

marketing and promotion, to let people know which events are planned, to start

getting some information out to the public in Italy, in England, in the rest of

North America and to start inviting people to start planning now for two years

down the road.

MR. WHELAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I was

wondering about the outfitting industry in the province. I understand that

currently they receive 10 per cent, I stand to be corrected, of the total number

of big game licenses issued. Has there been any consideration given to changing

that in light of the fact that the outfitting industry has such vast potential

with regard to tourism?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, actually this is one of the

real success stories in recent years in the old Department of Tourism and

Culture and now Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Particularly when you come to

the point that you raised with respect to big game hunting for non-residents. It

has been pegged at 10 per cent for some time now and out of the group of us

here, I guess probably the member for Humber Valley knows more about when that

started and so on and the fact that it really has now gotten general acceptance

in the province as being reasonable and -

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Yes, and not that he would have

been one of the people who spearheaded the debate in trying to make sure that

the rest of the residents accepted the notion that we should carve out some

licences for these non-residents because of the economic benefit and the

potential and so on. So that kind of thing happened publicly I guess in the late

1970s when it became official or -

MR. WOODFORD: They had a figure they put up

every year until they froze it at 10 per cent, I think in 1986-1987.

MR. GRIMES: At 10 per cent, so from that time

the whole issue had been there and it became public. There had been a little bit

of friction between residents and non-residents and people saying: well why were

these people shooting their moose and I cannot get a license and so on. And then

the 10 per cent rule became the standard, it has been there for some time and

pretty generally accepted. There is a regular representation from the outfitters

seeking an increase in that. There is also though a regular representation from

our own resident hunters seeking more licenses, but everybody I think has

learned enough lessons from the fishery to realize that these resources are

limited and the one thing you have to do is to commit to proper management,

first and foremost, and then decide on the balance afterwards.

Mr. Penney, as the legislative advisor, has worked

with me very closely on this particular issue and has been very helpful. We

believe that with the right approaches there can possibly be some adjustments

made because there are tremendous benefits.

I was talking about the success story where even in

the last five years the outfitters who have big game licences for moose, caribou

and black bear have gone from the range of 50 and 60 per cent occupancy to 100

per cent occupancy and just last year I think our numbers were 99.3 or 99.4 per

cent sales. They could take more people but they had no more licences to offer

to fill and that was done jointly by the Department of Tourism and Culture,

marketing with the outfitters at the shows throughout North America, in Canada

and in the United States. The government would go and have a booth, a number of

the outfitters would travel with them and show there own wares and market there

own locations and the numbers went from 50-60 per cent occupancy to just about

100 per cent occupancy in a five year period.

So much were we enthused and pleased with the

results that we are trying to repeat it again now in terms of fishing camps,

because the fishing camps still have a great product to offer despite the salmon

thing going from two to one in Labrador and so on. But even for trout fishing

and so on there is still a great product here in Newfoundland and Labrador. We

do not seem to have been able to work the same co-operative approach yet. We are

targeting it again this year as a major initiative to try to raise their

productivity numbers and their occupancy numbers from somewhere in the 33 per

cent, 35 per cent range that they are now to try and double that in a two-or

three-year period by again offering those incentives to the outfitters who

operate the fishing camps to advertise with them, to go to the trade shows with

them, to offer them space in a government booth, to do whatever we can in terms

of advertising in the field and stream magazines, the different ones that the

sport fishermen would find interesting and attractive.

We don't know if we are going to be able to

parallel and match what we did on the big game outfitting side because there are

other pressures that have come to bear on the resource side with respect to both

trout and salmon that have complicated the outfitters' own efforts. More

recently, the decision in Labrador, for example, came into effect after all of

the outfitters had all of their marketing information out there saying you could

keep two big fish. Only to have people phoning to say: I'm sorry about my

advertising, but you can only keep one.

We've written on behalf of the outfitters in

support of their argument to Mr. Tobin but I'm not overly hopeful that is going

to be changed in this year. Those kinds of things, where we are not always in

sync when you have a provincial government helping them managing a certain part

of it, the federal government with responsibility on another side, and the

decisions get made at a different time.

We were actually very pleased with ourselves; the

outfitters were very pleased with us. Because one of the problems from a few

years before was that we wouldn't get our hunting and fishing guide out into the

marketplace until March or April. I think the year before it was almost the

first week in April. They came to us and said: We need to be out in the market

right after Christmas letting people know what we have because they are making

their plans. We did everything we could, got all their information in, took all

the current information, put the biggest kind of a top priority job on the

hunting and fishing guide, had the hunting and fishing guide actually when we

visited with the outfitters in Deer Lake in January. I think the meeting was

January 13 at the Deer Lake motel. They were using it again along with their own

promotional materials, only to find then that the regulations for DFO hadn't

been finalized for the year and they changed. It had a little bit of a negative

impact for them in terms of their market.

We are now continuing to do another one of these

economic benefit analysis of that whole industry. Because a lot of people have

thrown around a lot of numbers about how beneficial the outfitting industry is

to the Province. We are trying to get further numbers so that we can go forward

and see if we can publicly build the case along the issue that you started your

question with, whether or not we could actually on the big game side allocate

more than 10 per cent.

The general view I would suggest to you at this

point in time is that it is very difficult to get public acceptance for more

than 10 per cent with respect to moose. It may be possible to get public

acceptance for more than 10 percent with respect to caribou. Because the

Newfoundlander's own preference hasn't been - the view that has been expressed

to me, being a person who doesn't hunt and doesn't fish and those kinds of

things, is that when people apply - like the moose licences went out a while

ago. They apply for a moose licence, they don't apply for a caribou licence.

They put caribou down just in case they don't get a moose, but they don't want a

caribou licence.

We may be able to convince the people that for the

economic benefit that is there, which is why we are doing the economic cost

benefit analysis, it might make sense for the residents to allow more than 10

per cent of caribou to be allocated to non-residents and leave the 10 per cent

in place for moose. We are looking at those options right now. As a matter of

fact, tomorrow morning myself and Dr. Gibbons are meeting with representatives

of the outfitters association. I believe they are bringing us that

recommendation I think from their annual meeting in Deer Lake, that we should

ask for that kind of a split quota instead of just 10 per cent total.

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

time is up, Mr. Whelan.

MR. GRIMES: Sorry I took a little bit of time

there. I apologize.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, okay. What I might suggest

as well is that while the Committee certainly appreciates and admires your

enthusiasm for your department, we would ask that maybe you could be a little

restrained, a little more succinct in your response.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Shelley.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you. I enjoy the minister's

enthusiasm in this particular department. To be honest with you, this is my pet

department as far as departments go, the Department of Tourism, Culture and

Recreation. Because I've the firm belief that tourism could be the saviour of

this Province sooner or later, one of these days, if it is handled right now,

and especially leading up to 1997 when we have that anniversary. I think the

next couple of years are going to be crucial in how we lay out the plans and

that tourism will develop into the full capacity that it should. I do not think

we have scratched the surface yet.

As far as tourism goes, Mr. Woodford asked a couple

of questions that I had already planned to ask but I would like to expand on one

of them, and that is in 4.1.09, Park Rehabilitation. You mentioned $1 million,

that is going to be used basically to upgrade, is my understanding right on

that? For example in parks people look for showers, like you said, the comfort

zone there, and you could put a lot of showers in parks for that amount of

money, or laundry facilities or that type of thing. I know that the first thing

tourists ask for before they turn off to a park is: is there a shower there, is

there a laundromat there. Are those the type of things you are referring to?

MR. GRIMES: The biggest thrust with this money

is to do exactly that kind of thing. I guess the showers in the parks are housed

in what I refer to as comfort stations. The difficulty with them is that they

are not inexpensive in the standard way they are constructed. A comfort station

in a park with a concrete base and getting the water lines in and so on, and

having the facilities, can be in the range of $250,000 to build one structure,

so if we were to put a new comfort station in four parks we would have $1

million gone and we would only have half a dozen showers in four parks. We have

to be very selective and pretty sure that at some point one of the parks, in all

likelihood one of the keystone parks will probably get a new comfort station

this year, and we will continue to move in that direction.

I've mentioned trying to move a bit from west to

east but we have not got back to discuss this with the staff in detail yet. The

other part of going from west to east is to try and make sure that if we deal

with the parks issue that when these people come here in bigger numbers in 1997,

then 1995 and 1996 we are hoping for continued growth along the lines of last

year which was overall growth of about 8 per cent, although the road traffic was

down a bit last year. Air traffic was up and road traffic was down. If we

continue to have that kind of growth, and if in 1997, we get the people coming

and using the park system we would hope that if we start on the west and move to

the east that we again might be able to put in some comfort stations.

Also, the other big one seems to be electrical

hook-ups. A lot of people are looking for an electrical capability in the park

for at least some of the campsites. They do not expect all of them to have

electrical hook-ups but they would like to know that if you get there early

enough that some of the sites would be geared up for electricity and they would

not have to bring their generators and those kind of things to service

themselves.

We would look at that and try to make sure that for

that expected increase in road traffic in 1997 that if we start west to east we

will have the bulk of the work done on the West Coast through the summer of 1995

and the summer of 1996, and hopefully we will not have to be doing major

construction or reconstruction in 1997. Also, even though we will not operate

some of these parks, eight of the parks that we talked about have camping

facilities in them. There are plans in several of the parks left in the system

to add additional sites to those parks because they are in the locations where

people want to go. They go to the parks now, they maximize the capacity and

there are more people wanting to get into those particular parks because of

their strategic location, so there are also plans to actually add campsite

capacity to some of the parks that are remaining in the system.

MR. SHELLEY: Another interesting concept, and

just to get some of your views on it, I guess, is the idea of private

intervention in the parks. I know in some of the parks private people are

getting in there with convenience stores, and in one park a guy had paddle

boats. I encourage that and I think it is a good idea. Of course there have to

be regulations and everything kept in place for that. How do you see that over

the next little while? I think there are some good ideas there from some private

individuals who can basically go into a provincial park and enhance it, and do

things that are going to be additions to it. How do you see that moving?

MR. GRIMES: A couple of things, actually. There

have been some very good developments along those lines since the parks policy

changed five or six years ago, I guess, for the first time. I guess the previous

administration had started the concept on a pilot basis I believe of allowing

some commercialization in a park. The policy of parks up to that point in time

had been that there would be no commercialization. When I dealt with the issue

on a radio call-in show, on Crosstalk I think a week or ten days ago,

both views were expressed. Some people called in and said: We go to parks

because we don't want canteens, we don't want paddle boats, we don't want that

stuff. We want nature.

Other people were saying: We go to parks and once

we go that is our tourism destination. We are taking our family for a week or

ten days and we would like to have everything we need in the park. We would like

to have convenience stores so we can go and get some potatoes, go and get some

basic supplies, a bit of bread and so on and some milk, and not have to leave

the park. We would also like to have a facility where we could wash our clothes.

We would like to have a laundromat in the park, we would like to have a shower

where you could get a good wash every couple of days or so if you didn't think

you were clean enough from swimming or something, and those types of things.

They also wanted some play areas for the children. They wanted like a playground

in the park, which we have in some of the parks. They wanted some - I think the

phrase they used - distractions for the children.

Nature wasn't enough. The hiking trails were good

and so on but they wanted structured play areas. They hoped to have paddle

boats, they hoped to be able to go down and rent these Seadoos or whatever they

are called, and spin around - but a lot of it is controlled, and a lot of those

people were doing it. A lot of the private sector interest has centred around

that. I think we have quite a number of parks now where there are applications

in from the private sector to offer some commercial services.

The other good news in it is that even for the

parks that we are not going to operate, Mr. Buist has been keeping a tally,

himself and Mr. Hustins, in terms of the expressions of interest for private

operators who want to be given a chance this year to run a park like Blue Ponds

that we are not going to operate. The numbers are pretty staggering. Like

Cochrane Park close to here, a day use park, there have been dozens already of

people. They have until April 7 to express their interest, and then we have to

sort out a way to try and decide who it is we are going to give a chance to run

the park totally.

One last thing if I might, Mr. Chairman. While we

are going to operate the park system minus the twenty-nine facilities that we

removed from the system this year, there have for a couple of years now been

people coming to us saying: Can I run Catamaran Park for you? Ones that are

still in the system. Like: Give me a chance to run the other parks, Northern Bay

Sands out there, close to St. John's. People coming in and saying: Let me run

Butterpot for you. The whole notion of the private sector feeling that given the

chance they could run these parks as well as, if not better than, us, and make

their own decisions about how much commercialization can be blended with the

natural elements of the park setting without destroying the whole concept.

It has been an interesting area. The efforts so far

have been very positive and very successful from the point of view of the Parks

division staff reviewing and analyzing it. They are promoting the concept that

there is still room for more expansion of commercial opportunities in the parks.

I don't think you will see water slides in there, I don't think you will see

that kind of commercialization, but you will see more of the canteen services.

You will see some private entrepreneurs maybe go in there and set up laundromats

and charge people for doing their laundry. You will see more of the paddle boat

type of things, for amusements for small children and families to enjoy, along

with the natural setting things of going out and walking in the parks, the

trails, and enjoying the normal things that you would before the policy changed.

MR. SHELLEY: I think that has potential. I

think the bottom line we should look at is: Are we improving the parks? If we

are, then what sort of way works best, I guess is the way you look at it.

Just to switch questions, because I know I just

have a couple of minutes left. This is more on a local scene but it is very

important to me, and it should be very important to you as the minister, and

that is the Dorset Eskimo site on the Baie Verte Peninsula.

I have to say, minister, that I was embarrassed

last summer when a couple from Ontario with their little girl came to my house,

when they found out I was the member. And here is this Dorset Eskimo Site which

is one of the oldest Indian sites in North America. You go down to Fleur de Lys

and all you see on the Trans Canada to let us know that it is down there is a

little brown sign that says the Dorset Eskimo Site, 82 kilometres. That is how

much enthusiasm there is for it but it is really something. Historical people

will tell you what it is all about and all that is going into it is a boardwalk.

The carvings are on the rocks and it is a beautiful thing to see. I don't know

if the minister saw it himself yet but there is a boardwalk going in there that

is rotted and falling apart. There is nothing there to tell you what is in there

or any information about it but their little girl fell down through the

boardwalk going in and they had to bring her to the hospital.

The people from Ontario were saying to me

basically: This is beautiful, you know you should have this improved. Now I know

the minister has only taken over this portfolio recently but it is something

that I brought up to the previous minister and I tell you it is something that I

know has been brought to the attention of your department and I hope that there

are some plans in the near future. I know somebody has been down there recently

and did some study on it but I would just like to hear your comments on it and

see what you -

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the

member raising the issue because we both discussed it as well with some

representatives of the area at the Chamber of Commerce meeting in Baie Verte,

that issue came up for discussion. The council as well has been in my office

making representation about the same issue and it is one of the areas that we

had hoped we might have some success in addressing and correcting this year. It

is a prime example of an area where - because of the location of the site and so

on - it is not directly inside a municipal boundary so the municipality does not

have jurisdiction over the land and so on and the government cannot give funding

to a town to do what it wants to do with the site because it is out on Crown

land. It is not directly on the highway system because myself and the Minister

of Works, Services and Transportation have been looking at trying to use some

maintenance money from the highway system to do up trails and boardwalks and so

on into these very important historic and archaeological sites.

Then in our own department we have never, ever had

really - outside of the park system - any capital funding. And by the Financial

Administration Act when we have the money like the million dollars here, we are

really only entitled and permitted to spend that on park lands which are

declared under the Provincial Parks Act. The Dorset Site has never been declared

under the Provincial Parks Act and there are a number of others like that. I am

sure the debate was held long before I got involved in government as to whether

we would declare it a provincial park and therefore be able to spend the money

or not. In some instances, when we looked at our streamlining that we announced

awhile ago, some of those decisions were made to declare an area such as that a

park so that you could hopefully spend some money on it but then you never ever

got enough money to do all the parks.

So it is one of those things where people in the

area had put some work into it some time ago, recognizing from their own

experience the great value of it. It has potential as a tourism site, as an

archaeologically significant site, as a study site because there are all kinds

of people who have expressed interest in it, that know much more about it then

we do as local and native Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. They study this

particular topic and they know of this as having great significance. They come

here to see it and they are very disappointed by the fact that it is not

highlighted or accentuated in some greater way and we have not yet found the

right bureaucratic mechanism to assist the people in the local community areas

to further develop the site.

They were even talking to us, Mr. Chairman, about

the fact that there isn't even really an appropriate pull-off from the highway.

You almost have to park on the shoulder of the road and take your chances. There

is not even an area where you could even - like they do sometimes for snow

clearing - just have a little extra large space on the side of the road where

people could at least get completely off the road. This is a very significant

site.

As a matter of fact, you talk about the whole

Dorset Trail going down the Baie Verte Peninsula, named because of this

presence, and that is all the significance that we attach to it. So it is quite

clear, as the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay says, that somewhere along the

line we have to find a mechanism. We were hoping this year to have, for the

first time, a small allocation in our budget for capital works related to things

other than the parks. Because again of the pressures of financing and funding, I

guess it wasn't the prime time to be looking for a brand new allocation that has

never been in the budget.

MR. SHELLEY: Can it come under historic sites,

though, under heritage?

MR. GRIMES: Again, there are rules and

regulations that Ms. Batstone, as the ADM for historic sites and so on can tell

you, while there is historic significance to it, and cultural significance,

unless it goes through certain procedures and so on it would not be designated

as a historic site. There are certain steps and procedures that have to happen,

so I shake my head like yourself and say -

MR. SHELLEY: I know, but it really bothers me

and I wish there was a better answer here tonight. I know you cannot give that,

and I appreciate that, but it really bothers me, the bureaucracy of all of this,

like we have all admitted, this is a site, it is what the whole Baie Verte

highway is named after. You cannot even pull your car up on the side of the

road; there is a bloody, wooden boardwalk. It just doesn't pay not to have an

answer to that. I hope you are going to keep searching, and I hope that we can

hear something in the near future on it, because it is really starting to bother

people down there that it has been shoved to the back burned so far and not

being dealt with.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Shelley; your time

is now up. You may come back to it later on.

MR. GRIMES: Could I add just to that last part?

As a result of the meeting in Baie Verte while we were there a little while ago,

our archaeologist did go and meet with the local group from Fleur de Lys, and

they are still working on it, but we share your frustration and understand it

completely.

MR. SHELLEY: Fair enough.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Penney.

MR. PENNEY: I must say, right at the outset,

that I am a little bit cautious to do this, having been appointed to the

position of legislative advisor to the minister, and having sat in on a lot of

the meetings to which he has referred already tonight, some of the questions

dealing with non-resident hunting, and dealing with the parks.

Also, I recognize as well that the Chairman would

like to have to the point questions and to the point answers. I think, as

Speaker Lush used to say, he would like to have the questions crisp so the

answers can be crisp, but I do not have that luxury, Mr. Chairman, so I am going

to have to be very careful, and I am going to have to ask my questions somewhat

generally.

Mr. Minister, one of the most welcome announcements

that I have heard relating to parks in some time was the one that you made

recently concerning the new provincial parks programs initiatives. I think, of

all the phone calls that I got as an MHA and as the legislative advisor to your

department, 99 per cent of them were positive. I would like for you to, if you

would, please, explain to us the rationale for the closing of the parks that did

close, and the rationale for designating the three parks that were so designated

as keystone parks.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know why he asked me; maybe I

should ask him that question - he knows as much or more about it than I do - but

I appreciate the question.

This area is one that the whole parks division

staff dealt with, I guess, for a couple of years, and they dealt with it

probably, too, the root of that was out of a sense of frustration that we had a

very good parks system but we had not been able to come up with the capability

financially to even maintain the system at an acceptable level, that with the

number of scenic sites, the number of day use parks, and the number of overnight

camping facilities that were there, it had expanded through a series of

federal-provincial agreements where there was some capital monies made

available. Then through the last ten years or so, outside of some funding out of

a federal-provincial agreement, the government hadn't been able to put any

significant amount of maintenance monies into the system.

In the last two or three years we were operating on

the basis of about in the range of $200,000 or so for maintenance for eighty

different facilities. Some of them, for those of us from Central Newfoundland,

would have been like, say, Pearson's Peak, that had tremendous significance in

its time, but by the very nature of the way it was structured, a very small

piece of land, but the very structure of it required annual upkeep and

maintenance. When you take $200,000 and try to spread it over eighty different

facilities you don't do anything. It got to the point where they were hardly

painting the picnic tables in the parks.

They looked at it and the opportunities were either

to try and get tremendous new infusions of money, or to look at where it was the

users in the system had really congregated over the last twenty-five or thirty

years or so of park usage. Where have their priorities gone, what were they

expecting of the parks, which parks did they want to use regularly, and how

could we maintain them on a limited budget. It was decided that some of them,

because they had developed very low usage patterns over the last two years, that

they may have been well-used ten years ago but for some reason the travel

patterns and the visitation patterns were such that it was clear that people,

resident and non-resident, weren't going there any more. They were hardly being

used.

That was one of the criteria that was looked at.

Another one was, were there other opportunities adjacent to the provincial park?

If you stopped operating this one would that mean that people in the area had

nowhere to go for that experience, or could they go some place else, either to a

private park in the area or to a federal park, to a national park in the area.

If there were other parks in the region then it was decided that we didn't need

to be committing to operating our park if similar opportunities were available,

either privately or through the national park system.

The other thing was that the usage patterns and

expectations had significantly changed. The parks act had talked about really

combining a park with a reserve, that parks were reserves that you were allowed

in. But it was really tried to be kept as a bit of a reserve, as close to nature

as possible. Do as little as possible in there except eat, sleep, walk around,

maybe have a fire when the index was low enough, maybe swim, maybe launch a

boat, but really don't do much else in there. The pattern desires again for

people and usage desires were clear. They wanted the park to be more of an

interactive place. They wanted to do some more things. Never mind preserving

nature, they wanted to clear some land and have a playground for the children.

The whole thrust of it had changed significantly.

Taking that into consideration it was decided that what we really should do is

try to meet the needs of the travelling public as they are today instead of how

they might have been when the park system started in the late 1950s and in the

1960s; and to try to make sure that we concentrated our efforts in a smaller

number so that we could do a better job there than really spreading ourselves

too thinly as we have done in the last several years, and not really being able

to deliver adequate levels of maintenance and/or service or facilities. We were

really risking having our parks run into a state of disrepair and downgrading by

virtue of the fact that we weren't able to generate through revenues coming in

and through monies put in directly by the government from general revenues

enough monies to maintain the parks even at their current levels.

The keystone parks, Mr. Chairman, it was determined

that what we have in the Province is an opportunity in three geographic regions

on the Island - because the parks system is not really well developed in

Labrador at this point in time. We have an opportunity to have parks, because of

the new usage patterns that people have explained to us and described to us in

recent years, to have a park become a sole destination vacation site for people

within the Province and for visitors coming here.

The notion is that if we take three of them - one

in the east, one in central and one in the west - that we might be able to

develop the facilities in them such that we can encourage Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians to come from one part of the Island in particular and spend a good

chunk of their summer vacation, through the summer and early fall, in a keystone

park in particular so that they can go from there to visit another whole region

of the Island. It fit in very well with our whole theme of Ours To Discover,

that we are trying to encourage Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to think more

carefully about exploring their own Province as a tourism destination rather

than thinking like I did growing up that you didn't have a holiday unless you

went to the mainland.

The thinking again was clear that if you develop

these three parks you can encourage someone from the Northern Peninsula, for

example, to leave and spend a week or ten days at Notre Dame and feel like they

had a great place to have a holiday on the Island. They could branch out on day

trips if they want from Notre Dame and see all of the northeastern and central

section of Newfoundland and Labrador, but use Notre Dame as a home base. That

was a lot of thinking that went into the keystone park concept.

MR. PENNEY: You mention Notre Dame. That one

just happens to be in my district. What kind of changes can we expect to see in

those three keystone parks? Take Notre Dame for an example. We had a

cross-country ski trail put in there during the 1990 winter games. It is a

national standard ski trail and it has been attracting visitors to the park all

winter long. It is a fantastic facility. What changes can we expect to see in

that park as a result of this announcement that it is now one of the three

keystone parks?

MR. GRIMES: That is a large part of the

discussion I will have with the division staff. It is clear that already the

preliminary estimates in Notre Dame are that because of its designation as a

keystone park and because of the increased visitation numbers in the last few

years, the staff there have identified that they really do in that park need

some additional campsite capacity. I think the staff has already pointed out an

area there. If we build a small walk bridge or a slight bridge over to a little

island that you can actually see from the Trans-Canada that there is a perfect

site over there to put in another thirty or forty sites in that park that would

really enhance the park greatly.

There is also the idea that in a certain part of

the park - because they do have some services now above and beyond a lot of the

others - that they will be able to look at extending some electrical service and

improving the roads within that park as well. Because one other view that has

been expressed regularly is that with the change in the kinds of park vehicles

and the type of facilities that people bring with them, particularly the

recreational vehicles, the RVs that they use now rather than tents and small

camper trailers, that in a lot of parks like Notre Dame that were cut out and

carved out some twenty years ago many of the existing campsites aren't quite big

enough. We either need new campsites or we actually need to make the existing

ones a bit bigger for people to get these big Winnebagos and stuff into the

lots. Because they were designed when about the biggest thing in Newfoundland

was a pup tent. They got a little bit bigger, and you could actually get one of

those little camper trailers I used to have with the canvas top on it. You

pushed a little button and it all popped up and you kicked something in the

middle of the night and it all fell down and that kind of stuff. Sometimes not

on plan and on target, but always a great bit of fun.

The general mode now is that the types of

recreational equipment that people are bringing into these parks might require

some enlargement and enhancement even of the existing campsites to make it

possible for them to get more of these recreational vehicles into the prime

sites that are there now, as well as a few new sites in some of the keystone

parks in particular.

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

Penney, your time is now up.

We have coffee available, but just to keep the

proceedings moving, I would suggest, rather than break, if it's okay, I say to

the minister, maybe if you want to take a minute to go back and pick up a

coffee, and the others can drift back. We will take five minutes for you and

your staff to pick up a coffee and the rest of us will grab a coffee at our

convenience because Mr. Woodford is anxious to be out of here. He has another

commitment and I am sure all of us would appreciate getting away a bit earlier

rather than later. Let us just take five minutes and then get right back, just

grab the coffee, get back to the table, and we will start again.

MR. GRIMES: And I will try to shorten my

answers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. Maybe a coffee

will help you.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: I would like to ask a few questions

of the minister and his officials. I am going to start here, 2.2.04 under the

John Cabot 500 Anniversary Celebrations, $3.8 million last year. Now, I have a

short question which will need a long answer. First of all, I would like to ask

about the accountability of the John Cabot committee. Would you first explain

their accountability procedure?

MR. GRIMES: Basically, as a corporation designed

and set up under a separate piece of legislation that was approved in the House

of Assembly, I guess, two years ago now, the corporation having been formed and

active for just over a full year, they are bound to have an annual audit

statement and so on that shows a full appropriate reviewed accounting of their

expenditures with all the normal accounting practices applied to that. As well,

any time they are asked, by either the Federal or Provincial Government, to

provide information about their expenditures, they are only too pleased to do so

because of the fact they realize that while they are a separate autonomous

corporation designed primarily so that they could attract some other revenues

and funds from corporate sponsorships and so on, that would not be possible if

they were a government agency, that they do respect their primary funders and do

provide information regularly as asked and required on any of their expenditure

issues from salaries, benefits, travel, meeting costs, where they are going and

why they are doing it and so on.

They regularly report to the Provincial Government by

virtue of the fact that at this point in time our deputy minister sits as a

full-fledged member of the board of directors and he also has regular meetings.

I believe it is every second week that Mr. Granter, as the Deputy, meets with

the Chief Executive Officer and/or the Chair of the Board for the Cabot 500

Corporation, so that I, as the minister, am regularly informed as to all of

their plans, what they are doing, what they are hoping to accomplish, and

whether they feel comfortable about reaching their goals and objectives at any

one point in time, and they provide the same type of information to any

representative of the Federal Government to which they also answer because they

have been receiving two thirds of their funding from the federal public

treasury.

We have been very pleased with the co-operative

approach they have taken with us since I have been there as the minister,

because I, as the minister - and the executive that you see here, the senior

executive of this department, are all new to these positions and while we are

not totally unaware, neither are we totally aware of what the relationships or

the reporting mechanisms were before that time. But we have been quite pleased

with the very forward, outright, frank, direct approach they have taken with us

and their willingness to provide us with information and to also provide an

avenue for us to pass along suggestions and recommendations to them, because we

are not, and do not feel we should be, in a position to direct the activities of

the Cabot Corporation.

We put the Board in place, representative of

outstanding individuals from all over Newfoundland and Labrador, who look at the

aims and objectives and how to accomplish them and they put in place a very fine

staff who work regularly with the executive committee of the chair, vice-chair,

the chief executive officer and one other board member and they have been

working very hard.

One of their biggest problems - actually, they have

some terrific plans in place, they are ready to go very quickly into the phase

now of promoting and advertising the kinds of things that are already determined

definitely to happen in 1997 and they have some contracts tentatively signed -

the problem is, as you see in our estimates, that so far the only thing they can

rely on one hundred per cent is our share of the money and they need the rest of

it before they can dot the I's, cross the T's and actually sign the legal

contracts that will allow them to go out into the market place and tell the

world and tell everybody in Newfoundland and Labrador what exactly it is that is

on the agenda at this point for 1997 and how they plan to promote and advertise

within the next year-and-a-half or so to make it a real success.

MR. MANNING: This information you say, well, any

information you want, or your department wants, I should say, is readily made

available. Is this information on the expenditures available to the general

public?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, the audited statements they have

are available and I think all of us involved in the Committee would be aware of

them, would recognize some of the public media attention that had come to bear

on this issue some time ago. I think the one particular part of the media were

asking some questions about the details of some travel of either the chief

executive officer or some members of the Board, and the Chair of the Board took

the view that because these people were volunteers and so on, that they did not

think it was fair to have to provide the same kind of detail of their travel on

behalf of the people as would be expected for any of us as members of the House

of Assembly; that if some member of the public asked where the Chair of this

Committee, or myself as minister, or yourself as MHA, has gone in the last

month, then we either table it in the House or make it public and show our

expense claims and so on and would not hesitate to do that because we understand

those are the rules under which we went and got elected. We spend the public's

money and that is the view that all of us, I think, take quite readily without

hesitation. They felt that they really should not have to be exposed to that

kind of scrutiny, unless somebody really thought there was some reason to

suggest that they were misspending public funds; then, by all means, one or both

of the ministers, provincially or federally, would have somehow become aware of

that, would have looked in to it and would have done an investigation and would

make it public. But other than that, it wasn't appropriate, in their view, for a

member of the media to be able to call up any member of the Board and ask, Did

you travel to the board meeting last week going from Corner Brook to St. John's,

and if so, show me your airline ticket and show me your hotel bill,' and those

kinds of things that in their audited statement, their audited information, in

the regular information that they provide, those kinds of things are there and

nobody from our representative on the board through to the deputy minister, to

myself as the minister, and the federal reps, had ever had any reason to even

suspect or think that there was anything other than bona fide expenditure of

funds on business on behalf of the corporation, so there has not really been an

issue with it other than the questions that were raised by a member of the media

and the fact that the Chair took exception to disclosing information on the same

basis as we as elected public officials would disclose it.

MR. MANNING: Whether the minister spends the

dollars or the Cabot 500 Corporation spends it, we are talking public funds. I

take exception to the Chair's exception now.

Earlier you mentioned a couple of trips that members

of the Committee have travelled on. Again, I don't know if you can answer those

questions, but on a recent trip to Gaeta - there are several trips to Gaeta, you

are going to talk two or three, whatever the case may be - how many members of

the Committee travelled on those trips? Can you tell me that?

MR. GRIMES: I could thumb through some of the

information I have here and let you know that with respect to Gaeta, the

Chairman of the Board was in Gaeta. For some reason, because I asked the

question myself, he must have found a way to have most of his travel expense

paid for himself because for the amount he claimed for travel I don't think you

would get to Deer Lake. So I don't know what mechanism they used, but for a very

minimal amount of money, the chairman travelled to Gaeta, and that was in a

session and a meeting where the Cabot 500 Committee in Gaeta had offered an

invitation to the group in Newfoundland to come, and forged these ties that I

addressed earlier in the committee meeting about making sure that they could do

some things that were mutually beneficial.

In that particular meeting we had representation as

well. The City of St. John's sent a representative to the meeting in Gaeta in

the sense that the mayor went. I am not totally sure at this point in time, and

maybe the deputy might be able to help me out, as to whether the city paid for

the mayor's travel to Gaeta or whether the corporation paid for it, but the

mayor did travel. I believe, if my recollection is correct as well, the Mayor of

Bonavista was offered an opportunity as well to travel to that joint meeting in

Gaeta because we wanted to forge the ties very strongly between Bonavista as

being a key site in this 500 Anniversary celebration, and that it is not only a

capital city celebration but a whole provincial celebration for the year, and I

am pretty certain in the case of Bonavista, that the mayor's travel expenses

were borne by the corporation because the municipality, I don't think, had the

wherewithal to enable the mayor to travel. We felt it was very important for the

mayor to be there at that meeting, and I believe they had even checked with me

and asked me what I though of it. It was their decision to make, but I told them

I thought it would be an oversight if we did not find some mechanism or other to

allow the Mayor of Bonavista to be part of that delegation. Maybe, Mr. Deputy,

you might be able to let us know the rest of the details in terms of Mr.

Manning's question.

MR. GRANTER: I really can't say for certain

whether the expenses for the Mayor of St. John's was covered by Cabot or not. I

do know that you are right on with regard to the travel expenses for the Mayor

of Bonavista.

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

Manning, your time has elapsed.

I am going now to Mr. Woodford.

MR. WOODFORD: I just have a couple of short

questions and then I am going to leave, Mr. Chairman. On the Arts and Culture

Centres, Minister - I think it is 3.1.01. I notice there are no big changes

there with regard to the head or the subheads. Are there any plans in your

department this year to put some of those centres over to the municipalities or

are there are any agreements close? I know that Stephenville has been talking,

fairly close talking, and Corner Brook, with regard to taking over those Arts

and Culture Centres. Are there any agreements close on those?

MR. GRIMES: Whether we are close or not, I guess,

is always a very sort of subjective guess. We are in pretty detailed discussions

with Stephenville. We decided to take the approach that we would try to finish

an arrangement satisfactory to both the government and to the town of

Stephenville with respect to that Arts and Culture Centre before we even talked

to any of the five other Centres, because we just didn't have the staff

available to be running six sets of negotiations at one time. It is very

time-consuming with a lot of detail involving our financial operations, our

Assistant Deputy Minister, some of the other Cultural division staff, some other

departments of government such as Treasury Board with respect to union

contracts, and those types of different implications.

The reason the numbers basically show us, at the

status quo, I guess is the best way to look at it, is that the proposal we put

to Stephenville, which we are willing to offer to the other five municipalities

following that, is that we would like to pass over administrative control of the

Centres to some kind of a board operation that is locally based so that they can

decide how to run the Centre and what to show in it, with us reserving the right

to buy some time for some provincial cultural priorities that we would like to

stage in those Centres. If they could indicate to us that we could try to work

towards a 30 per cent reduction in the government's financial contribution to

the Centre over a three-year period we would be pleased to try to finalize an

agreement with those general parameters. That is the kind of thing we are trying

to finalize in Stephenville.

That being the case, in all likelihood, because the 30

per cent reduction would be over three years, it is not likely that any more

than 5 per cent or 10 per cent of that reduction would occur in any one Centre

in the first year. Because they would need some time to implement some changes,

see how much further they can go a second year, and then get to reduction in a

third year.

We felt, based on the experience in Stephenville,

which has now been going on for a couple of months, I guess, since February 10

in this particular discussion. It looks like it might take us three or four

months at a time to negotiate one of these arrangements if we can, therefore we

would not get any more than two or three done in a year. So any reductions that

would occur would be minimal in this year. If we have a couple of agreements in

place by the end of this fiscal year you should expect to see some reduction

reflected in next years operating numbers with respect to arts and culture

centres. Treasury Board and the rest of Cabinet agree with us that we really

should reflect current year numbers for another year even while we are trying to

very much pursue the initiative and the action item in the Strategic Economic

Plan which is to pass over administrative and functional control of these

centres to operational boards, management boards in the local area. So that is

still the objective.

We will know, I expect, in the next five or six weeks

if we are going to be successful in Stephenville. We have had some ongoing

dialogue with them. The ADM, Ms. Batstone and Rick are back in the middle of

some discussion again now. We have had some recent position statements passed

back and forth as to: We would like to try this and we would like to try that.

They are being analyzed again now as to whether or not there is a real prospect

to finalize an arrangement in Stephenville. So that is where we are and the

numbers here reflect that we really expect to have to spend the same amount of

money in the centres this year as last year. If we come to an agreement then we

should see the revised numbers actually a little bit lower then this at the end

of the year but not a great deal.

MR. WOODFORD: 2.3.03, Marble Mountain: I have to

ask at least one question on Marble Mountain anyway. The travel generators, the

$5 million versus $300,000 for this year, could you give me an explanation of

that and why the difference? I noticed the completion of the base lodge and all

of that occurred this year. Would that be where the significant numbers came

from?

MR. GRIMES: I don't know if I have told you yet,

these are my instructions, with respect to Marble Mountain, when I was offered

this new portfolio. The Premier was aware of my love of golf - and you can

recall an incident in the House where I was accused of having a vehicle with

golf clubs parked at the golf club and some keys changed hands and those kinds

of things but when I was offered this job he said: Well I understand you like

golf, now as the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation you have

governmental responsibility for Marble Mountain... and he said: it is going to

be kind of difficult for a minister to really speak in the proper glowing terms

about Marble Mountain if you have never been there and don't know how to ski. So

he said: I would like for you to go and learn how to ski.

Of course when I was in Baie Verte with Mr. Shelley a

while ago, as the MHA at the Chamber, they gave me the opportunity to try out

Copper Creek, which is a great new facility as well, I almost killed myself but

other then that it was alright. So as a novice skier and trundling around Copper

Creek and Marble Mountain and those kinds of things - but the issue here is, as

you point out, the monies showing in the budget reflect the federal/provincial

money and you can see the federal revenues again basically of a 70/30

arrangement I believe Mr. Deputy, that we had. With respect to the monies last

year, that money shows the development of the base lodge, a tremendous addition

to the facility there. I was there for the opening and have been there on a

couple of occasions since, even this past weekend for the joint council meeting,

for the Humber joint councils. They held their meeting actually in the meeting

room in the base of the lodge while it was in full swing, with full skiing going

ahead, people using the whole of the second floor, the whole of the lounge area,

everything in full operation and a full business meeting proceeding in a meeting

room in the basement at the same time which shows the flexibility of that

particular establishment.

The number this year, the $300,000 again, shows some

operating monies - well, actually this is the capital head, but there are some

operating monies elsewhere, there are some capital monies that are there to keep

the Budget line alive because just like with the Cabot 500 Corporation we are

very confident that we will have again more capital monies than this to spend on

Marble Mountain this year because the master plan requires some further

improvements to the actual hill itself, to the ski facility, to make sure that

it is available in the best possible form for 1997 because there is a major ski

event already planned for 1997 at Marble Mountain and also for 1999 to host the

Canada Winter Games for all of the Alpine skiing events that will be held there.

There is still some work that has to be done and

because the federal/provincial agreement was not finalized at the time of the

writing of the Budget we were not able to put the full amount that is there. It

looks like it will probably approximate again what happened last year, that

there probably will be another $5 or $6 million spent at Marble Mountain this

year for new ski lifts, some snow-making equipment, and some more contouring of

the hill to prevent erosion, runoff and so on, and to keep the hill in the best

possible shape.

That looks like it will be the last of the public

contribution to the hill because we are already looking at talking to private

sector interests who will build the hotel at the base of the mountain, build a

golf course across the river so it can become a year-round resort. Right now

Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation as an agent of Marble Mountain

Development Corporation are preselling condominiums for the base as well. They

have expressions of interest and deposits for somewhere in the range of twenty

or so already from some people who want to buy into, and are willing to have

constructed and built at the base of the hill.

The $300,000 the deputy informed me is monies that

were carried over from the expenditure of last year in work that has to be done

and most of that is relating to landscaping right at the base that did not get

finished along the base and the base lodge before this season. They finished the

lodge which was opened February 10 so they have a bit of money left there which

is still in the Budget. We are pretty confident, Mr. Chairman, that we will be

adding to that Budget line from $5 to $6 million before the year is over, to

really finish the job on that ski facility and then continue on with the private

sector interests that are ready to develop the rest of that year-round resort.

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Minister, I think there was

someone from your department, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation,

doing a study on golf courses around the Province. Is that study finished, and

if it is could you elaborate on the findings? Can you let us know now?

MR. GRIMES: The study is finished. Actually, we

had a meeting arranged for St. Patrick's Day and, I guess, the prime consultant

on the issue had been vacationing just before that in Mexico and got struck with

some kind of a virus and was taken seriously ill and it slowed down the writing

of it. The summation of the presentations and the consultations around the

Province have been done but they have not had a chance to finalize their

recommendations and their proposals to us. Apparently he is now back in harness

back in working form and we are expecting that report to be available to the

government fairly soon.

As soon as we get it we will make a public release of

it because there are a number of interests, as you would know, in your own

district. Also, our friends on the Baie Verte, a year or two down the road, have

some long-range plans and hope for an addition to the ski hill at Copper Creek

for development, and there are a lot of expressions of interest about the

possibilities for golf in the Province. We are waiting to hear the view of this

consultant group as to whether or not they agree.

I am hoping actually they are going to contradict me

as the minister because I have been saying publicly that I do not believe

anybody is going to leave any other part of the world and say: I must go to

Newfoundland and Labrador to golf. But I firmly believe that when they come here

for whatever the other reason is, that the golfers like to golf as part of the

experience. I don't think they are going to say: I must go to Newfoundland and

Labrador to golf.

My fondest wish would be that the consultant would

write a report saying that if we did it right that is exactly what could happen.

That maybe we could have some courses strategically located, we could further

develop some of the current facilities, and we could actually do like Prince

Edward Island is doing now. They have a very fine promotion where they are

packaging their golf product: Come and tour Prince Edward Island to golf. They

don't mention beaches, they don't mention farm vacations, they don't mention

deep-sea fishing. They say: Come and golf. Maybe the consultants will surprise

me. Being a little bit of an avid golfer myself I'm anxious to see what they

say.

MR. WOODFORD: I know in our area this past summer

it was unreal what that golf course - and it is the first summer it was open -

did to the tourism industry in that area. It is unreal. The interest, local

interest and outside, you know.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: I don't golf myself. Anyway, thank

you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say thank you to the minister and his staff.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Woodford. Thank you,

Mr. Minister.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Andersen.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Minister, the first question I have is 2.2.06, Labrador

Interpretation Centre. I

suppose the very first question is, why would it be under tourism instead of

either under Culture or provincial museums? My understanding first of all of an

interpretation centre is that it is basically a museum, other than the fact that

it doesn't have a controlled atmosphere like a proper museum does. It has

containers that have proper controlled temperatures in them to keep artefacts.

I'm not so curious about what the Labrador

Interpretation Centre is going to cost, but I'm very curious as to where it is

going to be. I know that last year it was announced that the

Interpretation

Centre would go to North West River, Labrador. When you speak of culture,

heritage, historical issues, North West River has to be one of the newest

communities in the whole of Labrador, not very much older than Labrador City or

Wabush. For me there is no great historical reason for putting any kind of

historically related stuff into a community like that. The argument I'm getting

from the District of Torngat Mountains is that if the

Interpretation Centre does

go to North West River all the artefacts that belong to the old communities -

you take Hopedale, Rigolet, Nain, three of the older communities on the whole

Coast of Labrador - all of their artefacts would be moved to this location.

One of the things I've been learning as I go along is

that there is more archaeological logical history written about the Inuit of

Labrador in Washington D.C. than there is anywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador

about the Labrador Inuit, and I think, if we are going to promote this culture

as part of our heritage, then I think it is only fair that we look at bringing

them to our own back yard before we talk about and promote as a tourism

attraction, cultures of our own people without their knowledge.

MR. GRIMES: Thanks for the question. I can let you

know on both parts of it that I hadn't really considered either of them before

because of the fact that the Labrador

Interpretation Centre is one of the last

facilities, as I understand it, to be built under the comprehensive agreement

that has been placed for a while now - actually, the tenders close in a week or

ten days, April 12, I think, or somewhere in that range; that this had been in

planning, had been discussed for some time, and in the agreement, the

Canada-Newfoundland Comprehensive Labrador Subsidiary Agreement, that they had

earmarked a number of things to be funded under that agreement over the four or

five years it was in place. It is now about to expire, I think, in this year.

All of those particular centres - if it weren't a

designated current historic site or if it weren't actually classified as a

museum, which this one is not, it is referred to as an

interpretation centre -

all of them were categorized, and for budget purposes, were put into the Tourism

Planning part of the budget; that is where the lighthouse was done and those

types of things, the other developments that were done. That is just where the

committee, federal-provincial, jointly agreed that in both the federal Budget

Estimates and provincial, they would be placed there and that would seem to be

the most appropriate heading under which to house them. If it was intended to be

a museum in the true sense it would have been listed as a museum, it would have

been done under the historic agreements or under the museum - the mantle-type of

heading would have been voted someplace else. That is the background of it as I

understand it.

The location as well - the discussion of the location

had taken place some time ago. When I arrived in the department, the only

question was, were we finished with our planning jointly between the

representatives from Labrador, the Provincial Committee and the Federal

Provincial Management Committee and were we about ready to go ahead and plan now

for the actual building of it. The site location and so on wasn't even anything

that was ever brought to my attention; that had been determined, probably back

as early as when they talked about building the centre - that they would build

the centre and build it in North West River. And the

interpretation centres as

they are done elsewhere, I think, again, had been viewed more as visitor centres

than visitor information centres with an emphasis on making sure that you have

displays in them that will interpret the area in which they are built. So you

wouldn't be again, as much as what you were describing, looking at genuine

artifacts and the museum-type of presentation, but there will be an interior

interpretation facility within this building that will try to interpret for the

people, the customs, history and lifestyle of Labrador generally and I don't

know if anyone had raised the view on behalf of the different peoples before as

you have about the fact that, in one of the newest communities in Labrador you

are going to build the centre that is supposed to depict the traditional

historic lifestyle and development of Labrador. But the first discussion I have

heard of it is here this evening, and I guess what I am trying to say is that I

don't know if we are at the stage - we will have some Minutes of this meeting

made available to our staff, and note the fact that this issue has been raised

by yourself.

I don't know if we are in a position, really, to do

anything effectively about either the location or even further development or

consideration of what it is that is actually going to be housed inside this

Labrador

Interpretation Centre. Maybe it is a prime opportunity for you,

yourself, as a Labrador MHA for the Torngat Mountain area to visit with our

staff and to get the full details of exactly what they plan to do so maybe you

might have better comfort level for what - they will be able to explain to you

much better than I what led to the decision in terms of location.

I think the idea of it being in this budget head

rather than with museums or historic resources is because that is where all of

the

interpretation centres that we did in Labrador ended up, as well as the ones

- the ones that we did on the Island ended up as Tourism Planning budget items,

rather than that, unless they were clearly identified as restorations of

historic sites or actual construction of a museum.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: The reason I brought up

North West River is that it never really hit me until we started going through

this, the significance of the Labrador

Interpretation Centre, which the MP for

Labrador, Bill Rompkey, announced last year would go into North West River. What

happened since then has become a concern, because a small community like Rigolet

has a lot of historical background with respect to World War II. It used to be

like, I suppose, a control centre for the upper Lake Melville - Goose airfield

thing, and submarine watch from Rigolet itself, and some of that stuff

apparently is going to be moved to the

Interpretation Centre if it goes ahead in

North West River.

Also, there are small

interpretation centres in

Hopedale and Nain which - whoever is doing this presumes that these interpreted

artifacts would be moved to the major

Interpretation Centre in Labrador, which

again, according to Mr. Rompkey, is going to be in North West River. Anyway,

that is that one.

Now, with respect to historic sites, we do have two

national historic sites in my district, the Hebron church and the Hopedale

Moravian church buildings. I believe both of those buildings are the oldest

wooden structures in Eastern Canada. Both the Hopedale Museum Committee which is

trying to deal with the church buildings in Hopedale, as well as Torngasok,

which is the Labrador Inuit Cultural Institute, if you will, have been looking

for support to restore those buildings. They were declared national historic

sites about five or six years ago and, to date, neither the Federal Government

nor the Provincial Government have been willing to put any money into

restoration of those buildings, even though they've been declared national

historic sites.

Whether or not your department has any funding with

respect to those sites, I think your department and your officials should be

pushing to help ensure that those national historic sites are restored properly

and kept as tourism attractions. Because if you see the Hopedale Museum, it is a

very, very impressive place to see, and if there is not something done with it

over the next year or two that building is going to fall down - a 300-year-old

building, declared a national historic site, and neither government willing to

put any resources into it to ensure that it stays up.

MR. GRIMES: I would just like to point out, Mr.

Chairman, to the member, that Mr. Hayward informs me, under a heading in

Development Agreements, 2.2.02 there is, in fact, under a Grants and Subsidies

heading there - while not specific to the ones you mentioned, there is a fund

this year, not a big lot of money, but a fund of $50,000 available under the

comprehensive Labrador agreement again for stabilization of historic buildings,

and the federal/provincial committee, I guess, upon representation, will not do

much restoration work, but if there is any real difficulty, and if either of the

buildings that you mentioned is in danger of having some part fall into serious

disrepair where it needs to be stabilized for the time being, because you are

right, neither one, as I understand it, has been identified for major

restorative work underneath the agreement at this point in time.

Maybe the deputy or the ADM can remind me of what the

plans and/or prospects are of a further agreement, because I know generally the

idea of sector specific agreements in the future are under some question between

ourselves and the Federal Government as to whether or not we would be able to

have another comprehensive Labrador agreement for historic sites and for tourism

development and so on. I am not sure of the details and prospects of that yet -

they might want to inform you of that - but at least if you have a concern, as

you say, about the Hebron Church or the Hopedale Moravian Church, and if it is

to the point where there is some danger of collapse of part of the structure,

then I think it should be identified and there is a stabilization fund where

some monies can be put in to make sure that any facility like that doesn't fall

into a state of disrepair to the point of losing some of the characteristics

that it has that have caused it to be already designated as a national historic

site.

I am, again, sorry I can't help you more in terms of

giving you the background of why it was that certain new facilities and some

other facilities like the lighthouse in L'Anse-Amour were designated for

significant restoration work,

whereas something like the church facilities that

you mentioned as historic sites weren't designated for any major restoration

work under a similar agreement and a similar pot of money. But those decisions

(inaudible) when this agreement was negotiated some years ago. Again, if either

of you would like to make a comment about what the likelihood or prospect is of

us having a continuing or a renewed agreement where that could be brought

forward as an issue, then feel free to let Mr. Andersen know.

MR. GRANTER: I think the prospect of further

sector-type agreements with the Federal Government is very limited - I doubt

very much that we will have them - but there is some possibility of a more

general economic development agreement which may be able to facilitate some

projects of this nature.

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

Andersen, your time has elapsed.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: Already?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is it. As a matter of fact, we

gave you an extra two or three minutes since you were so gracious as to

(inaudible).

Mr. Shelley.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, I am going to ask you one now, I think,

that is pretty commonplace and it connects, I guess, with the Department of

Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and also the Department of Works, Services and

Transportation, and that is signage. Of course, it is ongoing and talked about

so much - as a matter of fact, I raised it once in the House this year, and

talked about how, when you leave Port aux Basques you see about twenty signs

telling you how far St. John's is but you know, for somebody - and I will use my

own district as an example and I am sure other members could use theirs as

examples.

You know, you leave St. John's and you see nothing for

the Baie Verte Peninsula until you are one kilometre away from the peninsula and

then you see a sign: Baie Verte Junction - one kilometre; and of course, one of

the members opposite said: `No sign and you don't know where Baie Verte is?' I

said: `Well, I sure do, and I certainly know where St. John's is, but I didn't

need the twenty signs to tell me where St. John's is.' But it is really a

ridiculous thing that I have always noticed in this Province, you know, it's

crazy, and how it relates to your department, I guess, it is the trails we are

going to be talking about and, of course, hopefully we will be improving on it,

like the Dorset Trail in Baie Verte, the Viking Trail, the Bonavista Trail and

so on. But, I mean, it only makes sense to me if we are going to promote these,

and I know there is a lot of tourists, I have spoken to them and asked them

about it, as a matter of fact, in the last couple of years to get their opinion,

and they say that they tend to wander around a lot on their holiday. They might

come to visit a certain part of the Island, but as they drive around in their

Winnebago, their trailer and so on, they are looking around as they go, and if

they see something enticing, they will go there.

I am going to use my own district as an example,

because I am more familiar with it. For example, driving to the Baie Verte

Peninsula, you see just one sign: `one kilometre' just before you get there, and

then you see a little, brown sign that says: `Dorset Eskimo Site'. Now, who in

his right mind as a tourist, will say: `Yes, that must be a wonderful place to

go to see.' And the minister knows and I know - and it is the same with your

part of the district as with that of the Member for Lewisporte - there is so

much in those areas. There are twenty-one beautiful communities down on the Baie

Verte Peninsula, where there is salmon-fishing, where there are icebergs to be

seen, I mean, there is so much that I could go on and on.

But the point is that we need to give some attention

to signage. Once you pass Grand Falls, for example, you see a sign just after

Grand Falls: `The Dorset Trail - fifty kilometres' and then maybe, once more

before you get there. And I don't think it is too much to ask, when you are

going to Bonavista, before you get to that trail, before you even get to the

Burin Peninsula Highway, say, fifty kilometres away, to at least give some kind

of indication of what is up ahead. Like I told a lady on the Northern Peninsula

a while ago - she had a sign up for a donut shop and that was 100 feet away:

`New Donut Shop', a little bakery up there now, I don't know if you have seen

it, 100 feet, and I went past it; I actually backed up when I saw it, went back

to tell her: `You should move your sign at least a mile up the road.' Well, it

is the same analogy I am using for these trails and I am very serious about it;

I really notice it. You know, you see St. John's signage twenty-five times

before you get there. I know where St. John's is - but that's not the point - at

least somewhere along the way.

So I think something should be worked out between the

Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, and Tourism, at least when these

trails are identified, and if you are going to promote them that you give some

kind of decent signage to them. I would like to hear the minister's comments on

that particular issue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On that important issue, as the member points out -

and I don't believe it was me he referred to, when some member across the House

asked: Don't you know where Baie Verte is? You are supposed to know if you are

the member,' or something like that; but we wouldn't do that kind of thing.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: The issue, though, is an important and

a timely one, too. In our Budget, under the Tourism and Historic Resources

Agreement, there is, I think, $200,000 allocated again this year to help us

finish the work on and to implement the theme `Touring Routes' that you talked

about. There has been a consultation process that has occurred; groups have gone

around the Province twice now, I think, to look at how to incorporate and

integrate proper signage for tourism destinations that people find on these

different trails, on these different Theme Routes. As a matter of fact, the

issue that you raised in the Legislature, the fact that St. John's would appear

numerous times on the signs travelling Central and East - we share the

experience in driving to Central and West that you will find dozens of times

that Gander is coming up and that Grand Falls - Windsor is coming up, and once

you have passed the Baie Verte turn-off, before Corner Brook, you are reminded

dozens of times that Port aux Basques is further ahead. But there is no

reference to Baie Verte. We raised the issue actually, the Deputy Minister and

myself, because you had raised it, in a meeting with the Minister of Works,

Services and Transportation.

The other example that I used as well to support what

the member is saying, Mr. Chairman, was going to Trinity. Because I think

everybody here would understand with the Trinity Pageant and so on that Trinity

has become -

WITNESS: (Inaudible) that is not a good example.

MR. GRIMES: - quite a tourist destination in the

last couple of years. In a community with less than 300 livyers, they attract

400 and 500 visitors a day. And when you turn off to go down the Discovery

Trail, you do, I think, see a sign that says `Trinity' at the highway, and you

don't see one again. Everybody would now know in tourist travel that the main

tourist attraction down there recently has been Trinity. After you leave to go

to Trinity there are signs saying Lethbridge so far, Catalina so far, Port Union

so far, and Bonavista so far. The last time the deputy minister and I travelled,

once we got there I said: I was thinking about stopping - I thought two or three

times that I had missed it. Trinity wasn't mentioned. I wasn't even sure I was

on the right road.

The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation

chided me and reminded me that if I'm going to be a real tourist I should have a

map in my car. I was a Newfoundlander myself. I didn't think I needed a map to

find Trinity, but I wasn't quite sure once I got three parts of the way down the

road and hadn't seen a single reminder on the signs about the major attraction

in the area.

Your point is well taken. The Minister of Works,

Services and Transportation this year as well though recognizes that. We did

meet with him on a couple of occasions. He went as far as actually having $1.5

million allocated, I think, in the Works, Services and Transportation budget

this year for increased signage efforts on the highway to replace and repair

some signs that got damaged through the winter in snow clearing, and also, to

construct new signs particularly relating to our themed touring routes. I think

it is probably a prime opportunity for yourself, as the member - because I know

I have made the representation once based on your example of the Dorset Trail

and the Baie Verte Peninsula, because your example is very well taken. We talked

about it from a tourism point of view that these trails in particular, there

should be some indicators as you travel east to west that you are going in the

right direction or at least approaching these trails.

Ourselves as locals trying to do the Ours To Discover,

sometimes we are a bit confident and cocky, I suppose, and don't carry the map.

Maybe we need reminders that we are getting close to the trail moreso than our

out-of-Province visitors who are probably better equipped and have a map with

them and might know even better than I do that I'm getting to such-and-such a

trail if it is clearly marked on the map. But it is a good point. There is money

this year to try to deal with the issue generally. I know your very deep concern

for the Baie Verte Peninsula and for the Dorset Trail.

I think it is a perfect opportunity to make the pitch

again to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to ask whether or

not some of his $1.5 million might be spent to put up at least one sign

somewhere between St. John's and Gander even, or even just after Gander, or

something like that; that Baie Verte isn't that far away, or that the Baie Verte

turn-off isn't and the trail isn't. Maybe the same type of information might be

available travelling west to east somewhere west of the turn-off, other than a

kilometre or so.

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

Mr. Shelley, your time has elapsed.

Mr. Andersen, you have one other question?

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: I had several other

questions but I will try to - with respect to tourism and sport fishing and

sport hunting, I believe that both the Department of Tourism, Culture and

Recreation as well as the Department of Natural Resources should probably be

more aggressive about non-resident licences.

The reason I bring that up is that I happened to work

as a wildlife officer from 1979-1984, and during those years I know that

Government of Quebec revenues, on non-resident moose licences alone, were $60

million a year, and from 1979-1984 a non-resident moose licence in Quebec was

$120. At that time, in Newfoundland, a non-resident big game licence was

something like $25. I think, with the right kind of promotion, our government

could certainly greatly increase revenues on the licences alone if we were more

aggressive about it.

With respect to trade shows, I would suggest, when we

are going to have trade shows, or attend trade shows, that we look at involving

private entrepreneurs. The reason I say that is, I went to an international

trade show on fish products in Germany about four years ago and there were

federal and provincial fisheries bureaucrats there, but I am very cynical, first

of all, about bureaucracies. Secondly, sometimes bureaucrats will not do as good

a `sell' job as a private entrepreneur will, and certainly in this case, that is

what was happening, because the bureaucrats who were there were more interested

in going sightseeing than trying to sell the product from our Province, which in

this case, was Atlantic salmon and char.

With respect to tourism development, I think the more

we try to involve the private entrepreneur in promoting what product we have in

Newfoundland and Labrador in the way of fish and wildlife, the better

opportunity we will have in creating a better tourism climate, if you will. I

think another example that should be looked at is the black bear situation in

Labrador. Black bears have become a problem for the George River caribou herd

because they are over-populating the Northern Labrador area. They are killing

newborn calves in springtime, and that has not been seen for a long time. But in

the last couple of years there are so many black bears that they are out there

eating newborn caribou, and we should do something. And I think one of the ways

of promoting that would be to increase big game hunting in tourism in that area.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like

to make a few comments in response.

There are two or three good points. Being more

aggressive, I guess, can be done in a couple of ways. One is to increase the

number of licences. You mentioned that we have an opportunity with respect to

the black bear in Labrador that both myself and, I am sure, Mr. Penney, will

pass along to our officials to consider because while there are some limits on

moose, as I mentioned earlier, we think there are some opportunities with

caribou this year in the allocations with respect to the George River herd. I

think there were additional allocations given in Labrador for caribou above and

beyond years before, but we had not really looked, I don't think, in much detail

at the possibilities of increasing black bear. There seems to be quite a demand

for a black bear hunt in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we will pass that along

so they can investigate the possibility of looking at increasing the quotas for

non-residents with respect to black bear, particularly if, as you described,

they are creating a problem for the caribou.

The increased numbers generally with respect to the

moose and caribou on the Island we are looking at, because we are trying to

complete the count that is being done of the herds so we can have more

definitive information as to whether or not we can increase the total number of

moose and caribou available, period. That hasn't been a problem with the size of

the caribou herd in Labrad

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	1995-04-03
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_resource_ga42session3_1995-04-03_rc-tcr_.htm
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	e41d5b0f1484d898dd1137467b480189c246ab3e

Source file is stored in the law ingest library (html).