Government Services Committee — Department of government - at least for the time being — 1 June 1993

1993-06-01

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

June 1,

1993 GOVERNMENT SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Mr. Lloyd Snow,

M.H.A. (Trinity - Bay de Verde) substitutes for Mr. Lloyd Matthews, M.H.A. (St.

John's North); Mr. Bill Ramsay, M.H.A. (LaPoile) substitutes for Mr. Walter

Noel, M.H.A. (Pleasantville); Mr. Nick Careen, M.H.A. (Placentia) substitutes

for Mr. Roger Fitzgerald, M.H.A. (Bonavista South); and Mr. Oliver Langdon,

M.H.A. (Fortune - Hermitage) substitutes for Mr. John Crane, M.H.A. (Harbour

Grace).

The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the House of

Assembly.

CLERK (Noel): - committee and we must hear a

motion for the election of a Chair of the Committee.

MR. CRANE: I move, Doug Oldford.

CLERK: Mr. Oldford is moved as Chair of the

Committee.

MR. J. BYRNE: Seconded.

CLERK: Seconded.

Mr. Oldford.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Oldford): Thank you. I want to

welcome everyone to the Government Services Estimates Committee. Today we are

here to look at the estimates for the Department of Employment and Labour

Relations. I want to welcome the minister and his staff, the clerk and any media

that are around, I do not see anyone. Normally we would go on with the election

of the vice-chair, however, Mr. Roger Fitzgerald the Member for Bonavista South,

is doing some constituency work this morning and he could not be here. Mr. Jack

Byrne, the Member for St. John's East Extern, is sitting in as a substitute for

Mr. Fitzgerald. So, I think that maybe what we should do is call for nominations

for vice-chair and we will elect or try to elect Mr. Fitzgerald in his absence,

if that is okay with the committee. So, can I have call for nominations for

vice-chair?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, will somebody second that

please?

MR. J. BYRNE: I will second it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. I want to introduce our

Committee first of all. Jack Byrne is the Member for St. John's East Extern,

Lloyd Snow, the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde who is sitting in for Lloyd

Matthews the Member for St. John's North. Next to him we have John Crane who is

the Member for Harbour Grace, he is a committee member. Mr. Fabian Manning is

the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes and Ed Byrne is here as the Employment and

Labour Relations critic. He is not a member of the Committee but I think the

Committee agrees that he can sit in as the critic.

This meeting is scheduled to last from 9:00 a.m. -

12:00 noon. If the Committee feels that this is sufficient time to look at the

estimates then we will move the estimates. If they do not feel it is enough time

to look at the estimates we will move adjournment at about 12:00 noon. If not,

and the Committee feels that we did a good job with these estimates, then we

will ask the Clerk to call the sub-heads. We are going to give the minister

fifteen minutes to introduce his staff and his estimates. We will then move on

to the vice-chair who can respond with either an opening statement or ask

questions and then we will ask each member of the committee in turn to question

the minister and staff. We will allow ten minutes for each member, we will

alternate from the government side to the opposition side.

Members in this Committee will be referred to by

name rather than district. For recording purposes I will ask that each member

identify himself when he speaks or in the case of the minister and his staff, if

they would identify themselves when they respond. We would not want any thought

provoking questions or any earth shattering or historical requests or responses

of an historical nature to be attributed to the wrong author so it is important

that you identify yourself. So without further ado, I will call on the minister

to make his opening statement but first of all introduce the staff that he has

with him.

Mr. Minister.

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

pleasure for us to be here this morning I am sure. We will try to spend the time

as best we can in having an exploration of the budget for this particular

department and provide an opportunity for you people to ask questions.

The staff that I have with me this morning, on my

right is the deputy minister of the Department of Employment and Labour

Relations and it is Debbie Fry, next to Debbie on her right is Cathy Gogan who

is assistant deputy minister in charge of our employment services division in

the department. On my left is Mr. Mike Dwyer, Mike is an assistant deputy

minister with responsibility for occupational health and safety. So, maybe the

committee members might make note, if they want to ask particular questions - as

the committee proceeds, lots of times it is probably to your advantage to get

more detail from these staff people rather than have an answer from me directly.

Feel free to engage them. They certainly would like an opportunity to extol the

virtues of the work they've done on behalf of the people of the Province in the

department and divisions they have responsibility for.

We also have, at my right, at the back, Mr. Tom

Hopkins, who's the administrator for the department, and with him is Mr. Gerry

Crocker, who's the manager of financial operations in the department. Between

Tom and Gerry they always advise the rest of us as to whether or nor we have any

money and whether or not we're spending it from the right heads in the

department, those types of things. So we, as anybody in any department or

division of government, rely on them to keep us in line and make sure that we're

following the proper procedures when it comes to expending the people's money. I

guess if there are details of the actual heads themselves that you want to get

into they may very well advise any one of the four of us, or if you want they

can certainly answer questions directly as well, if you want to get into very

specific questioning of the departmental estimates.

We ourselves are here today to try to, as I

indicated at the beginning, shed any additional light on any aspect of the work

that's carried out on behalf of the government through this particular

department. If I could, Mr. Chairman - I know you're getting a little bit strict

with the time there - you mentioned fifteen minutes. Last year when I gave my

opening remarks it was an hour and half and then we recessed for coffee break,

and we came back and had an hour and half of questions. So let me know if you

want to cut me off somewhere in between there.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: The reason it takes an hour and

half of course is that we've been so proud of the things that we've done and

what we've tried to accomplish on behalf of the people of the Province by

providing services through this department that it's hardly enough time, even in

an hour and a half, to try to even start to tell you what it is that we're doing

and how good a job we think we are doing at this point in time.

That aside, I'll try to restrain myself a bit this

morning, because -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your exuberance is noted.

MR. GRIMES: Last year it was - I believe we

were here in the evening, weren't we? I was a little more excited than I

normally am, because it was the end of a particularly enjoyable day and I was

excited about life in the department and government and the prospects in the

Province, and that's what led me on, I think, at the time. So where we're here

early in the morning, this time I might try to restrain myself a bit and keep it

down to a shorter time period and allow more time for questions.

As it was, though, in the particular estimates

themselves, in Employment and Labour Relations: where we're situated in our

budgetary documents this year from pages 235 onward up to page 247, and because

of the order that they're there, which might prompt some of the questioning from

the Committee members, there were a couple of things that I wanted to point out

with respect to our three major divisions within the department, just for the

record, if I could, Mr. Chairman. Because I believe it is important from time to

time for the different departments of government to take an opportunity such as

this to inform yourselves and the Committee, and through the Committee to all

the members in the House and the public generally, as to the kinds of

initiatives that we've been undertaking, and the kinds of accomplishments we

feel that we have achieved, certainly in the first area that's there, in the

Labour Relations and Labour Standards area.

Unfortunately this morning our assistant deputy

minister, Linda Black, is not with us. She's on leave at the present time and

not available today. But Ms. Black as the assistant deputy minister coordinates

the work in Labour Relations and Labour Standards. With her, Joe O'Neill and his

group are the ones who provide the mediation services and so on, and

conciliation services, out of an office in the Metro Building on Kenmount Road,

which is also the same building structure, I understand, that houses our Labour

Relations Board. The Labour Relations Board, of course, with the full-time

executive director in Joe Noel, and Mr. Dennis Browne, who has recently been

re-appointed again to a five-year term as the chair of the Labour Relations

Board. They're the ones who handle matters of certification, decertification and

those types of things.

Then we have Mr. David Kerr, whose our director of

our Labour Standards division, where we look at aspects of the minimum wage,

vacation pay, entitlements for people in many instances who don't have a

unionized organization to fight on their behalf, but enforce the minimum

standards of employment and remuneration for people working in the Province. Ms.

Black coordinates the work of those particular areas and it is a busy area, as

you can often imagine. Many times in the labour relations area that kind of

thing will dominate the news from time to time, particularly if there are some

difficulties ongoing. It is the work of people like Mr. O'Neill and his group,

many times behind the scenes and many times unnoticed publicly, that helps

people resolve their differences and carry on to meet their objectives at the

end of the day, to come to contractual arrangements, to sort out difficulties,

and to continue on to be productive rather than spending a lot of time in some

kind of conflict. So we certainly appreciate their services.

One of the things in that area that we initiated

last year, and I wanted to point out that is committed to again in this year's

budget as an initiative under the Strategic Economic Plan, is a full-time

commitment to our preventative mediation program which we announced in the

Legislature last year.

Mr. George Joyce was appointed as the first

full-time co-ordinator of that program and he will remain in that position. In

the period of time that it was operative last year there were a surprising

number of requests and there was a great use of that particular program because

there are some five components of it.

I might refer Committee members to a statement and

information that was released in the House of Assembly at a point in time during

our last session when we announced that program, and because of the interest in

it by employers and employee groups in particular, under our Strategic Economic

Plan funding this year we have allocated additional funds to make sure that the

preventive mediation program can work, can operate, and does have the financial

and human resources available to it so that employers and employees can avoid, I

guess, the necessity of going through arbitration and grievance procedures

unless there is no other avenue. This is an opportunity for them to go above and

beyond with the advice and help and encouragement of some trained staff to

prevent the necessity of being in conflict or confrontation in handling their

contractual arrangements.

We have been very pleased with the program. We

certain expect that there will be extensive use of it again throughout this

year. Everyone that responded on the basis of the pilot project last year did so

favourably, and as a result we certainly expect that it will probably be a

long-range, long-term, long-lasting initiative that would be here for some years

to come.

It is the type of thing that is encouraged by one

other initiative in the Strategic Economic Plan. We are in the final stages of

putting together the labour employer's advisory committee which, I guess, leads

to the whole notion that we are trying to encourage from the labour relations

point of view, the notion that as long as the employers and the employees work

together as best they can, share their concerns away from the confrontational

ground of bargaining so that people understand themselves and understand each

other as best they possibly can, the chances of resolution without consultation

are greatly increased.

Certainly there is a role for this for the

government. It has a particular interest on two fronts - one as an employer

itself when we are in public sector bargaining, and secondly as an interested

partner and concern when it comes to the private sector, making sure that

companies and their employees do not spend a lot of time in confrontation or

conflict, or with job disruptions, but rather move ahead and spend their time in

productive economic work.

So the labour employer advisory committee, we are

hoping that will be up and running again soon so that all of us will be able to

take advantage of the joint representations they can make and prevent spending a

lot of time in confrontation and conflict and take advantage of the joint

information that can be brought forward. That is along the same lines as what

happens in preventive mediation. If you come to understand each other a bit

better in the first place, you might avoid a lot of unnecessary conflict later

on.

Mentioned in the area of labour standards as well,

we are in the final stages now of bringing forward the regulatory changes in

terms of the regulations and labour standards that were brought forward from the

Labour Standards Board a couple of years ago.

One of the moves that we made in the last year and

that we are looking for positive outcomes in this upcoming year, is that if a

person, an individual, had a particular difficulty with severance from their

job, vacation pay, overtime rates not being applied - and they came to the

government, to labour standards, to launch any kind of a protest or an appeal,

then before they would end up going to a labour standards tribunal; and one of

the things that had happened, like in many other cases, because of the

difficulty of getting the three parties together to hear a case, there had

developed some backlog of cases and there had been arranged, I guess, some time

delays in terms of people having their case dealt with.

So one of the initiatives that we did just recently

was we moved from a tribunal to hear those particular cases to a single

adjudicator system where we have a list of adjudicators who are available on

call, and according as an individual or two or three come forward with a

complaint about how they had been treated under the Labour Standards Act, then

they can have their case heard on a very timely basis by a trained, single

adjudicator who will render a decision much more expeditiously than the

tribunals possibly could.

So that has only been very recent and we do not

have enough of a history or track record yet to see what the differences will

be, but we are very confident that it will be a positive difference with the

emphasis being on the resolution for the disaffected worker who had brought the

complaint, and that is the prime concern for us in this area.

If I move briefly, Mr. Chairman, for a couple of

minutes to the area of occupational health and safety, this whole division is

under the direction and guidance of Mr. Dwyer, as our ADM, and the whole

division is funded for government - housed in this department but funded from

the Workers' Compensation Commission. In the history of it some years ago this

kind of work was done directly by the commission. There was a change made where

it is now housed as a division of this department; government has been for some

time.

One of the debatable points a couple of years ago -

and the review committee went around the Province studying changes to workers

compensation that were only recently implemented - one of the issues that was

left hanging was whether or not the occupational health and safety efforts

should still be housed and directed in a department of government as it is now,

or whether it should be incorporated back inside the walls of and within the

whole ambit and gambit of the Workers' Compensation Commission itself. At this

point in time that matter is resolved in that it will stay as a division of the

department of government - at least for the time being. I am sure it will be

studied again; it will be debated again in the future, within a few years, but

at the present time we are quite comfortable that the service is being best

provided and more than adequately provided under the direction of Mr. Dwyer in

the occupational health and safety division of our particular department.

Since I mentioned the Workers' Compensation

Commission, there were a fair number of questions about that in committee last

year, because we had the chief executive office, the CEO, of the commission with

us. Mr. Forsey, who is acting in that position right now, is not available this

morning but certainly we could answer any questions generally about workers

compensation if you wanted, but we have been very, very pleased that Mr. Forsey

has stepped in for the time being because Mr. Mitchell was appointed as the

chief electoral officer back in October, and Mr. Forsey has been acting in that

capacity as the acting CEO since that time. There was an advertisement placed in

the weekend papers just past for people who are interested in applying for the

job of CEO of workers compensation. They are still searching for a full-time

person to put back into that position.

I would also be remiss if I did not pass along,

through the committee, a thank you to Ms. Rowe who has just recently again,

within the last number of months, been reappointed to chair the board of

directors at the Workers' Compensation Commission for another three year period

I believe her appointment is.

In any event, with our occupational health and

safety efforts we have been very pleased that we have made great progress in

this area and Mr. Dwyer - Mike - has always been very careful to point out in

any examination of the kind of statistical references that can show progress

with our efforts, not to try to make it look good but to be realistic about it.

I mention that in this context that we have been very concerned and we have

promoted the notion that in work sites in our Province safety is the key, and

education and awareness again is the key to that, but at the end of the day if

all else fails we have also put everybody on notice that we will not hesitate to

go to whatever recourse under the laws available to enforce the law. So,

prosecutions have increased and so on or did increase for a period of time. They

have seen now that they may have had their impact in the fact that sometimes

that kind of encouragement is needed to make sure that people understand that

the laws should be taken seriously but the education and awareness efforts have

had an impact.

Every statistical reference that you can use, and

there are a number of them that we could go through if you would like later,

indicates that the number of lost time injuries and accidents in the Province

over the past two years have decreased. Each time Mr. Dwyer and the group that

have done the statistical analysis, have always been careful to take out of that

statistical information the fact - and to remove from it so that it would not

seem inflated - the notion that we all understand that there has been a reduced

level of activity and in certain sectors in particular there have been less

people working. So, if there are less people working there should be less

injuries. Taking that into account, there has still been a significant decrease

in the number of lost time accidents and injuries reported.

The significance of what I am saying again, should

not be lost. Some people will say; well, there were some changes made to

workers' compensation and so on and maybe that accounted for it. We are talking

about a period of time before those changes came into effect because, Mr.

Chairman, the changes in workers' compensation came into effect January 1st,

1993. The reporting periods that we have used for all these statistical

references have been up to the end of December in 1992. So these are the kinds

of things that happened in `91 and `92. The ongoing indicator so far through the

first five months now of 1993, is that there is a further decrease and that this

trend that started a couple of years ago has continued, that there are less lost

time injuries, less of these actual accidents occurring and that even when you

factor out the consideration for decreased activity in the Province that there

has still been significant improvement. I think the numbers show anywhere from 7

- 9 per cent decreases even with the activity factor taken into account and that

over a two year period now, we are in the range altogether of close to a 25 per

cent decrease in the number of lost time accidents and injuries that are being

reported in the Province. The targets that were set for occupational, health and

safety to reach, are being attained. We are very pleased with that. As a matter

of fact, it has not caused any kind of relaxing of the approach or anything, it

has been encouraging news to the point that all of the staff have taken it in

that vein and they have even increased their efforts to see now if they cannot

continue that trend because I guess there is always a limit as to where anything

can go but the progress has been made and we have been very pleased. Probably we

have been a little remiss in not telling people about it often enough because it

is good news.

A couple of other things in that area, we have some

funding available at the end of the past year and in this years budget for some

research grants, as well, for any group, organization, individual and so on that

could do some research into things that could then be translated and passed on

to people for use in the workplace. Anything that could lead to safer work

practices and possible decrease in accidents or in lost time injuries at the

workplace. There was a release just a while ago where we announced publicly the

first two of those; one was the Road Builders Association that are doing some

work and the other one is the Canadian Centre for Occupational, Health and

Safety.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will ask you to clue up your

opening remarks and then we can get on with the questioning please.

MR. GRIMES: Fair enough, I will try my best.

There are just a couple of other things that I wanted to reference. The research

grants are in place and we are sure that the results of that work will be useful

to people in terms of continuing on with the objective of making sure that there

are reductions in accidents and injuries. We are sponsoring, with the

Newfoundland Federation of Labour and the Newfoundland and Labrador Employers

Council, a joint safety conference this Fall here in St. John's which will lead

us on to new initiatives in those areas that they are very excited about, our

partners in that, being the employers and the employees are excited about it.

I just wanted to, if I could, Mr. Chairman, maybe

it would be important before I stop, there is one other rather important area of

our department that I have not touched on at all yet which is the employment

services division. Maybe I should ask if members want me to make a few opening

comments about that division before they ask their questions, or do they want to

start their questions?

MR. CHAIRMAN: In fairness to members of the

committee I think we should go on with the questioning now, and I am sure that

topic will be discussed sometime between now and 12:00 o'clock. We have agreed

that normally the vice-chair would have the same amount of time as the minister

had, which was twenty-one minutes, but what we have agreed is that Mr. Ed Byrne

the critic for the Department of Employment and Labour Relations will be given

twenty one minutes to ask questions.

Mr. Byrne, if you would.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Minister, and

his staff it is a pleasure to be here this morning. I have a number of

questions, I guess, in broad areas of the department. I would like to begin with

occupational health and safety, if I could. With respect to visitations to the

workplace, the occupational health and safety staff visitations in determining

that there are safe work practices ongoing, do you have a policy where you visit

X number? Is it done periodically? Is it done every other week? Would you be

able to elaborate a little bit more on that for me?

MR. GRIMES: Certainly. I will ask Mike Dwyer to

give you the details of the policy. Generally the approach taken over the last

two years and initiated by Mr. Dwyer as the ADM was rather than have just a

random sample and hit or miss, we try to co-ordinate the visits on a proactive

fashion with people's safety records, so if there are areas that show up that a

certain company or a certain sector have had a number of incidents, accidents or

injuries reported, that companies in that sector will be targeted for visits and

with more education and awareness programs because they are obviously of concern

to everybody, and if there are certain areas where their safety record has been

rather impeccable then they might go back to a less frequent visitation

schedule.

MR. E. BYRNE: What sort of fines are levied by

your department where employers, whether it be in the construction industry or

other industries, are found in violation of safe work practices on behalf of

their employees? I understand that health and safety is a concern in the

workplace today, not only from the department, but more from employers and

employees points of view. What sort of fines are levied where employers are

found practising unsafe work conditions?

MR. GRIMES: There are a couple of practices

again in place. If when I am finished my couple of comments you would like more

detail Mike could probably provide that. The first order of business, I guess,

at any point in time when there is a visitation and there is an unsafe practice

identified there is an opportunity at that point in time for immediate

correction and if it is going to take some time, if there is a problem, then the

officers are entitled to issue a stop work order and the work can actually stop

until safe provisions are put in place so that nobody is put at risk anymore. If

in fact at the end of the day these things persist and there are more serious

difficulties and the companies or the employers are charged with an offence

under the act then the courts can levy a range of fines. I believe it has only

been in the last sitting of the House of Assembly before we dissolved for the

election that it was announced, and I believe we passed an increase in the

fines. There used to be a range that went from $500 to $5000 and now the range

goes from $5000 to $50,000 so there was a significant increase in the fine.

MR. E. BYRNE: So much more of a deterrent.

MR. GRIMES: That had been a very debatable

point. You could have a fairly serious infraction and a very minimal fine. On

balance now the fines have been increased, or at least the range allowable to

the court to impose has been increased significantly.

MR. E. BYRNE: In terms of improving the safe

practices and the decrease in the number of accidents, in education and

awareness, maybe it is something you never had a lot of time to elaborate on

with everything that is happening in your department, I understand.

On the whole question of education and awareness,

what programs have been established that deal specifically with education

awareness in the workplace? Have you funded employer-employee initiatives, or

are you planning to fund those sorts of initiatives, to increase the amount of

awareness that the actual employees and employers have with respect to

occupational health and safety?

MR. GRIMES: Maybe -

MR. J. BYRNE: If I can just add another point

to it, maybe keeping in mind as well that a vast majority of working people in

the Province today have difficulty reading and writing at the very minimal

levels. Has literacy been a component or basic, fundamental workplace upgrading

been a component of anything that you may do? For example, the act on WHMIS

allows for every worker must have the right to know, and et cetera, but it kind

of assumes that every worker has the ability to read and write at a high school

level as well, so....

MR. GRIMES: There's a whole

section of the

occupational health and safety division dedicated to the education and awareness

aspects of it, with Mr. David Clarke in charge of it. There are a couple of

things that they do regularly.

One is to provide opportunities, located regionally

throughout the Province, for people to attend sessions and seminars in groups

that would be advertised on certain aspects of the law, with respect - whether

it be WHMIS or some other - a part where they will be invited to sessions

conducted by departmental staff. The other thing that's done a fair bit is that

our staff will work with the unions, in that the unions themselves are putting a

lot of effort into safety initiatives, and many of them will do the literacy

initiatives that you are concerned about. As part of it, they will deal with Mr.

Clarke and his staff in terms of the components that they want to deliver to

their members. Between them they will work out the best approach to get the

information in a useful form to the vast majority of their working members.

The other good news part of it as well is that an

increasing number of the employers seem to be putting more of an emphasis - they

seem to have bought into the argument that safety is in their best interest,

because it reduces lost time, greater productivity and so on. Then they come to

that same group, to Mr. Clarke and his group, and ask: will you put on seminars

for our company? Those kinds of things are done as well. We'll either actually

do the work, do a presentation for them, provide all the materials for them,

show them how to access other things if they need it.

The other things jointly, one of the things that,

as I mentioned before, the Employers Council and the Federation of Labour came

to us and said: we need maybe something to give this a bigger bang. Which is why

we've agreed to have a major conference in the Fall, which Mr. Dwyer is

organizing with Mr. Dave Curtis from the Federation of Labour and Jim Pitcher

from the Employers Council. The three of them are working together now to try

and put together the logistics of a major conference on safety in the workplace,

so that it will have at least a provincial focus.

From there, everybody is looking at the next step,

which is for everyone to go back into their own workplaces to use the resources

that are available in the department and the resources that both the unions and

the employers have, and to pool the three of them. So that anyone gets -

whatever they want to concentrate on in their workplace as the area of greatest

concern will be done, and every opportunity made available for it.

MR. J. BYRNE: On another issue as well,

concerning double-breasting. It's always been a political hot potato I suppose

for yourself, as a minister, and of ministers who've been in charge of that

department before you. I guess the question is: what is your position as a

minister on the issue of double-breasting? Do you have any plans to introduce

legislation in the House regarding that, or what initiatives or steps have you

taken within your department to address that issue?

MR. GRIMES: While it's still an issue that gets

discussed sometimes, it's one of those that is close to - I'd almost put the

phrase - close to being pass, in a sense that we introduced and passed

legislation here a couple of years ago which basically at this point in time

makes double-breasting in Newfoundland illegal. So we brought in -

MR. J. BYRNE: Minister, I can tell you it's

happening in this Province more today than it ever has, whether legislation has

been passed that it's illegal or not. I would suggest that your department

hasn't enforced it, because it is happening more today in this Province than it

has ever happened before.

MR. GRIMES: Your comment may or may not be

valid, I do not know but all I can report to you and to the Committee is that it

is by law, our common employer legislation, illegal. The phrase that we normally

use, common double-breasting, is basically illegal in the Province. If I could

give an assessment of it, what probably happened was that a lot of

double-breasting had occurred before the legislation was enacted. That would be

about two years ago and many double-breasted operations are probably still in

existence but they have not come into existence since the law was passed. The

second thing that we should keep in mind, if there is a difficulty or a

complaint about double-breasting, as it is commonly known, the recourse for that

is for someone to make a complaint before the Labour Relations Board, that is

the avenue that the workers in most cases, would have. The last information that

I had which is fairly recent, only within a week or so, was that since the

legislation has been passed there have been only, I think, three cases brought

to the attention of the Labour Relations Board. So, if it is happening as you

perceive -

MR. E. BYRNE: Let me elaborate on the problem a

little bit more than. What happens is that, pending a decision, if a case is

brought before the Labour Relations Board regarding double-breasting, the

process sometimes takes in excess of twelve months for an employer/employee

group to - especially an employee group to bring it to the head of the

department or the Labour Relations Board and then for a decision to be made.

Once a decision is made it is not transferable to other jurisdictions or other

employers so it is an isolated decision made on an isolated company. By the time

the decision is made much of the work that was in dispute has already been

completed and done by the double-breasted company and that is where it is at. It

is still happening today. I do not know if you or your officials could look into

it in greater detail but I can assure you that there are a number of people in

the Province right now who are involved in various workplace's, especially the

construction industry, that will find it surprising to hear your comments this

morning that double-breasting is illegal and that there are very few cases and

that the issue is pass, I can assure you of that. I do not know if you want to

respond to that, Minister?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, I can understand why the

perception would still be there and certainly why it would be felt that there is

still a problem because again, I am not saying that there is not a problem, I am

saying that legislatively in terms of dealing with the issue, we brought forward

the legislation that says that a company cannot avoid its obligations under the

collective agreement by setting up another company, which is basically the

background of the whole double-breasting issue, and it is true that it takes a

period of time. Once you put an application before the Labour Relations Board to

have it heard to completion, if it takes a year it may not be that - I do not

think it would take a year before the Labour Relations Board but then if someone

wants to appeal the ruling or put some other legal challenges into it, it could

take a year and then some before it is resolved, then it is true that work would

continue and be done.

So, there is no question that - it is still a

contentious area but in terms of the law of dealing with it, the law now says

basically what the people who are opposed to double-breasting wanted it to say.

The law states clearly that if you are in a position where you have, as a group

of workers, decided that you wanted to organize and have a certified bargaining

agent represent you with that particular company, you get recognized under the

law of the land. You set out into a contractual arrangement, that the company

cannot avoid the obligations of that contractual arrangement by spinning off

another company with the same resources, the same management and the same

funding and so on. So, the law takes care of that and when there is a difficulty

where the workers and their organized bargaining agents say, well, somebody has

done this, the recourse is through the Labour Relations Board which leads into a

process that takes some time and it is true, the work does continue, that is

still a frustration.

MR. E. BYRNE: Therein lies part of the problem

because the process itself does not lend itself - the decision is made in

isolation with a particular bargaining group against a particular employer and

is not transferable from one company to the next, so what happens is it is a

vicious circle that will continue, and while that may be the

interpretation of

the law, the implementation of that law is sadly lacking. I would suggest again

to the minister that it is not an issue that is pass but it is something that

is a serious situation happening in the workplace today and in my opinion is

something that is, I suppose, interfering with a smooth labour climate, which is

a mission, I suppose, of your department and yourself as minister.

On to another issue, with respect to the industrial

enquiry that is happening at Barry's Limited. Could you just elaborate on the

reason why that enquiry was called? Why did that dispute not go through the

Labour Relations Board the way it would normally have done and why did you as

minister call an enquiry into the situation out there?

MR. GRIMES: A good point, and there might be

parallels in this one to what you just mentioned about double-breasting. The

fact of the matter with the dispute involving Barry's fish plant in Curling is

that every proper recourse under the law was followed and has been followed

since sometime in 1989, so they are into just about four full years now of

exercising their rights under the law, using the Labour Relations Board as the

avenue to put forward the different type of overtures that were appropriate at

the time, in some instances even going to the courts to have decisions of the

Labour Relations Board tested as to whether or not they were proper or improper.

All of that has been happening for just about four

years and our analysis and assessment at the end of the day was that even though

everybody had used the law the way it properly should be used there was an

employer who was expressing dissatisfaction at the outcome in terms of what was

happening with productivity and possibilities at the plant. There was a

recognized, certified bargaining agent, the union, who were saying they were

dissatisfied with the outcome even though they were the certified bargaining

agent, and the workers, some 200 at this point in time, who are represented by

the certified bargaining agent were expressing their dissatisfaction, so

everybody involved, even though the law was followed to a `t', expressed to the

government that they were totally dissatisfied and frustrated by the outcome, so

it is much like you might say about double-breasting, you have a recourse but it

does not really solve anything, things go on and it gets a bit worse.

At the end of the day on balance we felt that the

government needed some advice this time as to whether or not in this particular

instance there was something else that we could consider doing on an

extraordinary basis above and beyond just saying: you people have recourse to

the Labour Relations Board and the courts, go to it. They have been going to it

for four years and it has not resolved itself so we thought this time that the

extraordinary measure of asking a commission to enquire into the matter and

advise government as to what might help resolve the difficulties was a logical

and a reasonable thing to do at this point in time.

MR. E. BYRNE: I thank the minister. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to welcome Bill Ramsay the

Member fro LaPoile who is sitting in for Walter Noel.

AN HON. MEMBER: Walter should be here shortly,

Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: In the meantime, Mr. Ramsay, you

have ten minutes starting now to question the minister.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are a couple of things I just wanted to

comment on. The issue of double-breasting that was mentioned by the hon. member,

to suggest that the situation is still a tremendous difficulty is somewhat

exploding the issue. I have not seen much in the newspaper about it in the last

six months even, and to suggest that if the legislation is there and there is

little in the way of, I suppose, implementation or enforcement is really going

back to a parochial mind set and to think that government could solve the

problem beyond the level of legislation - introducing legislation is what

governments do, enforcement of that of course does have its role but society has

a certain part to play.

So, on this issue, I recall being on a Legislative

Review Committee in dealing with the issue, in assisting and the drafting of

said legislation which was prepared prior to the minister's arrival in this

department and from there - I think you minister, were the one responsible for

bringing that legislation forward. After some changes and adjustments it was -

the legislation that was arrived at, was arrived at with very thorough

canvassing of the people of the Province. I think we went from one end of the

Province to the other, including Labrador, in order to receive input on just

what the legislation should include. Your assistant deputy minister or Ms. Black

at the time, was very helpful in putting forward some suggestions as to what

might be helpful. It was done on a balanced way of trying to weigh the different

options as to - we could do it - an example; I recall laying out three or four

possibilities and we arrived at the suggestion that was made by the Committee

subsequent to that, based on some other necessity. The government made a few

small changes to the draft that we prepared and therefore we now have the

legislation as it stands.

To get at just what has happened with that, to

suggest that it is anything other than a step forward is to be looking down the

wrong path. To suggest that government can resolve all of the problems in a

private labour area is - again, to highlight the parochialism, that certainly is

a prevalent attitude that we have to change in this Province. To suggest that

government can solve the problems always through legislating or through using

legislation as anything but a guideline, I think is a false assumption. It

certainly is basing your assessment of the future on a false premise.

If you look at the labour climate in the

construction industry over the last two years, it seems to be improving,

possibly because of the Hibernia Project to a point where organized labour does

seem to have a very strong input, possibly the main input, into the hiring at

the site. That has kept the labour climate very calm and also, may in fact be a

lot of the reason - if we did not have as large a construction project happening

here in the Province now, then maybe this issue would be more of an issue. But

to go a little bit beyond that, I wanted to focus on your preventative mediation

program and the resources that have been committed to this. I think it is

certainly a situation which is noteworthy and under the auspices of the

strategic economic plan, one of the measures which - you cannot really stand up,

hold and wave the flag and say this is going to be great because it is the kind

of thing that prevents problems from happening. It is the kind of initiative

which is certainly there to improve the labour climate in the Province and to

create a climate in which outside operators will be more than welcome to come

into the Province and see our labour climate as something to be upheld and to be

maintained.

As well minister, just a question on another area I

think which is an area I see tremendous work in, is the Canada-Newfoundland

Youth Strategy which your department I understand is responsible for

administering and maybe, if you could make a few comments on that initiative for

the Committee's benefit, I really would appreciate a couple minutes of response

with regard to the youth strategy. That is all I have right now, Mr. Chairman.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, maybe just

the three things; a brief reference again to the double-breasting issue.

I used the phrase I think to comment that it is one

of those things that may even be considered pass; I want to clarify again that,

it is not that the issue is pass, it is that the attention drawn to it is

minimal now compared to what it was at the point in time that the legislation

was necessary, and it was a predominant public policy issue in the area of

labour relations at the end of the previous administration's term in office in

the late 80s, and it certainly was also a fairly dominant issue in the first

year or so of our term in office, but with the passage of the legislation with

the complete intensive review of it and so on, the attention that has been drawn

to it and the number of cases that appear before the board are minimal now

compared to what they were, but I certainly take the concern and note it as

still being a relative one.

With preventive mediation, I point out again that

there are the five different components to that program that people have been

finding very useful. We have had people write to us extolling the virtues of the

program and have been very pleased that they had an opportunity because

basically, one of the major things that it does today at the end of the day, it

allows people to avoid the cost associated with going through formal

arbitrations and formal grievances and on average, I think the statistical

number that was presented through the research of last year was that, once you

enter into the formal procedure, it is likely to cost on average, for the

employer and the employee, somewhere in the range of $17,000 to resolve a

difference.

If you go through a grievance that does not get

resolved, you ask for arbitration; you bring in an arbitrator, you plead your

case, someone writes a decision on it and it is binding on the parties and those

kinds of things, but not only are they interested from the point of view of cost

avoidance, but because at the end of the day, by exploring the issues together,

with a mediator who will help them resolve their difference without formally

filing any grievance, they end up where they are convinced at the end of the day

and they report back to us that they have improved labour relations because the

best thing that comes out of it, is, even though the thing was initiated because

there was a disagreement, or a grievance or a potential grievance, they

understand each other better at the end of the day and they sit down and discuss

it in an non-threatening type of environment with the assistance of a trained

mediator.

We have had companies, firms, individuals and

employees who have written us and said: thank you, we are really glad that this

service is available, and the program as well, unsolicited by us, has been

written up in national magazines in terms of the kinds of flagship program that

other provinces should have in place, and the value of it in terms of the whole

labour relations climate, and that is why we have committed additional funding

to it from the Strategic Economic Plan on block funding this year, to make sure

that we could allocate additional resources. We did have requests in the past

year that got into the hundreds. There were actually hundreds of things where if

this service was not available there might not have been any recourse for the

parties other that to go through the grievance procedure, but with this

available to them they could avoid those legal procedures and resolve their

differences. In almost every case they came to an amicable resolve of their

differences and at the end of the day their assessment was that they had a

better understanding of each other's view and therefore an improved labour

relations climate at the work site. So, it is a very positive program and we

look forward to an increase in the value and worth of that program this year.

You mentioned as well, Mr. Ramsay, the notion of

the Canada-Newfoundland Youth Strategy. I think it was just prior to the end of

March when myself and the hon. John Crosbie were at the Career Information

Resource Centre on Water Street which often by itself in a way is an initiative

that is envied across the country.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Pardon me, Mr. Minister. The ten

minutes that we are allowing each member includes questioning and the responses

and that is in the total of ten minutes. I know the Member for LaPoile had a

long opening statement and then a question so I would like you to cut your

response short now so we can get on to Mr. Manning and his questions.

MR. GRIMES: Fair enough, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Manning you have ten minutes.

Would you allow Mr. Byrne a question or is that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. CHAIRMAN: If Mr. Byrne questions you that

is included in your ten minutes.

MR. MANNING: Whatever time Mr. Byrne needs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay.

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you. To the hon. Member for

LaPoile I apologize for interrupting but being a new member of the House the

semantics of some of the procedures are taking some getting used to. For the

record I want also to say that we are here today in a spirit of fairness and

anything we raise is out of genuine concern and not to take strips off the

minister and his officials. With respect to the preventive mediation program it

is certainly an initiative that the minister and his officials should be

complimented on and certainly one they have been complimented on across the

country. There is just one other question. You mentioned during your opening

statement, Mr. Minister, with respect to research and development that there are

a couple of projects, the Road Builders Association - I forget the other one you

mentioned, what sort of research and development grants were allotted to them

and what sort of research and development grants are available to other groups

that may be able to add something to the workplace in terms of safety or in

terms of education awareness?

MR. GRIMES: If you could just give me a second

I actually have a copy of that release here because we did that just recently.

The general notion is that there is a committee which Mr. Dwyer chairs in the

department that analyses applications that are brought forward. Applications can

come from individuals who think they can do some research that will have general

application in some work environment to reduced the risk of injury. The whole

notion is, can somebody contribute something to the knowledge base that

employers and workers can use at the work site to reduce the risk of injury, so

that is the basic gist of the program.

He sits with two other people on the committee and

screens the applications. I believe our pool of money is $250,000 in any one

fiscal year which we can allocate. In their review of the projects that were on

file, and I think there were some eleven or twelve, there were a group of

projects there, they went through them and there were three or four that were

certainly more seriously considered. Of the two that were approved, the Road

Builders Association is looking at the kind of initiatives they could pass along

information to anybody in the whole industry, at standardized safety training

for workers in the heavy construction industry, and that they put forward an

initiative where they think they can do a bit of research in a construction

season, which is the one that is starting now, where they can identify training

priorities that can be used for everybody, not only in road building but

everybody involved with heavy duty construction equipment. They will identify

through their project that they outlined, through this construction season,

things that will be then passed along to the department and also made readily

available to everybody in the industry. At the end of the day everybody's hope

is that if people follow some of these suggested practices that we will see

again a decline in the number of lost time, accidents or injuries that are

reported.

The other project, the immediate one that was

approved, was for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety which

is a national organization operating out of Hamilton. We have been utilizing

their services for some years now because they provide a whole series of related

resources that we cannot afford to duplicate in the Province. Several provinces

take the same approach that Newfoundland does, in terms of rather than try to

duplicate the services offered by the Canadian Centre, we buy the service from

them. One of the things that we have asked them to do is to take a look at - we

funded them to the range of some $70,000 to take a look at developing a program

to try and prevent repetitive motion injuries as they are called.

When people are put into a job where they - sort of

assembly-line type of jobs, where your job all day is to take this and put it

here, take this and put it there, bend over and do this, bend over and do that.

So, if your job is one where it involves the continuous repetition of a

particular motion - because what the statistics in Workers' Compensation in

particular have been finding is that while many of those - lots of times - if I

could just give the history just for a second, in the past most people thought

that the type of injuries in workers' compensation were more serious industrial

accidents, somebody had something fall on them, they broke a leg, they got cut

and these kinds of things. The majority of the injuries now being reported are

the types of injuries that come from these motions that people do not consider

to be overly strenuous but by the repetitive nature of them, you end up with

strains and sprains and those kinds of things that leave you unable to work.

That is the kind of research that the Canadian

centre is going to do, funded from this fund. Then they will make the

information available to us so that we can provide it to employers and employee

groups in the Province. They can do training then, hopefully, in how to prevent

injuries related to repetitive motion. We are really very optimistic about the

possibilities in those areas of getting information that we can pass along to

people who will help in that education awareness and training so that we can

prevent injuries.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Minister, I would like to ask

- under Occupational Health and Safety, assistance to outside agencies, can you

give me, the Committee, some examples of some of these outside agencies that

receive assistance and some of the estimated amounts?

MR. GRIMES: Maybe I will get Mike to look at

some of the details but normally many of the departments of government do

provide assistance to outside agencies who do one of two things, they either

supplement some of the work that the department is trying to do, because we

cannot do it all ourselves, or in some instances they provide a service for the

department instead of the department doing it and I will give you an example of

the second one. One of the things for example that is required under the act is

that every employer, depending on how many employees they have, have to have

their workers, some of them, trained in first aid. Once you have a legislated

mandated requirement for those types of things then - and this might not be the

correct heading where this one comes under but it gives you the notion and the

feel for the idea - either the department has to provide for the training or

make sure that somebody out there is providing for recognized training. In the

case of first aid training it is provided in the Province, the requirements

under the act, by St. John Ambulance. I do not believe that is the exact heading

you are looking at but what happens in that case is we have a contractual

arrangement with St. John Ambulance that for every person that they train we

will pay a certain amount of money to them for that service because otherwise we

would have to hire staff and train them ourselves. We would have to have

trainers on our staff.

The other kinds of things that happen in that

section is that we provide sustaining grants to certain organizations that are

safety oriented, and I will just mention three or four of them for you. There is

the Newfoundland Industrial Health and Safety Association, normally referred to

as NISHA; they just held their annual conference and convention at the Holiday

Inn, I guess on the 5th of May or so, it was shortly after the election that I

went over and spoke to them at their opening and Mr. Dwyer was one of their

presenters and so on.

They get a sustaining grant of $7,500 a year, that

is employers and employees together, working together to promote safety

initiatives in the workplace, so since that is one of the main thrusts of the

department, we encourage that by giving them a small sustaining administrative

grant and then they operate, using that as a basis for their administration;

they then operate on fees from their members and so on to run their conferences,

to conduct seminars, to send out newsletters and so on.

The other one to which we make a contribution is to

the Canadian Society of Safety Engineers CSSE. On June 21 to 27, they will be

sponsoring Occupational Health and Safety Week across the country, and there is

a

chapter of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineers in Newfoundland and we

give them a grant of $1,500 a year and so on, so it is those types of things

that we do to provide for organizations that have like interests, and that is

either as I said at the beginning, to supplement the working of the department

or do some work on behalf of the department, we will give them some sustaining

grants in some instances or as in the case of St. John Ambulance, we will

actually work out a contractual arrangement with them to pay them for the

provision of the service, rather than us hire staff or do it ourselves.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We will move on to

Lloyd Snow. Do you have any questions, Mr. Snow?

MR. L. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just out of I guess curiosity and personal

interest, the preventative mediation part of the collective bargaining, this is

a novel idea I guess, and I am just wondering if this was introduced in

Newfoundland or has it been tried in other jurisdictions as well?

MR. GRIMES: As I indicated, there are five

components to the program. The notion of preventive mediation has been in other

jurisdictions before; the part that is quite different and unique here that gets

a lot of attention, and which I have referenced more so than any other aspect of

it, is the grievance mediation, which is not a feature that is common in other

provinces. It is the one that I detailed to some degree in response to an

earlier question, the notion that, if we are in an employer/employee

relationship and we run into a difficulty where we misinterpret or we have a

basic misunderstanding or disagreement over how a certain part of our

contractual arrangement should be applied, unless we agree between the two of

us, that will happen one way or the other, then the only way to resolve it if

there is still a difference, is, to file a grievance and then you are into a

process that becomes legal, takes time, costs money and so on, and it is that

grievance mediation thing that has been the most striking new component in our

Province and the one that has gotten the most use and also gets the most

positive response I suppose, because of the fact that people are genuinely

pleased that they have an opportunity to explore the issue without having to go

to that stage of filing the official actual grievance, because that could lead

at the end of the day, it could lead to court.

If you are finally not satisfied at that point in

time, the last recourse is to go to the courts and then you end up with your

legal costs and other things that are attached to that, so the other parts of

it, in many instances, the program will offer training sessions to employers and

employees particularly when they have first collective agreements, they will

offer to them an opportunity to sit with each other and talk about how they

might establish a proper working relationship and those types of things and they

will also encourage them whenever possible to put in place some training for

their shop stewards and those kinds of things.

If they are a bigger employer with numbers of

employees, how to run that kind of a system, how to try and make sure that

channels of communication are always open between the employees and the employer

so that you avoid those types of loggerheads that would lead to formalized

grievance and arbitration proceedings. That is the whole notion of it to, if at

all possible, provide every opportunity for the people to - understanding there

are going to be disagreements as to what something really means or how it should

be applied, that will happen. You cannot stop that because if you write

something down somebody will look at it and say it means this, someone looks at

it and says it means that and you have a disagreement. Now, does the

disagreement then have to keep getting wider and cause a problem or can you

encourage the people as soon as they spot that to come together?

So, even in the training sessions where they say to

people who are new into this relationship, look, expect that to happen, that may

very well happen. That does not mean that you are a bad employer and that does

not mean that you are a bad employee. That just happened because people had a

different view as to what something meant or how it should be interrupted but do

not let that become an irritant, just treat that as a matter of course, deal

with it and then resolve your difference the best way you can. If it leads to

something that you need to adjust in your contractual arrangement some other

time, sobeit, make a note of that and when you go and bargain again or when you

sign your next contract, well make the adjustment but in the meantime you can

even agree that it will work this way for the duration of our existing agreement

and so on. Those kind of successes have been reported continually with reference

to this program.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all I would like to make a comment

concerning the statement made by Mr. Ramsay, unless I misunderstood him, he made

a statement that labour climate in the Province, as he feels it, is certainly

improving. I do not know where Mr. Ramsay has been the past few years but if you

look at the turmoil with respect to the NTA, the nurses, NAPE, CUPE and the

police, to make the statement that the labour climate is improving, it is

certainly not a point of view that I agree with personally.

I have some details of the estimates which I would

like to get into, just for clarification in my own mind. I am not trying to put

anybody on the spot or anything but there are a few concerns. Page 235 under the

minister's office, salaries, last year it was revised to $154,000 this year you

have $153,300 budgeted which was the same as `92-93 but with the salary freezes

and the 4 per cent decrease or 4.5 per cent decrease for minister's and MHA's

this year, should that $153,000 really be reading about $148,000? Should there

be about a $6,000 cut there?

MR. GRIMES: I expect probably our administrator

or Mr. Crocker, Tom or Mr. Crocker, can give an answer. There are a couple of

things you should note, when it says the salary it looks at the salary paid to

the minister but also the salary paid to the secretary for the minister and so

on is in that one lump there because it is the office.

Whereas there has been,

the legislation has been passed in the House, a reduction for the minister's

portion of that salary, the final decisions have not yet been made as to what

kind of compensation reduction will apply to the other staff who are in that

vote. That is one of the things that still has not been decided. I know it is a

question that has been raised in question period generally in the House: How can

we really tell what the numbers are if that is not decided yet because we do not

know yet exactly what option is going to be offered to the secretarial staff in

the minister's offices or the political support staff and those types of people,

as to whether or not it will be a salary reduction or whether they will use the

pension option and so on.

MR. J. BYRNE: I do not want to take up to much

of my time with the answers but on the same page, on the bottom of the page

there under executive support, you have revenues, last year you took in $140,000

and this year you have budgeted $73,600, is there a particular reason why that

is almost cut in half? Why do you expect 50 per cent this year compared to last

year?

MR. GRIMES: I do not know. Maybe Tom, if

yourself or Gerry could provide the answer? The line at the bottom of page 235,

why we are expecting our revenues to be cut basically in half?

MR. HOPKINS: The reason for that is that last

year we were funding, in the department, the salary of the CEO of Workers'

Compensation Commission and that was fully recoverable from the commission as

revenue, so this year the CEO is not being paid through our department.

MR. J. BYRNE: Page 236, we will not get into

salaries again, but that Professional Services under Administrative Support,

section 05, you have $420,120 budgeted in '92 - '93, $261,500 spent; you have

$369,500 budgeted for '93 - '94; what services would they be? Just a quick -

MR. HOPKINS: During the 1992-'93 fiscal year,

due to budget restraints, the allocation for Computer Services was frozen and

that is why the expenditure is showing as substantially reduced.

MR. J. BYRNE: So, this is for Computer

Services, then?

MR. HOPKINS: Yes.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, on page 239, Education and

Committees, Salaries went up from $276,600 which was spent to $358,200, which is

almost $100,000 increase. Have more employees been hired on or salaries gone up

or what is that? There is a simple answer to that, is there?

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) Health and Safety, we

did acquire funding for additional staff and one of the areas where it was

allocated was in the area of the education and awareness at work which we felt

was extremely important; that is additional staff.

MR. J. BYRNE: (Inaudible), people now?

MR. GRIMES: No question.

MR. J. BYRNE: Pardon?

MR. GRIMES: No question about it.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. Page 240, under

Occupational Health and Safety Services, Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal.

Again, salaries have gone up from $142,200 to $200,400; Transportation and

Communications have gone up; Professional Services have gone up. Are we having

more employees hired on here, and if so, is it because the appeals are up? Are

we having more appeals now and we need more employees to deal with the appeals

with Workers' Compensation?

MR. GRIMES: They may be able to give you more

details, but I can tell you there has been a significant rearrangement of the

staff at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal to try to deal with the

backlog of cases and to try to expedite the hearings procedure there, and what

has happened is that the office staff in terms of those people who are there

with the chairman CEO, a senior administrative secretary and a group of people

preparing documentation, have been expanded considerably to make sure that the

work gets done, but in fact, it is expected that the total operation might cost

minimally more money because of the fact that the vice-chairs and the tribunals

would be able to get their work done much more expeditiously and the total

combination of things actually shows not a tremendous increase, but we had to

budget for some because the caseload again has increased, and it is probably

almost double projected of what it was in the previous year, so we expect to be

able to handle double the caseload in less time with less than double the money,

so we think we are getting good value for the dollar here, and again, this is an

area where, this is funded from Workers' Compensation and not directly from the

general revenues of the Province and we have made these adjustments in hopes of

trying to expedite matters for those claimants who feel aggrieved and want their

appeals heard much more quickly at the appeals tribunal.

MR. J. BYRNE: Is there any reason, that you

know of, why the caseload would be almost double?

MR. GRIMES: Probably due to the fact that the

internal appeals procedure has been altered as well. Within Workers'

Compensation, there used to be two stages of internal appeal, where you could

try to get the decision overturned, right within the commission. That has now

been reduced to a single stage and people who are still aggrieved then are

getting to the external process much more quickly, and I think the other part of

it that has been reported to me, is that, in the last year or so, because the

record at the appeals tribunal has been more than half - I will use that phrase

-more than half of the appellants have had the appeal judged in their favour. I

think that maybe some people have begun to hear that you might have a half

decent chance if you can go to the external appeal so that of itself has made it

somewhat more attractive to people who ordinarily may not have gone through that

full limit of the process. It is a shorter process now to get there which I

think is the major contributing factor, and recognizing always that less than 5

per cent of the total cases in workers' compensation ever get appealed and less

than half of those end up at the external appeal tribunal.

MR. J. BYRNE: Are you saying that when you go

to the External Appeal Board you have a better chance now of being successful in

getting on workers' compensation?

MR. GRIMES: Well, I guess, the phrase I used,

and I will use again because I am very guarded in what I say about that. More

than half of the people who appeal have had the appeal rendered in their favour,

so at least they say, if I had stopped, if I had not gone to the external appeal

I was finished, that whatever decision was in place was in place. Over half of

the appeals that have gone there have been overturned, the decisions of the

commission have been overturned and have been rendered in favour of the

appealing claimant. I think that word has gotten back to some injured workers

because of their union representatives who have represented them in other things

that they have probably been encouraging more people to try the appeal process

because you still have a chance.

MR. J. BYRNE: By telling me that over half the

people who go to the external appeal are successful that is not really telling

me anything because before that it might have been 90 per cent or 20 per cent

that went a certain route and might have been successful, so by saying over half

is not really telling me anything.

MR. GRIMES: We just tabled the annual report of

the appeals tribunal a couple of days ago in the House, at the end of last week,

and you really cannot tell unless you check back over five or six annual reports

to see whether that is an increase or a decrease in the number or the rate of

successful appellants, and I do not have that information available now.

MR. J. BYRNE: I have one more question seeing

my time is almost up. On Page 242, Assistance to Outside Agencies, the middle of

the page in

Section 09 there, Allowances and Assistance. That has been cut

almost in half, from $115,000 down to $58,000. I would like to know who does

this effect, this cut?

MR. GRIMES: That one is accountable for, in one

decision, as I was mentioning earlier, the contractual arrangement with the St.

John Ambulance in terms of them providing a service for us for which we then pay

a fee per person that they train for first aid. That was the situation in the

1992-93 Budget. That was a contractual arrangement that was running in the range

of $57,000 or $58,000 a year but in this Budget year we have come to an

arrangement with St. John Ambulance where because the law of the land gives them

exclusive rights to give the recognized first aid training required, they will

provide the training and we do not have to pay any more. That arrangement has

been in place for a number of years and they are now going to provide the

training without a per person funding from the government because they are the

only recognized agent in the Province who can provide the required industrial

first aid training.

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

to welcome Oliver Langdon, the Member for Fortune - Hermitage who is

substituting for John Crane. Mr. Langdon.

MR. LANGDON: I would like to briefly commend

the minister and the officials of the department on the reorganizing of the

Workers' Compensation Act, I guess, that was brought to the House in the Fall,

and of course, the minister had told us that unless these changes were brought

forth, then the workers's compensation fund would have been completely depleted

by 1998, and my question to him now, would be the fact that you have taken the

corrective measures in workers' compensation, how do you see the funds that will

be there with the liabilities and assets and so on, how do you see the plan

panning out over the next while? Have these measures been taken sufficiently to

make sure that the plan can survive?

MR. GRIMES: I certainly appreciate the

question, Mr. Chairman, but there are a couple of things I might point out. On

Thursday of this week, I will be tabling in the Legislature the annual report of

the Workers' Compensation Commission for 1992. Last Thursday I tabled the report

of the Appeals Tribunal for 1992 and in that document there will be a couple of

references; I have seen a copy of it and it will be released publicly in a

couple of days time, but remembering again that, that will relate the experience

to the end of December of 1992 before the changes occurred, but because of the

fact that when that report was made and now tabled at this point in time, they

did know of the substantive changes that occurred.

There were some recalculations that were able to be

made in terms of the liabilities for current injuries and for future cost of

injuries based on the new rates that are in place and as a result, there will be

improvements showing in that report based on those kinds of recalculations.

The good news however, on a preliminary basis, we

think that we are definitely headed in the right direction that we may very well

have turned the corner, and I think that Mr. Dwyer has been in constant contact.

We use Workers' Compensation, their computer link system has an identification

of the number of lost time accidents and injuries that are reported and are

recorded, so we have the workplace records plus the ones that actually show up,

reported to workers' compensation, and the indicators through the first five

months, again of this year, are that the numbers, no matter how you look at

them, on every statistical indicator, is that the numbers have reduced again and

that is attributable to one thing mainly, and that is, that I believe and we

believe that everybody has bought into the argument that we had better pay

attention to safety at the workplace, and the tie-in to workers' compensation as

we see it, is mainly that, maybe we had such a fright in terms of we had just

about bankrupted that system and that there was not going to be - there was

actually the point of jeopardizing whether or not there would be a protection

system in place for workers who were unfortunately injured through no fault of

their own, and that we had gone through a system whereby we had seriously

jeopardized the future of that protection system and two things then happened.

We made changes to the protection system in terms

of the funding arrangements and the different types of benefit structures and so

on at the Commission, but, I think everybody, because they had engaged in the

intensive review of workers' compensation, then engaged in discussions leading

up to the change in the legislation, realized that the real answer was not in

changing the rates or the benefits or anything else, the real answer was in

stopping the accidents and that the evidence has been that ever since - and I

guess if we trace it back, it might be clear that if we were to find a point in

time in the calendar, when the decline and decrease in the accident rates

started, it would coincide with two things, because I had mentioned before we

had always factored out the decline in terms of economic activity and the

workers, but it also coincided, we think, with the work of the review committee

that reviewed workers' compensation.

While they were doing the review it became a public

issue about the precarious position of the Commission but also the steadily

increasing numbers in accidents, every year we had had increases in the number

of accidents and lost time injuries. Once that became a big public issue, even

while the review was being conducted by the committee, Mr. Randell chaired it,

Mr. Gill and Mr. Curnew, while they were doing their work around the Province,

people all of a sudden became aware that we have a problem here and the problem

is not whether or not workers' compensation is paying out X number of dollars,

the problem is there are too many people being injured in the workplace. I think

if we went back and did it - we will probably even provide that information. It

could coincide very closely to that period of time, two years ago, where the

decline and the decrease started in a big way and that trend has continued

since.

So, we are back into a period in 1989-90 where the

growth in accidents stopped and since then there has been a pretty steady

decline. We have been recording and monitoring that information on a monthly

basis. It is that attention, I think, to occupational health and safety that is

really going to save the workers' compensation system in concert with and

combined with the other legislated changes that looked at the benefit structure

assessment rates and those types of things.

So, we are confident that this report will show a

move in the right direction but the key one, as to whether or not the

legislative changes along with everything else had the impact that we hoped, it

will be the report that we table next year this time which will show the

experience of 1993. So the experience of 1993 recorded and reported next year

this time, around about this time next year - what has happened to workers'

compensation with one full year under the new legislative mandate and with

renewed emphasis to occupational health and safety, that will be the critical

one. It is based on that one that we have told everybody that we will do an

extensive review again. If we are convinced that we have turned a corner and we

are headed in the right direction than maybe we will not need to make any other

significant changes to workers' compensation but we have told everybody publicly

that if in fact the directional change has not occurred than we will re-examine

the whole thing again and will not wait for the statutory five year review

period. So, next year this time is the key for all of us I think in monitoring

what happens with workers' compensation.

MR. LANGDON: Okay, one more question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have time for one more, yes.

MR. LANGDON: Yes, like I said because of the

pro-action and so on of the Workers' Compensation that the department has taken

and all of the things that have happened, do you foresee that it will have any

affect on the cost to the employer? When we look at it, it is probably quite

evident compared to some of the other provinces but because of the corrective

measures that your department has taken and so on, can you foresee that it will

mean lower costs to the employer's?

MR. GRIMES: Well again, Mr. Chairman, and to

the Committee, that was part of the whole intent again, to make sure that we

maintained a stable system. Part of that stability would be to address the

repeated concern expressed by employer's that this was becoming a prohibitive

cost of doing business in Newfoundland and Labrador. At the point when the

review was done we had the second highest assessment rates, on average, in the

country. I believe we are still in that category. We had increases again this

year, for 1993, which will be monitored.

Part of the whole approach that we took with all of

the legislative changes we put in place was to try to see that there would be a

balance between any benefit reductions and trying to make sure that assessment

increases were minimized because we are already at the higher end, as compared

to any other jurisdiction across the country. They managed in many cases to have

minimal increases this year, although it ranged from 0 to 9 per cent in some

cases. Last year it was a flat 8 per cent for every category, every rating group

across the board. The commission board of directors will look at that issue

again in the Fall when they go through their rate setting procedures. One of the

things that they are trying to do is to try to make sure that they can somehow

stabilize the assessment rates and if there are increases necessary that they be

minimal increases. The biggest key that they are working on in that area is to

try to implement the merit rating system.

That is not in place yet except in parts of the

health care system but they have a lot of background work done and they think

the key to it in workers' compensation is that even though you are in a

particular rate group that you should get some credit for your own experience.

If your company has no accidents then why should you have increases, and if that

record is sustained for eight, ten, or twelve years why should you have

increases when you have done everything you possibly could? The employer and

employee have worked together to prevent accidents, injuries, lost time, and

cost so why do you have to share the burden? But then basic insurance principles

take over as well and that is why rates can stay low, because everybody pays a

little bit so that one person does not have to pay a lot, but the experience

rating is the key as the board sees it in terms of trying to keep rates to a

minimum for most groups.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Normally at this time we break for ten minutes and

then come back and carry on with the questioning. Is that acceptable to

everyone? Okay. We will break for ten minutes and come back at 10:46.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

At this time I would like to welcome Mr. Nick Careen

the Member for Placentia. Mr. Careen is substituting for Roger Fitzgerald. I

call on Mr. Careen to carry on with the questioning.

MR. CAREEN: (inaudible) that is not the court of

last resort, that is not the be all and end all of a person who has been out of

the system or has been relegated to the side and when they go through it, when

it is all appealed, is that the end, if it is ruled in their favour? I see

something there about a judicial and I also know of a case of a person who was

awarded, given the nod, of yes it was approved. That was back in January and

they have not gotten any satisfaction since. How does it work?

MR. GRIMES: There are two bases for limited going

beyond that. Ideally, I suppose, it is stated that, yes, the decision of the

Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal is intended to be like the final answer.

There is no question. That is the general rule of thumb, however, there are

limited grounds for further appeal to the courts if someone wants to pursue

that. There have been cases where people have had decisions tested in the courts

but not very often and only on very limited bases which is a legal question that

someone should get advice on and not one that I would try to answer.

There is one other thing that might answer why the

person that you know of has a decision rendered but yet has not had

satisfaction. There is a

section in the act that says that when the appeals

tribunal renders a decision - and I am putting it in layman's language so that I

can understand it myself - you would not use this in court because it is no good

to you. The basis of it is that is if the ruling of the appeals tribunal is

considered to be somewhat on the fringes of the policy of the commission, the

appeals tribunal cannot make decisions that in fact give rise to new policy.

They can only make a decision as to whether or not the decision of the

commission was a reasonable one in light of the existing policy and from time to

time when a decision is made the board of the commission can review the decision

of the appeals tribunal, particularly if they feel that it is opening up new

areas that were not envisaged or encompassed by existing policy.

I think that is where you get the longer protracted

types of things that you are probably referencing because I end up more often

than not having those people contact my office, as the minister responsible for

the act, and we end up, of course, putting them back to the appropriate people

at Workers' Compensation but they are often frustrated by the fact that the

common perception is, I have had my ruling and this is suppose to be what

happens but why is it not happening? There is a procedure under

Section 27

whereby the board of the commission can undertake a further review if there is

some question as to whether or not the decision of the appeals tribunal has

broadened an existing policy or has opened up an area of new policy that does

not exist, and so on. Then you actually end up back in the cycle and can go

through the whole process again. Some people have had to go through that

experience on more than one occasion, so when there is some question as to

whether or not the decision of the appeal tribunal extends upon or actually

opens up new policy areas, then the board of the commission itself will review

that decision and sometimes take exception to it, sometimes refuse to implement

it and sometimes ask the appeals tribunal themselves to reconsider decisions so

that process sometimes goes back and forth for a little while. That is one part

of the review of the whole system that we have not completed yet; the Minister

of Justice and I are looking at some options that might be available to us in

terms of that whole review process that is available now under the act in

section 21.

I believe the reference is still

section 21 because

the act has been reworked a bit with the Legislative changes and I believe that

review process is still

section 21, is it, as far as we know?

MS. GOGAN: I think it has been renumbered

actually. It is probably a few ahead.

MR. GRIMES: Okay, so it might be 22 or 23 or

something now, but I refer to it because in all the work that we did in the

review getting ready for the Legislative changes, it was

section 21 (7), but

with the renumbering of the act it might now be 23 or 25 but there is a

section

that allows for further review by the board of the commission, if they have some

questions as to the legitimacy of the decision rendered by the appeals tribunal.

MR. CAREEN: The linkages program under the youth

strategy, that is your federal/provincial agreement, there used to be at one

time and it all hangs on money - there used to be a program available for

twenty-five and older who had done training and wanted to have the same

opportunities. Is there any thought to a federal/provincial agreement on such a

scheme? It used to be there for older workers.

MR. GRIMES: I would just indicate and if you would

like, by all means feel free to ask a further question to Cathy Gogan. I do not

think Mr. Careen was here when she was introduced as our ADM for employment

services and who is on the far right, here.

There was indeed a federal program that looked at that

older group and there are two things with respect to the Canada/Newfoundland

Youth Strategy. We are now in the extension year. I think I was just answering

that question a bit earlier at one point in time, when I ran afoul of the

Chairman by talking a little too long, but we are in the extension year.

The extension was announced by Mr. Crosbie and I just

before the end of March and through the 1993 - 1994 fiscal year, we are

operating on a continuation of the Canada/Newfoundland Youth Strategy and of

course, one of the successful components of that program has been the linkages

program and there are two things now we are trying to accomplish in this year.

One is to see if we cannot successfully conclude

another agreement for the youth strategy because we are buying time this year

hoping to be able to put in place another three, four or five-year agreement and

the second component of it, because in fact, both ourselves provincially and the

federal government have been absolutely and thoroughly and completely convinced

of the merit and worth of the programs under the youth strategy, and because the

models that have been employed there have been so successful and have received

such a level of approval.

One of the other notions if we can conclude another

youth strategy agreement, the other notion that has already been brought up is

that the models that are in that, why could we not extend them to other age

categories, which is where your question started I believe, could we look at it.

I know that Miss Gogan herself has already had some preliminary discussions and

it is an issue that she brings up with her federal counterparts from time to

time, that the delivery mechanisms and the models we are using under the youth

strategy do seem to work as well as, if not better, than any of our other

models, and why would we not consider using some of those delivery mechanisms

for the broader group, for the people who are over age twenty-four or

twenty-five, so it is being considered but I guess in terms of priority, I would

expect that our number one priority is to try to renegotiate the youth strategy

and then secondly if we are successful, we would not hesitate, I do not think,

to use some of the delivery mechanisms for the extended categories beyond the

youth group that is identified here.

MR. CAREEN: One more. NCARP is being delivered all

over the Province. I was a bit late coming in. I thought originally I was

supposed to relieve Roger down at the old building. Anyway, the NCARP is being

delivered all over the Island. Safety in the workplace is very important. I know

you are limited, but are there any provisions in these training institutions for

- in the itinerary part of the session will be dealing with these people who are

- even if they're in A, B, E or whatever they might be in - about what safety

means, and what it means to them and what it means to everything else? No part

of the itinerary of these programs would take into account safety aspects, would

it?

MR. GRIMES: I don't know. Honestly, Mr. Chairman,

I'd have to answer that I don't know whether or not that is a component of any

of the retraining options that are available to recipients under the NCARP

program. But it's interesting and I'm glad you raised the point, because it is

something that we can bring forward as a possibility. Because we do have a

provincial representative on the sort of the joint management committees. We can

suggest to them that maybe it's in everybody's best interest that regardless of

the level of training that anybody is entered into, that anyone who exercises

that option, that we could consider one of the components to be information

relating to the benefits and necessity of safety in the workplace.

I think that's a useful comment and I believe that

we'll probably make a note of it. Through Ms. Gogan we'll find an opportunity to

talk to the federal people who are delivering the programs, and also to our

counterparts in education who have some input into the programs, as to whether

or not there's some way to build in. Because Mr. Dwyer as well has been looking

for opportunities with our education branch in occupational health and safety of

extending our education and awareness programs. If we haven't already made that

overture, probably as a result of the meeting today of this Committee we can

make a note of that and find a way to bring that issue forward.

MR. CAREEN: Thank you. That's all, sir,

MR. CHAIRMAN: At this time I welcome Mr. Lloyd

Matthews, the Member for St. John's North, and ask him to pose some questions to

the minister.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't

arrive with any questions prepared. This is my first Committee meeting and I'm

late for that one, so that tells you, I guess, that I have not had a lot of

experience in this type of forum. I suppose I could ask the minister how he

likes to be represented by me as his MHA, if that's a good feeling or not. Feels

alright, Mr. Minister?

MR. GRIMES: I like this role reversal, because the

usual role, where I live in St. John's North, is that if I have a problem I go

to my member to try to get it sorted out. So usually I'm going to him with all

kinds of questions, because I have problems like every day. So it's nice to see

a role reversal, or be in a position where my representative in the House of

Assembly might even ask me a question or two. I'm sure it's different for him

and it'd be different for me, but I feel great confidence again, renewed

confidence, in the fact that my representative is here. I know that if I need

any help during the rest of this proceeding I'll ask for it.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I can tell you, Mr. Minister,

that living in the north is not a problem, it's a pleasure. So I anticipate no

difficulty with you.

I didn't arrive, Mr. Chairman, with any prepared

questions on any of the items that are in this process. I thought this morning I

would get the opportunity to observe and take in the proceedings so as to be

probably a little more able to contribute in the meetings tonight for another

department, and the others.

I would simply say to the minister that I reviewed the

budgetary items as they were laid out and I guess it's fair to say that your

department is like all other departments. It's subject to the restraints that

the economy has placed upon us. Given the lean and mean times, so to speak, in

which we're operating it seems to me that you have done the best you can with

the dollars you had available to you to work with. You have cut where necessary

without, in my view, adversely affecting any programs, policies or any

practices. I will commend you for the job that you and your people have done in

putting together the estimates. I would submit that there should not be a

problem in getting them through or past this Committee. In view of the fact that

- as I say, I think everything is pretty self explanatory and pretty clear. If I

am missing anything - in saying that I think it is passable, quickly than -

somebody will also have to point out to me what I have missed but I would

suggest or move that we proceed to get these through as quickly as we can

because I do not see any point in protracting the discussion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, in that case I will pass on to

Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Minister, I have some questions.

I am not here like I said to put anybody on the spot, it is just for information

purposes more or less.

In the Budget on page 243, in the estimates I should

say and forgive me, I am a rookie also. So if I mix up sometimes I am sure you

will correct me. Under the student employment program, you budgeted last year

$600,000, it was revised to $800,000 it has been estimated this year to be

$600,000 once again. In the Evening Telegram a few days ago, in following your

announcement here in the House, $180,000 came from your budget for student

employment for the conservation corp. First of all, I was very pleased to see

the conservation corp established from your department but I am just wondering,

that would bring our student allotment back to $420,000. I would like to know a

couple of things, first of all the amount of applications you have received so

far on the student employment program itself, dollar value or some estimate of

the dollar value you have received and will $480,000 cover that? I see that you

must have increased your Budget last year or allowed some $200,000 extra, is

there any allowance for that this year?

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A couple of good questions and a good opportunity to

explore this whole area for a couple of minutes, if you do not mind, about

student employment and the need for it. We have, at this point in time,

somewhere in the range of - we will have 1100 to 1200 requests or so for student

employment under our program which is a wage subsidy. The student employment

program, highlighted here in

section 4.1.04, is one whereby the provincial

government offers to pay up to three dollars per hour as one half or a portion

of a wage that an employer will pay to someone that they will hire. In fact,

each of the last three or four years the amount budgeted under this heading has

been $600,000 by the provincial government. We recognize every year when we fund

this program, as did the previous administration, that this will not come

anywhere close to meeting the student need. The vast majority of the student

needs in the Province are met under the federal challenge funding. I think this

year it is in the range of somewhere between $9-$10 million again. That takes

care of the bulk of the student needs. Ours fills a gap that is left over, part

of it. The reason the applications are always high at this time of the year is

because people apply to both and sometimes people even use both. They get some

federal funding and some provincial funding and we are very pleased to

accommodate it because the main objective is to provide an opportunity for

students to access some money to offset their cost of continuing education.

So here this year it is clear that we have $600,000

budgeted again and last year at this point in time because of the increased

applications and so on we went back, probably a little later than this, but

early in the Summer, we went back to Cabinet and got approval for some

additional funding to try to fund some additional requests that were left over

because we recognized in certain areas reported to us by members like yourself

and others in the Committee that even with the federal funding and our funding

all allocated there were still a number of people out there that had

applications in but did not have opportunities to employ students. We managed to

expend an additional $200,000 by going through the rest of the applications

offering money and so on to people who had indicated an interest earlier and

that is the amount we expended at the end of the day.

We felt again this year that the combination of the

two programs from the two levels of government would again come as close to

meeting the need as it had in any previous year and that $600,000 would be

adequate. What we have done though, as was announced last week with the

Newfoundland and Labrador Conservation Corp, is tried a combination of

approaches this year, that the bulk of the $600,000, $420,000 of it will be paid

on a wage subsidy basis again. The other $180,000 will be paid on a project

basis through people working on these green teams in the conservation corp which

is an initiative that we are excited about and think that it has a lot of

opportunities because of a couple of clear differences.

Our student employment program can only really be

kicked into gear if there is an employer who will pay the other half of the

money and in certain areas of the Province, particularly in rural areas and

remote areas, there are a limited number of employers who have an opportunity to

put students to work, so we are hoping that is where the bulk of the projects

under the conservation corp will be concentrated, that the project work with the

green teams of three or four students with a supervisor will be able to go into

areas and they will be funded with the $180,000 without an employer having to

match any contribution in that area. We are hoping that the two components this

time will lead to a more well rounded opportunity for students in different

parts of the Province.

MR. MANNING: As I said previously I was excited

when I heard tell of your conservation corp being established. You have taken

$180,000 from the student employment program which is as you say on a 50/50

basis with employers and you have put that $180,000 into 100 per cent funding

for the students. My question is, are there really eighty-five new jobs because

the jobs would have come anyway under the $600,000. Another comment on that

would be that there would have been twice as many jobs because it would have

been 50/50 where now your are 100 per cent funding and if you had to continue

the way you were under the former and the present situation you have you would

have created eighty-five extra jobs where really you are cutting the jobs in

half instead of creating eighty-five new jobs.

MR. GRIMES: A good point, Mr. Chairman, but in

fact I am not sure if it would be exactly half or not because it would depend on

the -

MR. MANNING: I just thought the 50/50.

MR. GRIMES: The point you make is a legitimate

point. When the money is paid on a subsidy basis with another employer, with the

employer contributing, then the opportunity in terms of the individuals who

might be employed are increased versus full funding for the position by the

government. That is what will happened under the conservation corp. This is our

first year with the conservation corp and at the end of the time we have

recognized that there might be a decreased number of opportunities for students

because of the mechanism, however they will be in different areas and that is on

the balance. When we discussed and debated that we said, yes, it is still worth

doing even though there might be forty or fifty less students, maybe not

eighty-five but forty or fifty less employed because we are going to have to put

twice as much money into employing one student than we did before. We think the

advantage is that there will be a greater number of those in areas where there

might have been no opportunity before and we are trying to reach out into those

rural areas through the project basis that would have been missed before under

our regular program. We'll do the monitoring at the end of the time. On balance,

if that mix is to the advantage as we see it, and that the increased opportunity

in the isolated rural areas is worth the offset of an actual decrease in the

total number of jobs, then we'll look at that arrangement or some combination of

it again for another year.

The other great hope that I might point out to the

Committee, Mr, Chairman, is that the conservation corp itself by its very nature

and set up as a separate entity, enables a mechanism whereby you can try to

attract money from the private sector and from corporate sponsors and so on. The

reason we wanted to take this approach this year, recognizing that what you say

is true, is that we will hope that the experience will be such that we will

attract that kind of money from external sources to fund the project work and we

might be able to go back to whatever our full level is on the subsidy work again

for another year. We needed though to give it that one shot this year just to

see if we're going to attract those other sources of money or not. They feel

very confident that they will. We share in their optimism and just hope that

they're right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr, Chairman. Back to

some of the details again. On page 243, under Employment Services, salaries,

4.1.01.01. It's cut from $506,000 which was actually spent in 1992-1993 down to

$406,000. Is that due to employees being laid off or employees being shifted

around? What's the story on that?

MR. GRIMES: We've done a re-organization,

actually, within the employment services division, where I guess there were

probably three sections before that have now been incorporated into two. As a

result, some people certainly who were in levels as directors and so on are no

longer needed. The staff component is pretty close to the same in terms of

delivery of the service, but it points out that one sort of management position

at the director type level may have - and I think the re-organization was

designed to have three become two - and the line staff who are actually

delivering the programs have moved out of that employment service division down

into the labour market services. The same people are there answering to a

different director.

MR. J. BYRNE: So you're doing more with less.

MR. GRIMES: We're doing we think the same work

with a slightly different focus through a different answering mechanism and with

a slightly different direction. We've concentrated our efforts in the labour

market services. We think that's the way we have to go for the future.

MR. J. BYRNE: Same page, Graduate Employment

Program, 4.01.03. Grants and Subsidies, 1992-1993, had $1.7 million budgeted,

you spent $1.3 million, now you have $1 million. So you cut $300,000. Do you

know how many people this is going to affect? Who will it affect with the grants

and subsidies in that area?

MR. GRIMES: The Graduate Employment Program is the

one that provides a subsidy to employers who will take a graduate into their

work force who has a degree or a certificate but haven't been able to find work

in their area of specialty and expertise, and allows them to employ them for

that first year. With $1 million we can roughly provide an opportunity for about

100 graduates a year.

The reason the numbers have fluctuated a bit, it's one

of those programs, much like our sixty week one, that runs over more than one

fiscal year. It's not neatly contained from April 1 to the end of March. In

previous years, in terms of allocating the $1 million that was there and

available, because we do $1 million worth of allocations, when we got to the

next year some of the money would carry over. We had made a commitment in the

previous year but it would be spent in the next year. That's what happened to

the $1.7 million and so on. That while we had made commitments, some of them

weren't made until March month. Even though the commitment was made for $10,000

in March, maybe only a few hundred got spent in March, and the next was in the

next fiscal year. So we had to budget for the $1 million new plus $700,000 worth

of money that was committed from a previous year.

Now that the system is kicking in and we can manage it

a bit better we're down to the point that with these carryovers and with the

commitments we'll commit $1 million of new money each year, which is what we're

entitled to expend here, which will enable us to assist 100 graduates a year

which was the original intent of the program. We're hoping to assist 100

graduates a year with this program continuing on a continuing basis. There will

be some money spent in more than one fiscal year because of the arrangement of

the program and the times at which they're approved.

MR. J. BYRNE: So are you telling me that if you're

planning on assisting 100 students, and in 1992-1993 there was a carryover of

$700,000, so roughly you carried over seven-tenths from the previous year? Or

has it been cut that much?

MR. GRIMES: No. The numbers at the beginning of

that year, which is why we budgeted, looked like we might have as much as

$700,000 carried over. Now in any of these programs sometimes as well there's

not 100 per cent success rate, and that 100 per cent of the people don't stay in

the program. That's why the revised number went down to $1.3 million. That what

actually happened is that we funded $1 million worth of new ones, and there was

$300,000 from the previous year that actually got expended.

So our targets again this year are to make sure that

we can try to fund throughout the year - because they only come three months

after a graduation period - 100 graduates who might be helped by this program.

The monies will be such that $1 million will get spent in this fiscal year, some

of it will be spent in another fiscal year in the future, and some of it is

still being spent from last year.

MR. J. BYRNE: I know what you're saying, I

understand that, but - anyway, no point prolonging it. On page 245, Employment

Generation, the top of the page there. Again, you budgeted $3.1 million, you've

spent $4 million, and now you're back to $3.1 in 1993-1994 in Grants and

Subsidies. If you budgeted $3.1 last year and spent $4 million, why would you

budget the same amount this year? There must be a particular reason why that

ballooned up to $4 million. What would that be?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, and in fact I'm glad you asked

the question. It's under this heading that last year for the first time as well

it came to our attention - matter of fact, in a Committee meeting, I believe,

where it was the Member for Kilbride at the time, Mr. Aylward, who raised a very

legitimate concern that our Employment Generation program is for full-time

employment opportunities. It's a sixty week program. An employer has to commit

to offering employment to somebody for sixty consecutive weeks in order to

apply. The point that was raised at the Committee last year at this time was

that there are many employers in the Province who are seasonal by nature and

they can't offer sixty weeks of employment to anybody, because they're probably

going to only operate for fifteen or twenty weeks.

We took that concern very seriously. It was recorded

in the minutes of the meeting. We went back to Cabinet and said - our monies

basically, we had a lot of this money already allocated, but we said: we want to

try to address that seasonal concern. We did get approval after the Budget was

passed, some time in early Summer, to operate a seasonal employment program. The

additional monies that went into it turned out to be $900,000 to allow for some

seasonal employers to get some wage subsidy for their work force during their

season of employment.

What we've done this year again with the $3.1 million

for Employment Generation is we've incorporated the two programs into one. We've

looked at the seasonal nature, we've judged last year's experience. While we

funded quite a few last year we recognize that sometimes we may have stretched

the limits a bit and we may have funded some people on a seasonal basis who were

really full-time operators but had a busy season. This year, within the $3.1

million, both seasonal operators and full-time operators are eligible to apply.

They will both be funded out of the same heading and they will both be funded

out of the $3.1 million. But seasonal employers will be taken care of this year

within that global amount of $3.1 million again.

MR. J. BYRNE: So that $900,000 that was apparently

not budgeted for but spent on seasonal last year will not be spent this year, of

course, and those people who were involved last year, if they're lucky enough

this year to qualify under the $3.1 million, will be successful if they're

lucky.

MR. GRIMES: Yes. They'll go into the application

pool and when we've reached the limit of $3.1 million we'll have to stop funding

projects, whether they're seasonal or full-time.

MR. J. BYRNE: Next section, Emergency Response

Program. Can you just give me some kind of a general explanation for that whole

thing? Because there was nothing budgeted? There was $4.9 million spent and then

there's nothing budgeted this year. I mean there's got to be....

MR. GRIMES: Yes, that's the second year that that

appeared, actually. In the previous year as well there was a heading that

appeared for Emergency Response Programs. By the very nature of them, I think as

I explained to the Committee last year, an emergency is not something that you

plan or budget for. At the end of Fall of last year as in the previous year, in

two of the four years that we governed the Province, from '89 to the Spring of

'93, we instituted in the Fall in October in one year and in November another,

an Emergency Response Program to do work on a project basis, so that people

around the Province in the Island and Labrador who had not had success in

obtaining work weeks to qualify them for unemployment insurance during the peak

working construction season, would be given an opportunity to work on a project

basis so that they could access some money through the Winter other than to have

to possibly resort to social services.

We did that two years out of the four, and last year

the amount of money that was actually expended through projects approved in our

department was $4.9 million and we created somewhere in the range of 3,500 jobs

for people. Some of them needed one week of employment, they got that; they

worked for one week and then they left, others needed as much as ten but it did

not go beyond that, none of the projects lasted longer than ten weeks so anyone

who needed more than ten weeks to qualify for unemployment insurance last year

and the year before, could not avail of this program, so we expended that amount

and it was done fully within that fiscal year and there are no plans to do that

this year.

We will monitor the situation again through the rest

of the Spring and the Summer and if we get into the Fall and find that our

unemployment rates again are extremely high, to the point that we have serious

problems looming for the Winter, then we will consider our options again as to

whether or not we have an employment program on an emergency basis.

MR. J. BYRNE: Well, that kind of begs this

question. I mean if there is nothing allotted for it, you came up with $4.9

million last year, you may end up coming up with $4.9 or $10 million this year

depending on the situation or none, I mean, where do you pull this money from?

MR. GRIMES: Well, it is like the budget process

every year. Last year, at the end of the day, I think we had targeted a deficit

of $28 or $29 million; at the end of the year we reported a deficit of over $50

million, so it just means that the government, based on its best information,

its best judgement agreed to spend more money that it planned.

MR. J. BYRNE: Very good; thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, on page 241, under Occupational Health

and Safety Services, we talked about public safety and the enforcement of

National Access Awareness Week.

My question is, I am wondering how much, and how do

you I guess, carry out inspections of public buildings, with regard to upgrading

those buildings to be accessible to the physically challenged; because I am

familiar with several buildings whether in rural Newfoundland or in urban areas

that are still not accessible to the physically challenged, and I am just

wondering how do you go about enforcing that legislation?

MR. GRIMES: We have our inspectors, Mr. Chairman,

who certainly visit buildings on a regular basis for a variety of reasons,

whether it be an electrical inspection or whatever. New buildings, anything new,

anything since - and I think the operative date is 1981 - everything built since

1981 has to comply to the new building codes and of course they incorporate

buildings prior to that time?

Basically, there is encouragement and voluntary

compliance I guess is the whole route that has been taken. The guidelines and

standards are available and spelled out, and every thing that should be done to

make, particularly any building that has any public use of it, is available for

everyone in terms of what should be done to make -

MR. MANNING: Is there a guideline or is there a

rule? If one of your inspectors goes into a public building tomorrow in rural

Newfoundland, or whether here in the city or whatever, and it is a twenty- year

old building and is not up to a certain standard, is there just a voluntary

situation there or is it forcing that person to or that operator I should say -

MR. GRIMES: With those buildings that you

described, with the older buildings, it is voluntary unless there is a major

renovation that incorporates something like - in excess of - I do not know what

the number is, maybe 35 or 40 per cent of the building. If there is a major

renovation or redesign then that puts it in - it is considered than as if it is

a new building and then the codes have to apply. Other than that the information

is provided to them to say that because your building is pre-1981, if you are

doing things, here are the codes that are in place. If you were building it

today, here is what you would have to do but for them it is a voluntary

compliance. It is just given to them as a direction and guideline. For a new

building it has to be done and if there is any public use of the building then

the building will not be passed for open and use.

MR. MANNING: Is there a certain number of

MR. GRIMES: Mike can better answer that one for

you.

MR. MANNING: Have they a broad mandate, the

inspectors?

MR. DWYER: Currently, there are two full time,

very shortly. I am pleased to say that he/she will be situated in the Corner

Brook office. An initiative that we did take recently knowing that the issue,

that you just raised, is a very important one and growing in awareness. We went

through a situation where we trained our electrical inspectors who are out

around - geographically located throughout the Province very well. We trained

them to do certain types of inspections that they can do when they are out in

the area, keeping in mind that the more complicated ones and the ones that

require real technical expertise would be done by the three full time inspectors

that we have on staff. I believe there are about sixtee

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	1993-06-01
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_govservices_ga42session1_1993-06-01_gsc-elr_.htm
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	ea1562becac79206eefb7ecbbd5e6e53626e30f9

Source file is stored in the law ingest library (html).