PDF Version

October 25, 2023 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. L No. 46

The House met at 10 a.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Government Business

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

J. HOGAN: Thank you, Speaker.

I call from the Order Paper, Motion 8.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

J. HOGAN: Speaker, I move, seconded by the Deputy Government House Leader, that in accordance with Standing Order 65, the Public Accounts Committee shall comprise the following Members: Member for Harbour Main, Member for Placentia - St. Mary's, Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay, Member for Exploits, Member for Labrador West, Member for Lake Melville and Member for St. George's - Humber.

SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'

Motion carried.

The hon. the Deputy Government House Leader.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you, Speaker.

I move that this House do now resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 43.

SPEAKER: A seconder, please.

L. DEMPSTER: Seconded by the Minister for Education.

SPEAKER: Thank you very much.

It is moved and seconded that I do now leave the Chair for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider the said bill.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'

Motion carried.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, the Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of the Whole

CHAIR (Warr): Order, please!

We are now considering Bill 43,

An Act to Amend the Schools Act, 1997 No. 2.

A bill, “An Act to Amend the Schools Act, 1997 No. 2.” (Bill 43)

CLERK (Hawley George): Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

The Chair is recognizing the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Thank you, Chair.

I just want to stand and speak to this bill a little further than I did yesterday. I know yesterday the minister had stated that it was enabling legislation; just a transition basically within this for this particular amendment; minimal changing words that she mentioned yesterday and there was nothing substantive.

There was nothing substantive when we had the first amendment having to do with the Schools Act in 2021. Then we had there was nothing substantive in 2022. Now we are in 2023 where there is nothing substantive; it's just a transition.

One thing I know that I had mentioned yesterday, that the minister had stated in her opening

preamble, was that there was nothing negatively to impact our students, and that is a good thing. One thing that we would like to see on this side was legislation that's going to positively impact students, that's going to move the teaching and learning further than what it currently is. I think all of us on this side would think that this legislation does not speak to that. I know the previous minister was very enthusiastic about the collaboration and talked about what the benefits were going to be in the teaching and learning environment once we got this merger put in place.

We failed to see it in this legislation and we failed to see as to where we're going to go and what the benefits are going to be going forward. I'm sure my colleague from CBS is going to have many questions to present because, really, we're looking for where the legislation is going to take us.

If we want to improve our PISA scores, our academic achievement scores, our critical thinking scores, how is this going to achieve that for us? Because that was mentioned last year when we had the second go at the amendment of the Schools Act. How are we going to do that based on what we currently have?

I'm just wondering how many did we lose in the transition because if the government were doing a transition and at the start saying nobody is going to lose their position, there is a chance that you may have kept them. But we didn't do that at the start; that came later. How many did we lose?

Finally, the third request I would have for the minister would be, we're going to have school councils play a significant role going forward in order to make sure that we're hearing the voices of the population that we have: How many of the school councils in our system are active? How many of them can we go on to their school homepage and find out that we've got the minutes of the previous meeting? That data would be helpful because that is a significant piece going forward.

I would find that we probably pattern ourselves, like we do in all legislation, off our colleagues in the rest of Canada. The Liberal government in 2018 in Nova Scotia abolished school boards. I'm thinking that's probably where this initiative came from, maybe, conceivably. So in 2018, they did away with school boards, and school boards, I would acknowledge, had issues. We didn't have elections, sometimes we had trouble filling positions; we all know that.

So the only thing being, if we looked at the Nova Scotia model, the Nova Scotia model said that we'll use school councils. It is now that they're realizing that doesn't work. That has not borne fruit and has not yielded what they desired using the school councils. But I noticed that when it was first launched in 2021 by the previous minister, school council advisory councils were going to be a significant way of making sure those local regional voices were heard and represented. That is missing here.

Nova Scotia has spent $80,000 studying as to how they can get that voice from the schools and the school regions to the policy-makers and the decision-makers. That is what they're struggling with in Nova Scotia.

So, yes, we have very few boards left in Canada, we do. But if we're going to put in a new system, we've got to have confidence to make sure that the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, who want a voice in their schooling, occurs, it's available. I would think on this side, we've got reservations about that as to whether we've achieved that or not.

That's one thing for the future. What is it in the legislation that one could desire that we've bringing forth in legislation? What is that we would liked to have seen in legislation?

I just touched on it last year, we're all in agreement of the importance of early childhood education, of catching the young learner and making sure that we enter early in the child's lifetime. We all agree with that, but we never made any endeavour in this legislation in order to bring that in, to make sure that we emphasize the need for preschool, for our pre-K education.

Remember I said yesterday that was on the Order Paper in 2019, when I first took my seat in the House of Assembly, I was excited to see it on the Order Paper in 2019, pre-K. That is where we should be going. What year are we in now? We're in 2023, that's four years and no longer is pre-K on the Order Paper. We've got literature upon literature and research would state that it's very, very important that we get the student engaged at an early age. We've missed an opportunity with this legislation; it's not there.

We talked about early childhood education in rural Newfoundland. We've got physical space in the schools in the District of Bonavista but we find that in those populations, in those schools, they can't find early childhood education. We could be utilizing the school system. That might be something that would be added to the legislation to say we are going to make every effort, or in the legislation, would be that schools would be available for early childhood education centres where and when possible. That would serve rural Newfoundland. I know in metro St. John's, it certainly would not but that would be something that certainly we can look at.

One thing when we look at centralizing government, streamlining it, because when it was launched in 2021: we're going to streamline the money that was going to be saved with this streamlining process, it was going to the classroom to support the classroom, the teaching-learning environment. Not mentioned thus far.

If I missed it, Minister, in the

preamble, my regrets and apologies, but that was what the discussion was in 2021 when this concept was first launched. We were going to put the resources that were going to be saved from this venture to help the teaching and learning and the struggles that we would have in our education system currently.

We know that we have struggles in our system. We do not want education to enter what we'd call the status of a crisis. That is what we're trying to do in this regard, to make sure.

The minister or the Premier first launched that by 2031 we are going to be the healthiest or one of the healthiest provinces in the country. That is a good, noble pursuit – a good, noble pursuit. What better way to start with the healthiness than to have something mentioned with the legislation in the Schools Act. It's not there. I'm just saying it's something to look at, whether it be quality daily physical education, something we'd look at that we're going to make sure that we have some activity oriented part of our school day. Look at the allocation; I know that is separate, but the legislation could mention where we could look as far as the well-being of our children in the legislation.

Anyway, those are some issues, but I know that in being a past administrator, we've had lots of issues with operationalizing the school system. We had trouble getting student assistants. We know, and I'm sure my colleague who's been in education for as long as I was, would equally say that sometimes we had struggled that we had students who had higher-level needs that we had trouble getting the resources within the system. That is something that we could be looking at within the legislation.

Anyway, Mr. Chair, I'll end there and give my colleague a chance to speak. We look forward to the questions from my colleague from CBS soon.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Thank you.

I'm recognizing the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

I'd like to thank the Member opposite for his contributions to the conversation.

I will say that the issues that you've identified are largely outside the scope of this piece of legislation. We recognize that the Schools Act is such a massive piece of work that we've had to break it down in bite-sized chunks.

You reference that we have brought it to the House a couple of times before and those were pieces that we needed to lineup in order to make the nomenclature appropriate or to get access to the act to open it up for improvements.

That is kind of where we are; we're still operating in that space right now. In this piece of legislation, we're replacing where the district would be written and we're changing that to the department or to the Crown or the Conseil Scolaire. So that is simply the intention of this act.

The measures that you have mentioned and the other things that you have referenced are certainly things that we will consider when we open it up for broad-scope review. Right now we simply need to change the names on the legislation in order to proceed with the integration process. I say simply and I certainly would not say that this is not substantive. If I did say this is not substantial, I don't mean that in reference to what it is that we are accomplishing here. This is a massive undertaking; we're bringing in the school district into government. It has been a very lengthy process.

It has required the input of a lot of stakeholders, a lot of people on all sides of the conversation. So I certainly don't want to be dismissive when we speak about how much work has actually gone into making this legislation possible and to getting us to this point.

For right now, our focus is to change the nomenclature, change the names. We want to remove references to the school district and implement places where the department would be referenced, the Crown would be referenced or the Conseil Scolaire would be referenced.

I do appreciate that you do have some concerns around representation and the school councils. I did take note of some of the questions that you asked. A lot of those might be Estimates type questions so I'll get some information on that and we'll be able to bring that back to you in terms of our budgets and how many personnel and things like that.

But in terms of the school councils, there is certainly a role for the school councils as we move forward. That will be another conversation moving on, but for right now we're simply trying to change the nomenclature. Change the name of the school district to come out of the legislation, to be replaced with the government, the Crown, the department or the Conseil Scolaire.

There is certainly a role for school councils. To your point, I don't know how many are active right now, but we want to continue to build that relationship. I think that is probably one of the things that I am most passionate about and have been most passionate about is that ensuring that we still have representation.

So don't let my eloquent speech fool you. While I might sound like my big city lawyer friend here, I'm still a girl from the bay and it is very important to me that we have representation from the rural areas of the province and that all schools get a chance to be represented as we move forward with some type of advisory council towards this initiative.

Also, I don't know if I referenced it yesterday in terms of cost savings, but any savings that are achieved through this process will certainly be reinvested into teaching services, back into our students, back into the education system, so you can be assured of that.

In terms of some of the questions you had about our pre-K, we're really at a great spot right now in this province, in terms of our early learning, and again outside of the scope of this piece of legislation, but we've had significant changes to some of the federal funding models that have been revolutionary in how we do early childhood education in this province. I could talk for an hour and a half on just that alone. But I'll save that spiel for a chance when it's more relevant to the piece that we're working on.

CHAIR: Thank you.

I'm recognizing the Member for Terra Nova.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Chair.

So the minister indicated when she spoke in her opening speech the other day that this was a simple transition. Transition indicates change, or a move from one state to another. I guess the issue that I have with it, being a father of two school-age children, is: Why are we transitioning? We know what's being done and we get the legislation, but the question is why are we doing it, and what will be the end result?

The in-between is clear, and I guess, as my learned colleague from Bonavista spoke about some of the shortages and issues in schools and whatnot, when you sit here and you wonder about how we're going to make education better for children, the act is opened and there are missed opportunities, I guess, you start to question how does this make things better, going forward?

Does government manage school boards better than what's happening right now? I don't think anyone can answer that question. Again, in 2021 a part of the reason we discussed this legislation to start with was to see savings and, as my colleague said, see money go back into the school systems. I don't know about every school in Newfoundland, but I was talking to a lot of educators over the last six months and I can tell you, there's a big strain on people in the school systems, raising money for extra curriculum activities. Raising money so there's technology and all kinds of resources available in the schools.

So where is this money, how much money is going to be saved and where is it going to go? Those are things that we should know as we debate legislation, but we don't know any of that. It hasn't been mentioned, not once, since 2021. You know, when I talk around my district, every school has teacher shortages, and we know there's an issue there. Again, how does bringing this back into government, who has failed to recruit people into government, who has failed to recruit doctors and nurses and all kinds of different positions – now they're going to take over recruitment of our educators.

Look no further than Labrador West, or anywhere in Labrador or rural Newfoundland, and look at the shortages that they have. We have teachers taking on multiple roles, just so kids can go to school. I just don't know how this bill changes or makes things better.

I guess one of the real things that bite at me is the conversation that we had yesterday, that we've got three departments now managing different resources inside of a school. I just think, how does that make things clearer or easier for government or for the school boards or the teachers or the students? I know the conversation was yesterday, the minister said very clearly it comes back to her and I get that and I respect that and I think that's where it should go, but it doesn't eliminate the steps and the processes involved in all of this.

If it's a school bus issue, you still have to go TI to get things done. I don't know, I'd say it adds red tape but we all know all the red tape is gone. So it just really, really creates a problem.

I guess for me, as a parent, with my two children, and listening to some of the issues that we've heard throughout the province, we hear about the lack of schooling in Paradise and rodents in CBS and class size issues right across the whole province; shortage of teacher aids; kids going to school and not getting any of the assistance that they need right now; lack of teacher resources; the fact that schools are fundraising. All of these things are huge issues and transitioning from the current situation into government is a higher priority than fixing those things.

I know that the minister never said that, but those are the things that that parents and students and teachers want to see fixed. Nobody has explained how this legislation or bringing the school boards into government makes any of those things better.

Not just as an MHA or a Member of this House, as a parent, it concerns me that that's not the conversation we're having. I find it hard to believe that there's not far, far more important issues inside of our school systems that should be handled that aren't being handled or talked about.

The healthy initiative that we talked about, we pat ourselves on the back all the time and talk about Kids Eat Smart, but there are a lot of communities and schools in this province that don't come under Kids Eat Smart and they don't have the supports that they need, just another example of a shortfall. Where do we turn for that? Government hasn't talked about it. Kids Eat Smart isn't able to keep up with it. Everyone should be on a level playing field, again, rural Newfoundland and urban Newfoundland, two entirely different things.

My colleague from Bonavista talked about the availability of schools and spaces for early childhood entertainment. Listen, there are a lot that schools could be used for throughout rural Newfoundland that nobody – and I think government should step up and do it. If you look to small communities, these schools could be the recreation centres. There should be access to the gymnasiums, not just for the students and the teachers, but for the communities after hours.

Government should be looking at those things. If we want to talk about being healthy, then we could change the Schools Act to allow rural Newfoundland to utilize the facilities they have on a regular basis. We don't have that conversation but it's a simple conversation to have and it's something that we should do.

Now, again, I'd be really curious to know who would be responsible for that. Would it be the Minister of Education? Would it be the Minister of TI? I mean, who do you go to? Who do you have that conversation with? I don't really think anyone over there even knows.

What I would really like to see and understand is what this does when it's finished. How does it save money? How does it make our education system better? How does it change the curriculum in schools so our students are learning the things that they need to face tomorrow? Because, obviously, curriculum is a huge issue and we've had that conversation 1,000 times in here. Students aren't learning how to manage finances, they're not learning all kinds of things that are easy, easy things to teach in school. For some reason, it hasn't been a priority here. It puts our kids at a disadvantage when they get out of school and they go out into the real world.

Real work education is important, as is physical activity, as my learned colleague from Bonavista indicated earlier. All of those things make a kids day, not only better, but it gives them a better chance as they age and get older. It gives them the right habits, the right outlook on life. It does everything that they need to do.

So the other thing outside of cost savings is, again, I'd like to understand – and the question was asked here yesterday – how breaking some of this out into three departments across government makes sense and makes things easier, internally, and for the school system itself, for the teachers, for the students and for the parents that have to deal with it.

I know my colleague from CBS talks all the time about the 1.6-kilometre busing which is fixed apparently. But I'll tell you, those issues are right across the province. I'll give you a great example. You drive into the school in Clarenville, I don't know how a parent in the wintertime would want a child walking into that school. The lighting issues are terrible.

Now, the previous two ministers ago was out, he seen it and he did a lot of good stuff out there. He helped us get the road paved and make things safer for the kids walking in and everything. There was some additional lighting added. But go to these schools and tell me that the maintenance is being done. I can tell you, you look at some of these schools and the lighting outside and the issues inside, it's just not happening.

So how does that get fixed now? Is it the minister's responsibility? Is it the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure's responsibility? Who's looking after that stuff now?

Again, do we have the staff to do it? I doubt it. Are the jobs posted? I doubt it. When do we get there?

AN HON. MEMBER: We can't get the roads fixed.

L. PARROTT: We can't get the roads fixed, exactly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

CHAIR: Order, please!

I'm recognizing the Member for Terra Nova.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the protection from my own people.

I guess I'd say to the minister, if there are things that she can highlight how this is going to save, how this is going to create a better situation inside the schools, what the end result is from a staffing standpoint, all of these things that nobody has even mentioned in this legislation. Again, we say all the time, if you want to lead, you have to listen. I don't know what consultation went on with the NLTA or anyone inside. There are a lot more questions here than there are answers right now.

On that note, I'll take my seat.

CHAIR: Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

I felt like I want to answer everybody because there's so much coming out that I want to get the chance to respond instead of waiting until the end.

Thank you to the Member for Terra Nova for those comments. Again, a lot of the things that you've mentioned are outside the scope of the legislation that we're dealing with today. We'll have a chance to look at that when we open up the act for a full-scale review.

Today, we're simply trying to change – and again I say simply not referencing the amount of work that went in here and I mean no disrespect to the staff that have worked diligently on this, but the issue that we are rightifying today is changing the name, taking out references to the district, replacing it with government Crown or the Conseil Scolaire.

There were some issues that he identified – and I will let you know that if there are any safety or any infrastructure or any maintenance issues in any of your schools, by all means, please reach out to me. I don't know how to articulate more clearly that any issues regarding education will be the responsibility of the Minister of Education. So regardless of who farms out the response to the issue, they will all come through the Department of Education and the minister will then coordinate services as required to collaborate with the other departments, like we do now.

We're already working with several departments to address the issues that come up in our schools. That will remain the same. Teacher recruitment, all of those things, will still be done by the individuals who are doing those things now, but we'll have the opportunity to leverage our collective strengths.

This is kind of the first step; integration bringing the school districts in is the first step in operational changes in better aligning our services, our curriculum development, our service delivery efficiencies, all of those things are part of this first plan of integrating the school district. We'll have all of our folks under the same roof. We'll have our program specialists, our curriculum development specialists, all the folks that do the good things will be all operating out of one space and will have the opportunity then to share ideas, collaborate more closely because we have that type of unity when the school district is brought in. We're continuing to work on that.

In terms of some of the cost, as I mentioned before, any of the cost savings that will be realized in this process will be reinvested into the education system but that's not the priority. This is not really an accounting or a cost-saving exercise.

Primarily, we want to bring the school district in so that we have that continuity, we have that ability, as I said, to work together to leverage the collective strengths so that there is a quicker, more streamlined process to get answers to get things done.

CHAIR: The Chair is recognizing the hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.

T. WAKEHAM: Chair, I'm going to take a couple minutes. I don't think I'll use the full 10, but I want to start off my comments with an old expression that says: In God we trust, everybody else requires data. So you realize now why we would like to see data on this particular side of the House.

Clearly, this is a very important piece of legislation, but we are not seeing the data. We are not seeing the evidence to support this piece of legislation. That is very concerning to me, as someone who is being asked to stand up and vote on a piece legislation that will impact people, the education system and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I have travelled all over the province this summer in a previous run for leadership and I experienced a lot of challenges in the education system. All of us would have had opportunities, I'm sure, in your school days when schools were closed, normally because of either a snowstorm or because of a teachers' workshop. I actually travelled and experienced a school closed because there were no teachers – because there were no teachers.

The minister, herself, eluded to opening up the act for a full-scale review. That is something, I think, that is long overdue. That is something that I would welcome that we would be here talking about in this House of Assembly.

But it goes back to, again, consultation. There is lots of talk about consultation. Who did you consult with? Where are the reports? Why is it that we are not allowed, when we get briefings, that we don't actually get the work that has been done to verify, to justify, to show that this decision to change this legislation is the right thing to do?

We all want to support this; we all want it to be the right thing to do, but it's very difficult to do that when we do not have any kind of mechanism or any kind of document in front of us other than trust me. Well, I alluded to in my opening statement, there's only one person that we talk about trust in this House right now.

Let's go back to the whole point of, why do this? Again, that's the fundamental question. I appreciate the fact that Transportation and Infrastructure will assume responsibility for maintenance issues. That, in itself, is alarming, because right now the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure has a challenge to actually do maintenance on their own vehicles.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: They have, and all of us have experienced that. I'm sure the minister would acknowledge that. There have been challenges in the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure in actually recruiting people to do and provide the maintenance on their own vehicles. Now we're asking them to take on more.

We've all talked this past week, of course, about the maintenance challenges in Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and the fact of all of the positions that are vacant there that haven't been filled and all of the maintenance issues and the number of units that have gone vacant for years because nobody's done any work on them. Those are serious issues.

We're talking about now putting more work on a department that I'm not sure is ready to take on the work. That's not a reflection of the staff, that's just a reflection of reality, of where we are.

The other thing that we talked about and my colleague for Bonavista mentioned and my colleague for Terra Nova mentioned is the whole premise of why we went down this road to begin with. It was pointed out nearly two years ago that we were going to wind up with efficiencies and savings and this money was going to be reinvested into the education system. Again, we've been asking where is that money; where have the savings been identified? Maybe we'll save that for the minister for Question Period so that she can have an opportunity with her officials to actually show us how much money has been saved and where it actually has been allocated. Because that's a question that needs to get asked.

Ultimately, this comes down to assurances. Assurances to the principals, to the teachers, to the students, the front-line staff that they are not going to be unnecessarily burdened because we're now putting an extra layer of process on their lives. That they now have to go on what used to be a one-way street is now a three-way street. Because we now have three different departments going to do what was being done by one before.

Those are all legitimate concerns. But the biggest concern is the fact of how will this benefit the children of Newfoundland and Labrador, the teachers and the parents? Ultimately, because that's what this is about: education. We'd love to have a big debate, a full-scale review and get more teachers in the classroom.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The Chair is recognizing the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to respond to some of the comments made by the Member for Stephenville - Port au Port. Thank you again for the information and the questions and concerns about the operations of the school system in general, but those are outside of the scope of the act that we're addressing here today.

This act will aim to replace references to the school district with references to government, to the Crown or to the Conseil Scolaire in places where that exists. I'll certainly take the comments that have been under advisement, because we don't have to wait until the Schools Act is open to make improvements in our school system, so let's be clear on that, too.

All of these conversations will inform our decision-making as we go forward and if there are opportunities to improve, we'll certain take those as they arise. Again, I would like to take the opportunity to assure those who may be listening and parents and teachers, guardians all across the province that this act will not reflect any front-line changes. They won't see any changes to how schools run on a day-to-day basis from the implementation of this act.

This is more of an effort to bring the school district in and teachers and students will still continue to do the things that they do in their classrooms in the day to day. As we move forward, we'll continue to build and to work on that. Again, I would like to take the opportunity to state that any issues that arise will be the responsibility of the Minister of Education.

The process of communicating issues or concerns will still be the same for parents, guardians, teachers, students. You follow the communication chain. You speak to your teacher, you speak to your principal, you speak to your director of schools and then it's allocated appropriately from there. The Minister of Education will still be responsible for all of these issues in collaboration with the other departments.

We're not adding any additional burden to the TI staff as education staff already do these types of things. It's an issue of who is managed where and how staff are siloed. Right now, we're trying to do away with some of the barriers between departments and between the department and the school district.

CHAIR: Thank you.

I'm recognizing the Opposition House Leader.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's interesting debate. I suppose we discussed a lot of this in second reading and I always find Committee to be more interesting in the sense we asked questions, we get shorter, pointed commentary and a back and forth directly with the minister. I like the concept, actually, and I don't show my hand too much but I kind of rather Committee over second reading.

On that note, it's interesting; when I'm listening to my colleagues and the minister talk about this merger of the school boards within the department, I looked up and I tried to remember, it was in 2021 when the current Minister of Health was the minister of Education, and it was reported, and I took a screenshot of it, he said: It was a marriage, not a takeover.

And that's how the former Education minister viewed the merging of the NLESD into the department. And the move comes as the government hopes to find financial efficiencies in the province's education system. I have yet to hear of any dollar amount, and I know the minister may remember this or maybe not, but I had an extended debate here a couple of years back that we don't know.

I recalled actually last night when I was thinking about it, like, I remember saying there was a budget to come in and no one knew any answers. There were a lot of things in it but no one had any answers. And I termed it, in a lengthy debate here in the House, it was: We don't know. There were no answers to any questions, but a lot of moves.

The school district move was in that so-called, we-don't-know budget. Because I asked so many questions and I got frustrated back then, and I knew it was on the heels of an election. That lengthy election that was later budget. But the school board merger was part of that budget, and we never had any details. We're two years later, almost to the day – next month it'll be two years – and we're talking about this coming in the department, and unfortunately – I hate to repeat myself – but we don't know.

We really don't know if there are any savings. There's not going to be a mass layoff, he says in his interview, with department believing savings can be found through attrition. And we don't know that either. So I guess we create more questions than we get answers and these sorts of things. I mean, I've got lots of questions to ask as we move on through Committee, but my colleagues, including our leader, we've got general concerns of, students are not going to be hurt, but are they going to be helped? I said this yesterday in second reading. I think our focus should be everything we do in education should be to help those that are most affected, which happens to be our children.

So we're not hurting them, but are we really helping them? Is there improvement? Will their class sizes be improved upon? Will air quality in the schools be improved upon? Will maintenance issues be improved upon? Will teacher shortages be improved upon? Will student assistant shortages be improved upon? Will IRT shortages be improved upon? The list goes on.

Minister, I've dealt directly with the current superintendent of schools on various issues and they retain to students with pervasive needs; shortages of specialized IRTs to deal with those individuals. Parents as recently as 6 this morning – I was emailing back and forth with Mr. Hall and, to his credit, he's been very forthcoming. These are real issues we're faced with in our school system. So is any of this going to help those that matter?

We're spending a lot of time – and I know your staff gave a great briefing. A lot of your staff are spending a lot of hours, have spent a lot of time doing this merger. But are we better off as a province, as children, as teachers, as parents, as grandparents, you name it? Are we better off? I'm not sure we are.

I make a few jokes back and forth with the Transportation and Infrastructure Minister, and I was the actual critic for Transportation for a long time. Pretty well since I got elected up until recently. A lot of people in the province have reached out to me, all over the province. They're calling me the roads guy. I don't know if that's a compliment or a criticism because of some of the roads – I don't want to be responsible for the roads all across the province, but I'm referred to sometimes as the roads guy.

So the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure got his plate full with roads and more roads, bridges and ferries, you name it. Does he need to have school buses, school board maintenance and school maintenance in his department? When you say, and fair enough, you're going to come to the Minister of Education, you will be responsible for any of those issues, but then you have to go to that silo. Until we change the structure of government, governments will operate – I've been there on the other side and the current minister was a former deputy minister. He knows more about the integration, the way governments work in the back rooms than anyone in this House probably. There are silos.

There's an independent – one department bills another department. The staff are seconded to another department. We don't operate as one. We're operating as whatever number of departments we have, we're operating independently. I never understood it. I've always struggled with it. Your budget, you're getting close to the end of the fiscal year and your budget is tight, yet you've got more money earmarked for another department in government. But ultimately it's in the general revenues of the Department of Finance. So you're fighting with – to me, it's just dysfunctional.

Now we're going to throw these two important – and I say important because maintenance and school busing are two of the areas where I think you cause the most issues. Whether it's mould or mildew, rats, leaks, storm damage, we all speak up on it and we all got concerns. School maintenance will always be an issue.

Busing and inspection of school busing – if you look at education, school busing unfortunately, really, it meets the headlines more than probably some of the more equally as important issues as IRT shortages, as teacher shortages, class-size issues. Now we're going to have that in another department. We may seem like we're beating that issue to death, but we are not. We went through all this and two years later we don't know to this day – we are on the verge of this bill and they want us to pass it and they're hoping to get it done today – we do not know if we've saved five cents.

There are going to be no positions lost. But like my colleague from Bonavista said, how many people have left the system in advance of this? We don't know that. Where are maintenance budgets? I think I'm picking up through the grapevine, through other MHAs, other school districts, other teachers that the maintenance budget is not where we need to be. Isn't that where we should be focusing our attention?

So we have a school district that, like it or not, sometimes you got your criticisms. We all can criticize day to day. I've had frustrations dealing with them; we've all had them, but we have had other good measures. Should we not leave that as it was? What is the benefit?

Now we have more issues. As my colleague from Terra Nova said: We've run out of red tape but we are creating more of it. We must have more on order because that's all that creates.

So the Minister of Education, on the school busing issue, her officials are going to contact officials in Transportation and Infrastructure to instruct their staff to deal with an issue. When that happens, then they have to go back and loop right around again, so you've created a new bureaucracy.

But then, along the way, you're going to have to stop in and talk to the Minister of Digital Government and Service NL to make sure that something is done with a bus. To me, it's not functional, it's not efficient and it's not the best use of, in my opinion, our time.

I don't know how much time our minister's staff spent on this merger. I know they put a lot of work into it because they basically told us in the briefing that it's a lot work. It's not just so much the i's and the t's and the removal of words and what have you, when you're digging into legislation – and I think this document, the Schools Act, is a pretty thick bill. You've seen the bill. There are a lot of changes and that takes a lot of review and a lot of time to do that. But I think we all need to ask that question. It's not being political; it's that we should ask the question every time a piece of legislation comes through this House.

We did the Uber legislation yesterday and I think there is value in that legislation. I think there are benefits to the people of the province. I think it will be generally well accepted. Now, we don't like the regulation piece showing after. I have a problem with that and I have expressed that. At the end of the day, that will benefit the people of the province. I do not see any benefit to the merger of the school board in the department unless we are missing something. What reports are done? What savings? What is the purpose of it?

I guess it comes back to it and sometimes I think – maybe I think too much, but that's not a good thing some days for me, when I overthink stuff, but I kept thinking and even since yesterday I'm thinking, I can't think of something that's the benefit of this. I don't see a benefit. I don't really see any benefit. It's nice to claim to say that students who will not be hindered by it, but what benefit is that? Sure, I'm glad they're not going to be hindered. They should be helped. Our system should be helped by this and I don't see it being helped.

As the time winds down, I have lots of questions, a lot more to talk about but I'll take my seat and I'll await my next opportunity.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The Chair is recognizing the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Again, thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to respond and, to the Member opposite, thank you for the input that you've made and some of the questions that you've had but they are, again, outside of the scope of the legislation that we're talking about here today.

We are attempting to change the references to the school district, to the government, the Crown, the department or the Conseil Scolaire. The issues that are identified, regardless of what we call it, we will still have to address. Again, I don't have to wait for another rendition of the act to make these changes, but we'll certainly take those comments under advisement.

In terms of improving outcomes, that is a priority for the Department of Education and by aligning our program and our curriculum development to help our students excel, we'll see the long-term impacts of the outcome for students. Because we can't quantify or put a number on it here today, I don't think we should be small-minded enough to think that there won't be overall improvements when we have all of the opportunities in-house to develop curriculum to build on our education system.

We have a deputy minister who is actually responsible for transformation of our system and by him having access to all the folks that would have previously been employed in the school district, we'll say, they can collaborate more efficiently and decide and determine how we can move forward with transforming education.

The students are, of course, at the centre of all that we do. We have our skilled, dedicated staff who are certainly interested and part of this process and as we merge our collective strengths, we'll form a stronger team to be able to foster a united direction for the benefit of our students.

The curriculum design and delivery is one of the areas that we're looking at for a positive change, but it goes much deeper than that. The benefit of being able to share resources in terms of some of our information technology and our corporate services will certainly see us make some movements in efficiencies. So those are things that we hope to achieve once this is implemented.

Acknowledging that there is a cost to the integration of the school district into government, as there is for any major movement. Costs incurred to date have been minimal and we anticipate that there will be associated costs with full integration. There will be cost savings realized as we move forward so we're tracking both of those and any savings that do result will again be reinvested into the education system.

I don't know how to state more clearly that any issues about schools, any issues pertaining to students will come through the Department of Education. Those issues will be addressed here in collaboration with the departments that are relevant to whatever the particular issue is.

Given that this is clause 1 and the same conversation is coming up and the same questions are being asked, I'll reserve comment from here on, on some of the commentary, until it just gets down to a more concrete back and forth question and answer.

We'll be happy to answer those types of questions as we move forward, but other than that, I thank the Members for their contributions to the discussion. We'll certainly continue to take notes and use those to advise us as we move forward in changes for the education system.

CHAIR: Thank you.

I'm recognizing the hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I'm going to say the issues that I face in Labrador West when it comes to this, plus the previous act, it all started with the first degrading of our education system in Labrador with the removal of Labrador school board and that was done by a previous Tory government. Since that time, the quality and everything about the education in Labrador West has degraded and now we're going to centralize everything into the department.

When we lost everything out of Labrador and centralized it into St. John's, we lost our regional voice, we lost our ability to influence our education; we became a forgotten land is basically what happened when it came to our education.

Now, we're going to move everything into the Department of Education with a report that we haven't seen; with numbers we don't know. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know the outcomes, anything; the determination of why. We don't know. It wasn't shared with us.

So this is what's happening now. This is it. This is the end of the board. For me and my people in Labrador West, this is the end of, actually, having some determination on what our outcomes are and our determinations. We're now going to become even more forgotten up there. Just to pass it off as nomenclature, it actually is bothersome for me because we have had nothing but issues since we lost the Labrador school board.

We have become absolutely forgotten. Our issues have become just another issue in a giant pile of all the schools. We have to compete with the Avalon for everything. We have four schools, three that are of the NLESD and one French-language school in a population of 10,000 people. We can't even get enough teachers to run the schools up that way; yet, here we are trying to deal with that stuff.

This is bothersome to me; I can't support this. It is the end of actual regional voices; this is it, we're done. So this is what I have an issue with and I have an issue with how we're passing it off as nomenclature. This is disturbing to say the least.

This year, we have less actual ability for course offerings in our schools. We have had students who have had dreams and hopes of doing these courses so they could go off to university. Well, guess what? They have to put it all off because we couldn't find enough teachers to actually staff the high school.

We hadn't had a guidance counsellor in the middle school in two, going on three years now. We can't even get that done. We've had maintenance issues for years. There was a time that every school had a maintenance person and through the dissolving of the Labrador school board, they also dissolved job positions and now we only have spaces for two maintenance people for four schools.

These are the things that we forget when we're doing these big decisions to centralize things is that there are regional places, there are smaller places that have unique issues that completely get overtaken.

Someone in St. John's has not sweet clue what is going on in Labrador West. It is fine to give them a call and try to explain it to them but they have no sweet clue what's going on up there. That's just Labrador West, a more urbanized part of Labrador. Let's talk about my colleague for Torngat Mountains when you talk about the North Coast; that is a whole other different challenge in itself. But someone in St. John's does not appreciate how unique those situations are and now we're going to dissolve everything into the department and hope and pray that things are going to get done correctly. I have no faith that this will happen.

Taking things out of regions and centralizing it is nothing but a cost-effective measure to save money and hope that you get the services delivered. It should be the other way around. We should be working to get services delivered first, that should be the mandate; not saving money on the backs of children because that is what you're doing.

So I have no faith in this. You already know I am not going to support this. I never supported the last iteration of this and I'm not going to support it this time around. But I am going to have my say because this is disaster for Labrador. This is a disaster for Labrador West and it is on the backs of children and their education.

I don't support it. I think honestly the department should shake their heads in shame at what they're trying to do here because it has no responsible representation. Once again, after seeing what's going on in my region right now, I have no faith that this will actually save money and efficiencies and all this stuff. That's just spin, in my opinion, right now of this; a spin on what is actually happening up my way.

Unless someone comes to me with the actual document that you're keeping from me and says this is what's going to happen, you don't get my support on this.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Thank you.

I'm recognizing the Minister of Industry – sorry, of Transportation and Infrastructure.

J. ABBOTT: Please don't overload me there, Chair.

I just wanted to make a couple of points, if I may, a very specific point. The Member for Terra Nova made a comment about schools should be used after school. If you go into the bill, it specifically speaks to that,

section 51.4. It says: The department may “permit a school building to be used outside of school hours, where this does not interfere with the regular conduct of the school”

That's something I was definitely looking for, because I know in my own community, in my district, when you pass by a school and the lights are off in the evenings and the weekends, and knowing that children in the community would like to have and need access to that facility, now this legislation will do that. I think that's probably one of the important pieces of this legislation when it comes to making sure we maximize the use of our facilities. I just wanted to just refer the Member to that.

For me, the end of the NLESD is probably one of the more progressive things that this government is doing and should do. I ask people to think back in terms of public participation in our school boards and our school board elections. If we are true to the facts, we recognize, and certainly over time, that public interest in the school board, the school district, we were getting 5 or 10 per cent turn out in participation. What does that demonstrate? That the public itself lost interest in really a dysfunctional or non-effective construct when it comes to education in the province.

So what's the obligation then for any government? Well, it's to look at that and size it up and say well, what is the more appropriate model? In this case, we have taken the position, after due consideration and doing a fair bit of consultation, and there has been numerous consultations around public education in this province, which, I think concluded that the government needs to step up, the government needs to take control and the government needs to take on full responsibility and accountability.

That's what this minister and former ministers of Education who have been dealing with the Schools Act have determined and have come to Cabinet to say this is what we think will make the best sense and be the most effective means to move our education forward.

This minister has certainly stepped up to the plate in my view, coming to the House and promoting this legislation. Because the issues and the questions now, if they're not resolved at the school level, at the community level, they have a venue here in this House that now the Member for Labrador West, all the issues that he's identified, real or imagined, then they can be brought to the House and they can be discussed and they can be debated.

Before, what would the government of the day do? It would deflect and say no, that's a school board matter. If you want to close a school, it's a school board matter. If you were concerned about school busing, it was a school board matter. Now it's a government matter. Now it's a Department of Education matter. Now it's the Minister of Education's responsibility to address and respond to those issues.

I think in this province, given the size of our population – 540,000, give or take – that we can effectively manage our schools and our school system through the Department of Education, through the construct that it will have. There will be regional representation. There will be school councils. When it comes to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, in terms of the school structures themselves and the school busing, we are certainly looking forward to taking on that responsibility.

We have mechanisms in our department that, when applied to the schools, will make them better schools. There's no doubt in my mind. But I'm also prepared to be held accountable if and when that is not working the way we said it could and should. So we're prepared to step up to the plate to make the schools a much better place, physical place, for students and for parents to have their kids go.

For me, that's as simple as if we're going to have a flagpole on a school ground, then it's going to have flags on the school flagpole. They're not going to be moonscapes. We are going to make sure that they are landscaped. Very simple things but things that represent, for me, that we show value for the schools, for the community and for the kids that are going to that school.

I grew up in St. John's. I went to an all-boys school and every blade of grass was in place. We were not permitted – and we're going back numerous years, obviously, but it speaks that even though it was an all-boys school, 800 boys, that those grounds and those schools were meticulous. Why can't we have that today?

I see that the school district has fallen down on that very basic responsibility. And then when it gets into the classroom, what is happening? We have the best-educated teachers in this country. We all know that. But are they resourced? Are they supported to the degree that they need to be?

This act and the further work that the minister is doing will ensure that they are. The school councils will be empowered to make sure that the parents' and kids' voices are heard and brought forward. That's going to be critical to the success. So the Member for Bonavista made very, very key points when they talk about how that voice gets heard, what lessons have we learned from across the country. And we are listening. We have to make that work. Because it's going to be essential that that voice is heard.

That's something we're doing. We're also doing it when it comes to the new Health Authority. To make sure that the community voice is heard in the design and the delivery of the services. We work closely with the NLTA. They are strong advocates obviously for the teachers, but also for what's going on in the classroom. They will have a voice in this new act as well.

I'm anticipating through this debate, those that are listening, that we will re-engage the public on the future of education in this province. It can't be left just to the department; it can't be just left to the NLTA or the teachers, and the parents need to be fully engaged. The onus is on us as a government to ensure that that happens. That's why I think the school councils, as they are embellished in their roles, that we can see that happen.

I'll just come back to my role here, and we've already started discussions in the department, with the deputy minister and others, we've reached into the school district already to see how we can support things that ongoing right now. I've had conversations with different Members of our caucus on very specific things that my department can and should be doing, and we're undertaking that as we speak.

I'm optimistic that at the end of this – and as the Minister of Education said, this is just the start. She is looking at the whole Schools Act and how we can make sure that that is stronger when we bring forth future plans for our education system.

There are challenges. There are very specific things that are going on in the schools that we know are very problematic today. There's school violence. That's become almost epidemic. I know the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, the Minister of Education and others, are engaged on that. We need to collectively figure out how we support the school principal, schoolteachers and families who are facing those situation. To me, they're the more germane issues that we really need to focus on in any expanded new Schools Act in the very near future.

Chair, I'll finish on that note.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: I'm recognizing the hon. Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands.

P. LANE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I just want to say that I have the utmost respect for the minister who just spoke here, but to suggest that the public somehow is not interested in education and not engaged because you're not getting a whole lot of people wanting to run to be on the school board, I think that misses the mark a bit, I have to say.

B. DAVIS: (Inaudible.)

P. LANE: Do you want to speak, Minister?

B. DAVIS: (Inaudible.)

P. LANE: Okay, well after me you can get up and you can speak, the Minister of Climate Change there, he has the answers.

Basically, what I got from the comments was basically that the public is not engaged in what's going on with the school system so, therefore, the government is going to take it over. The public don't care, necessarily, because they're not running for positions on the school board. I do take some exception to that commentary, but I do know he's heart is in the right place and I've said this before, I'll say it again, as far I'm concerned, he's one of the better ministers over there, for sure.

He mentioned about the NLESD not providing the appropriate funding and so on for teachers, positions, IRTs and so on. I would remind the House that if the NLESD is not providing the funding, well, where did they get the funding from? They get their money from the government. So if the NLESD was not providing funding for required positions, it's because the government wasn't providing them with the money to fund it. So to simply blame that on the NLESD, that's a bit disingenuous as well, because we all know it's this House of Assembly that passes the budget. The government prepares the budget. The NLESD can only work with the money that they are provided by the government.

So we can't go blaming the NLESD for the fact that they never received enough funding to put all the teachers, IRTs and guidance counsellors in place. That was on the government, all governments of all stripes.

I also wanted to make the point to the Minister of Education, and I agree with my colleague from Labrador West, that while she keeps on going back in her comments, over and over again about the fact that this legislation is simply a name change, the reality of it is – and I agree with my colleague – that in order to make this transformation – and this is a huge transformation, let's not kid ourselves, very, very extensive. It's going to have huge impacts on our education system moving forward, positive or negative; the jury is out on that one.

I hope it's positive, as I said yesterday, I really do. Because I have three grandchildren, one who just started kindergarten and I have two others who are, of course, a lot younger than that, three and almost one, who will be going to school in the next couple of years. So for me, as a grandparent, I want this to work, absolutely want this to work.

But for the minister to suggest that, well, it's only a name change, we're just changing this from school board to the government, basically, to the Crown. While that may be true from a technical point of view in terms of the actual piece of legislation, it is another step along the way of getting rid of the NLESD and bringing it under the Department of Education – getting rid of the school board altogether.

So instead of coming to the House of Assembly with one piece of legislation to do everything we're talking about, because now we're talking about another review, the minister's talking about well, we're going to do another review of the Education Act to make changes and so on to deal with all the issues that my colleagues have raised, but that'll be the third go-around, or maybe there'll be four, or five go-arounds. Who knows?

We've already had one go-around a year or so ago, now we're doing another step and there will be other steps. But all these steps are all part of achieving one goal and that is getting rid of the NLESD and bringing it under the department. So while, technically, this piece of legislation, the minister could argue, and she has, fair enough, is changing some names here and changing it from NLESD to the government to the Crown and so on, it is part of the bigger picture of dismantling the NLESD; dismantling the school board and bringing it under the Department of Education.

That's why Members on this side, I would suggest, certainly from my point of view, when we're raising concerns here today that may not technically be what this piece of legislation is doing, it's part of the bigger picture and we're concerned about the bigger picture. I'm not concerned about changing a few names in this document, it's not that. It's the bigger picture that I have concerns with and this is contributing to that bigger picture. That's why we are raising these concerns.

My colleagues are right, I heard the minister say – I don't remember the exact words, but the Minister of Education basically said – staff are monitoring this and we believe there's going to be savings, or I think she said we know there are going to be costs associated to making this move and we also know there are going to be savings and everything. If staff are monitoring it and they know there are going to be costs and they know there are going to be savings, if someone is monitoring the data, could you please provide us with that data?

If it's happening, the minister has said herself that staff have anticipated costs and staff are anticipating savings, let us know what they are anticipating. If your staff know, I'm sure you know, let us know.

That brings me to the biggest issue of all. This came up at the last debate on this bill, which is why I didn't support it at the time and still won't. We were advised that there was a report, that government hired a consultant to do a total analysis of whether or not we should maintain the status quo or whether we should get rid of the NLESD and bring it under the Department of Education. That analysis is there, allegedly. Somebody would've looked at all these things. They would've looked at the pros and the cons. They would've looked at the costs. They would've looked at: What are the benefits?

What are the positives? What are the negatives? They would've done their SWOT analysis. They would've done all that stuff. But we were told we can't see it, it's a Cabinet document. We can't put in an ATIPP request, it's a Cabinet document. You won't give it to us, it's a Cabinet document.

Why wouldn't you want to give it to us? I have to ask the question. Just because you don't have to give it – there's one thing to say you don't have to give it to us because it's a Cabinet document, you don't have to do it, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. It means you don't have to and you're choosing not to.

Why would you choose not to? If we want to make this significant change to our education system and you have a report and the data to back up what you're doing, who wouldn't you want to share it with the House of Assembly? I don't understand it. That's the part that boggles my mind.

If I was going to make a move like this and I had the data to show it was the right thing to do, I'd share it with the world. I'd share it with the general public and say, look, these are the findings. This is going to save us money. It's going to make our education system better. It's going to streamline services. It would all be outlined for the world to see. If it was the right thing to do, why wouldn't you?

So that's why you then have to look at this with a jaundiced eye and say well, maybe that report wasn't as positive as we're led to believe. Maybe there are downsides to this that they don't want us to see because then we'll criticize it and challenge it – maybe. We'll never know, but I would say to the minister, if you want us on board, if you want me on board with this – you don't need me on board, you've got the majority; you'll do what you want anyway. We all know how that works but if you would like this House, this side of the House – I speak for myself only – I'm sure my colleagues would probably agree.

I won't speak for them, but I would think that if my colleague from the Official Opposition was given this report, which clearly demonstrated it was the right thing to do, I've got a feeling they would support it.

Why wouldn't they? It wouldn't be an issue.

AN HON. MEMBER : It would be a problem solver.

P. LANE: It would solve the problem.

I challenge the minister, if you have that report, table it. Please, Minister, table the report for this House and I can guarantee you that if I read that report and it can demonstrate to me with all the data that this is the right thing to do, I'd be on board.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you, again, to the Member opposite for the comments.

While there have been many contributions to the discussion around how to integrate and what that would look like, there is no specific report on whether or not to integrate the school distinct into government.

CHAIR: Thank you.

I am recognizing the hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have some questions I'm going to get into now, which was the normal part of Committee, but it's always interesting to –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

B. PETTEN: What's that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

B. PETTEN: The first one?

AN HON. MEMBER: The first

part is admirable.

B. PETTEN: Admirable, yeah.

I'm not sure if the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands is thinking about moving on the other side but I find he's very complimentary to government. I'm not sure. He might be able to explain that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

B. PETTEN: That's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. It's all in good humour but I'd be remiss if I never mentioned it because he passed a lot of compliments along lately across the way, I've noticed that.

Anyway, I'll get back to serious business now, Mr. Chair. I couldn't resist.

Minister, on a more serious note, I guess the question I have and we've all talked about it: What savings have you found so far? Because your former minister originally said there would be millions in savings; I know you've eluded to the fact that you are tracking costs so what savings have been found?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Right now, as we've identified, the costs incurred to date have been minimal. We do anticipate that there will be more costs associated as we fully move through and we are tracking that from a cost and a savings perspective.

But, again, integration is not about saving money. While it has been referenced as one of the cornerstones of any government, I suppose, to find where you can find efficiencies, but right now it is about ensuring that the money that we do spend is targeted in the classroom and that any costs that we do find will be redirected.

It's not a budgetary exercise, but, of course, there will be budgetary implications. When it's fully implemented, we will have a better picture of that.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

So I guess I'll go back to, not the same question, but the minister did clearly state in the House at the time and to media and publicly in many questions, there were savings anticipated in the millions. Would I be right in saying now we're not going to anticipate millions of dollars in savings? Because, at the time, he said through questions that they would be directed back to the classrooms into the school.

From what I'm reading here now, you are tracking, but would it be right of me anticipating that we're not going to see millions of dollars worth of savings as a result of this?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I don't have a number to present to the Member opposite as to what the final savings will be.

The way that things are going, and things are changing right now, the cost of things you anticipate is not always what you end up spending but we do recognize there is a cost associated. Once the department and the district are integrated, there will be cost savings.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Minister, I question again, we're going back almost two years: Is there any explanation or was there any anticipation that this would take so long?

I know when it was announced there seemed to be a lot of, I suppose it was, false expectations at the time, but I think we all thought it would be quicker than what is has been. It seems like a longer process to merge within the department because we do other merges sometimes and they seem to happen a lot faster.

Is there any reason or was that expected because I don't think it was, at the time, anticipated it would take nearly two years?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Chair.

I recognize the length of time that we've been discussing this and talking about integration. There have been significant moves made already and there are different pieces to the puzzle that had to come in play. I think one of the biggest things was that we certainly don't want to do anything too fast. Far be it from government to move quickly on anything, but we don't want to do things too fast. We also didn't want to do it to interrupt the school cycle. We had to wait until there was an appropriate time, a break in the school year to do that, to do some of the measures that had to be implemented.

I think it has taken time; change takes time. We wanted to communicate appropriately. There was a significant consultation process with the unions. There was a lot of alignment of policy directives and things like that that had to be brought under one umbrella. So those things obviously take time and we wanted to get that done properly.

So we've set the deadline now for December 31, should all things be considered here today, we're aiming to have it done then.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

My questions were the – actually I had three questions regarding consultations with unions. You did say you did spend a lot of time consulting with the unions. I guess I'll group this into one question and you can probably answer it in generalities.

I know CUPE, NAPE and the NLTA are the three main unions in the school system. Did they address any concerns or what were their concerns? What's their response to, I guess, this overall merger? How did that go I guess is what I'm asking?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Chair.

The questions and concerns that came up when we chatted with the unions were largely around their collective agreements and how their employees would be affected. We've assured them of those measures. We've had great discussions with them and been able to establish those parameters. We've aligned the policies so that all matches up and we've been able to have open communication with those members as well the Federation of School Councils and the French school district.

It's something that we've been talking about for, as the Member referenced, quite some time, but all of the partners have been part of the conversation ever since we started. They've given significant feedback that we've built into the process.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

Thanks for that, Minister.

Again, we're knocking off questions in groups, which I don't mind doing that either because it's no repetition.

Will there be any changes to the collective agreements? What's the role going forward now for school councils with this new merger?

I guess the two of those together basically: Is there any change to school collective agreements and school councils' roles on a go-forward basis? I know you said they had lots of consultations. Do you have any idea what their new roles would be?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: As we mentioned before, in this legislation there will be no changes to the rules and responsibilities. The teachers on the front lines won't notice any difference. These are more aligning the backend functions and bringing the district into the department.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Will there be any role for school board trustees when this legislation goes through?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: As we've mentioned before, we've had significant conversations with the federation of schools and the role that they have in removing the board from the equation when we moved that into the school district, those roles and responsibilities – there will still be a role for our advisory council, as such.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Minister, did you consult with the Francophone school board and what was their view?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Yes, we did. They had questions and concerns. They were eager to be part of the conversation, recognizing that the French school district won't be folded in because of a constitutional right to maintain their own French first-language schools.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

Minister, on a Francophone school board issue, again I would be remiss if I never asked this question because I don't know the answer and it's kind of one of the ones that slipped off the radar. The expense controversy of the former director, I know that the Comptroller General has a review ongoing that your department had ordered.

Has there been a legal opinion? Has that been resolved? I guess it is all part of the Schools Act so could you elaborate on that?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Sorry, that is a conversation that we have almost every time that we meet with the French school district. It continues to be ongoing. I'll get more information for you on that if you want to have that conversation about more specifics.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Has there been any analysis done on how minority school boards are treated in other jurisdictions across the country? Have there been any cross-jurisdictional scans on that sort of stuff?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: We have looked at, jurisdictionally, what has happened and there has been some reference to some of the pitfalls of such in different jurisdictions. But recognizing the population and geography that we have here in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's not fair sometimes to compare apples to oranges.

So as we look at moving forward, this is a policy directive that we believe fits for students and teachers and staff – and parents and guardians here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

Minister, how will the school procurement be done after this is complete? Will there be any changes in how we perceive the procurement now?

Because I know right now it goes through infrastructure, the committee – well, most of infrastructure in the province and maintenance we know is going to go to TI, so how will school procurement be now on a go-forward basis once the merger is complete?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I do have a note on the procurement process if you'd just give me a moment to look for it.

Again, things that are delegated to responsible departments will be done in the responsible departments. Staff who are responsible for procurement in the school district right now will move to the Public Procurement Agency.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you.

A lot of moving parts, though, as we've stated several times already. It's a lot of moving parts. I sure hope it works.

How will school hiring be done after this is complete? Because, again, we are dispersed around. Will your department be the entry point for that?

I guess what I'm trying ask, we've talked about the busing and the maintenance, so do you apply to Transportation and Infrastructure? Do you apply with the portals – basically how will hiring be done? Who will be responsible for that?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Those processes will not change. They will remain as they are.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: So you still go will through the Department of Education, early childhood learning, and then it will be your staff and that public schools branch will be responsible for doing all the screening and hiring?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Yes.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Okay.

Minister, how will school repairs be budgeted and completed after this is complete?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Sorry, can you repeat?

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: How school repairs will be budgeted and completed after this is complete?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: As they are now.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: There will be no changes whatsoever so the exact same process?

What I'm saying is in any school, the school operations, they will not see – they will deal with the same people. Will it be seamless, I guess, is what I'm trying to say because with any change comes change. So it will be seamless and they will not see any difference; is that correct?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: That is certainly the intention. I wish that I could predict that it would be seamless but that is the intention, that front-line administrators, staff, teachers, students will not see a massive change or difference in how they conduct business right now.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

I'll go back again because these things might seem minute or whatever but they matter down the road. I said it in the House and I said it in the briefing and I'll ask you directly – and I said it in the second reading. I'll go back to myself and you doing a tour of Frank Roberts. So any maintenance, busing, any issue, even though it's not in your department, will you still do that tour with me or do I have to get the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure – and that might seem minute and I bear repeating, but I've been around enough to know, too, and everything changes in government that it can pretty convoluted and complicated.

Could you be on record, I guess, to provide clarity to that issue now?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: The process will remain the same. Any issues related to schools, anything that impacts students, anything that falls within the purview of education will still come through the Department of Education and if a double date is necessary with two ministers, then by all means we'll sign up for that too.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Now, I'm not sure if I'd be participating in that but the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands might do it but not me. I appreciate that, Minister. It's all good humour.

I guess, Minister, a question – and, again, it's tied to this double department. As you can tell that's something that does not really sit right with me and probably my colleagues.

So important school repairs, Transportation and Infrastructure, people can agree or disagree – I happen to know that department quite well through my time I worked in the department. I was the shadow minister for the department for many years. For many years I felt, some times I probably had more of a knowledge of it than the new ministers coming into the department, and that's just a reality. It's no disrespecting anyone there. Things get lost in Transportation and Infrastructure. The minister, he can agree or disagree, whatever – I'd say he disagrees to me but that don't shock me with him because he's on top of things but I still think things get lost.

Is there any concern with these group of employees going up because we all deal a lot with these individuals – we know a lot of them, busing, bus stops, what have you – going up into the second, outside of Justice – I think Justice are, employee-wise, the second largest or the largest department for staff in the province in the government. Are you concerned that they're not going to get lost in the shuffle?

Again, I'm going back into that point but it comes through experience and experience does matter in these things. You've seen it first-hand. When the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructures clarifies this, eventually – I'm sure he will because he wants to clarify, but I'm not being facetious. I'm trying to ask a general question because I think it's a genuine issue. I've worked in six or eight departments with the provincial government when we were the administration – I wasn't elected but I was there and a minister's office, you get a good understanding of how things work.

That's my fear. So you become an afterthought in a big conglomerate department that is up there with a billion dollars worth of roadwork. I always said TI was like an engineering department, it was never like a government department because there were more engineers and vests going around the department than there were suits. I think it's a genuine issue and concern. I think it's a fair concern.

It looks good now on paper, and we pass this stuff and I'm not trying to be difficult either but I do believe it's something that could pose problems, when you're no longer the minister, you're somewhere else in the government – things change. Right now, today, you're assuring me and I fully respect your assuredness, but down the road you're a small fish in a big ocean in that department. So feel free.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I thank the Member for the concerns and I don't pretend to know what happens in TI and I certainly do respect your experience and your time there. To your point about seeing how it all plays out, I mean, if I could see what it was going to look like in the end I'd see the 649 numbers and I wouldn't worry about none of it.

But there will be a team within Transportation and Infrastructure that's designated to public schools. They'll be responsible for the school maintenance, and that team is already the team that conducts school maintenance. They're moving from the district into government. They'll have two ministers on their case to make sure that things get done, because those concerns will still funnel through the Department of Education and be able to spearhead making sure that that's done and conducted and foster a better communication between the two departments.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: I'm going to ask a stupid question now. Why did we ever put it over in TI? Why did it not just stay in your department?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Sorry?

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Why was transportation and maintenance put in TI, not brought into your department?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: So that's part of integrating it and, as we recognize, those are questions and concerns often that we have to consult with TI on. As they work on their end of things, it will be a part of the integration. They will be a team that is specifically responsible for infrastructure concerns and transportation concerns within the school district or department.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Chair.

Minister, do you have any concerns now that the superintendent of schools will be an ADM within the department, in the public schools branch? Are there any concerns because, previously, I mean, let's be honest, the superintendent of schools provided a level of cover to any government. I said yes, that's why I believe the school boards were put there, it was to give government some reprieve because a lot of these issues are really difficult. But now this person will be operating as an ADM directly under your leadership.

Do you have any concerns? There are a lot of issues that are going to be filtering through the department that never filtered before because if they don't like the answer, before you went to the superintendent of schools and usually that's where it stopped because the minister of the day would say that's a school board issue and they dealt with it. That layer of protection will not be there now.

Do you have any concerns with the functionalities of that? Because what I heard in the briefing yesterday, right from evaluation and everything will come through the department. You're going to have upset people or parents or teacher issues.

Before, the superintendent had sole discretion, basically protection. You, as the department or any minister there, could just put it off to the board and let them deal with it. Now these issues are coming basically into your purview as well.

Are there any concerns or is there any anticipation of how you've managed that? Because that would be more of a management concern than anything else because the issues will come. They're there every day now. Is there any plan or any concern as we go forward?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

Of course there's always the concern, but to your point, I hear them anyway. We work very closely with the superintendent of schools. The issues that are brought to the superintendent, they're not exclusively kept to the superintendent. Most of the major issues are always communicated to the minister.

The day-to-day operating things, they will still be managed by the person who's in the role. Anything that needs to be escalated to the minister will, which is the same way we do things now.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thanks again for that, Minister.

I totally appreciate that they do come your way and I do understand from my time within the ranks that's what happens. Now you can no longer say that decisions are final. I guess I'll use just a small example for the benefit of the people who probably don't know where I go with stuff. I remember the 1.6-kilometre busing, every time that was discussed with ministers of the day, ultimately it was a government policy, but the school board was left to implement. It did provide a level of – the minister had some – even though they're fully aware. Now, an ADM in your department outside of that reports to you. You and the deputy, that's it.

I'll leave it at that, but that's my thing. I know you're aware of it, but now you're going to be actually – you could be – point taken or point given, I guess.

Minister, the spending scandal with the NLESD in 2018, is there any assurances, I guess, or protections that this won't happen again? I know we're now moved into government and I know from my time in Public Accounts there was an asset-management system, I guess that's what it was called at the time, to protect – the asset-management system wouldn't happen again. It was a fairly large investment, I believe a couple million dollars and then it was a million dollars a year in maintenance, I may be wrong in those figures but I know that when it came to Public Accounts of the day.

I know in the briefing they said that this is being merged or supposedly merged within government. So are there going to be any issues with that? Do they foresee that that's going to be compatible because it might seem like a computer system but we're looking at fairly significant investments in any technologies?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

That is an issue that has been identified. We did spend a significant amount of money to invest in a system that assures those things won't happen again. Then we're going to bring those folks into government. So the microscope gets zoomed in a little bit more.

I think these are measures of accountability and transparency that we're interested in pursuing and making sure that we are upholding the high standards for our school district, our school spending and by having them in-house then they are subject to all the same rules and implications and we'll be able to monitor that in our department.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, the Teacher Allocation Review Committee, the report on teacher allocation review, with this new merger and, I guess, upheaval that's going to be caused regardless, no matter how seamless it is, will this delay any actions of the hiring of teachers? Will this have any delay in that process and even a new teacher allocation model?

I guess the recommendations of the report, will this be further delayed now because we haven't seen anything on it? Will this be a further delay as a result of this merger? We're talking about the merger today, but it still hasn't really fully occurred. This is going to take a process. So will that delay this further down the road or are there any plans in the immediate future for that?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: We don't anticipate any further delays because of bringing the school district in. If anything, it's to make things more streamlined and we'll have everybody operating under the one roof, so to speak.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Will this Teacher Allocation Review recommendations be implemented soon? Is that what you're saying is your response to that?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: We're still continuing to work on plans for transformation of education here in Newfoundland and Labrador and that will be a piece of that puzzle for sure.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: So stay tuned, okay.

Will this legislation affect the settlement of survivors of sexual abuse who have made claims on former and current school buildings?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Can you ask that question again?

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: We're wondering will this merger have any affect on – I mean we're dealing with the school sales for the settlement, the Catholic schools, I guess, will that have any impact on that issue, or is that totally separate?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: No impact.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Winding down on my questions, Chair, and I appreciate the minister's responses.

Thank you very much.

You said earlier in your commentary, a full-scale review. So when can we expect a full-scale review of the Schools Act?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: As with any policy or act or any governance structure in government, we continue to monitor and update those in a timely fashion, is my intent. As we get the school district implemented or integrated into government, then we can move on to other pieces of legislation that are of importance. I think this Schools Act is one of those that we need to do some work on. That will be my direction to the department, is to pick a time and get a time frame into which we can offer a full-scale review.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Minister, I totally agree and we've debated another issue on the Schools Act that was open on the floor, it was the previous minister, and there's a lot of stuff in that Schools Act that's dated, that's archaic, it needs to be changed and renewed. It's so much, it's a lot and the sooner we get that done, the better.

I guess one final point I'll make is the consultant's report. There's a lot of conversation about a consultant's report. So where is it to? Will it ever be released? Could you offer some comment or response on that, please?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: So the PERT report made reference to integration of the school district into government. To anything else, there is no report about the pros and cons of bringing into government. As I've said, we've had significant discussion and contributions to the conversation about how we do that and what that looks like. But the PERT report is out there and that is the piece of information that identifies the integration of the school district into the department.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

L. O'DRISCOLL: Thank you, Chair.

I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but I can see where, in the legislation, you got to start somewhere to put it in the right area, and I get that. The regulations are where it gets us, and we'd like to be more involved in that and just get the information. That's one of the things.

So when you say that you're going to come out with the full-scale review, that's great if it comes to the House of Assembly so we can debate it and discuss it. Because some of the issues if it's going to happen like it's happening now, in coming in with this – and we get the reason for it, but we have reservations about it and, rightly so, based on some of the stuff that's happened.

When I'm talking about some of this stuff, I don't get to mention it until we get the legislation. We get to speak to it in debate but we don't get to offer our suggestions to get it into the debate. It's after the fact, so that's some of the stuff that as an elected Member – and I think we should be all thinking like that, how can we help you? I've said that before when I spoke and I continue to say it that hopefully there's something that one of us over here will say that may be added into the legislation. That's basically my claim. Not that I want to be a part of it, just that it gets into the legislation.

Sometimes you're doing it after the fact and we say we should do this and we should that. So that's some of the concerns that I have and I always have reservations about.

It's just up for discussion. That's why I throw this out there and that's why I wanted to get up and speak on it. Some of the custodial issues, in regard to snowstorms, a field has been cleaned – and I heard the minister over there of TI and I will compliment you that when I text both of you, that the answers come back and we get a chance, or you get to speak to somebody. That's what our job is and I do appreciate it. I'm not going over on that other side, so just to let you know.

An example would be cleaning the fields or mowing the grass in the buildings, and I heard the minister say it, three weeks to wait to clean the grass. So they get up and they get a group of students to do it, and that's not acceptable. You're right, it should be pristine and it should be done. Again, when it comes to that kind of stuff and discussing it, teachers sometimes have to stay quiet. If they come out and speak, they can be frowned upon. It's not the way it should be, that's just the way it is but they are looking to get things done in these schools.

If we can streamline it to make it better, then that's what our job is. Again, bringing in the legislation after the fact or not having a say in the legislation or how we can help it, that's what I think our job is. If I'm wrong in that, then somebody can correct me but that's why we're here: to help.

We, from both sides, have a lot of knowledge in regard to the education system for sure. I mean, I listened to this gentleman here from Bonavista and there is education in here; we have a Member over here, in the NDP; we have a Member on the other side. They have a lot to offer and they should be included in the conversations because they certainly help us on our side.

There are always experts in every field in here. We should be bringing that to the forefront to help you. It's an incredible amount of stuff. How we can save money maybe? It's all about saving money. If you were running this as your own business, you'd be trying to save money. We should be trying to do that and not on the backs of the students.

Again, this is why I got up and we're talking about programs that are in school. I was in the car industry for a long time. Programming in school should be teaching, at least, Grade 12 students about how credit works in your own life when you leave school. A lot of these kids, when they leave Grade 12, if they come from a family that didn't understand it when they were there, then they are going to go out and have the same issues with regard to credit. So my opportunity is to get up and be able to speak to this and be able to bring that out.

One of the issues is learning about credit. Obviously, we are not going to go into schools but I know when I was selling cars, I said I'd love to get an opportunity to get in to Grade 12 so that when four kids go together or four people go together when they live out in St. John's and live in a house and the light bill goes in my name and the other three don't pay and you leave it and you say I'm not paying the bill if they aren't paying it, well, guess who that hurts? Only the person whose name it is in, not anybody else. Do these kids understand that? Some might but others don't.

They should be taught some of that stuff. That's the kind of stuff that we need again, as legislators, to be able to get in and help this stuff out with whatever we can do.

And I can touch on other topics. I said I wouldn't run-on too much but they are important. It's just important that we be part of the regulations and helping the legislation. That's what I feel that we should be talking about.

Maybe, Minister, when you get to do a full review, you bring it in here, we offer some suggestions then you go away and make your legislation and then if there's something we can tweak up, maybe we can.

That is my take on that. Thank you for your time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you to the Member for the contribution to the conversation.

I will say we don't have to wait for a full-scale review to make changes and improvements in our education system. So if there is anything that anybody on any side has to add to the conversation then please, by all means, reach out to me and we can have a conversation on how we can make things better.

That's one of the points that I like to stand on and believe in in my own profession here is that I'll always defer to the experts in the room on the things that matter and those that can speak to the things that we're discussing. It has been a great opportunity to be able to sit and share with members if the NLTA and to get feedback from them on several issues, even outside of this legislation, but it is important that we hear from the folks who are front line and the folks who are implementing these things day in, day out. Always interested in deferring that conversation to experts in the room or in the field.

I welcome all the feedback; we're continuing to work on the regulations for this piece of legislation, which again the things we've talked about are outside of what we're working on today. But if there is anybody who wants to have a conversation about those things, by all means, reach out to our department.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Further questions?

I recognize the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Chair.

I do have some questions. With the elimination of the NLESD, is there anything in this bill that guarantees the transparency on how decisions are made? Will transparency decrease as a result of the merger? What did the consultant or the decision document say about this?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: As always, it is the intention to have accountability and transparency in all these measures and we'll continue to work with all Members of the House of Assembly to answer any questions or concerns that they have in that and bring forward from their district. The school district will be folded into government and the policies and procedures will be conducted in the same fashion.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you.

In transferring the duties of the board to the department, I note that the current act had a provision to “ensure that policies and guidelines issued by the minister relating to special education for students are followed in schools under its jurisdiction.”

That is no longer listed as duties under the proposed 51.3 of the bill. Why was this omitted and was this a result of the consultations?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I'm sorry; it'll just take a minute. Those will be functions of government as we move forward, so the staff that would have been responsible for that will now be members of the department.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Minister.

But why was it no longer in the legislation? Why was it removed from the legislation? Why wouldn't it be kept in even though it is a function of government? Is it going to be in the regs or is it just going to be like an operating manual? Why was it removed from the regulations?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Because it'll be under the departmental process so there was no need for a legislative component to legislate government process.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Who will now determine the priorities of the new schools constructed in the future? That process, what will it look like? Before, the NLESD would make recommendations, internally. What will now take place inside government to make sure that the new school process is done?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Those discussions will still occur with the same folks that they occur with now. These individuals will simply be part of the department. We'll conduct the consultations with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure and review the information as we build the priorities for school construction.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Chair.

So you say it will be done with the same people there. Will it be done externally or internal consultants within the department now that there is no school board?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: It'll be the same process that we undergo now.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Given that the school board was a separate ABC outside of government, technically, now that it's going to be internal, will it be an internal process or are you saying that now it'll be a strictly internal government process that will have internal decision-making? Because before it was done outside and now it's going inside. So you're saying that the government itself will just do it. It seems that there's a lack of transparency now, when it comes to this process.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: So the process will be the same. It's always been an internal decision. It was done on the recommendations of the NLESD, which will continue. Those individuals who would have informed the decision-making process prior to the integration will still inform the decision-making process once the integration is complete.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you.

Under 51.4 of this, it says that the department may similarly dismiss employees who have not made a reasonable attempt to obtain the examination or assessment. How is a reasonable attempt defined and will the department go about trying to prove such a thing?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I'm just going to need a minute to locate that. I ask the Member if he could repeat the number.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: In this bill, it's under 51.4(1), it says that the department may similarly dismiss an employee who has not made a reasonable attempt to obtain an examination or an assessment.

How is a reasonable attempt going to be defined and how will the department go about trying to prove such a thing?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: The definition will remain the same. Nothing is changed in that piece.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Is there any new wording in the proposed 51.11 that governs how denominational property is managed or is it all the same as

section 84 in the current act?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: There will be no change in how it's managed. It will just simply be managed by the department, the Crown or the Conseil Scolaire. The only change will be in the name.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Just looking for clarity. Will teachers now be employees of the Department of Education? How is this case going to look, also giving a description of the education committee?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

The teachers will be employees of the Department of Education and there has been no change to any of their descriptions, job descriptions or anything of that nature.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Given the regional differences within the province, and now that we're going to be merging all into the Department of Education, how will the regional offices look? Will there be improvements to the current structure of the regional offices, given that there are so many challenges right now in different regions of the province, or is it going to be status quo going forward?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: So folks who are operating in offices in the periphery will continue to operate. There will be no collapsing of those services.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Given that the regions are having such difficulties as it is, will there any improvements going forward? Can the minister commit to any improvements going forward with the merger or is it going to be status quo?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: As we will have the opportunity to handle all of these things within the department, I would hope that there are efficiencies and that things do improve. As we are moving forward, all of these things, the policies, procedures and operations of the department and the school district will be streamlined; therefore, we do suspect that they will improve.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Given that the French language school board is not coming into government and this will have to be of their own choice, because they have the ability to say no, have they made indication that they would like to be a part of government or are they adamantly saying that they're not going to be a part of government?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

Those are conversations that we continue to have. As we've mentioned, the Francophone community have a Charter of Rightsto main control over their French first-language schools. They're constitutionally protected and it won't be integrated at this time, but as the Member referenced, if there's interest in that, I'm sure we can have the conversation. We'll continue to have our internal control mechanisms in place to support the practices of the CSFP.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you.

So given that they chose not to at this time, is there any concern now that having one school board and one non-school board is going to cause any issues going forward with the delivery of education in this province?

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

The management of the CSFP or Conseil Scolaire Francophone Provincial continues to have open conversation with the Department of Education and their mechanisms align with the best practices of government policy.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you.

Given that there are a lot of regional differences and stuff in the province, a suggestion to the minister is will they go about and check, go visit every region to see where the issues that do arise with regions can be addressed, given that at this current time there doesn't seem to be any mechanism or anything like that to address some of the regional issues.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: Thank you.

It's certainly the intention to have representation in all areas. As the Member referenced, there are some that are more difficult to fill than others. But those will be maintained and efforts will be made to ensure that regional representation is available. I look forward to visiting as many regions, as many schools as possible.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Thank you, Chair.

I just want to weigh in on the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure when he had mentioned about the school board elections. I know that the amount of people engaged in that was very poor, I agree 100 per cent. But I think that as an administrator in the school system, we often were never aware of it. So I look at the process and the communication that we had out to engage people, that we may have done a poor job over the years in relation to the school board elections. I just want to weigh that in.

He had mentioned about the schools and making sure they look great and are well maintained. That is fantastic, that's what we want to hear. I know the public in my area would look at the roads if they damaged a vehicle on a pothole, then government has no liability, no matter if the pothole is recognized or determined three or four months prior. There's still no liability on that.

So I know that the residents of my district would say, if government now is going to ensure the maintenance of buildings and looking after it, they would piece that together and say, well the liability of doing so, it's a little different. But I say in the faith in the government, I know that mine always defaults back to roads.

Minister, I just wanted to restate what I had stated earlier this morning, the three requests that I've had for information and getting that. One was the amount of active school councils. I know active is pretty broad. You can't define active. But I was looking at ones who would be active that would have active websites with the minutes posted on the webpage of the school. Someone says they're active but you go into a school website and there's no communication, you can't see the minutes of it that would deem that they are not active. I don't know if that would be readily available or not.

Of course the other two were the transition from NLESD for the past two years about the personnel we may have lost and the maintenance budget. In the Schools Act, if I could bring your attention to

section 21, just for curiosity and clarification, Minister, Liability for damage.

CHAIR: Did you have a question?

C. PARDY: Yes, I do.

Section 21(1)(

b) states, “… property of an employee for the Crown engaged in duties related to primary, elementary or secondary education ….” That's clear. If you go down to (d), it doesn't say the same thing for those: “… property of an employee of the conseil scolaire.”

The property of an employee of the Crown engaged in duties. That means if there were damages to property, the property of an employee of the Crown engaged in duties related to primary, elementary or secondary education; and, (d), would be just strict property of an employee of Conseil Scolaire.

CHAIR: Is that a question you're posing to the –?

C. PARDY: Yes, I'm not sure I was clear on that.

CHAIR: I think I'm going to throw it back to the Member for Bonavista, if he'd like to reword his question.

C. PARDY: Take two. I was trying expedite it as quick as I could.

But

section 21(1) says: Where the following property is destroyed, damaged or lost by the intentional or negligent act of a student – so that's what we are talking about – then there would be an individual and collective liability to the Crown or the Conseil Scolaire. So that's fair, I understand that: a student damages.

Whereas, in (

d) it would be “property of an employee of the conseil scolaire.” It would mean that it could be a teacher's home. Whether that is the difference or not, I don't know.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I'm still not entirely clear on what the Member is asking so I'll do my best to offer an explanation and if I'm not correct, then you can ask it again.

It is meant to cover all employees: teachers or students, student assistants. Anybody who would an employee of the government at this point or of the CSFP, and engaged in duties may mean something like their car could be parked in the parking lot. So those would be avenues by which that would have to be employed.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

The only thing I can think is that, as an employee of the Crown, the student or the parent is responsible for the damages if an employee is engaged in duties – that means at the school and yes, you are right, the car or whatever.

But to word it differently for property of an employee of the Conseil Scolaire, I think that would mean any property associated or owned by the employee which could involve their homes. So say there is a wilful neglect and damage of their home, would the individual student and student's parent be liable?

When I read it, I looked at a distinction between the two. One could say the property of an employee of the Crown and the Conseil Scolaire. That would put two of them together. But the fact that you've got two of them separated and worded differently would mean that there is a difference between both.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Education.

K. HOWELL: I will offer that it's the intention of it to be engaged in duties of education, so it would be more applicable to anything – you know, it's not a wide-open spread for any property that's related to any teachers, so it would have to be those that are required to engage in their duties, but everyone in the CSFP would still be part of that conversation because they're still employees of the Department of Education. They're still employed through the Department of Education.

CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands.

P. LANE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one question, I guess. I heard the minister talk about – and we brought this up a number of times and even questions that were asked by other Members, about would savings be redirected back into the department for obviously teachers, support for students, whatever the case might be. And the minister said yes.

I'm taking her at her word that that would be her personal intent, as she sees it, but I guess I just want to make the point that given the way our system works, our budgetary system, there's no way we can guarantee that that's going to happen. No different than when the government was collecting carbon tax for 2½ years, and we said, oh, the money's going to go into environmental initiatives.

Now I'm not saying there was no money went into environmental initiatives, but I'm pretty sure that all the money collected didn't go into environmental initiatives. It went into the general coffers of the provincial government, and I would say that this is no different. That if the government saves money on this initiative, it's not like our system works by, the government saves money and because it was saved in education, well that means that money is automatically in a special bank account for it.

There's no Department of Education bank account per se. It would be the same thing as saying that if we were to put up toll bridges – I'm not suggesting we do that, by the way – but if we were to put up toll bridges to improve our