GOVERNMENT SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE

May 15, 1991                       Department of Employment and Labour Relations                       (Unedited)


 

The Committee met at 9:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I would like to welcome everybody to the fifth meeting of the Government Services Estimates Committee. This is the second meeting in which we will be reviewing the estimates of the Department of Employment and Labour Relations. My name is Melvin Penny, the Member for Lewisporte, and I will be Chairing tonight's meeting. To my right is Mr. Bob Aylward, the Member for Kilbride, he will be Vice-Chairman for this evening; Mr. Larry Short, the Member for St. George's; Mr. John Crane, the Member for Harbour Grace; Mr. Percy Barrett, the Member for Bellevue; and Mr. Norman Doyle, the Member for Harbour Main.

I will not bother to go through the regular introductory remarks about the role of the Chairman and how we will proceed, because everybody here has been here already for at least one meeting. Our Clerk of the Committee for the evening is Ms. Elizabeth Murphy.

Instead of the Minister responsible for that department, Patricia Cowan, we have with us tonight the hon. Winston Baker, the President of Treasury Board sitting in for the Minister.

Mr. Baker, would you introduce the officials who are with you? And since the opening remarks have already been made by the Minister I see no necessity to go through that again. We will just start where we left off before and I will turn it over to any Member of the Committee who wishes to ask you a question.

MR. BAKER: First of all let me explain that Ms. Cowan is in a speaking engagement tonight and the normal person who would fill in for her is her alternate in this department who is the Minister of Health, but he also happens to have an estimates meeting tonight in the House. So as President of Executive Council I am supposed to oversee all departments and have some knowledge of what is going on in all the departments, so I thought I would fill in tonight, and I am very happy to be here.

With me tonight is the Deputy Minister, Deborah Fry, and two ADMs: Michael Dwyer and Catherine Gogan.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: I don't think I have anything else to say. I am sure there are some questions that were left over from the last meeting, otherwise, obviously, we would not be here now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would remind the Committee that the Department officials may not be questioned. Any questions will be directed directly to the Minister, and the officials can answer if so requested by the Minister. I would also remind the officials that it would be convenient for the sake of Hansard if you would state your name and your position within the department before answering.

Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few questions left over from last time, and obviously we have to give the Minister some consideration. So if he wants to direct some of these questions to his officials, feel free to do so. We are perfectly at ease with that.

In the estimates committee debate last time around it was disclosed that at least one occupational health and safety inspector had been eliminated because of cutbacks in the public service. In view of the fact that the largest construction project in recent memory is ongoing in the Province right now, I am wondering if that is a good move.

Does the Minister consider it to be a wise decision when you consider occupational health and safety to be of such prime importance, especially on the Hibernia project? Is it a wise move to be cutting back right now on occupational health and safety and eliminating one position in that Department?

Now I remember when we questioned the Minister last time around, I believe the cutback in occupational health and safety was in the mining sector, and there was one individual going. But does it mean that we are going to have less occupational health and safety expertise in that Department to deal with projects such as Hibernia and what have you?

MR. BAKER: I think Mr. Dwyer could answer that question better than I could. However, I would like to point out that certainly a lot of the downsizing that has been done is unfortunate. We are short in a variety of fields. We are perhaps short in some areas of the health care field, we are certainly short in some areas of post-secondary education and directly in some of the Government Departments. So it is unfortunate a downsizing had to occur. However, it had to occur, and I suppose we are far from the ideal situation, if that is what the hon. Member means.

Ideally we should have a lot more doctors and nurses and workers in the post-secondary education field than we have, and perhaps a lot more workers in the Social Services Department as well. So we do not have the ideal circumstance, and I would agree with the premise of the Member's question, that we in a lot of areas are perhaps short (Inaudible). As to the specific answer I suppose Ms. Fry or Mr. Dwyer could answer it.

MR. MICHAEL DWYER: The position referred to was a vacant position, an unfilled position. If indeed the Occupational Health and Safety Division foresees that it is going to have a negative affect upon the occupational health and safety of the workers, and especially to the Bull Arm project, we will put strong representation forward to the Minister, who in return would also put strong recommendations forward to have the position reinstated.

However, the mechanism in place for the Bull Arm project is not one in which we have inspectors out on a day-to-day basis correcting faulty actions on behalf of the workers and the employers. When the official system is in place - and it will be as the situation in the work dictates that it should be - a safety management plan of self-institution of safety work habits on the work place will be in place. It will be far beyond the norm of what has been seen in the Province, and in the Department's opinion pave the way towards the new occupational health and safety concept in the Province.

MR. DOYLE: The Minister indicated in the examination of estimates a couple of weeks ago that the main health and safety inspection is to be done by Nodeco itself. I am more or less directing this question toward Mr. Dwyer because the Minister will not be aware of what went on last time around. So if he wishes to answer it, fine and dandy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Toward the Minister. The Minister indicated that the main health and safety inspection is to be done by Nodeco, which was based on a model I believe, according to the Minister, an example from Norway. Does the Minister consider it good health and safety measures to have a construction company police itself with respect to health and safety? Is that what the Minister was talking about at that time?

AN HON. MEMBER: Mr. Dwyer.

MR. DWYER: If we refer to the Occupation Health and Safety Act, Section 4 and Section 6 respectively, this places the onus upon the employer and the employee for occupational health and safety on any project. This has been in effect since 1978. From statistics shown in Norway, based on similar gravity type construction, it is shown historically since back in 1952 that the old mechanism of having regulators run around finding fault with different things on projects just does not work.

What they have found however, is that if the onus is placed on the employee and the employer to provide safe work place areas et cetera and if indeed it is taken as a genuine concern, which it is being taken as at the Bull Arm site currently, and if the regulators see their place as an audit function and ensure that the proper health and safety inspections and programmes are carried out, it seems to be the more favourable way of looking at this project exactly at Bull Arm.

MR. DOYLE: So the recent tragedy and the accident that occurred at Bull Arm points out very much the deficiencies in that type of system which the Minister was referring to in the committee meetings.

In light of the fact that the labour department is considering possibly laying charges on that particular one, does the Minister now intend to have health and safety inspectors become a little bit more involved in that project; to have health and safety inspectors from the Province more actively involved in construction supervision?

MR. BAKER: The hon. Member Opposite, can realize that the only way to guarantee that there are going to be no accidents is to shut down the project. Accidents by nature are accidents. Now we try to create situations where accidents are not as likely to happen and have proper safety procedures in place, restraints and all that kind of thing, but the fact there was an accident does not mean that the system is not working, and if you are going to have a project, if you are going to build a road, if you are going to have Bull Arm in operation, then there are, from time to time going to be some accidents, but I will pass it over to Mr. Dwyer.

MR. DWYER: The incident referred to is a missing person incident at this point in time. Just to reiterate what Mr. Baker said, there will be a certain number of accidents, we hope to minimize and make them few and far between, and I believe unless this approach is taken of self-inspection with the proper system and the regulators being this department in a function of auditing and ensuring, we are still ensuring a certain degree of standard and I think our role as that is much better lent to occupational health and safety at Bull Arm.

The formal safety management plan is not in place and at this point in time the necessity of it is not in place, there is only probably 450 employees there. We have had inspectors out on the project and we are treating the project at this point in time as a project above and beyond what would be our ordinary involvement be if it were a civil type project.

MR. DOYLE: Just one more question on Occupational Health and Safety. I recently met with a couple of people who are involved with occupational health and safety in Newfoundland. They were given the understanding that before the project was to finish, you would have on site roughly about 120 people in occupational health and safety and security. What are the numbers anyway that are going to be employed on that project in occupational health and safety at peak? - it sounded a little bit out of whack to me to say 120, but I have not been able to get a real handle on how many people are supposed to be employed there in that field of occupational health and safety and security.

MR. BAKER: Before we pass on to Mr. Dwyer, it seems to me in the terms of the way the Member describes it, it seems to me to be a bit low, because you said occupational health and safety and security and it seems to me that if you combine the two, a lot of security is required on a site like that and Mr. Dwyer could probably (inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Do you have any idea how many people would be employed in that field.

MR. DWYER: Not at this particular time because it is all according to how indeed they spread their safety function. If the company spreads it to a line management type of function in which case occupational health and safety becomes the responsibility of each and every person there, including the direct supervisor, and that supervisor's performance is geared upon that, it differs. Whereas if we use the old method of inspectors there would be probably six- or seven-fold the number of people that will be required on this particular project.

To answer your question directly, at this point in time it is all according to how they identify responsibilities, etc. in the safety management plan. At this point in time, with a staff of 420 people, they have a safety manager on staff, two inspectors, a nurse, and I believe they have two medical attendants on staff, which is quite appropriate at this point in time.

MR. DOYLE: So Nodeco of course would be responsible for the hiring of all occupational health and safety people.

MR. DWYER: They have been given the responsibility through HMDC for that function of the project. When the M-20 contractors come on they will be implementing a similar safety management plan, if not identical.

MR. DOYLE: So the various union agreements that are in place right now do not specifically identify the number of people who would be involved in occupational health and safety. Just moving along from that and getting on to another issue, the issue of double-breasting. Maybe the Minister can give us some indication of when that particular issue is going to be dealt with. I believe the Minister introduced the Bill a couple of days ago in the House of Assembly, An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act. Is that the double-breasting Bill?

MR. BAKER: The double-breasting one, I believe that is the one she introduced, that is right.

MR. DOYLE: Okay.

MR. BAKER: Whether that gets brought forward this spring depends a lot on negotiations that are ongoing between the Opposition House Leader and myself. There is a certain amount of legislation that absolutely has to be done before we close. Some of it could be left 'til the fall, and it is perhaps a value judgement as to whether that one could be left to be done in the fall or would have to be done right now. I will be consulting with the Opposition House Leader as well as with Ms. Cowan and her Department and so on to make that determination sometime in the next few days.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will now turn it over for any other Member of the Committee who now wishes to ask a question. Mr. Aylward.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I just have a couple of general questions. First of all, I am sorry that the Minister of Labour Relations herself did not (Inaudible) come here tonight. I would expect any Minister would consider this their number one responsibility while estimates are on. But I am pleased that the President of Treasury Board could come here with the staff from Labour Relations to answer some of our questions.

One of the concerns - and the Member for Harbour Maine was questioning a lot about it - that I have, or something that I find hard to rationalize, is that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations is legislatively and legally responsible in this Province for occupational health and safety. How can a Minister transfer that to a private company so that the private company will then be responsible for health and safety on a project? And a major project, actually.

MR. BAKER: Yes. Again I will ask Mr. Dwyer in a moment if he would care to comment on it. But my immediate reaction would be that it was never ever the intention that the Minister would personally be responsible for each and every project in the Province and so on. It seems to me that the legislation is such - and that legislation has been in existence for some time, quite a few years before we took over - that would pass on the responsibility, the immediate responsibility, the site responsibility, to companies, giving the Department of Labour the overall responsibility generally in the Province, and the actual on-site stuff to be done by the companies. So I do not know if that is what Mr. Dwyer would answer but I ask him to respond.

MR. DWYER: Yes; just to reiterate, the Department is still responsible for enforcement of any Acts and Regulations under our responsibility. Probably what was being questioned is the means of ensuring that the Act and Regulations are adhered to. Ultimately the employer and the employee at the work place are responsible to ensure that the Act and Regulations are followed and our responsibility is to enforce the Act and Regulations, if indeed they are not, then to make those aware where the Act and Regulations apply in the work place.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Our departmental staff would be visiting the site from time to time to make sure that the Regulations are being enforced or being followed; is that the intention?

MR. DWYER: Yes. It will be a series of paper audits combined with actual frequent inspections to ensure that what we are looking at on paper is actually being conducted in the field, and in-the-field inspections also, there will be verification on site of different elements of the audit.

I feel there is no way that the Occupational Health and Safety of the workers would be jeopardized in any way and if anything, it will be greatly enhanced.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I seem to remember when some of the planning was being done for the Hibernia site that there was a plan at one time to send I believe, six of our Occupational Health and Safety people to (inaudible) or some other place, where this type of construction has been undertaken and they could be trained properly in supervising what was necessary on a site like this.

How many of our Occupational Health and Safety people have actually been to Norway and are being trained to supervise or do these audits or whatever they have to do?

MR. DWYER: At this point, none. We have about another year before we actually get into the heavy civil construction. As it is now there is some road construction, the fabrication of camps et cetera and some forms being constructed and different things.

The need for this type of training will be assessed over the next short period of time and whatever training is necessary, the Department will assure that that particular training is gotten whether it is training for field inspection for this type of project and/or in combination with auditing procedures.

MR. R. AYLWARD: So with the major part of the project about a year away, we have actually nobody qualified or trained at least, I do not know about qualified but trained in this specific area of health and safety and we hope to be able to that when, in the next year?

MR. DWYER: It is a large civil project. What makes it more complicated than the usual project is the large number of people working in a small area; besides that, it is the same as other similar projects across the Province with the exception that I have just quoted.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes. Except quality control I guess and things like that are much higher I would imagine, than any projects that we are used to undertaking. I understand quality control is the biggest requirement of all the contractors who go on site, but I do not know if that has anything to do with health and safety but -

MR. DWYER: The quality control of the installation itself, how well the installation is constructed is not the responsibility of the Occupational Health and Safety Division, they have a quality control agent such as Lloyds of London, ensuring that it is built to a certain standard. The Department's concern is that it is constructed safely from a worker perspective.

MR. BAKER: I would like to add to that if I may, Mr. Chairman. The fact that this project in a way is a make or break project from the point of view of this Province and offshore work; what is happening at Bull Arm and what will happen in the next three or four years is absolutely crucial to the Province.

If the companies that are working there cannot perform and cannot give the quality and cannot give the time schedules that are demanded by the consortium, and this causes undue delay in the project, then the chances of us ever extending our work in this Province - further offshore work - is very, very slim indeed. So I believe that everybody involved recognizes the fact of the make or break nature in the long term of this project for the Province, and I think it cannot be stressed enough that things have to be done, quality has to be provided, the time schedules have to be met, and the safety on the project has to be second to none. All these things are essential if we are to ever expand and have a long term offshore industry in this Province.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister and that is why I am concerned. I do not think we have the training techniques or the training programmes in place in this Province right now. I know it is not the Minister of Labour's fault, the Minister of Education has been cutting back on training in our post-secondary levels of education, and that concerns me. I think this is a very critical construction project, and if we do not have the properly trained people to go and do the job the way it should be done they would have to be imported or the next phase of a job will be taken out of here, and that certainly concerns me as I am sure it must concern the Minister.

MR. BAKER: I think most of the cutbacks in post-secondary education have been cutbacks unrelated to this development that you are talking about. I know there have been a lot of lay offs in terms of the high school programme being carried out in community colleges. I know in Gander, I believe, there were six people laid off in connection with that, so this is a pre-vocational high school programme. There will be cutbacks in some hair dressing courses and some nursing assistant courses and so on, so it is unfair to categorize what has happened in the post-secondary system as being very much related to the training of the individuals who are going to be on site. It would be short sighted if we did very much of that.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Just to get away from occupational health and safety, I have some more education questions, but I am sure that is not what the Minister is here to answer.

Mr. Minister, being the Vice-Chairperson of the Government Services Legislative Review Committee, I was fortunate enough to do a review of some of the Labour Legislation that is about to come before the House: Bill 59, and the double breasting, all very controversial bills in the days gone by and in another life, for me anyway. But the thing that came out loud and clear in all our hearings, and we had a lot of people make presentations to us on labour relations generally, one of the Members of the Committee usually would ask whoever was making the presentation: do they think because of all the amendments to the Labour Relations Act that exists now, do they think it is time for a Royal Commission or a Task Force or something to try to put everything together to try to make it work better? It did not appear from the people making the presentations to us that it was working properly, it was overly complicated, particularly when we had dealings with the Labour Relations Board. Anyone who was having dealings with the Labour Relations Board found it extremely complicated to try to get through the legalities, and the only ones who are doing really well out of our present labour standards legislation seem to be lawyers because it is so complicated. Is there any thought or has the Government given any thought to the recommendation that our Committee did make to have a look at that. We did not recommend a Royal Commission or a Task Force, we did not recommend one or the other, but we suggested that something like that be put in place. Has the Government given any consideration to that?

MR. BAKER: Yes, absolutely. We have not given consideration to a Royal Commission, but we have given consideration to perhaps consolidating everything that exists. There are a number of comments I would like to make, and I have to be very conscious of the fact that I am here representing the Minister of Labour and not Treasury Board, they are two totally antagonistic positions.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Definite conflict of interest.

MR. BAKER: I agree with what you are saying in the sense that the situation with labour legislation has been that the people who have benefited most are the lawyers. As a matter of fact I had a letter from a lawyer - and I am not blaming the lawyers, I am using this example to point out - who does a lot of work on the labour side, not on management side, on labour side, who made exactly that same point to me. He said: it is earning me a lot of money but surely there is a better way to do it so that I do not earn as much money.

So I agree, we certainly have to look at the whole thing. But in terms of the essential services legislation the Member referred to, I believe that some aspects of the essential services legislation on the surface seem to be unworkable, and our recent experience during the summer indicates that there may be some serious doubts as to whether it is workable. But I will say that if we put that legislation through the House - and I am not the only one who believes this, an awful lot of the unions believe it as well - that we will have the best piece of essential services legislation in the country.

MR. R. AYLWARD: One of the arguments made -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I am going to have to turn it over to some other Member of the Committee. Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Aylward do you have a question you want to ask?

MR. R. AYLWARD: Just one last question. One of the arguments that was made most often to our committee, especially when we were talking about the essential services legislation or the... I've forgotten the name of it now. The regular Labour Relations Act applies to just about everyone in the Province, and then we have the Public Service Collective Bargaining Act. We are consolidating this into one Act now, but there are still two definitions of workers. What most of the unions who came before us suggested, especially CUPE, and it seemed to make sense to me, they said that if a food service worker at the General Hospital, we will say, happens to be working for the hospital board, they come under the Public Service Collective Bargaining Act. If the person working right next to that same person happened to work for Versa Foods, they come under the other section of the Act.

They thought that to be extremely unfair. They certainly made presentations to us that all workers should be treated the same. A definition of worker in that Act should be for one. I have some problems with that sometimes when they start thinking about essential services but I am not sure any more. At one time I was very sure, but maybe for most of the categories - certainly the food service worker, you would think if today Versa Foods, which work in the hospitals and provide a service and can go on strike, come under one section under the Labour Relations Act, you would think that a similar worker working for the hospital board could possibly do the same thing. Has the Government given any consideration to that? Because that point was made quite often to our committee.

MR. BAKER: Yes. I think I am going to pass this to Ms. Fry who in another life was very deeply involved with labour legislation and the essential services concept and so on, so I will ask Ms. Fry if she will answer that.

MS. DEBORAH FRY: Thank you. Deborah Fry, Deputy Minister. Yes, the Department is currently looking at those very issues. We have recently received the report - not recently, I suspect some time ago received the report - which was quite helpful from the Legislative Review Committee. We are now in the final stages I suspect of making our recommendations and that is one of the issues that does crop up when you look at consolidating the various pieces of labour legislation. You have mentioned two. There are several others as well, including the teachers and the fishermen, and there are various other pieces of bargaining legislation with interns and residents as well. Some thought is being given to similar definitions and perhaps give special part of one piece of legislation that might deal with the essential services and a definition of who would be performing essential services.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Doyle.

MR. DOYLE: I think Mr. Barrett has one question he wants to (Inaudible).

MR. BARRETT: A very short question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barrett.

MR. BARRETT: For information purposes, I guess. A lot of people are wondering when the applications for the student pilot programme will be processed.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Okay. I have one more question I want to ask the Minister, and I will understand if he has to take this one under advisement, because it is information I was only given a few hours ago and I am sure he will be concerned as well, given the fact that we have an unemployment rate of 22.2 per cent. I was given information today that there are two engineers from New Brunswick and one ship's captain from Nova Scotia working at the Hibernia site. I am a little bit reluctant to say what company, it is a private company and I do not like mentioning the names of private companies. The information was that the Coast Guard caught one individual operating a boat at Bull Arm without a master's licence and no radio licence, and according to this person, it is ridiculous since there are at least twenty engineers and thirty masters who are unemployed here in the Province. I understand that it is a question that could more appropriately of course be directed toward the unions. But we do have the situation in Newfoundland where we do have an unemployment rate of 22.2 per cent. Isn't it the Government's position that local labour - and when I say "local labour" I mean Newfoundland labour - will be given top preference for any jobs where these individuals are available for work?

MR. BAKER: I think where possible we have to make sure that jobs that are associated with Hibernia are Newfoundland jobs. The company has certain obligations under the Atlantic Accord. But one of the obligations is not that all workers have to be from Newfoundland. So there are certain guidelines we live under. Examples like this that the hon. Member runs across - I am sure he would want to assist everybody by reporting these examples to the appropriate people. I believe that the Hibernia monitoring group would be one source to report to.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: I will let Ms. Gogan answer in a moment and tell you what she knows about it. But if there are any problems with regards to people who have been hired, and if there seems as if there is any attempt to not use Newfoundland labour then I am sure we would appreciate the hon. Member letting us know (Inaudible) so maximum Newfoundland labour is used on the Hibernia site. I think there are some contracts that are going to be let very shortly, within the next few days I think and tt is going to be very interesting to see. These are contracts that are not (Inaudible) to Newfoundland, so I am going to be very interested to see if in fact Newfoundland companies get these contracts, and that Newfoundland labour is involved. I think within a week or so there should be some (Inaudible) major contracts. So, Ms. Gogan?

(Sound quality very poor at this point - Hansard).

MS. CATHERINE GOGAN: We are (Inaudible) at this point in time. Our (Inaudible) and they were employed previously, senior people (Inaudible) subcontracted. And it was a component of the subcontract. And they were the only ones who were non-Newfoundlanders at that point in time. Since then they also have a male nurse from Nova Scotia and to the best of my knowledge there are only three people.

MR. BAKER: We will certainly look into it.

MR. DOYLE: (Inaudible) but they are specifically directed at the Minister of Employment so I am going to have to deal with these in the House of Assembly.

MR. BAKER: We could have a go at some of them.

MR. DOYLE: Well, I have a number here from the nurses' union, thirty recommendations from the nurses' union as a matter of fact. I do not know if I want to get into these tonight because it is quite lengthy. It is from the Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses Union and the thirty recommendations that they have made to Workers' Compensation. I would certainly like to see somebody around from Workers' Compensation to deal specifically with these. But I think I will hold these for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations in the House of Assembly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Aylward, I believe, has a few more questions. I turn it over to Mr. Aylward.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Just one more general question to the Minister again. The double-breasting legislation: you have suggested that it might or might not come before the spring session of the House of Assembly. Would you know, or any of the staff know, if this legislation now is still as critical as it was a couple of months ago as it ties into the construction trades' negotiations with the - whatever you call the employers' group? It was supposed to be fairly critical at one time when we had a presentation made to us that this be passed or at least be made known what legislation will be in order for the union and management people to get down and do their contracts.

MR. BAKER: Yes, well, of course as I indicated to you I will be checking with the Minister and (inaudible) and the recommendations as to whether this is an urgent thing and should be done this spring, then come to me, so maybe as far (inaudible).

MS. FRY: The legislation is ready. I believe it has been introduced at least at first reading, not second. I have not had the opportunity to brief the Minister or speak to Mr. Baker, but I would suggest at this point he would be recommending that the legislation be passed if at all possible this session, if he is ready. So we know that construction trades have commenced their bargaining. One section of the Act does deal with construction trades (INAUDIBLE)!!

MR. R. AYLWARD: It is on the Order Paper but I do not think it was distributed yet as I do not remember seeing it.

MS. FRY: It has just been printed.

MR. BAKER: (INAUDIBLE) calls for first readings but listed on the Order Paper as at the second reading stage, (inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: That is it for me, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (INAUDIBLE).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I move that the Department of Employment and Labour Relations Sub-Heads from 1.1.01 to 4.2.01 inclusive, be passed as presented.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through to 4.2.01, carried.

On motion, Department of Employment and Labour Relations, total head, carried.

I declare that the Estimates for the Department of Employment and Labour Relations have been reviewed and approved and I further declare that the Estimates for all of the Government Departments which have been brought before this Committee have been reviewed and approved.

The minutes of our last meeting have not been distributed so I cannot ask for a motion to approve the minutes as distributed because they were not ready in time, we will do that later in the House.

I would like to thank Mr. Baker, for filling in for the Minister tonight, and I would like to thank the Department officials for coming here for the second time, and Mr. Aylward who has Vice-Chaired this meeting along with the other four previous meetings.

MR. DOYLE: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, I must apologise; Mr. Doyle Vice-Chaired one of them so I would like to thank both of these hon. gentlemen and the Committee Members and I would like to thank Elizabeth Murphy, who has been the Clerk of our Committee for all but one meeting and tonight our page, Paula and Jeff Barter, who has been recording this session tonight and particularly thank him for the last meeting we had here, when he had some problems with his recording equipment.

I would like to recognize and thank Miss Cullen from the Evening Telegram for having come and shared this evening with us. I will now ask for a motion to adjourn.

MR. R. AYLWARD: The only media to cover all of our meetings by the way. I congratulate The Evening Telegram.

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: I think special notice should be made of that in the House too.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes. It will be sir, when the Committee reports are made (inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: - in their coverages as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: Absolutely.

(Sound quality this session very poor - Hansard).

On motion, the Committee adjourned at 9:45 p.m.