Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Mr. Lloyd Snow, M.H.A. (Trinity - Bay de Verde) substitutes for Mr. Lloyd Matthews, M.H.A. (St. John's North); Mr. Bill Ramsay, M.H.A. (LaPoile) substitutes for Mr. Walter Noel, M.H.A. (Pleasantville); Mr. Nick Careen, M.H.A. (Placentia) substitutes for Mr. Roger Fitzgerald, M.H.A. (Bonavista South); and Mr. Oliver Langdon, M.H.A. (Fortune - Hermitage) substitutes for Mr. John Crane, M.H.A. (Harbour Grace).

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

CLERK (Noel): - committee and we must hear a motion for the election of a Chair of the Committee.

MR. CRANE: I move, Doug Oldford.

CLERK: Mr. Oldford is moved as Chair of the Committee.

MR. J. BYRNE: Seconded.

CLERK: Seconded.

Mr. Oldford.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Oldford): Thank you. I want to welcome everyone to the Government Services Estimates Committee. Today we are here to look at the estimates for the Department of Employment and Labour Relations. I want to welcome the minister and his staff, the clerk and any media that are around, I do not see anyone. Normally we would go on with the election of the vice-chair, however, Mr. Roger Fitzgerald the Member for Bonavista South, is doing some constituency work this morning and he could not be here. Mr. Jack Byrne, the Member for St. John's East Extern, is sitting in as a substitute for Mr. Fitzgerald. So, I think that maybe what we should do is call for nominations for vice-chair and we will elect or try to elect Mr. Fitzgerald in his absence, if that is okay with the committee. So, can I have call for nominations for vice-chair?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, will somebody second that please?

MR. J. BYRNE: I will second it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. I want to introduce our Committee first of all. Jack Byrne is the Member for St. John's East Extern, Lloyd Snow, the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde who is sitting in for Lloyd Matthews the Member for St. John's North. Next to him we have John Crane who is the Member for Harbour Grace, he is a committee member. Mr. Fabian Manning is the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes and Ed Byrne is here as the Employment and Labour Relations critic. He is not a member of the Committee but I think the Committee agrees that he can sit in as the critic.

This meeting is scheduled to last from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon. If the Committee feels that this is sufficient time to look at the estimates then we will move the estimates. If they do not feel it is enough time to look at the estimates we will move adjournment at about 12:00 noon. If not, and the Committee feels that we did a good job with these estimates, then we will ask the Clerk to call the sub-heads. We are going to give the minister fifteen minutes to introduce his staff and his estimates. We will then move on to the vice-chair who can respond with either an opening statement or ask questions and then we will ask each member of the committee in turn to question the minister and staff. We will allow ten minutes for each member, we will alternate from the government side to the opposition side.

Members in this Committee will be referred to by name rather than district. For recording purposes I will ask that each member identify himself when he speaks or in the case of the minister and his staff, if they would identify themselves when they respond. We would not want any thought provoking questions or any earth shattering or historical requests or responses of an historical nature to be attributed to the wrong author so it is important that you identify yourself. So without further ado, I will call on the minister to make his opening statement but first of all introduce the staff that he has with him.

Mr. Minister.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure for us to be here this morning I am sure. We will try to spend the time as best we can in having an exploration of the budget for this particular department and provide an opportunity for you people to ask questions.

The staff that I have with me this morning, on my right is the deputy minister of the Department of Employment and Labour Relations and it is Debbie Fry, next to Debbie on her right is Cathy Gogan who is assistant deputy minister in charge of our employment services division in the department. On my left is Mr. Mike Dwyer, Mike is an assistant deputy minister with responsibility for occupational health and safety. So, maybe the committee members might make note, if they want to ask particular questions - as the committee proceeds, lots of times it is probably to your advantage to get more detail from these staff people rather than have an answer from me directly. Feel free to engage them. They certainly would like an opportunity to extol the virtues of the work they've done on behalf of the people of the Province in the department and divisions they have responsibility for.

We also have, at my right, at the back, Mr. Tom Hopkins, who's the administrator for the department, and with him is Mr. Gerry Crocker, who's the manager of financial operations in the department. Between Tom and Gerry they always advise the rest of us as to whether or nor we have any money and whether or not we're spending it from the right heads in the department, those types of things. So we, as anybody in any department or division of government, rely on them to keep us in line and make sure that we're following the proper procedures when it comes to expending the people's money. I guess if there are details of the actual heads themselves that you want to get into they may very well advise any one of the four of us, or if you want they can certainly answer questions directly as well, if you want to get into very specific questioning of the departmental estimates.

We ourselves are here today to try to, as I indicated at the beginning, shed any additional light on any aspect of the work that's carried out on behalf of the government through this particular department. If I could, Mr. Chairman - I know you're getting a little bit strict with the time there - you mentioned fifteen minutes. Last year when I gave my opening remarks it was an hour and half and then we recessed for coffee break, and we came back and had an hour and half of questions. So let me know if you want to cut me off somewhere in between there.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: The reason it takes an hour and half of course is that we've been so proud of the things that we've done and what we've tried to accomplish on behalf of the people of the Province by providing services through this department that it's hardly enough time, even in an hour and a half, to try to even start to tell you what it is that we're doing and how good a job we think we are doing at this point in time.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your exuberance is noted.

MR. GRIMES: Last year it was - I believe we were here in the evening, weren't we? I was a little more excited than I normally am, because it was the end of a particularly enjoyable day and I was excited about life in the department and government and the prospects in the Province, and that's what led me on, I think, at the time. So where we're here early in the morning, this time I might try to restrain myself a bit and keep it down to a shorter time period and allow more time for questions.

As it was, though, in the particular estimates themselves, in Employment and Labour Relations: where we're situated in our budgetary documents this year from pages 235 onward up to page 247, and because of the order that they're there, which might prompt some of the questioning from the Committee members, there were a couple of things that I wanted to point out with respect to our three major divisions within the department, just for the record, if I could, Mr. Chairman. Because I believe it is important from time to time for the different departments of government to take an opportunity such as this to inform yourselves and the Committee, and through the Committee to all the members in the House and the public generally, as to the kinds of initiatives that we've been undertaking, and the kinds of accomplishments we feel that we have achieved, certainly in the first area that's there, in the Labour Relations and Labour Standards area.

Unfortunately this morning our assistant deputy minister, Linda Black, is not with us. She's on leave at the present time and not available today. But Ms. Black as the assistant deputy minister coordinates the work in Labour Relations and Labour Standards. With her, Joe O'Neill and his group are the ones who provide the mediation services and so on, and conciliation services, out of an office in the Metro Building on Kenmount Road, which is also the same building structure, I understand, that houses our Labour Relations Board. The Labour Relations Board, of course, with the full-time executive director in Joe Noel, and Mr. Dennis Browne, who has recently been re-appointed again to a five-year term as the chair of the Labour Relations Board. They're the ones who handle matters of certification, decertification and those types of things.

Then we have Mr. David Kerr, whose our director of our Labour Standards division, where we look at aspects of the minimum wage, vacation pay, entitlements for people in many instances who don't have a unionized organization to fight on their behalf, but enforce the minimum standards of employment and remuneration for people working in the Province. Ms. Black coordinates the work of those particular areas and it is a busy area, as you can often imagine. Many times in the labour relations area that kind of thing will dominate the news from time to time, particularly if there are some difficulties ongoing. It is the work of people like Mr. O'Neill and his group, many times behind the scenes and many times unnoticed publicly, that helps people resolve their differences and carry on to meet their objectives at the end of the day, to come to contractual arrangements, to sort out difficulties, and to continue on to be productive rather than spending a lot of time in some kind of conflict. So we certainly appreciate their services.

One of the things in that area that we initiated last year, and I wanted to point out that is committed to again in this year's budget as an initiative under the Strategic Economic Plan, is a full-time commitment to our preventative mediation program which we announced in the Legislature last year.

Mr. George Joyce was appointed as the first full-time co-ordinator of that program and he will remain in that position. In the period of time that it was operative last year there were a surprising number of requests and there was a great use of that particular program because there are some five components of it.

I might refer Committee members to a statement and information that was released in the House of Assembly at a point in time during our last session when we announced that program, and because of the interest in it by employers and employee groups in particular, under our Strategic Economic Plan funding this year we have allocated additional funds to make sure that the preventive mediation program can work, can operate, and does have the financial and human resources available to it so that employers and employees can avoid, I guess, the necessity of going through arbitration and grievance procedures unless there is no other avenue. This is an opportunity for them to go above and beyond with the advice and help and encouragement of some trained staff to prevent the necessity of being in conflict or confrontation in handling their contractual arrangements.

We have been very pleased with the program. We certain expect that there will be extensive use of it again throughout this year. Everyone that responded on the basis of the pilot project last year did so favourably, and as a result we certainly expect that it will probably be a long-range, long-term, long-lasting initiative that would be here for some years to come.

It is the type of thing that is encouraged by one other initiative in the Strategic Economic Plan. We are in the final stages of putting together the labour employer's advisory committee which, I guess, leads to the whole notion that we are trying to encourage from the labour relations point of view, the notion that as long as the employers and the employees work together as best they can, share their concerns away from the confrontational ground of bargaining so that people understand themselves and understand each other as best they possibly can, the chances of resolution without consultation are greatly increased.

Certainly there is a role for this for the government. It has a particular interest on two fronts - one as an employer itself when we are in public sector bargaining, and secondly as an interested partner and concern when it comes to the private sector, making sure that companies and their employees do not spend a lot of time in confrontation or conflict, or with job disruptions, but rather move ahead and spend their time in productive economic work.

So the labour employer advisory committee, we are hoping that will be up and running again soon so that all of us will be able to take advantage of the joint representations they can make and prevent spending a lot of time in confrontation and conflict and take advantage of the joint information that can be brought forward. That is along the same lines as what happens in preventive mediation. If you come to understand each other a bit better in the first place, you might avoid a lot of unnecessary conflict later on.

Mentioned in the area of labour standards as well, we are in the final stages now of bringing forward the regulatory changes in terms of the regulations and labour standards that were brought forward from the Labour Standards Board a couple of years ago.

One of the moves that we made in the last year and that we are looking for positive outcomes in this upcoming year, is that if a person, an individual, had a particular difficulty with severance from their job, vacation pay, overtime rates not being applied - and they came to the government, to labour standards, to launch any kind of a protest or an appeal, then before they would end up going to a labour standards tribunal; and one of the things that had happened, like in many other cases, because of the difficulty of getting the three parties together to hear a case, there had developed some backlog of cases and there had been arranged, I guess, some time delays in terms of people having their case dealt with.

So one of the initiatives that we did just recently was we moved from a tribunal to hear those particular cases to a single adjudicator system where we have a list of adjudicators who are available on call, and according as an individual or two or three come forward with a complaint about how they had been treated under the Labour Standards Act, then they can have their case heard on a very timely basis by a trained, single adjudicator who will render a decision much more expeditiously than the tribunals possibly could.

So that has only been very recent and we do not have enough of a history or track record yet to see what the differences will be, but we are very confident that it will be a positive difference with the emphasis being on the resolution for the disaffected worker who had brought the complaint, and that is the prime concern for us in this area.

If I move briefly, Mr. Chairman, for a couple of minutes to the area of occupational health and safety, this whole division is under the direction and guidance of Mr. Dwyer, as our ADM, and the whole division is funded for government - housed in this department but funded from the Workers' Compensation Commission. In the history of it some years ago this kind of work was done directly by the commission. There was a change made where it is now housed as a division of this department; government has been for some time.

One of the debatable points a couple of years ago - and the review committee went around the Province studying changes to workers compensation that were only recently implemented - one of the issues that was left hanging was whether or not the occupational health and safety efforts should still be housed and directed in a department of government as it is now, or whether it should be incorporated back inside the walls of and within the whole ambit and gambit of the Workers' Compensation Commission itself. At this point in time that matter is resolved in that it will stay as a division of the department of government - at least for the time being. I am sure it will be studied again; it will be debated again in the future, within a few years, but at the present time we are quite comfortable that the service is being best provided and more than adequately provided under the direction of Mr. Dwyer in the occupational health and safety division of our particular department.

Since I mentioned the Workers' Compensation Commission, there were a fair number of questions about that in committee last year, because we had the chief executive office, the CEO, of the commission with us. Mr. Forsey, who is acting in that position right now, is not available this morning but certainly we could answer any questions generally about workers compensation if you wanted, but we have been very, very pleased that Mr. Forsey has stepped in for the time being because Mr. Mitchell was appointed as the chief electoral officer back in October, and Mr. Forsey has been acting in that capacity as the acting CEO since that time. There was an advertisement placed in the weekend papers just past for people who are interested in applying for the job of CEO of workers compensation. They are still searching for a full-time person to put back into that position.

I would also be remiss if I did not pass along, through the committee, a thank you to Ms. Rowe who has just recently again, within the last number of months, been reappointed to chair the board of directors at the Workers' Compensation Commission for another three year period I believe her appointment is.

In any event, with our occupational health and safety efforts we have been very pleased that we have made great progress in this area and Mr. Dwyer - Mike - has always been very careful to point out in any examination of the kind of statistical references that can show progress with our efforts, not to try to make it look good but to be realistic about it. I mention that in this context that we have been very concerned and we have promoted the notion that in work sites in our Province safety is the key, and education and awareness again is the key to that, but at the end of the day if all else fails we have also put everybody on notice that we will not hesitate to go to whatever recourse under the laws available to enforce the law. So, prosecutions have increased and so on or did increase for a period of time. They have seen now that they may have had their impact in the fact that sometimes that kind of encouragement is needed to make sure that people understand that the laws should be taken seriously but the education and awareness efforts have had an impact.

Every statistical reference that you can use, and there are a number of them that we could go through if you would like later, indicates that the number of lost time injuries and accidents in the Province over the past two years have decreased. Each time Mr. Dwyer and the group that have done the statistical analysis, have always been careful to take out of that statistical information the fact - and to remove from it so that it would not seem inflated - the notion that we all understand that there has been a reduced level of activity and in certain sectors in particular there have been less people working. So, if there are less people working there should be less injuries. Taking that into account, there has still been a significant decrease in the number of lost time accidents and injuries reported.

The significance of what I am saying again, should not be lost. Some people will say; well, there were some changes made to workers' compensation and so on and maybe that accounted for it. We are talking about a period of time before those changes came into effect because, Mr. Chairman, the changes in workers' compensation came into effect January 1st, 1993. The reporting periods that we have used for all these statistical references have been up to the end of December in 1992. So these are the kinds of things that happened in `91 and `92. The ongoing indicator so far through the first five months now of 1993, is that there is a further decrease and that this trend that started a couple of years ago has continued, that there are less lost time injuries, less of these actual accidents occurring and that even when you factor out the consideration for decreased activity in the Province that there has still been significant improvement. I think the numbers show anywhere from 7 - 9 per cent decreases even with the activity factor taken into account and that over a two year period now, we are in the range altogether of close to a 25 per cent decrease in the number of lost time accidents and injuries that are being reported in the Province. The targets that were set for occupational, health and safety to reach, are being attained. We are very pleased with that. As a matter of fact, it has not caused any kind of relaxing of the approach or anything, it has been encouraging news to the point that all of the staff have taken it in that vein and they have even increased their efforts to see now if they cannot continue that trend because I guess there is always a limit as to where anything can go but the progress has been made and we have been very pleased. Probably we have been a little remiss in not telling people about it often enough because it is good news.

A couple of other things in that area, we have some funding available at the end of the past year and in this years budget for some research grants, as well, for any group, organization, individual and so on that could do some research into things that could then be translated and passed on to people for use in the workplace. Anything that could lead to safer work practices and possible decrease in accidents or in lost time injuries at the workplace. There was a release just a while ago where we announced publicly the first two of those; one was the Road Builders Association that are doing some work and the other one is the Canadian Centre for Occupational, Health and Safety.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will ask you to clue up your opening remarks and then we can get on with the questioning please.

MR. GRIMES: Fair enough, I will try my best. There are just a couple of other things that I wanted to reference. The research grants are in place and we are sure that the results of that work will be useful to people in terms of continuing on with the objective of making sure that there are reductions in accidents and injuries. We are sponsoring, with the Newfoundland Federation of Labour and the Newfoundland and Labrador Employers Council, a joint safety conference this Fall here in St. John's which will lead us on to new initiatives in those areas that they are very excited about, our partners in that, being the employers and the employees are excited about it.

I just wanted to, if I could, Mr. Chairman, maybe it would be important before I stop, there is one other rather important area of our department that I have not touched on at all yet which is the employment services division. Maybe I should ask if members want me to make a few opening comments about that division before they ask their questions, or do they want to start their questions?

MR. CHAIRMAN: In fairness to members of the committee I think we should go on with the questioning now, and I am sure that topic will be discussed sometime between now and 12:00 o'clock. We have agreed that normally the vice-chair would have the same amount of time as the minister had, which was twenty-one minutes, but what we have agreed is that Mr. Ed Byrne the critic for the Department of Employment and Labour Relations will be given twenty one minutes to ask questions.

Mr. Byrne, if you would.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Minister, and his staff it is a pleasure to be here this morning. I have a number of questions, I guess, in broad areas of the department. I would like to begin with occupational health and safety, if I could. With respect to visitations to the workplace, the occupational health and safety staff visitations in determining that there are safe work practices ongoing, do you have a policy where you visit X number? Is it done periodically? Is it done every other week? Would you be able to elaborate a little bit more on that for me?

MR. GRIMES: Certainly. I will ask Mike Dwyer to give you the details of the policy. Generally the approach taken over the last two years and initiated by Mr. Dwyer as the ADM was rather than have just a random sample and hit or miss, we try to co-ordinate the visits on a proactive fashion with people's safety records, so if there are areas that show up that a certain company or a certain sector have had a number of incidents, accidents or injuries reported, that companies in that sector will be targeted for visits and with more education and awareness programs because they are obviously of concern to everybody, and if there are certain areas where their safety record has been rather impeccable then they might go back to a less frequent visitation schedule.

MR. E. BYRNE: What sort of fines are levied by your department where employers, whether it be in the construction industry or other industries, are found in violation of safe work practices on behalf of their employees? I understand that health and safety is a concern in the workplace today, not only from the department, but more from employers and employees points of view. What sort of fines are levied where employers are found practising unsafe work conditions?

MR. GRIMES: There are a couple of practices again in place. If when I am finished my couple of comments you would like more detail Mike could probably provide that. The first order of business, I guess, at any point in time when there is a visitation and there is an unsafe practice identified there is an opportunity at that point in time for immediate correction and if it is going to take some time, if there is a problem, then the officers are entitled to issue a stop work order and the work can actually stop until safe provisions are put in place so that nobody is put at risk anymore. If in fact at the end of the day these things persist and there are more serious difficulties and the companies or the employers are charged with an offence under the act then the courts can levy a range of fines. I believe it has only been in the last sitting of the House of Assembly before we dissolved for the election that it was announced, and I believe we passed an increase in the fines. There used to be a range that went from $500 to $5000 and now the range goes from $5000 to $50,000 so there was a significant increase in the fine.

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

MR. GRIMES: That had been a very debatable point. You could have a fairly serious infraction and a very minimal fine. On balance now the fines have been increased, or at least the range allowable to the court to impose has been increased significantly.

MR. E. BYRNE: In terms of improving the safe practices and the decrease in the number of accidents, in education and awareness, maybe it is something you never had a lot of time to elaborate on with everything that is happening in your department, I understand.

On the whole question of education and awareness, what programs have been established that deal specifically with education awareness in the workplace? Have you funded employer-employee initiatives, or are you planning to fund those sorts of initiatives, to increase the amount of awareness that the actual employees and employers have with respect to occupational health and safety?

MR. GRIMES: Maybe -

MR. J. BYRNE: If I can just add another point to it, maybe keeping in mind as well that a vast majority of working people in the Province today have difficulty reading and writing at the very minimal levels. Has literacy been a component or basic, fundamental workplace upgrading been a component of anything that you may do? For example, the act on WHMIS allows for every worker must have the right to know, and et cetera, but it kind of assumes that every worker has the ability to read and write at a high school level as well, so....

MR. GRIMES: There's a whole section of the occupational health and safety division dedicated to the education and awareness aspects of it, with Mr. David Clarke in charge of it. There are a couple of things that they do regularly.

One is to provide opportunities, located regionally throughout the Province, for people to attend sessions and seminars in groups that would be advertised on certain aspects of the law, with respect - whether it be WHMIS or some other - a part where they will be invited to sessions conducted by departmental staff. The other thing that's done a fair bit is that our staff will work with the unions, in that the unions themselves are putting a lot of effort into safety initiatives, and many of them will do the literacy initiatives that you are concerned about. As part of it, they will deal with Mr. Clarke and his staff in terms of the components that they want to deliver to their members. Between them they will work out the best approach to get the information in a useful form to the vast majority of their working members.

The other good news part of it as well is that an increasing number of the employers seem to be putting more of an emphasis - they seem to have bought into the argument that safety is in their best interest, because it reduces lost time, greater productivity and so on. Then they come to that same group, to Mr. Clarke and his group, and ask: will you put on seminars for our company? Those kinds of things are done as well. We'll either actually do the work, do a presentation for them, provide all the materials for them, show them how to access other things if they need it.

The other things jointly, one of the things that, as I mentioned before, the Employers Council and the Federation of Labour came to us and said: we need maybe something to give this a bigger bang. Which is why we've agreed to have a major conference in the Fall, which Mr. Dwyer is organizing with Mr. Dave Curtis from the Federation of Labour and Jim Pitcher from the Employers Council. The three of them are working together now to try and put together the logistics of a major conference on safety in the workplace, so that it will have at least a provincial focus.

From there, everybody is looking at the next step, which is for everyone to go back into their own workplaces to use the resources that are available in the department and the resources that both the unions and the employers have, and to pool the three of them. So that anyone gets - whatever they want to concentrate on in their workplace as the area of greatest concern will be done, and every opportunity made available for it.

MR. J. BYRNE: On another issue as well, concerning double-breasting. It's always been a political hot potato I suppose for yourself, as a minister, and of ministers who've been in charge of that department before you. I guess the question is: what is your position as a minister on the issue of double-breasting? Do you have any plans to introduce legislation in the House regarding that, or what initiatives or steps have you taken within your department to address that issue?

MR. GRIMES: While it's still an issue that gets discussed sometimes, it's one of those that is close to - I'd almost put the phrase - close to being passé, in a sense that we introduced and passed legislation here a couple of years ago which basically at this point in time makes double-breasting in Newfoundland illegal. So we brought in -

MR. J. BYRNE: Minister, I can tell you it's happening in this Province more today than it ever has, whether legislation has been passed that it's illegal or not. I would suggest that your department hasn't enforced it, because it is happening more today in this Province than it has ever happened before.

MR. GRIMES: Your comment may or may not be valid, I do not know but all I can report to you and to the Committee is that it is by law, our common employer legislation, illegal. The phrase that we normally use, common double-breasting, is basically illegal in the Province. If I could give an assessment of it, what probably happened was that a lot of double-breasting had occurred before the legislation was enacted. That would be about two years ago and many double-breasted operations are probably still in existence but they have not come into existence since the law was passed. The second thing that we should keep in mind, if there is a difficulty or a complaint about double-breasting, as it is commonly known, the recourse for that is for someone to make a complaint before the Labour Relations Board, that is the avenue that the workers in most cases, would have. The last information that I had which is fairly recent, only within a week or so, was that since the legislation has been passed there have been only, I think, three cases brought to the attention of the Labour Relations Board. So, if it is happening as you perceive -

MR. E. BYRNE: Let me elaborate on the problem a little bit more than. What happens is that, pending a decision, if a case is brought before the Labour Relations Board regarding double-breasting, the process sometimes takes in excess of twelve months for an employer/employee group to - especially an employee group to bring it to the head of the department or the Labour Relations Board and then for a decision to be made. Once a decision is made it is not transferable to other jurisdictions or other employers so it is an isolated decision made on an isolated company. By the time the decision is made much of the work that was in dispute has already been completed and done by the double-breasted company and that is where it is at. It is still happening today. I do not know if you or your officials could look into it in greater detail but I can assure you that there are a number of people in the Province right now who are involved in various workplace's, especially the construction industry, that will find it surprising to hear your comments this morning that double-breasting is illegal and that there are very few cases and that the issue is passé, I can assure you of that. I do not know if you want to respond to that, Minister?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, I can understand why the perception would still be there and certainly why it would be felt that there is still a problem because again, I am not saying that there is not a problem, I am saying that legislatively in terms of dealing with the issue, we brought forward the legislation that says that a company cannot avoid its obligations under the collective agreement by setting up another company, which is basically the background of the whole double-breasting issue, and it is true that it takes a period of time. Once you put an application before the Labour Relations Board to have it heard to completion, if it takes a year it may not be that - I do not think it would take a year before the Labour Relations Board but then if someone wants to appeal the ruling or put some other legal challenges into it, it could take a year and then some before it is resolved, then it is true that work would continue and be done.

So, there is no question that - it is still a contentious area but in terms of the law of dealing with it, the law now says basically what the people who are opposed to double-breasting wanted it to say. The law states clearly that if you are in a position where you have, as a group of workers, decided that you wanted to organize and have a certified bargaining agent represent you with that particular company, you get recognized under the law of the land. You set out into a contractual arrangement, that the company cannot avoid the obligations of that contractual arrangement by spinning off another company with the same resources, the same management and the same funding and so on. So, the law takes care of that and when there is a difficulty where the workers and their organized bargaining agents say, well, somebody has done this, the recourse is through the Labour Relations Board which leads into a process that takes some time and it is true, the work does continue, that is still a frustration.

MR. E. BYRNE: Therein lies part of the problem because the process itself does not lend itself - the decision is made in isolation with a particular bargaining group against a particular employer and is not transferable from one company to the next, so what happens is it is a vicious circle that will continue, and while that may be the interpretation of the law, the implementation of that law is sadly lacking. I would suggest again to the minister that it is not an issue that is passé but it is something that is a serious situation happening in the workplace today and in my opinion is something that is, I suppose, interfering with a smooth labour climate, which is a mission, I suppose, of your department and yourself as minister.

On to another issue, with respect to the industrial enquiry that is happening at Barry's Limited. Could you just elaborate on the reason why that enquiry was called? Why did that dispute not go through the Labour Relations Board the way it would normally have done and why did you as minister call an enquiry into the situation out there?

MR. GRIMES: A good point, and there might be parallels in this one to what you just mentioned about double-breasting. The fact of the matter with the dispute involving Barry's fish plant in Curling is that every proper recourse under the law was followed and has been followed since sometime in 1989, so they are into just about four full years now of exercising their rights under the law, using the Labour Relations Board as the avenue to put forward the different type of overtures that were appropriate at the time, in some instances even going to the courts to have decisions of the Labour Relations Board tested as to whether or not they were proper or improper.

All of that has been happening for just about four years and our analysis and assessment at the end of the day was that even though everybody had used the law the way it properly should be used there was an employer who was expressing dissatisfaction at the outcome in terms of what was happening with productivity and possibilities at the plant. There was a recognized, certified bargaining agent, the union, who were saying they were dissatisfied with the outcome even though they were the certified bargaining agent, and the workers, some 200 at this point in time, who are represented by the certified bargaining agent were expressing their dissatisfaction, so everybody involved, even though the law was followed to a `t', expressed to the government that they were totally dissatisfied and frustrated by the outcome, so it is much like you might say about double-breasting, you have a recourse but it does not really solve anything, things go on and it gets a bit worse.

At the end of the day on balance we felt that the government needed some advice this time as to whether or not in this particular instance there was something else that we could consider doing on an extraordinary basis above and beyond just saying: you people have recourse to the Labour Relations Board and the courts, go to it. They have been going to it for four years and it has not resolved itself so we thought this time that the extraordinary measure of asking a commission to enquire into the matter and advise government as to what might help resolve the difficulties was a logical and a reasonable thing to do at this point in time.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to welcome Bill Ramsay the Member fro LaPoile who is sitting in for Walter Noel.

AN HON. MEMBER: Walter should be here shortly, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: In the meantime, Mr. Ramsay, you have ten minutes starting now to question the minister.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are a couple of things I just wanted to comment on. The issue of double-breasting that was mentioned by the hon. member, to suggest that the situation is still a tremendous difficulty is somewhat exploding the issue. I have not seen much in the newspaper about it in the last six months even, and to suggest that if the legislation is there and there is little in the way of, I suppose, implementation or enforcement is really going back to a parochial mind set and to think that government could solve the problem beyond the level of legislation - introducing legislation is what governments do, enforcement of that of course does have its role but society has a certain part to play.

So, on this issue, I recall being on a Legislative Review Committee in dealing with the issue, in assisting and the drafting of said legislation which was prepared prior to the minister's arrival in this department and from there - I think you minister, were the one responsible for bringing that legislation forward. After some changes and adjustments it was - the legislation that was arrived at, was arrived at with very thorough canvassing of the people of the Province. I think we went from one end of the Province to the other, including Labrador, in order to receive input on just what the legislation should include. Your assistant deputy minister or Ms. Black at the time, was very helpful in putting forward some suggestions as to what might be helpful. It was done on a balanced way of trying to weigh the different options as to - we could do it - an example; I recall laying out three or four possibilities and we arrived at the suggestion that was made by the Committee subsequent to that, based on some other necessity. The government made a few small changes to the draft that we prepared and therefore we now have the legislation as it stands.

To get at just what has happened with that, to suggest that it is anything other than a step forward is to be looking down the wrong path. To suggest that government can resolve all of the problems in a private labour area is - again, to highlight the parochialism, that certainly is a prevalent attitude that we have to change in this Province. To suggest that government can solve the problems always through legislating or through using legislation as anything but a guideline, I think is a false assumption. It certainly is basing your assessment of the future on a false premise.

If you look at the labour climate in the construction industry over the last two years, it seems to be improving, possibly because of the Hibernia Project to a point where organized labour does seem to have a very strong input, possibly the main input, into the hiring at the site. That has kept the labour climate very calm and also, may in fact be a lot of the reason - if we did not have as large a construction project happening here in the Province now, then maybe this issue would be more of an issue. But to go a little bit beyond that, I wanted to focus on your preventative mediation program and the resources that have been committed to this. I think it is certainly a situation which is noteworthy and under the auspices of the strategic economic plan, one of the measures which - you cannot really stand up, hold and wave the flag and say this is going to be great because it is the kind of thing that prevents problems from happening. It is the kind of initiative which is certainly there to improve the labour climate in the Province and to create a climate in which outside operators will be more than welcome to come into the Province and see our labour climate as something to be upheld and to be maintained.

As well minister, just a question on another area I think which is an area I see tremendous work in, is the Canada-Newfoundland Youth Strategy which your department I understand is responsible for administering and maybe, if you could make a few comments on that initiative for the Committee's benefit, I really would appreciate a couple minutes of response with regard to the youth strategy. That is all I have right now, Mr. Chairman.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, maybe just the three things; a brief reference again to the double-breasting issue.

I used the phrase I think to comment that it is one of those things that may even be considered passé; I want to clarify again that, it is not that the issue is passé, it is that the attention drawn to it is minimal now compared to what it was at the point in time that the legislation was necessary, and it was a predominant public policy issue in the area of labour relations at the end of the previous administration's term in office in the late 80s, and it certainly was also a fairly dominant issue in the first year or so of our term in office, but with the passage of the legislation with the complete intensive review of it and so on, the attention that has been drawn to it and the number of cases that appear before the board are minimal now compared to what they were, but I certainly take the concern and note it as still being a relative one.

With preventive mediation, I point out again that there are the five different components to that program that people have been finding very useful. We have had people write to us extolling the virtues of the program and have been very pleased that they had an opportunity because basically, one of the major things that it does today at the end of the day, it allows people to avoid the cost associated with going through formal arbitrations and formal grievances and on average, I think the statistical number that was presented through the research of last year was that, once you enter into the formal procedure, it is likely to cost on average, for the employer and the employee, somewhere in the range of $17,000 to resolve a difference.

If you go through a grievance that does not get resolved, you ask for arbitration; you bring in an arbitrator, you plead your case, someone writes a decision on it and it is binding on the parties and those kinds of things, but not only are they interested from the point of view of cost avoidance, but because at the end of the day, by exploring the issues together, with a mediator who will help them resolve their difference without formally filing any grievance, they end up where they are convinced at the end of the day and they report back to us that they have improved labour relations because the best thing that comes out of it, is, even though the thing was initiated because there was a disagreement, or a grievance or a potential grievance, they understand each other better at the end of the day and they sit down and discuss it in an non-threatening type of environment with the assistance of a trained mediator.

We have had companies, firms, individuals and employees who have written us and said: thank you, we are really glad that this service is available, and the program as well, unsolicited by us, has been written up in national magazines in terms of the kinds of flagship program that other provinces should have in place, and the value of it in terms of the whole labour relations climate, and that is why we have committed additional funding to it from the Strategic Economic Plan on block funding this year, to make sure that we could allocate additional resources. We did have requests in the past year that got into the hundreds. There were actually hundreds of things where if this service was not available there might not have been any recourse for the parties other that to go through the grievance procedure, but with this available to them they could avoid those legal procedures and resolve their differences. In almost every case they came to an amicable resolve of their differences and at the end of the day their assessment was that they had a better understanding of each other's view and therefore an improved labour relations climate at the work site. So, it is a very positive program and we look forward to an increase in the value and worth of that program this year.

You mentioned as well, Mr. Ramsay, the notion of the Canada-Newfoundland Youth Strategy. I think it was just prior to the end of March when myself and the hon. John Crosbie were at the Career Information Resource Centre on Water Street which often by itself in a way is an initiative that is envied across the country.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Pardon me, Mr. Minister. The ten minutes that we are allowing each member includes questioning and the responses and that is in the total of ten minutes. I know the Member for LaPoile had a long opening statement and then a question so I would like you to cut your response short now so we can get on to Mr. Manning and his questions.

MR. GRIMES: Fair enough, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. CHAIRMAN: If Mr. Byrne questions you that is included in your ten minutes.

MR. MANNING: Whatever time Mr. Byrne needs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay.

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you. To the hon. Member for LaPoile I apologize for interrupting but being a new member of the House the semantics of some of the procedures are taking some getting used to. For the record I want also to say that we are here today in a spirit of fairness and anything we raise is out of genuine concern and not to take strips off the minister and his officials. With respect to the preventive mediation program it is certainly an initiative that the minister and his officials should be complimented on and certainly one they have been complimented on across the country. There is just one other question. You mentioned during your opening statement, Mr. Minister, with respect to research and development that there are a couple of projects, the Road Builders Association - I forget the other one you mentioned, what sort of research and development grants were allotted to them and what sort of research and development grants are available to other groups that may be able to add something to the workplace in terms of safety or in terms of education awareness?

MR. GRIMES: If you could just give me a second I actually have a copy of that release here because we did that just recently. The general notion is that there is a committee which Mr. Dwyer chairs in the department that analyses applications that are brought forward. Applications can come from individuals who think they can do some research that will have general application in some work environment to reduced the risk of injury. The whole notion is, can somebody contribute something to the knowledge base that employers and workers can use at the work site to reduce the risk of injury, so that is the basic gist of the program.

He sits with two other people on the committee and screens the applications. I believe our pool of money is $250,000 in any one fiscal year which we can allocate. In their review of the projects that were on file, and I think there were some eleven or twelve, there were a group of projects there, they went through them and there were three or four that were certainly more seriously considered. Of the two that were approved, the Road Builders Association is looking at the kind of initiatives they could pass along information to anybody in the whole industry, at standardized safety training for workers in the heavy construction industry, and that they put forward an initiative where they think they can do a bit of research in a construction season, which is the one that is starting now, where they can identify training priorities that can be used for everybody, not only in road building but everybody involved with heavy duty construction equipment. They will identify through their project that they outlined, through this construction season, things that will be then passed along to the department and also made readily available to everybody in the industry. At the end of the day everybody's hope is that if people follow some of these suggested practices that we will see again a decline in the number of lost time, accidents or injuries that are reported.

The other project, the immediate one that was approved, was for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety which is a national organization operating out of Hamilton. We have been utilizing their services for some years now because they provide a whole series of related resources that we cannot afford to duplicate in the Province. Several provinces take the same approach that Newfoundland does, in terms of rather than try to duplicate the services offered by the Canadian Centre, we buy the service from them. One of the things that we have asked them to do is to take a look at - we funded them to the range of some $70,000 to take a look at developing a program to try and prevent repetitive motion injuries as they are called.

When people are put into a job where they - sort of assembly-line type of jobs, where your job all day is to take this and put it here, take this and put it there, bend over and do this, bend over and do that. So, if your job is one where it involves the continuous repetition of a particular motion - because what the statistics in Workers' Compensation in particular have been finding is that while many of those - lots of times - if I could just give the history just for a second, in the past most people thought that the type of injuries in workers' compensation were more serious industrial accidents, somebody had something fall on them, they broke a leg, they got cut and these kinds of things. The majority of the injuries now being reported are the types of injuries that come from these motions that people do not consider to be overly strenuous but by the repetitive nature of them, you end up with strains and sprains and those kinds of things that leave you unable to work.

That is the kind of research that the Canadian centre is going to do, funded from this fund. Then they will make the information available to us so that we can provide it to employers and employee groups in the Province. They can do training then, hopefully, in how to prevent injuries related to repetitive motion. We are really very optimistic about the possibilities in those areas of getting information that we can pass along to people who will help in that education awareness and training so that we can prevent injuries.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Minister, I would like to ask - under Occupational Health and Safety, assistance to outside agencies, can you give me, the Committee, some examples of some of these outside agencies that receive assistance and some of the estimated amounts?

MR. GRIMES: Maybe I will get Mike to look at some of the details but normally many of the departments of government do provide assistance to outside agencies who do one of two things, they either supplement some of the work that the department is trying to do, because we cannot do it all ourselves, or in some instances they provide a service for the department instead of the department doing it and I will give you an example of the second one. One of the things for example that is required under the act is that every employer, depending on how many employees they have, have to have their workers, some of them, trained in first aid. Once you have a legislated mandated requirement for those types of things then - and this might not be the correct heading where this one comes under but it gives you the notion and the feel for the idea - either the department has to provide for the training or make sure that somebody out there is providing for recognized training. In the case of first aid training it is provided in the Province, the requirements under the act, by St. John Ambulance. I do not believe that is the exact heading you are looking at but what happens in that case is we have a contractual arrangement with St. John Ambulance that for every person that they train we will pay a certain amount of money to them for that service because otherwise we would have to hire staff and train them ourselves. We would have to have trainers on our staff.

The other kinds of things that happen in that section is that we provide sustaining grants to certain organizations that are safety oriented, and I will just mention three or four of them for you. There is the Newfoundland Industrial Health and Safety Association, normally referred to as NISHA; they just held their annual conference and convention at the Holiday Inn, I guess on the 5th of May or so, it was shortly after the election that I went over and spoke to them at their opening and Mr. Dwyer was one of their presenters and so on.

They get a sustaining grant of $7,500 a year, that is employers and employees together, working together to promote safety initiatives in the workplace, so since that is one of the main thrusts of the department, we encourage that by giving them a small sustaining administrative grant and then they operate, using that as a basis for their administration; they then operate on fees from their members and so on to run their conferences, to conduct seminars, to send out newsletters and so on.

The other one to which we make a contribution is to the Canadian Society of Safety Engineers CSSE. On June 21 to 27, they will be sponsoring Occupational Health and Safety Week across the country, and there is a chapter of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineers in Newfoundland and we give them a grant of $1,500 a year and so on, so it is those types of things that we do to provide for organizations that have like interests, and that is either as I said at the beginning, to supplement the working of the department or do some work on behalf of the department, we will give them some sustaining grants in some instances or as in the case of St. John Ambulance, we will actually work out a contractual arrangement with them to pay them for the provision of the service, rather than us hire staff or do it ourselves.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We will move on to Lloyd Snow. Do you have any questions, Mr. Snow?

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

Just out of I guess curiosity and personal interest, the preventative mediation part of the collective bargaining, this is a novel idea I guess, and I am just wondering if this was introduced in Newfoundland or has it been tried in other jurisdictions as well?

MR. GRIMES: As I indicated, there are five components to the program. The notion of preventive mediation has been in other jurisdictions before; the part that is quite different and unique here that gets a lot of attention, and which I have referenced more so than any other aspect of it, is the grievance mediation, which is not a feature that is common in other provinces. It is the one that I detailed to some degree in response to an earlier question, the notion that, if we are in an employer/employee relationship and we run into a difficulty where we misinterpret or we have a basic misunderstanding or disagreement over how a certain part of our contractual arrangement should be applied, unless we agree between the two of us, that will happen one way or the other, then the only way to resolve it if there is still a difference, is, to file a grievance and then you are into a process that becomes legal, takes time, costs money and so on, and it is that grievance mediation thing that has been the most striking new component in our Province and the one that has gotten the most use and also gets the most positive response I suppose, because of the fact that people are genuinely pleased that they have an opportunity to explore the issue without having to go to that stage of filing the official actual grievance, because that could lead at the end of the day, it could lead to court.

If you are finally not satisfied at that point in time, the last recourse is to go to the courts and then you end up with your legal costs and other things that are attached to that, so the other parts of it, in many instances, the program will offer training sessions to employers and employees particularly when they have first collective agreements, they will offer to them an opportunity to sit with each other and talk about how they might establish a proper working relationship and those types of things and they will also encourage them whenever possible to put in place some training for their shop stewards and those kinds of things.

If they are a bigger employer with numbers of employees, how to run that kind of a system, how to try and make sure that channels of communication are always open between the employees and the employer so that you avoid those types of loggerheads that would lead to formalized grievance and arbitration proceedings. That is the whole notion of it to, if at all possible, provide every opportunity for the people to - understanding there are going to be disagreements as to what something really means or how it should be applied, that will happen. You cannot stop that because if you write something down somebody will look at it and say it means this, someone looks at it and says it means that and you have a disagreement. Now, does the disagreement then have to keep getting wider and cause a problem or can you encourage the people as soon as they spot that to come together?

So, even in the training sessions where they say to people who are new into this relationship, look, expect that to happen, that may very well happen. That does not mean that you are a bad employer and that does not mean that you are a bad employee. That just happened because people had a different view as to what something meant or how it should be interrupted but do not let that become an irritant, just treat that as a matter of course, deal with it and then resolve your difference the best way you can. If it leads to something that you need to adjust in your contractual arrangement some other time, sobeit, make a note of that and when you go and bargain again or when you sign your next contract, well make the adjustment but in the meantime you can even agree that it will work this way for the duration of our existing agreement and so on. Those kind of successes have been reported continually with reference to this program.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

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

First of all I would like to make a comment concerning the statement made by Mr. Ramsay, unless I misunderstood him, he made a statement that labour climate in the Province, as he feels it, is certainly improving. I do not know where Mr. Ramsay has been the past few years but if you look at the turmoil with respect to the NTA, the nurses, NAPE, CUPE and the police, to make the statement that the labour climate is improving, it is certainly not a point of view that I agree with personally.

I have some details of the estimates which I would like to get into, just for clarification in my own mind. I am not trying to put anybody on the spot or anything but there are a few concerns. Page 235 under the minister's office, salaries, last year it was revised to $154,000 this year you have $153,300 budgeted which was the same as `92-93 but with the salary freezes and the 4 per cent decrease or 4.5 per cent decrease for minister's and MHA's this year, should that $153,000 really be reading about $148,000? Should there be about a $6,000 cut there?

MR. GRIMES: I expect probably our administrator or Mr. Crocker, Tom or Mr. Crocker, can give an answer. There are a couple of things you should note, when it says the salary it looks at the salary paid to the minister but also the salary paid to the secretary for the minister and so on is in that one lump there because it is the office. Whereas there has been, the legislation has been passed in the House, a reduction for the minister's portion of that salary, the final decisions have not yet been made as to what kind of compensation reduction will apply to the other staff who are in that vote. That is one of the things that still has not been decided. I know it is a question that has been raised in question period generally in the House: How can we really tell what the numbers are if that is not decided yet because we do not know yet exactly what option is going to be offered to the secretarial staff in the minister's offices or the political support staff and those types of people, as to whether or not it will be a salary reduction or whether they will use the pension option and so on.

MR. J. BYRNE: I do not want to take up to much of my time with the answers but on the same page, on the bottom of the page there under executive support, you have revenues, last year you took in $140,000 and this year you have budgeted $73,600, is there a particular reason why that is almost cut in half? Why do you expect 50 per cent this year compared to last year?

MR. GRIMES: I do not know. Maybe Tom, if yourself or Gerry could provide the answer? The line at the bottom of page 235, why we are expecting our revenues to be cut basically in half?

MR. HOPKINS: The reason for that is that last year we were funding, in the department, the salary of the CEO of Workers' Compensation Commission and that was fully recoverable from the commission as revenue, so this year the CEO is not being paid through our department.

MR. J. BYRNE: Page 236, we will not get into salaries again, but that Professional Services under Administrative Support, section 05, you have $420,120 budgeted in '92 - '93, $261,500 spent; you have $369,500 budgeted for '93 - '94; what services would they be? Just a quick -

MR. HOPKINS: During the 1992-'93 fiscal year, due to budget restraints, the allocation for Computer Services was frozen and that is why the expenditure is showing as substantially reduced.

MR. J. BYRNE: So, this is for Computer Services, then?

MR. HOPKINS: Yes.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, on page 239, Education and Committees, Salaries went up from $276,600 which was spent to $358,200, which is almost $100,000 increase. Have more employees been hired on or salaries gone up or what is that? There is a simple answer to that, is there?

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) Health and Safety, we did acquire funding for additional staff and one of the areas where it was allocated was in the area of the education and awareness at work which we felt was extremely important; that is additional staff.

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

MR. GRIMES: No question.

MR. J. BYRNE: Pardon?

MR. GRIMES: No question about it.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay. Page 240, under Occupational Health and Safety Services, Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal. Again, salaries have gone up from $142,200 to $200,400; Transportation and Communications have gone up; Professional Services have gone up. Are we having more employees hired on here, and if so, is it because the appeals are up? Are we having more appeals now and we need more employees to deal with the appeals with Workers' Compensation?

MR. GRIMES: They may be able to give you more details, but I can tell you there has been a significant rearrangement of the staff at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal to try to deal with the backlog of cases and to try to expedite the hearings procedure there, and what has happened is that the office staff in terms of those people who are there with the chairman CEO, a senior administrative secretary and a group of people preparing documentation, have been expanded considerably to make sure that the work gets done, but in fact, it is expected that the total operation might cost minimally more money because of the fact that the vice-chairs and the tribunals would be able to get their work done much more expeditiously and the total combination of things actually shows not a tremendous increase, but we had to budget for some because the caseload again has increased, and it is probably almost double projected of what it was in the previous year, so we expect to be able to handle double the caseload in less time with less than double the money, so we think we are getting good value for the dollar here, and again, this is an area where, this is funded from Workers' Compensation and not directly from the general revenues of the Province and we have made these adjustments in hopes of trying to expedite matters for those claimants who feel aggrieved and want their appeals heard much more quickly at the appeals tribunal.

MR. J. BYRNE: Is there any reason, that you know of, why the caseload would be almost double?

MR. GRIMES: Probably due to the fact that the internal appeals procedure has been altered as well. Within Workers' Compensation, there used to be two stages of internal appeal, where you could try to get the decision overturned, right within the commission. That has now been reduced to a single stage and people who are still aggrieved then are getting to the external process much more quickly, and I think the other part of it that has been reported to me, is that, in the last year or so, because the record at the appeals tribunal has been more than half - I will use that phrase -more than half of the appellants have had the appeal judged in their favour. I think that maybe some people have begun to hear that you might have a half decent chance if you can go to the external appeal so that of itself has made it somewhat more attractive to people who ordinarily may not have gone through that full limit of the process. It is a shorter process now to get there which I think is the major contributing factor, and recognizing always that less than 5 per cent of the total cases in workers' compensation ever get appealed and less than half of those end up at the external appeal tribunal.

MR. J. BYRNE: Are you saying that when you go to the External Appeal Board you have a better chance now of being successful in getting on workers' compensation?

MR. GRIMES: Well, I guess, the phrase I used, and I will use again because I am very guarded in what I say about that. More than half of the people who appeal have had the appeal rendered in their favour, so at least they say, if I had stopped, if I had not gone to the external appeal I was finished, that whatever decision was in place was in place. Over half of the appeals that have gone there have been overturned, the decisions of the commission have been overturned and have been rendered in favour of the appealing claimant. I think that word has gotten back to some injured workers because of their union representatives who have represented them in other things that they have probably been encouraging more people to try the appeal process because you still have a chance.

MR. J. BYRNE: By telling me that over half the people who go to the external appeal are successful that is not really telling me anything because before that it might have been 90 per cent or 20 per cent that went a certain route and might have been successful, so by saying over half is not really telling me anything.

MR. GRIMES: We just tabled the annual report of the appeals tribunal a couple of days ago in the House, at the end of last week, and you really cannot tell unless you check back over five or six annual reports to see whether that is an increase or a decrease in the number or the rate of successful appellants, and I do not have that information available now.

MR. J. BYRNE: I have one more question seeing my time is almost up. On Page 242, Assistance to Outside Agencies, the middle of the page in Section 09 there, Allowances and Assistance. That has been cut almost in half, from $115,000 down to $58,000. I would like to know who does this effect, this cut?

MR. GRIMES: That one is accountable for, in one decision, as I was mentioning earlier, the contractual arrangement with the St. John Ambulance in terms of them providing a service for us for which we then pay a fee per person that they train for first aid. That was the situation in the 1992-93 Budget. That was a contractual arrangement that was running in the range of $57,000 or $58,000 a year but in this Budget year we have come to an arrangement with St. John Ambulance where because the law of the land gives them exclusive rights to give the recognized first aid training required, they will provide the training and we do not have to pay any more. That arrangement has been in place for a number of years and they are now going to provide the training without a per person funding from the government because they are the only recognized agent in the Province who can provide the required industrial first aid training.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I want to welcome Oliver Langdon, the Member for Fortune - Hermitage who is substituting for John Crane. Mr. Langdon.

MR. LANGDON: I would like to briefly commend the minister and the officials of the department on the reorganizing of the Workers' Compensation Act, I guess, that was brought to the House in the Fall, and of course, the minister had told us that unless these changes were brought forth, then the workers's compensation fund would have been completely depleted by 1998, and my question to him now, would be the fact that you have taken the corrective measures in workers' compensation, how do you see the funds that will be there with the liabilities and assets and so on, how do you see the plan panning out over the next while? Have these measures been taken sufficiently to make sure that the plan can survive?

MR. GRIMES: I certainly appreciate the question, Mr. Chairman, but there are a couple of things I might point out. On Thursday of this week, I will be tabling in the Legislature the annual report of the Workers' Compensation Commission for 1992. Last Thursday I tabled the report of the Appeals Tribunal for 1992 and in that document there will be a couple of references; I have seen a copy of it and it will be released publicly in a couple of days time, but remembering again that, that will relate the experience to the end of December of 1992 before the changes occurred, but because of the fact that when that report was made and now tabled at this point in time, they did know of the substantive changes that occurred.

There were some recalculations that were able to be made in terms of the liabilities for current injuries and for future cost of injuries based on the new rates that are in place and as a result, there will be improvements showing in that report based on those kinds of recalculations.

The good news however, on a preliminary basis, we think that we are definitely headed in the right direction that we may very well have turned the corner, and I think that Mr. Dwyer has been in constant contact. We use Workers' Compensation, their computer link system has an identification of the number of lost time accidents and injuries that are reported and are recorded, so we have the workplace records plus the ones that actually show up, reported to workers' compensation, and the indicators through the first five months, again of this year, are that the numbers, no matter how you look at them, on every statistical indicator, is that the numbers have reduced again and that is attributable to one thing mainly, and that is, that I believe and we believe that everybody has bought into the argument that we had better pay attention to safety at the workplace, and the tie-in to workers' compensation as we see it, is mainly that, maybe we had such a fright in terms of we had just about bankrupted that system and that there was not going to be - there was actually the point of jeopardizing whether or not there would be a protection system in place for workers who were unfortunately injured through no fault of their own, and that we had gone through a system whereby we had seriously jeopardized the future of that protection system and two things then happened.

We made changes to the protection system in terms of the funding arrangements and the different types of benefit structures and so on at the Commission, but, I think everybody, because they had engaged in the intensive review of workers' compensation, then engaged in discussions leading up to the change in the legislation, realized that the real answer was not in changing the rates or the benefits or anything else, the real answer was in stopping the accidents and that the evidence has been that ever since - and I guess if we trace it back, it might be clear that if we were to find a point in time in the calendar, when the decline and decrease in the accident rates started, it would coincide with two things, because I had mentioned before we had always factored out the decline in terms of economic activity and the workers, but it also coincided, we think, with the work of the review committee that reviewed workers' compensation.

While they were doing the review it became a public issue about the precarious position of the Commission but also the steadily increasing numbers in accidents, every year we had had increases in the number of accidents and lost time injuries. Once that became a big public issue, even while the review was being conducted by the committee, Mr. Randell chaired it, Mr. Gill and Mr. Curnew, while they were doing their work around the Province, people all of a sudden became aware that we have a problem here and the problem is not whether or not workers' compensation is paying out X number of dollars, the problem is there are too many people being injured in the workplace. I think if we went back and did it - we will probably even provide that information. It could coincide very closely to that period of time, two years ago, where the decline and the decrease started in a big way and that trend has continued since.

So, we are back into a period in 1989-90 where the growth in accidents stopped and since then there has been a pretty steady decline. We have been recording and monitoring that information on a monthly basis. It is that attention, I think, to occupational health and safety that is really going to save the workers' compensation system in concert with and combined with the other legislated changes that looked at the benefit structure assessment rates and those types of things.

So, we are confident that this report will show a move in the right direction but the key one, as to whether or not the legislative changes along with everything else had the impact that we hoped, it will be the report that we table next year this time which will show the experience of 1993. So the experience of 1993 recorded and reported next year this time, around about this time next year - what has happened to workers' compensation with one full year under the new legislative mandate and with renewed emphasis to occupational health and safety, that will be the critical one. It is based on that one that we have told everybody that we will do an extensive review again. If we are convinced that we have turned a corner and we are headed in the right direction than maybe we will not need to make any other significant changes to workers' compensation but we have told everybody publicly that if in fact the directional change has not occurred than we will re-examine the whole thing again and will not wait for the statutory five year review period. So, next year this time is the key for all of us I think in monitoring what happens with workers' compensation.

MR. LANGDON: Okay, one more question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have time for one more, yes.

MR. LANGDON: Yes, like I said because of the pro-action and so on of the Workers' Compensation that the department has taken and all of the things that have happened, do you foresee that it will have any affect on the cost to the employer? When we look at it, it is probably quite evident compared to some of the other provinces but because of the corrective measures that your department has taken and so on, can you foresee that it will mean lower costs to the employer's?

MR. GRIMES: Well again, Mr. Chairman, and to the Committee, that was part of the whole intent again, to make sure that we maintained a stable system. Part of that stability would be to address the repeated concern expressed by employer's that this was becoming a prohibitive cost of doing business in Newfoundland and Labrador. At the point when the review was done we had the second highest assessment rates, on average, in the country. I believe we are still in that category. We had increases again this year, for 1993, which will be monitored.

Part of the whole approach that we took with all of the legislative changes we put in place was to try to see that there would be a balance between any benefit reductions and trying to make sure that assessment increases were minimized because we are already at the higher end, as compared to any other jurisdiction across the country. They managed in many cases to have minimal increases this year, although it ranged from 0 to 9 per cent in some cases. Last year it was a flat 8 per cent for every category, every rating group across the board. The commission board of directors will look at that issue again in the Fall when they go through their rate setting procedures. One of the things that they are trying to do is to try to make sure that they can somehow stabilize the assessment rates and if there are increases necessary that they be minimal increases. The biggest key that they are working on in that area is to try to implement the merit rating system.

That is not in place yet except in parts of the health care system but they have a lot of background work done and they think the key to it in workers' compensation is that even though you are in a particular rate group that you should get some credit for your own experience. If your company has no accidents then why should you have increases, and if that record is sustained for eight, ten, or twelve years why should you have increases when you have done everything you possibly could? The employer and employee have worked together to prevent accidents, injuries, lost time, and cost so why do you have to share the burden? But then basic insurance principles take over as well and that is why rates can stay low, because everybody pays a little bit so that one person does not have to pay a lot, but the experience rating is the key as the board sees it in terms of trying to keep rates to a minimum for most groups.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Normally at this time we break for ten minutes and then come back and carry on with the questioning. Is that acceptable to everyone? Okay. We will break for ten minutes and come back at 10:46.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

At this time I would like to welcome Mr. Nick Careen the Member for Placentia. Mr. Careen is substituting for Roger Fitzgerald. I call on Mr. Careen to carry on with the questioning.

MR. CAREEN: (inaudible) that is not the court of last resort, that is not the be all and end all of a person who has been out of the system or has been relegated to the side and when they go through it, when it is all appealed, is that the end, if it is ruled in their favour? I see something there about a judicial and I also know of a case of a person who was awarded, given the nod, of yes it was approved. That was back in January and they have not gotten any satisfaction since. How does it work?

MR. GRIMES: There are two bases for limited going beyond that. Ideally, I suppose, it is stated that, yes, the decision of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal is intended to be like the final answer. There is no question. That is the general rule of thumb, however, there are limited grounds for further appeal to the courts if someone wants to pursue that. There have been cases where people have had decisions tested in the courts but not very often and only on very limited bases which is a legal question that someone should get advice on and not one that I would try to answer.

There is one other thing that might answer why the person that you know of has a decision rendered but yet has not had satisfaction. There is a section in the act that says that when the appeals tribunal renders a decision - and I am putting it in layman's language so that I can understand it myself - you would not use this in court because it is no good to you. The basis of it is that is if the ruling of the appeals tribunal is considered to be somewhat on the fringes of the policy of the commission, the appeals tribunal cannot make decisions that in fact give rise to new policy. They can only make a decision as to whether or not the decision of the commission was a reasonable one in light of the existing policy and from time to time when a decision is made the board of the commission can review the decision of the appeals tribunal, particularly if they feel that it is opening up new areas that were not envisaged or encompassed by existing policy.

I think that is where you get the longer protracted types of things that you are probably referencing because I end up more often than not having those people contact my office, as the minister responsible for the act, and we end up, of course, putting them back to the appropriate people at Workers' Compensation but they are often frustrated by the fact that the common perception is, I have had my ruling and this is suppose to be what happens but why is it not happening? There is a procedure under Section 27 whereby the board of the commission can undertake a further review if there is some question as to whether or not the decision of the appeals tribunal has broadened an existing policy or has opened up an area of new policy that does not exist, and so on. Then you actually end up back in the cycle and can go through the whole process again. Some people have had to go through that experience on more than one occasion, so when there is some question as to whether or not the decision of the appeal tribunal extends upon or actually opens up new policy areas, then the board of the commission itself will review that decision and sometimes take exception to it, sometimes refuse to implement it and sometimes ask the appeals tribunal themselves to reconsider decisions so that process sometimes goes back and forth for a little while. That is one part of the review of the whole system that we have not completed yet; the Minister of Justice and I are looking at some options that might be available to us in terms of that whole review process that is available now under the act in section 21.

I believe the reference is still section 21 because the act has been reworked a bit with the Legislative changes and I believe that review process is still section 21, is it, as far as we know?

MS. GOGAN: I think it has been renumbered actually. It is probably a few ahead.

MR. GRIMES: Okay, so it might be 22 or 23 or something now, but I refer to it because in all the work that we did in the review getting ready for the Legislative changes, it was section 21 (7), but with the renumbering of the act it might now be 23 or 25 but there is a section that allows for further review by the board of the commission, if they have some questions as to the legitimacy of the decision rendered by the appeals tribunal.

MR. CAREEN: The linkages program under the youth strategy, that is your federal/provincial agreement, there used to be at one time and it all hangs on money - there used to be a program available for twenty-five and older who had done training and wanted to have the same opportunities. Is there any thought to a federal/provincial agreement on such a scheme? It used to be there for older workers.

MR. GRIMES: I would just indicate and if you would like, by all means feel free to ask a further question to Cathy Gogan. I do not think Mr. Careen was here when she was introduced as our ADM for employment services and who is on the far right, here.

There was indeed a federal program that looked at that older group and there are two things with respect to the Canada/Newfoundland Youth Strategy. We are now in the extension year. I think I was just answering that question a bit earlier at one point in time, when I ran afoul of the Chairman by talking a little too long, but we are in the extension year.

The extension was announced by Mr. Crosbie and I just before the end of March and through the 1993 - 1994 fiscal year, we are operating on a continuation of the Canada/Newfoundland Youth Strategy and of course, one of the successful components of that program has been the linkages program and there are two things now we are trying to accomplish in this year.

One is to see if we cannot successfully conclude another agreement for the youth strategy because we are buying time this year hoping to be able to put in place another three, four or five-year agreement and the second component of it, because in fact, both ourselves provincially and the federal government have been absolutely and thoroughly and completely convinced of the merit and worth of the programs under the youth strategy, and because the models that have been employed there have been so successful and have received such a level of approval.

One of the other notions if we can conclude another youth strategy agreement, the other notion that has already been brought up is that the models that are in that, why could we not extend them to other age categories, which is where your question started I believe, could we look at it. I know that Miss Gogan herself has already had some preliminary discussions and it is an issue that she brings up with her federal counterparts from time to time, that the delivery mechanisms and the models we are using under the youth strategy do seem to work as well as, if not better, than any of our other models, and why would we not consider using some of those delivery mechanisms for the broader group, for the people who are over age twenty-four or twenty-five, so it is being considered but I guess in terms of priority, I would expect that our number one priority is to try to renegotiate the youth strategy and then secondly if we are successful, we would not hesitate, I do not think, to use some of the delivery mechanisms for the extended categories beyond the youth group that is identified here.

MR. CAREEN: One more. NCARP is being delivered all over the Province. I was a bit late coming in. I thought originally I was supposed to relieve Roger down at the old building. Anyway, the NCARP is being delivered all over the Island. Safety in the workplace is very important. I know you are limited, but are there any provisions in these training institutions for - in the itinerary part of the session will be dealing with these people who are - even if they're in A, B, E or whatever they might be in - about what safety means, and what it means to them and what it means to everything else? No part of the itinerary of these programs would take into account safety aspects, would it?

MR. GRIMES: I don't know. Honestly, Mr. Chairman, I'd have to answer that I don't know whether or not that is a component of any of the retraining options that are available to recipients under the NCARP program. But it's interesting and I'm glad you raised the point, because it is something that we can bring forward as a possibility. Because we do have a provincial representative on the sort of the joint management committees. We can suggest to them that maybe it's in everybody's best interest that regardless of the level of training that anybody is entered into, that anyone who exercises that option, that we could consider one of the components to be information relating to the benefits and necessity of safety in the workplace.

I think that's a useful comment and I believe that we'll probably make a note of it. Through Ms. Gogan we'll find an opportunity to talk to the federal people who are delivering the programs, and also to our counterparts in education who have some input into the programs, as to whether or not there's some way to build in. Because Mr. Dwyer as well has been looking for opportunities with our education branch in occupational health and safety of extending our education and awareness programs. If we haven't already made that overture, probably as a result of the meeting today of this Committee we can make a note of that and find a way to bring that issue forward.

MR. CAREEN: Thank you. That's all, sir,

MR. CHAIRMAN: At this time I welcome Mr. Lloyd Matthews, the Member for St. John's North, and ask him to pose some questions to the minister.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't arrive with any questions prepared. This is my first Committee meeting and I'm late for that one, so that tells you, I guess, that I have not had a lot of experience in this type of forum. I suppose I could ask the minister how he likes to be represented by me as his MHA, if that's a good feeling or not. Feels alright, Mr. Minister?

MR. GRIMES: I like this role reversal, because the usual role, where I live in St. John's North, is that if I have a problem I go to my member to try to get it sorted out. So usually I'm going to him with all kinds of questions, because I have problems like every day. So it's nice to see a role reversal, or be in a position where my representative in the House of Assembly might even ask me a question or two. I'm sure it's different for him and it'd be different for me, but I feel great confidence again, renewed confidence, in the fact that my representative is here. I know that if I need any help during the rest of this proceeding I'll ask for it.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I can tell you, Mr. Minister, that living in the north is not a problem, it's a pleasure. So I anticipate no difficulty with you.

I didn't arrive, Mr. Chairman, with any prepared questions on any of the items that are in this process. I thought this morning I would get the opportunity to observe and take in the proceedings so as to be probably a little more able to contribute in the meetings tonight for another department, and the others.

I would simply say to the minister that I reviewed the budgetary items as they were laid out and I guess it's fair to say that your department is like all other departments. It's subject to the restraints that the economy has placed upon us. Given the lean and mean times, so to speak, in which we're operating it seems to me that you have done the best you can with the dollars you had available to you to work with. You have cut where necessary without, in my view, adversely affecting any programs, policies or any practices. I will commend you for the job that you and your people have done in putting together the estimates. I would submit that there should not be a problem in getting them through or past this Committee. In view of the fact that - as I say, I think everything is pretty self explanatory and pretty clear. If I am missing anything - in saying that I think it is passable, quickly than - somebody will also have to point out to me what I have missed but I would suggest or move that we proceed to get these through as quickly as we can because I do not see any point in protracting the discussion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, in that case I will pass on to Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Minister, I have some questions. I am not here like I said to put anybody on the spot, it is just for information purposes more or less.

In the Budget on page 243, in the estimates I should say and forgive me, I am a rookie also. So if I mix up sometimes I am sure you will correct me. Under the student employment program, you budgeted last year $600,000, it was revised to $800,000 it has been estimated this year to be $600,000 once again. In the Evening Telegram a few days ago, in following your announcement here in the House, $180,000 came from your budget for student employment for the conservation corp. First of all, I was very pleased to see the conservation corp established from your department but I am just wondering, that would bring our student allotment back to $420,000. I would like to know a couple of things, first of all the amount of applications you have received so far on the student employment program itself, dollar value or some estimate of the dollar value you have received and will $480,000 cover that? I see that you must have increased your Budget last year or allowed some $200,000 extra, is there any allowance for that this year?

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A couple of good questions and a good opportunity to explore this whole area for a couple of minutes, if you do not mind, about student employment and the need for it. We have, at this point in time, somewhere in the range of - we will have 1100 to 1200 requests or so for student employment under our program which is a wage subsidy. The student employment program, highlighted here in section 4.1.04, is one whereby the provincial government offers to pay up to three dollars per hour as one half or a portion of a wage that an employer will pay to someone that they will hire. In fact, each of the last three or four years the amount budgeted under this heading has been $600,000 by the provincial government. We recognize every year when we fund this program, as did the previous administration, that this will not come anywhere close to meeting the student need. The vast majority of the student needs in the Province are met under the federal challenge funding. I think this year it is in the range of somewhere between $9-$10 million again. That takes care of the bulk of the student needs. Ours fills a gap that is left over, part of it. The reason the applications are always high at this time of the year is because people apply to both and sometimes people even use both. They get some federal funding and some provincial funding and we are very pleased to accommodate it because the main objective is to provide an opportunity for students to access some money to offset their cost of continuing education.

So here this year it is clear that we have $600,000 budgeted again and last year at this point in time because of the increased applications and so on we went back, probably a little later than this, but early in the Summer, we went back to Cabinet and got approval for some additional funding to try to fund some additional requests that were left over because we recognized in certain areas reported to us by members like yourself and others in the Committee that even with the federal funding and our funding all allocated there were still a number of people out there that had applications in but did not have opportunities to employ students. We managed to expend an additional $200,000 by going through the rest of the applications offering money and so on to people who had indicated an interest earlier and that is the amount we expended at the end of the day.

We felt again this year that the combination of the two programs from the two levels of government would again come as close to meeting the need as it had in any previous year and that $600,000 would be adequate. What we have done though, as was announced last week with the Newfoundland and Labrador Conservation Corp, is tried a combination of approaches this year, that the bulk of the $600,000, $420,000 of it will be paid on a wage subsidy basis again. The other $180,000 will be paid on a project basis through people working on these green teams in the conservation corp which is an initiative that we are excited about and think that it has a lot of opportunities because of a couple of clear differences.

Our student employment program can only really be kicked into gear if there is an employer who will pay the other half of the money and in certain areas of the Province, particularly in rural areas and remote areas, there are a limited number of employers who have an opportunity to put students to work, so we are hoping that is where the bulk of the projects under the conservation corp will be concentrated, that the project work with the green teams of three or four students with a supervisor will be able to go into areas and they will be funded with the $180,000 without an employer having to match any contribution in that area. We are hoping that the two components this time will lead to a more well rounded opportunity for students in different parts of the Province.

MR. MANNING: As I said previously I was excited when I heard tell of your conservation corp being established. You have taken $180,000 from the student employment program which is as you say on a 50/50 basis with employers and you have put that $180,000 into 100 per cent funding for the students. My question is, are there really eighty-five new jobs because the jobs would have come anyway under the $600,000. Another comment on that would be that there would have been twice as many jobs because it would have been 50/50 where now your are 100 per cent funding and if you had to continue the way you were under the former and the present situation you have you would have created eighty-five extra jobs where really you are cutting the jobs in half instead of creating eighty-five new jobs.

MR. GRIMES: A good point, Mr. Chairman, but in fact I am not sure if it would be exactly half or not because it would depend on the -

MR. MANNING: I just thought the 50/50.

MR. GRIMES: The point you make is a legitimate point. When the money is paid on a subsidy basis with another employer, with the employer contributing, then the opportunity in terms of the individuals who might be employed are increased versus full funding for the position by the government. That is what will happened under the conservation corp. This is our first year with the conservation corp and at the end of the time we have recognized that there might be a decreased number of opportunities for students because of the mechanism, however they will be in different areas and that is on the balance. When we discussed and debated that we said, yes, it is still worth doing even though there might be forty or fifty less students, maybe not eighty-five but forty or fifty less employed because we are going to have to put twice as much money into employing one student than we did before. We think the advantage is that there will be a greater number of those in areas where there might have been no opportunity before and we are trying to reach out into those rural areas through the project basis that would have been missed before under our regular program. We'll do the monitoring at the end of the time. On balance, if that mix is to the advantage as we see it, and that the increased opportunity in the isolated rural areas is worth the offset of an actual decrease in the total number of jobs, then we'll look at that arrangement or some combination of it again for another year.

The other great hope that I might point out to the Committee, Mr, Chairman, is that the conservation corp itself by its very nature and set up as a separate entity, enables a mechanism whereby you can try to attract money from the private sector and from corporate sponsors and so on. The reason we wanted to take this approach this year, recognizing that what you say is true, is that we will hope that the experience will be such that we will attract that kind of money from external sources to fund the project work and we might be able to go back to whatever our full level is on the subsidy work again for another year. We needed though to give it that one shot this year just to see if we're going to attract those other sources of money or not. They feel very confident that they will. We share in their optimism and just hope that they're right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Byrne.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr, Chairman. Back to some of the details again. On page 243, under Employment Services, salaries, 4.1.01.01. It's cut from $506,000 which was actually spent in 1992-1993 down to $406,000. Is that due to employees being laid off or employees being shifted around? What's the story on that?

MR. GRIMES: We've done a re-organization, actually, within the employment services division, where I guess there were probably three sections before that have now been incorporated into two. As a result, some people certainly who were in levels as directors and so on are no longer needed. The staff component is pretty close to the same in terms of delivery of the service, but it points out that one sort of management position at the director type level may have - and I think the re-organization was designed to have three become two - and the line staff who are actually delivering the programs have moved out of that employment service division down into the labour market services. The same people are there answering to a different director.

MR. J. BYRNE: So you're doing more with less.

MR. GRIMES: We're doing we think the same work with a slightly different focus through a different answering mechanism and with a slightly different direction. We've concentrated our efforts in the labour market services. We think that's the way we have to go for the future.

MR. J. BYRNE: Same page, Graduate Employment Program, 4.01.03. Grants and Subsidies, 1992-1993, had $1.7 million budgeted, you spent $1.3 million, now you have $1 million. So you cut $300,000. Do you know how many people this is going to affect? Who will it affect with the grants and subsidies in that area?

MR. GRIMES: The Graduate Employment Program is the one that provides a subsidy to employers who will take a graduate into their work force who has a degree or a certificate but haven't been able to find work in their area of specialty and expertise, and allows them to employ them for that first year. With $1 million we can roughly provide an opportunity for about 100 graduates a year.

The reason the numbers have fluctuated a bit, it's one of those programs, much like our sixty week one, that runs over more than one fiscal year. It's not neatly contained from April 1 to the end of March. In previous years, in terms of allocating the $1 million that was there and available, because we do $1 million worth of allocations, when we got to the next year some of the money would carry over. We had made a commitment in the previous year but it would be spent in the next year. That's what happened to the $1.7 million and so on. That while we had made commitments, some of them weren't made until March month. Even though the commitment was made for $10,000 in March, maybe only a few hundred got spent in March, and the next was in the next fiscal year. So we had to budget for the $1 million new plus $700,000 worth of money that was committed from a previous year.

Now that the system is kicking in and we can manage it a bit better we're down to the point that with these carryovers and with the commitments we'll commit $1 million of new money each year, which is what we're entitled to expend here, which will enable us to assist 100 graduates a year which was the original intent of the program. We're hoping to assist 100 graduates a year with this program continuing on a continuing basis. There will be some money spent in more than one fiscal year because of the arrangement of the program and the times at which they're approved.

MR. J. BYRNE: So are you telling me that if you're planning on assisting 100 students, and in 1992-1993 there was a carryover of $700,000, so roughly you carried over seven-tenths from the previous year? Or has it been cut that much?

MR. GRIMES: No. The numbers at the beginning of that year, which is why we budgeted, looked like we might have as much as $700,000 carried over. Now in any of these programs sometimes as well there's not 100 per cent success rate, and that 100 per cent of the people don't stay in the program. That's why the revised number went down to $1.3 million. That what actually happened is that we funded $1 million worth of new ones, and there was $300,000 from the previous year that actually got expended.

So our targets again this year are to make sure that we can try to fund throughout the year - because they only come three months after a graduation period - 100 graduates who might be helped by this program. The monies will be such that $1 million will get spent in this fiscal year, some of it will be spent in another fiscal year in the future, and some of it is still being spent from last year.

MR. J. BYRNE: I know what you're saying, I understand that, but - anyway, no point prolonging it. On page 245, Employment Generation, the top of the page there. Again, you budgeted $3.1 million, you've spent $4 million, and now you're back to $3.1 in 1993-1994 in Grants and Subsidies. If you budgeted $3.1 last year and spent $4 million, why would you budget the same amount this year? There must be a particular reason why that ballooned up to $4 million. What would that be?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, and in fact I'm glad you asked the question. It's under this heading that last year for the first time as well it came to our attention - matter of fact, in a Committee meeting, I believe, where it was the Member for Kilbride at the time, Mr. Aylward, who raised a very legitimate concern that our Employment Generation program is for full-time employment opportunities. It's a sixty week program. An employer has to commit to offering employment to somebody for sixty consecutive weeks in order to apply. The point that was raised at the Committee last year at this time was that there are many employers in the Province who are seasonal by nature and they can't offer sixty weeks of employment to anybody, because they're probably going to only operate for fifteen or twenty weeks.

We took that concern very seriously. It was recorded in the minutes of the meeting. We went back to Cabinet and said - our monies basically, we had a lot of this money already allocated, but we said: we want to try to address that seasonal concern. We did get approval after the Budget was passed, some time in early Summer, to operate a seasonal employment program. The additional monies that went into it turned out to be $900,000 to allow for some seasonal employers to get some wage subsidy for their work force during their season of employment.

What we've done this year again with the $3.1 million for Employment Generation is we've incorporated the two programs into one. We've looked at the seasonal nature, we've judged last year's experience. While we funded quite a few last year we recognize that sometimes we may have stretched the limits a bit and we may have funded some people on a seasonal basis who were really full-time operators but had a busy season. This year, within the $3.1 million, both seasonal operators and full-time operators are eligible to apply. They will both be funded out of the same heading and they will both be funded out of the $3.1 million. But seasonal employers will be taken care of this year within that global amount of $3.1 million again.

MR. J. BYRNE: So that $900,000 that was apparently not budgeted for but spent on seasonal last year will not be spent this year, of course, and those people who were involved last year, if they're lucky enough this year to qualify under the $3.1 million, will be successful if they're lucky.

MR. GRIMES: Yes. They'll go into the application pool and when we've reached the limit of $3.1 million we'll have to stop funding projects, whether they're seasonal or full-time.

MR. J. BYRNE: Next section, Emergency Response Program. Can you just give me some kind of a general explanation for that whole thing? Because there was nothing budgeted? There was $4.9 million spent and then there's nothing budgeted this year. I mean there's got to be....

MR. GRIMES: Yes, that's the second year that that appeared, actually. In the previous year as well there was a heading that appeared for Emergency Response Programs. By the very nature of them, I think as I explained to the Committee last year, an emergency is not something that you plan or budget for. At the end of Fall of last year as in the previous year, in two of the four years that we governed the Province, from '89 to the Spring of '93, we instituted in the Fall in October in one year and in November another, an Emergency Response Program to do work on a project basis, so that people around the Province in the Island and Labrador who had not had success in obtaining work weeks to qualify them for unemployment insurance during the peak working construction season, would be given an opportunity to work on a project basis so that they could access some money through the Winter other than to have to possibly resort to social services.

We did that two years out of the four, and last year the amount of money that was actually expended through projects approved in our department was $4.9 million and we created somewhere in the range of 3,500 jobs for people. Some of them needed one week of employment, they got that; they worked for one week and then they left, others needed as much as ten but it did not go beyond that, none of the projects lasted longer than ten weeks so anyone who needed more than ten weeks to qualify for unemployment insurance last year and the year before, could not avail of this program, so we expended that amount and it was done fully within that fiscal year and there are no plans to do that this year.

We will monitor the situation again through the rest of the Spring and the Summer and if we get into the Fall and find that our unemployment rates again are extremely high, to the point that we have serious problems looming for the Winter, then we will consider our options again as to whether or not we have an employment program on an emergency basis.

MR. J. BYRNE: Well, that kind of begs this question. I mean if there is nothing allotted for it, you came up with $4.9 million last year, you may end up coming up with $4.9 or $10 million this year depending on the situation or none, I mean, where do you pull this money from?

MR. GRIMES: Well, it is like the budget process every year. Last year, at the end of the day, I think we had targeted a deficit of $28 or $29 million; at the end of the year we reported a deficit of over $50 million, so it just means that the government, based on its best information, its best judgement agreed to spend more money that it planned.

MR. J. BYRNE: Very good; thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, on page 241, under Occupational Health and Safety Services, we talked about public safety and the enforcement of building accessibility legislation, which is important during this week, National Access Awareness Week.

My question is, I am wondering how much, and how do you I guess, carry out inspections of public buildings, with regard to upgrading those buildings to be accessible to the physically challenged; because I am familiar with several buildings whether in rural Newfoundland or in urban areas that are still not accessible to the physically challenged, and I am just wondering how do you go about enforcing that legislation?

MR. GRIMES: We have our inspectors, Mr. Chairman, who certainly visit buildings on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, whether it be an electrical inspection or whatever. New buildings, anything new, anything since - and I think the operative date is 1981 - everything built since 1981 has to comply to the new building codes and of course they incorporate accessibility standards and they are, but the question arises, what about buildings prior to that time?

Basically, there is encouragement and voluntary compliance I guess is the whole route that has been taken. The guidelines and standards are available and spelled out, and every thing that should be done to make, particularly any building that has any public use of it, is available for everyone in terms of what should be done to make -

MR. MANNING: Is there a guideline or is there a rule? If one of your inspectors goes into a public building tomorrow in rural Newfoundland, or whether here in the city or whatever, and it is a twenty- year old building and is not up to a certain standard, is there just a voluntary situation there or is it forcing that person to or that operator I should say -

MR. GRIMES: With those buildings that you described, with the older buildings, it is voluntary unless there is a major renovation that incorporates something like - in excess of - I do not know what the number is, maybe 35 or 40 per cent of the building. If there is a major renovation or redesign then that puts it in - it is considered than as if it is a new building and then the codes have to apply. Other than that the information is provided to them to say that because your building is pre-1981, if you are doing things, here are the codes that are in place. If you were building it today, here is what you would have to do but for them it is a voluntary compliance. It is just given to them as a direction and guideline. For a new building it has to be done and if there is any public use of the building then the building will not be passed for open and use.

MR. MANNING: Is there a certain number of inspectors that deal with accessibility legislation or is it -

MR. GRIMES: Mike can better answer that one for you.

MR. MANNING: Have they a broad mandate, the inspectors?

MR. DWYER: Currently, there are two full time, what we call, building accessibility inspectors, the third one being hired on very shortly. I am pleased to say that he/she will be situated in the Corner Brook office. An initiative that we did take recently knowing that the issue, that you just raised, is a very important one and growing in awareness. We went through a situation where we trained our electrical inspectors who are out around - geographically located throughout the Province very well. We trained them to do certain types of inspections that they can do when they are out in the area, keeping in mind that the more complicated ones and the ones that require real technical expertise would be done by the three full time inspectors that we have on staff. I believe there are about sixteen or seventeen electrical/building accessibility inspectors, two full time building accessibility inspectors with the third one to be hired shortly for the Corner Brook region.

MR. MANNING: I welcome the initiative on hiring an additional inspector. I believe it is very important.

Mr. Minister, back to the announcement made last week concerning the conservation corp. I have been involved in developing the tourism potential of my area and part of that involvement coincides with cleaning up our environment and I guess that is why I was very pleased to see the establishment of the conservation corp. I was not to pleased knowing that twenty projects were ready to go already. I for one, did not know anything about the corp before it was announced. I was just wondering, how are these projects decided? I cannot recall seeing an application such as - coming across my desk at any time. How much room is there for future projects? I come from an area where we have the Cape St. Mary's Seabird Sanctuary right next to my own town and a fair problem we have is garbage, car wrecks, et cetera, et cetera. I am just wondering, how are the projects decided number one and is there room for future applications or whatever?

MR. GRIMES: To both those questions, Mr. Chairman, my understanding of it is that the projects were basically developed by the staff at the Economic Recovery Commission, Ms. Pointer and Mr. Quigley was the project manager. Using contacts that the Economic Recovery Commission have with - they are community based organizations, agencies and development associations. I do not think they contacted them all and they did not do any kind of formalized call for applications but through their networking in terms of the meetings and discussions that they were in, they tried to make sure that they had identified opportunities in all regions of the Province, particularly on the island part in this case, although there is one venture that looks like it might move into the Cartwright area of Southern Labrador as well.

To start this on pretty well a pilot project, this will be our first run, we are going to try to do it and make sure that it works properly and that it has more than an even chance of - and odds of success in the future. So, the projects were pretty well solicited I guess through that network of contacts that the Economic Recovery Commission had with community and development association types of groups. They put them together. They have twenty or so of them - actually I'll be providing a press kit and a release and information on that to all the members, probably tomorrow, but certainly we hope by the end of this week, to give everybody an indication of exactly where they are all located. There were four of them, I think, mentioned in the press statement but the others will all be detailed.

We wanted to make sure - and the ERC and the conservation corp itself wanted to make sure - that they had that in place and that they wouldn't have to be in a big rush this Spring, trying to go through applications, see if they were good enough. That kind of research had been done by Mr. Quigley and Ms. Pointer over the Winter months. Now we're interested in having it up and running and see how the delivery of it actually works, with the teams of students out there doing the work with minimal supervision and with supervision by region rather than by project.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Minister, if I may interrupt: is the total budget used to date on the conservation corp?

MR. GRIMES: My understanding is that the $180,000 that we've allocated to employ the students will be the amount required to fund these twenty projects which will happen. What will happen then in places - like in your own instance, where people are interested in the Southern Shore area, St. Mary's - The Capes, of doing some projects, now would be the time to make application for consideration for next year's work to be done.

MR. MANNING: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Snow.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Chairman, one question. On page 244, the Older Worker Programs. There's a substantial (inaudible) budgeted this year for the Grants and Subsidies. I would assume that's because of the older workers in the fishing industry taking retirement. What are your projected figures for the number of people who will be taking early retirement? I know, talking to DFO officials some time ago, there were less people opting for that early retirement than they had anticipated. Is that figure based on the total number of people who are eligible for early retirement, or is it just a projected figure based on the number of people who may opt for that?

MR. GRIMES: The original projections were based upon the number who might be eligible. We've been getting an update. We have a person assigned from our provincial staff who's working with the DFO officials over at their White Hills offices here to assist. Because we are funding the retirement option jointly and we're doing a fair bit of joint work with a joint federal-provincial management committee and so on. We had an update, I think it was just yesterday, and they are processing the applications now under the northern cod early retirement program, which is the retirement option under the moratorium benefit package. I think we had, was it up to 1,800...?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: There were 1,800 possibilities identified at the beginning; 1,375 of them have applied for consideration. Whether or not they'll meet the eligibility criteria is another question. Because some of them, their eligibility was brought into question by the change in circumstance at the last minute that became a public issue in the Province at the time. Whereby access to the northern cod payments, one of the criteria was that you had to be in an area where there was 10 per cent dependency or put through in the plants. For retirement, though, it's 25 per cent put through of northern cod in the plants. That has caused some people to become ineligible, even though they were eligible for the moratorium benefits. But they won't be eligible to retire.

Maybe some of these people in the 1,375 are people who will be deemed ineligible because of that or other criteria components. But that's the level of interest so far. They have been working at processing the applications and people are expected to start getting notifications and actually enter into the program. So the bulk of the money that's funded here, we do have the program for older worker adjustment still operating - general application. We have the plant worker adjustment program operating for plants that are permanently closed. Then we have funding in this heading as well for those who will retire, will exercise their retirement option as a result of the moratorium. So all three of those older worker adjustment programs are funded out of this heading and this budget line.

MR. L. SNOW: But this older workers program does not just apply to the fishing industry, it applies to other industries as well?

MR. GRIMES: The program for older worker adjustment normally referred to as the P.O.W.A program was the forbearer, that was the original one. That is for any sector. As a matter of fact one of the recent ones out close to your area that might be being considered are the people of M. A. Powell, where M. A. Powell closed down and 300 or 400 people were put out of work. There is an application in the process to see whether or not the older workers out of that workforce might be eligible for retirement options under the program for older worker adjustment. Again people fifty-five and over with limited re-employment options, so there are some eight or ten of those active applications in the Province from all sectors, the mining sector, and so on as well, and general industry, that are being considered under the program for older worker adjustment. The Plant Worker Adjustment Program and the ENCRP are both dedicated solely to the fishery. The first one in an instance where a plant has permanently closed whether or not it was impacted by the moratorium has very little if anything to do with it. The second one is strictly for people who were impacted by the moratorium and might also meet the eligibility criteria of age and other criteria in terms of put through at a plant to see whether or not they can retire.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Minister, I was not listening 100 per cent when Mr. Byrne was asking some questions concerning the employment generation program. The sixty week program for employers has been in place for some time now, and you alluded to the change that you made last year concerning seasonal employment, and you did away with one of my questions when you did that, out of the $3.1 million that could go as you say to $4 million, the $900,000 of seasonal, will all the applications be considered under the $3.1 million or so many for the sixty week and so many for the seasonal? As the applications come in are they all under the one amount of money or is there a split in it?

MR. GRIMES: For purposes of the Budget and funding, where the department can actually fund them, they are both included in this one subhead. What we have is an authority to spend monies on a seasonal basis from the Employment Generation Program even though the description of the Employment Generation Program as filed is that it is a sixty week employment opportunity. From that we have asked for permission this year to spend part of that money for people who do not meet the sixty week criteria by virtue of the very nature of the work they are involved in. We have been given the appropriate levels of approval through Cabinet and Treasury Board to do that but there will not be a separate and distinct program for seasonal employment. Seasonal employers can apply and they may very well apply under the old seasonal employment application form that we have developed for last year, but the money will flow from this head. It will not be a separate pool of money. It will come from this money.

MR. MANNING: Today your department will accept applications from the seasonal employer because most employers are now getting prepared for the tourist season, the main season in Newfoundland, whatever that is.

MR. GRIMES: We already have some on file from people who availed of the program last year and just assumed that it would be available again this year. We advertised it last year as a new initiative because it was new for the first time.

MR. MANNING: The $900,000 became the new initiative.

MR. GRIMES: This year anyone who is an employer who is seasonal by nature can apply for assistance and they will be funded by this pool of money.

MR. MANNING: On Page 240, Mr. Minister, under Policy and Planning, the Budget last year for grants and subsidies was $250,000, you spent $50,000, and your Budget this year is estimated to be $350,000. Could I have an explanation of some sort to just make it clear?

MR. GRIMES: The key is in Item 10 in the list.

MR. MANNING: Yes.

MR. GRIMES: Grants and Subsidies which is where the increase will be. There are two areas and I think two of them I referenced earlier in my opening remarks.

Of the $350,000, $250,000 is the money that is available for these research grants for people who will do research, two of which we have already approved and will continue to assess the applications as they come when we can approve up to $250,000 worth of research that will assist in things that will decrease accident and injury in the workplaces. The other $100,000 is the money that we have agreed to put aside to fund a joint occupational health and safety conference sponsored by the Federation of Labour and the Employers' Councils, the one that Mr. Pitcher and Mr. Curtis are working on a committee with Mr. Dwyer, and are putting together for the October.

MR. MANNING: For the Fall, yes.

I thank you very much, Mr. Minister, and those are all the questions I have.

On motion, subheads 1.2.01 through 5.1.01, carried.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now that we have finished the estimates, I would call for a motion to adjourn.

On motion, committee adjourned until 7:00 p.m. June 1, in the Colonial Building.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister, thank you to your staff, thanks committee. We will see you tonight at 7:00 o'clock in the Colonial Building.