The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Smith): Order, please!

This evening we will be examining the Estimates for Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Before we begin I would like to introduce the members of the Committee. I will start with myself and I will ask each of the Committee members to introduce themselves. My name is Gerald Smith, I'm the Member for Port au Port.

MR. WOODFORD: Rick Woodford, MHA for Humber Valley.

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

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

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

MR. PENNEY: Melvin Penney, MHA for Lewisporte.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: William Andersen III, MHA for Torngat Mountains.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to ask the minister to introduce the people he has with him this evening.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here and nice to see that you squeaked into the position as Chairman here without too much opposition. I was a bit worried about it there for a while, the way some of the votes have been going today. The last one was thirty-five to two, wasn't it? So it was close.

It is a pleasure to be here this evening with our group to go through the Estimates for the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation with yourself and the Committee. We have with us our Deputy Minister on my right, Mr. Clyde Granter; two of our Assistant Deputy Ministers - Ms. Batstone who is our Assistant Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs, and Mr. Mike Buist who is the Assistant Deputy Minister for Parks and Recreation. Susan Sherk is unfortunately not available this evening. She is our Assistant Deputy Minister for Tourism and Craft Development.

Also with us is Mr. Rick Hayward who is our Director of Financial and General Operations within the department who keeps us all on the straight and narrow. I'm sure as the questioning goes on this evening if you have any real questions that the people who are supposed to know the answers don't know, then at the end of the day Rick will give you the answer. Rest assured, we do have somebody here who knows the answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. To begin we will give you an opportunity to make an opening statement if you so choose. We will give you fifteen minutes. After that the vice-chair will have fifteen minutes if he so chooses to make some opening remarks as well, and then we will proceed with the questioning. Ten minutes each. We will alternate. If you want to pass when I call upon you that is fine, you may feel free to do so.

By the way, I also should point out that if you are deferring to any of the members of your staff we would ask that you introduce yourselves. Just give your name before you speak. This is being recorded and this gentleman back here won't know who you are, so it is important you give your name before you speak.

Mr. Minister, you are on.

MR. GRIMES: Thanks again. Maybe I might just take a couple of minutes for a few general comments with respect to the department and the budget, this being a first opportunity for myself and I guess a first opportunity as well, Mr. Chairman, for the new Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Because last year in the Estimates it would have been the Department of Tourism and Culture and the Recreation responsibilities would have still been with Municipal and Provincial Affairs

The new restructuring of government that led to the decrease in the Cabinet from a total of fifteen, counting the Premier, to fourteen that happened in about the mid-part of the fiscal year, in August, early September, has come into effect. That kind of change is reflected in our budget showing the Recreation initiatives in this budget I expect, Rick, as if they had been here all last year. That adjustment has been made so that all of the Recreation's accounting is done in the Estimates from last year and for the future year.

Most of you would know from your experiences in the Legislature that in the old Department of Tourism and Culture when it was such before the changeover, the Wildlife responsibilities had been in this department. All references to Wildlife from last year with the accountings for last year and for next year are now in Natural Resources. I say that because I'm sure the same Committee I guess will deal with the Natural Resources Estimates. If you have questions and issues relating to the Wildlife part of it, they are all accounted for in terms of last year's expenditures and the future planning now in the Department of Natural Resources. That change is reflected in the Estimates.

We basically have responsibility then in the three different areas. Tourism and Crafts, as I indicated, Susan Sherk is the ADM and unfortunately is not available to be with us this evening. For Ms. Batstone, for Liz, culture, historic resources, museums and archives is really her full mandate. We usually refer to her, I guess, generically, as the Assistant Deputy Minister for Culture, but it does encompass a very wide range of responsibilities, and all of that accounting is done under the budget heads for that particular part of the department, culture, historic resources, museums and the archives, and then parks and recreation with the ADM, Mike Buist, who has been the most recent member to join the staff. The parks part of it had always been in this particular Tourism and Culture Department. The recreation parts have been added with the changeover that occurred just most recently, as I indicated, the end of August and September.

I might point out that we are very pleased with, I guess, the efforts that have occurred and the fiscal approach that the government has taken in the budget generally this year to try and really keep the reins on spending again and to allow any growth in revenues to go towards staying within our capabilities in reaching the balanced budget that we have presented. We were fortunate enough, in Tourism, Culture and Recreation, to basically show the same numbers as last year.

There has been some shifting and shuffling within the budget which is designed to try and show a restatement of our priorities in terms of not just going ahead and recommitting to all of the programs on the same basis as last year, but in ball park figures the overall commitment financially in the department is the same as last year, even though many departments actually showed some slight decreases of a percent or two, but because this is one of the departments that the government has flagged as one of the lead departments for economic development and opportunity in the future, when the changes were made we ended up basically at a status quo position which we are proud to present in these Estimates.

That is reflected in the Tourism and Craft Development area where we look at tourism marketing, additional initiatives there, tourism development that is also taken care of in one of the branches of that division, more emphasis on planning and evaluation as we try to make sure that our approaches in advertising and marketing for our potential visitors is properly directed at the right people who may be going to consider our particular Province as a destination, and also in the area of continuing the efforts they started a few years ago with renewed emphasis on craft development as a large part of that.

The culture, historic resources, museums and archives, in this particular branch we are looking at continuing responsibility for development organization of the cultural programs, and the administrative and technical support of programming activities including the Arts and Culture Centres, so the numbers again still reflect a commitment at the same levels as in past years, even though we are still pursuing initiatives to see if we cannot interest certain of the communities that host and house the Arts and Culture Centres in a different administrative and financial arrangement than we presently have, but the budget reflects our ability to continue on for another full year at existing levels in the case that we are not in any way successful in negotiating a rearrangement of responsibilities in those six communities.

On the parks and recreation side, I think there has been some publicity just recently about two of the initiatives. One is the new streamline approach to the provincial parks system, with a different number of parks to now be enhanced by a million dollar capital program over the year, and also the announcement just recently of our commitment to the Newfoundland trail way, and what we think that will add as a recreation opportunity base for our own residents, and also one of the aspects that we can promote on the tourism side as another reason for people to consider coming to visit Newfoundland and Labrador.

The mandate of the sport and recreation division also includes a number of programs that have been continuing, program development, leadership development, promotion and marketing, and special project management in such areas as community recreation, volunteer programs, regional/provincial/national games - we just successfully competed in the Canada Winter Games in Grand Prairie. We of course have been the successful bidder to host the Canada Winter Games in Corner Brook in 1999 and where that will happen early in the calendar year of 1999, the same year that we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary of Confederation, we think that it provides a perfect opportunity for us to again emphasis how proud we are to be Canadians and to show the rest of Canada what we have to offer from a sporting and recreation point of view in a marvellous setting like Corner Brook, to show off the new civic centre that will be there at the time, as well as to highlight the tremendous new facilities that we have at Marble Mountain which is fast becoming a national and a North American ski destination.

So there are a whole number of areas where that particular division provides leadership on behalf of the government. We are just very pleased that we have been given a mandate to try and deliver in some of these program areas on behalf of the government for the benefit of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Without going into any of the other details, Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do is to leave it to explore what are the issues that the Committee itself would like to really question us about. The biggest focus, out of all that I guess, that has gotten the most media attention in the shorter term, is that while we run these programs and we are trying to deliver on a new mandate to have a whole integrated approach - tourism being the real part of it but to look at the strengths of cultural tourism as a real reason why people are coming to Newfoundland and Labrador and also to tie into that the fact that recreation opportunities both on an individual, leisure and recreation basis as well as organized sport, is such a terrific travel generator by itself that if we can tie into people prior to coming to sporting or recreational events and staying longer that we can take the culture side, the recreation side and tie all of it into one general tourism package for the Province. We see that as being our mandate.

While that is occurring everybody is putting a lot of effort into the next big celebration that will occur in the Province which is the 500th anniversary in 1997. We are quite proud as well to be leading it from the provincial part in terms of funding the corporation that is doing that planning for us and to be working with the federal government to make sure that that becomes a celebration that matches and surpasses what happened in Newfoundland and Labrador in the come home year in 1966 in terms of being a watershed event to move tourism opportunities in the Province to a higher and better level.

So we are looking forward to that and I think there are opportunities as members of the Committee, Mr. Chairman, to go through the different budget heads to question or comment on any of those things that I mention and any others that might be of particular interest to the members of the Committee. We would certainly welcome the questions and try to provide in the usual fashion very brief, succinct answers.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Rick Woodford, Humber Valley.

Mr. Minister, in the budget the government made the announcement, in supplementary details, that the administration divisions of the Departments of Environment, Employment and Labour Relations and Tourism, Culture and Recreation would be consolidated. Would you expand on that for me and explain because I noticed when I was going through the heads of Tourism, Culture and Recreation that the heads are pretty well the same except for a small variance but not a big lot. Could you explain to me what you mean by that?

MR. GRIMES: Basically the gist is that because these three departments of government, when you analyze them from the point of view of how many people are employed in the departments on a full time annual basis - our own department for example has a certain component of full time regular employees but probably doubles in size in the summer because there are quite a number of opportunities through visitor information centres, our museums, historic sites, parks and so on, where there is quite an employment burst through certain seasons. The regular staff is small by comparison to many of the other government departments. The same was seen to be true of the Departments of Environment and Employment and Labour Relations, that the full-time regular staff components are not great in number compared to other departments like Municipal and Provincial Affairs or Works, Services and Transportation.

Again, in looking at ways to better deliver the services of government and to target the resources at programs and delivery of services to the people, rather than on administration, it was seen in discussion with the staff of the three departments that probably because of the numbers we could in fact run one particular administrative division for human resources issues that would serve the three departments, and one particular division that could meet the financial operational needs of the three departments. By combining the total regular full-time and part-time regular staff of those three you would still only equate to the same number of people being served by a human resources division and by a financial operations division as you would in one of the larger departments of government.

Rick might be able to give you the answer in terms of where the numbers are in the Estimates. I don't believe there has been a total removal of all the numbers from the Estimates of the other two departments and put into Tourism, Culture and Recreation. The intent is to have it housed in Tourism, Culture and Recreation but to service the three departments. They are working now themselves to try and see how the best way is to shift the people, to decide which of, say, three directors of human resources will become the director of human resources to serve all three departments, how the staff realignment will occur. Then any budgets that are needed to shift, if they are not already done so, will be shifted the same as we made the move for Wildlife going to Natural Resources and Recreation coming from Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

The total monies for that are probably still partly in three different departments instead of all in our heading. Rick can let you know if that is not the case.

MR. HAYWARD: My understanding is that in the salary details for the Departments of Environment and Employment and Labour Relations there is a forced reduction number there, I guess a balancing item, that would serve the Budget process. That is where the savings are, I believe. That is my interpretation of the Budget document anyway. I don't have the salary details here.

MR. WOODFORD: Would you have any numbers of the jobs that will be - or will there be a relocation of people or would there be an actual job loss in those departments in the administration end of it?

MR. GRIMES: That is being looked at now, Mr. Chairman. In fact, there is a possibility at the end of the day that there may in fact be two or three or four dislocations for those people who don't end up being absorbed in the system in that one administrative structure. What they are looking at now is already having meetings as to what their opportunities are throughout the rest of government if they don't end up in this one administrative entity for the three departments.

At the end of the day, whether or not there will actually be any lay off notices issued, that is going through a process of study now and we are not certain. I would have to tell you in all honesty that is a possibility, but at the worst case scenario it wouldn't be any more than three or four people who may not find themselves employed either in the one administrative structure for the three departments, or through their redeployment and re-employment opportunities within government, finding employment in other full-time positions in government that are currently vacant in some other department.

The possibility does exist. They don't have definite numbers yet. Rick and others and the deputies actually I think, Clyde, have been charged with very quickly now within the next few weeks or so looking at the logistics of that reorganization so that these people can then find where they will fall in the system and exercise their rights that they have for looking for other jobs if they don't fit in this entity.

MR. WOODFORD: Minister, a couple of weeks ago I guess you made a ministerial statement on the closing of twenty-nine parks across the Island. At that time - correct me if I'm wrong - I can mention the figure of a savings of approximately $300,000. In the Estimates, especially as it pertains to 4.1.02, Park Operations, there hasn't been a change in the salary structure there or anything like that. Would that indicate - without looking at another head - that that money will be used for other purposes in the parks? Or will it be used like you said the other day probably toward the announcement on a new linear park system?

MR. GRIMES: No, actually, if you look at 4.1.02.01, which is the Salaries, when we released that general information in the press release the revised numbers for last year were $2.65 million and now projected are $2.461 million. That is running an extended season again in the extra parks. Largely the savings were in the salary area, the salary expenses related to those twenty-nine operations. We are projecting that we will actually run this year not $300,000 but in this instance close to a couple of hundred thousand dollars less in salaries because of the fact that we won't have to commit bodies to those twenty-nine extra facilities. That is where it shows.

Because we were doing estimates at that time and hadn't finished our budget submission we really probably now, if we were to make that same press release, would have indicated that the overall savings that we expect to achieve from that point of view is probably less than $200,000, rather than the $300,000. The other good news in terms of it that we weren't at liberty to release of course in the press release, because it was a budget consideration, was getting the $1 million on the capital side to do some improvements and some enhancements in the parks that remain in the system.

That is where the large bulk of the savings are. You can also see a corresponding reduction in some Supplies in item .04 because we will need less when we are operating less facilities. Altogether, it approximates pretty close to the $300,000 that we announced in the release.

MR. WOODFORD: Under Park Operations.

MR. GRIMES: Yes.

MR. WOODFORD: Under 4.1.09, Park Rehabilitation, the one you just alluded to, that $1 million, do you have your minds made up, I would say you have your homework done on where you are going to spend that $1 million and at what parks around the Province?

MR. GRIMES: Yes and no. I can say to you quite clearly we are at this stage of the discussion. The Parks division staff has prepared I guess their preferred list of where they would like to see $1 million worth of improvements done. Generally speaking, the only political direction they've been given so far from myself and Mr. Penney as the legislative advisor is that we would like to see a commitment made to the keystone parks, because they have to go first and foremost; and secondly, as a general rule of thumb, we would sort of like to see some development occur from west to east in the other parks.

Because we take the view that the parks serve the road traffic. When you look at non-resident visitors the bulk of them get off the boat at Port aux Basques. Their first experience with the parks is on the West Coast. We would like to give them the best experiences first so that they have a good impression. They've provided a tentative list but we have not yet had an opportunity to sit back down with them and go through exactly where we would commit the $1 million for the coming year. So yes, they do have a divisional staff proposed list of where they would like to spend the money. Because we haven't yet had a chance to look at that to see whether it matches up with the type of general priorities that we expressed on just one occasion. We have to have a couple of more discussions yet to see exactly where the million dollars will be spent in this year.

MR. WOODFORD: But it will be mainly on the infrastructure part?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, the idea, again, is looking at a couple of areas in particular. There has been quite a bit of user demand for more electrical hook-ups, dumping stations, comfort stations in terms of showers and those types of facilities and with a limit, again, I am sure - I think we had one division meeting, Mike, where the staff was suggesting that they would like to get their hands on a couple of million dollars a year, and who wouldn't. But then, in some parks if you did too much work, the view was you would almost have to close the park, and we didn't want to be doing so much work in any one park that you had to close the park for use for the season. So the work will be staggered again to try to make sure that all the remaining parks in the system stay open for the use of the travelling public while the renovation and improvements that are to occur take place at the same time.

MR. WOODFORD: The 4.1.06 under the heading Linear Park: this naturally, is all new money, some $420,000 there for that. Is there anything in particular - I noticed in your Ministerial Statement, you mentioned one item that really was of some concern to me, the one about the bridges and culverts, and I am sure it is a concern to you in your department. Having said that, I have to say that is, as far as I am concerned, an excellent step, by the way, that the department and government took there with regard to the rail bed across the Province. The concerns that I mentioned in the Ministerial Statement the other day are still there and that is one of them. I didn't get the chance because in Ministerial Statements you get only half the time the minister gets to respond. I didn't get a chance to comment on that particular one. That is, as far as I am concerned, going to be a very, very hard one to try to keep up, all the tressles, culverts and so on across that rail bed. Now, I know it can be done a little bit at a time and in certain areas where it is being used and so on. Is any of this money allocated for something like that or is it just to try to bring the thing together and get it started, so that some other people like the development associations and councils and so on can get their teeth into it and start something new?

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, I think the member has described it very well in the latter, that the $420,000 here is allocated so that we can go out and do the very extensive consultation that now has to occur. One of the meetings I had on Saturday morning, actually, at 9:00. I met with the council in Deer Lake, because I was on the West Coast to speak to the joint councils, and they had their concerns about wanting us to work with them on a bypass for the town of Deer Lake because they have other plans, very much so, for the main line going through Main Street in the town of Deer Lake - which I understand completely, and we have committed that one of our staff, either Mr. Buist or Mr. Hustins, would meet with them in the near future; they are going to write us and look at the concerns.

We have quite a bit of work to do with thirty-five or thirty-six, I believe it is, Mike, municipalities through which the rail bed actually passes, because we have to deal with that issue in each case. The Rural Development Council, which was a real proponent in this project in the first instance, has indicated that their member groups in different regions of the Province are very interested in sitting with us now and working with us on a basis whereby they can help us manage, control, run, restore and everything else related to the Newfoundland Trailway. We have also had expressions of interest from the Snowmobile Federation for the Island, where they want to work with us much as they do in Prince Edward Island to deal with the management, control, grooming and running of the rail bed through the winter season for the purpose of snowmobile excursions. So what you see here largely is some monies allocated to allow us to go through that very intensive consultation and planning session that will have to start almost immediately. My own guesstimation is that the first real flat-out usage of it might be the snowmobile season next year, that there will be a lot of planning. People who will want to hike and so on through this summer season certainly will be free to do so, but any physical improvements of it which will be necessary over time will not really start this year. It has been indicated to me by Mr. Buist, as the ADM responsible, that we may have to do some initial signage things in terms of talking about using at your own risk, some liability things, some warnings in some areas about places where there are washouts or bridges that might not be totally safe at this point that we have not had a chance to fix yet, so we will have to do that kind of quick assessment, some signage, and a very intensive consultation process with the municipalities, with the Rural Development Council, and with the Snowmobile Federation in particular as to where we go now in terms of making this into a year-round useable recreational park that can also be a tourism attraction for us.

MR. WOODFORD: One other short question, and then I will pass it along to another member, Mr. Chairman.

The actual ownership of that particular right of way now, is that definitely in Crown lands hands now? Is that definitely passed over to Crown lands, the whole corridor right from east to west?

MR. GRIMES: My understanding is that the whole corridor of that rail bed, branch lines, and also the rail lands that were rail yards, as in a place like Bishop's Falls in my own district -

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

MR. GRIMES: And some where there were pretty expansive land masses within the boundaries, that they have all been transferred from CN, I guess, to the Federal Government, from the Federal Government to the Provincial Government, and the designation has been in the Provincial Government that all of the branch lines are within the mandate of Crown lands, being treated as regular Crown lands in the Department of Natural Resources, and all lands constituting the right of way of the main line, all disposition of that has been put in the hands of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, with the main line now declared a provincial park for protective purposes and to plan for future development. So I am not 100 per cent sure, and maybe the deputy or Mr. Buist can help me with terms of a `rail yard' like in Howley or in Bishop's Falls, whether Tourism, Culture and Recreation has responsibility for the rest of the rail yard or only for the main line going through the town. In any event, one way or the other, in the discussions we are having with those communities, most of them are looking, if not for the rail line itself, for the other railway lands in their town to be passed over to the municipalities, and that exercise will come out of this consultation as well.

MR. WOODFORD: So there is an understanding, then, with Crown lands that any applications for anything in that corridor would have to pass by your department before there was anything approved.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, the application process and so on for those lands is being administered through our department instead of Natural Resources. The issue came up, I might add, in Deer Lake again in the meeting because the mayor and others reminded me that when Mr. Crosbie made this announcement, actually, when the deal was struck in 1988 for the Roads for Rail Agreement, in his press statement he indicated, the procedure that would be followed would be that with respect to the lands for the rail line, they would be passed over to the Province and the Province in municipalities would pass it over to municipalities, so now we are discussing whether they actually want the land, whether they will let us hold it and have a corridor, or whether we have to build a bypass and so on, so we are having that discussion. That will come out of this announcement.

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

Mr. Whelan.

MR. WHELAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, I noticed under 2.2.04, the John Cabot 500 Anniversary Celebrations, there is an allocation of $1,145,400. Is there any part of that money being spent outside the Province, outside of the country, for example in some of the European countries? If there is, what sorts of expenditures are they, and how are they being spent?

MR. GRIMES: At this point in time, this amount of money that is voted here again represents the one-third contribution that will come from the Provincial Government towards another year of operation for the Corporation. The Corporation operated last year in the range of - $3.8 million, I guess, is their budget. We fully expect that they will be funded at $3.8 million again this year. The only reason that $3.8 million isn't designated in the budget with an offsetting revenue total is because we haven't finalized a discussion with the Federal Government yet as to which of their headings their share is going to come from. We are very positive and certain about the fact that we will conclude an agreement with them to put in twice as much of that money again so that they will have the total amount.

In getting to your question about the expenditures outside the Province, in terms of the experience last year and the projections for this year, when the Corporation expends money outside the Province so far - and the plan for the coming year will change fairly dramatically once their budget is assured - so far it has been targeted at efforts where the Corporation on behalf of the people of the Province has gone out seeking to secure major corporations, major companies, major events and so on to come and have their annual conferences in Newfoundland and Labrador for 1997. They've had some tremendous successes in terms of having a wide range of national and international organizations commit to hosting their annual convention, conference and/or meeting in Newfoundland and Labrador as part of our 500th Anniversary.

The other external efforts that have had some work put into them in the first year of full operation have been some preliminary visitations in Italy relating to working with a Cabot 500 Corporation Committee that is established in Gaeta, which is the home town of John Cabot himself, where they have been planning for this celebration as well. Because apparently he is a national hero in Italy and they want to tie in with our celebration and they want to find a way - they are very interested in having Italians come to the `new found land' that John Cabot discovered. They are also interested, of course, for their own purposes, of seeing if they can encourage some people from Newfoundland and Canada to visit Italy to see the home site of John Cabot. There have been one if not two trips to Gaeta at different points in the year to try to cement that relationship and work out how each of the committees can help each other.

There have been a couple of visits by representatives of the Corporation to Bristol in England. The main part of that work has been in trying to make sure that one of the real flagship events of that year, which is going to be the travel of the replica of the Matthew across the North Atlantic to land at Bonavista on Discovery Day - they are supposed to actually sail into Bonavista, I think, at 2:00 p.m. on June 24, which is Discovery Day. The ship is now being built in Bristol through private sources in England and the United Kingdom. We are finalizing a contract with them so that they will sail the ship to Newfoundland and make it available for ports of call in Newfoundland for a three-month period. That will enable us to promote its presence and to promote, as I said, a major tourist attraction in all regions of the Island, and possibly even into a couple of ports of call in Labrador as part of the celebration that year. There have been some visitations on that basis.

The shift that will occur this year that is projected in the master plan is to begin in a real way to do some direct marketing and promotion, to let people know which events are planned, to start getting some information out to the public in Italy, in England, in the rest of North America and to start inviting people to start planning now for two years down the road.

MR. WHELAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I was wondering about the outfitting industry in the province. I understand that currently they receive 10 per cent, I stand to be corrected, of the total number of big game licenses issued. Has there been any consideration given to changing that in light of the fact that the outfitting industry has such vast potential with regard to tourism?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, actually this is one of the real success stories in recent years in the old Department of Tourism and Culture and now Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Particularly when you come to the point that you raised with respect to big game hunting for non-residents. It has been pegged at 10 per cent for some time now and out of the group of us here, I guess probably the member for Humber Valley knows more about when that started and so on and the fact that it really has now gotten general acceptance in the province as being reasonable and -

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Yes, and not that he would have been one of the people who spearheaded the debate in trying to make sure that the rest of the residents accepted the notion that we should carve out some licences for these non-residents because of the economic benefit and the potential and so on. So that kind of thing happened publicly I guess in the late 1970s when it became official or -

MR. WOODFORD: They had a figure they put up every year until they froze it at 10 per cent, I think in 1986-1987.

MR. GRIMES: At 10 per cent, so from that time the whole issue had been there and it became public. There had been a little bit of friction between residents and non-residents and people saying: well why were these people shooting their moose and I cannot get a license and so on. And then the 10 per cent rule became the standard, it has been there for some time and pretty generally accepted. There is a regular representation from the outfitters seeking an increase in that. There is also though a regular representation from our own resident hunters seeking more licenses, but everybody I think has learned enough lessons from the fishery to realize that these resources are limited and the one thing you have to do is to commit to proper management, first and foremost, and then decide on the balance afterwards.

Mr. Penney, as the legislative advisor, has worked with me very closely on this particular issue and has been very helpful. We believe that with the right approaches there can possibly be some adjustments made because there are tremendous benefits.

I was talking about the success story where even in the last five years the outfitters who have big game licences for moose, caribou and black bear have gone from the range of 50 and 60 per cent occupancy to 100 per cent occupancy and just last year I think our numbers were 99.3 or 99.4 per cent sales. They could take more people but they had no more licences to offer to fill and that was done jointly by the Department of Tourism and Culture, marketing with the outfitters at the shows throughout North America, in Canada and in the United States. The government would go and have a booth, a number of the outfitters would travel with them and show there own wares and market there own locations and the numbers went from 50-60 per cent occupancy to just about 100 per cent occupancy in a five year period.

So much were we enthused and pleased with the results that we are trying to repeat it again now in terms of fishing camps, because the fishing camps still have a great product to offer despite the salmon thing going from two to one in Labrador and so on. But even for trout fishing and so on there is still a great product here in Newfoundland and Labrador. We do not seem to have been able to work the same co-operative approach yet. We are targeting it again this year as a major initiative to try to raise their productivity numbers and their occupancy numbers from somewhere in the 33 per cent, 35 per cent range that they are now to try and double that in a two-or three-year period by again offering those incentives to the outfitters who operate the fishing camps to advertise with them, to go to the trade shows with them, to offer them space in a government booth, to do whatever we can in terms of advertising in the field and stream magazines, the different ones that the sport fishermen would find interesting and attractive.

We don't know if we are going to be able to parallel and match what we did on the big game outfitting side because there are other pressures that have come to bear on the resource side with respect to both trout and salmon that have complicated the outfitters' own efforts. More recently, the decision in Labrador, for example, came into effect after all of the outfitters had all of their marketing information out there saying you could keep two big fish. Only to have people phoning to say: I'm sorry about my advertising, but you can only keep one.

We've written on behalf of the outfitters in support of their argument to Mr. Tobin but I'm not overly hopeful that is going to be changed in this year. Those kinds of things, where we are not always in sync when you have a provincial government helping them managing a certain part of it, the federal government with responsibility on another side, and the decisions get made at a different time.

We were actually very pleased with ourselves; the outfitters were very pleased with us. Because one of the problems from a few years before was that we wouldn't get our hunting and fishing guide out into the marketplace until March or April. I think the year before it was almost the first week in April. They came to us and said: We need to be out in the market right after Christmas letting people know what we have because they are making their plans. We did everything we could, got all their information in, took all the current information, put the biggest kind of a top priority job on the hunting and fishing guide, had the hunting and fishing guide actually when we visited with the outfitters in Deer Lake in January. I think the meeting was January 13 at the Deer Lake motel. They were using it again along with their own promotional materials, only to find then that the regulations for DFO hadn't been finalized for the year and they changed. It had a little bit of a negative impact for them in terms of their market.

We are now continuing to do another one of these economic benefit analysis of that whole industry. Because a lot of people have thrown around a lot of numbers about how beneficial the outfitting industry is to the Province. We are trying to get further numbers so that we can go forward and see if we can publicly build the case along the issue that you started your question with, whether or not we could actually on the big game side allocate more than 10 per cent.

The general view I would suggest to you at this point in time is that it is very difficult to get public acceptance for more than 10 per cent with respect to moose. It may be possible to get public acceptance for more than 10 percent with respect to caribou. Because the Newfoundlander's own preference hasn't been - the view that has been expressed to me, being a person who doesn't hunt and doesn't fish and those kinds of things, is that when people apply - like the moose licences went out a while ago. They apply for a moose licence, they don't apply for a caribou licence. They put caribou down just in case they don't get a moose, but they don't want a caribou licence.

We may be able to convince the people that for the economic benefit that is there, which is why we are doing the economic cost benefit analysis, it might make sense for the residents to allow more than 10 per cent of caribou to be allocated to non-residents and leave the 10 per cent in place for moose. We are looking at those options right now. As a matter of fact, tomorrow morning myself and Dr. Gibbons are meeting with representatives of the outfitters association. I believe they are bringing us that recommendation I think from their annual meeting in Deer Lake, that we should ask for that kind of a split quota instead of just 10 per cent total.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Your time is up, Mr. Whelan.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, okay. What I might suggest as well is that while the Committee certainly appreciates and admires your enthusiasm for your department, we would ask that maybe you could be a little restrained, a little more succinct in your response.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Shelley.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you. I enjoy the minister's enthusiasm in this particular department. To be honest with you, this is my pet department as far as departments go, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Because I've the firm belief that tourism could be the saviour of this Province sooner or later, one of these days, if it is handled right now, and especially leading up to 1997 when we have that anniversary. I think the next couple of years are going to be crucial in how we lay out the plans and that tourism will develop into the full capacity that it should. I do not think we have scratched the surface yet.

As far as tourism goes, Mr. Woodford asked a couple of questions that I had already planned to ask but I would like to expand on one of them, and that is in 4.1.09, Park Rehabilitation. You mentioned $1 million, that is going to be used basically to upgrade, is my understanding right on that? For example in parks people look for showers, like you said, the comfort zone there, and you could put a lot of showers in parks for that amount of money, or laundry facilities or that type of thing. I know that the first thing tourists ask for before they turn off to a park is: is there a shower there, is there a laundromat there. Are those the type of things you are referring to?

MR. GRIMES: The biggest thrust with this money is to do exactly that kind of thing. I guess the showers in the parks are housed in what I refer to as comfort stations. The difficulty with them is that they are not inexpensive in the standard way they are constructed. A comfort station in a park with a concrete base and getting the water lines in and so on, and having the facilities, can be in the range of $250,000 to build one structure, so if we were to put a new comfort station in four parks we would have $1 million gone and we would only have half a dozen showers in four parks. We have to be very selective and pretty sure that at some point one of the parks, in all likelihood one of the keystone parks will probably get a new comfort station this year, and we will continue to move in that direction.

I've mentioned trying to move a bit from west to east but we have not got back to discuss this with the staff in detail yet. The other part of going from west to east is to try and make sure that if we deal with the parks issue that when these people come here in bigger numbers in 1997, then 1995 and 1996 we are hoping for continued growth along the lines of last year which was overall growth of about 8 per cent, although the road traffic was down a bit last year. Air traffic was up and road traffic was down. If we continue to have that kind of growth, and if in 1997, we get the people coming and using the park system we would hope that if we start on the west and move to the east that we again might be able to put in some comfort stations.

Also, the other big one seems to be electrical hook-ups. A lot of people are looking for an electrical capability in the park for at least some of the campsites. They do not expect all of them to have electrical hook-ups but they would like to know that if you get there early enough that some of the sites would be geared up for electricity and they would not have to bring their generators and those kind of things to service themselves.

We would look at that and try to make sure that for that expected increase in road traffic in 1997 that if we start west to east we will have the bulk of the work done on the West Coast through the summer of 1995 and the summer of 1996, and hopefully we will not have to be doing major construction or reconstruction in 1997. Also, even though we will not operate some of these parks, eight of the parks that we talked about have camping facilities in them. There are plans in several of the parks left in the system to add additional sites to those parks because they are in the locations where people want to go. They go to the parks now, they maximize the capacity and there are more people wanting to get into those particular parks because of their strategic location, so there are also plans to actually add campsite capacity to some of the parks that are remaining in the system.

MR. SHELLEY: Another interesting concept, and just to get some of your views on it, I guess, is the idea of private intervention in the parks. I know in some of the parks private people are getting in there with convenience stores, and in one park a guy had paddle boats. I encourage that and I think it is a good idea. Of course there have to be regulations and everything kept in place for that. How do you see that over the next little while? I think there are some good ideas there from some private individuals who can basically go into a provincial park and enhance it, and do things that are going to be additions to it. How do you see that moving?

MR. GRIMES: A couple of things, actually. There have been some very good developments along those lines since the parks policy changed five or six years ago, I guess, for the first time. I guess the previous administration had started the concept on a pilot basis I believe of allowing some commercialization in a park. The policy of parks up to that point in time had been that there would be no commercialization. When I dealt with the issue on a radio call-in show, on Crosstalk I think a week or ten days ago, both views were expressed. Some people called in and said: We go to parks because we don't want canteens, we don't want paddle boats, we don't want that stuff. We want nature.

Other people were saying: We go to parks and once we go that is our tourism destination. We are taking our family for a week or ten days and we would like to have everything we need in the park. We would like to have convenience stores so we can go and get some potatoes, go and get some basic supplies, a bit of bread and so on and some milk, and not have to leave the park. We would also like to have a facility where we could wash our clothes. We would like to have a laundromat in the park, we would like to have a shower where you could get a good wash every couple of days or so if you didn't think you were clean enough from swimming or something, and those types of things. They also wanted some play areas for the children. They wanted like a playground in the park, which we have in some of the parks. They wanted some - I think the phrase they used - distractions for the children.

Nature wasn't enough. The hiking trails were good and so on but they wanted structured play areas. They hoped to have paddle boats, they hoped to be able to go down and rent these Seadoos or whatever they are called, and spin around - but a lot of it is controlled, and a lot of those people were doing it. A lot of the private sector interest has centred around that. I think we have quite a number of parks now where there are applications in from the private sector to offer some commercial services.

The other good news in it is that even for the parks that we are not going to operate, Mr. Buist has been keeping a tally, himself and Mr. Hustins, in terms of the expressions of interest for private operators who want to be given a chance this year to run a park like Blue Ponds that we are not going to operate. The numbers are pretty staggering. Like Cochrane Park close to here, a day use park, there have been dozens already of people. They have until April 7 to express their interest, and then we have to sort out a way to try and decide who it is we are going to give a chance to run the park totally.

One last thing if I might, Mr. Chairman. While we are going to operate the park system minus the twenty-nine facilities that we removed from the system this year, there have for a couple of years now been people coming to us saying: Can I run Catamaran Park for you? Ones that are still in the system. Like: Give me a chance to run the other parks, Northern Bay Sands out there, close to St. John's. People coming in and saying: Let me run Butterpot for you. The whole notion of the private sector feeling that given the chance they could run these parks as well as, if not better than, us, and make their own decisions about how much commercialization can be blended with the natural elements of the park setting without destroying the whole concept.

It has been an interesting area. The efforts so far have been very positive and very successful from the point of view of the Parks division staff reviewing and analyzing it. They are promoting the concept that there is still room for more expansion of commercial opportunities in the parks. I don't think you will see water slides in there, I don't think you will see that kind of commercialization, but you will see more of the canteen services. You will see some private entrepreneurs maybe go in there and set up laundromats and charge people for doing their laundry. You will see more of the paddle boat type of things, for amusements for small children and families to enjoy, along with the natural setting things of going out and walking in the parks, the trails, and enjoying the normal things that you would before the policy changed.

MR. SHELLEY: I think that has potential. I think the bottom line we should look at is: Are we improving the parks? If we are, then what sort of way works best, I guess is the way you look at it.

Just to switch questions, because I know I just have a couple of minutes left. This is more on a local scene but it is very important to me, and it should be very important to you as the minister, and that is the Dorset Eskimo site on the Baie Verte Peninsula.

I have to say, minister, that I was embarrassed last summer when a couple from Ontario with their little girl came to my house, when they found out I was the member. And here is this Dorset Eskimo Site which is one of the oldest Indian sites in North America. You go down to Fleur de Lys and all you see on the Trans Canada to let us know that it is down there is a little brown sign that says the Dorset Eskimo Site, 82 kilometres. That is how much enthusiasm there is for it but it is really something. Historical people will tell you what it is all about and all that is going into it is a boardwalk. The carvings are on the rocks and it is a beautiful thing to see. I don't know if the minister saw it himself yet but there is a boardwalk going in there that is rotted and falling apart. There is nothing there to tell you what is in there or any information about it but their little girl fell down through the boardwalk going in and they had to bring her to the hospital.

The people from Ontario were saying to me basically: This is beautiful, you know you should have this improved. Now I know the minister has only taken over this portfolio recently but it is something that I brought up to the previous minister and I tell you it is something that I know has been brought to the attention of your department and I hope that there are some plans in the near future. I know somebody has been down there recently and did some study on it but I would just like to hear your comments on it and see what you -

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the member raising the issue because we both discussed it as well with some representatives of the area at the Chamber of Commerce meeting in Baie Verte, that issue came up for discussion. The council as well has been in my office making representation about the same issue and it is one of the areas that we had hoped we might have some success in addressing and correcting this year. It is a prime example of an area where - because of the location of the site and so on - it is not directly inside a municipal boundary so the municipality does not have jurisdiction over the land and so on and the government cannot give funding to a town to do what it wants to do with the site because it is out on Crown land. It is not directly on the highway system because myself and the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation have been looking at trying to use some maintenance money from the highway system to do up trails and boardwalks and so on into these very important historic and archaeological sites.

Then in our own department we have never, ever had really - outside of the park system - any capital funding. And by the Financial Administration Act when we have the money like the million dollars here, we are really only entitled and permitted to spend that on park lands which are declared under the Provincial Parks Act. The Dorset Site has never been declared under the Provincial Parks Act and there are a number of others like that. I am sure the debate was held long before I got involved in government as to whether we would declare it a provincial park and therefore be able to spend the money or not. In some instances, when we looked at our streamlining that we announced awhile ago, some of those decisions were made to declare an area such as that a park so that you could hopefully spend some money on it but then you never ever got enough money to do all the parks.

So it is one of those things where people in the area had put some work into it some time ago, recognizing from their own experience the great value of it. It has potential as a tourism site, as an archaeologically significant site, as a study site because there are all kinds of people who have expressed interest in it, that know much more about it then we do as local and native Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. They study this particular topic and they know of this as having great significance. They come here to see it and they are very disappointed by the fact that it is not highlighted or accentuated in some greater way and we have not yet found the right bureaucratic mechanism to assist the people in the local community areas to further develop the site.

They were even talking to us, Mr. Chairman, about the fact that there isn't even really an appropriate pull-off from the highway. You almost have to park on the shoulder of the road and take your chances. There is not even an area where you could even - like they do sometimes for snow clearing - just have a little extra large space on the side of the road where people could at least get completely off the road. This is a very significant site.

As a matter of fact, you talk about the whole Dorset Trail going down the Baie Verte Peninsula, named because of this presence, and that is all the significance that we attach to it. So it is quite clear, as the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay says, that somewhere along the line we have to find a mechanism. We were hoping this year to have, for the first time, a small allocation in our budget for capital works related to things other than the parks. Because again of the pressures of financing and funding, I guess it wasn't the prime time to be looking for a brand new allocation that has never been in the budget.

MR. SHELLEY: Can it come under historic sites, though, under heritage?

MR. GRIMES: Again, there are rules and regulations that Ms. Batstone, as the ADM for historic sites and so on can tell you, while there is historic significance to it, and cultural significance, unless it goes through certain procedures and so on it would not be designated as a historic site. There are certain steps and procedures that have to happen, so I shake my head like yourself and say -

MR. SHELLEY: I know, but it really bothers me and I wish there was a better answer here tonight. I know you cannot give that, and I appreciate that, but it really bothers me, the bureaucracy of all of this, like we have all admitted, this is a site, it is what the whole Baie Verte highway is named after. You cannot even pull your car up on the side of the road; there is a bloody, wooden boardwalk. It just doesn't pay not to have an answer to that. I hope you are going to keep searching, and I hope that we can hear something in the near future on it, because it is really starting to bother people down there that it has been shoved to the back burned so far and not being dealt with.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Shelley; your time is now up. You may come back to it later on.

MR. GRIMES: Could I add just to that last part? As a result of the meeting in Baie Verte while we were there a little while ago, our archaeologist did go and meet with the local group from Fleur de Lys, and they are still working on it, but we share your frustration and understand it completely.

MR. SHELLEY: Fair enough.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Penney.

MR. PENNEY: I must say, right at the outset, that I am a little bit cautious to do this, having been appointed to the position of legislative advisor to the minister, and having sat in on a lot of the meetings to which he has referred already tonight, some of the questions dealing with non-resident hunting, and dealing with the parks.

Also, I recognize as well that the Chairman would like to have to the point questions and to the point answers. I think, as Speaker Lush used to say, he would like to have the questions crisp so the answers can be crisp, but I do not have that luxury, Mr. Chairman, so I am going to have to be very careful, and I am going to have to ask my questions somewhat generally.

Mr. Minister, one of the most welcome announcements that I have heard relating to parks in some time was the one that you made recently concerning the new provincial parks programs initiatives. I think, of all the phone calls that I got as an MHA and as the legislative advisor to your department, 99 per cent of them were positive. I would like for you to, if you would, please, explain to us the rationale for the closing of the parks that did close, and the rationale for designating the three parks that were so designated as keystone parks.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know why he asked me; maybe I should ask him that question - he knows as much or more about it than I do - but I appreciate the question.

This area is one that the whole parks division staff dealt with, I guess, for a couple of years, and they dealt with it probably, too, the root of that was out of a sense of frustration that we had a very good parks system but we had not been able to come up with the capability financially to even maintain the system at an acceptable level, that with the number of scenic sites, the number of day use parks, and the number of overnight camping facilities that were there, it had expanded through a series of federal-provincial agreements where there was some capital monies made available. Then through the last ten years or so, outside of some funding out of a federal-provincial agreement, the government hadn't been able to put any significant amount of maintenance monies into the system.

In the last two or three years we were operating on the basis of about in the range of $200,000 or so for maintenance for eighty different facilities. Some of them, for those of us from Central Newfoundland, would have been like, say, Pearson's Peak, that had tremendous significance in its time, but by the very nature of the way it was structured, a very small piece of land, but the very structure of it required annual upkeep and maintenance. When you take $200,000 and try to spread it over eighty different facilities you don't do anything. It got to the point where they were hardly painting the picnic tables in the parks.

They looked at it and the opportunities were either to try and get tremendous new infusions of money, or to look at where it was the users in the system had really congregated over the last twenty-five or thirty years or so of park usage. Where have their priorities gone, what were they expecting of the parks, which parks did they want to use regularly, and how could we maintain them on a limited budget. It was decided that some of them, because they had developed very low usage patterns over the last two years, that they may have been well-used ten years ago but for some reason the travel patterns and the visitation patterns were such that it was clear that people, resident and non-resident, weren't going there any more. They were hardly being used.

That was one of the criteria that was looked at. Another one was, were there other opportunities adjacent to the provincial park? If you stopped operating this one would that mean that people in the area had nowhere to go for that experience, or could they go some place else, either to a private park in the area or to a federal park, to a national park in the area. If there were other parks in the region then it was decided that we didn't need to be committing to operating our park if similar opportunities were available, either privately or through the national park system.

The other thing was that the usage patterns and expectations had significantly changed. The parks act had talked about really combining a park with a reserve, that parks were reserves that you were allowed in. But it was really tried to be kept as a bit of a reserve, as close to nature as possible. Do as little as possible in there except eat, sleep, walk around, maybe have a fire when the index was low enough, maybe swim, maybe launch a boat, but really don't do much else in there. The pattern desires again for people and usage desires were clear. They wanted the park to be more of an interactive place. They wanted to do some more things. Never mind preserving nature, they wanted to clear some land and have a playground for the children.

The whole thrust of it had changed significantly. Taking that into consideration it was decided that what we really should do is try to meet the needs of the travelling public as they are today instead of how they might have been when the park system started in the late 1950s and in the 1960s; and to try to make sure that we concentrated our efforts in a smaller number so that we could do a better job there than really spreading ourselves too thinly as we have done in the last several years, and not really being able to deliver adequate levels of maintenance and/or service or facilities. We were really risking having our parks run into a state of disrepair and downgrading by virtue of the fact that we weren't able to generate through revenues coming in and through monies put in directly by the government from general revenues enough monies to maintain the parks even at their current levels.

The keystone parks, Mr. Chairman, it was determined that what we have in the Province is an opportunity in three geographic regions on the Island - because the parks system is not really well developed in Labrador at this point in time. We have an opportunity to have parks, because of the new usage patterns that people have explained to us and described to us in recent years, to have a park become a sole destination vacation site for people within the Province and for visitors coming here.

The notion is that if we take three of them - one in the east, one in central and one in the west - that we might be able to develop the facilities in them such that we can encourage Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to come from one part of the Island in particular and spend a good chunk of their summer vacation, through the summer and early fall, in a keystone park in particular so that they can go from there to visit another whole region of the Island. It fit in very well with our whole theme of Ours To Discover, that we are trying to encourage Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to think more carefully about exploring their own Province as a tourism destination rather than thinking like I did growing up that you didn't have a holiday unless you went to the mainland.

The thinking again was clear that if you develop these three parks you can encourage someone from the Northern Peninsula, for example, to leave and spend a week or ten days at Notre Dame and feel like they had a great place to have a holiday on the Island. They could branch out on day trips if they want from Notre Dame and see all of the northeastern and central section of Newfoundland and Labrador, but use Notre Dame as a home base. That was a lot of thinking that went into the keystone park concept.

MR. PENNEY: You mention Notre Dame. That one just happens to be in my district. What kind of changes can we expect to see in those three keystone parks? Take Notre Dame for an example. We had a cross-country ski trail put in there during the 1990 winter games. It is a national standard ski trail and it has been attracting visitors to the park all winter long. It is a fantastic facility. What changes can we expect to see in that park as a result of this announcement that it is now one of the three keystone parks?

MR. GRIMES: That is a large part of the discussion I will have with the division staff. It is clear that already the preliminary estimates in Notre Dame are that because of its designation as a keystone park and because of the increased visitation numbers in the last few years, the staff there have identified that they really do in that park need some additional campsite capacity. I think the staff has already pointed out an area there. If we build a small walk bridge or a slight bridge over to a little island that you can actually see from the Trans-Canada that there is a perfect site over there to put in another thirty or forty sites in that park that would really enhance the park greatly.

There is also the idea that in a certain part of the park - because they do have some services now above and beyond a lot of the others - that they will be able to look at extending some electrical service and improving the roads within that park as well. Because one other view that has been expressed regularly is that with the change in the kinds of park vehicles and the type of facilities that people bring with them, particularly the recreational vehicles, the RVs that they use now rather than tents and small camper trailers, that in a lot of parks like Notre Dame that were cut out and carved out some twenty years ago many of the existing campsites aren't quite big enough. We either need new campsites or we actually need to make the existing ones a bit bigger for people to get these big Winnebagos and stuff into the lots. Because they were designed when about the biggest thing in Newfoundland was a pup tent. They got a little bit bigger, and you could actually get one of those little camper trailers I used to have with the canvas top on it. You pushed a little button and it all popped up and you kicked something in the middle of the night and it all fell down and that kind of stuff. Sometimes not on plan and on target, but always a great bit of fun.

The general mode now is that the types of recreational equipment that people are bringing into these parks might require some enlargement and enhancement even of the existing campsites to make it possible for them to get more of these recreational vehicles into the prime sites that are there now, as well as a few new sites in some of the keystone parks in particular.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Penney, your time is now up.

We have coffee available, but just to keep the proceedings moving, I would suggest, rather than break, if it's okay, I say to the minister, maybe if you want to take a minute to go back and pick up a coffee, and the others can drift back. We will take five minutes for you and your staff to pick up a coffee and the rest of us will grab a coffee at our convenience because Mr. Woodford is anxious to be out of here. He has another commitment and I am sure all of us would appreciate getting away a bit earlier rather than later. Let us just take five minutes and then get right back, just grab the coffee, get back to the table, and we will start again.

MR. GRIMES: And I will try to shorten my answers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. Maybe a coffee will help you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: I would like to ask a few questions of the minister and his officials. I am going to start here, 2.2.04 under the John Cabot 500 Anniversary Celebrations, $3.8 million last year. Now, I have a short question which will need a long answer. First of all, I would like to ask about the accountability of the John Cabot committee. Would you first explain their accountability procedure?

MR. GRIMES: Basically, as a corporation designed and set up under a separate piece of legislation that was approved in the House of Assembly, I guess, two years ago now, the corporation having been formed and active for just over a full year, they are bound to have an annual audit statement and so on that shows a full appropriate reviewed accounting of their expenditures with all the normal accounting practices applied to that. As well, any time they are asked, by either the Federal or Provincial Government, to provide information about their expenditures, they are only too pleased to do so because of the fact they realize that while they are a separate autonomous corporation designed primarily so that they could attract some other revenues and funds from corporate sponsorships and so on, that would not be possible if they were a government agency, that they do respect their primary funders and do provide information regularly as asked and required on any of their expenditure issues from salaries, benefits, travel, meeting costs, where they are going and why they are doing it and so on.

They regularly report to the Provincial Government by virtue of the fact that at this point in time our deputy minister sits as a full-fledged member of the board of directors and he also has regular meetings. I believe it is every second week that Mr. Granter, as the Deputy, meets with the Chief Executive Officer and/or the Chair of the Board for the Cabot 500 Corporation, so that I, as the minister, am regularly informed as to all of their plans, what they are doing, what they are hoping to accomplish, and whether they feel comfortable about reaching their goals and objectives at any one point in time, and they provide the same type of information to any representative of the Federal Government to which they also answer because they have been receiving two thirds of their funding from the federal public treasury.

We have been very pleased with the co-operative approach they have taken with us since I have been there as the minister, because I, as the minister - and the executive that you see here, the senior executive of this department, are all new to these positions and while we are not totally unaware, neither are we totally aware of what the relationships or the reporting mechanisms were before that time. But we have been quite pleased with the very forward, outright, frank, direct approach they have taken with us and their willingness to provide us with information and to also provide an avenue for us to pass along suggestions and recommendations to them, because we are not, and do not feel we should be, in a position to direct the activities of the Cabot Corporation.

We put the Board in place, representative of outstanding individuals from all over Newfoundland and Labrador, who look at the aims and objectives and how to accomplish them and they put in place a very fine staff who work regularly with the executive committee of the chair, vice-chair, the chief executive officer and one other board member and they have been working very hard.

One of their biggest problems - actually, they have some terrific plans in place, they are ready to go very quickly into the phase now of promoting and advertising the kinds of things that are already determined definitely to happen in 1997 and they have some contracts tentatively signed - the problem is, as you see in our estimates, that so far the only thing they can rely on one hundred per cent is our share of the money and they need the rest of it before they can dot the I's, cross the T's and actually sign the legal contracts that will allow them to go out into the market place and tell the world and tell everybody in Newfoundland and Labrador what exactly it is that is on the agenda at this point for 1997 and how they plan to promote and advertise within the next year-and-a-half or so to make it a real success.

MR. MANNING: This information you say, well, any information you want, or your department wants, I should say, is readily made available. Is this information on the expenditures available to the general public?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, the audited statements they have are available and I think all of us involved in the Committee would be aware of them, would recognize some of the public media attention that had come to bear on this issue some time ago. I think the one particular part of the media were asking some questions about the details of some travel of either the chief executive officer or some members of the Board, and the Chair of the Board took the view that because these people were volunteers and so on, that they did not think it was fair to have to provide the same kind of detail of their travel on behalf of the people as would be expected for any of us as members of the House of Assembly; that if some member of the public asked where the Chair of this Committee, or myself as minister, or yourself as MHA, has gone in the last month, then we either table it in the House or make it public and show our expense claims and so on and would not hesitate to do that because we understand those are the rules under which we went and got elected. We spend the public's money and that is the view that all of us, I think, take quite readily without hesitation. They felt that they really should not have to be exposed to that kind of scrutiny, unless somebody really thought there was some reason to suggest that they were misspending public funds; then, by all means, one or both of the ministers, provincially or federally, would have somehow become aware of that, would have looked in to it and would have done an investigation and would make it public. But other than that, it wasn't appropriate, in their view, for a member of the media to be able to call up any member of the Board and ask, Did you travel to the board meeting last week going from Corner Brook to St. John's, and if so, show me your airline ticket and show me your hotel bill,' and those kinds of things that in their audited statement, their audited information, in the regular information that they provide, those kinds of things are there and nobody from our representative on the board through to the deputy minister, to myself as the minister, and the federal reps, had ever had any reason to even suspect or think that there was anything other than bona fide expenditure of funds on business on behalf of the corporation, so there has not really been an issue with it other than the questions that were raised by a member of the media and the fact that the Chair took exception to disclosing information on the same basis as we as elected public officials would disclose it.

MR. MANNING: Whether the minister spends the dollars or the Cabot 500 Corporation spends it, we are talking public funds. I take exception to the Chair's exception now.

Earlier you mentioned a couple of trips that members of the Committee have travelled on. Again, I don't know if you can answer those questions, but on a recent trip to Gaeta - there are several trips to Gaeta, you are going to talk two or three, whatever the case may be - how many members of the Committee travelled on those trips? Can you tell me that?

MR. GRIMES: I could thumb through some of the information I have here and let you know that with respect to Gaeta, the Chairman of the Board was in Gaeta. For some reason, because I asked the question myself, he must have found a way to have most of his travel expense paid for himself because for the amount he claimed for travel I don't think you would get to Deer Lake. So I don't know what mechanism they used, but for a very minimal amount of money, the chairman travelled to Gaeta, and that was in a session and a meeting where the Cabot 500 Committee in Gaeta had offered an invitation to the group in Newfoundland to come, and forged these ties that I addressed earlier in the committee meeting about making sure that they could do some things that were mutually beneficial.

In that particular meeting we had representation as well. The City of St. John's sent a representative to the meeting in Gaeta in the sense that the mayor went. I am not totally sure at this point in time, and maybe the deputy might be able to help me out, as to whether the city paid for the mayor's travel to Gaeta or whether the corporation paid for it, but the mayor did travel. I believe, if my recollection is correct as well, the Mayor of Bonavista was offered an opportunity as well to travel to that joint meeting in Gaeta because we wanted to forge the ties very strongly between Bonavista as being a key site in this 500 Anniversary celebration, and that it is not only a capital city celebration but a whole provincial celebration for the year, and I am pretty certain in the case of Bonavista, that the mayor's travel expenses were borne by the corporation because the municipality, I don't think, had the wherewithal to enable the mayor to travel. We felt it was very important for the mayor to be there at that meeting, and I believe they had even checked with me and asked me what I though of it. It was their decision to make, but I told them I thought it would be an oversight if we did not find some mechanism or other to allow the Mayor of Bonavista to be part of that delegation. Maybe, Mr. Deputy, you might be able to let us know the rest of the details in terms of Mr. Manning's question.

MR. GRANTER: I really can't say for certain whether the expenses for the Mayor of St. John's was covered by Cabot or not. I do know that you are right on with regard to the travel expenses for the Mayor of Bonavista.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Manning, your time has elapsed.

I am going now to Mr. Woodford.

MR. WOODFORD: I just have a couple of short questions and then I am going to leave, Mr. Chairman. On the Arts and Culture Centres, Minister - I think it is 3.1.01. I notice there are no big changes there with regard to the head or the subheads. Are there any plans in your department this year to put some of those centres over to the municipalities or are there are any agreements close? I know that Stephenville has been talking, fairly close talking, and Corner Brook, with regard to taking over those Arts and Culture Centres. Are there any agreements close on those?

MR. GRIMES: Whether we are close or not, I guess, is always a very sort of subjective guess. We are in pretty detailed discussions with Stephenville. We decided to take the approach that we would try to finish an arrangement satisfactory to both the government and to the town of Stephenville with respect to that Arts and Culture Centre before we even talked to any of the five other Centres, because we just didn't have the staff available to be running six sets of negotiations at one time. It is very time-consuming with a lot of detail involving our financial operations, our Assistant Deputy Minister, some of the other Cultural division staff, some other departments of government such as Treasury Board with respect to union contracts, and those types of different implications.

The reason the numbers basically show us, at the status quo, I guess is the best way to look at it, is that the proposal we put to Stephenville, which we are willing to offer to the other five municipalities following that, is that we would like to pass over administrative control of the Centres to some kind of a board operation that is locally based so that they can decide how to run the Centre and what to show in it, with us reserving the right to buy some time for some provincial cultural priorities that we would like to stage in those Centres. If they could indicate to us that we could try to work towards a 30 per cent reduction in the government's financial contribution to the Centre over a three-year period we would be pleased to try to finalize an agreement with those general parameters. That is the kind of thing we are trying to finalize in Stephenville.

That being the case, in all likelihood, because the 30 per cent reduction would be over three years, it is not likely that any more than 5 per cent or 10 per cent of that reduction would occur in any one Centre in the first year. Because they would need some time to implement some changes, see how much further they can go a second year, and then get to reduction in a third year.

We felt, based on the experience in Stephenville, which has now been going on for a couple of months, I guess, since February 10 in this particular discussion. It looks like it might take us three or four months at a time to negotiate one of these arrangements if we can, therefore we would not get any more than two or three done in a year. So any reductions that would occur would be minimal in this year. If we have a couple of agreements in place by the end of this fiscal year you should expect to see some reduction reflected in next years operating numbers with respect to arts and culture centres. Treasury Board and the rest of Cabinet agree with us that we really should reflect current year numbers for another year even while we are trying to very much pursue the initiative and the action item in the Strategic Economic Plan which is to pass over administrative and functional control of these centres to operational boards, management boards in the local area. So that is still the objective.

We will know, I expect, in the next five or six weeks if we are going to be successful in Stephenville. We have had some ongoing dialogue with them. The ADM, Ms. Batstone and Rick are back in the middle of some discussion again now. We have had some recent position statements passed back and forth as to: We would like to try this and we would like to try that. They are being analyzed again now as to whether or not there is a real prospect to finalize an arrangement in Stephenville. So that is where we are and the numbers here reflect that we really expect to have to spend the same amount of money in the centres this year as last year. If we come to an agreement then we should see the revised numbers actually a little bit lower then this at the end of the year but not a great deal.

MR. WOODFORD: 2.3.03, Marble Mountain: I have to ask at least one question on Marble Mountain anyway. The travel generators, the $5 million versus $300,000 for this year, could you give me an explanation of that and why the difference? I noticed the completion of the base lodge and all of that occurred this year. Would that be where the significant numbers came from?

MR. GRIMES: I don't know if I have told you yet, these are my instructions, with respect to Marble Mountain, when I was offered this new portfolio. The Premier was aware of my love of golf - and you can recall an incident in the House where I was accused of having a vehicle with golf clubs parked at the golf club and some keys changed hands and those kinds of things but when I was offered this job he said: Well I understand you like golf, now as the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation you have governmental responsibility for Marble Mountain... and he said: it is going to be kind of difficult for a minister to really speak in the proper glowing terms about Marble Mountain if you have never been there and don't know how to ski. So he said: I would like for you to go and learn how to ski.

Of course when I was in Baie Verte with Mr. Shelley a while ago, as the MHA at the Chamber, they gave me the opportunity to try out Copper Creek, which is a great new facility as well, I almost killed myself but other then that it was alright. So as a novice skier and trundling around Copper Creek and Marble Mountain and those kinds of things - but the issue here is, as you point out, the monies showing in the budget reflect the federal/provincial money and you can see the federal revenues again basically of a 70/30 arrangement I believe Mr. Deputy, that we had. With respect to the monies last year, that money shows the development of the base lodge, a tremendous addition to the facility there. I was there for the opening and have been there on a couple of occasions since, even this past weekend for the joint council meeting, for the Humber joint councils. They held their meeting actually in the meeting room in the base of the lodge while it was in full swing, with full skiing going ahead, people using the whole of the second floor, the whole of the lounge area, everything in full operation and a full business meeting proceeding in a meeting room in the basement at the same time which shows the flexibility of that particular establishment.

The number this year, the $300,000 again, shows some operating monies - well, actually this is the capital head, but there are some operating monies elsewhere, there are some capital monies that are there to keep the Budget line alive because just like with the Cabot 500 Corporation we are very confident that we will have again more capital monies than this to spend on Marble Mountain this year because the master plan requires some further improvements to the actual hill itself, to the ski facility, to make sure that it is available in the best possible form for 1997 because there is a major ski event already planned for 1997 at Marble Mountain and also for 1999 to host the Canada Winter Games for all of the Alpine skiing events that will be held there.

There is still some work that has to be done and because the federal/provincial agreement was not finalized at the time of the writing of the Budget we were not able to put the full amount that is there. It looks like it will probably approximate again what happened last year, that there probably will be another $5 or $6 million spent at Marble Mountain this year for new ski lifts, some snow-making equipment, and some more contouring of the hill to prevent erosion, runoff and so on, and to keep the hill in the best possible shape.

That looks like it will be the last of the public contribution to the hill because we are already looking at talking to private sector interests who will build the hotel at the base of the mountain, build a golf course across the river so it can become a year-round resort. Right now Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation as an agent of Marble Mountain Development Corporation are preselling condominiums for the base as well. They have expressions of interest and deposits for somewhere in the range of twenty or so already from some people who want to buy into, and are willing to have constructed and built at the base of the hill.

The $300,000 the deputy informed me is monies that were carried over from the expenditure of last year in work that has to be done and most of that is relating to landscaping right at the base that did not get finished along the base and the base lodge before this season. They finished the lodge which was opened February 10 so they have a bit of money left there which is still in the Budget. We are pretty confident, Mr. Chairman, that we will be adding to that Budget line from $5 to $6 million before the year is over, to really finish the job on that ski facility and then continue on with the private sector interests that are ready to develop the rest of that year-round resort.

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Minister, I think there was someone from your department, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, doing a study on golf courses around the Province. Is that study finished, and if it is could you elaborate on the findings? Can you let us know now?

MR. GRIMES: The study is finished. Actually, we had a meeting arranged for St. Patrick's Day and, I guess, the prime consultant on the issue had been vacationing just before that in Mexico and got struck with some kind of a virus and was taken seriously ill and it slowed down the writing of it. The summation of the presentations and the consultations around the Province have been done but they have not had a chance to finalize their recommendations and their proposals to us. Apparently he is now back in harness back in working form and we are expecting that report to be available to the government fairly soon.

As soon as we get it we will make a public release of it because there are a number of interests, as you would know, in your own district. Also, our friends on the Baie Verte, a year or two down the road, have some long-range plans and hope for an addition to the ski hill at Copper Creek for development, and there are a lot of expressions of interest about the possibilities for golf in the Province. We are waiting to hear the view of this consultant group as to whether or not they agree.

I am hoping actually they are going to contradict me as the minister because I have been saying publicly that I do not believe anybody is going to leave any other part of the world and say: I must go to Newfoundland and Labrador to golf. But I firmly believe that when they come here for whatever the other reason is, that the golfers like to golf as part of the experience. I don't think they are going to say: I must go to Newfoundland and Labrador to golf.

My fondest wish would be that the consultant would write a report saying that if we did it right that is exactly what could happen. That maybe we could have some courses strategically located, we could further develop some of the current facilities, and we could actually do like Prince Edward Island is doing now. They have a very fine promotion where they are packaging their golf product: Come and tour Prince Edward Island to golf. They don't mention beaches, they don't mention farm vacations, they don't mention deep-sea fishing. They say: Come and golf. Maybe the consultants will surprise me. Being a little bit of an avid golfer myself I'm anxious to see what they say.

MR. WOODFORD: I know in our area this past summer it was unreal what that golf course - and it is the first summer it was open - did to the tourism industry in that area. It is unreal. The interest, local interest and outside, you know.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: I don't golf myself. Anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say thank you to the minister and his staff.

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

The Chair recognizes Mr. Andersen.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Minister, the first question I have is 2.2.06, Labrador Interpretation Centre. I suppose the very first question is, why would it be under tourism instead of either under Culture or provincial museums? My understanding first of all of an interpretation centre is that it is basically a museum, other than the fact that it doesn't have a controlled atmosphere like a proper museum does. It has containers that have proper controlled temperatures in them to keep artefacts.

I'm not so curious about what the Labrador Interpretation Centre is going to cost, but I'm very curious as to where it is going to be. I know that last year it was announced that the Interpretation Centre would go to North West River, Labrador. When you speak of culture, heritage, historical issues, North West River has to be one of the newest communities in the whole of Labrador, not very much older than Labrador City or Wabush. For me there is no great historical reason for putting any kind of historically related stuff into a community like that. The argument I'm getting from the District of Torngat Mountains is that if the Interpretation Centre does go to North West River all the artefacts that belong to the old communities - you take Hopedale, Rigolet, Nain, three of the older communities on the whole Coast of Labrador - all of their artefacts would be moved to this location.

One of the things I've been learning as I go along is that there is more archaeological logical history written about the Inuit of Labrador in Washington D.C. than there is anywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador about the Labrador Inuit, and I think, if we are going to promote this culture as part of our heritage, then I think it is only fair that we look at bringing them to our own back yard before we talk about and promote as a tourism attraction, cultures of our own people without their knowledge.

MR. GRIMES: Thanks for the question. I can let you know on both parts of it that I hadn't really considered either of them before because of the fact that the Labrador Interpretation Centre is one of the last facilities, as I understand it, to be built under the comprehensive agreement that has been placed for a while now - actually, the tenders close in a week or ten days, April 12, I think, or somewhere in that range; that this had been in planning, had been discussed for some time, and in the agreement, the Canada-Newfoundland Comprehensive Labrador Subsidiary Agreement, that they had earmarked a number of things to be funded under that agreement over the four or five years it was in place. It is now about to expire, I think, in this year.

All of those particular centres - if it weren't a designated current historic site or if it weren't actually classified as a museum, which this one is not, it is referred to as an interpretation centre - all of them were categorized, and for budget purposes, were put into the Tourism Planning part of the budget; that is where the lighthouse was done and those types of things, the other developments that were done. That is just where the committee, federal-provincial, jointly agreed that in both the federal Budget Estimates and provincial, they would be placed there and that would seem to be the most appropriate heading under which to house them. If it was intended to be a museum in the true sense it would have been listed as a museum, it would have been done under the historic agreements or under the museum - the mantle-type of heading would have been voted someplace else. That is the background of it as I understand it.

The location as well - the discussion of the location had taken place some time ago. When I arrived in the department, the only question was, were we finished with our planning jointly between the representatives from Labrador, the Provincial Committee and the Federal Provincial Management Committee and were we about ready to go ahead and plan now for the actual building of it. The site location and so on wasn't even anything that was ever brought to my attention; that had been determined, probably back as early as when they talked about building the centre - that they would build the centre and build it in North West River. And the interpretation centres as they are done elsewhere, I think, again, had been viewed more as visitor centres than visitor information centres with an emphasis on making sure that you have displays in them that will interpret the area in which they are built. So you wouldn't be again, as much as what you were describing, looking at genuine artifacts and the museum-type of presentation, but there will be an interior interpretation facility within this building that will try to interpret for the people, the customs, history and lifestyle of Labrador generally and I don't know if anyone had raised the view on behalf of the different peoples before as you have about the fact that, in one of the newest communities in Labrador you are going to build the centre that is supposed to depict the traditional historic lifestyle and development of Labrador. But the first discussion I have heard of it is here this evening, and I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't know if we are at the stage - we will have some Minutes of this meeting made available to our staff, and note the fact that this issue has been raised by yourself.

I don't know if we are in a position, really, to do anything effectively about either the location or even further development or consideration of what it is that is actually going to be housed inside this Labrador Interpretation Centre. Maybe it is a prime opportunity for you, yourself, as a Labrador MHA for the Torngat Mountain area to visit with our staff and to get the full details of exactly what they plan to do so maybe you might have better comfort level for what - they will be able to explain to you much better than I what led to the decision in terms of location.

I think the idea of it being in this budget head rather than with museums or historic resources is because that is where all of the interpretation centres that we did in Labrador ended up, as well as the ones - the ones that we did on the Island ended up as Tourism Planning budget items, rather than that, unless they were clearly identified as restorations of historic sites or actual construction of a museum.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: The reason I brought up North West River is that it never really hit me until we started going through this, the significance of the Labrador Interpretation Centre, which the MP for Labrador, Bill Rompkey, announced last year would go into North West River. What happened since then has become a concern, because a small community like Rigolet has a lot of historical background with respect to World War II. It used to be like, I suppose, a control centre for the upper Lake Melville - Goose airfield thing, and submarine watch from Rigolet itself, and some of that stuff apparently is going to be moved to the Interpretation Centre if it goes ahead in North West River.

Also, there are small interpretation centres in Hopedale and Nain which - whoever is doing this presumes that these interpreted artifacts would be moved to the major Interpretation Centre in Labrador, which again, according to Mr. Rompkey, is going to be in North West River. Anyway, that is that one.

Now, with respect to historic sites, we do have two national historic sites in my district, the Hebron church and the Hopedale Moravian church buildings. I believe both of those buildings are the oldest wooden structures in Eastern Canada. Both the Hopedale Museum Committee which is trying to deal with the church buildings in Hopedale, as well as Torngasok, which is the Labrador Inuit Cultural Institute, if you will, have been looking for support to restore those buildings. They were declared national historic sites about five or six years ago and, to date, neither the Federal Government nor the Provincial Government have been willing to put any money into restoration of those buildings, even though they've been declared national historic sites.

Whether or not your department has any funding with respect to those sites, I think your department and your officials should be pushing to help ensure that those national historic sites are restored properly and kept as tourism attractions. Because if you see the Hopedale Museum, it is a very, very impressive place to see, and if there is not something done with it over the next year or two that building is going to fall down - a 300-year-old building, declared a national historic site, and neither government willing to put any resources into it to ensure that it stays up.

MR. GRIMES: I would just like to point out, Mr. Chairman, to the member, that Mr. Hayward informs me, under a heading in Development Agreements, 2.2.02 there is, in fact, under a Grants and Subsidies heading there - while not specific to the ones you mentioned, there is a fund this year, not a big lot of money, but a fund of $50,000 available under the comprehensive Labrador agreement again for stabilization of historic buildings, and the federal/provincial committee, I guess, upon representation, will not do much restoration work, but if there is any real difficulty, and if either of the buildings that you mentioned is in danger of having some part fall into serious disrepair where it needs to be stabilized for the time being, because you are right, neither one, as I understand it, has been identified for major restorative work underneath the agreement at this point in time.

Maybe the deputy or the ADM can remind me of what the plans and/or prospects are of a further agreement, because I know generally the idea of sector specific agreements in the future are under some question between ourselves and the Federal Government as to whether or not we would be able to have another comprehensive Labrador agreement for historic sites and for tourism development and so on. I am not sure of the details and prospects of that yet - they might want to inform you of that - but at least if you have a concern, as you say, about the Hebron Church or the Hopedale Moravian Church, and if it is to the point where there is some danger of collapse of part of the structure, then I think it should be identified and there is a stabilization fund where some monies can be put in to make sure that any facility like that doesn't fall into a state of disrepair to the point of losing some of the characteristics that it has that have caused it to be already designated as a national historic site.

I am, again, sorry I can't help you more in terms of giving you the background of why it was that certain new facilities and some other facilities like the lighthouse in L'Anse-Amour were designated for significant restoration work, whereas something like the church facilities that you mentioned as historic sites weren't designated for any major restoration work under a similar agreement and a similar pot of money. But those decisions (inaudible) when this agreement was negotiated some years ago. Again, if either of you would like to make a comment about what the likelihood or prospect is of us having a continuing or a renewed agreement where that could be brought forward as an issue, then feel free to let Mr. Andersen know.

MR. GRANTER: I think the prospect of further sector-type agreements with the Federal Government is very limited - I doubt very much that we will have them - but there is some possibility of a more general economic development agreement which may be able to facilitate some projects of this nature.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Andersen, your time has elapsed.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: Already?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is it. As a matter of fact, we gave you an extra two or three minutes since you were so gracious as to (inaudible).

Mr. Shelley.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, I am going to ask you one now, I think, that is pretty commonplace and it connects, I guess, with the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and also the Department of Works, Services and Transportation, and that is signage. Of course, it is ongoing and talked about so much - as a matter of fact, I raised it once in the House this year, and talked about how, when you leave Port aux Basques you see about twenty signs telling you how far St. John's is but you know, for somebody - and I will use my own district as an example and I am sure other members could use theirs as examples.

You know, you leave St. John's and you see nothing for the Baie Verte Peninsula until you are one kilometre away from the peninsula and then you see a sign: Baie Verte Junction - one kilometre; and of course, one of the members opposite said: `No sign and you don't know where Baie Verte is?' I said: `Well, I sure do, and I certainly know where St. John's is, but I didn't need the twenty signs to tell me where St. John's is.' But it is really a ridiculous thing that I have always noticed in this Province, you know, it's crazy, and how it relates to your department, I guess, it is the trails we are going to be talking about and, of course, hopefully we will be improving on it, like the Dorset Trail in Baie Verte, the Viking Trail, the Bonavista Trail and so on. But, I mean, it only makes sense to me if we are going to promote these, and I know there is a lot of tourists, I have spoken to them and asked them about it, as a matter of fact, in the last couple of years to get their opinion, and they say that they tend to wander around a lot on their holiday. They might come to visit a certain part of the Island, but as they drive around in their Winnebago, their trailer and so on, they are looking around as they go, and if they see something enticing, they will go there.

I am going to use my own district as an example, because I am more familiar with it. For example, driving to the Baie Verte Peninsula, you see just one sign: `one kilometre' just before you get there, and then you see a little, brown sign that says: `Dorset Eskimo Site'. Now, who in his right mind as a tourist, will say: `Yes, that must be a wonderful place to go to see.' And the minister knows and I know - and it is the same with your part of the district as with that of the Member for Lewisporte - there is so much in those areas. There are twenty-one beautiful communities down on the Baie Verte Peninsula, where there is salmon-fishing, where there are icebergs to be seen, I mean, there is so much that I could go on and on.

But the point is that we need to give some attention to signage. Once you pass Grand Falls, for example, you see a sign just after Grand Falls: `The Dorset Trail - fifty kilometres' and then maybe, once more before you get there. And I don't think it is too much to ask, when you are going to Bonavista, before you get to that trail, before you even get to the Burin Peninsula Highway, say, fifty kilometres away, to at least give some kind of indication of what is up ahead. Like I told a lady on the Northern Peninsula a while ago - she had a sign up for a donut shop and that was 100 feet away: `New Donut Shop', a little bakery up there now, I don't know if you have seen it, 100 feet, and I went past it; I actually backed up when I saw it, went back to tell her: `You should move your sign at least a mile up the road.' Well, it is the same analogy I am using for these trails and I am very serious about it; I really notice it. You know, you see St. John's signage twenty-five times before you get there. I know where St. John's is - but that's not the point - at least somewhere along the way.

So I think something should be worked out between the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, and Tourism, at least when these trails are identified, and if you are going to promote them that you give some kind of decent signage to them. I would like to hear the minister's comments on that particular issue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On that important issue, as the member points out - and I don't believe it was me he referred to, when some member across the House asked: Don't you know where Baie Verte is? You are supposed to know if you are the member,' or something like that; but we wouldn't do that kind of thing.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: The issue, though, is an important and a timely one, too. In our Budget, under the Tourism and Historic Resources Agreement, there is, I think, $200,000 allocated again this year to help us finish the work on and to implement the theme `Touring Routes' that you talked about. There has been a consultation process that has occurred; groups have gone around the Province twice now, I think, to look at how to incorporate and integrate proper signage for tourism destinations that people find on these different trails, on these different Theme Routes. As a matter of fact, the issue that you raised in the Legislature, the fact that St. John's would appear numerous times on the signs travelling Central and East - we share the experience in driving to Central and West that you will find dozens of times that Gander is coming up and that Grand Falls - Windsor is coming up, and once you have passed the Baie Verte turn-off, before Corner Brook, you are reminded dozens of times that Port aux Basques is further ahead. But there is no reference to Baie Verte. We raised the issue actually, the Deputy Minister and myself, because you had raised it, in a meeting with the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

The other example that I used as well to support what the member is saying, Mr. Chairman, was going to Trinity. Because I think everybody here would understand with the Trinity Pageant and so on that Trinity has become -

WITNESS: (Inaudible) that is not a good example.

MR. GRIMES: - quite a tourist destination in the last couple of years. In a community with less than 300 livyers, they attract 400 and 500 visitors a day. And when you turn off to go down the Discovery Trail, you do, I think, see a sign that says `Trinity' at the highway, and you don't see one again. Everybody would now know in tourist travel that the main tourist attraction down there recently has been Trinity. After you leave to go to Trinity there are signs saying Lethbridge so far, Catalina so far, Port Union so far, and Bonavista so far. The last time the deputy minister and I travelled, once we got there I said: I was thinking about stopping - I thought two or three times that I had missed it. Trinity wasn't mentioned. I wasn't even sure I was on the right road.

The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation chided me and reminded me that if I'm going to be a real tourist I should have a map in my car. I was a Newfoundlander myself. I didn't think I needed a map to find Trinity, but I wasn't quite sure once I got three parts of the way down the road and hadn't seen a single reminder on the signs about the major attraction in the area.

Your point is well taken. The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation this year as well though recognizes that. We did meet with him on a couple of occasions. He went as far as actually having $1.5 million allocated, I think, in the Works, Services and Transportation budget this year for increased signage efforts on the highway to replace and repair some signs that got damaged through the winter in snow clearing, and also, to construct new signs particularly relating to our themed touring routes. I think it is probably a prime opportunity for yourself, as the member - because I know I have made the representation once based on your example of the Dorset Trail and the Baie Verte Peninsula, because your example is very well taken. We talked about it from a tourism point of view that these trails in particular, there should be some indicators as you travel east to west that you are going in the right direction or at least approaching these trails.

Ourselves as locals trying to do the Ours To Discover, sometimes we are a bit confident and cocky, I suppose, and don't carry the map. Maybe we need reminders that we are getting close to the trail moreso than our out-of-Province visitors who are probably better equipped and have a map with them and might know even better than I do that I'm getting to such-and-such a trail if it is clearly marked on the map. But it is a good point. There is money this year to try to deal with the issue generally. I know your very deep concern for the Baie Verte Peninsula and for the Dorset Trail.

I think it is a perfect opportunity to make the pitch again to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to ask whether or not some of his $1.5 million might be spent to put up at least one sign somewhere between St. John's and Gander even, or even just after Gander, or something like that; that Baie Verte isn't that far away, or that the Baie Verte turn-off isn't and the trail isn't. Maybe the same type of information might be available travelling west to east somewhere west of the turn-off, other than a kilometre or so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you, Mr. Shelley, your time has elapsed.

Mr. Andersen, you have one other question?

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: I had several other questions but I will try to - with respect to tourism and sport fishing and sport hunting, I believe that both the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation as well as the Department of Natural Resources should probably be more aggressive about non-resident licences.

The reason I bring that up is that I happened to work as a wildlife officer from 1979-1984, and during those years I know that Government of Quebec revenues, on non-resident moose licences alone, were $60 million a year, and from 1979-1984 a non-resident moose licence in Quebec was $120. At that time, in Newfoundland, a non-resident big game licence was something like $25. I think, with the right kind of promotion, our government could certainly greatly increase revenues on the licences alone if we were more aggressive about it.

With respect to trade shows, I would suggest, when we are going to have trade shows, or attend trade shows, that we look at involving private entrepreneurs. The reason I say that is, I went to an international trade show on fish products in Germany about four years ago and there were federal and provincial fisheries bureaucrats there, but I am very cynical, first of all, about bureaucracies. Secondly, sometimes bureaucrats will not do as good a `sell' job as a private entrepreneur will, and certainly in this case, that is what was happening, because the bureaucrats who were there were more interested in going sightseeing than trying to sell the product from our Province, which in this case, was Atlantic salmon and char.

With respect to tourism development, I think the more we try to involve the private entrepreneur in promoting what product we have in Newfoundland and Labrador in the way of fish and wildlife, the better opportunity we will have in creating a better tourism climate, if you will. I think another example that should be looked at is the black bear situation in Labrador. Black bears have become a problem for the George River caribou herd because they are over-populating the Northern Labrador area. They are killing newborn calves in springtime, and that has not been seen for a long time. But in the last couple of years there are so many black bears that they are out there eating newborn caribou, and we should do something. And I think one of the ways of promoting that would be to increase big game hunting in tourism in that area.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make a few comments in response.

There are two or three good points. Being more aggressive, I guess, can be done in a couple of ways. One is to increase the number of licences. You mentioned that we have an opportunity with respect to the black bear in Labrador that both myself and, I am sure, Mr. Penney, will pass along to our officials to consider because while there are some limits on moose, as I mentioned earlier, we think there are some opportunities with caribou this year in the allocations with respect to the George River herd. I think there were additional allocations given in Labrador for caribou above and beyond years before, but we had not really looked, I don't think, in much detail at the possibilities of increasing black bear. There seems to be quite a demand for a black bear hunt in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we will pass that along so they can investigate the possibility of looking at increasing the quotas for non-residents with respect to black bear, particularly if, as you described, they are creating a problem for the caribou.

The increased numbers generally with respect to the moose and caribou on the Island we are looking at, because we are trying to complete the count that is being done of the herds so we can have more definitive information as to whether or not we can increase the total number of moose and caribou available, period. That hasn't been a problem with the size of the caribou herd in Labrador but there are some questions on the Island with respect to both the moose and the caribou that we are trying to answer with a count that - I think there is some $600,000 being spent this year by the wildlife biologists to try to get a firmer grasp as to how many animals are actually there, and therefore, how many we can make available both to residents and non-residents.

The other thing in being more aggressive and getting more of an economic return, we mentioned to the outfitters at the annual meeting in Deer Lake about the possibility of coming to agreement on some minimum pricing, being a little more aggressive even on our pricing. Because in some of these shows it has become quite evident that while we sell out our hunts we seem to be selling generally somewhere at the lower end of the range of values that can be gotten for a week-long hunt for a caribou, moose or a black bear. Maybe one of our issues is that we should try to up the value we are getting for the animals that we are now making available to non-residents.

Your point about the private entrepreneurs at the trade shows, the feeling is that with respect to big game - moose, caribou, black bear in particular - that a few years ago our private entrepreneurs were not in a position, they didn't have the financial wherewithal, to go to these shows themselves. They very much appreciated the opportunity, though, to go in concert with the government in a government-sponsored booth with a couple of officials to attend, to represent the government and the department. They could piggyback on that, minimize their cost, and also do their own sell.

They have had such a success, and their numbers are up, that they are now talking to us about being able to go to the shows themselves. From their own revenues - because they fill all their hunts and because they have established their businesses, they don't need to be in a booth with the government officials anymore. We may very well be able to pull back a bit from our efforts on the big game side. I mentioned earlier this evening, Mr. Chairman, in a discussion of this issue, the joint effort worked so well, though, on the big game side, that we are going to try to parallel that effort with respect to the fishing product. We are going to see if we can't offer opportunities for outfitters whose primary industry and business is trout fishing and salmon fishing, to give them more opportunities to go into a jointly sponsored booth with the government officials, with the bureaucrats, so that we can bear the bulk of the cost for the booth space and for some staffing of it. And they can tag along with their own information to try to sell their individual product on that basis.

Because it seems like a number of them, while they may very well be able to do a better job if they were there than someone else who is not as dedicated to their particular enterprise, they are suffering like the other people did because they are not at full occupancy, because they are only operating at about 30 per cent, 35 per cent capacity. They are not generating the revenues to be able to go to the shows themselves. Because some of those ventures are fairly expensive. They are necessary. They are good advertising opportunities, good promotion opportunities, good selling opportunities. We are hoping that maybe by going - I guess a phrase would be `by holding their hands' and helping them at these shows for the next two or three years, particularly on the fishing side, we might be able to get to the point where then government might be able to withdraw from that and let the private enterprise people go ahead and do it themselves.

Because they are probably confident that they can do a little better job because they are motivated to sell their own product, rather than any generic attempt to attract people to Newfoundland and Labrador. So we still seem to be a few years away on the fishing side.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Andersen III, your time is up.

Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Getting right into subhead 2.2.04 again - ten minutes goes very fast. The board of directors of the John Cabot 500 Anniversary Celebrations, would you or your deputy minister say that they have been (Inaudible) Exactly how long has it been since it became incorporated?

MR. GRIMES: They operated a full fiscal year in 1994-95 and the board was actually established part way through the fiscal year before that and funded in that year by the provincial government but they had just gotten up and started. At that point in time the now Mayor Murphy had been the original chair of the Cabot 500 Corporation, but sometime after he went into municipal politics, becoming the Mayor of St. John's, they had not been totally organized and totally active at that time. A new chair was put in place and they functioned as a board of directors over the fiscal year for 1994-95. That was their first full fiscal year in which they had a budget of some $3.8 million. The audited statement: work on it is just beginning now for the public record stating exactly what the money was spent on through the whole of that fiscal year.

MR. MANNING: Do they have a schedule for having board meetings?

MR. GRIMES: Yes, they do.

MR. MANNING: What is the schedule?

MR. GRIMES: They try to meet every second month as a full board, and the executive committee of the board meets on an as needed basis, but basically it meets just about every week and more often than that as necessary. Sometimes, if schedules conflict, it will be once every two weeks, but they basically meet on an as needed basis if there are decisions to be made, and then they prepare an agenda and meet with the full board every second month. That is what they are trying to do at this point in time.

MR. MANNING: When the full board meets, where do they meet?

MR. GRIMES: To my knowledge just about all of the meetings have been in St. John's. I believe they had one meeting on the West Coast, in Corner Brook, and I am not sure if they had a full board meeting in the Bonavista area last year. No, I do not think so. I think it has been St. John's and one board meeting so far in Corner Brook. The most convenient place for them to meet seems to be St. John's for travel connection purposes and otherwise. Upon request, I expect they will probably be invited to have the board meetings in other regions of the Province over the next year or so.

MR. MANNING: The meeting in St. John's, are they having it at Hotel Newfoundland?

MR. GRIMES: No, they are held at the board offices that are leased in the Crosbie Building on Viking Road. I always get mixed up with those two, either the Viking Building on Crosbie Road or the Crosbie Building on Viking Road. That is where they meet, and I understand that in the very early days when Mayor Murphy was there they had not had their office fully put in place, they did not have their staff fully in place, and some of the initial meetings were held at Hotel Newfoundland before they actually got into the premises they are in now, but since they have been up and running and have rented space the meetings are held at their office.

Mr. Buist informs me that they met at Holiday Inn.

MR. MANNING: Do they hold dinner meetings at those functions, when the board comes together as a group? How many members are on the board? I would like to know that. Twenty, is it?

MR. GRIMES: It fluctuates. I think the articles of incorporation allow for up to eighteen, I think. The full complement has never been there. I think we are at seventeen now, which is probably the highest number we've had. They're operated before that with as few as fourteen.

MR. MANNING: Back to what I said earlier before I jumped ahead of myself. Does the committee come together for dinner meetings?

MR. GRIMES: No. The regular procedure throughout most of this fiscal year as I understand it is that they meet through the day. They have luncheon meetings and they have sandwiches and so on brought into the meeting facility at their board offices.

MR. MANNING: The Cabot 500 Corporation hasn't held any dinner meetings in St. John's that you are aware of?

MR. GRIMES: Not this particular group. I was making reference before to some meetings held in hotels in the city before they had an office space. The understanding I have and the information from the Deputy Minister and also from Mr. Bennett is that at that point in time, on one or two occasions as well when Mr. Murphy was at that time - Mayor Murphy now - was the chair, that when they would conclude a meeting at the hotel they might then stay and have dinner together before they went back to the different parts of the Province. But that hasn't been the case since they've gotten their own offices and now meet on a structured basis in that building.

MR. MANNING: Would there be any reason to have a meeting of interest groups or would the board come together to have a speaker or anything like that in regards to having a dinner meeting at a local hotel?

MR. GRIMES: Not to my knowledge.

MR. MANNING: Okay. Time to jump back to Italy now. We talked about one trip with the chairman of the board, the City of St. John's, and Bonavista. There are other trips to Gaeta also. Can I have some information on those other trips that were made there?

MR. GRIMES: The information that I have in accounting for the fiscal year which I had asked for some time ago indicates that in the fiscal year that is being reported in this Budget there was only one trip to Gaeta, for which any expenses were charged to the Cabot 500 Corporation, and that was the meeting held last year, in October of 1994. I don't have information for any visit that may have occurred prior to the fiscal year 1993-1994. That is the only trip that has been reported to me and I asked for that information. In 1994-1995 there was the visit in October at the invitation of the Cabot 500 Corporation committee in Gaeta.

MR. MANNING: Trips to Bristol. Can you give me some explanation on those trips and what members of the board or any other dignitaries followed along with them?

MR. GRIMES: To Bristol?

MR. MANNING: Yes.

MR. GRIMES: Again, the information that I have in scanning through it some time ago was that there appeared to have been a couple of different visits to Bristol for purposes of Matthew negotiations, one of them back in May or June and another one.... There was one in May for sure, and I thought in scanning the information seen that there was one more recently where they were trying to wrap up the actual contract with the people in Bristol.

It is sometimes a little difficult to track and attribute the travel directly to the Cabot 500 Corporation because of the fact that they, much like people in government do and in business do sometimes, when people travel to one area for a particular reason they may stay over and either do visiting for private reasons or whatnot before or after, and only charge the days of the actual trip to the Corporation. Some people as well have travelled to Bristol and other parts of England for personal reasons where they may have also discussed this but they've made no charges to the Cabot 500 Corporation.

MR. MANNING: On the staff of the Cabot 500 Corporation. What exactly goes out for staff salaries and how many people are on the staff?

MR. GRIMES: Right now we have: a chief executive officer; four different managers - a manager of anchor events, a manager of regional events and -

MR. MANNING: These are staff people now, right?

MR. GRIMES: These are full-time staff people. We have a manager of planning, a manager of support services, and a manager for administration. Their salaries are in the range of the mid-$70,000s for the chief executive officer. The other manager positions other than administration are in the range of $55,000 or so. The manager of administration at the office is in the mid-$40,000s. Then there are, at this point in time, five regional coordinators on staff who were hired most recently. Their salaries are in the low $40,000s. These are the people who are holding the meetings with all of the interest groups and so on, and the different corporations and municipalities in the different regions, trying to look at what regional events will be highlighted during 1997. There is also a regional coordinator position that is not reported in the last Budget because the person is not going to start their duties until the middle of April, and they too will be paid in the low $40,000s range, $42,000 or $43,000.

There are a group of other office staff in terms of some secretaries and clerks. I think I have the number here somewhere, but they are whatever the normal administrative support would be for the managers and so on to have a secretary available to them in the office.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Manning, your time is up.

Mr. Andersen III, you had one more question.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: I have one more. I'm not sure, Mr. Chairman, if it is one more point to raise. Looking through all of these Estimates I don't see anything in there in the way of research or tourism development with respect to, let's say, the District of Torngat Mountains from April to May. You've talked earlier about the snowmobile trails that are going to be developed on the rail beds. Right now in the District of Torngat Mountains, one of the things that could be looked at and researched is sport fishing, ice-fishing. It is great ice-fishing right now. The snowmobiling is going to be good until, up in Nain for example, the end of the first week of June. When you look at snowmobiling in my district, an average snowmobiler in Nain will put about 15,000 kilometres per year on their snowmobile. That is a fair amount I think compared to what you can get here out on the Island. If you look at that in terms of tourism development there could be a lot to offer in that way.

MR. GRIMES: I point out that one of the things that we are trying to do this year - and we've been asked to return one more time to the Strategic Economic Plan implementation committee - to identify opportunities, an action item that referred to further development and enhancement of winter tourism opportunities. As you point out, a number of the winter tourism opportunities will concentrate in parts of Labrador. In winter, I guess as you are informing us in Labrador, winter types of activities can extend into a longer winter season than might be the case on most parts of the Island. We have actually been instructed to try and make sure that we work with Mr. Phillips and their staff in Labrador to try and pinpoint opportunities to further promote winter-related opportunities such as snowmobiling opportunities.

We have tried to commit a little more support to the Labrador 400, we have tried to make sure now that we concentrate a lot of efforts in terms of looking at the Labrador Winter Games and an extended version of the Labrador Winter Games as an anchor event and a feature attraction of the Cabot 500 celebrations in 1997, knowing that again, that might take place in a more traditional Island version of winter being February month rather than in April or May, when we are starting to switch gears in our heads here while you are saying there are tremendous opportunities in Labrador this part of the year. So we have though, been instructed to try and make sure that we take advantage of those winter-related opportunities and they will be greater by far I think, as you are pointing out in regions of Labrador than they will in many parts of the Island and you should expect to see that reflected in the efforts of the staff in the next while in trying to give some real life to the action of that Strategic Economic Plan, so we will be trying to do that and will certainly take your views into consideration particularly as it relates to this time of the year.

We have the same expression by the way, in terms of talking about efforts relating to downhill skiing, when the fact that the government has put a considerable amount of support behind Marble Mountain and at other facilities like Copper Creek and then you have facilities in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and also Labrador West and Smokey Mountain. There is a significant opportunity to promote continued downhill skiing in Labrador for as much as another four months after people think it is over here, and also an earlier start. The fact that we could be promoting skiing schools, clinics and so on and into the hills in Labrador for people who want to get an early start on their skiing season, so that those are the types of thinking and discussions that have already occurred in trying to maximize opportunities to promote to potential visitors that they can look at sites in Labrador for a much more extended winter season activity than they could on the Island.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Shelly.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just have three quick questions. I hope they are correct anyway but I will try to get them in in the next ten minutes. Mr. Woodford stole my thunder in this one actually, he mentioned it earlier but I want to just expand on it a little bit and that is on the golf course study that was done.

Like the minister now, I am also an avid golfer and I still think there is a lot of potential for a lot of golf courses. This is one of the fastest growing sports in North America and of course, once in place, they pretty well take care of themselves if you have a sufficient number of people who will take part in that, and a lot of time you get new golfers very quickly, like you get new skiers as we proved at Copper Creek, so I guess in conjunction with Copper Creek, they have submitted - I just want to clarify with the minister, that I think they have already had a part of that study for a golf course interconnected with the Copper Creek mountains, was that Baie Verte in that study, do you remember? I will tell you why I ask the question. The people of Copper Creek were so wrapped up in the mountain that they weren't sure how much they mentioned the golf course but I think they did in their preliminary. Maybe it was involved in the study that was done?

MR. GRIMES: I couldn't tell you for sure, although as I indicated, the main writer of the consultant group, before he was taken ill, had done the part of summarizing who they had met with, which groups had expressed an interest and which proposal they had looked at, specifically in Newfoundland and Labrador. I am not sure whether they had met with any particular group directly relating to the Baie Verte proposal and the year-round opportunity for Copper Creek. I am not sure either, if they had met with a group that were looking at an opportunity for up on the highway. I think just at the Baie Verte turn off there is a group that think there is an opportunity up there as well to develop a course that would basically be halfway between Corner Brook and the course at Grand Falls - Windsor, now.

So, there is a lot of interest, I am not sure exactly how many of the groups actually met with these consultants, but all that will be in the report. Unfortunately, if people for whatever reason didn't meet with this group or if they were not aware from contacts with officials in our department, there may still be some that might have gotten left out, but I won't know that until I see the report.

MR. SHELLEY: Yes, but it's not a fait accompli. If some group have missed this initial study, there is still potential for them to make there interest known, I assume. I don't guess that this is the end of the line, if they missed out on this particular study, is it?

MR. GRIMES: No, the study is more of a general nature, it is to try to assess the interest and the possibilities and whether or not there is actually future potential for the development of more golf facilities in Newfoundland and Labrador, primarily with a tourism focus as the thrust of it rather than for the domestic local market. You know can we develop other facilities that might interest the travelling public to come in here and golf, that type of thing?

MR. SHELLEY: It's not a final study on where the golf course is going to be?

MR. GRIMES: I don't think they are going to actually recommend whether there will be a course in Baie Verte or not. They will be a little more general than that.

MR. SHELLEY: Well, I will ask the minister now if he can find that out for me because I was asked that question by the Copper Creek group. Were they considered as one of the golf course potentials and if not what could they do now to let you know? Because basically, they were so wrapped up in the ski mountain, as you well know, that they never had a lot of time to think about that, but it was always in the long range plans as a ski facility and, of course, there is a perfect situation there for a golf course. So I would like to leave that with the minister.

MR. GRIMES: I will do make sure. I won't be like one of my colleges and say; I don't remember you mentioning it in the meeting because there were too many of us there. So somebody else will take a note and make sure we get your answer.

MR. SHELLEY: I just want to know if it is included in that particular study and if not how they go about putting forward a proposal, basically? That's one question, I have that covered. The second thing I want to mention and see if you have a quick comment on is information chalets and the same thing in line with what I mentioned before about signage and the different turnoffs to different places like the Bonavista Highway, the Burin Peninsula Highway, the Baie Verte Highway and whatever. It seems that as soon as we leave the Trans Canada to go on these routes, for example the Dorset trail, that it would make a lot more sense for these information chalets to be at the junctions of these particular highways, for example on the Baie Verte Peninsula, I always use that because I know it better, but it pertains to the other districts I know. If there were information chalets at these particular trails then the people who offer facilities such as tours and bed and breakfasts and everything else could have there brochures and everything in that particular chalet, explaining what is offered down this highway. It just makes so much sense. I know we are talking about more spending and expenditures of tourism dollars are limited, but it certainly makes a lot of sense that these chalets be at the junctions of these particular highways.

MR. GRIMES: Actually, our group and the planning group in Tourism couldn't agree more, that as and when opportunities become available, to construct more fully developed and fully equipped visitor information centres. They agree with your view exactly that the more strategic location for them is at these major intersections because it would provide an opportunity to give information for everything offered there once you make the turn. I think the last major one that was completed was Deer Lake, I guess. Well, we had Argentia, but Deer Lake had a major intersection mainly because people could get information there about anything they wanted to know once they decided to go up to the Viking trail.

MR. SHELLEY: That is right.

MR. GRIMES: There was information for everything on the Viking trail available in Deer Lake. The same for the idea of a chalet that is located at Whitbourne. Because if you want to leave at Whitbourne you can head down the Placentia way or you can start heading out the Baccalieu Trail. There is information available at the junctions. The staff and the planning division would actually concur with your assessment, that as they go through - and I think they've even targeted, if we can ever get the money, two or three other major intersections where we should probably have chalets in the future.

MR. SHELLEY: That is what my question was leading right into. Are there, in the near future, plans for any of those chalets on other parts of the Island? Is there now anything in the budget?

MR. GRIMES: Not for new construction. The number one priority when we get our hands on some construction money for chalets again would be a new gateway chalet into Labrador to signify opening up the Trans-Labrador Highway. The fact is that now if you come into the major gateways of Newfoundland by road, being Port aux Basques and Argentia, when you get off the ferry there is a major visitor information centre. The other major gateway to Newfoundland and Labrador now is coming in through Lab West on the highway and there is no visitor information centre. There has been a commitment actually dating back to 1989 that if we get another agreement and get some dedicated funds that the next major visitor information centre to be built would be a gateway to Labrador visitor information centre somewhere in the Labrador City - Wabush area, either on the highway or as part of some structure there.

Then there are other plans to continue supporting the locally run type of visitor information chalets that are at these intersections rather than replace them with a brand new provincial structure, because at a number of these intersections there are locally run visitor information chalets in place.

MR. SHELLEY: That is an alternative, yes.

MR. GRIMES: They are not the provincial ones, yet.

MR. SHELLEY: The last question I have then is concerning boat tours. I've had some interesting discussions over the last couple of months, and I'm sure the minister has - for example, I know that there are millions of Chinese and Japanese who are astounded every time they come here when they look at icebergs and whale-watching and so on. From what I hear, there are millions of them who could potentially come over to this part of the world just to see those types of things. Of course, down in my district as you know, and in through the Twillingate district especially and Lewisporte, one summer in particular in Lewisporte there were so many tourists who just flocked there to watch those icebergs as they flow right down the Northern Peninsula and out over to the Twillingate - Lewisporte area.

Right now in particular I guess because of the fishery crisis - that is the funny part of it, I guess, to try and call it a silver lining in a dark cloud - is that a lot of these beautiful boats have the potential of becoming good tour boats. A lot of people have that idea. For example, down in my district - and nobody is doing it yet because they really don't know where to turn or where to get the information from or what is available to them, or whatever, but they are looking at the potential of turning these thirty-five foot boats and bigger into good tourist boats for doing this type of thing, whale-watching and iceberg-watching. Is there somewhere in the minister's department where I can send people for information when they have ideas like this, in particular, for the boat tours.

MR. GRIMES: Actually, the people can contact our tourism product group. Mr. Joy and his group, who are doing tourism product development, offer assistance to these people on a regular basis. Ms. Sherk is the Assistant Deputy Minister for tourism matters. We've had some meeting with some of the existing boat tour operators just recently. Mr. Chairman, I might point out, that while the government generally has talked about a move towards deregulation or lack of regulation or minimal regulation, that the groups are coming forward saying that if we are going to see this growth in this industry, as was pointed out by the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay, that maybe right now we do not have enough regulation in that area, that we should have some specific things about safety for the people on board, and some minimum training in terms of CPR or those types of things, that anyone who is going to run a boat tour and take ten or fifteen or twenty people on the water, that they should have certain guaranteed navigational skills, and there should be certain safety factors to protect the customers and so on. Right now it is a pretty open-ended business. Either one of us, if we had a boat, could pretty well hang out a sign saying, `I am running a boat tour', and there is not even a guarantee, other than somebody catching me, that I have to have a life-jacket on board, that type of thing, so it is a little more regulated than that but not quite enough, it seems. It is one of those that the balance seems to be on the other side from what government generally is trying to do, which is to move out of regulation.

Our tourism development people, I think in your particular area, in the Baie Verte Peninsula, I believe Mr. Dan Chaisson from the Corner Brook office probably services the Baie Verte Peninsula and he, then, through the rest of that tourism staff, can advise these people as to what they would have to consider and what they might have to go through in terms of properly equipping themselves to get into the tour boat business, and what kind of minimum regulation they might expect to encounter before we would assist them in advertising and promoting the fact that they are offering a boat tour for potential tourists and visitors.

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

Before I recognize Mr. Manning again, and he will be concluding the evening and I will give him the last go at it, I would just like to point out that the evening is getting rather late and if I could, Mr. Manning at this point in time obviously is on a certain tack and has been very pointed and specific in his questions, and I would ask the minister, if he could, realizing the lateness of the evening, try to limit the commentary and be as very pointed and succinct as he could in responding to Mr. Manning. With that, Mr. Manning, see what you can do with fifteen minutes.

MR. MANNING: I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. Maybe the minister knows now why my caucus colleagues don't allow me to ask too many questions in the House. It is not the questions that are the problem.

First of all, on salary details, I just have to find this out. On page 116, Salary Details, 3.3, Historic Sites, a watchperson, one position, where would that be?

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Hayward informs me that particular one is on the Bonavista Peninsula, and that person takes care of the historic sites in Bonavista as well as some of the properties in Trinity.

MR. MANNING: It is seasonal employment, is it? Is it a part-time position or -

MR. GRIMES: A permanent, full-time position, and they take care of the properties on a year round basis in Bonavista. Also, we have two or three different properties now in Trinity that have been restored and maintained.

MR. MANNING: There is only one position, though; not the one person takes care of all that, does he?

MR. GRIMES: Yes.

MR. MANNING: What does he do, just (inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: I met the person, actually, when we -

MR. MANNING: He is not going into a particular site every day; it is different sites at different times, I guess, just more or less around...

MR. GRIMES: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MR. GRIMES: They were at Hiscock House, was it, in Trinity, when (inaudible).

MR. MANNING: The reason I asked the question, I will just get back to my own district for a moment, is that as you are probably aware there is a new interpretation centre being built at Cape St. Mary's, and the concern that was raised by many of the local people over the past number of years, a couple of years, is the fact that Cape St. Mary's right now for approximately nine months of the year - hopefully it will be shortened with the extension of the operation of the interpretation centre, the security aspect of it - and I asked this question somewhere before and I guess it wasn't pertaining to historic sites as such, and somebody told me there was no provision for security people at those sites so I am just wondering, would there be any discussions in the department, I know everybody's Budgets are cut, but in relation to providing some type of security at sites, not so much in the summertime because the employees are there but in the wintertime, because it would be shocking to see a building of such potential for the area being destroyed. The possibility is there for the simple reason that there is, as I discussed with you before, much animosity about the ecological reserve, the boundary to the ecological reserve, as it may be interrupting some of the farming activity or fishing activity, so I am just wondering about the security, has anything been discussed with you, or is there any hope that there will be some type of security at that building?

MR. GRIMES: We are looking at the issue very closely. I passed along the information and our staff had a discussion of it actually based on a copy of Hansard that I provided to them when we discussed the issue in the Legislature when we talked about the declaration of the actual sanctuary and the reserve, and it was clear that while there won't be a full-time position assigned to the Cape St. Mary's Interpretation Centre immediately upon the opening and so on this year, but we have been instructed to monitor the situation very closely and to report back through the staff, to Cabinet, based upon the first year or so of operation, that a case can be made to justify the full-time staff which will provide the work and the security.

We will make that representation, or based upon this first year's experience, if it is clear that with someone assigned for what we hope to be a nine-and-a-half month operating season and the security that you mentioned, if that will fill the bill, then we will make the final recommendation and hopefully get approval for the most appropriate way to both run the centre for the maximum period of time, because as we indicated in that discussion, there is a real opportunity for an educational use prior to the peak tourism season starting, there is a real opportunity for educational school use through the fall after the tourist traffic peters out a bit, and then we are really only left with those couple of months there in the dead of the winter where we would have to look at making sure that the new facility is totally secure. So we are going to be monitoring that extremely closely because we want to make sure that it is going to be a tremendous success and that the property is going to be guaranteed to be well-taken care of.

MR. MANNING: On the property, when is the estimated time of opening? Is there an estimated time?

MR. GRIMES: The indication is that we expect the facility itself to be able to be opened very close to the first of June this year. In the meantime, the staff is not totally confident that they will have the full of the interpretation work done inside at that point in time but the facility should be able to be utilized by the public while some of the interpretative displays inside are still being completed.

MR. MANNING: Maybe it can't be answered but the last question anyway, with regards to staffing, over the past number of years we have had I believe, and I stand to be corrected, three or four students who have worked at Cape St. Mary's. Is there going to be an increase in staffing due to the fact that hopefully, it will be a longer season, number one, and again, hopefully that there will be more visitors because of the interpretation centre. Are there any funds or discussions ongoing about extra staff?

MR. GRIMES: The plan right now is to try to make sure that we have an interpretation centre manager in place for, as I indicated, probably nine months or so, ten months if it is required and that we get a couple of seasonal interpreters into the facility as well, that will operate a longer season than the students and then if there are some students required to augment and supplement that they will judge that after the early experience with the management and interpretation of the people on a seasonal basis.

MR. MANNING: Just for the application, interpretation manager will be more less a biologist, the person who will be the overall operator of the facility. I am not talking about making sure that the floor is cleaned up or something like that but for the whole site I mean, it is not just the building.

Another quick question I have: is your department as the newly structured department, fully responsible for the wilderness and ecological reserve?

MR. GRIMES: To my knowledge, yes, all of the work with respect to research, possible designation, temporary provisional designation and so on, is done through the work of the wilderness and ecological reserves advisory committee which answers directly and advises the minister on those issues. Of course they will do a bunch of work with respect to Crown lands when we are looking at areas getting the boundaries identified and those types of things. The officials in Natural Resources from Crown lands will work with them to help them identify the areas, but the responsibility, in terms of pointing out which areas are under study, what kind of management plans go in there, whether they will be provisional reserves and those types of things, are done through the WERAC group which answers through our department of government.

MR. MANNING: I will just give you a hint, study up on it, more questions coming later on. I want to ask questions relating to the crafts association, Newfoundland and Labrador Crafts Association. I know they work with the department but they are an entity unto themselves, so the department has no jurisdiction over how they operate or anything like that.

MR. GRIMES: And don't provide them any funding that I am aware of, they are a separate group.

MR. MANNING: The museum was moved, I am not sure exactly off the top of my head, but they moved the museum from the Murray Premises, and I guess the first question is, why would it be moved, why would they move the museum from an historic property like the Murray Premises?

MR. GRIMES: The major concern was that it was a difficult decision for government to make because we had only just recently before that completed the new display at the Murray Premises at some cost and expense and it was a very proud addition to the whole of the museum service, but we had gotten into rather prolonged contractual difficulties with the owners of the property because government doesn't own the Murray Premises, it is privately owned and the owners of the building and government, in terms of trying to renew our particular lease, had gone through several different scenarios and it had gotten to a point in time when we couldn't come to anything that was mutually agreeable as to extending or renewing the lease. Then there were limited other options for us as to where we would go with this new display. There was no room in the facility on Duckworth Street and there was no other appropriate property for us to really rent either, for all kinds of reasons, because we could not renew the lease at that particular location. The lease lapsed and the display was disassembled, I guess, and is now stored, hopefully, to be later placed someplace else at a future date.

MR. MANNING: Someplace else could be the Caboto Building if the Province manages to get hold of the dollars to take care of that. In discussions I had with you earlier in the House it seemed that the future of the Caboto Building rested somewhat on federal government's funding. Would you be able to elaborate for me as to the status of the negotiations in relation to the Caboto Building at this time?

MR. GRIMES: I would like to. I wish I could. We are still into a situation where the provincial government firmly believes that we should have a structure - the official working title of it now is the John Cabot Centre. It had been referred to earlier in some documents as the Caboto Centre. The John Cabot Centre to house the archives which are badly in need of a new home, the museum as you indicated in which we need more space for the different displays and so on that we would like to put into the museum, and also to have a first-ever, genuine total provincial art gallery.

The federal government to this point in time has expressed support in principle in terms of agreeing that this would be a good concept, that it is a great idea, and that they are still interested in working with us in some way to try and identify how between us we might be able to fund capital expenditure of some $40 or $42 million over the next few years. Unfortunately, there is nothing more to report as a result of the two budgets being released publicly. There are no specific budget heads in the capital expenditures of the federal government to allow for the immediate beginning of the building of the John Cabot Centre as there are no particular capital headings in the provincial budget for that structure, but both government are still committed to continuing discussions and negotiations as to how we might be able to find funds over the next year or two, or three, to see if we can bring what both governments agree to be a very worthwhile project to fruition.

We are no further ahead now than the last time I reported on the issue in the House of Assembly or in the media.

MR. MANNING: I am glad to see the working title is the John Cabot Centre. I was concerned that we were calling him John Cabot for 500 years and now we are calling him Caboto.

When the Prime Minister visited St. John's last year he more or less left the impression that the Cabot 500 Celebrations would be of national significance. In discussions with you here and in questions in the House of Assembly we discussed the Caboto Centre, the John Cabot Centre, and earlier we talked about the corporation itself. Now, working on provincial dollars and waiting for hopefully a federal contribution, do you feel, on those two particular subjects, do you feel hopeful as the minister that the Prime Minister and the federal government will put their money where their mouth is?

MR. GRIMES: Very much so. I think with respect to co-operation and also with respect to the building the only difference I would add and the only different comment I would make with respect to the John Cabot Centre is that, as we indicated in the questions we were asking in the Legislature last fall, timing with respect to 1997 was critical in terms of having a facility built that would be visible if not even totally useable in 1997. We would have to be breaking ground this spring, and because we have not gotten further advanced in negotiation the prospect of having this running in 1997 is very quickly passing us by. But we are also very aware as is the federal government that there is another occasion coming very shortly after that that also gives good reason for Canada and Newfoundland to cooperate in a major project, which is 1999 and the fiftieth anniversary of Confederation. Between those two particular celebrations we are still having dialogue as to the possibility of funding the John Cabot Centre and having it open for one or the other of those particular celebrations.

MR. MANNING: Some members already asked you some questions pertaining to parks and I don't want to reiterate some of those questions, but there are a couple of quick ones I would like to.

In regards to the privatization or the possible privatization of some of those parks, as the details are being worked out for those, to pass them over to private hands or else pilot projects, whatever the case may be, is there anything within the department - I don't see anything with regards to funding or whatever - maybe it is covered and I'm not seeing it - in relation to making sure that those parks are preserved in the meantime while we look for somebody either to look after them or to take them over as private enterprises or whatever. Are there personnel within the department, are there dollars within the department, to make sure that those parks in the meantime are not... I will use the word `mishandled' or destroyed or whatever the case may be. Is there anything there to protect those parks?

MR. GRIMES: Not specifically, Mr. Chairman. Our expectation is that Mr. Buist and the Parks staff will be going through all of the expressions of interest, because the deadline for that is this weekend. We fully expect that we will have actually been able to make offers to private sector interests so that they will be able to go and run the parks at the same time as, if not earlier than, we would have run them ourselves for this season. There isn't anything built in for any risk if there is - we wouldn't have had anyone in the parks anyway up to the May 24 weekend or so. Long before that we will have made offers for several of these to the private sector.

If there are a number of the twenty-nine sites that we are not going to operate, that there are no expressions of interest in, they will not be operated by us anyway and they will be allowed to revert back to Crown lands. They will not be managed or preserved in any way, shape or form because there is no provincial interest in running them, no private interest in running them, so they will be the same as any other part of the wilderness. There will be no attention paid to them from anyone in our department.

MR. MANNING: I have here the Avalon Peninsula tourism plan. There are other tourism plans that have been completed over the past number of years. I think this was the last to cover the whole Province, as far as I know. In relation to the parks being more or less shut down, whatever, have any discussions been held on gravel pit camping? I'm sure discussions have been held, but I'm just wondering is there any policy being formed or any legislation coming forward that would deal with the gravel pit camping?

MR. GRIMES: No. The task force dealt with the issue, recommended that we find a mechanism to prohibit or ban roadside and/or gravel pit camping. That is one of several recommendations, I suppose, because there were sixty or seventy recommendations in the report. We accepted most of them but there were three or four that we didn't accept. One of them was to ban gravel pit camping. We took the view as government that really if we wanted to increase visitation numbers in the parks then we should enhance the parks to such an extent that people will want to choose to go into the parks rather than try to force them in there by saying: You are not allowed to go anywhere else.

Our concern with roadside gravel pit camping is that we will try to monitor with the normal littering laws to make sure that there are not any garbage problems, litter problems or environmental problems when these people gather on the sides of the roads or in gravel pits, but we would not, at this point, entertain any notion of trying to draft any regulation or law that would prohibit people from going into a gravel pit to camp if that was their choice.

MR. MANNING: The task force report, are copies available to the public?

MR. GRIMES: They have not been, and there had not been an intention to make the task force report available to the public. It was not a public procedure in the normal sense of public consultations. It was an interdepartmental committee that had looked at the running of the parks. There had been some public input through some user surveys and so on, but this was not an exercise that was carried out through a public consultation approach, and it was not one where it was intended other than to give direction to the government from its own staff basically, as to how we should consider reorganizing the parks.

The government has made public what it intends to do, and the basis for those decisions. There has not been any intention to make the internal document available in the public domain.

MR. MANNING: So it is considered an internal document by government?

MR. GRIMES: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Do you have any idea how much the task force report cost?

MR. GRIMES: No costs that were identified in any purchased services or professional fees; it was all staff time and they were assigned to do this task. The park officers and the students on duty and so on actually did the surveying of the people, so there was no one paid additional money or anything to do the surveys. Then the secretaries and so on, on their own time, actually typed up the report after being given the information by the co-ordinator, so there were no professional fees, no additional charges. It was an internal exercise. It was just that your assigned duty for this day was to do some work on this task force report, and no external consultant or anything of that nature was involved with the process.

MR. MANNING: I have one more; I have 100 more, but I won't do that to you.

Just to jump back to museums for a minute, since you have closed the museum and moved it, and again waiting to rehouse it or whatever the case may be, has there been any reduction in the cost of operating it from where you had been to where you are now?

MR. GRIMES: Not that I am aware of. We had been paying some rent and some lease costs with respect to the Murray Premises in a previous fiscal year. Because we couldn't come to a new lease arrangement the lease stopped, that payout did not occur, and we have not incurred any new expense to replace that. I believe all the storage is being done in-house, as far as I know, so there aren't any additional costs for those things as well.

MR. MANNING: This could be my last.

In the Estimates, 2.2.01, Planning and Evaluation, section 06, in 1994-'95 you went from $14,800 to $105,300 in purchased services. Why would that be?

MR. GRIMES: One of the areas where we are trying to have increased emphasis is to make sure that if we are going to do some promotion, marketing and advertising that we do it to very specifically identified target groups.

We've been working on some limited information. It was made clear that we need a little bit more work done in terms of matching up our targeted potential visitors to the product that we have to offer. We are doing I guess - the terminology is that we have dedicated some money to pay somewhere in the range of close to $100,000 for what is called a product market match study. If we have a certain product - namely the outdoor adventure tourism market - that we are promoting, we are going to try and make sure that we can identify through a study process where the pockets of people are who are interested in that kind of a product. Because there is not much point in advertising an outdoor adventure related product to people who want to spend all their time indoors or who want to spend their time visiting other kinds of attractions other than the ones that we have in abundance in Newfoundland and Labrador.

We've been trying to take that kind of an approach with our own instincts and our own best information, but it has been explained to us that there is a research mechanism that you can actually use to pinpoint through a study whether or not you are matching the product that you are trying to promote to the market and the group of people that are interested in that, so that you get the maximum value for your advertising and promotion dollars. That is what this money is largely targeted to accomplish in this fiscal year.

It is trying to make sure that we spend our advertising dollars where we should spend them in the best possible way, because we have a limit. A very small number as compared to many other provinces and countries. We don't want to be spending our money in countries or areas of Canada and the States where there is very little prospect that the people will ever come to Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. MANNING: That will sum things up for me for now. There are many questions in the tourism industry I would like to ask but time doesn't allow us to do that. I would like to thank the minister and his staff for helping out.

I would just like to put as a footnote that I have several concerns I will hopefully be raising in the House over the next couple of months in relation to not only tourism, but indeed my own District of St. Mary's - The Capes, which I believe has great tourism potential, from the Trepassey barrens to the caribou to the birds at Cape St. Mary's. I believe that in tourism, we are only in the infant stages of it in this Province. I think that the department under not only this minister but others has been at least heading, I believe, in the right direction, in many different avenues.

Just to touch on what - the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay spoke about the signage earlier. I attended a hospitality convention at the Holiday Inn in St. John's several years ago now I believe, seven or eight years ago, and the most important topic at that convention was the signage. It is eight years' time and they are still talking signage. Hopefully that will soon be coming to a positive conclusion. I think that it is certainly starting to close in on debate. People are starting to realize that something has to be done. I just thank you, Mr. Chairman, and will leave the rest for the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Manning. I asked Elizabeth if there was any problem going beyond 10:00 p.m. She said the doors lock at 10:00 p.m., so we may have to call someone to let us out.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 5.1.04, carried.

On motion, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, total heads, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: With that, first of all I would like to thank you, Mr. Minister, and your staff for staying with us and being... I wish I could say succinct in your responses, but you were certainly thorough. I give you credit for that. I would also like to thank the members of the Committee, and also the people who have assisted us this evening: Our Clerk, Elizabeth Murphy, Elizabeth Russell, the Page, and Mr. Colin Chapman who is looking after the recording. With that, I would like now to call for a motion of adjournment.

The Committee adjourned.