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

CHAIR (Verge): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I guess we are ready to start.

The first thing I want to do, the minutes were circulated for the last meeting of the Resource Committee which heard the Estimates for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, can I have a motion, please, to adopt the minutes?

Moved by Mr. Ray Hunter; seconded by Mr. David Brazil.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Carried.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: I want to welcome you all here to this meeting again of the Resource Committee. Today, we will be hearing Estimates from the Department of Environment and Conservation. I will start by asking the members of the Committee, first of all, on my right, for the purpose of Hansard, the three members who are seated in the back, if they would introduce themselves.

MR. HUNTER: Ray Hunter, MHA, Grand Falls-Windsor-Green Bay South district.

MR. DAVIS: Paul Davis, MHA for Topsail district.

MR. BRAZIL: David Brazil, MHA, Conception Bay East-Bell Island.

CHAIR: Mr. Butler?

MR. BUTLER: Oh, I am sorry. Roland Butler, District of Port de Grave.

MS MICHAEL: Lorraine Michael, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

CHAIR: You have two researchers; do you guys want to introduce yourselves for the record?

MR. MILES: Peter Miles, Researcher, Opposition Office.

MS WILLIAMS: Susan Williams, Researcher, NDP Office.

CHAIR: Thank you very much.

We also have Mr. Baker who has joined us now on my right.

MR. BAKER: Jim Baker, MHA, Lab West.

CHAIR: Thank you very much.

We will start, I will ask the minister in a minute to introduce his officials. When the minister does, after I call the first subhead, Minister, you will have fifteen minutes to begin if you want to take that amount of time to do your introductions and to start talking about your department. The first responder on the Opposition side or the members of the Committee will have fifteen minutes. After that, we will go with ten minutes per side, if we need to be that structured. We may not need to be that structured; we will probably end up going back and forth a little bit. As long as everybody is okay with that, then that is fine with the Chair.

So with that, I will ask the Clerk if she would call the first subhead, please.

CLERK (Ms Murphy): 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01 carry?

Minister Wiseman.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to my colleagues from the House of Assembly for your attendance this morning to better understand the issues of the Department of Environment and Conservation. I appreciate your interest and, no doubt, the challenging and interesting questions that you will pose as we go through this morning.

Before we get started, let me introduce my officials who are here with me this morning.

To my immediate left is my Deputy, Bill Parrott. Then, to his left is Martin Goebel, ADM. Next to him is Ross Firth, who is an ADM as well. Then, on back, Peter Howe, who is an ADM; and Scott Jones, Department Comptroller. Next to him is Chick Cholock, who is my Executive Assistant. On the back is Melony O'Neill, who is Director of Communications; and Gary Beaton, who is with the Office of Sustainable Development and Strategic Science.

Joining us a little later this morning will be Leigh Puddester, who is the CEO with the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board.

I will not spend a great deal of time, Mr. Chair, giving you an introduction to the department because I have been there now for four months as a minister. It has been an interesting and challenging orientation of four months in the department. It is a department that has a deep reach in the government, involved in many interesting aspects of the Province's life from either the resource management, Crown Lands, water resources, we are talking about our natural heritage, the park systems, and we have then the Multi-Material Stewardship Board which is an independent agency that reports directly into our department.

This morning, as we go through the Estimates, I think everybody will get a flavour for the depth and the reach of the issues that we deal with. I do not want to take too much of my colleagues' time from their interesting questions, so I throw the floor open to your questions.

CHAIR: Do we have questions from any members of the Resource Committee?

Mr. Butler, are you going to start?

MR. BUTLER: Yes, Sir.

CHAIR: Okay, Sir.

MR. BUTLER: First of all, Minister, welcome to you and your staff here this morning. I will begin with a few, I guess, one-liners as we call them. First of all, 1.2.01, Executive Support, under subhead 01 Salaries, I notice budgeted last year was $962,000 and it went to $1.3 million. I was just wondering, Minister, if you could give an explanation on that one. I know it is up to $1 million again this year.

MR. WISEMAN: That came about as the result of some severances that were paid. The biggest chunk of that was $345,000 of severance that was paid out to three retirements. We had an assistant deputy minister, a secretary to the deputy minister, and an ADM secretary all retire in the same year and their severances were significant, obviously, because of their tenure. That is what drove that piece.

MR. BUTLER: Under the same heading, subhead 06. Purchased Services, I notice $17,000 was budgeted and it went to $36,000. I was just wondering what that increase was.

MR. WISEMAN: There were some additional advertising costs that had not been anticipated, plus there was a staff development day during Environment Week that was a unique and different experience. Some of those activities drove that additional cost. They had room rentals and the cost associated with the sponsorship of that event together with the additional advertising costs.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

Heading 1.2.02 Administrative Support - I know this has to do with C.A. Pippy Park Commission - this is not a large amount, but under subhead 10 it was budgeted and no revision last year, it is still $608,000, and gone to $648,000 this year.

Being an avid camper, I am wondering what the new work is that is going to be done over in Pippy Park, or is that what it is in relation to.

MR. WISEMAN: No, that $40,000 deals with collective agreements, negotiated salary increases. So you do not get free water in your campsite.

MR. BUTLER: 1.2.03.Transportation and Communications, budgeted was $86,500, it went down to $48,200 and this year it is up to $115,000. I was wondering why the decrease, and I guess more is being budgeted this year.

MR. WISEMAN: The Province is involved with the Atlantic Climate Adaptation Strategy, and the additional costs are associated with participation in that process.

MR. BUTLER: Numbers 05 and 06 under the same heading, Professional Services and Purchased Services, I know there was $600,000-odd for both of them and the revised was $400,000 and $300,000. I wonder what the reduction was there that you had anticipated.

MR. WISEMAN: That decrease of $260,000 reflects a decrease in our spending based on our forecast. We had anticipated a more aggressive expenditure as part of the Atlantic Province's Climate Adaptation Strategy. We did not spend as aggressively as we anticipated, so that is why you saw the reduction of the $600,000 down to $400,000 and now we are back on track again for this year.

MR. BUTLER: Subheading 10. Grants and Subsidies, I know the budget was $11 million, revised at $2 million and up to $6.8 million again this year.

MR. WISEMAN: That was some major capital projects that we were doing.

Scott, if you could just speak to which projects they were.

MR. JONES: What is included in the 10 - that is the Grants and Subsidies you are speaking to, correct?

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

MR. JONES: That is EcoTrust applications, for grants for EcoTrust. There were some delays in expenditures this past year. Some of that money then was re-profiled into this fiscal year now. I do not have a list of projects on hand here right now with me, Minister.

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Chair, I could not hear him. I do not know about my colleagues. I should have put my earplug in I guess.

Just in the beginning, I did not hear what you said right in the beginning there.

MR. JONES: That is grants and subsidies which relates to the EcoTrust that is funded by the Department of Environment and Conservation. There is an application process for receiving funds on that and then there are related projects. That is just delays in the completion of the projects. That is why the funding was not all disbursed this past fiscal year.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

Under 1.2.03 again, down in the bottom where we talk about provincial and federal funds, I notice last year it was budgeted $500,000 from the feds and there was nothing received. I was just wondering, could you explain that?

MR. WISEMAN: Other than just a cash flow point of view, we did not receive it last year. We are going to receive it in this year. It will be taken in the revenue in this year. It is a processing mechanism.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

1.2.04. under Salaries, I know the budget last year was $770,000 and it went to just over $1 million.

MR. WISEMAN: That is as a result of some increased effort in the Caribou Strategy that we announced. We needed to deploy some additional resources last year to assist us with the capturing of information that we needed to help inform that process, so we brought on some additional temporary staff to help us with that strategy.

MR. BUTLER: Seeing you mentioned the caribou, and it is probably in one of my general questions, if it is I will not ask it the second time now. How much has been spent of the $15 million? I think it was $15 million went into that study. Is that mostly used up now, or how much has been spent to date?

MR. WISEMAN: Scott, you can correct me if I am wrong, but I think we are close to – it was a five-year strategy, we are now going into year four. I think we have close to $10 million spent, roughly.

MR. BUTLER: Under the same heading, 1.2.04. Professional Services, I know last year $257,000 was budgeted and it was just a little less than that, this year it is up to $607,000. I was wondering, what are the additional professional services that are budgeted for this year?

MR. WISEMAN: That is an additional $350,000. We are forming a partnership with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It is a piece that we are doing with a particular group - within that organization there is a particular group called the Sustainable Use Specialist Group and that is going to help inform a piece of work we are doing with the Caribou Strategy and other things like that.

You mentioned the Caribou Strategy in one of your earlier questions. That is a piece of work we are doing that is a well structured piece of scientific research. We want to make sure it is founded on good science and they are able to map out a way forward with that kind of scientific research. To help inform that piece of work we will be doing, we want to tap into the resources that are available to us internationally. This is a partnership we are going to form with this organization.

MR. BUTLER: Having said that, 06 and 07 under the same heading, I guess that is in relation too. It was $142,000, back to $142,000 this year, but last year it revised to $308,000.

MR. WISEMAN: You are talking about the Purchased Services piece?

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: No, that is to do with a leased space we had. It increased to $166,000. It reflects an increase in cost of leased accommodations. Then we had a one-time transfer to the division of wildlife as a part of that strategy as well. That is one of the costs we had in last year.

MR. BUTLER: That space, Minister, what would that have been for?

MR. WISEMAN: Peter, or Ross rather, I am sorry.

MR. PARROTT: Last year –

CHAIR: One second there, Mr. Parrott for your light to come on. I would like to remind the officials when you speak, as you just did, say your name first but wait for your light for the purpose of Hansard.

Thank you.

MR. PARROTT: Yes, last year our wildlife division was in Building 810 in the old American base at Pleasantville. Those people had to move out of that building to accommodations up on Columbus Drive. There is an extra cost in rental accommodations, whereas the other building was a government building.

MR. BUTLER: Okay. I guess the $57,000 for furnishings there, that is what that was for because there was nothing budgeted for? Under 07, I am sorry.

MR. WISEMAN: That was not necessarily associated with that move per se. That $57,000 reflects some equipment that was purchased. There was a photocopier, some phones, a generator and a camera. There were some miscellaneous purchases that were not budgeted for.

MR. BUTLER: 1.2.06.06. Purchased Services, the budget was for $5 million, revised at $2 million and this year back up to $4.8 million.

MR. WISEMAN: We are doing a piece of work on Crabbes River Bridge and that change reflects some cash flow, the way the project was flowing. Money was forecasted to be spent last year. It did not get spent, and now it is going to be brought forward and spent this year.

MR. BUTLER: I have a few questions now, Minister, with regard to the wastewater treatment regulations. I know in February, I think it was, 2009, the provincial government indicated it would not be signing onto the federal government's new strategy to manage municipal wastewater because it was too expensive. I was wondering: Can you provide an update on this issue and whether or not there have been any changes in the Province's position?

MR. WISEMAN: No, there has not been, actually. As I understand it, the federal government is proceeding to develop the regulations. They have been doing, at the official's level, a fair bit of work on drafting them, but our Province has not taken a change in its position.

Obviously, this has a significant impact for municipalities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and by extension, obviously, a significant impact for the provincial government. The federal government has still not indicated their intent with respect to any kind of funding associated with these new regulations. They are proceeding at the official's level to do their background work in readiness for, I suppose, consideration by a future parliament and we are standing pat on our initial position, which is that we are not signing on until we understand what the costs are going to be and understanding clearly that there is going to be some federal funding coming to help municipalities and the Province with the cost.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, I understand the federal government are expected to impose the standards by 2020. I also understand the plan would require 660 sewerage outfalls in the Province to be upgraded. I know you said you have not signed on, but I was just wondering: Has the Province looked at that possibility when this comes into play and are you considering an influx of cash to help the municipalities meet those standards?

MR. WISEMAN: I think your question is a valid one. I think the challenge we are having is until the federal government fully fleshes out their standards then it is a bit of a moving target at this particular point. Obviously, the signal is very strong in that there are going to be more stringent standards than we have today, but to start moving at this particular juncture and start doing upgrades on any of that infrastructure, start a planning process with municipalities for that systems upgrade without knowing necessarily the standards that might be in place and, secondly, not know the source of funding would be a bit premature. We will still work with the federal government in ensuring that as they bring these standards in there is money accompanying it. We will still work with other provinces to apply continued pressure on the federal government to ensure that the adequate funding accompanies that kind of regulation change. When we know clearly what the standards are, what the timelines are going to be for implementation, and what the source of funding will be then we can start working with municipalities to try to identify a solution.

Clearly, it is something that the municipalities themselves, through their federation, are very much aware of what is coming down. They, too, have as much anxiety as we do as a Province because it, in some cases, could present a significant cost to municipalities around the Province. As you are pretty much aware as well, over the years the infrastructure that we now have has been developed, some of it many, many years ago when standards were very different, towns were a very different size and many municipalities have expanded significantly since that time. The standards have changed over that period of time as well. So, until we get a better handle on the standards themselves and the funding, it is difficult to start doing a whole lot of preplanning.

MR. BUTLER: I attended one of the municipalities' conventions where the municipalities heard this proposal when it was brought forward by the feds and I know there was some major concerns. The minister of the day - not the Minister of Municipal Affairs now - was there at that time, I guess he heard the responses that came back from the MNL. I know, like you said, the federal government are still in the negotiations on this, but I am wondering: Have government, through the Municipal Affairs and your department, put forward the concerns of the municipalities to the federal government as they go ahead with their plans and hopefully could make some changes or make it a bit easier or whatever when the time comes?

MR. WISEMAN: We have, indeed, both through our department and through Municipal Affairs. Obviously, this is a major issue and Newfoundland and Labrador is not unique in this circumstance. This is going to be a national set of standards and other jurisdictions, their systems have evolved over time just as ours have. This will have a major impact, not just on our Province but the entire Nation.

The pressure to the federal government is coming from all parts of the country because it will have a huge impact. Whether the city is a huge city or a small municipality, it is going to have a major impact on the infrastructure that currently exists and, obviously, have major impacts on budgets, both for provinces and for municipalities across the country. We will continue to lobby the federal government. We will continue to make representation on behalf of ourselves as a Province and municipalities that are in this Province, and we will do that in unison with other provinces because they are having the same kind of issue.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

CHAIR: We can go to another member of the Committee now, Mr. Butler, but I just want to seek some direction from you. I just did not want to cut off short if there was a certain section there you wanted to finish up, if it is only going to take you a couple of minutes or something.

MR. BUTLER: No, that is why I nodded to you. That was the end of a section and I did not want to start the other one.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to come back to a section just to get a few more in-depth answers or a bit more in-depth information with regard to section 1.2.03.

MR. WISEMAN: Excuse me, could you just give me two seconds? Let me get my headset.

MS MICHAEL: Sure.

CHAIR: For some reason, I do not know if any other members are finding it, but I find that the acoustics in here this morning are not as good as they usually are. You just sounded pretty muffled to me, Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Really?

CHAIR: When Mr. Jones spoke back there - because Mr. Butler was saying - I know I had difficulty -

MR. BUTLER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: I do not want to miss your question and you accuse me of not answering your question again or something.

MS MICHAEL: You would never do that in Estimates, Mr. Minister –

MR. WISEMAN: I would never do that to you.

MS MICHAEL: Whatever about Question Period, but you would not do it in Estimates.

[Laughter]

MS MICHAEL: Well, I always use my headset. As you know, I need to use it all the time. So, the sound is great for me.

CHAIR: Okay.

MS MICHAEL: I will make sure I speak clearly so that others can hear me.

I am looking at 1.2.03 where you did make some response with regard to the clean air and climate change initiatives and explained that things did not quite go last year as forward as you expected, but now things are sort of more on track. When I look under Professional Services, there is $512,200 for this year, there was $664,000 last year, and then when I come down to the Grants and Subsidies and that amount has dropped down to $6.8 million from $11 million, I wonder could I just have a bit more detail on what the hopes are for this year as you are moving forward with the climate change action plan, some more detail.

MR. WISEMAN: The two headings that you have referenced in your question; let me address those first, then the broader question.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. WISEMAN: Because they are not related, necessarily, in the Estimates. Let us take the Grants and Subsidies; there was a reference in the early question that this is a part of the EcoTrust. You might recall a few years back the federal government established a trust fund.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: So what we are doing is depleting that pot of money. It is an application-driven process and each application is evaluated on its merit. Some years, the uptake has been greater than others. Some of these applications have not necessarily met the test and we have not approved them, others we have. Obviously, we have some great projects that we funded. Ones that really stand out for us are the couple that we have done in social housing, for example. A great project that we are able to financially support. So what we are doing here is, on an annual basis, we have been forecasting how much we thought we were going to spend. Sometimes we have approved projects but the money has not flown out in that year because of cash flow issues. What this figure here is and the changes you see, there is a pot of money here and we are going to spend it until it is all gone. The federal government put it up. If we spend five this year, then the rest will be carried over next year. That is what we have been doing since the fund was established.

This figure here, as much as we forecasted, we thought we would have it all out last year, we did not. I suspect by the end of this year there will not be very much left. We can give you a list of the projects we have funded if you are interested.

MS MICHAEL: Yes, I would be interested in a list of programs.

MR. WISEMAN: There have been some really good pieces of work done there. That will address the depletion of that fund. I suspect maybe next year, if not the year after, that line will be gone.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. WISEMAN: Now, going back up to your other point around the Professional Services, I made a reference that was a part of the Atlantic Canada Adaptation Strategy, that the federal government have created a pot of money for Atlantic Canada to work together on projects of mutual interest and advancing the issues around climate change. That is what that speaks to. That piece of work is progressing, there is a lot of co-operation between the four provinces and we are doing some great work together.

The bigger question you raised is the whole issue of climate change. We have, as you recall, established within Executive Council, an Office of Climate Change and energy efficiency. To help us with our process we have established a ministerial committee. It is co-chaired by myself, and the Minister of Natural Resources together with, I think there are five other ministers around that table, together with a deputy ministers' group as well. It is in early drafts now - or some of the early drafts I might characterize it as – of developing a strategy around climate change and energy efficiency.

We will have two strategy documents that we will be releasing sometime during this year. I am not in a position to refine that date any more than it is now. Like I say, there has been a lot of work done on that piece, a lot of stakeholder consultation has taken place around that, and a lot of research has been done. We have some very capable, confident people who are guiding that process on our behalf. We have an early draft now of what those strategies will be framed up like in terms of the outline of the content and some detail built around it.

I think the Province will see clearly that our government has made a big commitment to these two subjects, climate change and energy efficiency. These strategy documents will reflect our thinking and be guided by the information we have gotten through the consultation. I think it will reflect a very progressive view of where we want to take the Province.

MS MICHAEL: You hope that within this fiscal year you will have that strategy?

MR. WISEMAN: Within this year that should be ready to roll out.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. WISEMAN: There were some investments announced in this year's Budget you might recall. There was some funding this year allocated to do some flood risk mapping. Some mapping and assessment of coastal erosion for example, are two areas in particular. We saw the results of Igor last year. It was a stark reminder to all of us that we are very vulnerable and we do have some low-lying lands we need to better understand. We are a coastal Province and we will be impacted in a significant way. We need to better understand the impacts of climate change on our coastline.

MS MICHAEL: Minister, when you talked about the Atlantic-wide initiatives we are involved in, could you just give me an idea of what you meant by that?

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, maybe I will ask my deputy to give you – he has been closer to it longer than I have. Maybe, Bill, you can give her an understanding of what work has been taking place and where we are now with some of these things.

MS MICHAEL: In co-operation with the other Atlantic Provinces.

MR. WISEMAN: Exactly, yes.

MR. PARROTT: Yes, the Atlantic initiative is an initiative that is jointly funded by the Atlantic Provinces and the federal government. It is designed to look at climate change adaptation issues and it is designed to look at issues that span all four provinces. Work that is being done in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, or PEI is applicable across the board.

Some of the initiatives we are doing now are coastal zone management, flood risk mapping, and there is a whole suite. There is a tool kit being developed in conjunction with our partners. There are a lot of partners involved: the Atlantic Planners Institute, the professional engineering association, Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, and the various groups that are related to municipalities, like the municipal administrators. The intent is to develop a suite of tools that municipalities can use throughout the whole Atlantic region as it relates to climate change.

The focus has been on water because in the Atlantic region the main issues related to climate change are related to water, whether it be flooding related to deluges of water, sea level rising, or storm surges. So that has been the focus. The money got underway last year and will move into this year. It will be the main area of spending. There will be a series of contracts go out and consultants, and work being done. There are a lot of presentations at municipalities throughout the Province, as well as with the various administrative groups. We bring resources in from the Atlantic region and some of our specialists have gone to the Atlantic region to give presentations at their workshops.

MS MICHAEL: That is very helpful. Thank you very much. It is all good stuff to hear, actually, and it is nice to get that detail.

Again, a couple of more questions just to probe more deeply into the areas that Roland asked about, but just to probe a little bit more deeply. With regard to the whole issue of our infrastructure as it relates to delivery of drinking water et cetera, we continue to have a number of communities with the boil water advisories. I understand a small number of these are microbiological in nature, the majority are not. Sometimes the ones I understand, too, that are microbiological, they are things that happen momentarily, get dealt with and probably move onward. With regard to those that are more related to the infrastructure, is there a goal for reducing the boil water advisories? It seems to me it is always over 200. Is there a goal for those especially that are related to infrastructure, to reducing those?

MR. WISEMAN: One of the challenges - and I appreciate your question because it is a significant issue. As you pointed out, some of these boil orders have been in place for some time. One of the challenges we have - because right now we have some 594 communities in the Province, and there are some 540 public water systems in the Province. One of the challenges that we have, obviously, is these municipalities are - whether you are an incorporated community, who are elected in their own council. They are governed by a piece of legislation, they have their own autonomy, we provide financial support for their infrastructure, but they manage it. Then there a large number of local service districts that are also created through a piece of legislation that allows them to provide a range of services and charge fees for them. They too have a constitutional requirement to have elections. These are official, formally and legitimately elected bodies to manage the affairs of their communities.

We provide financial support through the Department of Municipal Affairs to put in water systems, and they run them. Unfortunately, some of them have chosen not to maintain them as well as we would like to have them maintained. Some of them have chosen to not install chlorination systems and some of them have chosen to install them but then changed their mind and stopped using them. So, therein lies the dilemma. It puts us in a position where the Department of Government Services, in concert with the Department of Health and Community Services, have issued boil water advisories because the chlorination system is not either functioning as it should or it has been disconnected altogether. There were 160-odd communities that were affected by these boil water advisories. A large chunk of them fall in that category where either the council or the local service district made a conscious decision to turn off the system, or they made a conscious decision not to maintain it properly.

To help them with that process, through our division, our department rather or by the Water Resources Division - in fact, this year was the tenth anniversary of having an annual education event. Through Municipal Affairs, we have facilitated and they provided funding to communities large and small to have their people attend, free of cost, a couple of days seminar on issues around water management, the management of the water systems. That is an annual event for the last ten years. In addition to that, we have got three or four units –

OFFICIAL: Three mobile units.

MR. WISEMAN: - Three mobile units that we have established in the Eastern, Central and Western part of the Province that we have staffed and these are vans that travel throughout the Province and conduct training sessions. We develop a certification program for operators. This has been a great service that we provide, free of cost, to the municipalities. Because some municipalities are quite small, local service districts sometimes are even smaller. Some of these systems are being maintained by volunteers. We just want to make sure that we provide the opportunity for the training that is necessary to maintain these systems.

In addition to the annual workshop we do, we have these training units that are travelling the Province. We have resourced them with the human resources that they need, the tools and the equipment that they need, to be able to visit communities, go into regions, conduct these seminars, training seminars, and then have a certification process. Whether you are a paid employee of a municipality or a volunteer, we have this certification process. We will give you the technical knowledge and ability to maintain your systems. Within those communities, though, it is their choice whether they want to maintain them; we can support them in any fashion. Most of these smaller communities, particularly, now are getting their funding at a 90-10 cost-shared arrangement so their infrastructure that they are putting in, the Province is picking up the tab for 90 per cent of that. Layer on that then the intensive training that we would provide for them and these mobile units, it is not just a one-off; it is a circuit that we are doing. So you will not just get one crack at the training, you can have access to that at any time. The resources that are in that department are available with a phone call to assist municipalities that want to troubleshoot their system.

We can do all of that but, at the end of the day, that municipality still, as an autonomous body, will make that conscious decision. Inasmuch as we would like to eliminate them, we are grappling with how we actually manage that piece. If you take the number of systems that have been turned off and the systems that are not being properly maintained, if you take them out of the boil order advisory, you have a very small number left.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: It is a manageable number. Dealing with the one-off kind of problem, it will get fixed and it will come off, but the chronic ones fall into those two categories. To a large extent, it is beyond our control. We can work with, encourage, and make all the resources available as we possible can, both human and financial but, still, at the end of the day, we are struggling with how we deal with that.

MS MICHAEL: Right. Actually, we did ask for information around this too at the Estimates with Government Services. I know all these figures sort of move around, but it was startling because the information we got there was 198 of what they said was the current number to 115 boil water orders, 198 are non-microbiological in nature.

MR. WISEMAN: That is right.

MS MICHAEL: You had twenty-three with the system not working, forty with the system turned off, seventeen operator problems, and then there were forty-two with no disinfectant and seventy-three with chlorine issues. So that backs up exactly what you are saying.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, and that is the struggle we are having. Take, for example, the residual chlorination problem is seventy-three. That might be an issue of system design, the contact time may need to be improved, and we are working with those municipalities, just to illustrate an example. Changing the infrastructure, with the investment that we will provide to help with the infrastructure improvements, that could be an engineering solution to that problem, they could be eliminated.

If you go back to the number you talked about, if you have forty-three systems that are turned off, the Province has come to the table, provided the money to do it, provided the training for the people to operate it and the municipality said no, they do not like the taste of the chlorine and there are a bunch of other reasons, and they just click the thing off. As soon as they turn it off, automatically the boil order goes in place, just as a precautionary piece.

MS MICHAEL: Right, you have no choice.

MR. WISEMAN: We have no choice in terms of the public interest to issue that order, so that is the dilemma. So, for example, if we fixed all of the other things, there are still forty-three communities that have decided to turn it off.

The boil orders that are in place, you have 500-and-some-odd thousand people in the Province and the boil order is affecting about 40,000.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

Minister, I like the stuff that you have outlined there, especially with regard to the mobile units going around doing training, et cetera. I have not done, obviously, analysis of the past five years what the boil water orders were like when I first came in, in 2006, and what they are now. Have you seen an improvement in the numbers because of the work that is going on?

MR. WISEMAN: I will ask Martin to comment on the numbers for a moment. Just to give you some comfort level, I had an opportunity this past year out in Gander at the tenth anniversary of these annual meetings that we put together. I had a chance to sit at a lunch with one of the resource people brought in from Alberta; I think the gentleman was from. He was a national expert in this field and has done some tremendous work throughout the country and written extensively on this subject. I had a chance to chat with him about what is happening around the country and some of his observations about what we are doing here. I tell you, I found it refreshing to hear him and I was quite pleased, actually, for someone like him to recognize that what we are doing in this Province is unique in many ways, in that there is no other jurisdiction in the country that provides the kind of level of testing support to municipalities that we do, and that information is public and it is up on the Web site so anybody can check any time at all. This training that we provide to the smaller municipalities and the larger municipalities throughout the Province, free of cost to these municipalities, is unique for the country.

So, some of the things that we are doing here, listening to him talk about what is happening in the rest of the country, was really reassuring knowing that we are on the right track. What we are doing here in this Province is over and above what many other jurisdictions are doing. We are taking this serious, and we are trying to work with municipalities to make sure that we can reverse that number.

As you asked the question: Is there a target? We would like to eliminate them all, and we are working diligently with the municipalities to be able to do that. It was nice to hear somebody from outside the Province who does this work around the country and is a renowned expert in this field to complement us on what we are doing and talk about us in a very unique way, and that we are uniquely different and much better than many other parts of the country.

I will ask Bill to speak to the trend that may have evolved over the last five years, and where we are today relative to where we would have been five years ago. Or Martin, I am sorry, Martin Goebel.

MR. GOEBEL: Thank you, Minister.

Yes, Ms Michael, the trend is a downward trend. Initially when we started tracking this about ten years ago, when we had the big Walkerton crisis, we had a lot of boil advisories and we got rid of a lot of them at that point in time. We have gotten to a point where, about five years ago I would say, we probably had about twenty or so more, not a large number more than we have now. We have been achieving some declines year over year, but it is only a few. As the minister pointed out, there is a lot of variability. While we might have a decline on average of maybe, say, twenty over five years, the boil advisories go up and down probably twenty, thirty, or forty over the course of the year.

For instance, just as an example, if a water line breaks, there is a pressure loss, that is a red flag and an advisory goes in place. That is a perfectly good reason to have a boil advisory because you know that the system has been compromised. Until that is fixed, the system has been re-pressurized, and tests have been taken to make sure no contamination got in the system, that boil advisory ought to be in place.

During the summer, there are a lot of repairs that takes place, a lot of maintenance work takes place, and flushing takes place. So the numbers will go up and then they will go down again. Usually around March or so they are at their lowest, then construction starts and people break lines. So it is up and down quite a bit more than the overall trend. The overall trend is a decline.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

CHAIR: I guess we will maybe go back to Mr. Butler for a few more questions.

MS MICHAEL: Could I just ask one more question in this area?

CHAIR: Yes, go ahead.

MS MICHAEL: It is again related to this discussion. I remember last year and the year before in having these discussions receiving the answer you have given, which is quite a legitimate answer. Municipalities do have to make choices and some of them choose, for different reasons, to not have their systems running as they should be running. Now, it is one thing to say they do not like the taste of chlorine; it is another thing to say we do not have the money.

In one of the Estimates - it may not have been Environment; it may have been Government Services or Municipal Affairs where this discussion happened - last year it was if the municipalities do not think it is important enough to take care of the water, we cannot do anything about it. They set their priorities. It could be that it is very difficult maybe for some communities. They need two or three things. They have limited money, we all know that. Even with the 90-10 split in cost-sharing infrastructure and stuff, some are still in a tough situation.

If it turned out that a municipality really could not afford to do it, I mean they really could not afford to do it because something else essential would also have to go - and I know it is not your responsibility in this department to come up with money, that is elsewhere - do you think, though, that if they could prove that it really is a money issue, that there is a responsibility to help them with that money issue?

MR. WISEMAN: You are right in your first observation: That is not our department that would find the money for them. I think the piece, if you look at it as a government - I will make a couple of generic comments now on behalf of government and any one of my colleagues - in this year's budget, for example, we announced significant changes in operating grants for municipalities -

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. WISEMAN: - because we recognize that some municipalities are having some difficulty. In fact, all municipalities have seen some changes in their financial status in recent years. The most recent announcement in this year's Budget with MOGs is the reflection of our wanting to support municipalities in a different way than we have in the past. The change that we made to the cost-sharing arrangement a couple of years ago –

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: - the generous cost-sharing arrangements, particularly the 90-10 for the smaller communities, is extremely generous.

One of the things and again it is a qualifier, some municipalities may say that I cannot afford water and garbage collection at the same time and we are making a choice here: Garbage piles up and we can get water some other way.

It would be difficult to answer your question with a black and white answer because I may live in a municipality that has decided here is a range of services that we need to provide, water is one of them and it costs this much money to provide that clean, safe water. Therefore, the fee structure in my community and the tax base is a mill rate of eight or nine and my fees are X number of dollars. My neighbouring community says I cannot afford to provide water in the community in which we support here, but then you say what is your mill rate and they say our mill rate is three or four. When someone says I cannot afford it and the neighbouring community can, if you look around Municipal Affairs - my colleague, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, can probably share this with you - if you were to profile the tax structures of municipalities around the Province, you will find great variances in what people charge for water, what they charge for sewer, what they charge as a mill rate, what they charge for fire protection services, what they charge for waste collection. There are a range of fees and a range of rates that are charged, so sometimes it is a little more expensive to live in one municipality than the next; the ranges of services are the same.

When someone says our municipality cannot afford to maintain our chlorination system, the question becomes: Will government rush in and provide the money? You need to sit back and do that broader analysis about what might be happening that could help do that. Are they living in a municipality where there is cluster of municipalities together and they are still maintaining their own independent administrative structures, maintaining their own fire department services? A real good example is not in my district but in a district that neighbours mine. In Port Union Catalina area a couple of years ago, I think there was four communities that decided the cost of maintaining their infrastructure, the cost of administrative support, is putting us in a spot where we cannot maintain all the range of services we would like to our communities, so we are coming together and we are sharing services. Another community just joined them several months back to do that same thing.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: There is a whole range of analysis that you need to do before you come down to that final question that you posed. If you walk around Newfoundland and Labrador today and start looking at communities that have said maybe we are not going to have our system turned on, that exploration is probably necessary in lots of cases. You might reach a point where having a system in place may be affordable.

The other thing that we have done too, just to add to the other investments we have made. I recall a couple of years ago - Bill, was it probably four years ago in the Budget that the new potable water systems were introduced, three or four years ago? The communities have water systems today that are used for drinking water and washing clothes and anything else that they need water for, but drinking water was the most critical consideration for them, so we introduced a new program to be able to put in potable drinking water systems in these communities to provide at least safe drinking water.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: If their system was such that it was fine for other purposes, bathing and washing clothes and things but drinking water was a problem, this gave them now a system that was much cheaper to operate for their drinking water and let their other system provide the water for other reasons, other purposes. We have done some things like that to also aid municipalities.

MS MICHAEL: Yes, I am aware of that.

MR. WISEMAN: It is a difficult challenge, no question.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

CHAIR: Okay, we will go to Mr. Butler for some questions, please.

MR. BUTLER: Just a comment with regard to the same thing: the water quality and boil orders. I want to make it very clear, I would not say this is probably the standard of policy of the party that I represent; this is my personal view.

MR. WISEMAN: You can say that. You are not going to run in the fall, are you?

MR. BUTLER: Affordability is one thing and Mr. Goebel mentioned there that when equipment is broke down, I can see a boil order. Outside of that, I do not understand it at all. I have to buy insurance; I do not want to. I have to wear a seatbelt; I do not want to. When it comes to the taste of water, I think everyone should – you take a boil order; how many people in that community actually boil that water? The children getting up in the morning, the first thing that is on their mind now is a boil order. I do not know how it can be done.

I know how it can be done: a law or a regulation come in. You must do this. I do not like the taste of it either, but I have a filter on my fridge and I think it is pretty good after that. To know that there are people out there with a system and just have it shut down because they do not like the taste of it and the concerns for the safety of the people, I think is a bit ridiculous.

MR. WISEMAN: We are trying to work through it; it is a challenge. As I said they are autonomous bodies, duly elected.

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

Under waste management, I am just wondering: What is the status - and I used the phrase last year: New Harbour dump. I will stand by that; I know it is a landfill but it is a dump, that particular one. I know there was a liner purchased approximately two or three years ago and I am wondering: Has that been installed? If not, when will that take place?

MR. WISEMAN: Maybe I will ask Bill to answer that question, I am not sure. The New Harbour dump - we can both call it a dump for the purpose of this discussion, how is that?

MR. BUTLER: No problem.

MR. WISEMAN: That has been closed for a while, but I will just (inaudible) -

MR. PARROTT: The New Harbour liner has been purchased; it is in storage. It has not been used yet because the capping has not gone on, on the waste site. The garbage has to be compacted, capped, settled and then the liner can be put on it and then a cap can be put over that. The piece of work in terms of covering it and compacting has to be done. We have been doing testing in the area, we have some monitoring wells put around it and things like that, so that has delayed - and the site just closed last year. We usually leave it for a while to settle on its own and then we will go in and hopefully do a piece of work on that and get that done.

MR. BUTLER: Whatever became of the issue – I know the federal government got involved there, a committee through the federal government was involved with that site as well. Was there anything ever came out of that through you people that you are aware of? They were saying that it was not handled properly and there were more issues in there that had to be dealt with before it could be capped or actually cleaned up, or more cleaning up had to be done or more removed. I think it was some group through the federal government. I cannot remember the name of them now.

MR. PARROTT: No, the federal government has not been involved with the capping of it or anything. The federal government has been involved in the monitoring of PCB removal. Last year and the year before, we removed some PCB materials and it was sent away for processing. That might be what you are referring to.

MR. BUTLER: So that has been resolved now? All the PCBs are out of the area is what I am trying to –

MR. PARROTT: I do not know if all the PCBs are out of the area yet, but the materials that we removed were removed to the satisfaction of the federal government. They have gone to a designated PCB site that removes the PCB materials.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

My next question is: Is there any burning of garbage in the Province today? If so, where would that be?

MR. WISEMAN: We still have a couple of sites out in Central, smaller sites, that still have permits to burn. In the East Coast, there is none. I will ask Martin to speak to the piece because out in Central there is a Central Waste Management, that landfill will be ready sometime in the latter part of this year, as I understand it. What they are doing is they have six or seven transfer stations developed and ready to be operationalized as soon as the main site is finished later this fall, but there are still a few locations that still have permits to burn. Martin, I think there are not that many though, is there?

MR. GOEBEL: I cannot name them all offhand; I think Rencontre is one. These are areas where there is really not enough fill or you cannot cover the garbage properly - very, very small communities. It is kind of a devilish choice but you have to allow them to maintain their existing burning facilities until the regional site is completed, as the minister indicated.

MR. BUTLER: Very good.

MR. WISEMAN: We can get the number for you. We can get the names of the communities that are there.

MR. BUTLER: No, that is okay.

MR. WISEMAN: Like I said, they are very small communities. There is only a handful, if I am not mistaken, left.

MR. BUTLER: Yes.

Minister, what were the results of the greenhouse gas study related to the trucking waste from the West Coast to Norris Arm?

MR. WISEMAN: I am not certain, actually. That may have been commissioned by the western regional authority that was established, they may have commissioned that kind of an analysis. It is not something that we as a department would have commissioned. That is something that they may have commissioned. If they did, to my knowledge - and Martin you can comment, I am not aware that they have sent it to us - if they commissioned a piece of work, they would have done that independently to help inform their decision. Obviously, the western group have engaged a consultant to help them with their decision process and there are a number of factors that they want to give thought to. Whatever information they needed to help inform them, they would have gotten their consultant to put together for them. That would not have been commissioned by us.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, we know waste management is very important. I am just wondering: How is it unfolding for Labrador? What will it look like, waste management, for the Labrador area?

MR. WISEMAN: I guess if you look at the Province, the Eastern Region has made a significant progress in closing a number of sites in consolidation with Robin Hood Bay. Central has advanced. As I said earlier, there were seven or eight transfer stations that they now have in a state of readiness for when the main site is done later this fall. Western has been working with a consultant to help them form their eventual decision that I just commented on a second ago. In Labrador, the geography obviously is pretty different. You have transportation issues, especially on the North Coast of Labrador. There has been some work done in Labrador City and a consolidation of Labrador City and Wabush in a new location.

If you look at the original strategy and you might recall when the strategy was rolled out, I think your party was in government at the time, so you might recall the scheduling and sequencing that the Labrador piece was a fourth part of that, the fourth in order, they would have been the latter part to be done. In terms of the pace in which it has been implemented, I am just kind of giving you an overall ranking of progress to date. There has been very little consolidation occurred on the North Coast, but in Western Labrador it has probably been the most significant investment I think, Martin, since the strategy has been rolled out.

MR. GOEBEL: (Inaudible).

MR. WISEMAN: Yes. The incinerator is now closed up in Labrador City and they are now using a ground cover for their waste.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, with regard to gravel pit camping - I know that was a major issue, I think it was in 2009 - I was wondering: What is the status of gravel pit camping now and what steps has the department taken in regard to this issue?

MR. WISEMAN: You are right. This was a huge issue that there was a lot of public commentary about. I think over the last few years there have been two or three more notable areas that have seen some significant change. I am thinking about Salmonier Line which was one that there was a lot of public discussion around. Over around Howley, there was a lot of public discussion around that area as well. That has been cleaned up and moved on. Some of the environmental improvements have taken place.

Down around Princeton Pond, down towards Trinity in my district, is another area where there were some significant changes made. Those that were, I guess, the larger collection of permanent cabins and trailers in pits, they got dealt with over a couple of years period. We said at the time, our intent was not to forbid individuals to camp in a pit over the weekend and take their trailer back home with them. That was not the intent. The challenge we had was, we had people who had set up pretty well permanent structures in pits around the Province and it became environmental issues. We had sewage seeping into the ground, throwing straight pipes out into ponds and lakes and streams. It became very much a major environmental issue. Those major collections of trailers and temporary accommodations that we seen, or supposedly temporary accommodations became permanent over a long period of time. Many of these have now been – orders have been given and they have removed them.

I think the major problem areas, Bill, have been pretty much taken care of.

MR. BUTLER: You said there were many. How many are on the go now, do you think, that would still have to be dealt with, just approximately?

MR. WISEMAN: I could not tell you. I would not want to pick a figure because I might be outside the chunk. I would rather put that together for you and give it to you rather than try to speculate.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, on May 3, I think it was, you stated that Justice was checking on the possibility of legal challenges with regard to a pesticide ban. I am wondering what legal advice you had received from the department, or have you received it to this point in time?

MR. WISEMAN: My comment about pesticide bans, I have indicated as a government we – or as a new minister, let me rephrase it that way, as a new minister coming into the department I needed to understand personally, forgetting what may have happened in the past and what others may have – information they may have garnered. I needed to personally, before I was in a position to and comfortable with advancing a discussion paper to my colleagues, I wanted to personally understand the issue. I needed to review the research and look at the implications from a legal perspective, understand what was happening in other jurisdictions and understanding what the science was saying. I needed to have that personal comfort level before I wanted to bring it forward, or in a position to bring it forward to my colleagues.

I am nearing the end of that piece and would see myself in the very near future being able to bring forth a discussion paper to my colleagues in Cabinet. From there then, government will make a statement about what it plans to do as we move forward with the – because the big issue that surfaced is the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes, and the common public commentary is referenced. I am not sure if cosmetic is a scientific word but I think we all generally understand and appreciate what it means in that we are talking about using pesticides to maintain lawns on personal properties and whether or not that has any benefit other than the look and the cosmetic value that it might have. That is the question at hand, and that is what I will be addressing when I bring forward a discussion paper to my colleagues. I hope to do that in the very near future.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Under Environmental Assessment, apparently, recently a senior environmental consultant here in St. John's criticized the Environmental Assessment Division for delayed decisions and updates and so on. I was just wondering, minister, has anything been done to remedy that situation? Was it correct even to, I guess to repeat the first part of my question, was he correct in saying that?

MR. WISEMAN: One of the things that happens with the environmental assessment process frequently, is a project will get registered, and the legislation is pretty prescriptive in terms of the timelines you have in which to respond, but frequently those timelines - well, thirty days is not a long process. Lots of times we will have situations where if you went in today and looked at when a project was registered – you might be registering a project today, on May 16, and you find yourself in six months time going in and checking the registry and find out that the project was actually released sixty days after. So, on the surface in auditing, you might say: Well, that was thirty days late in being released. The reality would be that within that thirty-day window, as the minister, the legislation says pretty prescriptive what it dictates I need to do. The thirty-day time period may start to draw near, and I realize there is some information here but there is a gap, we need some additional information. We need to go back to the proponent and suggest to them that we do not have enough information to help make an informed decision and ask them to do some additional work, provide us with some additional information, or suggest that we need a little more time to do some additional research, and it results in a delay.

The whole principle, and I think what is really important here, is the rationale for having this assessment process is to allow an opportunity for public commentary, public input and due diligence on the part of our officials and our department in assessing the impacts on the environment of any project that may be registered. The timelines were established in the legislation to protect everybody, so that the proponent does not get tied up too long, and that is understandable. At the same time, as a minister I have a responsibility before signing off on a project and releasing it, that I am comfortable we made the decision in an informed fashion. If the issue requires more than thirty days, we will do it in consultation with the proponent. The proponent may not be happy but it is one of these circumstances, if you are saying that you are not prepared to work with us and you want a decision on the thirtieth day, then the answer is going to be no. If you want to give us some time and do some additional research and you want to comply with our request to provide some additional insights, then it will give us a better chance to make a more enriched and a more informed decision, but based on what we have here today, we cannot give you a yes. It is one of these circumstances when you just want to do it right.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you.

My next question is on a topic we hear a lot about in our Province today is Muskrat Falls. I am wondering: Why isn't the Muskrat Falls project an example of project splitting?

MR. WISEMAN: You think it is? You framed your question and I will frame my answer in that you inappropriately described the project so I cannot comment on it.

MR. BUTLER: Well, my understanding is the assessment is being done in a full package. Maybe I am incorrect in saying that. Is that right?

OFFICIAL: That is being done in three.

MR. BUTLER: Oh, it is being done in three areas. I have it in reverse. I am wondering like any other assessment, why is it being done in the full package deal?

MR. WISEMAN: As I have said, there are elements of the project. The week before last, I guess, we released the guidelines for the transmission piece. That is going through a process, or started to go through a process now where the proponent has been given guidelines that they need to use to guide them through that next step.

The generation piece, there have been hearings recently held that I am obviously awaiting the recommendations coming from that panel. As you recall, that is a joint piece of work between the Province and the federal government. Recommendations will be made to both ministers and at that time then we will be in a much better position to provide comment about the future of that generation piece.

Right now, the transmission piece is the one we just issued the guidelines for the proponent to help separate that particular piece.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Will the Maritime Link be required to be registered for assessment in this Province? If so, how will that effect be co-ordinated with the Government of Nova Scotia?

MR. WISEMAN: Let me ask Bill to comment on the jurisdictional piece.

MR. PARROTT: The Maritime Link, we do not know the exact routing of that right now, so we do not know if it will be registered or if it falls within the registration criteria or not. I would have to assume if it is not following existing transmission lines, then it would have to be registered.

MR. BUTLER: So the possibility is there that it will not go a route where there are existing lines now, we will say?

MR. PARROTT: I do not know. I am not familiar with the routing. If it follows the existing lines, it would be one thing. If it took a course that was not related to existing right-of-ways, then that would require registration. If we do a registration, in conjunction we would work in co-ordination for anything on the Straits crossing with the federal government as well as the Government of Nova Scotia.

MR. BUTLER: What is the status of the habitat compensation work required at Vale with regard to their Long Harbour site?

MR. PARROTT: That is a project with the federal Department of Fisheries. I do not know the exact status of that right now.

MR. BUTLER: The next one I am going to go to, Minister, if I have time now –

CHAIR: Yes, you can go right ahead, Mr. Butler.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

With regard to tires, did the MMSB approach Corner Brook Pulp and Paper with the idea of using their tire stockpile for the tire-derived fuels, or did the company come to the MMSB?

MR. WISEMAN: I really could not comment, actually. You might recall that whole project where Corner Brook Pulp and Paper had registered the project with the environmental assessment process. It had already been registered before I moved into my portfolio in January. Shortly after I got there, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper withdrew their proposal. So I am not sure who started the discussion and how that actually started.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Minister, the Chair of the MMSB stated that they will continue – this was when the announcement was made there recently about tires going to Quebec – to look at environmentally friendly alternatives for used tires in the Province. I was wondering: Would you be able to comment on what options probably you are presently looking at?

MR. WISEMAN: Since the whole program started, there have been a half a dozen or so proposals. I think there were three different times it went out for RFPs looking for proponents to bring forward what was going to be a sustainable mechanism and environmentally-sound mechanism to dispose of the tires that we generate annually, plus the stockpile. We were unable to come up with a viable option. Then we had a number of unsolicited proposals that came in. Again, not sustainable, or some of them could, if we were to follow through with it, it would require such a significant subsidy that tire levees would be increased significantly or the supply was not large enough to make it a viable operation. We have had any number of proposals, unsolicited and solicited, through the RFP process that, when accessed, just were not viable.

I did not hear his comment, but the CEO for the MMSB would have been clearly sending a message that as of today this is the most viable proposition we have, it is environmentally sound, it is a regulated piece in another jurisdiction, and we have an ability to get rid of the stockpile we have now. We already had an arrangement in place with a Quebec firm to take what we generate on an annual basis. These are contracts that we have signed with these companies that supply them but if, however, tomorrow or the next day or ten months time someone comes by with an alternative and a proposal that is viable, makes good economic sense, makes environmental sense then we are open to exploring it and terminating the current arrangement.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, I have to say I apologize. I should have said that is what I was referencing: future tires that would be collected, not what is there now with regard to the project that is ongoing.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes. One of the challenges we have, relative to other jurisdictions, we do not generate a lot of tires. Used car and new car sales are up, and that is nice to see. In the last few years we led the country a couple of times in percentage increases in car sales and that is a reflection of the economy that we have, but at the same time we still do not generate enough tires in and of itself, at least the proposals we have to date, to make them viable. Because of our geography, it is difficult to bring tires from other jurisdictions.

One of the examples might be, by comparison, there is a New Brunswick-based operation that has an ability to look at not only getting tires from their own Province but in joining jurisdictions which makes them much more viable. Therefore, we are in a bit of a different spot. It is not viable to start bringing tires in from some other part of Canada to make an industry viable here because of transportation costs. We are saddled with about 400,000 tires a year, and saddled meaning that we have to dispose of the. It is a number that is not huge enough to make a lot of proposals viable, yet large enough that it is an issue that we need to manage and we need to find a way to dispose of them.

CHAIR: Okay, with that I think I will take some direction from the members of the Committee. It is 10:20 a.m. I would be proposing maybe that we take a ten-minute break, but I would not want to take a ten-minute break if members feel like they are going to finish soon. What is your suggestion? Maybe I look particularly to Ms Michael and Mr. Butler.

MR. BUTLER: I do not mind a break, but I do not require it. I have quite a few questions left yet if you want to take one.

CHAIR: Okay, all right.

MS MICHAEL: I mean I do not require one either. We usually do a two-hour session without a break and I cannot imagine breaking more than that.

CHAIR: Yes, I did not know if the minister or someone might have needed it. The rest of us can jump up and go to the washroom if we need to, but his officials are stuck there answering questions. I would suggest we take a ten-minute break and then come back. We do not want to be any more than ten minutes. If we resume at 10:30 a.m., is that good with people?

MR. WISEMAN: We can do that, Sir.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

I would like to come back to the waste issue, not so much a line item but just a question. Minister, with regard to e-waste, last year when we brought up the issue of e-waste during Estimates, the minister said that the department was investigating work being done in other provinces. Can you give us an update on what is happening with regard to looking at e-waste, because it is a major issue?

MR. WISEMAN: As you suggested, we did an analysis of what was happening in other jurisdictions and looked at some of their experiences. In fact, probably two months ago, a month-and-a-half ago, I met with officials from MMSB and met with people from the industry, the industry association, and representatives from some of the members of that association to start talking about a process for here. So we have now engaged the industry in preliminary discussions to map out the way forward. We have indicated, clearly, to them that it is our intent to bring in an extended producer responsibility for their waste, the electronic waste that we have in the Province. We are now engaging with them in helping us map out a framework for the way forward, and then we will be able to have some further discussions around what that looks like. We have sent the signal to them that it is our intent to bring it in, and we are going to work with them to ensure that it is appropriate, given our interests and our needs in this Province.

MS MICHAEL: When you say the industry, do you mean the recycling industry?

MR. WISEMAN: No, no, the producers.

MS MICHAEL: Oh, producers of electronics?

MR. WISEMAN: Whether it is computers or TVs or any electronic devices that would see in the consumer market here.

MS MICHAEL: Right. So, who do you see as the industry here? Do you mean the retail industry of those items?

MR. WISEMAN: No, the manufacturers.

MS MICHAEL: The manufacturers.

MR. WISEMAN: At the end of the day, the manufacturer has the responsibility.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. WISEMAN: The retailer happens to be the person who distributes the product. What role they play in the future is to be defined. At the end of the day, the producers have to shoulder the responsibility for the disposal of the products that they are generating and shipment into the market. Who gets it there, whether it is through mail order or retail store really does not matter to us. The critical thing is that the producer, whoever manufactures it, has to assume that responsibility for the eventual disposal of it.

MS MICHAEL: Do we have manufacturers here in the Province or are you dealing with manufacturers from outside of the Province?

MR. WISEMAN: Outside.

MS MICHAEL: Yes, okay. That is what I was trying to get clear.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, I say that in that I am not aware that we have any manufacturers of electronic equipment in the Province.

MS MICHAEL: Right. So you are talking about big manufacturers here then from outside the Province?

MR. WISEMAN: Exactly.

MS MICHAEL: Okay. Surely, they have to deal with this in other jurisdictions?

MR. WISEMAN: That is the whole piece here. We are not forging foreign territory here. The manufacturers have accepted, really, their responsibility in many other jurisdictions. The mechanisms and processes in place in these jurisdictions may vary depending on the uniqueness of that circumstance. Based on the jurisdictional scan that we did - as you premised your question about last year's discussion - we learned some things about other jurisdictions and how they have done it, transfer that here and how that might look here. Now we are trying to work with the manufacturers themselves in structuring something that will work for us. You are right; it is not new territory for them at all.

MS MICHAEL: How far along are you in that process, do you think, in terms of actually coming to some policies?

MR. WISEMAN: I expect it is early stage but, at the same time, because you are not charting foreign territory here, it should not be a lengthy process for implementation. A lot of lessons learned in other jurisdictions, you have an industry that has embraced it and not coming in kicking and dragging their feet, it is an acceptance of how this actually works and their role and responsibility. It is an early stage, but it is not a lengthy, complicated process.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, that sounds good.

I know there was this initiative, the Recycle My Cell School Challenge. I know Newfoundland and Labrador schools did take part in that whole national challenge. Is that still happening do you know?

MR. WISEMAN: Well, let me ask Leigh – Leigh has joined us now. Leigh Puddester who I introduced earlier has been with the MMSB and I will let Leigh comment on that question for you.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

MR. PUDDESTER: No, that was a one-time promotion that was organized by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. The challenge ended; however, we continue to work with the CWTA on the Recycle My Cell program more broadly than just within schools. That program was very successful. We had the highest participation rate in the country by far, which I think speaks to the value of the partnership we have with them.

MS MICHAEL: Right. At the moment, as you said, there are no plans for anything else. I am just thinking that where we are moving in a direction of getting a plan in place with regard to e-waste, it would be good even if we had some kind of a program in school with regard to storage of stuff in preparation for when we actually have the ability to deal with it. Just like in our homes, a lot of us have an awful lot of stuff in our basements; I know I do: two or three computers, printer and things like that. Is there any thought being given to how we might have some storage even of cellphones in preparation?

MR. WISEMAN: (Inaudible) recognize the intent of the program itself, obviously, is to have it disposed of but recognize as well that the other piece of the program shifts the responsibility to the producer. So, whatever we put in place to have an e-waste program, the producer shoulders that responsibility. For us to move out in front of that and start putting in place mechanisms and processes, number one, someone has to pick up the tab at this front end and it will be us as a Province or as a people; second, until we understand what the program would look like, it might be premature to do something in advance that may not necessarily be compatible with what we are doing, plus the other piece is the cost.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. WISEMAN: If it is coming in the short term, then it may be premature to run out and spend a whole lot of money, energy, and time putting in place structures and processes that may or may not fit within the program when it is introduced.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you.

I am going to move now to some line items. A lot of my general questions have been dealt with, either by myself or by Roland. In the line items, 2.2.01 Water Resources Management, I have asked my big questions on that but there are some line item questions.

MR. WISEMAN: Sorry, which one again?

MS MICHAEL: Section 2.2.01 Water Resources Management.

MR. WISEMAN: Okay.

MS MICHAEL: Subhead 05. Professional Services which was $759,000, last year up to $1.2 million in the revision and up to $1.5 million for this year. Could I just have an idea of what is being covered under those professional services?

MR. WISEMAN: That increase you are seeing there, the $440,000-odd, reflects the increase in the cost of the contract with the federal government because we have introduced a number of new stations, water monitoring stations.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. WISEMAN: That is an arrangement we have with the federal government. That is our increased cost portion.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, very good. Although, I notice there is nothing in federal revenue for this year. All the money must be coming from the provincial, is it?

MR. WISEMAN: Martin, can I ask you to speak to that?

MS MICHAEL: There was federal money last year but no federal money this year.

MR. GOEBEL: The federal money you are referring to, the $120,000 is an agreement under the water agreement with Agriculture Canada. That was put in there in anticipation of getting some contracts but they did not materialize because the federal government did not come up with a program.

The funding for the hydrometric program is cost shared. The federal government pays their part and we actually pay them. They contribute the work; we pay them for that. That is why there is no money coming to us for that program. They pay for half the program and spend it in their own shop.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, I understand. That is what I wanted to know, where it was cost shared, why there is no federal line but that explains it. Thank you.

Under subhead 06 Purchased Services has gone down from $1 million to $411,000. What does this cover, the Purchased Services, or what has it covered?

MR. WISEMAN: The $500,000 decrease you saw from last year results from delays in the agricultural water use study that was done. Then this year, the forecast of the $411,000 – your question is how we actually are spending the $411,000?

MS MICHAEL: Yes, what exactly is that about, the Purchased Services under this year's budget?

MR. WISEMAN: That $411,000 will be used to provide water sample analysis by lab services as we do field observations, surveys, repairs and maintenance of various field instruments, equipment and water testing metres.

MS MICHAEL: The regular stuff.

MR. WISEMAN: The regular kind of routine stuff; an analysis of ground water, printing reports and forms, and that kind of stuff.

MS MICHAEL: Okay. Thank you very much.

Under 2.2.02 Water Quality Agreement, "Appropriations provide for the Water Quality Monitoring Agreement which is delivered jointly with the Federal Government." Really, all I would like here is just a bit of an explanation about this agreement and how it works.

MR. WISEMAN: Okay.

I will ask Martin if he would; Martin is the resident expert on water.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. GOEBEL: Thank you.

Unlike the hydrometric agreement, this is a work shed; so, in fact, there is money put on the table. The federal government does provide us with some money. The water quality agreement is basically one where we have ambient water quality monitoring stations throughout the Province. We provide the field work to collect the samples; the federal government analyzes the samples at their chemical labs.

We have also been working on real time water quality monitoring. We have now something like thirty-four stations throughout the Province where you can go on-line and actually observe the chemical quality of the water as it changes hourly. This is a way to have an eye on water quality throughout the Province by the public, by officials, by scientists and whoever wants to access that data.

MS MICHAEL: This would be for water on Crown land, for our ponds, our rivers, et cetera?

MR. GOEBEL: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

I think we have a very good situation in this Province with regard to the quality of our water. Am I right or wrong?

MR. WISEMAN: To go back to the comment I made earlier when I said I was pleased to hear the comments by the gentleman from Alberta, who is a resource person, at the conference recently. We talked about that whole piece. What we are doing with water monitoring here, and the fact that we have it available in real time and it is on our portal, that makes us unique in the country. The kinds of things we are doing to better understand and to manage that resource is significant.

MS MICHAEL: Right. I actually did not know we had these monitoring – I probably should have –stations and I could go on-line and see what is happening with our water.

MR. WISEMAN: You are not unique in that, many people do not actually, but this is something we have – actually, it is interesting the piece of work that we are doing, just to share this story with you. The piece of work that we do in this division is something that has gotten international recognition. We are doing work in Jordan now by invitation from the United Nations. We have done two other international projects as well. This is the kind of technology and the kind of program that they were asking us to support their implementation.

MS MICHAEL: Good. Thank you.

I will be moving into another division. I do not know, Mr. Chair, if Roland may have questions under the area that I am just ending.

CHAIR: Sure. Well, why don't we do that? Go to Mr. Butler for –

MR. BUTLER: If I start I will be going back to where we left off.

CHAIR: That is fine; we will make sure everybody gets all their questions answered.

Go ahead Mr. Butler.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Minister, back to the questions I was asking with regard to the tires, the MMSB and so on. I believe when this Quebec proposal was announced, I think the figure used was $4.3 million. I was just wondering, what was this money originally used for if this deal was not struck with Quebec? Then in comparison to the proposal I understand that was being looked at with New Brunswick, what would have been the difference in the figures there?

MR. WISEMAN: The $4 million you are talking about was not being used for anything. Remember, we have been paying a fee for every time you buy a tire. That has been sitting there accumulating until we had some mechanism to dispose of them. That money was not being used; it is not being diverted from some other use.

The second piece, with respect to the New Brunswick one, there is a significant cost to the New Brunswick piece. It came down to dollars and cents. It was cheaper for us to send it to Quebec than it was for us to send it to New Brunswick.

MR. BUTLER: Okay. How much money would they have in the bank now, built up from the fees from the tires that we collect?

MR. WISEMAN: Leigh, do you know the exact number?

MR. PUDDESTER: We do not separate out money from tires versus the beverage. All of the revenue from both of those programs is aggregated together. We do not have the audited statements for the year just ending but it should be about $6.5 million left in the operating surplus. That is where the money would come from to deal with the stockpile.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

My next question is off the cuff, more or less. I know some of the tires used to be stored in the Bull Arm site. I understand the Bull Arm site is owned by the Province, or as far as I know it is. If the site was not big enough, I understand there was lots of Crown land adjacent to it. I often wondered: Why was it moved off a site that we have and would not have to pay anything, and move them to the Dunville area and pay $600,000 a year? There must a reason for it, I was just wondering what it is.

MR. WISEMAN: Obviously, the Dunville site is a parcel of land that has no economic activity other than the storage that currently exists there. There was no operation there before. We did not displace an entity that was there.

Bull Arm was an entity that we were trying to market. It had a use; it had an application. Between now, today, and when the last major project was done out there with the Hibernia platform that was constructed, there has been a fair bit of activity, especially in the last seven or eight years, on that site. It is difficult to market a location for some potential use, either for fabrication and repairs. There have been a number of retrofits that have been done out there on offshore rigs. It is difficult to market your site for that when you are actually using it as a significant storage area.

We always were of the view and dreaming, I guess, that this day would come when we would be able to dispose of that stockpile sooner than later. So, no one ever envisaged having the land out in Argentia being leased for a long period of time. It has gone on much longer now than any of us would have desired. We always viewed it as a temporary and interim arrangement. If you have a temporary and interim arrangement, why would you allow it to impede your ability to market a site like Bull Arm site as a major fabrication facility?

MR. BUTLER: I agree with you to a certain degree and I am not going to argue with you. I know where you are coming from. With Bull Arm we are trying to promote the site, but the tires are not stored on a site where there is anything else, it is in a yard of a contractor and that is why I asked the question: Why would you put it in such a place as that even? Anyway, that is fine.

With regard to contaminated sites, I know back some time ago the Auditor General stated that the department is not doing a good job in regard to identifying and remediating the contaminated sites. I am wondering: Since his comments, what has been done and how do you feel the department has done since then?

MR. WISEMAN: I am not sure that the AG said we are not doing a good job in identifying or remediating. I think the AG's report focused on the fact that we did not have an accurate record-keeping system and a database that actually tracked the sites and attract the activity in these sites. I think that was the criticism of the AG, not that we were not remediating. There is a big distinction between those two things.

Let me speak to the real focus of the AG's report, which is a database suggesting that we would have a more robust mechanism to track the sites and the activity around those sites. He makes a fair observation in that we do need to have a more robust database to track the sites and to understand activities on those sites. We are now moving in that direction to respond to his recommendations because they are valid points he has risen.

MR. BUTLER: By the way, he did say the words that I just recited.

The next question, Mr. Minister, is: What is your long-term plan to remediate the contaminated sites?

MR. WISEMAN: We recognize that some of these sites are the responsibility of the polluter, but just to those areas where we have a responsibility, this year's budget made a significant investment to start doing the work in Hopedale. We have spent a fair bit of money up in Buchans, and we will continue to do some work in Buchans for the remediation in Buchans. So these are two significant sites that we are already engaged in doing some work. Those areas where we have a responsibility as a Province, like those two, for example, we will continue to work on and invest to do.

The critical issue for us with these sites, when you talk about sites being contaminated, the big consideration, obviously, is human health. The extent to which remediation is done and the extent the work needs to be done will be driven by human health assessments that will be done, and that will define the scope of work that is necessary. Clearly, though, the legislation in this Province puts an onus and responsibility on the person who did the polluting and the contamination caused by an individual or company, it is their responsibility to do the cleanup. I think the AG's focus is us understanding and capturing where those sites might be, and then pursuing the necessary cleanup associated with whoever is responsible to do that necessary cleanup.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, do you know the cost, what it be, associated with the Province's contaminated sites, the ones the Province would be liable for?

MR. WISEMAN: The Province?

MR. BUTLER: Yes, there are so many sites –

MR. WISEMAN: I would not have that here. I can find out for you, but I do not know what that would be.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

My next question, Minister: Has the Province considered raising the offshore oil spill liability limit higher than I think it is $30 million now?

MR. WISEMAN: I think Minister Skinner answered the question in the House one day last week. I think he indicated that it is one of the recommendations that they are exploring, and that is a piece of work that has been led by him and his department. I think he provided a good response in the House of Assembly the other day. I think your leader agreed with his comment, actually, if I am not mistaken.

MR. BUTLER: I missed all of that, boy.

MR. WISEMAN: She did in a scrum.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, can you provide us with an update on the legal proceedings regarding the full remediation of the Abitibi site and roughly what it would cost, or would your department have anything on that?

MR. WISEMAN: It is a piece of work before the court, and to start getting into a public discussion about issues around that while it is still before the court would be inappropriate.

MR. BUTLER: A recent report stated that it was determined that the decline in the caribou herds is due to overhunting. I know there were studies being done on the coyote and other predators. I am just going to ask: Do you agree with that, the decline is basically due to overhunting?

MR. WISEMAN: You asked the question earlier about how much money we have spent on the Caribou Strategy and in another related question I made a reference to the scientific approach to doing this piece of work. One of the things we need to be extremely careful of is that we made a big commitment of $15 million to do this piece of work, we are three years into it, we have gained some insights thus far, but we have not concluded our piece. We have looked at the implication of predators. We obviously need to understand habitat and we need to understand hunting.

Until we have that piece of work advanced further than it is now, to start speculating about what might or might not be the major cause of it might be a bit premature. So we want to make sure that we understand the implications of it, and let us be guided then by the science as we map out the way forward once the strategy is done. We have put some restrictions on obviously the hunt now while we do this piece of work, but to start speculating about what might be is a bit premature.

MR. BUTLER: What is the current status of the Red Wine and the George River caribou herds, population wise?

MR. WISEMAN: Obviously, you might recall last year there were significant changes made policy wise. There was a significant restriction placed on the hunt. I believe it was October or November we rolled out the new guidelines.

Obviously, it is a herd that is in distress, but it is a herd that we share in terms of the responsibility for the herd. There is a Quebec interest here and there is an Aboriginal interest. So we are working very closely with the Quebec government, together with the Aboriginal community, in mapping out the way forward. We would not have taken the action we did last fall if we did not believe the herd was under tremendous pressure. So we need to stabilize that population and start putting in place a management regime to see it recover.

MR. BUTLER: This is my last question with regard to the caribou issue. I was just wondering - I know last year it was a big issue and probably the year before - did any Inuit hunters from Quebec hunt in Labrador this year, and do you have any stats on how that went? I guess I will tie it all into one. I do not think there were any charges laid against illegal hunting activity as previously. I was wondering if you would be able to make a comment on that.

MR. WISEMAN: The issue of the charges being laid, obviously, that is well beyond our role and responsibility. We have a mandate to manage the resource. We issue licences and we deal with the management strategy, and developing managing strategies for the herd. Justice issues would be better directed to the Justice.

The population, as you said earlier, has dwindled significantly down to about 74,000 animals now. One of the things we have been able to do - I said a moment ago that we are working with Quebec and the Aboriginal community, and as a result of those efforts and our discussions and a mutual recognition that this herd is under tremendous pressure, they have, I guess, acknowledged that all of us need to work together. Going in with the hunt as seen in some past seasons was not to anybody's advantage and that no one's interest was being served. I think that is one of the things which resulted in a change this year, that is a working relationship that we have established where all parties recognize there is mutual benefit here and in everybody's best interest to work together.

MR. BUTLER: I have to go back to contaminated sites again; I missed one of my questions there. I am just wondering: Does polluter pays only apply when the polluter owns the site? I will give you an example. If you take ownership of a contaminated site, doesn't that make you liable for the cleanup? For instance, lots of times we hear cases and have calls about homeowners who buy property and there is probably on that site buried oil tanks. Are they responsible or the person who did the polluting before they took it over? How is that looked at, Minister?

MR. WISEMAN: It is a legal question and there is an indemnification that purchasers should get when they buy property so that if you buy it, you buy it as it is. The recourse government has is with the current legal owner, unless there has been some indemnification which the selling party agrees to indemnify the purchaser for any damage that may have been there before they took ownership.

MR. BUTLER: With regard to the moose, just a quick question. I know there has been some dispute about the numbers of moose in our Province, and that is one of the things I wanted to ask you from your perspective, what are the numbers? I know this overlaps into different departments. There are other departments, like highways, that are doing brush cutting and so on. I am just wondering where the five-year moose management plan would be at this time, and what other options have you looked at from your perspective? Like I said, there are two or three departments involved here.

MR. WISEMAN: There are multiple questions in the way you framed that one. Let me deal with the very basic one at the front end.

The number of moose; there is a number that gets tossed around frequently in the public domain that has the number of moose pegged at over 200,000. I do not know where the numbers come from because the only people who are doing any census of moose in the Province are officials in our department. We are the only entity doing a moose count. The methodology used is consistent with other jurisdictions in how they count their animals. When you start comparing one jurisdiction to the other, there is a commonality in the methodology that is being used. It is the approved scientific method of doing it. You may challenge it but it is a proven methodology that is being used elsewhere.

The most recent, as a result of some census work done in the last, I guess results in the last several weeks, would tell us that the population now is down to about 110,000. The figure before that, which was last year some time I think it was or better than a year ago, had it pegged at about 117,000. If you look at a grid mapping moose population, you would have seen a graph that showed a significant climb like this and peaked, Ross, probably fifteen, twenty years ago at about 160,000 and has been in a steady decline since then. If you look at the graph it looks like a big hump. It grew steadily and it has been declining steadily. It is down now, the estimated numbers of about 110,000.

The other parts of your question deals with, what are some of the things we are doing? This year we have increased the number of licences by some 5,000; 4,600 of those were allocated along major highway networks, the Trans-Canada and our major trunk roads; all the moose management areas that align themselves with a major highway. As well, they were either sex licences which should increase the success rate for the hunters along those arteries.

From our department and the role that we play in this piece in managing the population and issuing the control of licences, issuing licences and controlling the numbers, this is the fifth year in a row that government has increased the number of moose licences issued. This past year was the largest, single increase in the number of licences that we have seen in our history – I will not say history, that goes back a long ways, but in recent times, for certain. We have a little over 30,000 licences that we now have issued in this year's allocation. The process is happening now as we speak; 33,000 is in the process of happening now as we speak.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, like you said it peaked at, just a few years ago, 170,000-something. With this massive decline now and the many increases in licences again this year - I understand where you are coming from, but there is no concern within the department that we have gone too high with that? I am not pushing for (inaudible), I think there should be more gone, but do you have many concerns or comments from people that you are taking too many out now because of the decline, or is the decline only from the hunting perspective or are their other aspects?

MR. WISEMAN: There is a science behind this, the question you are posing, and there are a number of factors, obviously, given some consideration. I said it is in a decline from 160,000. Was a 160,000 too many? Should it have been capped?

If you look at a graph for the last twenty years, it climbs like this, it comes down on the other side, and it looks like a big bulge. Some time during that period when it was climbing, the number of questions you have: What can the habitat support? There are other issues you need to give thought to in terms of the habitat. This is an animal that can multiply pretty fast. They can have multiple births. They will give birth in their first year, after they are born. So they can start to multiply pretty quickly. They are an animal that can have multiple births. It is a fairly robust animal that can rebound pretty quickly. Obviously, some of that is driven by habitat. We have had a fairly aggressive forest industry in the Province where you have a lot of logging operations and as a result of that you get a lot of new growth, which moose are attracted to. The habitat has been able to support a fairly robust moose population, but things change. Their habitat may not be able to support that kind of number again, so there is no thinking that we will and should be starting to rebuild our herd back to that 160,000 level, for example. That is not in the cards in terms of our planning. There are a number of things like that, that you have to give some thought to, which ties in to your other question around the moose plan.

That is a piece of work that we are in the front end of, and a fair bit of research will help inform that process. You do need to give some thought to what is an optimal number to try to manage for. One of the things that have been referred to frequently is moose density. There has been a reference to our moose density in this Province versus other moose densities. We have a fairly large land mass, so the number of moose per square kilometre of total land mass is pretty small. If you look at our number of moose per square kilometre of actual habitat that supports the moose, it is a bit higher than other jurisdictions. So, what is an optimal size that the habitat can support and creates a balance in our system, 160,000, no doubt, is extremely high and, no doubt, we will never return to those levels.

Some people who hunt would know our success rates; you hear people talk about not having gotten their moose and some more people did. Hunter success rates are still high - 60 per cent I think, Ross? Our success rates for the resident hunter are in the high sixties and for the outfitters I think their success rates are in the seventies, if I am not mistaken. The outfitting industry has enjoyed high success rates for their clients. That tells us that the effort being made by hunter population is getting good success. If success rates start to drop dramatically and we start seeing some changes in the habitat as a result of a dwindling moose population, these are indicators that maybe there is a different strategy that needs to be deployed.

Inasmuch as you develop a five-year plan, plans are very fluid as well. Here is a forecast of what we anticipate doing over the next five years but things change, our environment changes quickly. If you have mass destruction in the habitat, then that may change what you do. There are a number of factors that we want to give some consideration to. Obviously, this past year, from a policy perspective, we were guided in the decision to allocate either-sex licences. Some 4,000 or 4,600 or so either-sex licences along our main highways was driven by a policy consideration around the number of moose-vehicle collisions that were happening and we wanted to have a positive impact on that. That policy decision was made and that is what drove that decision. There are a variety of variables that get thrown into a consideration.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, with regard to the coyotes - I know in the media we hear stories how close they are coming to communities and my area is no different than anywhere else - I am just wondering: Through the study that is ongoing, do you have any estimation on how many coyotes are in the Province, and is there anything being considered to help control this population if it is as large as what people think it is?

MR. WISEMAN: Let me ask Ross to speak to that piece because there have been a number of recent public commentaries about the number of coyotes - and you are right - in that they have been out in communities, closer to communities than other people have seen. They have appeared in the middle of St. John's very recently, apparently, and it created a bit of excitement. Let me have Ross speak to the whole piece around the coyote, if I could.

MR. FIRTH: Just as a bit of a background, coyotes are an incredibly adaptive species. If you look at the shift in populations in North America over the last several decades, you will see that they have expanded their range tremendously and they will continue to do so there. As I said, they are very adaptive. They are able to fill niches and to not only live in rural areas but also to inhabit urban areas as well. You see that across North America. You have coyotes sometimes in Central Park in New York City. They get into the cities; they set up territories in there. The ability to, I guess, manage populations within that landscape are very, very difficult and very, very problematic on it. As I said, they are very adaptive in their ability to inhabit a variety of landscapes.

CHAIR: Maybe we should –

MR. WISEMAN: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Oh, sorry, Minister. That is fine, you go ahead. I did not know you were going to offer a comment.

MR. WISEMAN: It is a fair question that you posed and there has been a lot of public interest. That is why we have undertaken a significant investment in public education and awareness so that people better understand the coyote itself; understand how they should deal with them if they see them in their community and if they sight them near their homes. We have done a fair bit of work in trying to create an understanding and a better appreciation and understanding of the coyote and what you should do if you see them.

CHAIR: I guess we will go to Ms Michael for a few questions at this time.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

I have a couple of general questions before some more line items. You do not need to open this, Minister, but section 1.2.04 deals with the Sustainable Development and Strategic Science, and I know we have a lot happening there. I do not have questions on line items, but I do have a general question with regard to sustainable development because we have, on the books, a Sustainable Development Act, which is still not proclaimed. We got some answers last year around that, but I guess I am just not satisfied – I think it has been four years now since the act was passed but we did not have proclamation.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, 2007.

MS MICHAEL: What is holding things up and what is your hope with regard to proclamation of that act?

MR. WISEMAN: It is a fair question. It has been on the books - I think in 2007 it was passed.

MS MICHAEL: Yes, it is four years old, I think.

MR. WISEMAN: It was a piece of work that the government had completed, obviously, before it was passed in the House. When we started to look at how we operationalize it, there were a number of questions that surfaced that prompted us to hold off on doing anything with it. Based on work that we have done in recent months, I would suspect that during the year we are currently in you will see some action on this proclamation.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, that is good to hear. Thank you.

Coming back to a little discussion that you were having with Roland earlier about the liability for contaminated sites, I think you indicated that you did not have information right here with you with regard to numbers, around what the numbers might be for government's liability but you could make them available. Would you make that information available?

MR. WISEMAN: I can, but I do not think that was my answer. What I had indicated on the issue of liability was that my colleague, Mr. Skinner, responded to that question in the House recently and provided an indication that government had acknowledged the recommendation made with respect to the limits and that he intended to do some additional research and evaluate the recommendation before jumping to a decision to do that. If I recall your question in the House that day, and your comment publicly thereafter, was that you felt that enough research had been done and government should be ready to move now. He indicated that he wanted to have an informed discussion around it and then follow through with an action.

MS MICHAEL: You did indicate in a response to Roland this morning that you do have some numbers with regard to the sense of government's liability for some contaminated areas.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, I am sorry. I confused two questions, you are right. That is my mistake.

MS MICHAEL: You said if we wanted them you could make them available, but Roland did not say yes, we want them, and I want to say yes we want them.

MR. WISEMAN: Okay. What we have available we will provide to you.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

MR. WISEMAN: I am sorry; I was confusing your question with another question.

MS MICHAEL: Yes, no problem.

I think having asked those two I am ready to go now into some more line items, which are fairly boring sometimes but still needs to be dealt with.

MR. WISEMAN: I will not characterize your questions as boring if you do not characterize my answers as being boring, how is that?

MS MICHAEL: No, I just mean with regard to going through line items that can be boring but not always. It is important that we do it.

Section 2.3.01 Environmental Assessment; we have three subheads 03, 05 and 07. It just seems to be standard to put the figure in because in each case the budgeted item is quite under spent in each case, yet the budget line is kept for this year. So, just a rationale as to why in those three areas you maintain such a high amount of money.

MR. WISEMAN: Environmental assessments, obviously that is driven by the number of proponents and registered projects. Obviously, with the amount of economic activity that has taken place in the Province - the Province has never had as much activity in our history as we have experienced in recent years. Inasmuch as we like to be able to think we are accurately forecasting, we have varying degrees of activity in any given year, but one of the things that is certain is that because this is a legislative requirement and because we are in a time when we are experiencing a lot of economic activity, we want to make sure that we have made appropriate appropriations to be able to respond when it happens. This is an area - it is almost like a fire department, you need to resource it to be able to respond appropriately with the skills that you need to do the work. Given the very prescriptive nature of the legislation, we have some tight timelines to adhere to. We want to make sure we have made adequate appropriations.

MS MICHAEL: I guess that is why I was a little surprised with, under subhead 03 and subhead 05, Transportation and Communications, and Professional Services, because of the high activity in recent times, especially over the last year that those two were so under spent.

MR. WISEMAN: Let's take the transportation piece for example. The $213,000 that you see there now reflects –

MS MICHAEL: I see $288,000.

MR. WISEMAN: No, I am talking about the transportation piece, and just to illustrate my point in the budget versus the revised –

MS MICHAEL: Right, $288,500 down to $75,000.

MR. WISEMAN: - to $75,000, because you commented earlier about the variations, up and down nature of that.

MS MICHAEL: Yes, right.

MR. WISEMAN: As an example of that one, there is a $213,000 difference there because the joint panel for the Lower Churchill did not start their meetings until March, 2011, as an example.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. WISEMAN: We knew the project was coming, so had we not made last year the appropriate appropriation, we could have gotten caught short.

MS MICHAEL: Understood.

MR. WISEMAN: So we did, and now this year, we only spent $75,000 but that money will be spent and taken up in this year that we are currently into.

Professional Services, again, is another one that had forecasted last year at $690,000 and is now down. We only spent $225,000; again, a joint panel on the Lower Churchill, the same piece. That was later starting than we anticipated but you will notice now the figures go back up because we know that the work is in progress and will be paid for out of this year.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. WISEMAN: That is why I am saying that some of these projects, because we know it is happening, we are able to forecast it but the timing of when it starts becomes a cash flow issue.

MS MICHAEL: No, but that was what I wanted because that particular – especially the $75,000 and not the $288,000. You have given a clear explanation. Thank you very much.

Under 2.3.02., which is the Aboriginal Participant Funding, you had anticipated $500,000 last year. I can see why there is nothing in there now, because there is nothing on the books right now I think with regard to an environmental assessment over this coming year that would involve our Aboriginal Participant Funding, but I was surprised at how low it was in terms of the amount that you had budgeted. Was it under requested in terms of the requests that came forward, or were the requests lower than you expected? I was just surprised, you had budgeted a good amount and only $125,000 actually was spent.

MR. WISEMAN: Obviously, because we have an obligation to fund the Aboriginal participation. What happened was they were also able to access funding from the federal government. So it was not all on our dime.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. WISEMAN: Had it turned out that it would have been, then we would have had to pay for it.

MS MICHAEL: Right, okay. So you did not know that at the time. Well, that is good. The federal government should be involved in there.

Coming to 3.1.01 Crown Land, subhead 06, $114,000 was budgeted and $351,500 was spent. What came in there that you did not expect? Because I think that must have been what happened.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, there is $237,000 there. There are two pieces of it, one was increased cost for leased accommodations that we had. Also, we had some costs of removing - to go back to Mr. Butler's question earlier - illegal trailers. We had some costs associated with that exercise.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

Under subhead 07, there is a big unexpected expenditure there too because it is $107,000 rather than $18,900.

MR. WISEMAN: The combination of all of that $88,000 reflects purchasing some survey equipment and also for Ski-Doos for field work, as well as a copier for an office; a combination of those three items.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

Under subhead 03 you had budgeted $609,300, then it was revised down to $150,000, and this year it is just $204,300. Why was last year's budgeted item so high?

MR. WISEMAN: We had anticipated using more helicopter time than we had for some projects we were involved with, and we did not use it.

MS MICHAEL: Right. Now you have a more realistic figure based on that.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

Let me see, I do not need to ask unnecessary questions.

MR. WISEMAN: I will remember that in Question Period, now.

MS MICHAEL: Every question I ask in Question Period is a necessary question, I promise you. With my four minutes, every question is absolutely essential. I do not waste a second.

MR. WISEMAN: A long preamble is why you get lost on time all the time. Shorten your preambles and you will do all right.

MS MICHAEL: You know about long stuff.

3.1.04. Geomatics Agreements; obviously, budgeted for last year and it looks like nothing happened in the budget again. You can give us an idea of what is happening there, please.

MR. WISEMAN: I will ask the deputy to comment, please.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. PARROTT: Geomatics Agreements: that is money that is set aside for joint mapping projects and air photo projects, usually with the federal government. The money is voted and then if money comes in from the federal government, it is spent; but, in most cases here, there was no money came in from the federal government. Another reason for money not being spent was there was a large photo contract that was scheduled to be done on the Island part of the Province last year and the weather did not permit the aircraft to fly. Once you get so late into the season, the shadows in November do not permit photography, so you lose your scale.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MR. PARROTT: So that had to be carried forward.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, great. Yes, and I can see in the revision, which is what I meant, under the revenue the $115, 000 did not come in from the federal government. Thank you.

Section 4.1.01 Parks and Natural Areas, subhead 06 Purchased Services, the budget has gone up this year. Why has the budget gone up as much as it has, by almost $100,000 over last year's budget?

MR. WISEMAN: The lease that we are currently in is expiring, so we have a new lease arrangement and this reflects current anticipated market changes.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, what is that lease about?

MR. WISEMAN: Space, office space.

MS MICHAEL: Oh, just office space?

MR. WISEMAN: Office space, yes. These officers are located in Deer Lake.

MS MICHAEL: Right. Thank you very much.

I just want to ask a question now that is not a line item, but, since we are in the park area, I would like to bring up an issue that has come to our office because, of course, we just passed the time where people got to make reservations for use of the provincial parks this year. Once again, we have had complaints with regard the system: people unable at the appointed time, on the day that the reservations came open, unable to get through by phone - or even, I think, both by phone and by e-mail, isn't it, they can do both? Some people with more than one computer, trying to get through, or people on the phone line not able to get through, being very disappointed, not getting a space reservation after they have had it for a number of years and counted on having a space in the park. Have you heard of complaints as well? Because we have had a number, in the office.

MR. WISEMAN: We have had a few, very few though. I know the one you are referring to, actually, because they have made contact with me as well.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: The number of calls we got were minimal. There were about forty or so, a combination of e-mails and phone calls that came in. Now, there may have been others that were directed to individuals who are outside of my office. That is a relatively small number given there were some 4,000 or so reservations that were made. These parks are enjoyed by many, sought after by many.

A gap that we closed this year that there were some complaints about in previous years is the timing on the launch. I do not understand the technology, but, apparently, in past years we would launch the Web site and the reservation system would launch at 7:00 in the morning. You had the ability, through technology, to sneak in there and get a spot held for you at 6:55 a.m. or 6:50 a.m. or something.

This year, that was blocked. So, there was nothing that could get into the system before 7:00 a.m. With the keen interest, obviously everybody was lined up and ready to go at 7:00 o'clock and within no time they were all gone - in some parks, some of the more popular ones obviously.

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

MR. WISEMAN: There were 4,000 reservations that were handled. So the piece is the reservation system with a fixed time that starts with fairness to everybody. Everybody at 7:00 in the morning can get at it and try to get on; it is kind of first-come, first-served. There are only so many sites to go around.

One of the things that creates some disappointment, but I do not know how we manage it, there are some people who have been fortunate enough to have gotten a site in a particular park for any number of years in succession, so you might have gotten comfortable with it, accustomed to it, and created a network of friends there, and then all of a sudden in year four or five you are not successful. The disappointment is greater, I appreciate that; the disappointment is harder felt. At the same time, you have been fortunate that you have been there for five years and many others have not. So if you got it the last five years or the last three years, you consider yourself pretty lucky, and you were not successful this year, unfortunately, but your friends were, somebody else would have. Spreading the experience around to many more people is not a bad thing, necessarily, but it has caused disappointment to those who were not successful.

We have places like Butterpot and Notre Dame is two, for example, which are extremely popular and they fill up quickly. The seasonal passes and the monthly passes go very, very quickly.

MS MICHAEL: Well, it is a large population for Butterpot.

MR. WISEMAN: Exactly. That is right.

MS MICHAEL: It is right here on the Northeast Avalon, so a large population. Well, I am glad to hear at least that the gap thing, before the 7:00 o'clock, got closed; that is something anyway.

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, and do not ask me how they did it.

MS MICHAEL: I do not ask questions about technology; I will leave it to them to do it.

Under 4.2.01, Administration, Licensing and Operations, this is under Wildlife, Parks and Natural Heritage, subhead 03, Transportation and Communications is over by almost $100,000. Was there something unexpected there?

MR. WISEMAN: No, there was increased travel for both the director and divisional staff; that is all.

MS MICHAEL: That was all?

MR. WISEMAN: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, great.

I am ready to turn back to Roland, if he would like to ask more.

CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Michael.

MR. BUTLER: Do you have more one-liners?

MS MICHAEL: Just let me check.

MR. BUTLER: You can finish the one-liners.

MS MICHAEL: Finish the one-liners? Okay, good enough. I will do that then, I only have a couple left so I might as well do them and get them done.

MR. BUTLER: It is all in line with what I have here.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

Under 4.2.03, Stewardship and Education, subhead 04 Supplies are well over this year. Again, was that something unexpected?

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, that was $118,000 for increased maintenance costs to divisional vehicles, field supplies and the operational requirements for Salmonier Nature Park, a combination of those three. Not one thing drove it but a combination of all those things.

MS MICHAEL: A combination of all those, okay. Obviously, you do not expect that this year because the budget is back down?

MR. WISEMAN: No.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you.

Under 4.2.04, subhead 03, the budget is going up somewhat this year under Transportation and Communications. Is it just a normal change or are you –

MR. WISEMAN: No, that is the increased travel we anticipated for the Labrador Caribou Strategy piece that was announced in this year's Budget.

MS MICHAEL: Oh, right. Great, thank you.

Subhead 06 Purchased Services, is that related to the Caribou Strategy as well?

MR. WISEMAN: It is, yes.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, great. Thank you.

Under 4.2.06.01, Salaries, the revision was quite high last year; the budget was $24,000, but it was revised to $149,100 and back down to $30,000 this year. Could we have an explanation of that salary line?

MR. WISEMAN: We brought on some contractual staff to do some work that we had historically been doing through an external contractor. So they became contracted employees of ours versus contractual employees of a contractor.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. WISEMAN: So we absorbed the cost here.

MS MICHAEL: What exactly then, normally, is that line spent on, $24,000 and $30,000 is not a lot of money? Is there actually somebody in a position?

MR. WISEMAN: Ross, can you comment on that for me, please?

MR. FIRTH: That salary cost there is to provide monies for people who we would be bringing on. There is nobody, per se, in that, but it is to assist in the delivery of the co-operative programs.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, so normally you do not expect to put much money in there, but last year you had more people than you normally would?

MR. FIRTH: That is correct.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you.

They are all my questions, Mr. Chair, at the moment; I do not think there will be any more.

CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Michael.

Mr. Butler, do you have some more questions?

MR. BUTLER: I just have maybe three or four; that is all.

CHAIR: You go ahead, sir.

MR. BUTLER: Minister, my first questions are in relation to the Green Fund. I know this year's Budget calls for $2 million for the Green Fund to be invested in energy efficiencies in public buildings. I am wondering: What types of initiatives this will fund, and what buildings would fall into that category?

MR. WISEMAN: Just to give you some sense of some of the ones that we have done, we have put some money into the Basilica, for example, as a part of the restoration of the Basilica. There have been a couple of projects in social housing here in St. John's we have put money into. There is some money going into the town council office out in Carbonear we have put some money into. We have put some money into the Conservation Corps to help them with them in their education centre.

I am just trying to think of the ones that we have now anticipated spending. We had the St. John's (inaudible) put some money from the EcoTrust into a piece of work that they were doing, as well as a new YMCA in the Northeast Avalon area.

MR. BUTLER: The other thing, Minister, I believe that fund ended in June 2009, so this is new funding -

MR. WISEMAN: No, what it was, the money was allocated - a block of money was provided by the federal government - so when it was gone it was gone. It has taken us longer to spend it than we had thought. Basically, it just gets carried forward, so whatever we did not spend last year we carried forward this year. If it is not all spent this year, we will carry it forward until it is all gone. So we got the money, the cheque is here, and we just need to spend it.

MR. BUTLER: A question with regard to the five-year forestry plan: Will all new five-year forestry plans have to go through a full environmental assessment?

MR. WISEMAN: They will, yes.

MR. BUTLER: They will, okay.

My last question I left for the little pine martens. I am just wondering: What is the current status of the pine marten population? I know over the years there was some major concern. I am just wondering if you could probably elaborate on that.

MR. WISEMAN: Ross, maybe you can comment, but there has been a significant recovery. The fears everybody had a few years back seem to be put to rest. The great anticipated demise has not happened.

MR. FIRTH: As the minister said, the population within the Island, we are cautiously optimistic, certainly, that it is increasing and has stabilized. I think in large part that is due to a lot of the co-operative work the Province has been doing with its partners and stakeholders on this and some of the initiatives we have done with regard to snaring, for example, in the last couple of years. We are seeing some expansion of range of the pine marten on the Island. We are certainly encouraged by that.

MR. BUTLER: My last question, Minister, is: Glover Island –

CHAIR: This is your second-last one, Mr. Butler.

MR. BUTLER: Is it? It is going to be my last, last one now.

CHAIR: Go ahead, Sir.

MR. BUTLER: I understand Glover Island is a protected area. I am just wondering: What is the status of the mining activity there? What mining activities would be permitted there, where it is a protected area in my understanding?

MR. WISEMAN: You might be right, because it is a designated heritage area. Is that what you are saying, that it is a protected area?

MR. BUTLER: Yes, that is my understanding, that it is a protected area, Glover Island.

MR. WISEMAN: I understand from officials that it is a Crown land reserve. As in any reserve, the parameters of the use are defined at the time it is designated. So there are some mining activities permitted within that reserve designation.

MR. BUTLER: Why I ask the question was in relation to the pine marten. My understanding was that is why it was a protected area, because of the pine marten. Now, I could be incorrect there. So that is the only reason I asked that question.

MR. WISEMAN: Okay. There is a distinction. It was not an ecological reserve; it is a Crown land reserve.

MR. BUTLER: Okay.

Those are all of my questions. I want to thank you, Minister, and your staff for your responses this morning.

MR. WISEMAN: You are welcome.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Butler.

Are there any further questions of anybody on the Committee?

Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: This is not a question, just to thank the minister and his staff.

MR. WISEMAN: You are very quite welcome, and thank you for insightful questioning.

CHAIR: Minister, would you like a concluding –

MR. WISEMAN: No, I just want to thank the members opposite for their insightful questions. Obviously, you have researched it and hopefully we have given you the kind of insights that you were looking for, and thanks for your interest.

CHAIR: I will ask the Clerk now if she could please call the first subhead.

CLERK: 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Carried.

On motion, subhead 1.1.01 carried.

CLERK: 1.2.01 to 4.2.06 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall 1.2.01 to 4.2.06 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.2.01 through 4.2.06 carried.

CLERK: The total.

CHAIR: Shall the total carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Carried.

On motion, Department of Environment and Conservation, total heads carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates of the Department of Environment and Conservation carried without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Carried.

On motion, Estimates of the Department of Environment and Conservation carried without amendment.

CHAIR: I also would like to thank all members for their participation this morning.

I would like to remind members of the Resource Committee that the next meeting of this Committee will be tomorrow, Tuesday, May 17, at 6:00 p.m., at which time we will be hearing the Estimates for the Department of Business.

I would entertain a motion to adjourn, please.

MR. BAKER: So moved.

CHAIR: Moved by Mr. Jim Baker, seconded by Mr. Roland Butler.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Contra-minded?

Carried.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.