The Management Commission met at 9:00 a.m. in the House of Assembly Chamber.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Good morning.

I would like to welcome members of the Management Commission to a regular meeting of the Management Commission. We will start the meeting, as we do all other meetings, by asking members to introduce themselves for the purpose of those who might be viewing us by television, and we will start to my immediate left there with Ms Keefe.

MS KEEFE: Marie Keefe, Clerk's Office.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Kelvin Parsons, MHA, Burgeo & La Poile, and Opposition House Leader.

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

MR. RIDGLEY: Bob Ridgley, MHA, St. John's North.

CLERK: Bill MacKenzie, Clerk of the House.

MS ENGLISH: Virginia English.

MR. SPEAKER: My name is Roger Fitzgerald, Chair of the Commission by virtue of being the Speaker of the House of Assembly.

We will start the meeting by approving the minutes of May 26, 2010. Members have had an opportunity to review the minutes. If there are no errors or omissions, would some member move that the minutes be adopted as written?

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: So moved.

MR. SPEAKER: Moved by Mr. Parsons; seconded by Mr. Ridgley.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. SPEAKER: The next item would be Reports, and the first item that we have on the agenda is a report again under Section 43 of Members' Resources and Allowances Rules, which is Travel Under Special Circumstances whereby the Member for the District of Torngat Mountains submitted a bill for an extra cost of $307.47 for Accommodations and Meals on May 8-9, 2010 due to the fact that her flight was cancelled due to weather conditions in trying to get back to her district.

The next is for the hon. the Member for the District of Exploits, and this is a report under Section 18(4) of the Members' Resources and Allowance Rules whereby a member is entitled to an office in their constituency. The maximum amount of that office put forward as a suggested rate of $6,140, plus HST, and any rental that would be more than that has to be reported here to the Commission.

The hon. the Member for the District of Exploits decided to have an office in his district. There was one acceptable bid after it went to public tender and the acceptable bid is for $19,200, HST excluded. Since it was the only bid and the member was entitled to a constituency office that was approved as well.

This is something that maybe we might want to look at down the road where I think we have probably – of all the members that have constituency offices in their districts, if I recall, there are probably just two that have been fortunate enough to get office space for $6,140. When you look at that over the period of a year, and you look at cleaning expenses, snow clearing, that is not really a reasonable rate to be expected for members to get office space.

The next is the report whereby the Clerk authorized the hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune a fax machine that was not working properly to be replaced at the cost of $229.99. The hon. the Member for Lewisporte, an office renovation was done which resulted in the loss of storage space; the Clerk authorized $372.36 for a shelving unit. The hon. the Member for the District of Exploits to replace a temporary unit that was leased, it was a printer, for the total cost of $189.00.

Any commentary?

No commentary.

Next, we can move to the Confirmation of Details of Budget Decisions for the Legislature. As hon. members will know, all Budget consultations are done in camera and according to our own rules and regulations any decision that is made in camera has to be brought back to a televised meeting of the Commission and brought forward for ratification. This is our 2010-2011 Budget Decisions, and it is just a formality to bring them back. The Budget was proposed, the Budget was accepted, the Budget was passed, and this is a confirmation of the Budget that was brought forward to be accepted by the Legislature.

Mr. Clerk, we do not need a vote on this, or do we?

CLERK: Yes, we should have the minute, I think, just so we have the details registered formally in the minutes.

MR. SPEAKER: Okay.

The action required, I guess, and the vote would be: The Commission confirms that the Estimates for the Legislature for fiscal year 2010-2011 as published in the Estimates 2010 document provide the details for the Budget approved by the Commission meeting 2010-001.

Could somebody make that a motion if there is no discussion?

The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile; seconded by the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party.

Next, we go to item 3, Tab 3, for the Re-creation of Financial Information for 1999-00 and 2000-01. All members will be aware that this is an item that has been discussed here at great length. I think many members of the Commission have had different views and we have had different information as to whether we should proceed with the re-creation of the financial information for those two years. There have been numerous correspondences between the Clerk, the Speaker and the Auditor General. As well, we have put forward our concern to the Comptroller General.

At the last meeting, it was suggested that an RFP, a Request for Proposals, would be brought forward, structured, and brought back to the meeting here if we are going to proceed to have those two years – those financial statements reconstructed and have it brought back here for the approval of the Commission. That has been done; it has been enclosed here for your consideration.

I do not know if members have further views and opinions. It has already received much discussion. If there are other views and opinions as to the direction that we should go in here, we will hear them. If not, we will go ahead, put out the Request for Proposals, and see what the results might be. If we are going to go in that direction, maybe we could ask members to offer their comments on the Request for Proposals as put forward. So we are open for commentary, if there is any.

The hon. the Leader of the New Democratic Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have gone through this documentation and I thank the staff for all the work that they have put into it, because I think there is considerable work that has gone into it and considerable consultation as well, and I am certainly satisfied with the RFP having had many eyes looked at it. I think it has information in it that is essential for going out.

The financial impact, as is noted in the briefing note of the RFP, will be high. I suspect it is more towards the upper end of $800,000 than the lower end, I would image, when a proposal comes in. I think that - as we have made the decision before - it is really important for us to show to the people of the Province that we are leaving no stone unturned. It was a recommendation of the Commission, and in the name of accountability and transparency I think we have to see this to the end. It could be that nobody will come forward with a proposal, but I think we have to take whatever steps that we have to take in order to honour our commitment to accountability and transparency. So, I would say that we have the RFP go ahead.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The hon. the Member for the District of St. John's North.

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Speaker, I understand what Ms Michael is saying about leaving no stone unturned. I think from my involvement in this matter, every stone that could be turned over has been turned over.

As is indicated here, the RFP and the recreation of the financial statements could cost upwards to $1 million. From my checking into the whole issue, even after that is done and the financial statements have been recreated they have to be signed off by the Clerk of the House as being valid. I am not sure that that will happen, because how will the Clerk be certain that, yes, this is an accurate reflection of what happened financially in those years? To that end, we have the opinion of the Auditor General, the Comptroller General, the people who are intimately associated with finance and have gone over those year's financial records themselves.

If I thought we were being unfair to the people of the Province I would say go ahead and let's get an RFP to recreate these financial statements, but I personally cannot justify going ahead with it. I think we have to take the advice of the Auditor General and simply say that this would not be a judicious expenditure of money.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The hon. the Member for Burgeo & La Poile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I was one of the individuals who was against proceeding down this path based upon the comments of the Auditor General earlier when he appeared before us, as well as the comments of the Clerk which are, again, recited in this documentation here this morning, where the Clerk says and the Chief Financial Officer says he would not be able to provide a management letter of representation respecting this financial material even when it is done. For that reason, I think it would be rather hypocritical of me if I were to vote in favour of this today having given my earlier position on this thing. So I just wanted to make it clear for the record that I cannot vote in favour of an RFP that I did not agree should be done in the first place.

MR. SPEAKER: Any further commentary?

Maybe I can ask the Clerk to conclude the debate if there is no further, because this has been brought forward many times but since it appears that we will have a vote on whether we proceed with this or not, it might be important for all members to receive the Reader's Digest version again of what has happened here.

The Clerk.

CLERK: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This developed from a report or a recommendation in the Green Report, and if we remember back, he was writing that he was appointed in the summer of 2006 following the Auditor General's report, and the review commission worked through the winter of 2006-2007. So we do not know at what conjuncture this report was done, but I expect it was done before criminal charges were laid against those former members and against Mr. Murray when there was still a lot of questions to be answered and the RNC had not completed their investigations and laid charges.

Subsequently, of course, the RNC has gone through all these years. The Auditor General at the time - Chief Justice Green was writing the report - had not done his exhaustive review of MHA expenses back to 1989. So I suspect this recommendation was done before a lot of this subsequent detailed work was accomplished. We have had the RNC go through these various matters. The Auditor General, the Comptroller General has gone through matters and so on. So, I am not sure if there is a lot of new information to be gleaned from this ten-year-old information.

To Mr. Ridgley's point about signing it, before an Auditor will undertake an audit of a set of financial statements management has to provide a letter of representation for the auditor to work with. In this case, it is not clear whether I could provide it or not. Conceivably, if an accounting firm came in, recreated everything from scratch, I could have sufficient comfort to provide that, but I just do not know. It is also conceivable they could come in and do all this work and I would still be concerned that it was not absolutely accurate and that I could not sign the letter of representation. So, there is a big question mark there.

At this stage, without the work being done and being provided with information on it, I cannot state one way or another whether I could even sign it. Perhaps I could, but the accountants, Ms English, Ms Lambe and so on, say they think it is very unlikely. There are going to be gaps. It is ten-year-old information, not all the records exist. Although they themselves cannot say, they think it is unlikely I would be able to sign the letter of representation.

So, we would have the statements recreated but they could not be audited. The Auditor General would not touch them. If I were to sign the letter of representation, it is not clear that the auditor's opinion would be of much value. I may feel that they are adequately created and I have provided a letter of representation, but an auditor might not think that. He may give a qualified opinion, no opinion. The auditor himself then uses his professional standards. So even if we got the statements done and a letter of representation provided, it is not clear the auditor would do anything but look at it and say: I don't think this is accurate, or there was fraud in those years and it is not adequately addressed, so I will not provide an opinion or it is a qualified opinion.

The auditor's opinion, which is where all this leads at the end of the day, is probably not of great value. He will say: Yes, that represents, in all material respects, the financial information of 1999-2000, or he will not. That is what we will be left with, with an auditor's opinion.

I guess having said all of that, to me it looks like an awful lot of money just to have this question mark. Considering - anything of interest I think has been viewed by the Auditor General, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. I think matters have been looked at in some detail. Getting a statement on an auditor's opinion seems to me sort of a secondary matter.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

If there is not, before I ask for the vote I also welcome the hon. the Member for the District of St. John's South and the hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services who have joined us in the meeting as well.

So the three options, as written here, are: to proceed with the RFP as attached, proceed with the RFP with amendments as recommended by the Commission, or do not proceed with the RFP, Request for Proposals.

Can somebody make a motion?

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: So moved.

MR. SPEAKER: Moved by the hon. Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile that we do not proceed with the RFP.

Is there a seconder for that motion?

Seconded by the hon. Member for St. John's North.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is carried.

The next item –

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Chair, is this matter now closed?

MR. SPEAKER: This matter would now be closed. Yes, it is.

I have just been informed that the main satellite feed is gone. We are still on Rogers fibre line and Internet Web streaming. We have probably a couple of options here: we can proceed with the meeting and have it broadcasted at a later time, which we have done in some instances where the House has sat late; or, if members wish, because we are guided by the principles of Green that this meeting has to be televised and broadcasted, I think we meet the requirement by having it streamlined and having it recorded at another time.

So if it is members' wish, we will continue with the meeting. We could be back on in five minutes, two minutes; if not, we will broadcast the meeting at another time. Is everybody in agreement? As long as members know.

The next item on the agenda will be the progress report from the Management Commission Overtime Sub-Committee. This was an issue that was raised by the Auditor General in his report regarding the substantial amount of overtime and the overtime policies as it related to employees of the Newfoundland and Labrador Legislature. As a result, and some concern that was expressed of that, there was a sub-committee structured from the Management Commission. I would like to ask the Chair of that sub-committee, the hon. Member for St. John's North, if he would be kind enough to give us an update and some recommendations where this sub-committee - the directions that they have gone in and what their suggestions will be.

The hon. the Member for St. John's North.

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Speaker, the concerns regarding overtime actually came from the Audit Committee. There were two concerns following the Auditor General's report where there seemed to be large amounts of overtime by certain individuals within the Legislature, or offices of the Legislature. The Audit Committee had two concerns, basically. Number one would be that overtime accumulated, let's say in 2009, be paid out in 2009 and not be held on the books until say 2019 or 2029 and then paid out at a higher rate. If a person accumulated fifteen, twenty, fifty, or 100 hours of overtime this year at a certain pay rate, it should not be paid out in subsequent years at a greater rate. That was number one. The other concern was that it be paid out at the rate at which it was earned.

From there, as you mentioned, Mr. Speaker, we struck a sub-committee of the Management Commission, which was Mr. Parsons, the Opposition House Leader, and Ms Michael, the Leader of the NDP. We met four times, I believe, Mr. Speaker, two of which were consultations with staff. We had a separate consultation session with the Chief Financial Officer and the other consultation session was with other staff of the House.

There were a number of items that came to light. Just from my own point of view, and the other members of the Committee can certainly add to this, I came away with a different view of the overtime, having talked to people and checked into it, than I had with an initial reading of the Auditor General's report. If you just read the Auditor General's report you would say: Well, there is something on the go here. One person here is accumulating a lot of overtime; there must be something wrong.

In fact, we had an entirely different picture – at least I did – at the end of the discussions and the consultations, that it was all legitimate; a lot of work was being done, valuable work and so on.

The bottom line with the whole thing, Mr. Speaker, not to drag it out, is that the Public Service Secretariat is doing a review of overtime for full government for the public service. I spoke to one of the gentlemen there and he told me that they would anticipate having their report in some time this fall. We thought it advisable as a committee to wait until that report comes in rather than recommend something to the Commission for enactment for the staff of the Legislature and then have an entirely different matter come in for the rest of government, so we thought we would recommend that we wait for the public service report and then proceed from there.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi and Leader of the New Democratic Party.

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

I just want to add a few comments to those of the Member for St. John's North and thank him for chairing the committee. He took great lead on it and made sure we got the work done, which was great.

The reason why I agree with our decision that we are bringing forward from the committee is we did recognize, in our first discussion as a committee, that we had a responsibility of the House of Assembly for our staff and we should be sure, no matter what happened with public service sector workers, that principles and concerns that we had should definitely be taken under our consideration.

As we went through the process that we went through, through our meetings and through the consultations, we learned that the Public Service Sector Commission was concerned about similar issues that we were concerned about and that the things that we would want to deal with in coming up with policy for the staff of the House of Assembly were issues - or the key issues were also being considered by the Public Service Commission, and because there is such overlap between staffing of the House of Assembly and staff in the Public Service Commission where people move back and forth in positions, we thought that it was really necessary to make sure that there was no duplication, and there was really no need to have duplication of work either.

The big issue for me was that I felt confident that the issues we were concerned about are issues that are also part of the review that is being done by the Public Service Commission. So I will be really surprised – we obviously have to wait until the report comes, but I will be surprised if the things that we are concerned about are not covered in that and we would be able to then say, let's mesh our policies with those of the Public Service Commission. So that is why I recommend waiting until we get that report and why I feel comfortable with that decision.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

This is for reporting purposes only. Since it was a committee of the Management Commission, we thought that members should be brought up to speed and see where the committee – what meetings they have had and what the recommendations would be. I thank the committee for their work and look forward to a report being heard in another meeting of the Commission.

The next item on the agenda is: Two Requests for Amendments to Annual Allowances; the hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile and the hon. the Member for the District of St. Barbe.

Back when Chief Justice Green submitted his report, members will know that there was also a list of constituency travel allowance and expenditures put forward as a suggestion per member of the House of Assembly. Chief Justice Green, in his wisdom, also stated that this would need to be reviewed from time to time as things would change. This particular review was done, and the suggestions for members' allowances, prior to the changes in the boundaries of electoral districts in 2006. Some of the districts have been impacted greatly by the changes in the electoral boundaries, others not as much.

There are two requests brought forward today to the Management Commission to look at members' individual allowances, which is the way Chief Justice Green suggested that it should work. Prior to, or since 2006, actually, we have had a Members' Compensation Review Committee. That was one of the items that was on their mandate, or on the Request for Proposals, as it was put forward at that time, but the Members' Compensation Review Committee again did not highlight any changes in members' allowances and rules but again made the suggestion that it would be done in the form that we are dealing with it here.

I do not want to put my views ahead of other people's views and opinions, but we can look at this individually now by the two requests that are being made or we can look at it in a different light and probably try to bring some resolve to the old issue here that we continue to talk about, and I continue to have a problem with, and that is the overall amount that has been put forward for members' travel allowances and expenditures. There is a total in the budgetary issue of $626,400.

We have had several years now of experiences of what the actual costs of expenditures are. We have no other choice but to budget the full amount because members have access to it and should be provided with it. Every year we seem to be using this pot of money for all other things being brought up for expenditures within the Legislature, and come back here to have monies redirected from that particular item to other items; or, we can probably look at this and say maybe it is time that we had members' allowances and expenditures reviewed separately.

If we suggest that we wait until we strike another Members' Compensation Review Committee, I personally think it is far too long. You are looking at – the suggestion was six months after the next election. Well, if we are going to follow that line of thinking, then that is at least two years down the road before you even make the suggestion. We can either deal with those two requests separately or look at maybe having somebody look at the overall picture of members' resources, members' allowances and expenditures, taking into consideration the change of boundaries, what members have been spending for this past number of years, and have that particular item in the budget reflect the true value of what should be provided.

I just throw that out for information purposes, or I guess to start a discussion here, because I think it is something that should be looked at. I do not think we need to get into appointing another Members' Compensation Review Committee, but it can be one individual who would make recommendations, bring it back here and let the Commission decide or fine-tune it to what we think is right and proper. I think that can be done without any great expenditure and I think it can be done in a time frame that would reflect what members are asking for right here as well.

I just open it out and ask members to provide input into their suggestions and recommendations.

The hon. the Member for St. John's North.

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Speaker, are you suggesting that we hire an outside consultant? Would that be it?

MR. SPEAKER: I am just throwing it out for discussion. It could be, or we could do it in-house. We could do it in-house and have somebody that we might identify with the expertise to do that. It is not a great big piece of work; I mean, it is forty-eight members. The history is there that we have worked with this now for a number of years, so you are not talking about something where you would expect it to take six months to report back. I would think four weeks would be probably ample time to do something like this and bring back a recommendation that we might all be able to work with or work from.

The hon. the Member for St. John's North, to continue.

MR. RIDGLEY: With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, we are confined to the figure of $626,000. We have to live within that; am I right?

MR. SPEAKER: That is correct. That is the budget, but if the person brought back a suggestion that it be higher than that, it would be up to the Commission to make that decision and take it back to the House of Assembly for ratification.

MR. RIDGLEY: But at this point right now, if we deal with these one or two requests for modifications then it could very well start a domino effect of that $626,000. So you move this from A to B, and then B has to move to C and so on down the line. We could be dealing with another two or three next month and another two or three the following month, so I would, in order to be fair to all members, make a motion that we do go to an outside consultant and give all members the opportunity to make a presentation to that consultant who would come back with a report.

MR. SPEAKER: Right now, and for members' information too, we are spending something like 30 per cent of that amount per year. We have members who spend absolutely nothing. For us to be carrying this large amount of money forward, really, it is not a reflection of the budget.

Members like the hon. Member for Burgeo & La Poile are being shortchanged, if you look at the comparison of what he is getting compared to somebody else in what we consider isolated communities. There are also other members there, like the Member for Bay of Islands, who is given twenty nights to stay in his constituency. Now, he will tell you that he does not want one night to stay anywhere else but where he lives in his constituency.

So the whole thing needs to be looked at, and it needs to be looked at probably as a stand-alone item and let the Management Commission – review commission - look at other things and just review this after maybe we get something that we can live with.

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

MR. KENNEDY: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

So, out of the $626,000 over the last couple of years, how much has been spent each year?

MR. SPEAKER: A maximum of 30.91 per cent, but maybe we could give that in actual figures.

MR. KENNEDY: That is fine.

What bothers me here is, then, if the Member for Burgeo & La Poile can make a case and he is looking for an increase, why is there a suggestion that you take it from another member? I do not understand that. That causes me concern if that recommendation is coming from the House of Assembly, because I do not see it in the member's letter. He simply says: I need access to these communities.

So, if that recommendation is coming from somewhere in here then I have problems with anyone in here doing this review.

MR. SPEAKER: No, it is just a recommendation for discussion purposes like we are having here now. In order for us to not increase – if the hon. Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile was looking for extra money in order to increase his allowances to reflect the communities he has now that are isolated, and another person gets helicopter hire, for instance, then the only way, if we do not take it from another member who has had their isolated communities reduced, then here again we are going to have to go and increase the $626,000, of which we are already only spending 30 per cent. So the whole thing does not make sense to me.

MR. KENNEDY: I know, Mr. Speaker, but if I look at the letter of the Member for Burgeo & La Poile, he simply says that he wants to be treated the same way as everyone else, and that is an argument that can be put forward.

Then I see the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune who seems to be a bit concerned that this suggestion is coming from within here. That is the way I read her letter, bolded and underlined. It causes me concern. We cannot be playing – Mr. Parsons' request can be dealt with on its merits, but it seems to me that somewhere, at least from the letter that I am reading from the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune, she seems to think that it is within the concerns.

MR. SPEAKER: Maybe the Clerk can expand on that, but I think this was done to show and to reflect the changes in the electoral boundaries, where now one member is getting - and I guess here is the caveat that we are caught up in here. The hon. Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile has three communities that we consider isolated. He gets $1,500 for ferry services. The hon. Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune has one more community than the hon. Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile and by what we are using here, the hon. member gets $48,000. So that is -

MR. KENNEDY: I guess my point though, Mr. Speaker, is that I do not think we need to be playing one member – this should not be an issue of which member of which political party. This should be, whoever is sitting in that seat should have access to whatever is fair and reasonable. Whereas what is playing out right now, the way I am seeing it here, it is almost like, okay, because we have a member of one party here and we have a member of another party here. This should not be partisan, this should be an issue - and that is the way I see the letter. At least from the – I am reading into it here, maybe I am reading too much. It should simply be a matter, if the Member for Burgeo & La Poile has – Green says where a strong case can be made in respect of individual districts that an amount is not adequate or is based on wrong assumption. So, we have the disjunctive or, so there are two bases we could make the argument.

No, it is not adequate, is what I am hearing the Member for Burgeo & La Poile say. It would be open to the Commission, on application by a member, to amend the amounts accordingly. So, it seems to me that I do not think we need to get caught up in other than: What do people need?

My concern would be, as outlined by Mr. Ridgley, once you start down this road then - there seems to be lots of money in this pot that is not used. It is a way of - if it can be accessed. So maybe a review is the way to go. I think if you look at, for example, intra-constituency. For example, in my district I can drive from one end of my district to the other, from Victoria to Bryants Cove in fifteen minutes. I have never made a claim because it does not seem to make sense to be trying to - it is not worth the effort, from my perspective. That would just be my concerns at this point.

MR. SPEAKER: Sure, and that is understandable, and I thank you for that, because I think maybe the mindset here was to try to work within the $626,000 because it seemed like it was not a place to go to get that increase when we are still only spending 30 per cent of it. Then the changes in the boundaries reflected the need to have some of this allowance go to another individual. There was an agreement between the Member for the District of St. Barbe and the Member for the District of Humber Valley saying: I realize this, your district now takes in part of this. So it was done in trying to keep - not to raise the base amount.

The Clerk.

CLERK: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As Minister Kennedy says, this is a really complicated matter and there is any number of ways we could approach it. Just to get to – I do not know if the numbers we put forward were necessarily a strong recommendation. We were just trying to find some sort of compromise, but it flows from the Members' Compensation Review Committee recommendation.

If you see in the third bullet on the front page of that briefing note, various members spoke to the Members' Compensation Review Committee and mentioned that the boundary changes made to the House of Assembly Act in the spring of 2007 were not reflected in the allocations Green used, and this is evident. When you look at the schedule in the appendices, he has the old district names. He does not have the name changes that occurred in March, 2007.

So, really, all we were trying to do was to say: well, if boundaries change such that the expenses allocated to travel to remote communities got shifted to another district, we would just try to shift a proportionate amount of those expenses. That was really all we were trying to do, is reflect what the Members' Compensation Review Committee recommended. Where it says, "In areas where an MHA jurisdiction has decreased, as a result of electoral boundary changes, the district allocation funding should reflect that reduction in level of responsibility."

Having said all that, it is a very difficult, thorny issue. You can argue it any number of ways, but I just wanted to clarify, it was really only as a result of the electoral boundaries redistribution that we put these numbers forward.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A couple of points; one, to come back to a point that was raised by the Member for Carbonear, I would like to point out the last sentence of the letter of March 25 by Mr. Parsons to the Commission. I think the point that I read in his letter is the issue of funding for travel for members dealing with isolated areas. He is actually quite non-partisan in his last sentence there in that second paragraph, when he says: "The members for Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune and Cartwright-L'Anse Au Clair currently have this benefit and I think all members, including the member for Burgeo-LaPoile, should have the same privileges to deal with the same circumstances."

What he is speaking to in his letter is to isolated areas and that every district that has isolation involved - that where you have isolated coastal areas, the use of aircraft has to be recognized, and it should be for all districts that have isolated coastal areas. He mentions both parties when he mentions the other isolated areas that he spoke about in his letter. So, first of all, I think he certainly did not raise things from a partisan perspective, and I think the member recognized that as well and I want to back that up.

When I read all this and read the input from the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune as well, which was quite detailed, I said: well, we cannot make a decision on all of this sitting around this table. We either have to have a committee or an individual or somebody take all of this to look at I think. I think we do have to look at the issue of districts, which was not considered by the Members' Compensation Committee apparently, based on that bullet that we have. Look at districts where the money is definitely not needed. No matter who is in the district, the money is not needed.

There are reasons why we are only spending 30 per cent. It is because there are places where money has been allotted that we know the money will never be used, and the Members' Compensation Committee did not deal with it. I think it is within our purview to deal with it, within our budget if we want to say the budget is $626,000 or we want to make a recommendation in next year's budget that it might change, but right now we can look at that and we can make determination I think, around districts which will never need, ever, the money that is being allotted and let's deal with that.

I am sorry the Members' Compensation Committee did not deal with it and I agree we should not wait for the next Members' Compensation Committee. We do not have to. We have the jurisdiction, based on what Green said, to take this and to deal with it. I think that is what we should do but we cannot do it around this table. We are going to have to have either a committee of a couple of members with the staff or a recommendation from the staff, do they think they can do it internally and come up with recommendations for us. If not, we may have to hire somebody to work with the staff to do it, but I say let's do it.

MR. SPEAKER: If you look at the expenditures as provided there, if you look down through them there are nine members who are spending 50 per cent or more of their allowance. So you have the other thirty-eight members who are spending less than 50 per cent of their allowance.

MR. KENNEDY: Where is that?

MR. SPEAKER: Right here, Minister, at the bottom.

If you look over in the extreme right column there and look at the percentages that are spent, you will see there is only nine members that spend more than 50 per cent of their allowance that has been granted. Then, we have other members coming and looking to say that they need extra money because of the electoral boundary change. It seems like it would not serve everybody well if we are just going to go and raise the $626,000 in order to attend to providing those members with funds that they need in order to carry out their constituency business.

Any further discussion?

The hon. the Member for Burgeo & La Poile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: If I could just make a couple of comments, Mr. Speaker.

This was brought forward by me. Just for the record here, this is not earth-shattering to me; I am not upset one way or the other whatever the outcome of this is. This was put forward on the basis of fairness. It was acknowledged even by Chief Justice Green back when he submitted his report in 2007 that for some reason or other there were two isolated communities in Burgeo & La Poile at that time: Grand Bruit and La Poile. For whatever reason, it never got covered off. Burgeo & La Poile was the only district in the Province that did not have a rule applied to it with regard to isolated communities.

So that was fine; 2007 came and went. In 2008, I made the submission to the Members' Compensation Review Committee figuring that was the appropriate place to bring it up. As we know now, they chose not to deal with it. After that, I came back, through the Clerk again, and said: What is the fair way to go about this? You cannot have three districts with isolated communities - Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune, Burgeo & La Poile and Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair – and one is not getting the same benefits. That is how this started, by the way.

I will still get to Grey River. There are three now, Grand Bruit having closed. There is La Poile. They changed the boundaries in 2007. Ramea and Grey River have since been added. I am going to be able to get to the districts; the problem is I cannot get to the districts in the same time frames and at the same time as the other members. For example, for me to go to Grey River in the winter months, at minimum it is a three-day trip. If you do it in the wintertime, it could be a seven-day trip given our weather. That is the reason why this was put in there so that given your weather conditions you could be in and out in one day. That is all this was about.

To me, it did not matter where you had to find the monies. For example, I did not know until today that I spent something like 34 per cent of my constituency allotment. If there are monies there, I did not know until today that we only spend 30 per cent of the funds that are allowed for constituency stuff. This is just asking that Burgeo & La Poile be accorded the same benefits and privileges as any other member who has isolated communities.

Mr. Ridgley's suggestion about going outside for a review, it does not solve the problem. Burgeo & La Poile has been waiting for four years to have some equity applied - 2007, 2008, 2009, and now we are just about through 2010. I have gone through every route to do that. If we are going to refer it outside again or back to the next review committee, I do not think at all that is fair to that district that you have to wait another couple of years to get this resolved. We have resolved all kinds of issues here in this Commission when it comes to can a member, for example, get overnight lodging if you are travelling across the Province, if you want to leave on a Thursday and so on. So, I do not think this is overly complicated.

I cannot imagine - and by the way, every other member had the right and privilege to go to the Members' Compensation Review Committee and put forward their concerns. Anybody who has had a problem since has had a right to come here to get it dealt with. I do not understand why this particular request from myself and the Member for St. Barbe is so complicated that we cannot deal with it. To me, we are sort of like just passing the buck if we do not want to deal with it.

I just do not think it is overly complicated but, like I say, I will live with whatever decision. It is not earth-shattering to me one way or the other.

MR. SPEAKER: My understanding was when I heard the hon. the Member for St. John's North talk about it, my suggestion was not that we wait two years or that we wait six months, that we probably could be able to do it within four weeks or five weeks.

When I look back over it and I see the hon. the Member for Burgeo & La Poile spent 31 per cent of his allowance in 2008-2009 and 34 per cent last year, and the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune spent 30 per cent one year and 27 per cent another year, then I do not see any reason why we cannot look at the overall picture and not have anybody disadvantaged because you still have 70 per cent of your money not spent.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: I just think the problem in the case of Burgeo & La Poile is that there was never any provision there for the air travel piece. That is how I understand the problem. Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune, for example, has a right under the Green report to do the air travel. Burgeo & La Poile was not even put into that category. So, I think that is step one, number one, authorize that district get the same privileges as any other district with isolated things, then you have to deal with the money issue.

Right now, Burgeo & La Poile has no provision at all for that member to have access to isolated communities, whereas others with isolated do.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

MR. KENNEDY: Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is reference to the Members' Compensation Review Committee considering the issue. Do we know how many MHAs made submissions on this issue to the Committee? Was it only for the Member for Burgeo & La Poile and St. Barbe?

MR. SPEAKER: I have no idea.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: I am not certain that the Member for St. Barbe (inaudible).

MR. KENNEDY: Okay, the Member for Burgeo & La Poile. Did anyone else make these submissions? Can we find that out?

MR. SPEAKER: I have no idea. I guess we could find out. In fact, we can find out because there was a list provided by the Members' Compensation Review Committee of who made submissions but not all the submissions that were made, the content of them -

MR. KENNEDY: The only concern that I have is I do not want to be dealing with this in a piecemeal fashion. If this is an issue that affects a number of members, then I think that we have to look at it as a whole, we cannot keep coming back. This is an issue as a result of Green, apparently, have incomplete information. I do not understand why the Members' Compensation Review Committee would not have dealt with it, but they did not.

So, the issue is if it is a bigger issue to be examined, then I think we have to look at that as opposed to simply dealing with a piecemeal fashion. I think earlier, Mr. Speaker, that is what I heard you essentially say. There is no one saying you have to wait two years. If we only have 30 per cent of the money spent, and then when I look at the list and the Member for Burgeo & La Poile has only spent 34 per cent and Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune, 27 per cent, so there is money somewhere if there is legitimate reasons to use it.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

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

I want to pick up on the point that was made by the Member for Burgeo & La Poile - two issues - and one which is totally separate from the St. Barbe request. That is the fact that the District of Burgeo & La Poile now in its configuration, I think, is an isolated coastal area, the same as Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

I think that is something we could deal with really easily as the Management Commission, the recognition that there are three districts that have isolated coastal areas. If we do that, then we would have to deal with the fact that the budget that is now there for Burgeo & La Poile would have to be changed because the budget is not enough to allow for the air travel. I think that is the point that the member has made; he did not make it quite the way I am doing it.

If he had been able, if he had been recognized, or that district had been recognized as a coastal district, then the amount of money that would have been allotted by the Green Commission would have been much higher knowing that air travel was going to have to be paid for. As it was, he did not have the budget to do air travel, which is why he has only used what he has used, because he has used what he has used using ferries and road. For the areas where he could use air travel, he did not have enough money to do it anyway under the current budget.

So, number one, I think we need to deal with the issue that we have a third district that has an isolated coastal area as part of it, then there would need to be a budget change. I think that is separate from the request that is coming in from St. Barbe, which also has to be dealt with. They are two separate issues, I think, and I just want to point that out.

I still think that the first one can easily be dealt with, but it does mean looking at districts where money is never going to be spent. The Member for Carbonear mentioned his. The intra-constituency travel for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, as long as Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi is what it is there will never be $6,600 spent for intra-district travel in Quidi Vidi. You will see that the current member, who is myself, spent $155 one and $133 the year after that. That is the way it is always going to be in that district.

I think we can easily come up with – and I think it can be done internally, but the Clerk can let us know if he thinks it is too much work for it to be done internally - districts where we know the money is never going to be spent for intra-constituency travel and at least recognize that, and then if there are districts that legitimately do not have enough money allowed and that would have to be looked at, then we know money is there to do it and let's do it. That is a separate one from dealing with naming Burgeo & La Poile as an isolated coastal area and then dealing with that financial issue.

I think we have the ability to deal with both of these things and set them in motion. The issue would be for the Clerk to let us know whether or not that can be done inside of his office or not, do they have the resources to do it, because we are not talking about consultation here, we area talking about action. I think that is what we are talking about. It is just the book work that needs to be done to see how we can put this into action.

MR. SPEAKER: Before I recognize the hon. the Member for St. John's South, here again I think we need to be thinking in the opposite direction or the right direction.

If the hon. Member for Burgeo & La Poile still has 70 per cent of his travel allowance there, and if we are looking at striking a committee of one person or whatever to look at the overall picture here and it can be resolved in four or five weeks with a recommendation brought back, then while there has been no helicopter allowance or flight money allotted to the hon. the Member of the District of Burgeo & La Poile, I see no reason why he cannot access those communities by using his allowance if the Commission would give the Clerk authority to approve such travel until this happens. Then we can come back with the overall picture. Instead of designating one district differently than another, let it reflect the amount of travel, what submissions are made by the members, have it brought back here and let us deal with the whole forty-eight districts rather than one-offs. Anyway, that is only my opinion.

The hon. the Member for the District of St. John's South.

MR. T. OSBORNE: I remember the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune identifying ways that she could travel within her district cheaper than she was permitted under the current rules and we made allowances to accommodate that. I would make the suggestion that the Clerk write to all forty-eight members. Obviously, most of us have absolutely no reason to spend intra-constituency travel allowances in any event, or certainly not to the maximum.

If the Clerk were to write the forty-eight members and ask the members to identify the areas that they have difficulty travelling to and to identify the best ways and the most efficient ways of travelling to those areas, that could be done very quickly, put a deadline on the response or the required response and then that is something that this table could deal with in the same fashion that we dealt with the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune. The members themselves would be able to make suggestions and recommendations on the best ways of travelling within their constituencies and the most efficient way to do that.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you.

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

MR. KENNEDY: I agree. My concern here is that when we start talking about isolated coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, we know there are certain districts that are more isolated than others, but we are talking about helicopter travel and I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that the public of this Province want to see helicopter travel as the norm. I am not saying that the Member for Burgeo & La Poile cannot make a good case for that, but once you do it for one then someone else comes in and argues the same thing: I need a helicopter to get to such-and-such a place.

I would prefer to see a review. I am not interested, as you indicated, in a long review. Just to indicate, when we are looking at the precedent, we do not want $100,000 or $200,000 in helicopter travel around this Province. It cannot be a matter of convenience for members; it can be a matter of necessity. That is not to take away – I am not commenting on the Member for Burgeo & La Poile's argument in any way.

Once you make a decision once – and that is what we are being asked to do. Green dealt with this, the Members' Compensation Committee choose not to deal with this and now it is up to us. I think if it is up to us, if that is the decision we decide to go as opposed to putting it out to the next Members' Compensation Committee, then I think we have to look at the overall picture. It is hard when you make a decision for one person to come back and say: Well, I should have it too.

The one point I want to make clear is I am not willing to support taking monies right now from one member's travel budget to support a request for another member. That is something that should be looked at separately and on its merits. Unless, obviously, we see the Member for Humber Valley and St. Barbe are in agreement, but if there is no agreement between the parties - in other words, I am not willing to personally support taking money from Ms Perry's budget to give to another member.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The Clerk.

CLERK: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just wanted to go back to something you said. I think you were suggesting that because overall we are only spending 30 per cent Mr. Parsons might be able to go higher than his current allocation if necessary while the Commission was addressing it.

MR. SPEAKER: No. What I meant was if helicopter hire is a separate item and if it is not an item that is shown that Mr. Parsons, the hon. the Member for Burgeo & La Poile, can access, if the hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile wanted to operate within his constituency level and if there is any need of the Speaker's Office approving that while we are getting this review done, then there is no reason why it cannot be done since there is still 70 per cent of the funds there. Hopefully, this can be brought about within – I see no reason, if we go in this direction, that it cannot be completed in four or five weeks.

We are not talking about a major thing here. We are talking about forty-eight members. The blueprint is already here. It is only a matter of carrying out forty-eight interviews and most of those will consist of probably five minutes.

CLERK: There is no approval required for the helicopter, so Ms Jones or Ms Perry can do those now as long as they book it through the operating principles. It is just that Mr. Parsons cannot spend more than $14,100 because we have funds control on this and this is actually in the rules, so he cannot go beyond the $14,100. I just wanted to clarify that.

Irrespective of the savings in total, each individual member can only go what is assigned in the rules until that is amended. The Commission does not have the authority to just say go over it. It is one of the annual allocations that would actually have to come back to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: So you do not know what percentage would be left in the hon. member's travel allowance -

CLERK: No.

MR. SPEAKER: - or if the hon. member would know, or are we going in a direction here that is not important?

The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile let him answer for himself. If this is going to be resolved in five or six weeks, would that be a problem?

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: It is not an issue, Mr. Speaker, at all, but the Clerk is quite right, that right now the Member for Burgeo & La Poile does not have a sufficient budget to do any air travel, even if it were authorized by the Commission, because there are only fourteen there and that looks after all of the budget. The total budget for that district is fourteen. So, even if the Commission were to say: Yes, go ahead and spend your surplus that you have left over, I do not have, as a member for that district, the authorization to do air travel, because Justice Green did not deal with it in the first instance anyway.

MR. SPEAKER: That is the reason why we need this whole picture looked after. The hon. Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune for instance, if you look at her land travel, she gets 4,200 - 500 kilometres or something.

CLERK: She has the second lowest total. The only district with a lower mileage allocation was Torngat Mountains.

MR. SPEAKER: Which does not make sense, I mean she should be getting like every other person who represents a rural district, considering the highway network that she has of 15,000 or 20,000 kilometres, the same as I would get or somebody else. So that is the reason why, if we start doing this individually, we are going to tie up the Commission forever and a day dealing with individual one-offs. If we can put it out, get it done in five or six weeks, if the hon. member agrees that is a time frame that he can live with, why don't we do it?

The hon. the Member for St. John's North.

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Speaker, I repeat my motion from about fifteen minutes ago. That the Commission hire an outside consultant to study all forty-eight or be open to interviews with all forty-eight members and come back with a comprehensive report within, I do not know, seven, eight weeks, six weeks, whatever the Commission decides.

MR. SPEAKER: Do we need to do an RFP for that, and if we do, do we need to bring it back here? That will only delay the process further. I think it is clear what we want to do here, it is one item. Can we develop the RFP and put it out there and get it done?

CLERK: We could do that. (Inaudible) probably also entitled, if we are willing to do it, to sole source, if we knew an individual that we had confidence in. Ordinarily, we would do the RFP but that will add a lot of time to it.

MR. SPEAKER: Can we do it by contacting members of the Commission if there is a name that we decide that we are going to go with and do it by e-mail or correspondence back and forth?

MR. RIDGLEY: So moved, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is clear, that the Commission would either appoint, with the approval of the Commission members, an individual to look at the members' constituency travel allowance and expenditures. Can somebody second that motion?

Seconded by the Minister of Health and Community Services.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

The next item on the agenda is Tab 6, and it is: Constituency Business in District While House in Session. Here is a situation whereby what we have allowed members to do is to make one trip to and from their district while the House is in session and a maximum of twenty trips when the House is not in session. Many times members have reason to visit their constituency in order to carry out their business while the House is in session.

We have already authorized the Speaker to excuse a member from a sitting of the House if he or she is carrying out constituency business, but having done that, we have not allowed the member to be able to claim compensation for the trip to or from his or her district. In relation to members, especially from the West Coast and from Labrador, you are talking about a fairly expensive trip. It is now the situation that if a member makes that trip while the House is in session, then he either has to stay in St. John's that weekend and not be allowed to go home - he is allowed to go home but at his own expense - or incur that expense wholly and solely from his own resources. The recommendation here is, or what we are asking the Commission's direction is, if the Commission is willing to look at members being allowed to travel to and from their constituency when the House is open and if it is an extra trip, have that extra trip come off one of their constituency travels for when the House is not in session.

If the hon. Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune or from Labrador West makes a trip back to their constituency on a Wednesday, they can be back in the House again probably for a Thursday sitting but now they have used up a trip, whereby they cannot go home for that weekend or they have to pay for the trip themselves. So if members of the Commission are willing, we can look at having that particular trip being compensated for through the members' allowances and then the member will have nineteen extra trips rather than twenty for when the House is not in session.

Comments? Suggestions?

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, I am not from a district that this would be affected by. So on one level I sort of think: Well, I should not be saying anything, but I will put out what I think and then let somebody who comes from a district where they might be affected have something to say, I guess.

I like the first option that has been presented to us as an option, and that is allowing the mid-week House in session trip to be deducted from the annual allocation. I think the Green report had good rationales for the limits that were put on trips. If we start adding, subtracting, et cetera, I think we are moving away from the sprit of the Green report. So, I would go along with that first option that has been presented to us. As I said, I am not somebody who is being affected by that decision but I put my opinion out anyway.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: I think it is a very fair proposition, Mr. Speaker. We are not infringing upon the twenty trip rule by doing this. There is no additional cost therefore incurred in doing this, and the tie in as well with the fact that before a member can do that and avail of this rule even, he or she must have had permission of the Speaker to be absent from the House anyway, without the penalty. So I think it makes sense. It is basically compliant with what Justice Green recommended, and the spirit of the thing is just do not abuse the twenty trip rule.

MR. SPEAKER: Having said that, it is quite possible somebody from the West Coast can fly after the House closes and be back again for the next sitting of the House but the trip has been a total lost to them. If we are going to allow members to do their work, especially rural members, then I think we should provide them with the options of doing it.

Seeing no further hands for debate, I will read the recommended minute, and I would assume that that would be the motion moved by the hon. Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

"Pursuant to subsection 64(1) of the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act, the Commission approves the following amendment to the Members' Resources and Allowances Rules, subject to final wording by the Office of the Legislative Counsel:

"The Members' Resources and Allowances Rules are amended by adding immediately after section 37.1 the following:

"Midweek Sessional Travel for Constituency Business

"37.2(1) Where, while the House of Assembly is in session, a member travels between the capital region and his or her constituency or permanent residence in order to attend to constituency business, that member may claim the costs associated with that travel.

"(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), travel costs may be claimed as if the claim were for one of the 20 return trips permitted under sections 35, 36 or 37."

Could somebody second that motion?

Seconded by the hon. Member for the District of St. John's North.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

We are doing very well with the time, I think.

Moving on to Tab 7; a request from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, that the Child and Youth Advocate appear before the House of Assembly Management Commission. That request was put forward to have the Acting Child and Youth Advocate appear before the Commission as it relates to an investigation.

The hon. Member for the District of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair wrote me, as Speaker, to have this put on the agenda. I returned a piece of correspondence to the hon. member stating that this Commission has no jurisdiction to demand that any person appear before the Commission, either one of the statutory offices. This Commission does not instruct staff officers to carry out investigations or to provide what investigations should entail. It is certainly our prerogative if we want to invite somebody here and it would be the prerogative of that statutory officer whether he or she wanted to appear or not appear. So we certainly have no jurisdiction to demand or to get involved in investigations carried out by the statutory officers and I think that was the recommendation that was put forward by our Law Clerk as well.

Commentary?

The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, it is a bit of a fine point, I guess, but Ms Jones talks specifically about the Child and Youth Advocate and the report into the Janeway Psychiatry Unit's programs and services. She speaks specifically to the Advocate who was in position at the time of the writing of her letter. It seems to me she is specifically asking for that person to appear. In your response, you make reference to the Child and Youth Advocate Acting – I presume that is what the A means.

So, we are not talking in general about the Child and Youth Advocate. It seems to me we are specifically talking about the Child and Youth Advocate who wrote the report into the Janeway Psychiatry Unit's programs and services. It seems to me now, that that person is not even in place. So that is why I am wondering.

This briefing note was not changed since May. There does not seem to have been any more communication since May between you and Ms Jones. So, I question the status of this as an agenda item at this moment for discussion when it is not relating to the present situation. By that I mean the presentation situation of we now have a new Child and Youth Advocate and the letters are not written relating to any Child and Youth Advocate. In other words, if a new one comes in place I want that one to be here. It is referring specifically to the one who wrote the specific report.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, just in response to that, the Acting Child and Youth Advocate is -

MS MICHAEL: I am saying that I do not even think that we have a decision to make.

MR. SPEAKER: The Child and Youth Advocate is still the Acting Child and Youth Advocate. The new Child and Youth Advocate is not appointed.

MS MICHAEL: I am sorry, I cannot -

MR. SPEAKER: The Acting Child and Youth Advocate is still the Acting Child and Youth Advocate.

MS MICHAEL: When does the new one -

MR. SPEAKER: The new Child and Youth Advocate does not start her duties until September 27.

MS MICHAEL: Okay. Well, with that - which is next week; with you having said that, I still have concerns then. I will speak to the point as it is now. It is still an agenda item, valid agenda item.

I have concerns with our making a decision to ask the Acting Child and Youth Advocate to come before us when I really do not know what the purpose is. Ms Jones does, in her letter, she says the report is of significant importance and would like to answer questions related to the report but there is nothing in the letter to indicate that any of the questions or answers would relate to anything that then we would have any authority over as a Management Commission.

I do have a problem with the request, knowing that - as it has been pointed out in the briefing note - it will be totally voluntary whether or not the Advocate comes and meets with us. Secondly, not knowing what the questioning is about, whether or not it is anything that we can even have any authority over. So, I do not feel comfortable with exceeding to the request anyway. Now I have a practical question of, if the body does agree to ask the Advocate to come, do we have the time between now and next week to make that happen, because I think that is what we are talking about?

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

MR. KENNEDY: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Whether or not this request was in present related to the Child and Youth Advocate or an Acting Child and Youth Advocate, I would not support it in any event. There has been a lot of turmoil and controversy around the Child and Youth Advocate's office. We made our decisions, as a Legislature, as to how to proceed. There is a new Child and Youth Advocate coming into place and it seems to me that the request from the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, if I go back to the House of Assembly, relates to the fact that the Acting Child and Youth Advocate would not meet with her.

This is meant to be, as we have gone through in the past, an independent statutory body. It does not mean that there is no accountability. However, independence cannot be seen, or has to be seen as that and we cannot simply, because we want to ask questions of a statutory officer, bring you before the House Management Commission. I do not even know what authority we would have for that and I really do not think it is a road we should be going down.

We have turned the page, as far as I am concerned, on this Child and Youth Advocate. There is a new Child and Youth Advocate coming in place. There is no list of questions or issues to be addressed and I could not support this request in any event. The fact is that we are moving on and I do not think that this Management Commission should be used as a place for interrogatories or discovery of an independent House officer.

That is where I am on this, Mr. Speaker. So it does not matter whether the request would be present or future, I would not be supporting it in any event.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I agree that this is not a proper forum to be questioning anyone who is an independent officer of this House. I do not think it is relevant at all whether we have turned the page on this particular situation or not. That is not relevant to the request, but I do agree that this is not the place to be bringing independent officers before, to question them or raise questions.

I do have problems, as does Ms Jones, with the manner in which the Acting Child and Youth Advocate, or any future Child and Youth Advocate or any other independent officer, fails to communicate or refuses to communicate the reasons for a decision that he or she makes, but I think that is an issue that needs to be addressed in the Legislature by way of suggested amendments.

MR. SPEAKER: Further commentary?

MR. KENNEDY: I take exception to those comments by Mr. Parsons. The Acting Child and Youth Advocate prepared and filed a report. There is nothing that requires any member, independent statutory officer, to respond to the media or to individual members of the House.

It seems to me that the Member for Burgeo & La Poile, as the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, is implying that the Acting Child and Youth Advocate did something wrong because he would not meet with them. Well, that is inappropriate, Mr. Speaker. Again, if we are going to have independent statutory officers, they cannot act - because an individual Member of the House of Assembly, or an individual party wishes to speak with them. So, it is not a matter of whether or not the officer has made a decision. That decision is made, and they have to be given the right to make the decision. What is being asked here is for this committee to ask - essentially order an independent officer before this committee, and that is inappropriate.

I repeat again: If the Member for Burgeo & La Poile wishes to make suggestions on amendments as to the independence, certainly, but this is not an issue of, again, imputing improper motive to this Acting Child and Youth Advocate. We have gone through this. This has taken up so much of our time and it should be over.

MR. SPEAKER: All right, the Chair, I think –

MR. KENNEDY: He is in agreement that they should not be brought here, but he is still making comments about the Acting Child and Youth Advocate.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognized that there is an agreement here to reject a request to ask the Child and Youth Advocate to appear before the Management Commission. The Chair does not want the Commission at this time to get into other debates that is not relevant here to the question at hand.

Would somebody be kind enough to make a motion to reject the request to ask the Child and Youth Advocate to appear before the Management Commission?

Made by the hon. Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi; seconded by the hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

The next item on the agenda is the Financial Performance of the Legislature and the Approved Allocations and Actual Expenditures of Members of the House of Assembly, which is again following the direction – of our own direction, I guess. The financial reports are from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.

If members have had an opportunity to review this and have some items that they want clarification on or have questions to ask, then we can entertain that at this time. I will pass this part of the meeting over to the Clerk.

CLERK: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. KENNEDY: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. You have a quorum without me, do you?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, there is.

This is for reporting purposes only, and here again it is information that we make available on a regular basis to make sure that all members know where we are at budgetary time and to allow members to know where they are with the expenditure of the their allowances.

The Clerk.

CLERK: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Because this was for the June Budget - of course, we have last year's complete fiscal year reports here - it is rather old news now. The public accounts for the Province have come out, but because it was in the binder for June 9 we are bringing it forward anyway. You probably would have seen the Legislature reports and you have looked at your own individual MHA reports for last year.

Halfway through this tab, following the third yellow sheet, with a briefing note number 2010-045, you will see the first quarter reports for the current year. Because we are a little late getting the first meeting going, we have the April, May, June quarter reports for the Legislature and for members in the binder as well, because the Commission is obligated to review these matters quarterly.

I do not know if you have any particular questions on it. Most of it is relatively straightforward. The old year is done. There may be something on the first quarter reports for the current year if you wanted to ask on that.

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): Any comments or questions from members?

Well, considering this section was for information purposes only, I guess we will move on to the next tab, which is Tab 9, an update on the Green report recommendations and the status of the report for May 31, 2010. Again, I will ask the Clerk to take us through this particular briefing note.

CLERK: This is another one more or less for reporting purposes, but you may have some questions. You will remember the Green report came out in the summer of 2007. This Commission first met in August of 2007 and we were trying to provide updates on all the many recommendations of Green. At a certain point, as we were getting most of them done, it became a bit cumbersome to provide all the paper because the total 275 recommendations and sub-recommendations was quite a thick package.

The Commission asked just to be informed of ones which were not yet done, for instance. The last one would have been about a year ago, probably would have been a year ago in May or so. So, I decided to do another one. Essentially, we are probably sort of at the end of the need to report on these. Some of the matters have been handled through other means. I think a couple of the matters, given the professional advice from, say, OCIO or others, it is probably not worthy of pursuit.

So, these were the recommendations, these are not matters in the rules, for instance, which we are obligated to abide by, but I thought at least one last time I should bring this report forward and see if you have some questions on it. If there are not, I do not know if we would need to do this again in another year, by then the Green report would be four years old, and, essentially, all the recommendations that the Commission would have wanted to pursue have been pursued or accomplished.

MR. SPEAKER: Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

I have just a couple of things I would like ask questions on of the Clerk.

Recommendation 7, the general legislative review of the act is in progress. You say it has not been completed, but is it actively in progress?

CLERK: Yes, thank you.

Yes, in fact, Cabinet Secretariat is also having a look at that. There were a number of proposed amendments that the AG put forward, so they are having a look at that now.

There are a couple of things in the Green report about – remember the AG is not defined as a statutory office for the purpose of our act –

MS MICHAEL: Yes.

CLERK: - and that is, I guess, by virtue of his size and maturity and so on, unlike the small, newer offices. So, Green then knew that act was being reviewed and he did not address any of those matters. The act, I do not think it is completed yet up in Cabinet Secretariat, but they are working on it.

MS MICHAEL: Okay. Thank you.

Recommendation 19, which has to do with the Public Accounts Committee should regularly examine and investigate matters dealt with in the annual reports of the House of Assembly. The status that you report is: The Public Accounts Committee has not yet examined these matters. Do we know if they are going to and who has the authority to say to the Public Accounts Committee that should happen?

CLERK: In fact, they started yesterday. They met yesterday, so they have stated this process. I would have written this back as of May 31, but since then they have begun the process.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, that is great. Thank you.

Recommendation 29, which has to do with the classification and remuneration of the Office of the Clerk and should be undertaken forthwith by the House of Assembly Management Commission, as was in the Green report, to use the Green report language. Your report says that the position description for the Clerk has not been completed yet. Can we get an idea of why not, or has it progressed since May?

CLERK: It has progressed. I spent some time on it this summer. It is my fault that it has not been done because everyone is responsible for writing their own position description. I started on it this summer, it is not completed yet, and then I guess I will have to send it to the Public Service Secretariat for their look and so on.

There are some complexities in that this position is a Cabinet appointment, even though now with the new act it requires the resolution in the House like a statutory officer, but ultimately it is a Cabinet position paid on the executive pay plan, so I think they will also – even though they are not referenced here - want a say about someone on the executive pay plan.

So it will be a rather convoluted process probably where the Public Service Secretariat looks at it, maybe then it comes to the Commission, the Commission recommends to Cabinet. I am not quite sure how it will unfold, but by Green saying the Management Commission, I guess he did not quite understand that it was a Cabinet appointment on the executive pay plan.

MS MICHAEL: Are you close to having a draft done?

CLERK: Yes, I think a couple of more weeks.

MS MICHAEL: Great. Okay.

Recommendation 39: "The Financial Administration Act should be amended to make it apply to the House of Assembly operations with respect to controls..." Again, is this an action that is under - it is Cabinet that has to look at this? Who has the authority with regard to this?

CLERK: Well, I guess the way Green wrote that - and then of course he drafted the actual legislation, which includes all those sections and subsections I referenced.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

CLERK: So, it may be that it is actually accomplished. There are any number of references, these ones identified there, saying the FAA applies to us. So while strictly speaking, he said the FAA should be amended, I think he has accomplished it through these other means.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

CLERK: It is a matter of intrepration. I think it has been accomplished and we probably do not need to amend the FAA because the old accountability act accomplishes the same.

MS MICHAEL: Right, but at some point I would imagine -I do not know if it is executive accounts or whatever, there must be a point at which acts are brought into agreement with each other at different times?

CLERK: Yes, and I do not think there is anything sort of contrary in the FAA. It is just sort of silent on some of these matters. It applies to all departments of government. Then you have this question: Well, was the Legislature a department to which it applied and so on? So I think Green was just trying to get the clarity. I think it has probably been achieved, but because technically that recommendation said FAA should be amended, we felt we should put it on the list.

MS MICHAEL: Right. Okay.

My final one is fairly minor, but it is just more a curiosity. It has to do with the artwork that the Provincial Art Bank policy of The Rooms does not allow members to borrow artwork for constituency offices if they are located outside of Confederation Building. Does the policy of The Rooms allow offices of government to have artwork outside of the Confederation Building, because there are departments that are outside the Confederation Building and other offices? Will they allow artwork to go to those places?

CLERK: I cannot say for sure. I think they are trying to cutback on that. At one point they did and I think they were having troubles with inventory and so on.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

CLERK: I am not sure whether they still allow it to government offices or not.

MS MICHAEL: Right. I just think it should be consistent. If they do allow artwork into other offices that are not in the Confederation Building, I do not see why they would not to the constituency offices either, and it does get artwork outside of St. John's for constituents to see. However, if they are going to have a policy because of inventory - and I understand that, if they move in that direction then I would like for this to just be consistent, that it is anything that is outside of Confederation Building. As I said, it is not a big issue but it is a curiosity on my part.

CLERK: I suspect they are consistent. I do not think they have singled out MHAs.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

CLERK: It is just they are trying to keep it where they can manage the inventory better.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Are there any other questions or remarks from other members of the Commission?

Again, this section being for information and update purposes only.

We will move on to Tab 10 of the binder, and that is the Amendment to Phone Policies and the "Requirement for reimbursement of small monthly charges for personal long distance calls and landline phones."

Are there any comments or questions from any of the members of the Commission?

CLERK: If I could, Mr. Speaker, I apologize. We have a typo on the fourth bullet here, where it says: .025 cents per minute. That is in fact .025 dollars per minute or 2.5 cents a minute. So it is not a quarter of a cent a minute, it is 2.5 cents per minute. So if you would scratch out the .025 cents, you can just put in 2.5 cents.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Again, Mr. Speaker, I am willing to move the action that is required. I have paid up to 17 cents and 18 cents. So I think it makes logical sense to say that the calls are paid for if the total cost in one month exceeds $1. I am willing to move the action required here.

MR. SPEAKER: Any other comments or concerns from any of the members?

For the purposes of those viewing the proceedings, the action required would be: "Pursuant to subparagraph 20(6)(b)(ii) of the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act, the Commission approves the following amendment to the Cellular and Landline Phone Services Policy for Employees of the House of Assembly Service, Caucus Offices and Statutory Offices, dated February 2010.

"Section 4.5(2): Users are responsible for reimbursing to the Newfoundland Exchequer Account through the Central Cashier's office the cost of personal long distance calls when the total cost of personal calls in one month exceeds $1."

Further, "Pursuant to subparagraph 20(6)(b)(ii) of the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act, the Commission approves the following amendment to the Cellular and Landline Phone Services Policy for Members of the House of Assembly and Constituency Assistants, dated May 19, 2009."

Again, that is section 4.5, second paragraph: Each user is responsible for reimbursement to the Newfoundland Exchequer Account through the Central Cashier's office the cost of personal long distance calls when the total cost of personal calls in one month exceeds $1.

Do we have a motion?

I understand we have a motion from the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. Do we have a seconder to that motion?

The hon. the Member for St. John's North.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: That is approved.

Concluding the agenda for today, are there any further comments or remarks by any members of the Commission?

The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Just on a personal note, Mr. Speaker, to recognize the absence of Ms Jones because of her illness and, in the context of the House Management Commission, to wish her well.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you.

Are there any other remarks or comments?

This concludes the proceedings of the meeting for today. Members will be notified of the next meeting through the Clerk's office.