HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Mr. Keith Colwell (Chairman)

Hon. Judy Streatch

Mr. Keith Bain

Mr. Chuck Porter

Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon

Ms. Vicki Conrad

Mr. Leonard Preyra

Ms. Diana Whalen

Mr. Harold Theriault

[Hon. Judy Streatch was replaced by Mr. Patrick Dunn.]

IN ATTENDANCE:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

WITNESSES

Department of Economic Development

Mr. Neal Conrad - Director, Community and Rural Development

Ms. Nancy Flam - Corporate Strategist

Nova Scotia Business Inc.

Mr. Pat Ryan - Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Fred Terrio - Manager, Business Advisory Team

Nova Scotia Association of Regional Development Authorities

Ms. Jo Ann Fewer - Chair

Ms. Lisa MacDonald - Vice-Chair

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2008

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1:00 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Keith Colwell

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to get underway and we'll start by going around the table and introducing everybody. We'll start with Mr. Preyra.

MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Leonard Preyra, I'm the Member of the Legislature for Halifax Citadel and I'm the critic for post-secondary education . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, we just need an introduction, who you are, that's it. Thank you.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. We're going to start today with the Department of Economic Development. I'd ask you to introduce yourselves and go from there. After you make your presentation, we're going to go to the Nova Scotia Association of Regional Development Authorities and then after that, Nova Scotia Business Inc., and we'll do all three presentations.

Do you want to do the three presentations first or one presentation and questions? How would the committee like to handle that?

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Maybe a presentation and questions, individually.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we can do that then. So that's what we'll do. I'd ask again to introduce yourself and we'll go from there.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Neal Conrad, Director of Community and Rural Development in the Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development and I'd like to introduce Nancy Flam sitting behind me. Nancy is the corporate strategist and project lead for the broadband initiative for the province, so any tough questions that I can't answer, Nancy is going to answer those for me.

MS. JO ANN FEWER: I'm Jo Ann Fewer, Chair of the Nova Scotia Association of Regional Development Authorities. With me is Lisa MacDonald, who is the Vice-Chair of NSARDA.

MR. PAT RYAN: I'm Pat Ryan, Chief Operating Officer of Nova Scotia Business Inc. I'm joined by Fred Terrio, who is the Manager of our Business Advisory Team.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, great, thank you.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a brief slide presentation that shouldn't take 10 minutes - it's going to take us through eight or so slides. I think it's really going to set the table for the activities of the Department of Economic Development in communities throughout the province and specifically what we see our deliverables as being.

My outline is, we're going to talk a little bit about the role of Economic Development in very, very general terms, to support economic development in the province; the specific role of the Community and Rural Development branch, which is the branch that I'm responsible for, the environment, the role of the division; what our priority areas are; and what our funded activities and support services look like currently.

Specifically the role of Nova Scotia Economic Development is to be the focal point within the provincial government for advancing the government's economic, technological and innovation agendas. I think that very specific role speaks very clearly as to why initiatives like the provincial broadband initiative are contained or captured within the role of the department.

Community and Rural Development is one of five operational divisions inside of the department and its supporting network of five provincial Crown Corporations. Nova Scotia Business Inc., with Mr. Pat Ryan here this afternoon, would represent one of those other Crown Corporations.

The division inside us, apart from inside the department apart from us would include the provincial Procurement Services; an internal division called Decision Support, which really is the policy house; there is Strategic Initiatives and Projects; and there is an innovation function in there as well. Those would be the in-house divisions, as well as the management, central management function.

The Crown Corporations that are responsible to the same minister include Nova Scotia Business Inc., World Trade Centre Limited, Film Nova Scotia, and InNOVAcorp - those would fit in there, as well as the Waterfront Development Corporation. Some of those Crown Corporations have a mandate to service the entire province and others have specific geographic mandates to service a limited part of the province. For example, the Waterfront Development Corporation's mandate does not include all waterfronts in all parts of the province.

What does Community and Rural Development do? We do principally three things. We support regional economic development efforts based on community assets and strengths. A fundamental to the work that we do is it does require us to be engaged with the community for the community to, in fact, set its own priorities and expectations around economic development and, in many cases, educate the communities as to what real economic development is about. It's not just about creating wish lists of things that have to be done. This is about engaging and launching strategies for sustainable economic development throughout the province. There are a number of organizations that we fund that allows us to do that and we'll get into that a bit more.

Critical to our work is that we do work with federal and municipal governments and community-based agencies like the regional development authorities, to expand local capacity essential for the creation, retention and expansion of businesses throughout the province.

Our primary objective is the growth of the provincial economy, although we fully understand and realize the very, very critical impact that the social environment has on our ability to perform, the ability of the provincial government to perform, and a provincial economy to perform. We actually lead the department's efforts in the core business area of regional capacity-building and that's stated in our business plan and in the provincial growth strategy, Opportunities for Sustainable Prosperity. That's where the majority of the work that we do spins out of regional capacity-building.

Our priority areas are - really there are four: link to government, communities in economic transition, knowledge management, and infrastructure. In order for us to grow the provincial economy here, it is absolutely critical that all three orders of government - federal, municipal and provincial - are actually working in collaboration with each other, that we understand each other's priorities and we make a concerted effort to reach the same objectives. The connection that our division makes into municipal and federal government departments and agencies at the staff level principally, I think, is going to be critical to our success.

Communities in transition - fundamentally the entire economy of the province is in transition right now. The transition is sometimes more obvious or more abrupt in some communities than others. I think we're all aware of the major industry closings that would

have happened over the last 12 months and more - those would be abrupt transitions. In situations like that, we would work in concert with other orders of government and community organizations to develop and assist in the development of transition plans for the redeployment of economic resources in those areas.

Knowledge management really is the place where knowledge from the rural communities and their expectations come back into government so that we have good intelligence, appropriate intelligence and accurate intelligence in how we actually can - what the needs of communities are so they can, in fact, be used to positively effect the creation of policies that effect economic development throughout the province.

Infrastructure from our point of view does not just mean the hard infrastructure, the roads - it also includes what we've been calling soft infrastructure. It allows us to pay attention to people and the people who drive the economy of the province. We have a number of employment programs that are directed at getting students in Nova Scotia schools, post-secondary schools, experience in their field of study in Nova Scotia. That's the role that - we do play a role there.

We fund really and generally two kinds of activities. We fund operational, we provide operational funding for key organizations; and we fund very, very specific project funding to allow certain things to happen. Our core operational funding is really limited to this group. We provide funding to the Nova Scotia Association of Regional Development Authorities, and Jo Ann Fewer will speak specifically about what NSARDA in fact do on behalf of the RDAs around the province. In the context of a regional community, we do provide core funding to the 13 regional development authorities around the province, and we do that in concert with the federal-municipal governments to the 13 regional development authorities around the province. We would say that they represent geographic communities, generally multiple municipal units and also supported by the federal government.

The Nova Scotia Co-operative Council also receives core funding from us, specifically because the co-op and credit unions - and this does represent co-ops and credit unions - they, in fact, represent very, very real development potential in rural communities as an alternate way to finance businesses, finance your lives or do business generally. We fund specifically the co-op development work that the co-op council would, in fact, undertake on behalf of their members.

The Black Business Initiative, again a province-wide initiative that deals specifically with the economic development opportunities and challenges within the African-Nova Scotian business community from one end of the province to the other.

We work with the Acadian community, the Acadian economic development interests through La Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse - we call them CDÉNÉ - and they provide much the same function as an RDA would provide, specifically to the Acadian and francophone community wherever they are located in the entire province.

[1:15 p.m.]

Our funding for those organizations is fairly consistent in that the funding package is about $150,000 per year for each of these organizations and there would be a requirement that it be matched from other sources as well. The exception would be the Black Business Initiative, which receives some additional funding because they also administer a loan portfolio on behalf of their businesses.

The project funding that comes along with the package, the core funding package, really there are six specific elements in there. We do fund regional economic planning, which would be planning that happens on a zone or an economic zone level which would be the level of multiple municipal units - an RDA area, an RDA zone or even an economic zone which may include more than one regional development authority.

Developmental planning would be the next level of funding, which is when we're beginning to focus down on what an opportunity might look like. It may be planning around a specific initiative, as opposed to general economic development planning.

Opportunity identification, I think, speaks for itself in this particular case. We're looking for fleshing out really economic development opportunities that may exist at the community level, either for community enterprise or, in some cases, projects that will be undertaken by a group like a regional development authority that may lead to the potential for future private sector investment.

An example of something that we would have done on the opportunity identification side would have been, we would have worked a number of years ago with the Strait-Highlands Regional Development Agency and the Department of Natural Resources to quantify a marble find in the Kennedys Big Brook area of Inverness County. That allowed us to explore the resource to develop the business case with the regional development authority and the private sector then went out and sought investment and actually constructed a marble quarry in the Kennedys Big Brook area of Inverness County. In that case, we went from the developmental planning stage, through the opportunity identification stage, to the creation of a business.

Our employment programs - as I've already alluded to, they're specifically directed at providing students with work experience in their field of study; those are returning students who are, in fact, returning to school. There are two kinds of programs: a regular summer program which is for not-for-profit groups around the province - and you would be

familiar with the funding there for some of the local VICs and museums or sports programs around the province - and there is also a co-op employment program which runs three seasons of the year - it actually runs 12 months of the year in three seasons - and that's specifically directed at co-op students in both university and community colleges, again, to get experience in their field of study.

Our strategic initiatives budget is really a project implementation and capital works budget or program that allows us to fund specific projects, identify projects that are of critical importance to the well-being of community groups. These are not private-sector initiatives - these would be to fund community-based assets. These would not do maintenance - these would allow for incremental improvements and expansions to facilities that can be supported by a sustainable business case. Pretty straightforward stuff.

On the small business support side of things, we have not generally provided any direct support to small business. Our role in small business support has been to identify needs and to seek third-party delivery vehicles to deliver those programs on behalf of the province. Information services is one of our key deliverables there. Information services are provided two ways: through our network of nine offices that we have throughout the province, and approximately 14 sites of the Canada/Nova Scotia Business Service Centre that exists from one end of the province to the other.

The Canada/Nova Scotia Business Centre - our role there is to provide the technology and all the stuff that goes along with the technology. Our federal managing partner is the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and they provide the management function for those centres, so they're fairly well distributed throughout the province. Our newest centre was established at Université Sainte-Anne last Fall, at Church Point.

The access to capital piece - we have two real tools there that we use. One is with the credit unions, again and that is the Credit Union Loan Guarantee Program which allows the province, through this program, to guarantee a portion of the loan for the creation and expansion of new businesses throughout the province. The province provides up to a maximum of 75 per cent guarantee and the credit unions are responsible for 25 per cent guarantee of the loan from their side. There is no separate application form. The department does not make approvals, the approval process is through any regular credit union in the province. Not all credit unions in the province do participate in that program but the province is entirely covered. Some credit unions are simply too small to be involved in this kind of commercial lending activity but if somebody goes in looking to use the program, they will in fact be referred to a credit union that has agreed to service the area in that particular case.

The other tool that we use to raise capital really either as a pool of funds or for purpose venture would be the CEDIFs - the Community Economic Development Investment Fund - which allows individuals to invest in either purpose ventures or pools to undertake commercially viable projects. It uses the self-directed RRSP mechanism and the province

provides a 30 per cent guarantee for five years, is how it works. There is about $25 million invested through that program in 47 CEDIFs right now, I think, province-wide and it's showing some considerable interest from other provinces right now.

Our professional advisory services and our business environment assessment, really, they have an asterisk beside them because they're both really speaking to two pilot programs that we launched last year. The business advisory services piece is something that in our program literature, you would see it referred to as the Nova Scotia business consulting program. The pilot has ended and it is in the assessment stage right now, and that's why it has an asterisk there. But that allowed us to cost share with businesses to retain professional consultants, either to assess their business operation or to recommend or put a program in place to make changes to the business that will allow it to grow.

That really came out of work we did with six of the regional development authorities on the Business Retention Expansion Pilot Project. That program identified the need for professional services at the small business level as being a significant impediment for small businesses to grow in the province; that is, in fact, a cost-shared program with the individual businesses themselves and that feeds right into the business environment assessment piece.

One of the major benefits of the BRE program, the Business Retention Expansion program, is it will give us consistent access to defensible data province-wide on the needs of small businesses in a consistent database format. We intend that the program roll out province-wide in 2008-09 and once that rolls out province-wide, that should give us a complete provincial data set to allow us to analyze what the impediments and needs of businesses are, not just what their needs are but also to allow us to develop strategies to respond; it's nice to know but we really want to respond. That's the end of my presentation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think the way we will do this is give each caucus 10 minutes, first round with each department and at the end whatever time we have left, we'll divide it up so that we can ask any of the three; the NDP first and each caucus can decide how you want to do this. Mr. MacKinnon.

MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Thank you, it's great to have such broad representation here this afternoon. One of the things that I would like to address, Neal, in access to capital is even the credit union program doesn't get down to some of the people who are requiring microcredit. I've had some situations where what was being sought was almost too small. What is the minimum, to start with? I have a couple of questions in this regard.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: There is no minimum. The maximum is $150,000 per client but there is no minimum technically.

MR. MACKINNON: So it would be the credit union itself that would determine that what was being sought was too small?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Yes, that's correct.

MR. MACKINNON: In relation to broadband - and I'm glad you have backup here today, of course - at first we were talking the end of 2010, but I'm very delighted that we have that moved up to the end of 2009. Some of the areas in my constituency - the East River Valley and Barneys River area and so on - there is a lot of pressure there to get some work done because there are businesses that are trying to function and so on. Just a little progress report, if we could, very briefly and I don't want to take too much time from my caucus.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: I'll defer that to Nancy.

MS. NANCY FLAM: Thank you for being interested in broadband. We signed the contracts, as you know, for Zones 1 to 6 in December and that would include your area. Over the winter we have been busy designing, engineering and actually out scouting land. We are encouraging our service providers to use existing infrastructures so there are some assessments going and looking at negotiating tower sharing to cut down on costs, time and vertical clutter, so we are in that process.

They have to order the tower builds which are in the process, so all of the up-front work is now underway and we are anticipating very soon you're going to be hearing some announcements in your area.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to defer to other caucus members but I have a series of questions, as usual.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Conrad.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: Thank you for your presentation, it was very informative. I just want to say thank you for the update on the rural broadband. We are very pleased in Queens with the updates that we've been receiving coming into my office. I've made some inquiries as to where things are and certainly, for the folks of North Queens who were initially part of a pilot project with a former company, TDC, I'm hearing from residents of North Queens that now that communication has been shared between EastLink and the community, they are feeling much more comfortable that things are going to roll out as planned. They are looking for a connection sometime in June, I believe, for those customers who were on existing services. Do you think that the rollout is going to happen in the timelines that have now been bumped up?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Just as a matter of course, any question specifically related to broadband I'm going to defer to Nancy.

MS. FLAM: We do anticipate that broadband is definitely on target and will roll out as anticipated. With respect to the Caledonia area, EastLink did purchase the assets of another company and right now there are about 50 customers who are hooked up, who were previous customers and there is no charge for that fee. Right now they are in the process of sort of bringing it up to the standards of EastLink and then they anticipate that it will be rolled out to the rest of the people in that particular area in June.

The way the structure - the build, I will say - will progress is that we call it a design build because you design it and build it as you go. Because it's a very interconnected network, if you can't purchase a certain piece of land then you have to look at your design because it's 100 per cent coverage. What we will expect is that the main backbone network will be built and as the signal is available, there will be people hooked up and then we will go back and fill in gaps. You will see people continuously, across the province, being hooked up until we reach 2009. Yes, there will be people in main areas hooked up initially and that will depend on the topography, the availability of towers, et cetera, but yes, we fully expect that we will meet our target.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: Thank you for that. I have another question around CEDIFs. I think CEDIFs are a wonderful thing for this province and a good opportunity for companies to access seed monies if other routes have not been available. It's a good way to keep money in Nova Scotia and invested in Nova Scotia for Nova Scotians. Can you tell me how the department and the province are promoting CEDIFs? We don't tend to hear a lot of information - before tax time there may be a few blurbs but I think in order to really move forward with strong investment that it should be promoted. Can you tell me if that is being promoted or if there are plans?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: The principal way that we promote the availability of CEDIFs - and it is as a corporate tool, we don't promote any individual CEDIFs - would be through our Web site and some printed material. I just checked it again this morning and it is fairly up to date in there, including the performance of CEDIFs. It is not our responsibility to promote individual CEDIFs, that is left to the individual group that's making the offer to, in fact, promote it to the marketplace.

[1:30 p.m.]

Our assessment is that it's, in fact, adequate in terms of getting the word out there. We do see constant growth and interest in CEDIFs, we haven't seen it plateau yet or slow down, so it is slowly, gradually growing as it becomes more known in local communities. I think what's interesting about CEDIFs particularly is CEDIFs that go back and re-offer. After the first initial offering it's not unusual for folks to go back and look for a subsequent investment in following years, particularly with the blind pools, you're likely to see that happen.

If anybody has any thoughts or suggestions on how the program could be better promoted, we would certainly be interested in hearing those as well.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Preyra.

MR. PREYRA: I have a general question about communities and economic transition. In our outreach in rural areas we seem to get the same list of concerns about the industry itself apparently in collapse with the rise of the Canadian dollar, there seem to be a number of threats on the horizon. Some of these industries seem to be in a permanent state of decline and some of them seem to be just in a temporary stage. What is your reading of the situation of the economic transition, particularly in fishing, forestry and steel? Is it your sense that this is a long-term, pronounced, sectoral decline that we have to make some kind of structural adjustments for? Is this something that will come back?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: My view is that in those industries - and we would probably class those industries as being foundation industries. Those are the industries that the economy of the province have been built upon. As with any industry, there's always change within industry, they will continue to change. I think one of the things that has been obvious in the last couple of years here is the rapidity of the change and particularly on the dollar exchange rate, how quickly the exchange rate has grown or has increased, to the point that businesses that would normally be able to adjust within a cycle haven't had the time to adjust within the life cycle.

It's very true, there are some fundamental changes going on within our industries in the province but I certainly haven't given up on any of those industries yet. I think that what we're finding, and there is reasonable optimism in some industries, that it's about doing business better, more innovative, more productive business as opposed to getting out of the business altogether. I think that's really what we're going to see.

The innovation agenda, changes in expectations in the workplace, both by the workforce and by the employers, need to be recognized and dealt with in the province. Some of our employers understand that it's not the same environment that they worked in when their business was first created, from either side. So I think that our industries, those industries, will be there but they need time to adjust to many of the changes. We can't change the exchange rate but there may be ways that we can assist those businesses to adjust to the new economic reality, the continued globalization of the economy.

We're beginning to see some interesting sort of bounce-back, I think, in some parts of the world right now, particularly on questions of quality and questionable quality and consistency of quality in some of the offshore manufacturing operations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Thank you, the time has expired. Mr. Dunn.

MR. DUNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the first question I have has already been answered, I think Nancy answered it. It was the expectations that the broadband initiatives are on target. I think you've already answered that, that they are and we feel that probably by the end of 2009 the province will be looking very good. It's good news to hear that.

Neal, with regard to employment, like using information services as an example and so on, how great is the challenge as far as locating, retaining employees in the smaller areas of our province?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: It's a substantial problem, I believe it's a substantial problem. I think that's one of the most significant issues that we're going to have to deal with to either retain existing businesses in the province or to grow the economy of the province - the availability of the workforce. The demographics of the workforce in this province, we know what's going on with the baby boomers and we're certainly aware in some places of businesses, particularly in the information side of things, that would like to expand but they no longer have access to a workforce to support that.

It's not "just anybody will do", we need to understand that, that there are very, very specific skills that are needed to work in these environments and our workforce themselves must be willing to adapt, as much as our employers as well. So I think that the availability of the workforce is going to be one of our - it's a problem that five years ago we kind of could see it out there but now it's in front of us and we're continuously approached by businesses that would like to expand or locate, particularly expand or stay and they're very concerned about the availability of the workforce to do it.

MR. DUNN: Just another comment. You were talking a few minutes ago about communities in economic transition. Of course in my constituency, the Town of Trenton in Pictou County with the rail car industry, I agree with you when you're talking about how they have to be innovative; innovative improvements perhaps is the way to go with regard to turning an industry like that around, to where they may be able to open up, be productive and go on in the life cycle. So I certainly agree with that sort of comment.

I'm finished, Mr. Chairman, thanks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Porter.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Thank you. First of all, I apologize for being late today and thank you for coming in for the presentation, very informative. I want to touch on something maybe Mr. Conrad said, that Pat asked about, and you said that businesses are looking to expand and it's a challenge. What are you telling people out there? You know those

businesses call you up, they want to do business, what's the message back from government going to be?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: In terms of those businesses that wish to expand?

MR. PORTER: Yes, are we doing anything, saying this is how you can do it or this is how we can help you? Where are we with that piece?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Well, there certainly are tools that are available and that can assist the businesses to expand here. The primary contact, first contacts of that nature would, in fact, be Nova Scotia Business Inc. They do offer a suite of services that are available to businesses.

I think the key for expanding a business in this province really is first understanding your business case and understanding your market and approach it that way. But yes, there are still opportunities to expand in this province, businesses to expand in this province and we do have some assistance that is available to them, whether it's through the use of the trade export strategy which has been developed that would allow them to gain easier access through Trade Team Nova Scotia to international markets, or even access in some cases to appropriate financing and incentives to, in fact, expand or retain employment here in the province.

MR. PORTER: Are they limited to that percentage, by way of export markets you were just referring to? Is there only so much they can do there? Do you limit them, I guess, as a business with that opportunity to say, we'll allow you to go this far?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: No, we don't set any limits like that.

MR. PORTER: I'm going to come back to that but just before I do, maybe I'll go to Mr. Ryan with that question with regard to NSBI. Just while it's on my mind, I wanted to ask you a question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just a second - if you just keep the questions, we're going to do a wrap-up with everybody.

MR. PORTER: Do I have time for one more?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have another four minutes, but just Economic Development, for now.

MR. PORTER: Okay, no problem, thank you. With regard to the credit unions you talked about, we've had a few people that I'm aware of go through and for some it works very well. Any idea what the numbers are of people who are going there by way of businesses?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: The Credit Union Loan Guarantee Program has approximately 250 active accounts right now out there. Since their creation about six years ago they've indicated to us that they've created about 587 new jobs and retained about 960 existing jobs. So the ratio of new jobs to retained jobs is just less than 2 to 1.

The default rates for those loans is less than 10 per cent, which any commercial bank would be very, very happy with. That can only be credited to the after-care that the credit unions actually do with the businesses that come through their door.

What I think is also interesting is that there have been about 34 businesses that have come in seeking assistance through the Credit Union Loan Guarantee Program that didn't require it. They were dealt with as a regular commercial lender. Now the individual business wouldn't know that because there is not a separate application. That would just be assessed at the credit union level itself, the commercial account manager would look at it and say, now we don't need the guarantee on this one, this business is good enough, it doesn't need it. So there have been about 34 businesses that have come in through that way and got the assistance they needed.

We certainly have seen an expansion of the commercial loan portfolios of the credit unions. In many parts of the province the credit union is the only commercial lender in the province.

MR. PORTER: It seems to be a very positive step, that's for sure.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: We're certainly more than pleased with the activity on that file for sure.

MR. PORTER: And the people that we seem to have dealt with, at least in my office with regard to that credit union piece, seem to be very comfortable going there, maybe as opposed to the bigger banks for whatever reason. Maybe it's just because they're . . .

MR. NEAL CONRAD: The decision is still made locally.

MR. PORTER: It is, yes, and they're very comfortable by way of going into that kind of facility. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'll pass on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Bain.

MR. KEITH BAIN: Just one very brief question, Mr. Chairman, and it's concerning - as the access to high-speed increases, the number of home-based businesses increase as well. I'm just wondering, what does that do or how does your department look on the home-based businesses that will be set up?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: You raise a very good point. Certainly we want to encourage the creation of businesses at all levels and simply the fact that you do have a technology available to you doesn't mean that necessarily it is going to be taken advantage of. In some parts of the province already - Richmond County was one and the western end of the Annapolis Valley was another - either through local initiatives or through the local regional development authorities, there have been a number of initiatives undertaken that actually begin to take away some of the mysteries of doing business on the Internet, actually taking advantage of the businesses. Nancy just said we're doing something about it as well, so I'm going to ask Nancy to explain a little bit more about that on our side.

There is a broad recognition that the tool is only good if you use it and certainly, businesses don't start big, they start small. A lot of them do start in the home and our objective would be to see more of those small businesses yet to support systems information, financing that they need to grow from one-person businesses to 10-person businesses. I think that this technology will allow us to do that. Nancy, is there anything you would like to add?

MR. BAIN: I guess, too, because you hear so many people say, if only I had access to high-speed I would be setting up the business within my home and that's going to be happening a lot from now on.

MS. FLAM: Part of this initiative is not just about putting the infrastructure in place in Economic Development, as Neal says. We do have a lot of initiatives underway but one of the initiatives that we are working on with this program is we have a liaison and development aspect of the project as well. We are now in the process of working with Neal's division to develop what we call our planning for a high-speed future.

The first tool that we're doing - and we're working through our RDAs, communities, CAP sites - the first phase of that is to develop what we call an assessment tool to help businesses and communities as a whole on how to better use this infrastructure in the future. It will enable them to do an assessment of their strengths and their opportunities and help them develop their own Internet strategies. Our next phase will be to look at how to help them build a planning tool - we will be doing a planning tool from an economic development perspective. So the initiative has taken that under consideration.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Mr. Theriault.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Mr. Chairman, I won't take long. As you know I'm from a rural area of this province, a coastal area. For the past four years since I've been in this job I've seen nothing but depression growing in the coastal areas of this province. I've seen our fishery decline more, the only positive thing that there was in the air was a mega-quarry for American roads down there, with not much for this province at all to come out of it, which was nothing but a depressing fight for four or five years. It's in decline continuously. In Digby we're in fear of losing a ferry boat down there, people are leaving continuously, 20- to 30-year olds and now 40- to 50-year olds are leaving with their families, steady decline, steady decline. What are we going to do? I get 10 phone calls a day, what are we going to do in this area?

[1:45 p.m.]

Being a fisherman, I thought with my great wisdom that someday if we got the right balance back in our fishery, we could bring our groundfishery back to this province. Right now in Digby, another little thing that's happening is the famous Digby scallop fleet. The boys are bringing them to the wharf at the end of the week after they've been out five days fishing and when they fill their fuel up, these are high-volume users of fuel, they're going to get settled up for their week's pay and they owe the owners money for the fuel they put into the boats. So they're tying them up to the wharf, crews and captains, and packing up and leaving for out West. This is the world-famous Digby scallop fleet talking about the fishery.

I went to Chile a week or two ago, a Third World country, which, by the way, is feeding us fish here in Canada, very much of it, because for some reason we're not growing too many here. All of Canada grows 100,000 tons; Chile, a Third World country with half the amount of people, is growing 650,000 tons and if the demand keeps increasing, they said in 15 years they will grow 1.3 million tons of fish for us to eat, Canada included. Here we are, I don't know what we're doing, we're just sitting here not doing anything. I could go on and on but I just want to ask one question, has the Department of Economic Development got a plan or a vision for the coastal areas of this province?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: We don't have a plan specifically for the coastal areas of this province. We have several plans that would bisect the province into different areas and those would largely be the plans that have been developed with groups like the regional development authorities, with our federal partners, with municipal governments and with the communities. That would be the state that the planning is in right now. I assure you that in communities that do have a fishing component to their element, the fishing industry does feature very strongly in those plans, I certainly would suspect but certainly in South West Nova, the fishery does.

We have no jurisdictional authority to work in the fishing industry, that belongs either with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or with the provincial Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, and we do collaborate with them. We would look to those departments to take the lead on specific fisheries-related matters that are not within our jurisdiction. We can bring folks together but we do not have any ability to actually act in those areas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Welcome today, it's always good to look at the economy of our province and the supports that are in place to grow it. I had a question about the shift that you've just made from being an office to being a department, if you could. I know there have been a number of new departments created and some changes in the organization of government. I wonder, could you just tell me when that became a reality and if your mandate has changed as a result?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: That became a reality April 1, 2007.

MS. WHALEN: In 2007?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Yes, our status changed from office to department then, so we've been operating for a little more than a year as a department. What that really reflected was what had been a gradual change and assignment of additional opportunities to the Office of Economic Development that took us specifically out of being fundamentally a policy shop and got us into more of the function of delivery of services that would be associated with a line department. Those changes had been happening prior to April 1, 2007 and I think the change in status from office to department that happened April 1, 2007, was more correctly a recognition of the fact that these changes had happened.

One significant thing that happened was the transfer of the provincial employment programs from the Department of Education to the Office of Economic Development and the transfer of the Procurement Services division from what had been Transportation and Public Works to what was the Office of Economic Development. I think those are two examples of specific changes in responsibility that supported the change in status.

Since April 1^st of that time, I would say there haven't been any significant changes to the way we function or additional functions added. I see April 1, 2007, as the recognition of how we changed.

MS. WHALEN: So at that time you took over the summer employment and the Co-operative Employment Programs, those two that you described for us today?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: We had taken them over earlier than that, as with procurement, yes.

MS. WHALEN: And procurement would be sort of government-wide procurement?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Yes, it is.

MS. WHALEN: So you handle all of that. Was there a change in your staffing then as a result? You would have acquired some of those . . .

MR. NEAL CONRAD: We acquired staff that were associated with those initiatives or programs.

MS. WHALEN: So the staffing and mandate would have changed there. Okay, I was just interested in what led to that, whether it was in name only or if there was some substance to it. So there is some substance, you tell us, that's good. Can you tell me about the Industrial Expansion Fund that's one of your funding programs? It wasn't named per se when you went through project funding and your core operational funding. Clearly it's not a core operational thing, it's not funding an organization specifically, or a non-profit or whatever. Could you tell me what the value of it is and how that may have changed this year over last?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: I certainly can get you that information. I'm not directly involved in the administration of the Industrial Expansion Fund, that's a small work group in our department that, in fact, administers that. I certainly can provide you any additional information that you would possibly like to have. There is an annual report published on the functioning of that fund. I think all of the information should be in there and I believe that's on-line currently.

MS. WHALEN: So you're not able to say whether that amount has been growing your activity in that area as . . .

MR. NEAL CONRAD: The activity in that area, I believe, has been growing. It is assessed on a case-by-case basis or an opportunity-for-opportunity basis. Our protocols first say that we will make referrals to Nova Scotia Business Inc. They will assess the contact as to whether it meets their criteria for support or not, or if there's an opportunity for the Industrial Expansion Fund and NSBI to jointly put something together on that fund around the potential use of the Industrial Expansion Fund. So there is no program because it's specifically tailored, customized to meet the needs of the investment or business.

MS. WHALEN: What you have though is a certain amount of money allocated that should the opportunities arise throughout the year you can make available.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: Just at the end of this year we saw quite a sizeable amount of money being redirected to the Industrial Expansion Fund in a special appropriation at the end of the

year. I wonder if that meant you had made those commitments beyond the amount that you had or was this, in fact, just funding what had already been allocated?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: I really can't speak specifically to the nature of those commitments that were made at the end of the year, but we certainly can get you that information.

MS. WHALEN: So nobody here is associated with that today?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: No, we're not.

MS. WHALEN: Maybe you should come to Public Accounts and then we'd have the number crunchers and everybody in charge of the numbers.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: I'm certain the folks who administer the Industrial Expansion Fund would be quite happy to go to Public Accounts. They've been there before.

MS. WHALEN: Yes, I know it wouldn't be the first time, however, it is something of interest to me about how we decide to fund special projects that arise in the business community.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time has expired. It has been suggested by one of the committee members that we hear the next two presentations and then do questioning. Would that be satisfactory with the committee? (Interruptions) Okay, we'll start with Ms. Fewer and if you can keep your presentations a little bit shorter I would appreciate it so we can have more time for questioning.

MS. FEWER: Thank you. For the newcomers my name is Jo Ann Fewer and I'm the Chair of the Nova Scotia Association of Regional Development Authorities and with me today is Lisa MacDonald, who is the Vice-Chair. Our Acting Executive Director is away this week, so we're presenting on behalf of the association. It's always a pleasure, I was here about 16 months ago and made a presentation as well to the Standing Committee on Economic Development.

Just to give you some context about the provincial association, NSARDA was established in 1999 and our mandate is to strengthen the linkages among 13 regional development agencies in Nova Scotia by providing support to them. I'm the Executive Director of the Colchester Regional Development Agency, so I'm representing really two bodies today but speaking on behalf of NSARDA. We also work to provide a common voice on key economic development issues in the Province of Nova Scotia.

We work with a strategic plan and I'm not going to go over all of the items or about all of the items but basically, we provide position statements on rural, community, regional

and economic development issues. We work together on different projects that are of a similar nature throughout the province. Most recently, one that Neal referred to earlier is the Business Retention and Expansion Pilot Project that we've been working on, visiting many businesses in your communities throughout Nova Scotia. We also work together to provide professional development services to our staff to improve and share knowledge with each other and to ensure that the provincial RDAs remain stable and strong.

How are we measured in terms of economic development? Most recently, we've worked together as a provincial body to look at what our performance indicators are and we determine outcomes in the following areas: first of all, our key mandates are community development and business development. Under those categories we look at things like skills and learning and people development; how do we develop our workforce and our people in our communities; how do we promote our regions and work toward recruiting businesses; how do we provide information and research to our business community; how do we make the best use of the sites and infrastructure that we have in those communities; how do we best plan and develop strategic plans in the areas; and how do we best communicate with the general public?

In your letter you requested that we speak to four topic areas and those are: small business initiatives, broadband, employment retention and skills development, and infrastructure. So I'm just going to speak briefly to each one and give you an idea of what RDAs are working on in their communities. Not all RDAs are the same, they're very different actually, so some are working on these initiatives and some not so much.

In terms of small business, we work with the lending partners that are out there, like the province, and Nova Scotia Business Inc., like our community business development corporations and credit unions and co-op councils. We sometimes are the point of first contact where people come with a business idea, so we'll make the appropriate referrals to those lending organizations. Some of us administer, on behalf of Service Canada, the Self Employment Benefits Program that allows people to continue to receive their unemployment insurance while they're starting their business. We also make the appropriate referrals and help people through if they're interested in starting a CEDIF in their community, and we provide business counselling and training where necessary.

In terms of broadband, many regional development agencies were involved when it was investment in Canada, the Brand Program, which provided dollars in communities to provide fibre-optic cabling in their areas and we're very supportive of the provincial objective of broadband access and the rollout of that. So we provide information to the provincial government, we connect them to our municipalities in our areas and provide that final mile information, the information to get to the last customer basically in the community.

In terms of employment retention and skills development, again many RDAs provide different services but the examples that are out there are things like the establishment of

community learning centres that help prepare people in rural communities to enter the workforce, leadership training in workplaces. Many are very involved in recruiting immigrants and ex-patriots to the areas and many also have youth attraction and retention programs in their communities.

[2:00 p.m.]

We're partnering with the provincial - I guess it's the Department of Labour and Workplace something now, these days, and we're partnering with them on their Opportunities Nova Scotia initiative. Some RDAs are managers of career resource centres.

In terms of infrastructure, I broke it down into two areas: one is business parks and the communities, either ownership or management and marketing and sales. In terms of tourism product with infrastructure, many of us are involved in either development or management of parks and projects in the communities.

The strength of the regional development agency model, it's a unique model in Canada and internationally, and that's because of our three-way partnership with municipalities, provincial governments and federal governments. We completed an organizational review recently which reinforced that once again. There are no other organizations that bring together that three-way partnership like RDAs do in Nova Scotia, so we're cited as a best practice in that regard.

It's a grassroots model, we follow the mandate of community economic development so it involves volunteers and community-based planning. We collectively identify the needs in our communities, we build strategies to promote viable communities and the community takes ownership of the success.

That's a very brief background on who we are and what we're involved with but if I remember correctly, there's always good discussion afterwards, so thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Ryan.

MR. RYAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have a PowerPoint, but I do have a few brief comments that I wanted to address to the committee. As I mentioned before, I'm the Chief Operating Officer with Nova Scotia Business Inc. and I'm joined by Fred Terrio, who is responsible for our Business Advisory Team across the province.

As Neal mentioned, we're the provincial business development agency so we are a tactically-focused organization engaged in a number of key activities - investment attraction, the one I think we're most well-known for, but also trade development; so taking Nova Scotia-based companies to the world with their products and services. We operate an Advisory Services Unit so we have personnel strategically located throughout the province

who work with hundreds of clients each year, helping them deal with the myriad of growth challenges that they're confronted with. We operate a Finance Unit so we do both debt commercial financing as well as venture capital.

Thanks for the opportunity to be here today. Everyone in this room is aware of the challenges we face as our economy rapidly transitions from a resource to a knowledge base. We hear from businesses about what they are facing. We know what they are doing to address it and we understand what they need from us, but it's not just us. There are many partners working together, like the regional development authorities and the Department of Economic Development which are appearing here with us today.

Our work and the collaboration with our partners is focused on supporting local companies and attracting new businesses to the province. Wherever we go we work with businesses. We work with businesses in markets around the globe and we work with businesses here in Nova Scotia.

Some of the issues we hear about are: lagging competitiveness; low productivity; lack of available talent, which has been a recurring theme that we've heard about here today; and certainly the strength of the Canadian dollar has had a material impact on many of our exporters.

The business environment is challenging, however, businesses are taking action. We were in Springhill recently, announcing new transactions with local manufacturers - Surrette Battery Limited, Parrsboro Metal Fabricators and W.R. Benjamin Limited. These are rural companies that have seen dramatic impacts from the high Canadian dollar. They are responding by investing in their productivity and taking steps to improve their competitiveness and the province, through NSBI, has been a partner in this growth. These are the first companies to benefit from NSBI's newly-expanded payroll rebate.

What the province has permitted us to do is apply the payroll rebate in a new way. We know that improving productivity and competitiveness in Nova Scotia is critical, so the rebate can now be used as an incentive for companies to invest in competitiveness, product diversification or expanded export markets. Surrette Battery saw the payroll rebate as a benefit to the entire community, because every dollar spent by a manufacturer like Surrette has a material spinoff effect throughout the community.

For Parrsboro Metal Fabricators, they indicate that the payroll rebate will help them respond more quickly to economic challenges. It helps them sharpen their focus on being smarter and faster than their competition.

There's no shortage of challenge as the economy shifts, but with any challenge there can also be real opportunity. Our companies, and I mean Nova Scotia companies, must and will emerge from this transformation as stronger companies. For example, our clients have

responded as global environmental standards shift. They see opportunities to grow by creating more energy-efficient products that the marketplace demands. In our view, Nova Scotia has businesses that are as smart and innovative as businesses in any place in the world. We are engaged with businesses in every region of Nova Scotia. Our development authorities know and promote their value propositions. We and our partners have our eye on what global businesses and markets are looking for. We need to be more effective than ever in matching those two.

When we consult with businesses the conversation always seems to come back to how we can compete in the global market. We are working with the RDAs, with economic development, with education and many more partners. In Nova Scotia many of us are part of initiatives that are designed to attract and retain talent and maximize our productivity.

We all know that the labour supply in this province is tight. The challenge of acquiring and retaining talent was the number one issue heard during our recent five-year plan consultations. Contributing to our labour challenges are low productivity and lagging competitiveness. So we must all direct our collective efforts toward addressing these issues.

We believe that by addressing our province's productivity issues, we are also addressing our labour issues. We've always had economic challenges to overcome in Nova Scotia. Our efforts are directed towards turning these challenges into opportunities by continuing to address the ever-changing needs of our clients. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We'll start again with 10-minute rounds and we may go around for a second round. Mr. MacKinnon.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you very much. First a comment and then a question. In relation to rural capacity building, I would hope that at some point we could look at not a mass relocation of provincial government jobs from Halifax, however, Alberta has come in with a policy of trying to relocate some jobs to rural areas. If booming Alberta can do that - I'm not suggesting that departments be moved but perhaps a division here and there or at least with our broadband, when we get it in all rural areas, people can operate from anywhere and do a very effective job. I think we have to look at getting some of those jobs in rural areas.

Also from a rural perspective - and I made this point before, so I think there's probably preparation from Nova Scotia Business Inc. in response to it - I was very pleased that in wage subsidy you moved from 50 to 25 jobs as being the minimum and Mr. Lund said at one time there was a possibility of moving below that. In some cases, when we're talking seasonal jobs, it's not 25, you still need the 50. So what I'm saying is I think that has to be revisited to give rural areas a leg up. I really believe there has to be some kind of mechanism to help in wage subsidy to small businesses in rural Nova Scotia and that's a question, really. Are you moving down from 25?

MR. RYAN: Thank you for the question. We have made some amendments to those guidelines that exist around the payroll rebate. When we began to administer the tool six years ago now, the guideline for the minimum job creation figure was 50. We largely focused on external markets and we've begun to apply that more to domestic business over the last period of time. With the most recent change in the tool, that is almost purely a domestic focus.

We have amended the minimum guideline from 50 to 20, so Mr. Lund may have indicated 25 but I think he probably misspoke, so we've amended that minimum guideline to 20. Also, our board and I think our shareholders have given us a clear signal that they would be prepared to go below 20 when it's of significant strategic importance. The point has been made to me on many occasions, both in this room and in other places, that in some places 10 jobs are as important as 100 jobs would be in another place. So this particular tool is new for us, we're trying to be as flexible and inventive as we can be with it.

What I like about it, personally, is the client gets paid and we, as a people, get paid. It's a performance-based incentive particularly with this new tool, it's requiring real capital investment or real investment in the business by the business people who are making payroll on Fridays. We have heard the market and we have made adjustments to make it more accessible for more businesses.

MR. MACKINNON: I'll defer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Preyra.

MR. PREYRA: I have a quick question about collaboration. There is a difference of opinion about the degree of collaboration between the RDAs and Nova Scotia Business Inc. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, for example, said there isn't very much coordination, things just happen in a haphazard way without any great planning. The chambers of commerce, especially in rural areas, seem to be saying the same thing, that there are a lot of agencies out there. Looking at reactions to the latest announcements on spending on airports, for example, there's a feeling that there really wasn't a lot of consultation and I'm wondering, was there any business plan developed around that spending announcement? Was NSBI involved and were the RDAs involved in the planning of that round of spending and where's the link to economic development there?

MR. RYAN: You're inquiring about the airport in Halifax?

MR. PREYRA: The spending on rural airports.

MR. RYAN: As I mentioned, Mr. Preyra, we're a tactical shop, so in terms of those strategic considerations and infrastructure plays, that's not something we're directly engaged with.

MS. FEWER: Through the Chair, to Mr. Preyra, with regard to the collaboration at the local level with the different partners, many regional development agencies and their partners in communities now have a business service team that meets on a regular basis to look at how they can best support the customers. For example, the service provided by an RDA is the up-front business counselling, then they might refer for a loan or for some kind of business marketing support, for example, and they go to the other partners. In our community we meet on a monthly basis to look at that, how we can best support the customer in that way.

In terms of the airport spending, I can only speak in our community and we're working as a local community mostly with our municipality and our airport manager, to look at how we can best plan for the spending at the airport. There are many different infrastructure needs and upgrades as well as a need to do some business planning there, so the dollars were certainly well received - or will be, we're still hoping to hear.

MR. PREYRA: I know the dollars will be well received but my question was whether or not it was based on a demand from the RDA or the local communities and whether there was a business plan submitted to support those claims. Certainly the money for the airports and the money for the museums, as well, seems to come as a surprise to many of these agencies and there didn't seem to be any great collaboration. I know the money can be spent because rural areas need the money and we have to get the money to them.

MS. FEWER: In our case, we're still in the planning process for that, so I cannot speak for that one.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: From Economic Development's point of view we certainly view the municipal airports as a potential key part of infrastructure around the province but as with many other things, the responsibility for infrastructure renewal lies with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. Although we certainly have been involved with some airports in developing strategic plans that would support a business case for further investment, we have not been involved with all of them. We were not consulted on the placement of infrastructure funds to municipal airports in the province, generally speaking. We didn't expect to be because that lies within the responsibility of that department singly.

MR. PREYRA: I guess that's part of my question, that NSBI, RDAs and Economic Development have not been involved in this decision that seems to be so critical to rural economic developments. Thank you.

[2:15 p.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Conrad.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: A couple of quick comments first. I just wanted to say that there's a lot of good work happening with the RDAs, and certainly I've seen Nova Scotia Business Inc. on the ground move forward with the on-line support call centre in Queens, after we had seen Lightbridge leaving fairly soon after opening, so there are some good things happening.

A comment from the Department of Economic Development, you had indicated, Neal, that in terms of sustainable fishing and what can be done from the department's side of things, that being facilitating, bringing partners together, but DFO clearly has to take the lead. I just want to follow up on the few comments that my colleague had made. In Queens, in the community of Port Mouton, we've had a lot of attention drawn to an expansion for an existing fish farm there. I have been chatting around different tables about perhaps looking at new technologies and new innovative ways to grow fish farming where communities are accepting of fish farms, and in particular new technologies like deep-sea farming or on-land technologies.

Would that be the lead of the Department of Economic Development, to kind of bring partners around the table that may have new, innovative ways to fish farming that wouldn't create the same community struggles about expansions, such as what we're seeing in Port Mouton? That was my one question for the Department of Economic Development. Also, the second question would be the $34 million being allotted through the community development trust fund. Is that being administered from the Department of Economic Development - and I know some of the key areas that are being looked at are manufacturing, forestry and fishing - could you just kind of elaborate on that fund?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: On your first question, specifically about the role of Economic Development to be engaged in exploring new opportunities around the fishery, yes, that is an appropriate role for us and it is a role that we have played in other jurisdictions on other projects. Whether it's mineral development in the eastern end of the mainland or wherever, we would do it in collaboration with the provincial department first and foremost. It's not an unusual role for us to undertake, probably in concert with a local regional development authority as the project lead, but no, that would be an appropriate role for us.

On the question of the recent announcement of the community trust, the specifics of how that program will be administered and how you will gain access are still being developed. It is, however, clear that the Department of Economic Development will have a significant role in the administration of those funds.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I'm going to come back for a second round, so you can pick up at that point. Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: First I'll go to the RDA, Ms. Fewer, a question for you. I think quite simply put, what don't you do? I look at your very quick presentation and there are a number

of things and I know from my own RDA, you're involved and you're there to help and assist and I don't know what you've ever turned away. I know that the people there work hard whether it's a daycare grant getting filled out or you name it, you've named numerous things that they assist with. Are there things that the RDA just says no, we can't help you with?

MS. FEWER: There are 13 regional development agencies in the province and each one defines what they do and don't do. When I cited some examples, there are things in those examples that my RDA does not do in particular, so we establish what our priorities are. We don't like to turn people away but in certain cases we certainly do, so it all depends on the priority areas that are defined in the regional economic strategy of an RDA. I guess it's depending per area, there are 13 such strategies and it's dependent on each one of those.

MR. PORTER: There are similarities, though?

MS. FEWER: There are some similarities. When I showed the slide of the key performance indicators, the 13 came together and said, here's a collection of measurement tools that we're all engaged in, in one way or another, so that gives an example of places where we all have a role to play.

MR. PORTER: I know some of these people fairly well in my local RDA, I've known them for years. I think most probably work an eight-hour day but I know that there are some there who are probably working more, they're taking work home and things because they're so committed to some of these projects. What's the ratio, I'll try to articulate the question in the appropriate way, but how much is coming in the door? Is there always something to do? It certainly appears as though there is, there's no shortage of people who need the assistance of the RDA.

MS. FEWER: Absolutely. We define our services as proactive and reactive. In our regional plan we talk about the projects that we're going to drive but then you're handling the requests that are coming in the door. The proactive stuff is based on the economic outlook of a particular area - here's what we think we need, we need some labour force development projects, we need these different things that we're driving - and then on the other side we have people coming in for business plan, business counselling assistance, support for perhaps their labour market training, that type of thing.

MR. PORTER: Thank you. I'll go to Mr. Ryan maybe for a question or two. You talked about the labour force, the acquiring of certain skills. How many of those people are we talking about in this province, any idea?

MR. RYAN: I know some numbers, I don't know if they're the numbers that you want here but I'll tell you the ones I do know. The last time I was at this committee I touched on the issue of literacy. Actually, I read an article in The ChronicleHerald on Saturday that was, I think, authored by the Minister of Education in New Brunswick, speaking about a

national day for literacy and where it was being hosted. In Nova Scotia, 40 per cent of our population is functionally illiterate, so I think those are conservative numbers that have been provided by the Department of Education.

To put that in context, if literacy is measured on a scale of one to five, three being the level you need to be at to have the literacy reading and writing and numeracy skills to function, 200,000 Nova Scotians don't function at that level. That means they can't read a bus schedule, they can't read a pill bottle, all of those things, if you remove those people from the statistics that we track, in terms of unemployment and so forth.

I disagree with what Mr. Gourley may have said in the paper this morning, we could be at full employment right now. So I believe that we have a serious problem on the front end and that's the best number I can put around it. If we could cure even 25 per cent of that issue, maybe that's another 12,000 or 13,000 people who could enter the workforce. So I mean those are very raw numbers. I don't have the numbers on what the shortfalls are in particular trades and so forth but I do . . .

MR. PORTER: Is there any way to truly acquire that?

MR. RYAN: I would bet you that the new Department of Labour and whatever the name is, I'm sure they have a very good handle on that number because the Department of Education, in my opinion, did very good work in really getting a handle on the workforce dynamics. They've published that work so it's available on-line. They've got a good handle on the demographics but every business that I speak to speaks about the difficulty they have in attracting skilled trades. I was at a welding shop the other day and they were talking about developing their own training programs, and they're not even looking for hard skills as much as they're looking for somebody who is prepared to learn and stay.

MR. PORTER: So in your opinion, it's not so much about not having enough people, it's about not having enough of the people trained to do the jobs and you would suggest in some way shape or form that we take 10,000 or 15,000 people - if Chuck Porter walks into your shop today and says I'm looking for a job and you say okay, here are the basic qualifications, can you read, Mr. Porter? I can, a little bit, you know. Are we doing anything out there to say okay, how can we make you a better reader so that you can then go on to learn the textbook style, you can weld, you can be a mechanic, you can drive a machine or whatever that job is that we're lacking?

MR. RYAN: I think certainly that's what that new department is all about. I think we all have a role to play. I know Jo Ann in her own RDA, she's involved in everything from literacy to immigration. Do we have enough people? No, I think there is more we can do with our existing population in terms of getting people into the workforce, but I think we also need to do more with new Canadians, I think it's a combination of both. Before I was here today I met the chairman of the commission on Filipinos working abroad - that's not exactly

the right term - and I believe that immigration is going to be an important part of the mix for us going forward.

MR. PORTER: Yes, I would tend to agree with that a bit as well but I was just kind of curious about the numbers in general. You know if I said the census, whenever they did the last census, it was just under one million people, what would it be today in comparison? The way I hear people talk, it would be significantly lower. Is that actually a true factor or is it not, or is it just a lack of the skill?

MR. RYAN: Well, I think our population is pretty much flat, it may have shrunk a little bit.

MR. PORTER: But it stays. The issue is the skilled workforce and all of your departments coming back now to work with education, to work with the new department and move that forward.

MR. RYAN: We've got way too many people who aren't equipped to do the kinds of work that we need them to do, and that includes skills trades, professional services, you name it.

MS. FEWER: If I may, through the Chair to Mr. Porter, there are several initiatives out there but the issue, the people who are in this province now won't solve the labour force issue, it's a combination of the existing workforce bringing new people in and bringing ex-patriots back home. Even then we still have a problem in Nova Scotia, and Statistics Canada will show you that. There's an interesting article on the AIMS Web site that talks about the fact that the demographic issue is the key public policy issue in the next decade and the one that should be concentrated on. So it's certainly real. I think we have a labour force participation rate at about 64 per cent so yes, solving some of that, bringing some of the people who aren't working into the workplace might help solve it, but not 100 per cent.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Dunn, you have about one minute.

MR. DUNN: Just one quick question. If a sustainable, viable operation is looking to expand and they apply for some assistance under the Industrial Expansion Fund, their opportunity to receive assistance, is it high or does it depend on a lot of other criteria?

MR. RYAN: I can't speak to the Industrial Expansion Fund, Mr. Dunn, that's administered through the department but in terms of our own financing programs, what you describe is what we're looking for. So we're looking for viable, sustainable businesses that have a plan to expand into the future. So to use a sporting analogy, that's right down the middle of the plate for us, that's exactly what we're looking for.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Porter, thank you. Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much, I appreciate that. A couple of questions and the time goes very fast, as you know, so perhaps first for Mr. Ryan. In terms of access to capital, clearly you have funds available to help support businesses, are those entirely loans?

MR. RYAN: They are not. We offer loans and guarantees on the debt side of the operation so we can provide every kind of borrowing instrument that you might imagine, everything from a traditional term loan to patient capital, subordinated debt, it all comes down to how you make variations in terms of your security position and your payment terms and so forth.

We also offer loan guarantees in some circumstances. We also operate a venture capital - we have a venture capital unit so we fashion it NSBI Venture Capital, so we actually will participate as an equity partner in companies that fit that criteria. So we're looking for large markets, significant barriers to entry, very good growth prospects and the potential for return to this place that is commensurate with the risk that we would take.

So our fund is - we've placed roughly $17 million across about 10 investee companies over the last six years.

MS. WHALEN: In six years?

MR. RYAN: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: That's the venture capital part only, the $17 million?

MR. RYAN: That's correct.

MS. WHALEN: Would you work with other venture capital companies, like the GrowthWorks fund?

MR. RYAN: We do that quite regularly so in the past we've partnered with all of the operators, in this market. We've co-invested with GrowthWorks Atlantic. I believe we've co-invested with BDC Venture Capital. We've also been actively seeking to attract new forms of private equity investment into the region, so we've partnered with Avrio Ventures - which is a Calgary-based VC - and we're in discussions with a number of other venture capital operators that are members in good standing with the Canadian Venture Capital Association. We're promoting this place not only as an investment destination for companies that wish to relocate part or all of their operations, but as an investment destination for other venture capitalists that are looking to place their dollars.

[2:30 p.m.]

MS. WHALEN: For a start-up place you mean, or just to attract their dollars here to support our businesses?

MR. RYAN: Both - I mean it would be great if they'd invest the company and move it here, too, we're looking for both. So we're trying to get as much leverage on our venture capital investment as we're able to.

MS. WHALEN: Can you characterize the lack of capital that's here now? We hear often that there's not enough venture capital and even companies that we help, the funding tends to run out when they get to a critical growth stage. So we help them off the ground but then it stalls.

I know we don't have a lot of time, but could you characterize in a few words where we're at?

MR. RYAN: I think with venture capital that's a fair statement. So there's only one national fund that has a presence here, that's the Business Development Bank. GrowthWorks Atlantic is a regional fund. Frankly we've been much more active in the venture capital arena than we expected to be, or really than we designed.

The fact of the matter is that over the last five years there's been a fair bit of liquidity in debt markets, so credit in relative terms was quite easy to come by; interest rates were low, the economy was good, there's lots of cash to pay loans back, less so in venture capital. These are very often labour-sponsored instruments, that asset class fell out of favour because of performance issues over time. There isn't as much institutional investment money in this region as we would like to see.

MS. WHALEN: Could you tell me how much is allocated each year for you to make these various commitments - venture capital, the loans, the guarantees? What's your budget?

MR. RYAN: Well, that's a good question. We've never been turned aside when we were looking to make a loan or looking to make an equity investment. Generally speaking, I understood we had expected, if we were placing $40 million a year, that about $20 million of that would be swept from the existing portfolios. We have a substantial portfolio, it would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and it's disclosed in our financial statements.

You know 96 per cent to 98 per cent of our customers make their payments every month, you don't hear too much about them but that capital, we redeploy for the purposes of making loans and equity investments. If we need to go beyond what we're sweeping from the portfolio, then we go borrow the money from the Department of Finance. I always had a number of 20 and 20, that is we would expect to sweep 20 from our portfolio and . . .

MS. WHALEN: So that would be about $40 million annually?

MR. RYAN: Yes, but to be honest with you that's a number we sort of had in our noggins. We've never gone to borrow money from the Department of Finance and been told no, there's no more money, because we have to pay it back.

MS. WHALEN: And you also use business plans and so on, so I think that's the point of your organization in the first place, you are arm's length and you make considered decisions. It was suggested earlier that sometimes you might fund a project along with the Industrial Expansion Fund. Has that happened?

MR. RYAN: It has, most often on investment attraction propositions. I think there are examples of situations where we've attracted a new company here and we may have been doing a traditional payroll rebate but we may have needed to put more on the table in order to close the deal, so it could have included training allowances, it could have been up-front monies associated with capital expenditures and those kinds of things. We don't have the ability to grant, so there are limitations in terms of what we're able to provide to our customers.

MS. WHALEN: Would it be a common occurrence that both organizations are involved in the same activity?

MR. RYAN: Yes, on the investment attraction side it is quite common.

MS. WHALEN: It increases our exposure as a province, of course, if you do that.

MR. RYAN: It does but they call it leverage for a reason, so I would argue that if that's what it takes to get the deal done and we're getting a substantial return as a place in exchange for that, then . . .

MS. WHALEN: Clearly, you think it's all right. I know my time is flying so I'm going to ask you another question about the payroll rebates. This is just more of a procedural thing but when you're setting up a new company and you hire a human resource person who's going to interview and you get started with your offices and hire the initial staff, those initial jobs aren't eligible for the rebate until you've begun to produce, is that right?

MR. RYAN: No, typically what we would do - and I confess that I'm not the payroll rebate expert but I know enough about it to be dangerous, I guess - is establish a baseline. Let's presume that we've attracted XYZ company to Nova Scotia and we will establish a baseline. If they're starting from zero then we would incent incremental growth subject to certain targets being hit and certain payroll being made. What you may be getting at is retroactivity, so we wouldn't go back in time. If you've already created a job and it exists today, we're not going to incent you for that.

MS. WHALEN: No, the example I have is a brand-new business that's just starting and building toward manufacturing but they're not there yet, they're just in the very initial stages. Apparently they can't get the payroll rebate.

MR. RYAN: I mentioned in Mr. MacKinnon's question, there are some minimums. Typically, we would need to see incremental growth of a minimum of 20, so if somebody is starting up a business and they're going to create two or three jobs, then it isn't something we would capture.

MS. WHALEN: This one would go well beyond that, they've been approved for a rebate but it's just that you don't hire the 20 people all at once, or they don't begin at 50, they grow to that.

MR. RYAN: I think there's opportunity to ramp up to those things.

MS. WHALEN: Maybe I'll make a call and speak to you about that more directly.

MR. RYAN: Yes, I'd be interested to learn more about that.

MS. WHALEN: Because it's a concern to me. Do I have a little bit of time?

MR. CHAIRMAN: About two minutes.

MS. WHALEN: Immigration, I'd just like to ask Jo Ann, could tell me a little bit about the navigator program in Antigonish and whether or not you're using that in other places? You would share among the RDAs, so how do you do that?

MS. FEWER: Right. I really can't tell you about the navigator program. Lisa, you might know something that I'm not aware of.

MS. WHALEN: I understand it's working very well, so just anecdotally, I wondered if this was something that would be a best practice that you could adopt.

MS. FEWER: I can talk about the program that we have in Colchester. Basically, we're a point of first contact for new immigrants coming into our community. Not only that, we market to potential immigrants outside through immigration fairs and whatnot. As people come in or talk about coming into the community, we've established a Colchester Immigration Partnership which is a group of volunteers, realtors, developers, people on the school board, people from the community college, those who could provide services to help people become oriented to the community and involved in the community.

Also, when someone indicates that they're interested in coming for an exploratory visit, we will set them up with potential employers, they send us their resumé and they'll

meet three or four employers while they're there. They will go and take a look at a few houses, they'll meet some of the principals of the schools, just an overall orientation of the community.

MS. WHALEN: So this partnership group helps to facilitate all of that, touring around?

MS. FEWER: That's right, it's almost like a voluntary settlement service, really. The partnership's role is that . . .

MS. WHALEN: How many are you allowed now to bring in community-based under the Nominee Program?

MS. FEWER: I don't think there's a limit anymore. I think when I spoke to you a while ago there was but I think we're allowed to community identify as many as we wish.

MS. WHALEN: So CoRDA, which was the sponsoring organization, could now identify more people and bring them in through the Nominee Program?

MS. FEWER: That's right but we would identify as many as we could, even when there was only a limit of two, we would push that a little bit. The Office of Immigration would review those community-identified nominees for their merit.

MS. WHALEN: I have just one question, I'm a little concerned that you would be marketing as well. Are you marketing internationally?

MS. FEWER: Absolutely, to try to bring new immigrants in.

MS. WHALEN: Why not with the Office of Immigration?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order.

MS. FEWER: It's actually with the Office of Immigration, it's with them at their fairs.

MS. WHALEN: I wouldn't want to see you going separately.

MS. FEWER: Absolutely not, we don't do that, it's in partnership.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Ms. Conrad. This round is for five minutes.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: If I could go back to my question in regard to the $34 million community development trust, how will it be administered and what are some of the criteria? Then I have a couple of quick questions around that as well.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Sure, just to come back to that. The Department of Economic Development will be involved in the administration of that fund. The criteria for the administration of the fund has not yet been fully developed. We know the amount and we know the duration. We know that we will have access to those funds until 2012, I believe is the date for that. There is active discussion across multiple departments that have interests in the use of those funds, based on the information that was contained in the press release, and we'll be working in collaboration with those departments to determine that all of our needs can, in fact, be met.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: Okay. So am I understanding that Nova Scotia has available to them in that trust $34.9 million for the duration to 2012, or is it $1 billion that we have in the province to 2012?

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Our share of the $1 billion is $34.9 million for Nova Scotia until 2012.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: Other than the criteria of communities facing hardship - and you've indicated that the criteria haven't all been set out yet, but I would suspect that once the criteria are set out that communities would have perhaps the ability to apply for funding, or would there be something else in place to direct them . . .

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Well, we're assuming that there will obviously be an application process and apart from individual communities, there are also very specific industry sectors, in fact, identified. Application to the fund may not be specifically on a geographic basis by community, it may also be by industry sector, the forestry sector, the fishery sector for example. I would certainly suspect that the planning work that's already underway with the regional development authorities will have a very critical role in identifying which areas should be identified first and how those funds actually will be applied.

We see no value in reinventing anything. If there's a strategy in place for a region and there's a five-year strategy, normally the RDAs work on a five-year planning cycle, so priorities have been identified in consultation with the industry and the communities. In many cases I would suspect that we'll be able to take advantage of that fund to actually allow things to happen quicker than they otherwise would have been able to. It will also allow us to launch some new initiatives in those communities that are specifically being hard hit by major industry closings or industries under continual pressure, whether it's the forest industry, paper industry or fishing.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: A quick question for Ms. Fewer. In regard to the RDA, are the RDAs receiving enough core funding to get you through the mandate? Have there been funding increases over the last several years? What other resources would RDAs be looking for in order to continue with their mandate over the coming years?

MS. FEWER: To my knowledge there has been one increase over the past few years, I think it was three years ago, Neal, that our general core funding was increased at the provincial level. We're now, with the provincial and federal governments, going through an organizational and structural review and that review, the final report has been tabled and the discussions now are underway with the federal and provincial governments on our funding requirements for the next five to 10 years. I would expect there will be discussions about some kind of an increase over that time frame, but we haven't gotten into the detail around that yet.

Many of the RDAs have looked to their municipalities for increased funding, so what started out as a one-third/one-third/one-third funding formula is now probably, in a lot of cases, heavy weighted at the municipal end. Quite a few of them contribute more than their third to the operation of RDAs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, the time has expired. Mr. Dunn.

MR. DUNN: We don't have any further questions outside the comment just thanking you for coming in and answering all of the questions that you've answered. Good luck as you tackle the economy of the province in 2008. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: I wonder, Ms. Fewer, if you could tell us a bit about the youth attraction and retention? I specifically wonder, have you done any surveys to determine what it is that young people need in a community to stay? There's no point in going out blindly saying you're going to keep them here if you haven't surveyed them.

MS. FEWER: Yes, and there are several youth attraction and retention initiatives throughout Nova Scotia. We're now polling the RDAs to get a handle on how many of them are involved in that but I suspect probably 10 of 13 are actively involved in youth retention/attraction. It ranges, there is a pilot project that was launched in Halifax and Colchester not long ago that's called Make Way for YOUth, and it's the same thing that's happening in Quebec, Manitoba and the Yukon. It's bringing youth home for exploratory visits and allowing them to see what's available in their community.

The success of that is measured on whether or not the youth indicate that they would move back to the community if given the opportunity. In that research the key factor is employment, they need a job to either stay for or come home to. I think in many of the youth

employment strategies that were put together throughout the province, it's the same thing. If there was a job, they'd be happy to be here. Quite often there are jobs and youth aren't aware of them so there needs to be that brokering and connection that needs to be made. Many RDAs are playing that role in their communities right now.

[2:45 p.m.]

MS. WHALEN: I understand the Greater Halifax Partnership did a survey themselves about expatriate young people and they found 71 per cent said they would come back or something very much in that line, a vast majority said that they have thought about coming back to Nova Scotia. Are you using their survey and their evidence as well?

MS. FEWER: Yes, I guess I'm speaking with my Colchester hat now but we're involved in the same project as the Greater Halifax Partnership, so we're using the same data they are. Again, there are many different organizations, different RDAs that are doing their own research in youth retention and attraction. It's also a priority that has been identified by ACOA recently, so I suspect you will see more efforts in that regard. Lisa, do you have anything to add to that?

MS. LISA MACDONALD: Some of the other communities in rural Nova Scotia are looking at the young professionals and trying to ensure that they are attracted to the area and wanting to stay. Certainly in Pictou County we've been very fortunate to have Sobeys national head office but it is a critical issue that some of the amenities that those people are looking for aren't in our community. One of the initiatives that we've established is the Pictou County Next Generation and it's a networking session and there's Facebook activity and really trying to understand how that generation communicates and also trying to expose them to the amenities and get them engaged in volunteer activities and connect them to the community. That would be very much what other RDAs are doing around the province.

MS. WHALEN: I guess I have a particular interest in recreational activities. When you say amenities, are you talking about recreational opportunities and cultural opportunities?

MS. LISA MACDONALD: Cultural opportunities, recreational opportunities, shopping opportunities, just kind of the infrastructure they look for when they're choosing a community. Typically, people vote with their feet now, so they choose a community before sometimes they choose a job.

MS. WHALEN: That's what I'm seeing in the advertising particularly from Saskatchewan, them talking about attracting health care workers, by telling them if you move here you'll have all the recreation that you need. They showcase their sports centres and their theatres and that sort of thing. So I think in many communities we fall short if you want to offer the kind of excitement or opportunities that even young families need.

MS. LISA MACDONALD: I think when you look at a lot of the rural communities in Nova Scotia there's deteriorating infrastructure, our rinks, some of our other recreational facilities, so the investment in that is really key as we move forward.

MS. WHALEN: I hope you're making that case strongly at all levels, it's important to me. Do I have more time?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: I'll look at the next one. Just a question for Mr. Conrad on the procurement activity which is now part of your mandate. I'm wondering, do we have any guidelines that in one way or another offer preferential purchasing for Nova Scotia companies? I hear that a lot as I go around, that we'll save a few bucks and go somewhere far away and not support our own business.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: There is no preferential position given to Nova Scotia businesses. The objective of the Procurement Services division is really to ensure that businesses in Nova Scotia that have a service or product to sell know how to do that and can, in fact, compete fairly and openly. Where possible, we will now spec Nova Scotia products, as opposed to specifying a national brand or a national product, and have Nova Scotia businesses prove that they can meet that standard. So wherever possible now, we will in fact specify a Nova Scotia product first and the international company or the out-of-province company must, in fact, prove that they can meet the Nova Scotia standard. That's a different way of doing it than the way we've done it in the past.

Our thinking with preparing Nova Scotia businesses to compete is that if they can compete fairly and honestly and win a contract, a tendered contract for services and product here, they can do it anywhere in the world and we really want them to be able to compete nationally and internationally and not just think that we can, in fact, sell to ourselves.

We've expanded our range of services on procurement principally through something that we've been calling reverse trade shows. In a regular trade show, for example, people who have something to sell stand up behind a booth and people who want to buy it come on in. A reverse trade show works the other way; we bring together private sector buyers and we do this regionally and we set them up, explain what procurement is to the public and we invite suppliers to come in and see what is being offered. So it is, in fact, a reverse trade show.

We've been doing these for about three years, we'll continue to do them. It has, in fact, made a difference to the competitive advantage of our Nova Scotia businesses, but it's not preferential treatment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, the time has expired. Okay, I would like to give the opportunity to each one of our guests and we'll start with Ms. Fewer to just do some brief wrap-up comments and after we're done with that, we have some committee business we have to attend to for a few minutes. Ms. Fewer.

MS. FEWER: Thank you very much. I did make some notes with the questions at the very beginning of the presentations and I know you had a question on microcredit at one point and the availability of that, and I'd like to suggest that the community business development corporations in each of the rural communities are a good source for lending in terms of microcredit. So that would be one referral and one starting place for sure.

There was also a question surrounding CEDIFs and support. I just wanted to make a comment that the Atlantic Provinces chambers of commerce see CEDIFs as a best practice and are lobbying other provinces in Atlantic Canada to enact the same legislation to allow for that same approach in their provinces.

I know there was a question about fishing, forestry and whether or not they were still in a period of transition. I think it's safe to say they're all still in worldwide demand and how we prepare and adjust to that is what's in question, in terms of how we ensure our rural economies benefit from sales in that regard.

We talked a bit earlier as well about business retention and expansion. I know as a fact in our community, businesses are expanding despite the climate. This, even though it's a hard time in terms of the dollar being at par with the United States, it is a really good time to invest in capital and upgrade their capital. So I think that those wise companies out there that can survive and weather the storm of the rise in the dollar are also seeing it as a good time, too, to upgrade and improve their productivity in that way.

I think that's all I wanted to comment on from the previous discussion but I thank you very much for the opportunity for the provincial association to be here today and we're available at any time, just give a call if there are any questions that you have.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Ryan.

MR. RYAN: Mr. Porter had asked a question about what we're saying with business calls. Every time I visit a business my question always is, how can we help? So I know each of you are in front of business people every day. We're looking for opportunities to help those businesses grow, so we'd appreciate any referrals you could direct toward us. I think you're all acquainted with our personnel in the field and thank you for being here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Conrad.

MR. NEAL CONRAD: Thank you. Well, certainly thanks for the opportunity this afternoon to speak with you, but I think the message from our side is that economic development truly is everybody's business and everybody's interest in this province. I think there's a growing realization that the economic and social agendas do, in fact, come together and you cannot separate one from the other.

I think we also need to be honest with ourselves about what we have and what we don't have, the questions about what does it take to retain folks and to bring them back is very clear and the evidence of that is very clear when you look at in-migration, people coming back to the province, the people leaving the province and the people coming back into the province on an annual basis is about the same, about a zero-some gain.

The problem really is folks are coming back not to where they left from but they're coming back into what we've been calling the greater metro area, about an hour's drive out of here. They're doing that for very simple reasons, their expectations of what life is about has been created in other places and they're looking for those same kinds of services and amenities when they, in fact, come back.

The North American Site Selection Network uses criteria that have about 150 variables that are used to determine where they will, in fact, locate a business and it's not all about incentives or tax rates and structures. A lot of it deals with quality of life issues and what makes a community a community. I think we need to understand that much more clearly and I think we're getting there but that is, in fact, the case.

On the other side of being honest with ourselves, we also shouldn't be afraid to stand up and be proud of what we do have here. The business community and the economy in this province is showing a robustness and a consistency that really is often overlooked.

There is innovation in our industry, there is innovation in our communities and these are still great businesses doing great things in great communities and sometimes we tend to overlook that on our day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, I think there is something there for us to be proud of and at Economic Development, we rarely do anything independent of anybody else. The structures that we have put in place not only support collaboration, it requires it. We don't have any mandate to work within any single sector of the economy, so that also means that we can touch a lot of different things. It also means that we can try a lot of different things.

Our approach to economic development is not so much program-centred as it is, in fact, principle-driven. We want to look at what will, in fact, sustain the economy of the province and what is best to make the economy grow within the expectations of the communities themselves. So thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you so much to all three of you for taking your time and coming today and addressing these very important issues for all of us as Nova Scotians. We appreciate the answers that you gave to our questions, thank you again.

Now we have a few items we have to address here. The first thing on the list I have here is a letter from the Chair of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that deferred the Department of Energy regarding tidal power to this committee and I'd like some discussion on that. Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you'll notice on our list, I think we had renewable energy there so it does sort of, I guess, go along with some discussion as far as we're concerned, so we'd be happy to support that motion again over here. I know we supported it, I think, in the Public Accounts Committee and we certainly support bringing it here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, would you like to make that a motion?

MR. PORTER: Yes, put that into whatever words you want, Darlene, but we would support bringing the motion passed at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on March 26, 2008, that the Department of Energy, re tidal power, come before this committee at their convenience, at some point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Seconded by Ms. Conrad. Any discussion?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next letter that came in today was from the Leader of the Liberal Party, a concern regarding the Halifax Port. I think everybody has a copy of that letter.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I think that's an excellent topic to deal with and I certainly support the Leader of the Liberal Party in having that put on the agenda immediately following the tidal one down the road.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like to make that motion?

MR. MACKINNON: I would so move.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do we have a seconder? Seconded by Ms. Whalen.

Any discussion? Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: Just a comment, I think I would agree. Given everything that's going on with the promotion of the ports and all of the potential for great economic growth, I think it's important we bring them before us and have some good discussion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, that's great. Mr. MacKinnon.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, it should be noted that it was a rural MLA who made the motion . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: And supported by another one.

MR. MACKINNON: . . . and the fact that certainly with the energy and today's presentation we are also being fair in relation to our rural areas, so I respect what we're doing as a committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other comments?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Now actually that worked out nicely if we put those two items on in the order that they come in, because the PC caucus was up for the next witness, so your tidal power fit there, the Liberal Party was up for the next one, it fits in there, and the New Democratic Party has off of our list an item that you like for the third, that you have on your list.

I've got it here if you'd like to - you have Assessment Services Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Association of Health Organizations, property assessment you have, Electricity Marketplace Governance Committee, and Brightwood lands future development. Any one of those that you'd like, or something new that you have?

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I think we're booking two away now and we may, in fact, come up with something somewhat more substantial than even what we have on the list. I think we should be happy with the two that have been selected and as long as we're given the chance in the next month to come up with the one afterwards, it gives us a chance to zero in, because there are some developing issues that we should be well aware of.

[3:00 p.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's fine and we'll make a note that the next one we have will be chosen by the NDP caucus, if that's satisfactory to everybody, that'll be in order.

Okay, so we'll schedule those two. The other thing, meetings during the House of Assembly sitting, what are the wishes and comments from the committee on that? Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: I was just going to say as before, I guess we'll see how far the House goes and if it falls on a day that the House is sitting, it should just be somewhat obvious as to whether we're meeting or we're not, if it's not in conflict. I think we had some discussion the last time, I thought we were just kind of carrying on, based on the chairman's need to call us together, wasn't it clear?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Preyra.

MR. PREYRA: Yes, I think that's exactly what we agreed to, that we wouldn't come up with a blanket decision but we would reserve the right, at the discretion of the chairman and the committee to decide whether we ought to meet or not, but we would take into consideration the fact that we're really busy in the House at the same time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'd appreciate that and I appreciate the faith in the chairman but I would rather hear, prior to the next meeting, from the caucuses as to whether or not you have time to meet because we'll be in the Legislature on the next meeting date we have, which will be in May.

MR. PORTER: What is the next meeting date, Darlene?

MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): May 13^th.

MR. PORTER: So we probably, I guess, would look ahead to June, potentially?

MR. CHAIRMAN: So perhaps we then set it for June 13^th, if that would be satisfactory for our next meeting, depending upon where the Legislature is and then we can look at it. Everybody agree with that? Okay - June 10^th .

MR. MACKINNON: June 13^th was a significant date.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your birthday?

MR. MACKINNON: The last election.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, that's right, it was.

We stand adjourned. Thank you.

[The committee adjourned at 3:02 p.m.]