HANSARD

and

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Chairman)

Mr. Brooke Taylor

Ms. Judy Streatch

Mr. Frank Corbett

Mr. Howard Epstein

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Leo Glavine

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Mr. Frank Corbett was replaced by Mr. Kevin Deveaux.]

[Mr. Howard Epstein was replaced by Mr. Graham Steele.]

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Legislative Counsel

WITNESSES

Department of Education

Mr. Dennis Cochrane

Deputy Minister

Mr. Charles Clattenburg

Executive Director of Facilities Management

Mr. Darrell Youden

Senior Executive Director of Corporate Services

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2006

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Ronald Chisholm

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll call our meeting to order. Good morning to everyone. Maybe we'll go around the table and introduce ourselves.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you everyone. The first thing we have on our agenda is the appointments to the agencies, boards and commissions.

Ms. Massey, I think you wanted to be on the agenda before we started that?

MS. JOAN MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, yes. Over the weekend when I was looking at our binder, I did a fair amount of work on it as far as the number of people who are being appointed and what the makeup of them is, and I have been tracking the numbers for awhile. I haven't been really saying anything in the committee, but I have been watching them. Today I feel like I do need to say something about it, and I have a copy of some of my thoughts on this issue - basically gender equality with the appointments that are coming forward and, of course, appointments we are making - and you can read that information for yourself today.

The part that stands out in my mind is that in this binder here, 115 males and 53 females applied for the current 22 ABC appointments, and 16 males and six females were appointed. So, you know, there are various questions here. Why are women not applying for these ABCs in the same numbers as men? Why are no women applying for certain ABCs at all?

When you look at our binder we have the section in there on the guidelines and questions that have to be answered to show us what actually is occurring on these ABC appointments, Guideline 5, "Does the ABC currently meet the affirmative action and gender equality policies of the government?" I feel that if the GEP is not being met, the answer should simply be no and no further appointments should be made until the GEP has been met - but instead the answer is usually no if no females apply for this appointment and one of the male applicants is appointed. Then I've broken down a couple of the boards just to show how many males applied, how many females applied, who was appointed, what the board is going to look like now.

So, Mr. Chairman, I'm getting the feeling that if any ABC does not currently meet the GEP, we should be voting against these appointments that don't address the imbalance here but, however, what I would like to do today, and the reason for handing this out now today is that I would just like to say that I really think we can do better here. I really want to basically put the government on notice that I think we can do better. In the future, I'm seriously going to consider voting against these if we don't see an improvement, but today I'm willing to go on record.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. I guess in looking at the information that you have provided here, you certainly had a full weekend, I would say, by the presentation you've made here today. I guess over the last year or so, maybe probably two years, I think we've moved ahead a bit. There has been considerable work done, I think, on some of those issues as to how we advertise in the papers, that sort of thing. We've done a lot of work in that area. I'm not sure of the numbers right now, but I think there are more women applying for these jobs than before. So, you know, is it enough, no, I'm not sure, and how do we get there? Mr. Taylor, you had something.

MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out whereas the member said she was putting government on notice, the fact of the matter is we, as a committee, have done a lot of work and taken a lot of proactive steps to try to provide greater equity and represent the concerns of gender equity and minority representation as well. I think you alluded to it, that certainly over the last two years we've all worked together, I think, as an all-Party committee. We have more to do, yes, there's more to be done. I think with Darlene's able assistance we have taken a lot of positive steps. So I don't think it's fair to point fingers here this morning. I think we have to recognize and acknowledge that we haven't gone far enough, I think that would be more appropriate and more positive.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, well, we have gone to some women's magazines, I believe, to advertise for the ABCs. We've gone into weekly papers and community papers to advertise these ABCs. So we have done some things, I guess. Anyone else like to comment on that? Mr. Colwell.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Yes, I'm concerned about this as well. We actually went through - not in this much detail, and I thank the member for doing that. There seems to be inequity here in the number of males who are being appointed to the boards compared to females. Again, I would like to hear back from the different departments as to exactly how many women have applied for these things and what efforts the departments have done to ensure that women are encouraged to apply. So it seems like we have to push for these things, and we shouldn't have to.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Streatch.

MS. JUDY STREATCH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly would thank my colleague for the work that she did. Certainly a lot of effort went into that. Although I agree in principle with the concept, certainly equality is of the utmost importance, I've never asked anyone to support me or to support an idea of mine simply because I am a woman. I certainly feel that men and women are equal in all accounts and would challenge anybody to discuss that with me, but I think the key here is that no females applied. So I would agree with my colleague that we need to work harder and do a better job at encouraging or seeking out more opportunities and making sure that once we've done that, that those individuals are qualified as well. So I would simply state for the record that certainly qualifications would be important as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. One of the comments I would make is, in terms of quality, we have no way of measuring the quality of one candidate over another because only those selected by the government department, the minister of that department in some other unknown political process, arrive here at this committee for our scrutiny. Therefore, it's very difficult to say whether the women who have been applying have the qualifications. I feel we're at a disadvantage, and it should be on the record that we do sit here at a disadvantage. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you have anything further on that? If not, we'll move to the appointments of these agencies, boards and commissions. Mr. Taylor.

MR. TAYLOR: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the Department of Community Services, to the Eastern Mainland Housing Authority, I so move Duncan MacDonald as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Education, to the Acadia University Foundation, I so move Henry R. Hicks as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Cape Breton University Board of Governors, I so move Glen M. LeBlanc, Robert McNamara and Ms. Corrie Stewart as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: Mr. Chairman, to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Board of Governors, I so move Tom Forrestall as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Dalhousie College and University Board of Governors, I so move Hon. Lorne Clark, O.C., Q.C., and Mr. Don Mills as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: Mr. Chairman, to the Eastern Communities Library Boards, I so move Shirley McNamara and Lester Wood as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the St. Francis Xavier University Foundation, I so move Mr. James Gogan as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: To the Youth Advisory Council, Mr. Chairman, I so move Ashley Greene, Alexandra Kellner, Danielle Pellerin and Justin Zinck as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Energy, to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, I so move Mr. Keith Robert Evans as an alternate board member.

MS. WHALEN: I have a question, if I could.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: A couple of things about this. I'm wondering why we have alternate board members in this case, if there's anybody who could explain that.

MR. KEVIN DEVEAUX: It's in the legislation?

MS. WHALEN: Possibly it is. That was one thing. The other thing is that I noticed it has a six-year term on that position, and I think that's an excessive length of time compared to many of the other boards, three and four years, and there are often multiple reappointments that we do see. I'm uncomfortable by a term as long as six years for any board because there's usually an opportunity to reappoint two or three times, at least, in every one of these committees.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe that's a federal-provincial board. So I imagine there is legislation. We can send a letter to the Department of Energy to find out why.

MS. WHALEN: I would like to inquire why it is six years, and if that could be brought more in line with what the other provincial boards are, I think, that would be better. Again, this is an example of a committee that had a large number of people apply, 42 males and seven females but, you know, we don't have any idea of who the other candidates are, so it makes it a little difficult in that regard. Those are my two main comments.

[9:15 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Mr. Deveaux.

MR. DEVEAUX: I'm just looking in the book and Part I, the section is cut off, but there is a subsection at the bottom of the page saying, "The Provincial Government may appoint one alternate member only to serve in the absence or incapacity of any member first appointed . . ." by the board. So I don't know if there is a member who is incapacitated or . . .

MS. WHALEN: May.

MR. DEVEAUX: You are right, it is a may, it isn't a shall . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Steele.

MR. GRAHAM STEELE: Mr. Chairman, along the same view, just looking at the legislation, Section 12 of the legislation stipulates that the term of the member is six years, so it's a standard term for this particular board.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We don't need a letter to that effect then.

MS. WHALEN: Well, I guess we are not able to, but I do think that that is a bit excessive, certainly in setting up our own committees or reviewing ours. I think we should avoid that kind of long term, and with that being said I guess we can proceed with your question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, there is a motion on the floor. Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Finance, to the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation, I so move Charles F. Cox.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission, under the Department of Finance, I so move Russell Hatton as a member.

MR. STEELE: Of course I'm going to support this, but I did have a comment on it. Mr. Hatton is a distinguished retired bishop from the Anglican Church and I was a bit puzzled at the description of his experience in the book that was provided to us. This is what it says about him - bear in mind that he is a retired bishop. "While candidates typically have an educational background in business/accounting/law/engineering/public administration, he has an acceptable equivalent in terms of his significant practical entrepreneurial and corporate experience in public/private enterprise as well as Board experience."

It just struck me as odd that a bishop should be described as having entrepreneurial experience. So I actually called up Bishop Hatton, whom I know slightly from a long time ago and we had a bit of a chuckle over that. He doesn't know why he is described that way. He said sort of half jokingly, it all depends what you mean by entrepreneurial, but he also said he has no corporate experience in the private sector, although he said - and I agree - that a senior church position is very much an administrative position, and he served on a number of university boards. I do think it is a smart recognition of the fact that senior church people are also very capable and experienced administrators.

Why do I raise this? Simply to point out that I think the Executive Council needs to take more care in the descriptions it puts forward to this committee, because that description of Bishop Hatton's undoubted qualifications I don't think is an accurate reflection of the undoubted qualities that he is going to bring to this Bridge Commission. So just a note to the Executive Council - please take more care in the descriptions you put forward to this committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure they will be reading Hansard.

Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: Again, I have no objection with Mr. Hatton's application. He is very well qualified, but it goes back to the honourable member's comments and positions that she put forward regarding women, and there were nine males and one female who applied for this position. Again this board has absolutely no females. None, and with the appointment of Mr. Hatton it would make five males and no females appointed by the province. Also, the ad was put in in April 2005, and it wasn't received by the Executive Council until January 26, 2005. It seems like a long period of time in between the advertisement and actually receiving this, so it almost looks like someone went looking for individuals to serve on this board, which is not supposed to be the case; they are supposed to apply. I would like to see some more information on this before this one goes ahead.

I would like to see exactly why they chose Mr. Hatton, and again he's very qualified and I have no objection with his application coming forward, but it seems too long. You are supposed to apply within 30 days, I believe, from the time that the advertisement is put out, for a board? Something like that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm not sure, I'm not aware of that. The advertisements are twice a year. In the Spring and the Fall we do an advertisement, and as a result of that, I guess within that six-month period, the appointments are made.

MR. COLWELL: It just seems like a long time from the advertisement being out until the actual resumé was received.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Taylor.

MR. TAYLOR: I think the member should recognize that on occasion, depending upon necessity, individuals are solicited to apply for a position and, in fact the position previous to this, it states very clearly in the members' book that, yes, that person was solicited; this time, it clearly says no. So are we questioning the integrity of the bishop here this morning? I mean, my goodness, praise the Lord we have people who apply. I'll just be supporting this very upstanding Nova Scotian to serve on this board. I think that, certainly, we're very fortunate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Mr. Taylor, we do have a motion on the floor.

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Justice, to the Nova Scotia Law Reform Commission, I so move John L. McMullan as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, under the Public Service Commission, to the Status of Women - I don't see that any males have applied . . .

MS. MASSEY: Yes, one male applied.

MR. TAYLOR: There was one male? Well, does my colleague want to speak to that to put some more balance in there? Seriously, I so move Jean d'Entremont and Maria de Vries as members to the Status of Women.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MS. STREATCH: Finally, Mr. Chairman, under the Treasury and Policy Board, to the Nova Scotia Voluntary Planning Board, I so move W. Carl Doty as director.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

I guess that concludes our appointments to the agencies, boards and commissions.

Today we have a presentation. We have the Department of Education. The School Capital Construction Program is going to be discussed. Gentlemen, if you want to come forward we'll start. Mr. Cochrane, you can introduce the people you have with you. What we usually do is have about 15 to 20 minutes of presentation and then we will go into a Q&A and we'll take it from there. Mr. Cochrane, if you would, you can proceed.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of all, thank you for the invitation. I'll introduce who is with me today. On my right is Charles Clattenburg, who is the Executive Director of Facilities Management of the Department of Education. On my left is Darrell Youden, who is the Senior Executive Director of Corporate Services at the department. Also with us is Darrell MacDonald, who is the Director of Facilities Management for the department. Also Kevin Finch, who is from the Communications division whose job is unenviable, trying to make me not say something that will be controversial.

I do appreciate very much the chance to be here. I will make some opening comments and then certainly love to entertain any questions that you might have. Hopefully, we can provide some information to you and a little bit about the process and how it works with regard to school capital construction.

One of the issues we have in Nova Scotia, of course, is a huge infrastructure of 20.7 million square feet of school space, which is about 139 square feet per pupil. We have all the statistics by which board has more square footage and what the average is and all those kinds of things. We use that in making some of the decisions with regard to the department and what we might do.

We have a huge number of schools. Once you build a school, of course, it's beginning to decline in its fitness, the shape that it's in, automatically that happens. In 2000, there were 17 new schools announced, one of them was adjusted eventually because we took Petit-de-Grat and made a change in Arichat, and that made 16 new schools. They've all been opened, except for Rankin, which will open in September 2006. We had probably every problem you

could imagine with regard to that particular facility of Phase II power and Phase III power was an issue, believe it or not, and we eventually got that resolved. There were also some land issues, there were some construction design issues, and an extremely rapidly declining school population.

In June 2003, 12 other schools were announced in the province over the next five or six years after that period of time. There were some adjustments made in that list; we've just announced some of those on Friday. When we make a decision with regard to a school, we'll often look at an announcement with regard to a renovation. I think the member representing the Halifax West area would understand how that works. That particular school was supposed to have been a renovation. When we did the estimates on it and looked at the facility, we recognized that it would be a better investment to build a new one, which we did, and we do that occasionally.

The two of them that were also dealt with in that way recently were Oxford and Rive-Sud. We did the estimates on Oxford as a renovation in the high school to make it a Primary to Grade 12 and it was getting to the number of $9 million to $10 million, and the recognition at that point is it was probably a better investment to build a new one, which we did announce on Friday. Similarly, we were going to renovate the francophone school that used to be Blockhouse and Rive-Sud and we recognized, again, that probably wasn't as good an investment as building a new one, plus there was some concern from the community that it may not be in the right area. So we've made some adjustments and I think it shows some flexibility on behalf of government.

One of the ones that was a good example of that was Sir John A. Macdonald. We were going to renovate it as a high school. We spent a fair amount of money and then there was a recognition that we needed a new high school to take the growth in that area, so we converted Sir John A. Macdonald. It will be converted to a junior high school and the new western HRM school will open in September 2006. If you go out that way you can see it; it looks very impressive. Those are the kinds of decisions that we have to make. So when we come up with a plan, it's somewhat fluid and we have to take a look at the changing demographics, the changing issues, some of the estimates that we get on the way through, and when we do the engineering work we look at it in perhaps a different light.

In addition to a number of new schools which get the most attention, we do a significant amount of money with regard to renovations. The list that we came out with in 2003 included $211.5 million for major renovations - we call it A&A - alterations and additions - to 45 schools in the Province of Nova Scotia. So there's a very energetic capital program that has been running about $90 million, and with the significant number that we have it's very difficult to meet everyone's demands and everyone's expectations. We do try to reinvest in our buildings rather than just tear them down and build new ones when there is an investment that could be made that would, I think, give a significant return to the taxpayer. In addition to all of that, we had a $123 million capital project for the community

college, and you can see all over the Province of Nova Scotia the effects of that $123 million being spent.

One of our major issues that we face, of course, is a declining enrolment and we constantly ask school boards to take a look at their existing capacity. It's interesting, in the last couple of years, between 2001 and 2005-06 our school population from Primary to Grade 12 has dropped by 8.6 per cent. We've dropped from 155,000 students to 142,000. That's more pronounced in some areas. In Cape Breton, for example, in 2001 we had 21,080 students and it's now 17,917, which is a drop of 15 per cent in the last five years.

When that happens, you have to constantly go back and look at your plan and look at your capacity. The taxpayers really can't afford to build capacity when you have capacity. There was some talk that on the Dartmouth side of the harbour there was something like 29 per cent of the school capacity that was underutilized, and we have to constantly take a look at that kind of an issue to see what can we renovate, what can we change, how can we do this differently. I think the boards have responded very well to those kinds of requests and, quite frankly, the public has been somewhat understanding of what we have to do in some of those situations.

So we constantly have our discussions. What we have now in work, all the school boards have submitted their lists of what they would like to see happen in the next number of years. The School Capital Construction Committee had reviewed that and taken a look at the plans. We did send some of the plans back to some of the boards and said, look, have you looked at this particular aspect of it, and we now have, as of August 2005, a complete package from all the boards in the Province of Nova Scotia. The School Capital Construction Committee has done some assessment of that and what we're waiting for now is an opportunity to go to Cabinet and make our presentation with regard to the next number of years.

The Tangible Capital Assets budget has an allocation for education and we're constantly making adjustments and what we're doing is looking for the next opportunity, when our share begins to drop, so we can start the planning process for a number of new projects, a number of additions and alterations over the next number of years.

[9:30 a.m.]

We get some criticism because in 2003 we came out with a plan that was going to have the last school constructed and opened in September 2008. However, it is a planning process. We have to look at the school community being involved. We form an SST, they make recommendations to the minister about where we are going to put the school, Department of Transportation and Public Works does an assessment of the sites, the minister picks one, there is an architectural process, there is the design, the parents have input to that, and it's a very cumbersome process. At least the long-term planning people know where we

are going and they have an expectation of what is going to happen over a period of time. We always have to respond to the emergency situations where something we didn't plan on happened, and we try to respond to those and deal with the school boards.

So we talk about our $90 million, but also there is about $133 million assigned to school boards with regard to property maintenance. That would include heat, lights and maintenance, some minor repairs that they do. If we find ourselves in a situation as we approach the end of the fiscal year where we have some money, we will often give that to boards to more minor repairs to make sure they are able to maintain their facilities as best they can.

So it is a very consultative process. It's a very collaborative process and, quite frankly, I think the story in Nova Scotia is relatively good. With the last two new schools that we announced on Friday, the conversions from a renovation to a new construction, Nova Scotia will have opened by September 2009, 71 new schools. There were 39 P3 schools and the number, of course, since 2000, brings it up to 71. With the declining enrolment, that is pretty significant. Now, we have more work to do.

It was interesting, I was doing a series of 11 CEO round tables in the province talking about education with invited guests and so on and I began to hear for the first time people saying, we have good schools. I thought, wow, we began to change the corner. Then they would say, but there are some that aren't. Well, yes, that is true, and you can't afford to make everything new, and we have to make use of what we have.

One of the superintendents, particularly, was writing quite an effusive letter to the department about how much work has been done in that regard, and one of the maintenance people said, well, wow, I've had a rainstorm and I didn't get a whole bunch of calls the next day. It's coming. More work to be done. Nonetheless, we are working away at the deferred maintenance issue. We're working away at new construction, but we're trying to keep in mind the taxpayers' ability to pay, and trying to make sure that we utilize existing capacity that we have.

Anyway, I will open the floor to questions. I will call upon Charles or Darrell to provide specific answers if I am unable to do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We will do 10 minutes for each caucus.

MR. STEELE: Then we can come back.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. Ms. Massey.

MS. MASSEY: Going to the binder, of course the schools that are in my own constituency are the ones that stick out for me and I feel obligated to ask questions in regard

to them. Prince Andrew High School is on there, Bel Ayr/Mount Edward, for a new school, to replace both of those. Michael Wallace/Ian Forsyth, a new school to replace these. Caledonia Junior High School, a future new school. So they are the only ones that I could see where major changes are coming down the road. PA, that's old news now and, in fact, those alterations and additions will not be finished until 2009, if I understand that, at the cost of $8 million. Bel Ayr/Mount Edward, according to what is in the binder, it says it's not on the original 2004-05 capital submissions by HRSB. When I first saw it I thought I have never seen that before, and now I know why. So I'm just wondering - and if you can wait until I go through to answer the questions - when will the community sort of be brought into that whole process? It's under capital projects and it says it would be completed in 2015, but I'm not sure if it has actually been okayed, gone to the top and it is all going to go through.

The other one is the Michael Wallace/Ian Forsyth, to replace both of those with a new elementary school in 2015. Now both of those - the one I just mentioned and that one - there is no cost attached to that, that I could see in here, so there is a question on the cost and there is a question on where those schools would go. Has any thought been put into that? Would they both come down? Would the new school be put in one of the spots, those kinds of questions? The last one is Caledonia Junior High, Future New School. I'm a little bit confused because in one spot it says that schools currently 40 years and older are not included in this proposed capital program. But then it says, it looks like it's under the Proposed New Alterations and Renovations block although that was at the top of the page and then it's sort of underneath this other heading. There's no date and there's no amount of money attached to that one. You may have to answer my questions later when you get the Hansard, but I know there's a lot of stuff in there.

MR. COCHRANE: It's a general answer to the question that those are on the list of Halifax Regional School Board for the current round to be considered. What will happen is the School Capital Construction Committee will now look at all the board requests and put them into some kind of a suggested list. That's where the number estimates will come from.

Once the capital construction committee looks at it, then we take it to the minister, the minister takes it to Cabinet and when we bring it forward, then those schools - there are alterations and additions - will have a number assigned in the out years. So the board merely brings them forward, the committee looks at them, decides whether that's a reasonable approach and then if they're going to do an A&A, there will be a suggested number, or if there's some consolidation and a new one coming forward, then they will have that on the list. We haven't got the School Capital Construction Committee report on those particular projects because it obviously hasn't gone to Cabinet yet.

MS. MASSEY: I guess my question then is, if this is the first time I've seen it - I don't recall seeing it at the board level . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Probably not.

MS. MASSEY: Okay, so this is the first time I've seen it. How do you go about community consultation? I guess I'm jumping ahead maybe.

MR. COCHRANE: No, that's fair.

MS. MASSEY: I think it's always better to be upfront with communities. People read about this in the paper tomorrow, people will be saying, oh, oh, my community school's gone. What about real estate value? What about people moving into communities? Even though schools are fairly close together, it does make a difference in kids walking to school, how that will affect busing. I know you will hear people saying we had to fight before to keep the one bus we have now, how's it going to affect busing? I'm just hoping the department will be very proactive in communicating with the community.

MR. COCHRANE: Once we have the School Capital Construction Committee report and Cabinet puts them in some kind of order, then depending on when the first amount of money is spent, we form the SST prior to that. They begin to look at the issues, they will work with the architect. They will also look at our design manual so they will know what kind of renovations they can expect.

For example, we just announced the adjustment with regard to Oxford. So very shortly an SST will be formed in Oxford. Their first task will really be to look at where we're going to put the school and then they will actually look at the design manual. Once the minister and TPW come up with a recommendation about the site, then they will start working with the architect to do the design work and so on.

A renovation, if it's a significant renovation, it works the same way. There will be a committee, they will take a look at it, they will meet with the engineering people, they will meet with our facility people and then eventually there will be someone appointed to do the design work and the community has some input with regard to that.

MS. MASSEY: I think it's so important because, for example, down at Michael Wallace, they're still in the process of putting more playground equipment in there, it's a lot of money. They just put one section in. This really affects what the community's plans are right now and whether they're going to put, because there's no year - well, there's 2015.

MR. COCHRANE: When the committee comes back, they will have a date. It could be a tighter date than that depending upon the assessment of the building.

MS. MASSEY: That's sort of a guesstimate right now, is it?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, that's right. That would be a fair thing for the board to say, then the committee actually comes back and says, where do we put it in the process?

MS. MASSEY: Caledonia Junior High, there's a community centre being built there this Spring. That sort of affects the way that school would look - is the school going to go in the same spot, these sorts of things. I think that's another example where whoever is going to be working on that needs to work with what's going on with the community centre and the community too.

MR. COCHRANE: Very much. It's a very intricate process. We are always trying to find ways when we do these things to accommodate some of the community issues. One of the questions, I'm sure, will come somewhere about the enhancements communities can make to schools as we do this.

MS. MASSEY: One of the things I'd like to see done - I don't know if this is a wild idea - when schools are built, why are they not built as a community centre? As a multi-usable complex? For example, if you close down Michael Wallace and Ian Forsyth schools, if they had been built in a way that once they're even closed they could be used as a community centre. Some of our older schools are used - the Findley Centre is used as a community centre. But thinking ahead that demographics change - because I know in Eastern Passage, one of the schools out there, they have a close connection, it is sort of like a community centre attached to it. I forget the name of the school, I have been in it.

MR. COCHRANE: Tallahassee.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, Tallahassee. I was involved in the P3 process when they built the Portland Estates one. You know what we have gone through with that is we can't even afford to walk in the door of some of these P3 schools. So I would like to see the government look at building schools that are actually community centres also. They should be built as a community centre. It should be a school/community centre, multi-use building.

MR. COCHRANE: We build schools to deliver the public school program, and with 450-some locations across the province, our responsibility in Education is to make sure the building is secure, it's a healthy place to attend, it's a healthy place to work, that the envelope of the building keeps it warm, keeps it dry and we make sure that we have the facilities, the gyms, the labs and so on to deliver the public school program. There is a huge opportunity for communities that may want a different feature to get involved. They are involved in the architectural process. We do the design work. We pay the difference with regard to the architectural. If it is a community enhancement, we facilitate the design of it, the construction of it. There is a reimbursement of the cost from the community, plus we pick up the cost of operating, the heat and lights, maintenance of that particular facility. It's a real opportunity for a community to get involved.

But with our responsibilities across the province, our first responsibility is to make sure that we have the public school program delivered in an adequate facility - and we have heard the debate before, and it's a good discussion, but from the educational point of view our design is really to create a facility that deals with the public school program.

I think Citadel is a good example, and I think Halifax West is a good example of some of the things that they wanted to do that we facilitated, but the community was able to raise money to do the chairs and whatever, but we put the envelope in, we did the design so there could be the theatre and it's a levelling out so we provide the same kind of educational facility across the province. The community that may have a different community use or a desire has an opportunity to have input and a contribution can be made, and we have seen all these across the province. A lot of them are done. But, again, our design is for a school. There may be other facilities in that community that, quite frankly, they wouldn't want us competing with them.

MS. MASSEY: Well, I guess the issue is, for example in Dartmouth East we have never had a community centre and we are the last part of the old - before amalgamation, anywhere in HRM, that doesn't have a community centre and the needs for that were pointed out back in 1982 or something. So what I am saying is some communities simply cannot afford, because of monetary issues, to get a community centre on their own. For example, this little community centre we are building is only going to cost $3.1 million. So I don't know why the city and the province cannot work hand in hand . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Oh, we do.

MS. MASSEY: So, anyway, okay. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We will move to the Liberal caucus and Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today to have this interesting discussion. I think it is really important that we know more about what projects are ongoing and what the government's plan is for school construction. I think the release on Friday was well-timed for this meeting. I'm sure that it gave us a good heads-up on what is coming out, and I am glad to have seen that, then it is very public. What I am missing today, Mr. Cochrane, is why don't we have a list of all of the projects that the government is looking at? I'm going through my binder here and about 180 pages of it is HRM's list. They are planning, going through to the year 2020, I think. It goes on and on. It has their immediate and their long-term needs, and it gives all kinds of information. This is transparency. Even today, I was hoping in your preamble that you would be giving us a list of what is current and where we are, and I just think it's only fair, not only to the members but to the public.

MR. COCHRANE: I will give you a list of what all the boards submitted; I have them with me. We anticipated the question. We have a list of what every board has submitted on their wish list in what they would like to do. We will give you that and the School Capital Construction Committee has been working with that list. We haven't put it in order of priority yet for the province because we haven't - we're quite a ways out, we're 2008, as you saw from the announcement, 2009, but there will be an opportunity soon for the beginning of some of those new projects. So we will submit to you a complete list from each of the boards. The eight boards submitted what they would like to see done and we are now having the School Capital Construction Committee work on that and we will take that list to Cabinet, then of course once that happens, it will become a very transparent list.

[9:45 a.m.]

MS. WHALEN: Well, perhaps I don't understand fully. You did a press release on Friday from the department which indicated some changes to the current list. Now the decisions had obviously been made at a Cabinet level to announce those changes, to say that Oxford goes from a renovation to a new school, to suggest the same in Blockhouse and so on. So the list must have been scrutinized by Cabinet at this point?

MR. COCHRANE: No, there are two different lists. What we try to do is take the existing list that was made in 2003 and finalize that, and there were changes as a result. In 2003, for example, Sir John A. Macdonald was a renovation, so we had to make an adjustment in the budget because Sir John A. Macdonald jumped in as a brand new building in western HRM. Similarly, those other two. So what we did Friday, the release of the list was tidying up the list that came from 2003. I can tell you very frankly, I didn't want to come here and talk about the list of 2003 knowing that it was going to be different as a result of taking it to Cabinet. So we pushed it into Cabinet early because of my appearance here today. I was quite emphatic that I didn't want to come here and talk to you about Rive-Sud and Oxford as a renovation when I knew that we were recommending to change it. So we got that tidied up. We made it public. Now what will happen, we will take the eight lists that we are going to get from the boards, once the School Capital Construction Committee looks at that we will take that to Cabinet and then we will make an announcement again about the next phase of projects that come out.

MS. WHALEN: So you are saying that the announcement the other day still was only dealing with schools that have already been flagged?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. That was an adjustment of the list to 2003.

MS. WHALEN: You appeared before the Public Accounts Committee in 2003 prior to the election and answered questions at that time about how the lists were not public.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right.

MS. WHALEN: Now three years have passed and I am just hoping that there would have been a change in the mood to make this information more public. I don't think we have gotten anywhere when there wasn't even a handout for the presentation today.

MR. COCHRANE: Well, we submitted stuff to the clerk, and the stuff in the binder, a lot of it comes from the department. When I was at the Public Accounts Committee in 2003, we were exactly at the same position. The boards had submitted lists, the province was looking at them through the School Capital Construction Committee and they were going to take it to Cabinet. At that point, the new list was not done. Shortly after the appearance, lo and behold, the list went to Cabinet and then we announced the list of 2003. We have been updating and maintaining that list. What came out Friday was an adjustment of the 2003 list, and now we are going to give you the eight lists from those school boards. What will happen, the School Capital Construction Committee will finish their analysis of that and then we will take that to Cabinet and there will be a subsequent list.

MS. WHALEN: For this next step then, can you tell us when that will be that we will be able to get this to Cabinet? What is your timeline, because they had since August?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, I was actually hoping to get in sooner but because of the TCA list and how they assign capital money, I'm hoping that we will get in in May or June and will have a chance to say, okay, the first dip in the education share might be in 2007, so what projects do we want to start the planning for so 2007-08 starts to ramp those up. So I am hoping late this Spring, early Summer.

MS. WHALEN: Would that be at any coincidence that elections may be expected late Spring, early Summer?

MR. COCHRANE: I don't know.

MS. WHALEN: That is just kind of coincidental, I'm sure.

MR. COCHRANE: It's a question of tidying up the existing list. It's very logical. We finished up the list, tidied it up, and now we are getting ready to take the new one.

MS. WHALEN: Again, you talked earlier about long-term planning, and your long-term planning should take you well beyond the three-year construction cycle right now. As you say, we are at 2006, you have announced them up to 2009. So I think that should be made public so that people can see what is even being considered. People can understand that you are juggling resources and that not everything gets built.

MR. COCHRANE: All the lists from the boards are probably public, and we are going to table those now and they are public. What you don't know is what order - see the interesting thing is, and I have this debate with school boards all the time, they will say, well,

this is our number one priority. Yes, that is true, but the minister has to look at the whole province, and your number one may be in much better shape than somebody else's number four. So there has to be a provincial list that comes out. That is why we don't give each board their block of money, because you would end up with two schools side by side and different boards, one getting work and one not, when one might need it more than the other. So we try to do that. The School Capital Construction Committee is made up of more than just Education, there is Finance, and NSSBA, and then we take it and get it ready, then we have to go into Cabinet with the TCA committee to say, where does Education now get more money in the next number of years?

MS. WHALEN: Can I ask again, on the release the other day it was mentioned that some of the reasons that this has changed has been - some of them are understandable, logistical or site selection, one is financial pressures, so can you explain what that means exactly?

MR. COCHRANE: In reference to which one?

MS. WHALEN: Yes, that was in general, the paragraph says, "Due to logistical, site selection or financial pressures, some school construction and renovation schedules approved . . ." earlier are now changed.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, for example, I can tell you one that we've had a number of issues with was Oyster Pond which is the Robert Jamison/Harbourside one and when the tender went out, it came in way higher than we anticipated and it was interesting. So we had to re-tender it to see if we could get the price down and it did come in lower. We had some site issues. We had to make sure that we could get water on the site and we've had that problem over there for the last number of years. So when a project comes in $1 million or $2 million over, it has an impact upon what your cash flow is. We've had a number of those. The other issue in some cases, and I use the one at Rankin, it was a question of the cost of the tender, it was a question of the land, it was a question of the Phase II power. So we would love to do them the day we announce them.

MS. WHALEN: Well, it would indicate that you didn't have the finances to complete everything, that's what it indicates to me, you had financial pressures?

MR. COCHRANE: No, we had the money based on the estimates that we had, but when we put them out, the tenders came in higher and, as a result, we have to spread our money a little differently.

MS. WHALEN: Can I ask another question then. Further to that, that release ends by saying that you came in under budget, or one of your releases, I don't know if I see it in this one.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: One said that, "Together, the 15 schools were completed $21 million under budget." So if it was under budget by that significant an amount - and I think that would be worthwhile exploring in perhaps my next round - why is it that other schools have been delayed and held back, or why haven't you sped up your program to take advantage - $21 million is the cost of a fantastic high school.

MR. COCHRANE: And if you looked at the price of western HRM, it's there.

MS. WHALEN: It has been absorbed there?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: In the Sir John A. Macdonald?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, much of it. So that's what happens. When you announce a renovation for $4 million and you go build a new one for $16 million, we've got to go out and find $12 million. So if some of the others are under, we move that to that account. It's always a cash flow issue. We know one of the things that's happening is, depending upon what part of the province we're calling tenders, if there's a huge amount of work, the prices are very high. If the contractors are a little hungry, the prices are better. So it's always a balance. We may do an estimate, but we're not always sure that it's going to come in exactly how we've estimated.

The other thing is we'll occasionally make a change with regard to - well, Barrington is a good example, and I've been nowhere more than I've been to Barrington let me tell you, and yet the site the municipality was going to give us wasn't acceptable. So automatically there's a change in the price because we had to buy as opposed to get it for free, those kinds of things, you know, and when you're looking at an envelope of $200 million or $300 million, it doesn't take a very big percentage to be out of whack.

The other thing that happens, member, TPW does our tendering for us and sometimes what will happen, by the time we know in January that we're not going to spend all the money we had to the end of March, we can't get it out because you can't get a tender out quick enough in February/March to do the work.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, I think we'll come back to that afterwards.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: But I have one more question if I could.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Very quickly.

MS. WHALEN: Yes, very quickly. You mentioned yourself the Robert Jamison school for the Eastern Shore.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: And in that whole process, I know there were some delays and some controversy around the site selection there as well and some disputes within the community about where it should be. One of the letters that I had given to me was a report from the site selection committee there and what disturbs me in this is that among the six names that presented this report is a woman named Colette Williams-Dooks and that she is the wife of the member for that area. I think that it's inappropriate perhaps that this woman would be part of the selection committee. So I think it's important that it be raised and I'm sure you've been aware of it from past discussions within the community. (Interruptions)

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll move on here.

MS. WHALEN: I'll leave that with you because I think it should be looked at.

MR. COCHRANE: It's a community choice. I have no idea who most of the time is on these committees and, quite frankly, a lot of MLAs are very involved in their community and so are their families.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Exactly. Mr. Taylor.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Department of Education people for coming in this morning, but I would like to change the focus just a little bit, Dennis, because, you know, when we're talking about new school construction, in many cases we're also talking about the perception or misperception that bigger is better. I don't subscribe to that and, as you know, many people do not, but I would like to just speak about that mentality.

I've attended three meetings now regarding possible permanent school closures in three different communities. We're told by school board members - not necessarily the department but school board members - that the education and the programs and the resources are far superior to that of the existing school that is on death row. I just question who the professionals are because the professionals I'm speaking with - that's the principal, the vice-principal and the teachers in those schools that are on the chopping block - are telling us, no, Brooke, the school programs that we're providing here are every bit as good as the program and the curriculum that is in the bigger regional centres perhaps in some cases. I'm just wondering who in the heck are the professionals?

MR. COCHRANE: It's interesting, the minister opens schools and boards close them. Each of the situations, the board has to take a look at the local community and the local school. We have a formula that funds the allocation of professional staff based upon the number of students and so on and then every board takes a look at what situation they're in. If they're paying a premium out of what we give them to maintain a particular facility, they may look at that, but you know, in any school closing process there is an announcement, there's a committee, there's a debate, there's a public hearing and so on, and then the board ultimately has to make the decision.

We don't claw money back from a board, for example, if they close a school. We don't say, well, now, as a result of that not being there, we're not paying the money you used to have for heat and so on, but they have to balance their priorities. The other issue becomes, depending upon the population, the formula may cause them to have a P1/2 class, or whatever, and that may have some impact upon the delivery of the program by the professionals, but each board has to look at that. The Hogg report is going to address a little differently the formula associated with some of the smaller rural schools and it may give a little relief, at least to some of the boards, but at the same time the board is a group that has to sit down and take a look at distances that children travel, the state of the facility, the delivery of the program.

MR. TAYLOR: Dennis, I wanted to focus on that. I know there are many aspects to possible permanent school closures, be it a building's capacity, a building's physical condition, et cetera, et cetera, whether it's used as a multi-centre and whether it's actually supposed to be used as a multi-centre, but one of the difficulties that parents have is that they're somewhat perplexed as to just who are these professionals and I want to focus on that. I think we have to clearly distinguish who is actually fostering or perpetuating that mentality that bigger is better because we're told that, you know, scholarships, bursaries, et cetera, et cetera, on a per-ratio basis are, in fact, more significantly, I guess, received by children coming from small centres and I trust they have that based on good detail.

So I just wanted to throw that out, that I think perhaps what we have to do is think outside this conventional circle, or outside the box, and find ways. If a building's needs assessment is such that it's still a good building and will serve the purposes of the community for a number of years, then we have to - I think all educational partners, and not pointing fingers at the department or the boards or the community, but I think we have to because we've reached the point where - and I use Guysborough County as an example. In 1986 there were 18 schools; today, Dennis, I understand there are only five. When do we say, you know, look, yes, we can build new schools and we can close schools, but I'm afraid if we keep going down that road, quite frankly, we're only going to have a few regional centres.

The school in many cases is the heart of the community. Yes, it's an educational institution, but I think it's time that we stopped and looked at it and not play the blame game. Let's look at ways that we can keep these little schools open in rural Nova Scotia because they're so important. Anyway, I don't know whether that elicited a comment or not.

MR. COCHRANE: Well, every province that has a declining enrolment and an aging infrastructure has to kind of constantly look at the program and where we deliver it and how we do. The boards and everyone are very concerned about the distance that children might travel on certain roads at a certain time. There are some locations in this province that as long as there's a child there, there will be some kind of an educational facility because of the distance and so on. The boards have to constantly look at the capacity, the distances, the state of the building and the quality of the educational program being delivered. Hopefully, the consultation process makes people feel that they are involved and aware, and ultimately someone has to make a decision.

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Mr. Deveaux.

MR. DEVEAUX: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, why would I be here to ask some questions?

MR. COCHRANE: I can hardly guess what you might ask.

MR. DEVEAUX: I'm not usually a member of this committee, so this process is somewhat new to me. Let's start, I'm going to talk about the Halifax Regional School Board's recommendations from September 2005, which are in the binder. Let me just get a sense, because I recall last January, I believe, was when the recommendations were originally sent to the Department of Education and it did recommend, at that point it was calling it, an Eastern Passage/Woodside high school, which was number three on the list, and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe at that time the Department of Education had some desire to see a little more meat on the bone with regard to exactly how there would be reallocation. Is that correct?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: So in September they came back with what I guess we would see here, which is a four- or five-page analysis and recommendation from the school board. Their recommendation - again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to be at least what they're recommending - is closing Eric Graves, Sir Robert Borden and Ross Road Junior High, putting them into what was Cole Harbour High School, making Cole Harbour High School a junior high school, and then taking Astral Drive and Eastern Passage Education Centre and moving them into a new - they would flow into a new high school.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: Now, it also says that a more formal study of logistics is required. That's what it says there.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: I know there is a little asterisk next to it when it's in here. So I'm trying to get a sense from you as to how much this is the recommendation of the school board and how much this is an example of where they would like to go, and how much of it is cast in stone by their recommendation.

MR. COCHRANE: We sent back the report. I met with the superintendent in the Spring and said, look, we do need more meat on the bones and we are always after them to do the kind of thing they have done, like if you build Eastern Passage, what do you do with the 500 empty seats at Cole Harbour, and this is why the recommendation comes forward.

The School Capital Construction Committee will certainly look at that, but the board, I think, will be doing a study on the catchment areas and the boundaries and so on. Once they find out if the province is interested in that concept, then there will be an indication of that and the process will start much more intricately involved in the community. Then of course there is quite a debate about those closures and the movement of children and so on. I think it's the right thing to do. The capacity question has to be addressed by them and I think our process in this case will be to give them an indication that yes, we are interested and we would consider building that new high school, and can you make the other things that you say are going to happen, happen?

MR. DEVEAUX: So you are going to go to Cabinet in May or June? That's what you were saying, I think, to an earlier question - anticipated.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: At this point, do you see this as a recommendation that's going forward to Cabinet?

MR. COCHRANE: I haven't looked at the particular, because this only came in in August. The School Capital Construction Committee has given their thoughts on that. My sense is that if there is a debate about a new high school in Eastern Passage that will become part of the package, and I haven't looked at the specific recommendation with regard to that, but it does make sense and therefore I would hope that it would get consideration.

MR. DEVEAUX: Okay. So has the School Capital Construction Committee looked at this recommendation?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, they would have by now.

MR. DEVEAUX: Have they indicated to the minister as to whether they support it or not?

MR. COCHRANE: The report hasn't gone to the minister yet because we were trying to get the existing list, as I mentioned to the member for Halifax Clayton Park. We wanted to get that tidied and then to the next phase.

MR. DEVEAUX: So you aren't even at the stage of going to Cabinet. You have for some of these, at least new capital projects, you are still looking at the minister having to sign off on them?

MR. COCHRANE: That's right.

MR. DEVEAUX: All right, but the School Capital Construction Committee has made its recommendations, it's in the minister's hands at this point?

MR. COCHRANE: On that one, yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: I wanted to ask a couple of questions around this because the original recommendation was slightly different, it was a Woodside/Eastern Passage high school and there is new development - and Mr. Clattenburg living in the area would know full well - there is a lot of new development happening around the two lakes, Russell and Morris, which eventually is going to - right now there are geographic parameters that are sort of broken because of so much distance, and that's going to change with new highways coming in and such. In your calculations for the Eastern/Central HRM, or at least what the school board has presented, has there been much consideration of new population because the Russell Lake area, I think there are going to be 1,000 new homes or something like that, which is going to have a big impact on schools, obviously, and I was just trying to get a sense of how much you have asked for it or how much the school board has considered these new developments in its calculations.

MR. COCHRANE: They will have done that and what will happen once they get an indication that the province is looking at that, then the actual demographics and the size of the school will be dictated by a look at what kind of growth is real and what's the projected growth. Probably western HRM is a good example of how it works, but there is flexibility and when they looked at that school, they said how much more room do we need, and once we give them a conceptual idea that this is something we want to look at, then they'll do the demographic work and that school, instead of having 28 classrooms may end up with 34.

MR. DEVEAUX: I see. So at this point it's more a sense of we know this is coming  . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: . . . but they don't sit down with the city planning department and ask how many houses are you building, they don't have an equation where they say if you have 1,000 homes that means x number of kids from Primary to Grade 12?

MR. COCHRANE: They will, as we get closer to the . . .

MR. DEVEAUX: But they're not, at that stage?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: A couple other questions around it then. So if this was to go ahead as is, is the recommendation of the school board to you that the $2.9 million that would go into renovations at Cole Harbour District High School wouldn't have to take place, is that your understanding of the recommendations?

MR. COCHRANE: There will be adjustments in that because you design a little different for a junior high than a senior. We made a significant change in the amount of money we were going to spend, for example at the old Sir John A. Macdonald once we made it into a junior high as opposed to a senior high - the science labs are different, the sizes are different and so on.

MR. DEVEAUX: So that was, what, an $8 million original renovation to the high school, and what is it now that it's a junior high?

MR. COCHRANE: It was less than $8 million though. The original investment for Sir John A. Macdonald was going to be less than that, and what we did is we took a look, when the decision was made we said what have we done, and we went back and looked at what was done and how much more we needed to tidy it up as a junior high, and then moved money over to the new one.

MR. DEVEAUX: But just so I'm clear with regard to this - this is, what's proposed here by the school board, their preferred recommendation that they have taken to the capital construction committee?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: They're not looking at any other alternatives at this point that they have recommended?

MR. COCHRANE: At this point we're not, in that area.

MR. DEVEAUX: A couple other questions - one is a logistical point, I guess, just around your presentation. In the document, and I guess this is a school board document and maybe they should be answering this, but there are schools listed in the back, and their projected enrolments . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: . . . and it mentions Astral Drive Elementary, not Astral Drive Junior High School. Is that supposed to be correct? Do you know why they said elementary there when that wasn't one of the schools noted?

MR. COCHRANE: Is that one going to convert?

MR. DEVEAUX: No.

MR. COCHRANE: No, I don't . . .

MR. DEVEAUX: This is a school board document?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: So you're just taking what the school board gave you?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: Okay, and the other question was around South Woodside, which isn't in my area, but it used to be and it's near and dear to me. It's a small school, and you're recommending, or at least the school board is recommending, closing it by 2015 I believe, and combining it with North Woodside and Southdale. I guess I was wondering, given that we're talking nine years from now, are these recommendations that go forward now or are these ones that are sort of put on the back burner and maybe in three or four years we'll take another look at it?

MR. COCHRANE: It will depend on what kind of projections Cabinet gives us to our window of opportunity, but we should certainly be into 2013-14, in the end of our time frame at this point.

MR. DEVEAUX: So even if it's 2015, or 2020, you're not going to be getting Cabinet . . .

MR. COCHRANE: No, it won't get much consideration.

MR. DEVEAUX: Because I mean there are a lot of changes that can happen in that time as well.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right, and even if we did announce it and something changed significantly on the way through, we would reflect on that, as we've done with western HRM and Oxford, and so on.

MR. DEVEAUX: I will say, to be frank, this is one of the first times I've seen what the school board was particularly recommending, the new version of it, and I do know that I represent both parts of what would be Astral Drive Junior High in Eastern Passage and Eastern Passage clearly is in need of a high school, but I also know that the people I represent in Cole Harbour are very happy with Auburn as well, right?

MR. COCHRANE: That's right, yes.

MR. DEVEAUX: So this is going to be an interesting process as we move forward.

MR. COCHRANE: It's interesting and I'm quite pleased with the document from the board. We had to go back, and they came back with another document. It's interesting because there were other simplistic answers to that problem, but they were very simplistic and, quite frankly, probably unacceptable to the community. So I think that the recommendations are positive, and once we give them a reaction there will be a study and there will be more consultation and discussion.

MR. DEVEAUX: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Deveaux.

Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I'll start and then I'll share my time with Ms. Whalen. Just a couple quick questions. There was a press release, put out by Mr. Bill Dooks on behalf of the Education Minister, Angus MacIsaac, in June 2003, indicating that there was going to be some construction work done on the Lakeview Consolidated in Porters Lake. Renovations would be about $4.7 million, including construction of a new gymnasium, library, as well as converting the current multi-purpose room to a cafeteria. The work was supposed to begin in 2008-09. Is that still under consideration?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, it's still as it was projected then. The first significant expenditure will be $500,000 in 2007-08, and that will do the planning work, the architectural work and so on. The bulk of the money comes in 2008-09 and 2009-10 - $1.7 million and $2 million, respectively.

MR. COLWELL: It's a school that badly needs upgrades, there's no question about that, very badly, and it's an area where the population is growing extremely fast, as long as the new HRM plan doesn't stall everything in the area. So is there any way that could be accelerated?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, the money will become available at that case on April 1, 2007. So we're pretty close to being on-line. There wasn't a pressure to move it. I mean, there's always pressure to move things forward, but there wasn't enough of a significant difference to make it so that we would have to look at it as any kind of an emergency.

MR. COLWELL: I was just wondering, because that school is in desperate condition.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. Well, it's certainly going to get a major upgrade of $4.7 million over the period of time.

MR. COLWELL: The other issue with that school is it's near O'Connell Drive, which some of the kids in the community go to O'Connell Drive which is an up-to-date, high-tech, best-quality school that we could possibly get. Then the children who live sort of across the line go to Lakeview and they don't have the same opportunities, potentially, as the ones at O'Connell Drive. Then they go to the same junior high school, and then it goes back together again and the potential drops again. Is there any consideration for bringing those schools up to the technological . . .

MR. COCHRANE: There was a separate set of rules for technology associated with P3s, but we spend a significant amount of money every year trying to make sure that we upgrade our computers and the standards. We have a ratio that we try to meet, like one computer for every seven kids, or whatever, in all of our schools. There's no question that a newer school has a different level of technology, but the boards are putting it in all schools. We're paying another budget allocation to go out and actually upgrade our computers and our materials and so on. It's a never-ending issue. Of course, one of the sleepers out there in public education across the country is the focus is on getting the technology. The next thing is when it gets out of date and the refreshing of it is another issue. It's a huge expenditure but, quite frankly, we try to spread it out. We try to do the best we can, and our kids are coming out of the system technologically literate, for sure.

MR. COLWELL: Another question on Graham Creighton Junior High, which was rebuilt a couple of years ago, at that time the Halifax Regional Municipality put $400,000 into that because they didn't quite have enough money to build a new community centre in Cherry Brook/Lake Loon, and the idea was that they would upgrade the gymnasium and put a seniors' room in, which has been put there.

The problem - I thought at the time when the municipality was putting money into the school, which has made the school better and I have no argument about that - is access. It goes back to access again. The community simply can't afford to use that gymnasium because of the cost of doing it. That is an issue brought up when we were on council, and it's an issue that has really happened. There has to be some controls put by the province, so if a municipality puts money into this, or the community raises money to improve a school, it has got to have access. I mean this is beyond belief.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, and you're right. There are costs associated with the facilities. It's a question of, you know, if a custodian is brought in, there's a cost. We do have and we have been working on community use and access and we've kind of said, look, if it's under the age of 19 it should be access free, no fee. They can't charge a fee, but there are actual costs that they pass on.

One of the issues that we're coming to grips with is the insurance - and we are trying to make sure in our interface with other departments and boards about how you provide the liability insurance for people using the gym and, in some cases, the groups were saying we just can't afford to get this blanket coverage for our people. So we are working that out, and I think we're pretty close to that one, but that's a separate issue. The costs that a board incurs in calling a custodian in to do the work and so on, we've been dealing with them and we've been talking about that and trying to get some kind of a resolution. Different boards have different mechanisms. Some communities are more involved than others, but there's no question we would like to have our facilities open as much as they possibly can for the least price for our communities.

MR. COLWELL: It seems foolish, we build huge recreational facilities and then a school is sitting there empty all the time.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, that's right, and that's not practical. A gym is about $2 million, and the more people who use that gym, the better.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. COLWELL: Exactly. It helps everybody.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen, you have about four minutes.

MS. WHALEN: I would like to table the letter I referred to because it's part of the record and I don't have to raise this again, hopefully. I'd like to just leave that for the record, if I could, after we're done. Thank you.

I wanted to go on to several other schools in the province and just get an update if I could on, particularly, Bridgetown Elementary. The community would like more information on the status of that school.

MR. COCHRANE: It's not on the current list that we adjusted on Friday. It may be considered by the committee for the next list.

MS. WHALEN: So it may be coming just from that school board's recommendation.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right and we would take a look at that list.

MS. WHALEN: Okay. This may cover most of them, then Kings County Academy.

MR. COCHRANE: Kings County Academy? Yes, it has some money projected. Kings County Academy, in 2007-08 there will be $250,000; $1.25 million in 2008-09; $1.5 million in 2009-10, and then the tidying up to bring it to a total of $3.5 million. We're doing the master plan now.

MS. WHALEN: It would be completed when?

MR. COCHRANE: When you always can tell the last big number. Really, probably September 2009, and then there's some tidying up after that.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, 2009.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, but $3.5 million over that period.

MS. WHALEN: Aldershot Elementary is another one that I've been asked about.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. Aldershot is one of the ones on the list coming up.

MS. WHALEN: Okay. No new news. I had heard as well from the francophone school board, particularly from parents here in HRM, and they are concerned about the tremendous growth they've seen in enrolment. Very close to the Clayton Park riding is the Beaubassin school, and they have portables on-site now to house the kids. They're disappointed because there's no sign in your announcement last week or any indication they will be looked at. Can you give an update for the francophone community?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. They call it the Bedford high school. It was not on the school board's list they submitted to us for the 2003 list. It is on their list that the School Capital Construction Committee is considering now for the future.

I had been to Beaubassin, and it is crowded. Of course, the issue becomes children going from Beaubassin to Carrefour, and is that an inhibitor of children continuing French first-language training? The board of course contends it is, and we have a tendency to agree. What we're looking at is what the future would hold in Bedford and what implications that has on the program delivery at Carrefour. We do have some money in the budget for renovations at Carrefour and, of course, if we're going to look at a change, then we would want to look at that as well.

We did make an accommodation which had to be done by the department to put the portables onto Beaubassin because it is a P3 school, so we had to negotiate with the owner, and that's all tidied up. There's no question, their priority in the last list was Rive-Sud, which we've now accommodated. Their new list has the Bedford high school on it, as there is one for the Halifax Regional School Board as well.

MS. WHALEN: Just one supplementary on that. There had been difficulties in the idea of bringing any portables on-site for a P3 school. Does that open the door for other P3 schools to expand with portables.

MR. COCHRANE: We've made a deal with them and we're prepared as we find a pressure. O'Connell Drive was another one that at one time they wanted, but when we finally got it done they said, no, the numbers have changed. It does open the door for us to negotiate with the operator. Most of the P3 operators have been quite accommodating with regard to portables, but they are obviously expecting compensation, obviously, which we have to cover.

MS. WHALEN: It's been covered now, there is a precedent.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you. My time is up, am I right?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. Ms. Streatch.

MS. STREATCH: Thank you. Mr. Cochrane, I just have a couple of quick questions.

MR. COCHRANE: You know with me there are no quick answers.

MS. STREATCH: Okay. I'm learning that.

MR. COCHRANE: The committee realizes that.

MS. STREATCH: You mentioned that perhaps Rive-Sud wasn't in the right community. I'm not trying to get information that's not public knowledge yet, but I'm wondering who would make that final decision where Rive-Sud might go, and is there a community being proposed?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. The board and the community will form an SST, and now that we've announced there's going to be a new school, they will come back with three sites they will recommend to the minister. TPW will do the assessment for us and then the minister will pick one of the sites.

MS. STREATCH: Any indication or whisper about where they might like it?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, they've told me where they would like to have it.

MS. STREATCH: Are they going western or are they going eastern?

MR. COCHRANE: My sense of direction is not great, but I think it's this way. (Interruption) West? Okay.

MS. STREATCH: Interesting. Okay, that's the first one. We're doing pretty good for time.

My second question is certainly very specific to Chester-St. Margaret's. I'm wondering, in general, if the dollars projected for renovations for a school fall short, does the Department of Education adjust the dollars or the project?

MR. COCHRANE: We try to do both. Sometimes the expectation is, wow, we're going to get our renovations so we're going to get everything new by 2005 standards. Well, if you have 750 square foot classrooms, the renovation will more likely be on a 750 square foot classroom as opposed to the 900 square feet we meet now. If we have the room in the building we will often take three classrooms and make it two. So we always have to look at what they want, how much money we have, and then we try to come to some accommodation, what is reasonable. We have adjusted numbers upward; we have adjusted designs downward.

I can tell you a good example, I was just down in Centre, because there is a bit of controversy about Centre school and so on, and I went through the building and it is a big ramshackle building that used to have a lot more people than it does now. They wanted in their design a cafeteria built outside the building, and when I talked to them I asked how many empty classrooms do you have now and they admitted to three. When I say "admitted to", schools have a tendency to grow into space. I always make the analogy, which is somewhat colourful, if you worked at home all the time and wore a sweatsuit, it won't be long before you probably grow into it. Teachers are huge consumers of space, which is good;

however, I said you have three empty classrooms, which would be 2,100 square feet, it would be much more economical for us to renovate inside the building to make a cafeteria than it would be to build on, and they agreed with that.

So those are the discussions that you have. There is an expectation, but you have to adjust those according to the money, and also the practicality of it.

MS. STREATCH: I guess the specific school was CAMS, Chester Area Middle School. In the 2000 wish list from the school board they had requested a new school to the tune of $8.9 million and the decision was made for a $4.5 million renovation, and I now understand that there is some concern that that will fall short of the project that was planned for there.

MR. COCHRANE: We will take a look at that request and see if there is an accommodation into the design that can be made, or if there is an unreal expectation, or whether we underestimated the cost.

MS. STREATCH: Excellent. Thank you. My last question goes to what my colleague, the member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley brought up. I'm concerned about a domino effect. While I'm very excited to get the new western HRM high school that will fall in my area, I am concerned when I look through the HRSB's wish list for 2005, that contingent upon is my concern because I have two schools that are projected for closure, and of those two elementary schools that are projected for closure, Shatford Memorial and East St. Margaret's, now one has already been removed from the potential closure list. The other one is still on the potential closure list and we are going through the review process right now. So my concern is, if this is HRSB's wish list and everything being what it is, we have to not only justify, but we certainly have to rationalize - is it inevitable that those schools will have to close in order to accommodate for the new constructions?

MR. COCHRANE: Not necessarily. If we agreed with the concept of a new one, the size would be the flexible part of it. If we agreed that there needed to be a new one and Shatford, for example, didn't close, we would look at the size of that school, what it would be. So we would take a look at that, but they are way ahead of the process obviously - if they are looking at the closure process now, which they are, and we are probably looking six or seven years out if we did announce it, we would look at the size of that school based upon the circumstances the day we announce it.

MS. STREATCH: Great. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Mr. Taylor, you have about five minutes.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, just a general question about the decommissioning process of a school that has been closed. It seems to me if you look around

the province, you find that - I guess I will ask you the question, is there a rigid process because I'm concerned that many of our boards are still carrying - you talk about excess, it all comes down to capacity and square footage, are you concerned that there are too many schools that are still the responsibility of the boards (Interruptions) Yes. What are you doing to kind of . . .

MR. COCHRANE: We have had some really good discussions with a couple of the boards. There are some tough decisions to make and sometimes, interestingly enough - what we do with the school by the way, a school that was built before 1983, when we close it we give it back, as is, to the municipality and we have had a couple who have sent the keys back to us and we've had a debate, and they've been rather interesting. A couple I would love not to give back because I would love to have the land and sell it and reinvest. There are a couple in Halifax I would love to get my hands on. However, they give it back to the municipality. Some of the boards keep them for adult education facilities and I would prefer, if we could, to have those in existing buildings that have other students in as long as you keep a separation because once you keep a building that's not occupied by students, it's very expensive, but it depends on the circumstance, the location.

For example, St. Pat's-Alexandra has a school part with children and the old part is a resource centre for teachers. So as long as there are children in the building, that makes sense. If the children go somewhere else, then the whole thing should be vacated and we should move that somewhere else. We really are concerned and we keep a pretty good track on what kind of space boards are keeping that aren't occupied by students and they should be the first place you get out of.

MR. TAYLOR: Exactly, and I think there's still more work to be done here.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, definitely.

MR. TAYLOR: As well, I want to go back again to the school closure process and this belief or misbelief that, you know, bigger is better. I'm wondering why it seems we've shifted - "we" being, I guess, the Department of Education and the school boards - from what used to be a process, or a process as I understood it, where the department would carry out a needs-based assessment. That used to be kind of the buzzword that always was used regarding the physical building envelope. The architects or the engineers come in, and they would make that decision. Now I'm finding out that in some cases - and maybe not all - the community is being left with that responsibility at some expense and I'm just wondering if there's any hard and fast rule regarding a needs-based assessment. Does the board, does the department, does the community, have that responsibility from your perspective?

MR. COCHRANE: The board would know best about their catchment areas and their populations and their costs associated with carrying that building. If it was something they were looking at for a new capital construction, for example, we would do very quickly the

assessment of whether it was worth reinvesting in or whether it wasn't, but the board would be the best group to look at a building and say is it where we need it, is there, you know, capacity here that we can utilize or do we get out of it. Our involvement would be if it comes on their list for renovation, repair or expansion.

MR. TAYLOR: But, you see, the boards, from my observations regarding school closures and that whole question of capacity and square footage and, you know, enrolment is declining, I think we all acknowledge that enrolments have generally declined other than a certain few cases and, you know, it all comes down to money and economics, but the budget has always increased from year to year to year. So let's not have anybody misbelieve that because we close schools, because enrolments are declining, because there are less teachers in the system or potentially going to be, that the taxpayer somehow is going to save money because it's just not the case. Would you agree?

MR. COCHRANE: You're right, every board budget has gone up significantly in the last number of years and we look at what we call critical issues and if there's a teachers' salary increase, we fund it and so on. Boards are always trying to look, I guess, at a way of taking their money and doing something different with it. I guess, you know, in many cases if they look at a facility that they're paying an inordinate amount of money to maintain it or to staff it, they certainly have some reflection on that and that's up to them.

The only adjustment we make of a negative nature that we have done in the last number of years is if there's a significant enrolment decline, we will adjust the number of staff that we pay for because, you know, they're not there, and that's the only one. We haven't reduced for heat, or lights, or square footage, or any of that, but boards have to keep taking a look at how much they have and where they can put it. It's a balance. It's not easy but, nonetheless, with our rapidly declining enrolment they have to constantly take a look at what kind of maintenance they're doing on buildings and facilities.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to apologize that something totally flew by me, I did not see it. It was in a different format than what I had seen when the school board put forward the recommendations in January and it's the Eastern/Central HRM - Individual Projects and what you're calling the new Eastern/Central High School. So this looks totally different to me from what I've seen.

I just need to go on the record today to say that I have not heard of this scenario. I have not seen the studies and what I want to confirm is that what you're looking at doing is closing Eric Graves Junior High, moving those students to the old Cole Harbour High School site, which will now be a junior high site, and those students will be moving there along with Sir Robert Borden students and Ross Road students. Then the students will all be going to this new proposed Eastern/Central High School.

[10:30 a.m.]

So my questions today are involving community consultation, was the community consulted - and by that I mean community, school advisory councils, home and schools - and will more information be going to the community and when? You do mention in this report that a formal study of logistics will be needed and that this is one such scenario. So I'm not sure if it's a scenario why then if it's only a scenario, has it gone to Cabinet and the School Capital Construction Committee and it's in the minister's hands if it's a scenario. So it's a scenario in the hands of the minister, I guess.

So just questions revolving around that and I do apologize again, that totally, I did not see it. It's in a different format than what I expected. I was looking for information on individual schools and it's just sort of in there, Eric Graves, which is one of the schools in my area.

MR. COCHRANE: It's really a response to the question of if you build a new Eastern Passage High School, what do you do with your existing capacity in Cole Harbour? There could be a whole series of scenarios, one of which I've heard - and this is not what's going to happen - is that instead of spending $8 million at Prince Andrew, you could take the Prince Andrew population, backfill into Cole Harbour, backfill into Dartmouth High, avoid the $8 million and put your money in the other facilities to upgrade them. So there are as many scenarios as there are people. Now, what makes the difference between what's done and what's not . . .

MS. MASSEY: I've got to interrupt. Did you just say one of the other scenarios is to not spend the $8 million at PA, or if we do this scenario that's what's going to happen?

MR. COCHRANE: No, this scenario here, the $8 million is still spent at PA.

MS. MASSEY: Okay.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, you see, because they found another way to backfill the space at Cole Harbour and we would expect them to fill up existing - and it's good space, it's not like it's bad space, it's good space at Cole Harbour. So we would expect before we built somewhere else that they would backfill and what they're looking at now is what other facilities do they have that may be less than redeemable and what could they do to backfill the space in the most efficient and economic way, not only from the capital point of view, but also from the pedagogical point of view of junior high school students and where they might be and so on.

So what will happen, the committee will say, yes, we're interested in that and they'll do a projection, but it will be far enough out that the board will have to do a significant amount of demographic work, as I referred to the member earlier, with regard to the

population and the growth. Then they'll have to go through the whole public consultation discussion.

MS. MASSEY: So there has been no public consultation?

MR. COCHRANE: No, not at all.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Over the last eight years or so there has been a sad history in Nova Scotia - the politicization of new school construction starting with the Liberals and their P3 program. They thought they had hit the pot of gold, they could build as many schools as they wanted and didn't have to add it to their deficit, but the bubble burst later when the Auditor General said, well, no, you can't really account for it that way.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right.

MR. STEELE: So we ended up with schools more expensive than they would have been, lack of control over the use of the buildings, and it all got added to the deficit and the debt anyway. Then the Conservatives did it a different way and the last time the same trio appeared before the Public Accounts Committee, it was April 2003. Although we didn't know it at the time, it was 11 weeks before an election was called and I asked you, I begged you to release the list.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right, yes.

MR. STEELE: Both the school board's list and the Department of Education's list and your answer at the time was, no, you couldn't. What happened, of course, was it was in the two or three or four weeks leading up to the election, which ended up being called in early July. The government made a series of school construction announcements - clearly using school construction as leverage in the election that was called just a few weeks later. So I feel not only has school construction been politicized, but I feel the Department of Education has allowed itself to be drawn into that, and there is a way to avoid it and that is public lists. Now, at the time I think your view was that you couldn't even release the school board priority list. Now we have the HRSB list before us today and you said you have the rest with you.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. STEELE: Is it now your position and the Department of Education's position that these lists given by school boards to the Department of Education can be and should be routinely released every year?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, we have no problem with that. The boards made their lists public internally within the board. It doesn't get the attention, perhaps - HRM probably does, but the rest of them don't necessarily. What we learned from the time that we were at committee before was that those lists should be revealed, which we have done. The only part that I can't give you is what I would take to Cabinet as advice to Cabinet. That's where the school capital construction list is. The situation I was in at that time, I hadn't been there.

MR. STEELE: I don't want anybody to misunderstand what I'm saying here. I do think Cabinet and the ministers should have the last word - that's their job. They have the provincial overview, they get to decide. But the accountability is the public knowing what lists they go into Cabinet with so the public can compare the list that goes into Cabinet and the list that comes out of Cabinet so people can say Cabinet shifted around, please explain, minister. Then at least the minister is accountable.

Right now the situation is that perfect combination where nobody knows what list is going into Cabinet so the minister doesn't have to explain anything about the decisions that he either recommended to Cabinet or Cabinet made against his recommendation. Why can't the Department of Education's priority list for school capital construction - in other words, the report of the School Capital Construction Committee - why can that not be public in advance? Why should it not be public?

MR. COCHRANE: At this point, it's advice to Cabinet. You know and I know the rules associated with advice to Cabinet and the FOIPOP rules and so on. What we've done, we've given the list of what the boards have sent us.

I want to talk about the process a little bit, in fairness to the people who make these decisions, member, because the school . . .

MR. STEELE: Okay, we went through the same thing with Public Accounts where I don't want my time being chewed up with an explanation of the process which I already understand.

MR. COCHRANE: Let me give you a quick answer.

MR. STEELE: Okay.

MR. COCHRANE: The school boards give us lists. There are 120 school board members around the province. They have a discussion, they have their own politics - believe it or not - and they come up with a list. We then have a School Capital Construction

Committee which is made up of someone from the NSSBA - which is the school boards association - from Transportation and Public Works, Education, Finance, professionals that sit down and say, what can we do and what do we need? Then we take it to Cabinet and say this is the recommendation, what we're recommending. And you're right, Cabinet ultimately has the right to make a change in that. If they want to make a change in it, that's their choice, they're accountable for that. Then we put the list out and we start the process.

The fact that it came very close last time was a concern, I'm sure to them - it was interesting because the PR they got around the community college was great. It was six months before, but the PR on the other one, because it was late - one of the debates was Cabinet had to come to the conclusion of what the total amount of money was they wanted to spend in the Tangible Capital Assets. That's all part of it. There's a whole bunch of people making decisions with regard to recommendations associated with it.

MR. STEELE: One of the points made by the Auditor General in his 2001 report was the Department of Education had not well documented the criteria against its judging school construction projects. The department claimed in 2003, and says again today, you do have pre-established criteria. Is that list a public document, the list of criteria?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, and I can table it if you would like today.

MR. STEELE: Okay. Let me just note then that if the school board's list is public, if the criteria are public, it still escapes me why the Department of Education's list shouldn't also be public.

Let me move on to the question of deferred maintenance, which is a very bureaucratic term for the degree to which our schools are deteriorating. A few years ago it was common to refer to the figure of $500 million, that our schools had a deferred maintenance issue of $500 million. That's the amount of money that would have to be spent just to bring them back up to scratch. Today, in 2006, what's the department's current estimate of the amount of deferred maintenance?

MR. COCHRANE: We're probably just holding our own.

MR. STEELE: So you think it's roughly $500 million?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, when a new one is built and three close or something, then it does shift significantly. We have a number of buildings over 50 years of age and of course that deferred maintenance issue would become more and more significant as they get older. So we're probably maintaining, it's not getting ahead of us, but we're probably starting to nibble away at it.

MR. STEELE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we're pretty well done on our 10 minutes for each caucus. We have about another 15 minutes so if each caucus will take five minutes, starting with the . . .

MR. STEELE: We've just had our third round of 10, so the other caucus would get another round of 10.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, it would be another round of five.

MR. TAYLOR: Let's give them a break.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We do have some other committee business that we have to do. We have agenda setting and that sort of thing so . . .

MR. DEVEAUX: If you want to give them five, that's fine with us. (Laughter)

MR. CHAIRMAN: That will give each caucus five. (Interruptions)

MS. WHALEN: I think it should be 10. Let's have a vote on 10.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We don't have time for 10. We have 20 minutes left and you're looking for 30 minutes. We have five minutes each and then we have . . .

MS. WHALEN: We began with the NDP caucus. So there's only 20 minutes left, if we have 10 each.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The reason we do the 10 minutes, that was the way I thought we've been doing it for a number of years, is to give each member of the committee 10 minutes each to speak. So we've all gone our 10 minutes. Each person has had 10 minutes here. Now we have five minutes each. (Interruption) It's not a new system, we've been doing that system since I've been here, I can assure you of that. We have five minutes, now which caucus wants to start? The Liberal caucus. Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: Okay, I'm going to share my time with my colleague. Just a quick question, I asked earlier about the Porters Lake-Lakeview School and the badly-needed upgrades there. When the renovations are completed to that school, will it be able to house more students?

MR. COCHRANE: Unless the projections are such to add classrooms on, it probably won't. I think it's just a question of renovation inside.

MR. COLWELL: Actually, it's going to add a gymnasium and stuff, so it's more than inside - $4.7 million - so exactly what's going to be done?

MR. CHARLES CLATTENBURG: A new gym and renovations to the cafeteria.

MR. COCHRANE: But not holding more pupils, better accommodation for the existing population.

MR. COLWELL: Okay, even with the growth in the area?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, if it is and we go through and find that, it's the logical place we would add, but the board would have to look at what other space they had and where the population growth is. But we would certainly look at that depending upon what happens in those areas.

MR. COLWELL: Diana.

MS. WHALEN: I would just like to ask, did you say you would table with us the criteria for setting priorities?

MR. COCHRANE: The criteria's here and it's all by a percentage. We can certainly table this.

MS. WHALEN: I think that's very important. It would have been useful perhaps at the start of the meeting to have had that rather than at the end, but I do appreciate receiving it. Again, I would say that I believe the entire list should be made public so we can see how you've integrated the eight school boards. I know we'll get a great, huge pile of paper today that shows the eight school boards, but obviously you have many people in the department who have sifted through that and have made priorities and we need to see them. That would be very helpful.

On a question of new schools, is it true the new schools tend to give more space for the children - larger classrooms and more square footage per child?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: Speaking to some of the school boards, they say that actually, as much as they are delighted with new schools, there is a higher cost to operate. Is there truth to that?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. Most of them, as much as they are energy efficient - Halifax West is a good example, now there was an issue with the meter there that we had adjusted, there was a question about how much that was costing us, but with all the computers, all the technology is fairly expensive as far as consumption. We are probably running more efficient systems, but there are just more parts to the system that you require, particularly electricity.

MS. WHALEN: You mentioned earlier that when a new school opens, you don't claw back anything from a closure of another school, but I'm wondering, do you take into account the higher costs of operating and therefore adjust?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, there would be a calculation. Just as an interesting one, in the Strait, there were 17 schools. They closed a bunch and built a bunch and ended up with 10 schools and we added 100,000 square feet to the capacity. Because huge public areas crush space in high schools particularly, classrooms instead of being 700 to 750, are now 900 to 950.

MS. WHALEN: Time is limited, so while we are talking about school construction, I think it's important to look at your criteria of what you consider to be necessary components for a school at each level. I know you said it for elementary, junior high and high school. It has to be said that when you build your high schools, there is always community input, even the junior high schools wanting to have facilities or aspects of the school enlarged, or the - I forget what the . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Enhancements?

MS. WHALEN: Your standard code though is not sufficient. The elements that we put in as a standard school, are bare bones, I think, and I'm thinking particularly in communities across this province, communities have raised money for theaters, which I think in the older schools like St. Pat's and QE were provided as part of the original schools and I think it needs to be challenged that that should be reviewed and looked at in light of these 71 schools that have now been built in the last - less than 10 years, I would say. So are we doing anything to look at what we consider to be these bare bone's criteria?

MR. COCHRANE: We just changed the size of an elementary school gym. We just increased it because we designed it for the public school program delivery, so we made it a bit bigger. There is always some discussion in flexibility. Citadel, our biggest high school gym that we would normally build is 8,400 square feet, but because we didn't have to rebuild the fields and we made a deal with the municipality, we made the first gym, which we are building, 10,500. So we made the accommodation in that case. The second gym, of course, is a debate between the community, but we are doing the design. We will heat it, we will light it and maintain it.

[10:45 a.m.]

MS. WHALEN: I think partnerships are an important thing, but I look again at the Halifax West school and the HRM - at the time I was member of council - donated the land to the province. It gave the land, which is not the normal process in this province. So the land and the servicing to the cost of $3 million or $4 million, at least - well, the land is worth millions, it's 16 acres. That alone was given and yet the gym that's in there isn't sufficient

for any community use whatsoever. It's a standard high school gym but it's fully utilized by 1,600 students at the school. So I don't think it was really a good trade-off, although the community, of course, had to have a new school and that was the right thing to do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, your time has expired. We have another five minutes for the PC caucus.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was wondering regarding new school construction for Stewiacke and East Stewiacke, do you have at your disposal any particular update on that new elementary school for the town?

MR. COCHRANE: It's on time and I've got those numbers. As you know, it's going to open in September 2008.

MR. TAYLOR: Yes.

MR. COCHRANE: This particular year, 2006-07, we have another $300,000 in the budget to start; $3.5 million next year; $3.9 million; a total of $8 million with regard to that one and it's scheduled, when we announced it, it's scheduled still for completion.

MR. TAYLOR: Now, that seems to very much make sense although the people out in East Stewiacke were a little bit reticent when they learned that the students would be bused into Stewiacke, but being the good people that all the people are in Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, they agreed to that because of a number of factors. Primarily it made a lot of sense, but I'm just wondering, they were going to have, again, two schools that are subsequently going to have to go through some type of decommissioning process and I had hoped that perhaps by that time we would have something in place that's maybe a little more rigid and less fluid than it is today because if we're going to be carrying three schools when, in fact, we should only be carrying one, it certainly wouldn't be very efficient and that's what you're going to have. Regarding MRHS, the new high school, do you have information somewhat similar to . . .

MR. COCHRANE: To which, the Musquodoboit Valley?

MR. TAYLOR: Musquodoboit Rural High, yes.

MR. COCHRANE: It's still on time and it's going to have - if I've got it here, here we go - it's scheduled to open in September 2007 and in this particular budget year, 2006-07, we'll be spending $5 million, and $6.5 million in the next year and then the clean-up year is $271,000. It should open in September 2007.

MR. TAYLOR: Now, there was in that particular area with the Musquodoboit Valley Education Centre, the elementary and the Natural Resources Education Centre, there was a concern with water. Charles, was that rectified?

MR. CLATTENBURG: Right now we're looking at extending the municipal water out to service both schools as part of this project.

MR. TAYLOR: I thought there was a question about capacity, Charles, in that system for Middle Musquodoboit?

MR. CLATTENBURG: We've been working with the municipality and they're looking at upgrading the supply of the system and that will allow us to extend it. That's why I'm saying we're working . . .

MR. TAYLOR: Are there any timetable targets?

MR. CLATTENBURG: We're hoping to be able to do that this Summer.

MR. TAYLOR: This Summer, yes. The Musquodoboit Education Centre, is that pretty much near capacity at this particular point?

MR. CLATTENBURG: I don't know. I couldn't tell you the capacity.

MR. TAYLOR: I know in looking at the long-term projections that the Halifax Regional School Board has, we see that a couple of potential schools might close and they're expected to go to one of our newest schools, but from what I'm hearing we better be very careful there because I understand that at least some of the classes are right at the max now in terms of space. So there may be plans to perhaps make additions. It's so far off that perhaps, Charles, I won't belabour you with it today.

MR. COCHRANE: The enrolment they're looking at by 2011 would be 119 students. This year it has 160. So that begins to be a signal.

MR. TAYLOR: Yes, okay. Just one quick question, Mr. Chairman, regarding the transportation of elementary students - and I mean Primary and Grade 1 for example - does the department have any hard and fast rule or guideline, I guess is what I'm looking for, because there have been studies allegedly claiming that the longer a child in elementary school is on a bus, the less educated they become, quite frankly, is what has been put forward. A councillor, I believe up in River Hebert, brought that forward. I don't know what the source was, but it seems to make sense. So I just wonder does the department have any, you know . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Criteria?

MR. TAYLOR: Yes.

MR. COCHRANE: Well, the board has distances but, of course, they all change when you're in rural areas because your traffic patterns . . .

MR. TAYLOR: Everything changes I'm afraid.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. We try not to have a child, if we can help it, more than an hour on a bus and that's general, but there are some circumstances depending where people choose to live that that can't be, but we generally try roughly an hour and that's a lot.

MR. TAYLOR: It is, yes.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, I don't disagree.

MR. TAYLOR: It's two hours, you know, sometimes these little fellows are getting up . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Taylor.

MR. TAYLOR: Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I got carried away.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The last five minutes goes to the NDP caucus. Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Thank you. I'm going to return to the question I left on and that was this question of deferred maintenance which always concerns me because although the school capital construction is, you know, the sexy part of this topic, building a new school, the fact is that the deferred maintenance affects every student every day because it's the degree to which the school in which they're learning isn't kept up to scratch.

Now, back in 2002, the Auditor General pointed out that the current funding system ". . . does not motivate Regional School Boards to invest in preventive maintenance. The Department of Education does not currently have an adequate process in place to monitor Regional School Boards' performance . . . Regional School Boards are not currently receiving all the information required . . . A comprehensive planning process for property services does not currently exist. There is a lack of information available to management to use in the planning, monitoring and assessment of property services operations."

Now, when I put that to you in your appearance before the Public Accounts Committee in April 2003, your response was to say that what the Auditor General was saying was correct. You said, "So there will be changes, and have to be changes, and we're working on that now." So my question to you is, since you appeared before the Public Accounts

Committee in April 2003, what changes have you made to address those very serious concerns raised by the Auditor General?

MR. COCHRANE: The Auditor General had made a series of 12 recommendations associated with the property and property services. Eight of those have been implemented. We've made the adjustments to cover eight of the 12 recommendations. In a number of other areas we have some committees working between the department and the board with regard to maintenance programs. We are looking at and we have been developing a maintenance computer system software program that we've been working on, and that will make it better. I think there's much better communication than there was before.

One of the things we have done is we've given boards more responsibility with regard to the additions and alterations, that sometimes it's not TPW staff who necessarily monitor that and put it into place, the board actually does. So we've involved the boards more in the whole allocation of our resources and their decision where to spend it and so on in a particular project, but eight of the 12 have been recommended and, again, I think there's probably a better relationship there. The MegaMation is the software program. It was introduced and it wasn't fully implemented in 2002. It varied from board to board, but that has been levelled out and there's a provincial structure to that now.

MR. STEELE: Now, four out of 12 recommendations are not being followed. Is that because the department has no intention of following them or hasn't put the process in place?

MR. COCHRANE: No, the odd one we don't.

MR. STEELE: You don't have these specifically.

MR. COCHRANE: I don't know which ones of the four are outstanding, but we have committees in place for a couple of them.

MR. STEELE: One of the things the Auditor General pointed out was that the school boards didn't have the motivation to address the most serious maintenance issues because if a school deteriorated to the point where it had to be replaced, the province would pick up the tab. But if they wanted to spend money on maintenance, they had to pick up the tab. Has that very basic problem been resolved?

MR. COCHRANE: I think you saw the example of us going back on Halifax and saying you've given us one report, we need you to answer these questions and come forward. There's no question that if somebody wanted to be less than upfront, they could perhaps defer spending something and make it worse, therefore, we come forward. But I think school boards have a legitimate concern about the outside envelope of the building, the air quality, all those issues. I don't suspect that their motives are to do anything less than honourable.

MR. STEELE: It really doesn't have to do with motives, it has to do with the way the system is set up. Money drives decision making. Can I take it from your answer that in fact there has been no change to that? The motivations are still where they were back in 2003, or in 2002 when the Auditor General reported on it?

MR. COCHRANE: There's a lot more reporting structure and when we give them money we have an expectation. We also have been very responsive to boards having lists of materials, at the end of the year, we've given out $1 million or $2 million to try to deal with some of those individual maintenance problems.

I think in Halifax West when they knew it was likely to be major renovations or a new one, there wasn't a lot of money spent, but I don't think you would expect them to spend money in a situation that was going to change completely.

But I really think they're sincere. I think everyone focuses on our children and the schools to make them the best we possibly can. I would be very surprised if a board had a motive to go out and do something that would not be good for kids.

MR. STEELE: Does the Department of Education and school boards regularly monitor air quality in our schools?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. We have a person on our staff who works with the boards and they're out constantly looking at issues associated with that. We had a couple of remedial issues recently and we've done the air quality work and so on right behind it.

MR. STEELE: Are the results reported to the parents?

MR. COCHRANE: We probably could. It's not secret. There was one a while ago, Central Colchester Junior High, and we went up and did the testing and recognized what needed to be done, the board is taking some remedial action.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we're pretty well out of time. Mr. Cochrane and your staff, we thank you. Do you have a closing statement, very quickly?

MR. COCHRANE: Only that we appreciate being here. It's not an accurate science, we do the best we can. We try to respond to communities' demands and needs. Boards are an integral part of that. It was interesting, the comment about a political decision. We take recommendations from boards and try to do the best we can for the children in our schools. Ultimately, it's a Cabinet decision, but we do take the information from boards, the research, the studies, the work that has been done, the demographics - all those things into consideration. I think, as a province, not just in the last five years but over the last number of years, we have come a long way in reinvesting in our infrastructure and making it a better place for kids, which is what it's really all about. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for being here today. We do have another item on our agenda, the agenda setting of the committee, where we want to go from here. We don't have much time, we have about three minutes.

The next meeting is on February 28^th, so what is the wish of the committee?

MR. COLWELL: Is there a list of potential things that we're interested in seeing?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think it was sent out, it was part of your package. I think it was sent out back in December. Today was supposed to be our agenda-setting meeting day, you can only do so much with the time we have. Ms. Massey.

MS. MASSEY: Were there any common ones? That's what we thought staff was going to do, I thought, see if there were common ones on all three request lists and then I thought somebody was going to come forward with that? I could be wrong.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Each caucus was asked to send over anything they wanted to add to the list. Nobody has done that.

MR. COLWELL: What's on the list right now?

MR. CHAIRMAN: There's some culture stuff, lighthouse divestiture if you're interested in that, the (Interruptions) Education is still on the list, the Black Educators Association, Council on African Canadian Education, the Black Learners, the BLAC Report, there are some labour issues. So what is the wish of the committee?

MS. MASSEY: I don't remember doing anything on culture and I'm the Tourism and Culture Critic now so I want to do something on culture.

MR. COLWELL: Tourism and Culture museum funding.

MS. MASSEY: Yes. Good place to start. No. 1?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, is that the wish of the committee?

MR. COLWELL: Could I maybe suggest that at the next committee meeting we go through our list and we make sure we get anything we want added to it.

[11:00 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: You can't have it both ways. We had decided in November that this January meeting was going to be an agenda-setting meeting. That was changed and you saw we didn't have enough time or it appeared that we didn't have enough time, the

members wanted to question the people from the Department of Education. So we can't have it both ways. If we are going to set an agenda, and we are going to have witnesses in to question, we have to have the time to be able to do it. So, anyway, today, as I said, was supposed to be the agenda setting. We went away from that. So here we are, it's 11:00 a.m.

MR. TAYLOR: Just a question, Mr. Chairman, under the labour heading, I see Labour Standards Tribunal. Who submitted that and what was the intention there?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe that came from the NDP caucus.

MR. TAYLOR: What was the thought there, do you guys know who you were wanting to bring in?

MS. MASSEY: I didn't put that on. It came from caucus, so I'm not sure exactly which member put that on there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think Frank Corbett, maybe. I'm not sure.

MS. MASSEY: It sounds like Frank.

MR. STEELE: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I believe that what he would have been getting at is the very substantial backlog and the inability of the Labour Standards Tribunal to properly service its clientele, and I believe Mr. Corbett wanted to bring them forward so they could explain what they are doing about that problem.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. So that's two. Which one do you want first, the Labour Standards Tribunal, or museums? Labour Standards?

MS. STREATCH: The Status of Women looks kind of interesting, Mr. Chairman. We had some discussion this morning about women around the province and certainly I wouldn't like to see that too far. On the last page, the Status of Women, Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, funding and program delivery.

MS. MASSEY: I thought we already decided that we were going to do the culture one first?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, we didn't really, it was brought up. There was one caucus that brought that up. There was another caucus that brought up the Labour Standards Tribunal.

MS. MASSEY: Can we vote on that then?

MR. CHAIRMAN: What is the wish of the committee?

MR. TAYLOR: Can we do both? Three, I don't care.

MS. WHALEN: Can I ask a question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure.

MS. WHALEN: Is it your intention today just to pick the next one, or do you want to pick several?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I mean, we should have a couple at least, or have another day that we set an agenda.

MR. TAYLOR: Why don't we do that, Mr. Chairman, take a day, like after an ABC session, so we can do it right? Why don't we do it at our next meeting in February? Are you okay with that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Take a separate day.

MS. WHALEN: Actually, many committees do it that way, take a separate time to do it, so I think that is fine, but I think you want to have somebody lined up for next . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's what we did today and we didn't have time.

MS. WHALEN: Well, Mr. Chairman, I understand what you are saying but there is time to select one for the February 28^th meeting. Is that the next date you said? I think perhaps we should do that and certainly set a time when we can meet. I think it should be outside of our regular meetings, just as it is with Public Accounts and other committees because we have work to do. We have a long list of people to see here at this committee and that was the reason for having somebody in today, which I think is important, but we can certainly move ahead. I don't want, and I don't think the intent ever was, to hold back the agenda setting. Can we perhaps vote on the museum funding for February 28^th, and set a date for examining the other issues that we might want to look at?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is fine, yes.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, so that's it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So it's agreed then that the museum funding people will be in on February 28^th?

It is agreed.

Okay, what about a day for setting agendas?

MR. COLWELL: We should do that prior to February 28^th.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, there is the issue of people having to travel as well.

MS. WHALEN: Perhaps we should do it on a Wednesday then, when people are here for caucus.

MR. TAYLOR: If the committee agrees, why couldn't we possibly have our witnesses in for a specified time and then do our agenda, subsequent to that? Like maybe have them for an hour, in the interest of getting an agenda set.

MS. MASSEY: Can't we just take a half-hour at the next ABC meeting and set our agenda then? Say, take a half-hour to set our agenda. We will all do our homework and come in with a list.

MR. TAYLOR: I don't care. We should do it one day, really.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It would be best if we could. So, okay, we extend the time of the next meeting to 11:30 a.m.? That would give you the half-hour? Okay.

MS. WHALEN: Yes.

MR. TAYLOR: Sounds good. Very co-operative.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Motion to adjourn.

MS. WHALEN: So moved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The meeting is adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 11:05 a.m.]