HANSARD

and

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. David Wilson, Glace Bay (Chairman)

Hon. David Morse

Hon. Christopher d'Entremont

Mr. Chuck Porter

Mr. Charles Parker

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Percy Paris

Mr. Michel Samson

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Ms. Joan Massey was replaced by Ms. Marilyn More.]

[Mr. Michel Samson was replaced by Mr. Leo Glavine.]

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Legislative Counsel

WITNESSES

Nova Scotia Community College

Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair - President

Ms. Pamela Reid - Chief Learning Officer

Mr. Bob Shedden - Vice-President, Administration Services

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2008

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. David Wilson (Glace Bay)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could we bring things to order. Good morning, there are more members on the way, but we have enough for a quorum so we can start. We'll introduce our guests briefly but, just for their information, I wanted to introduce ourselves first and then we'll deal with the agency, board and commission appointments.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall we deal first of all with our agencies, boards and commissions, please, if we can. If our guests will just bear with us, we've got a little bit of business to wrap up so we can give you more time.

Starting with the Department of Agriculture, Farm Loan Board. Mr. Morse.

HON. DAVID MORSE: Mr. Chairman, I'd be pleased to move the appointment of Leo Cox as a member of the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any further discussion on the question then? Would all those in favour - sorry, Ms. More.

MS. MARILYN MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just wondering, are there any maximum number of terms for these positions?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. Have we not dealt with that, that the maximum is two, is it not? You cannot be appointed for a third. It depends on the board, or which board or agency or commission it is. Mr. d'Entremont.

HON. CHRISTOPHER D'ENTREMONT: Thank you very much. As a former Minister of Agriculture, as far as I understand, the legislation that sets forth the Farm Loan Board does not have limitation on it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, not on the Farm Loan Board. Does that answer your question?

MS. MORE: Yes, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any further discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Department of Community Services, Early Childhood Development Round Table. Mr. d'Entremont.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Chairman, if I could, I'd like to put forward the name of Christine Lane as a member of the Early Childhood Development Round Table.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any further discussion? Ms. More.

MS. MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I realize that this applicant actually is on a provincial association but I notice that if she's appointed, there's no other member on that committee north of Truro. I'm just wondering if geographical representation was considered when the name was brought forward.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A good question. Mr. Morse.

MR. MORSE: As a former Minister of Community Services, I can tell you that it's not always that easy to get applicants, especially qualified applicants, so I'm not able to answer your question. But not all ABCs are sought after by the broader public.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If that doesn't answer your question, would you like - are you suggesting we make an inquiry as to whether or not that is the case?

MS. MORE: Not in this specific case - I think she has very good qualifications. It's just unusual to have a committee that only represents half the province, so just perhaps as a caution down the road. I'm not sure that it should interfere with this process.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Duly noted. Any further discussion? Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Thank you. I just wanted to point out that a couple of the current members' terms come up later this year, so maybe your raising it today and us discussing it means that the department will hopefully look for applicants who come from the other parts of the province, particularly northern. So I think it's a good thing to have raised.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any further discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers, Board of Examiners. Mr. Morse.

MR. MORSE: I'm going to start by prefacing this motion by saying this is another one of those ABCs where it's not easy to obtain qualified applicants. So with that comment, I'm very pleased to move Shanta Dhir as a member of the Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers, Board of Examiners.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any further discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board. Mr. d'Entremont.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to put forward the names of Edgar Samson and Roy J. Surette as members of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any further discussion? Ms. More.

MS. MORE: I think it's just a clerical error, but Mr. Samson - it indicates he's from Church Point, but I think he's actually from Petit de Grat.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: That's correct. He's from Richmond.

MS. MORE: So we have both ends of the province represented.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Knowing Mr. Samson, I know that he would want that clarified.

Is there any further discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Department of Justice, Human Rights Commission. Mr. Morse.

MR. MORSE: Yes, I would like to move that Eunice Harker be a commissioner of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any further discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, Peggy's Cove Commission. Mr. d'Entremont.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: I so move that Darrell Fralick be nominated as a member of the Peggy's Cove Commission.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any further discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

I think there are a couple of other business matters that we'll leave until the end of the meeting, and move on with our guests and our presenters here today from the Nova Scotia Community College. If I could ask you to introduce yourselves, please.

[The committee witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think our purpose in having you here today is to get an overview of what's happening at the Nova Scotia Community College, in terms of your operations and programs and so on. I take it that you have a presentation for us, which we'll follow with some questions from the members. So please, it's all yours.

DR. JOAN MCARTHUR-BLAIR: We are going to provide some information - about 10 minutes worth of information. A few of you will have seen some parts of this in different contexts over the last while.

Before I start, just to set a little bit of a context, the Nova Scotia Community College is part of a larger system of community colleges, institutes and university colleges across the

country. There are 150 across the country and we all undertake similar work, which is in the area of applied education, particularly in response to industry needs, local community industry needs, and national needs.

So with that context, when we look at the Nova Scotia labour force, there are many other aspects as well, but some of the influential aspects of the labour force in Nova Scotia are before you. We're going to talk about the single piece of work that we do because we intersect with all of these other areas, so we're going to talk about the Nova Scotia Community College.

Interestingly enough, that's a map of Nova Scotia - not that you would know that - showing 13 campuses. You have a copy of this in your handout and if you go to this one you will see that there's a map of Nova Scotia with - just provide me with two seconds of technical glitch here and we'll see if I right-click on this little interesting thing . . .

[9:15 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Our imaginations are quite vivid, so we can . . .

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Well, you're from all around the province so you can kind of stake your claim anywhere in this imaginary map and you'll find a campus of the Nova Scotia Community College - there are 13 campuses across the province. We are a provincial institution and everybody knows that, but it makes us quite unique amongst colleges in the country as well. Most jurisdictions have multiple colleges inside a province and we're a provincial jurisdiction. That provides us with a tremendous advantage in terms of being responsive to what our industries need.

Currently we have 25,000 students. Later you'll see a statistic - it's slightly over 9,900 full-time equivalent students. We take that statistic and turn them into equivalency, but in terms of registration we have 25,000 students this year.

We have 1,661 employees and to give you a sense of our rate of growth in both students and employees, I've been president coming up to almost three years and we had about 1,400 employees when I came and about 19,000 students. So that gives you a sense of how fast we're growing.

We have one of the largest centres for applied research in Canada and I'll talk about applied research a little bit later. We have 113 programs in five academic schools currently. We are slated to grow in the Fall another 500 students, and we'll talk about that a little bit later as well.

Interestingly enough, we are the youngest college in Canada. We are 12 years old, by the Community Colleges Act. We came out of a vocational system in Nova Scotia, as many colleges in Canada did, and we're very proud of those roots.

This is information that you have in your briefing book, but I want to spend just a second talking about our mission. Our mission is: Building Nova Scotia's economy and quality of life through education and innovation. This mission is actually entrenched in the Community Colleges Act and we take it right from the Community Colleges Act in almost these words. I think it really is, for us, our siren call when we get up in the morning and do our work. It's not enough for us to respond, it's not enough for us to think about the economy. It's part of our responsibility with our partners to actually build that economy and quality of life in our province. So it carves out a particular kind of mandate for us.

In 2005-06, we developed a new strategic plan and we developed a new vision, which is essentially: Education without boundaries. We realize - and these are some of the questions I'm sure you're going to ask us - Nova Scotia has issues of people who are underemployed and who need to access education part-time, virtually, in different kinds of ways. We need people to be able to start anywhere in post-secondary education and end up anywhere - come from university to college and from college to university. We have set this as one of our vision pieces for the future.

We did a new strategic plan in 2006, as I said, and very simply we asked ourselves to focus on three fundamental things that would allow us to meet the future of industry needs in Nova Scotia: learning, capacity, and future. In learning, we want to be the place every industry can go to meet its human resource needs. We know in reality that's a very complex thing to be able to do, but we walk in partnership with industry. We want to increase our capacity both from an infrastructure and an enrolment point of view - and I'll talk about enrolment a little bit later - and we want to be on the cutting edge of future ways in which education can be delivered.

We have five academic schools: School of Trades & Technology, School of Applied Arts & New Media, School of Business, School of Health and Human Services, and School of Access. Our greatest pressures from an enrolment point of view are in Trades and Technology, Health and Human Services, and Access. Interestingly enough, Access is still our fastest-growing school - Access, for people who don't know, is for people coming back to complete high school in order to go on to post-secondary education.

I think it's indicative of something that I'm sure you'll ask us about later, post-secondary education, statistically for Nova Scotia - currently we sit at 89 per cent of jobs requiring some post-secondary education. So if you think about access, it is a critical piece of our work because only 10 per cent of the population of Nova Scotia, within the next five years, will be able to have access to employment without post-secondary education.

We undertake a lot of customized training, specialty training for industry - everything from small HR needs to large industrial-based needs like partnerships with CGI around workforce development. Currently we have 450 courses on-line and that's a growing area for us and something we'll be recasting.

As I said earlier, we have one of the largest applied research centres at the college level in Canada - in fact, I think we are the largest in Canada. Applied research for us has a very basic endeavour. We work with industries to make those industries more efficient in the work that they do, so they come to us with specific research questions and we specialize in a couple of different ways.

Our applied research also involves our students - and everybody knows the story, I think, about the "Halifax injector" - Dr. Mendez at Dalhousie, the Brain Repair Centre project that our students built. Currently we have a student at the IT campus in the North End building a medical device for amputees that allows full articulation in a joint, versus the standard prosthetic which has a 90-degree articulation. This is an example of the kind of work we do in the medical area, in the scientific area, all of our work in geographic science. That actually is the basis of our applied research.

I wanted to answer a question that I was thinking you would ask us about, why are colleges involved in research at all? Why isn't this universities' work? If you look at this graph you see universities extraordinarily involved in pure and basic research, and a little bit involved in applied research, a little bit involved in technology development. But when you get to technology transfer and business operations, that's where the colleges begin to do their work. Extraordinarily powerful partnerships have been developed between NSCC and the universities in Nova Scotia to do exactly this work. They are in the business of pure research and we are in the business of applied research.

We're one of six colleges in Canada that can apply for NSERC and SSHRC, and for those people who don't live in the world of research, this is like winning the lottery for a college because these are doors that have been closed to colleges in Canada. We're now eligible for funding from all federal granting sources and this gives you a sense of the work that we've been doing over the last few years. We just received a $5 million AIF grant - Atlantic Innovation Fund grant - to do water resource management work across the province over the next five years.

Some of the areas in which we're doing applied research, all of this is directly industry-based and related to work. The precision agriculture work is extraordinary. It's small work by 50-foot square boxes - the ways in which you spray and pick, and climate information helps farmers do their work better.

Alternative energy, of course we're highly involved in wind, solar and tidal information. Along with Green Power Labs, Nova Scotia, we developed a solar map of Nova Scotia.

Everyone knows that we're a young institution and I thought it might be interesting for people to know kind of where we've gone over the last years since 1996. In 1996 we began the college, but in 2003 we developed a master plan which was approved by government; a $123 million build-out. I think one of the most powerful things about this piece for the college is that it has been supported by the politicians of every stripe and has made a huge difference for Nova Scotia. So we have spent, since that time, $45 million in the rural campuses; $49 million in the Waterfront Campus; $5 million on a new Transportation Centre which will open in the Fall; and $24 million coming up for the Centre for the Built Environment.

If you look at the enrolment below that, you'll see enrolment growth from 2003 to 2008-9. It's extraordinary how fast our enrolment is growing. When I spend time talking with young people about why they're coming to the Nova Scotia Community College, they talk about wanting applied education - they want education that is applied. We're looking at a group of people in Nova Scotia who previously did not access post-secondary education.

This year we have 9,922 full-time equivalent students and we know that 10,400 is not enough to meet the future demand in Nova Scotia. Our projected need is between 12,500 and 13,000 seats by 2013, so this growth isn't going to slow down any time soon. This gives you a sense of the completion of the different renovations we've done, for people who haven't been on all 13 campuses. Every campus has been renovated to come to a standard that matches the rest of the community colleges in our country. Many of you, of course, were at the Waterfront Building groundbreaking in March.

I want to turn now to some market trends and demographics, some things that I think are pushing and pulling on the ways in which we do work, and these are just the data sources. I've just put these two slides in so that you know where - or that slide in so you know where we're taking some of this information from.

I've got four or five points that are market trends and demographics. I think the first one is that there's a population shifting from rural to urban. Currently the college has 60 per cent of its programming in rural Nova Scotia and 40 per cent in metro. When we have grown to 12,500, we'll have 60 per cent in rural and 40 per cent in metro. We have made that commitment and because of that, we have tried to meet this challenge by creating targeted programming to sustain rural and small-town communities.

Rotating trades, some of you are familiar with that. We go into a small community and we put plumbing in place - it stays for two years, it leaves, and an electrical program goes in instead. We're doing that in health as well. We've started programming called "full

journey" where students stay with us three or four years and we work with local industry for them to attach to those students. When they're finished with us, they are trades-qualified journey-people, which means they can start a business in their area.

The declining P to 12 school population and retirement. We're trying to expand the skill base of the current workforce and attracting more youth directly from high school. I'll show you this stat of what happens to youth currently, in a minute.

Mr. Chairman, Pam just told me I've been speaking 10 minutes. With your indulgence, could I keep going another few?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Absolutely.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: One of the key issues that are facing us are the unique challenges to labour market success. So we're trying to work with what is typically called underemployed groups. They currently might be in the workforce, partially in the workforce, and we're targeting those groups to bring them fully into the economy.

To give you an example - and I think you have some of these statistics in your briefing book - the number of African-Nova Scotian students and the number of First Nations students has increased exponentially over the last couple of years. We have worked very hard to tailor our programming so that happens.

We've also started a project called Legacy Learning - Encore Career, you've heard in other places - and we're in the research phase now, to look at ways in which people can come back into the economy when they retire from the typical work that they do.

There's a tremendous challenge, I think, in Nova Scotia as it shifts from a resource-based economy, or a partially resource-based economy - if you agree with Richard Florida - to a creative economy. We're trying to target our programming to meet that creative economy. A lot of small businesses, a lot of interesting innovation work happening in Nova Scotia - we're trying to tailor our programming to be sharp and focused and well-timed so that our employers have what they need.

This is current enrolment growth to 2007 - I mentioned this earlier - which gives you a sense of where we've gone since 1997, and we're not finished yet. One of my goals, as president, and one of the college's goals is that no Nova Scotian who wishes to attend college gets turned away because the wait list is so large that we can't accommodate them. So we will continue to push the growth envelope.

This gives you a sense of enrolment growth by school and you'll see the obvious pressures in Trades and Technology in particular. I know that people will ask me later about out-migration of our trades workers - 91 per cent of our students are employed upon leaving

the college. Of that 91 per cent, 93 per cent are in the Province of Nova Scotia. We have very low out-migration.

[9:30 a.m.]

This is projected growth to 2008 - you're looking at next September. We'll grow about 500 students - actually, currently, we're probably looking at growing closer to about 700.

This just gives you a sense of the job picture in Nova Scotia and this is why our enrolment is increasing so rapidly. Take a look at the top couple of lines. The top line is Technical, Paraprofessional & Skilled Occupations, and the second line is Intermediate Occupations. These two lines essentially include everything the colleges do - business diplomas, trades and technology, health, engineering technologists - and these are the two fastest-growing lines in Nova Scotia. Our work is to keep up with this so that employers have what they need.

NSCC delivers programs required by employers for entry into almost 70 per cent of those top two lines. There's a little statistic there about the number of jobs.

If you look at 100 per cent of high school graduates currently in Nova Scotia - this slide is actually not in your package - there's some contention about the exact percentage reliability of this data. It comes from the Department of Education and they're still working on trying to get the statistics better calculated - 8.5 per cent of students have senior withdrawal, so that means they don't leave high school. Now those students are going to return to us a couple of years out.

Look at that statistic - 58 per cent disappear into the labour market, but 89 per cent of the jobs in the next five years will require post-secondary education. This is a profound issue for us in Nova Scotia and we work very hard at the college - Options and Opportunities, other programs at high school - to try to change that and draw more young people directly in. You have 42 per cent of high school graduates that go on to post-secondary education, 84 per cent go to university, and a little more than 15 per cent go to non-university. Of that 15 per cent, 13 per cent come to NSCC, 1.7 per cent to apprenticeship, and 0.3 per cent to private career colleges.

The 58 per cent who disappear into the labour market often return to us by the time they are 23 years of age because you dock this up against 25-year olds in Nova Scotia having post-secondary education, that 58 per cent drops down to about 34 per cent. If you look at it Canada-wide, 60 per cent of people leaving high school who go on to post-secondary, 60 per cent go to university and 40 per cent attend college.

In Nova Scotia we have 84-15, so we have a way to go yet to meet what the labour market needs in terms of college delivery.

This is our enrolment growth pattern, this is where we think we need to be and the Department of Education thinks we need to be. We have spent probably 13 months working with the Department of Education using labour market statistics - employment in Nova Scotia, where we need to go.

So you can see where we are - 10,400 by next September, then 11,400, and 12,400 by 2013. So that's what we need to do, mostly in trades and health and some in access. Interestingly enough, I'm getting a lot of pressure from the arts community, particularly on the technology side - camera people, technical, prop builders and so on.

This gives you a sense of a little bit of enrolment trends. The number of first-year students coming directly from high school is increasing, so the work that we're doing is having an effect in terms of high school students coming to the college instead of disappearing into that 58 per cent. The average age of the college remains 26 years of age, which is pretty close to the national average for colleges; some are a little higher than us, some are a little lower.

Participation by county of residence continues to grow in most counties, including Halifax, which means they are attending their local community college. Interestingly enough, last year's statistic, when we looked at where people were employed, 79 per cent of our students were employed in the county or the county next door to the campus they attended. So that's a powerful statement about our continuing challenge to make sure that we're servicing all 13 campuses.

The students with disabilities population grew significantly, 8.2 per cent of enrolment, and is expected to grow to 9.5 per cent of enrolment by the end of this academic year. The number of First Nations students grew by 66, which is a 20 per cent growth. The number of African-Nova Scotian students grew by 64, which is a 21 per cent growth. You can see that we have some work to do there and we are working very hard on that one.

These are employment outcomes for 2006 and you have 2007 hot off the press 2007 in your briefing book: 97 per cent in the labour force; 91 per cent employed; 83 per cent in their field of studies; 93 per cent working in Nova Scotia; 95 per cent student satisfaction rate; and 97 per cent, up from 79 per cent, in terms of representative of the diversity in the wider community.

We have a third party do this for us every year and this year coming up, 2008, will be the first year that we'll actually be asking employers their satisfaction with our graduates. I think we might be the first community college in the country to do so, because we know we're linked to their success, we know they are very happy, otherwise we wouldn't have a

student satisfaction rate of 95 per cent. If a student is not getting a job and is not happy with it, they wouldn't be happy, so we do this every year and these are the statistics that we live by.

If you look at a 91 per cent employment rate - if you think that 3 per cent or 4 per cent of our students do not enter the labour force for a whole variety of reasons and many of our students transfer to university, we're almost at 100 per cent employment and that, I think, if you are an employer in the room would be causing you some concern.

MR. MORSE: Mr. Chairman, just on the last slide, is the difference between the number of graduates participating in the labour force and the number of graduates employed perhaps entrepreneurs, proprietors?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: They could be entrepreneurs, they could have gone on to university and be working part-time. They are in the labour force employed in some aspect. The 91 per cent employed means they left college and they went and worked in something full-time for the most part. That 97 per cent, you'd have a fair number of students that might have returned to us, taken another diploma, might have gone on to university, might be only working part-time, may have taken time out for children, but they still consider themselves participating in the labour force. So the whole variety of things get rolled into that 6 per cent statistic.

This is the Centre for the Built Environment. This is the building that we will be building on the Waterfront Campus - we actually have already officially broken ground and we will be moving toward opening in 2010. Why I chose to end the presentation with the Centre for the Built Environment is I think it tells you something about what the college is trying to do in Nova Scotia.

When we looked at building a construction trades building, which is what this is - it's for the construction trades and technologies and research related to the construction trades - we could have built any kind of building but we realized in a province that wants to pride itself on sustainability, we both have an opportunity and an obligation to build a living laboratory that is representative of the future of the built environment. For people who aren't familiar with the term "built environment", that's roads and buildings - residential and commercial - all the things that the construction trades tend to touch upon.

I want to show you this building, which is what I'm going to do, but I want to look at Point 7 for a second before I take you through this building. This building supports the economic competitiveness by graduating the workers of the future and not yesterday. I'll give you a very simple example. You all own homes and you can have somebody come and put geothermal in your house, you can have somebody come and put wind in your house, you can have somebody come and put solar in your house, but you can't get somebody to put those

systems together for you. As we're moving down a sustainability track, there is a whole piece of construction trades and technology that the college needs to be ahead of.

Even though the number of people asking for those systems today to be put together is fairly low, tomorrow it will be great. So this Centre for the Built Environment is a living laboratory for all the things that the construction trades need to be doing. It is the centrepiece for this, and at every campus where we do construction trades the curriculum will be the same.

I will see how my technology works on this one. I apologize to those people who have seen this before and I'm just going to go someplace else for a second. I'll just talk to you for a second about this building.

The building is 105,000 square feet, related to the construction trades. It has exterior bio walls, and exterior bio walls are really about replacing the oxygen that is depleted from the earth when you take a bulldozer in and take the surface of the ground off and put concrete on it. It is experimental, it's not used anywhere else in Canada, and I think it will be something that construction trades will take on in the next five years.

Also, 100 per cent of our cooling and 50 per cent of our heat will be provided by geothermal - and not just provided, our students will be able to play with that technology. The penthouses that you see in most buildings will actually be a classroom in this building; students will be able to go in and play.

We will have solar sails on the building. We are considering - and it will take a lot of community involvement - wind power at an urban level; very small wind power on this site. We're looking at green roofs, actually seven of them, so that we can research over time how green roofs stand up.

We will have interior bio walls that will clean our air and then we have trades and technology labs - the heart of our building. They're all glass, and they're all glass because some 3,000 people will passively walk through this building every day and we want every young person we can possibly get into that building to see what construction trades really do, what our construction trades and technologies do, and encourage more and more people to enter these occupations so that we can build the buildings we need to build in Nova Scotia, to be able to have the economy.

It's a very simple kind of concept, if we don't have the construction trades workers building the kinds of buildings Nova Scotia needs for the economy of the future, we can't get the rest of it there, whether it's long-term care facilities or it doesn't matter what it is, so that's what this building is about - it's experimental, it's research based.

So I'm going to end there. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman - my apologies for a couple of technological glitches.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. McArthur-Blair. I think what we'll do now is go around the table, I'm sure there are a few questions the members have for you. We'll start with Mr. Parker.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Thank you for your presentation, it was very interesting. As we move into the future, there are certainly challenges, but it's good to see that you're on top of some future trends.

My first question is more about a roadblock, I guess, for young people who want to go to community college. In my constituency office, as I'm sure it is in many others, I see young people who want to go to community college. I guess they're in that 58 per cent of the people who graduate high school and they get into the labour market and get a first-time job, minimum wage or slightly above. They get somewhat established in life, they have an apartment, maybe have a relationship - in other words, they have bills.

They have a job, either part-time or full-time, but it's very difficult for them to get out of that stage they're at and get into community college. And it's usually financial, that's the problem, because they're earning $300 a week, or whatever, and they need every penny to pay their car payment or apartment, and they can't quit their job because then they're not eligible for EI benefits and therefore not available for Service Canada funding. So they can't afford to go to community college, is what it comes down to.

[9:45 a.m.]

Do you see any way we can find a system that will help people like that? There are a lot of them that are sort of in the labour force but not really fully employed. They want to get trained as a carpenter or a plumber, or whatever, but they just can't seem to get at that next stage because of the financial limitations.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I think I'll let Pam touch on this as well, but I think there are three or four things that we're trying to do and then I'm going to talk about three or four things that I need all of your help with. We're trying to flex more and more of our programming and over the next couple of years - and you'll see me out there doing this - I'm going to try to convince some major and not so major employers of Nova Scotia to think about maybe having two people work for them instead of one and maybe that person comes to us Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the other person works and that would be a massive shift on an employer's part.

I can't speak for employers whether or not conceivably they could even entertain that, because they have their own productivity issues and so on, but I think flexibility on our part is where we step to the table with that. We try to offer more programs on the weekends, at night, breakfast school, and Pam is already working on some of those areas - the flexibility agenda has been very high on her list.

I was pleased in the federal budget to see some money for underemployed people, which is exactly this category that you're talking about - they're employed, but they can't get from there into a different piece of the economy - I'd like to see more of that. I think for the college as well, our capacity to really engage people with the opportunity to see that maybe they can - maybe it's going to take them four years instead of two, but maybe they can come and take a couple of courses and convince their employer that they can do that, and this isn't easy.

I think on the other side, the Canada Student Loan system is one of the biggest areas of advocacy the college could use some help with. I think in two areas, one is that often you can't get a Canada Student Loan if you're in this category, so you're not eligible for the funding that might transfer you from where you are to where you might go. The second is the Canada Student Loan - and I say this with some tongue in cheek - most people in this room would be able to borrow $0.5 million in 48 hours from their bank, but a student going to school sometimes waits months and months to get their Canada Student Loan process through. So they also can't plan - they're working and they can't plan. So those issues are there.

I think one of the things I'm hoping will be one of the focuses of the new skills and labour force development unit will be people who are underemployed. One of the things on our minds is how we help the people from TrentonWorks and the Maple Leaf plant, before TrentonWorks and Maple Leaf leave the jurisdiction. I think it's a huge challenge for us.

I think one of the things that all of you can help us with is deciding amongst your political selves, what is the future of the economy of Nova Scotia? If it's a creative and imaginative class, then post-secondary education is essentially all that matters. I know I have a very biased view in that regard but to get there, that's what's required. How do we provide the government and college muscle to get us there?

MS. PAMELA REID: I don't know if I have too much more to add to that, but I guess just to say that providing opportunities for students to work and learn is not just a nice thing, it's an absolutely necessary thing, and it has really tested us to be as creative as possible in it. I think we're finding where we are having some real success is taking that person who has been in the workforce, didn't finish high school, comes back and finished a Grade 12 on the weekend and then tracks right on to a diploma program, finishes and goes on to be a productive member of the workforce - not thinking, of course, that they could have done any of that five years ago when they hadn't finished their high school.

As Joan mentioned, in just about every one of our programs we're looking at ways we can open the doors and create multiple pathways. Part of that is creating a different culture where students come in knowing that, instead of the traditional two-year path, their pathway might take them four years and it might mean weekend delivery and it might mean breakfast delivery or evenings.

MR. PARKER: I guess the component that's missing here is Service Canada funding. They're saying if they could get that, then they would go on to community college but because they're into a job, they need the paycheque to pay their bills but they can't get the funding, therefore, they're sort of trapped in that. If they quit their job, they're not eligible for any funding, so somehow we have to get over that barrier to help them get on to the next stage.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I agree. The capacity to act is often the simple financial piece. It's not the desire, not the skill, not the will to put in the long hours to work as well, it's the simple financial piece. I think Service Canada, the EI program, Canada Student Loan program - those are places where we can continue to apply some pressure for people to be able to have greater access.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Parker. Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you for being here this morning and bringing us up to date on some of the developments and some of the trends and bringing into perspective for us the role of the community college in the province and post-secondary.

I wanted to start off with something a little more basic and fundamental, sort of tapping into what Mr. Parker was referring to about access. I guess it was in the Fall you did a swim, Joan, to draw attention to raising money for access. Do you have students showing up who basically can't afford to go to college?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: We have students who have severe poverty issues, there's no question about that. Students come to the college from every possible walk of life. You mentioned the swim - that was to raise money for student scholarships and bursaries, and we're going to try to continue to create more and more bursaries and scholarships for students so that they can access them.

Kind of going back to what Charlie was saying, I think the capacity for people to access Canada Student Loan funding, EI funding, social assistance funding - all of those pieces that we could put in place that would allow people to come to school. I think generally speaking students are able to manage their finances at the college level - some of it is the short term, the two-year piece helps. But there's no question that students come - and we have emergency funding on most campuses and most campuses have food banks run by the student associations which are used a lot, so there's no question for students.

When I talk to students - and I was just out talking to students - the single biggest one for them is: It's December, I haven't gotten my Canada Student Loan yet and I don't know if I can come back. It seems to be the single biggest one for them. I think the EI door for a lot of them is just closed, so they don't talk about that one, but the Canada Student Loan one they talk about a lot.

MR. GLAVINE: I just want to echo very quickly a short story which is, for an educator, one of the most depressing events that you have happen at your constituency door. A young lady was doing extremely well at Kingstec and if she still has leftover bills from the college from the first term and now can't pay her second term, despite the fact of having a 90 per cent average, that young girl could not continue on. So it's a very real and depressing event for a student.

The other area . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: One last one, Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: I know you are very positive and kind to all of us educators, but I really believe that our guidance counsellors in Nova Scotia don't know our community college system very well. I know we have a dominance of universities with 10 degree granting, but to see those statistics so skewed with less than really only 15 per cent of our students going to community college - our young Nova Scotia students, do they know enough about what goes on and the doors it opens and the career avenues? Personally, I don't think they do and that they've been skewed toward university and not the college. Just a comment, please.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I think that it's changing rapidly. The Options and Opportunities program which many people in the room are familiar with, which helps young people play with options, essentially that's what the program is about. You can sit in a recording booth, you can build a boat, spend time in a shop - that helps a lot, so people are getting experience with that. I think that guidance counsellors are beginning to move with what I see is the economic shift - do what you're passionate about, not what level of education you want to go to. I think guidance counsellors are beginning to move to that. When I talked to Grade 11 and Grade 12 students recently, they were getting a lot of information about the college, so I think that's beginning to shift. Historically, you're right, it wasn't there. So it's beginning the shift.

The other program that we run and I think is making a big difference for us and we run it through the high schools, is Parents as Career Coaches. We go in and provide education to parents about being a career coach, not to recruit people to the college but to help them help their kids make decisions about careers. I think that's having a profound influence on young people. So I think it's shifting, but there is that long tradition. Education is hierarchical and so there's that long tradition of university first.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Glavine. Mr. Morse.

MR. MORSE: First of all, welcome Joan, Pam, Bob - always a pleasure to hear the good work at the community college. Number one, I want to commend you on your ads - you were just speaking of them. That's basically talking about the new reality and I think they are engaging all Nova Scotians, not just young Nova Scotians, and makes us more aware of the tremendous benefit you have to offer us, so great for the image.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: And if I may interrupt you, my best feedback on the ads was a young St. F.X. student who wrote me 18 months ago, kind of knows me peripherally, and says, you have to do something about your ads. Then the new ads came out and she sent me a single e-mail: cool ads. So to me that's as good as it gets.

MR. MORSE: Exactly. To Charlie's point, he was talking about people graduating from high school, understanding that's not your first-year class, you're right across the age spectrum. But I think that by making community college cool, that some of our children who get to the end of high school will start to look at that option in a different manner and maybe take advantage of it before they decide to pack their bags, leave home, acquire financial responsibilities, and perhaps allow the financial umbilical cord to go on for a couple more years and land themselves in a better position before they drift off into a minimum wage job.

I just make that observation tying it back to your ads - that's one benefit I see, because what Charlie is talking about is real in terms that it's awfully tempting to take that first job. You're finally out of high school and away you go. If you can just perhaps be encouraged to hold on for a couple more years, you may make a life-changing decision by going to community college. I think that you're clearly the engine of the new Nova Scotia. I also want to mention that you've pointed that out in your comments.

I have a couple more comments and then I have a question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Morse, is there a question in there anywhere?

MR. MORSE: Yes, there is a question. Are you auditioning for Speaker?

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, but there are a lot of other speakers who are waiting to ask a question, so could I just ask you to get to the question.

MR. MORSE: Kentville Research Station functions - it's interesting to hear you talk about the storage, the harvesting of apples and other agricultural products. It sounds like a lot of the responsibilities that have been carried out by the Kentville Research Station and in view of some of the public musings on the part of the federal government, I find it

interesting that you are stepping in and filling the gap there and you also mentioned watershed management. Is that by design or how is that washing up on the shores of the community college? It's not a criticism, it's a question.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: It really has washed up on the shores of the community college because of our work in geographic science. The Centre for Geographic Science, if you look at the watershed piece, our work is really in flood plain analysis. We design the software, like the work we've done for Oxford Landing, for example, and Oxford Foods is about really the flood plain in Oxford and designing software that can predict that flood plain over time.

There is an intersection between the work that the Kentville Research Station is doing and our work, more than there is overlap. A lot of our work is on the geographic science side, so when we look at the solar map, for example, we don't own the planes, we do LiDar research mapping, research the solar map work, the development of the solar map for Green Power Labs is for them now to be able to go and say, where can we put solar stations in Nova Scotia that are useful to Nova Scotia. Our work really is the geographic science piece of that, the same with farmers.

The geographic science piece really is about very specific mapping that looks then at the software that can tell you the climate in very tiny micro-climate areas. So I think there's more of an intersection than an overlap and it has come to us because of the geographic science work that we have done for many, many years and that's how it ended up with us.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Morse, one quick one, please.

MR. MORSE: One final one. In Kings County, I think we're a little bit of an anomaly in that we are not able to hire enough continuing care professionals. I know that Kingstec has got a double class size to try to address the shortfall in those professionals, we very much appreciate this.

This is to ask you the question as to whether you are aware - because after some discussion with the VON a couple of years ago, the executive director at the time made an interesting comment to me and it was something to the effect that while we may be putting more people into the program, upon graduation a lot of the grads are not really serious about going out and getting a job in that field, which was obviously a concern because we desperately need them, and the seats, in essence, are being taken up by people who are not always serious about actually becoming a continuing care professional, which is a concern. The message I got from the executive director was, I wish there was some way of incorporating that into the screening process. I'm not sure whether you've heard this before but I wanted to make you aware, and certainly I'd appreciate any comments.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm going to let Pam talk about what we're specifically doing in practical nursing and continuing care to try to address some of the shortfalls. Our statistics for ongoing employment are fairly consistent with our other areas. One of the things that we're doing in terms of part of our flexibility agenda is ensuring people have workplace experiences early on in their program so that we don't have people who suddenly go out to a welding shop or a hospital and say, I should be in the welding shop and I'm in the hospital, or I should be in the hospital and I'm in the welding shop. So we're trying to make sure that people are lined up with the work that they really want to do and understand what the work is.

MR. MORSE: Just to put an extra emphasis . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Morse, through the chairman, otherwise your microphone won't go on and you're not recognized.

MR. MORSE: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Morse, very, very briefly, you are about to be cut off.

MR. MORSE: Think home care, as opposed to in the institutions or hospitals.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I guess I'll let Pam really briefly, Mr. Chairman, if I may, talk about what we're trying to do to meet some of the health needs in the next few years.

MS. REID: Just I guess to preface the comments with the fact that we know we have enormous challenges, and Chris would understand that better than most of us. The whole area of recruiting and retaining the best qualified, the most appropriate people for these careers is a challenge, it always will be a challenge.

We're doing some work with Jump Start, we call it. It's a program where students can come in and test drive programs. As well, we're working with a number of career exploration options for students who come to us and are curious about what these disciplines might involve. We're also working with the industries because the retention of health care workers in long-term care is a big challenge. It's tough work, so we have been working directly with industry on how we can, together I guess, look at the best ways to recruit and retain, both in the program and in the professions and the careers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms. More.

MS. MORE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have several questions, so I'm going to start to see how long I have. Just on this issue we're talking about, recruitment and retention of persons in continuing care, I think there are some wider systemic problems here as well, and that's often the part-time, casual nature of the openings in that sector, as well as the lack

of child care and transportation. That has a huge impact on women in particular, being able to continue with their chosen field.

I wanted to get back to the issue of students in financial crisis, perhaps during their programs and not at the beginning, and you've answered that quite well. Do you have any sense of how many students on your campuses actually run into financial problems during their programming?

The reason I'm asking is because probably two or three times a year I have students coming to the constituency office - many of them actually - who are under Community Services, or actually they are applying for Community Services, because they've run into financial problems and they're being told that Community Services does not help students who are currently in educational programs. So in some cases they're being advised to drop out, as close as two months before graduation, apply and get on Community Services income support, and then go back and start their program all over again. Are you hearing these stories as well? Does this really happen?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: We don't have statistics on the number of students who have run into economic difficulty. We hear these stories anecdotally as well. We try to twist and turn in every possible way we can, to keep students going - defer their fees, give them special bursaries and emergency funding. I haven't heard this story, that they're being advised to drop out, surely that's not happening, but I haven't heard this story.

I know that there is profound work to do and, as a college, I kind of express it as leaning on the elephant. Our work is to nudge and advocate and say, what if this system was different, how much better could it be? I apologize, I should be able to do these statistics off the top of my head and I'm not sure I can, so I apologize if the percentages are not quite exact: people who have post-secondary education only draw down about 9 per cent of all the social services available to them over a lifetime; people who don't have post-secondary education draw down something like 35 per cent.

So what I'm going to say is quite radical, but I think there are so many systemic and interlocking issues that require political, college, university, federal, provincial intersection in order to get people from high school through post-secondary education and into the workplace, but these are profound kinds of issues. So, as an MLA, you end up dealing with this individual and trying to nudge the system to say, well, don't make her do this, surely we can fix that.

I think there are really some systemic funding issues that our students run into, and they are profound because they are individual. They go to Pam and they say, can you help me and sometimes we can and sometimes we cannot. I think every time we lose a student for financial reasons it's a hardship. If you look at our tuitions, we're kind of somewhere in the middle of the pack, national average, for colleges. We're in the middle of our financial cycle

so it's hard to give a national average at the moment, but we're kind of in the middle of the pack. We're not extraordinarily expensive from a tuition perspective. It really is the ability to live while you're in school that becomes the much more profound issue often for people, and it is.

I'm going to say something radical, I would say this to the Premier, the Prime Minister and any MLA who wanted to listen to me, what if Nova Scotia decided we would be the first jurisdiction in our country where post-secondary education was free, and what difference would that make to making a creative economy? I think it's a radical statement because in order to do it, all of us individually have to step forward - because we're all taxpayers - to bear the burden of that and it would be a very radical thing for our country to do.

MS. MORE: Thank you.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm making my Vice-President of Finance nervous when I say those things.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I want to follow that up by asking, from the college's point of view, is there any mechanism in place to work on these larger systemic issues that arise, rather than just dealing with them on an individual basis?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I spend a fair amount of my time advocating for these issues, as does Pam. So we look at it from an advocacy point of view, kind of standing at the door and standing at all of your doors and saying, can you help us with these systemic issues? So our work really is that advocacy piece around that.

MS. MORE: Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman, one other question, the anticipated changes in - it goes by a number of different names - the labour skills development federal funding, how is that going to impact on both your college, because I understand you get about $10 million from the federal government and I'm not sure if it's actually through that program, but how is it also going to impact on students who apply to some of those federal funding programs to actually enter the college system? Have you had any input or discussions? Are you anticipating the impact of that yet?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm going to let Bob add in a second as well. Other jurisdictions have gone through this, New Brunswick being the closest to us, the transfer of the federal funds to provincial jurisdiction. They've done quite a good job of having a fairly smooth transition in terms of individual access to funds.

I think 2008-09 will be quite a transition year as all of this goes through. We don't anticipate at this time a negative impact, either on individuals or the larger college funding for 2008-09. So we're not quite sure what different programs will get developed provincially

over the next 18 months, but we're in constant conversation around that. So some of it is unknown still at this time. Do you want to add anything?

MR. BOB SHEDDEN: No, there's nothing too much I can add to that. I think the last point that you made was the most important one. We work very, very closely with the Department of Education on an annual basis, going through budgets and so on, and we've been assured that we won't see any decrease in the federal funding this year. So where it goes from there, there's still a lot of negotiation and a lot of talk, so we're obviously very hopeful.

MS. MORE: Mr. Chairman, I just want to finish by thanking you for coming today. This is such an important issue and as you know, my constituency is very proud to be the home of the Waterfront Campus and the Aviation Institute. It has just been a real catalyst for activity and interest in education and we're just so pleased to have you there, so congratulations on an excellent job.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. More. Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much and again, welcome. I have a number of questions and I actually was about to ask about the financial side of things, so maybe I'll continue on with the question that has just begun. I wanted to know, what is your proportion of tuition versus provincial support for the college? Maybe that's for Bob, I guess.

MR. SHEDDEN: We actually have a target arranged there and we try to keep tuition at roughly 13 per cent of our total budget. So you can compare that to, I guess, the provincial contribution which in 2007 is about $95 million in total and our total tuition for that same period was about $18 million. So the comparisons I'm giving you at 13 per cent, that's for the entire budget, for the entire $157 million, $160 million piece.

We actually have a key performance indicator that we use, that's our target and the board is very, very vigilant in that respect.

[10:15 a.m.]

MS. WHALEN: The $95 million that you mentioned would be operating, and when you said $150 million or somewhat, does that include your capital? No?

MR. SHEDDEN: Not to get into a lot of detail, but the money that comes from the province includes both operating and capital. There's a very small capital component and it really gets into the accounting of how you capitalize issues versus where you go.

Now what I would say is that money does not include the money associated with the $123 million that the president talked about. That's handled completely differently because these are provincial buildings.

MS. WHALEN: Right, we're very excited about them as well. That just gives me some idea about it. Are you bringing in dollars as well with the research? Is that something you look at as additional sources?

MR. SHEDDEN: Yes.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: The additional money is between the provincial allotment and will be made up of research, our contract training, cost-recovery programming, initiatives that we do directly with industry, that they come and ask us to do all kinds of partnerships, so the rest of that cluster would be what we call partnership money in various ways.

MS. WHALEN: It was exciting when you mentioned that you are eligible for things like NSERC and the other national funding for academic institutions, because that also provides more revenue stream for you, I'm sure.

Are you looking at anything international where you either do international programs - this takes us a little off the revenue side - but programs where your students get international experience or your staff are able to do research or programs internationally, anything like that going on?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Yes, and we have a brand new director of international and she's beginning to build a whole international platform for us. We've always been very small in international. Pam probably knows personally most of the international students we have.

There are really three areas that we're going to expand. We're in each of these areas already. One is the recruitment of international students. That's probably the lowest priority, really, although we may work with specific industries to try to help them with cohort recruitment. So in health, if they want to try to recruit a group of nurses to be retrained and so on, we'll do that kind of work.

Our students currently do international service learning and we're going to expand that. We call that field schools in our college and we're going to expand that service learning opportunity because it helps them with the global view. We also do international work for students in business.

We are also involved in international projects. Currently we have one running in Eritrea, in both health and in trades, and we have a partnership with a college in China around specific kinds of work. So we're involved in all three of those areas and we're going to see expansion of all three of those areas over the next five years, but particularly in the international service piece because I think it serves our learners and our faculty very well.

MS. WHALEN: Well, I think it's a tremendous dimension of education and I know it's something the students are asking for. When we speak to them they want to choose institutions that offer that opportunity, so I'm glad to hear that you're doing that as well because I know you are very forward-thinking in a lot of the programs you're offering, but it seems like a stretch to now take you into the international realm, so I'm glad you're going there.

Obviously you've mentioned a few radical things today so this is not nearly so radical, just a little stretch.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Well, it's interesting when you look at our mission, to build the economy of Nova Scotia, we've discussed internally whether or not that mission should change over the next years to serve the economy of Nova Scotia and the global markets that economy serves, because we really need to begin to think about the marketplace that our employers serve and that is a global economy. We need to make sure that our students are able to function in that global economy not just here in Nova Scotia.

MS. WHALEN: I think it's important too because as you say, we're not separate, we're not an island and again, we need to look at how we can support our companies growing beyond our borders, so that's important.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One last question, please, Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, I'm almost at five minutes, I think. Only five minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Don't worry, I've been watching.

MS. WHALEN: Okay. I thought that was short. If I only get one more question, we're going to have a second round I take it, are we?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Indeed we are not. We have other business.

MS. WHALEN: We're not. Okay, enrolment then was one of my questions. Your enrolment is growing but all of the other universities and post-secondary in the province are concerned about shrinking enrolments because our high school grads are way down. You aren't making a big emphasis on recruiting outside of our borders, I wouldn't think, so how do you see your sustaining the growth? I know there's a huge demand for your programs, but the difference between the two.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I think the difference for us is we are young. We didn't build for the baby boom generation, we've built for this much smaller demographic. We're still growing up to that declining demographic bar if you kind of look at it that way and we're a long way from crossing that line. We're in a whole different demographic environment than

our partners at the universities. Consequently, we have a lot of room for our enrolment to grow. We think in full-time equivalent terms, we would cross that demographic at about 15,000 or 16,000 full-time students and you'll notice that we're actually not going there because you don't want to be in that zone. We're in a totally different demographic environment.

Also, I think one of the things that we're trying to do is to recruit people into post-secondary education who would not have considered post-secondary education right out of high school and that, again, is a different demographic than the 85 per cent who have traditionally gone to Nova Scotia universities. So we're in a whole different demographic class, and because of that our enrolment growth is not only guaranteed but a huge pressure for the college. I know all of you, as MLAs, have people standing on your doorsteps in September saying, why didn't I get in, and we're trying to fix that.

MS. WHALEN: That's very good. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion. Would you like me to make it now or at the end?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could we save that for the end, please?

MS. WHALEN: We can.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. d'Entremont.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Every time I talk about NSCC, I talk about the fact that I'm a community college graduate. After floating around for a couple of years in university, I found that community college and actually applied arts, which you are doing very well now, was not available really to me back in the early 1990s and I did have to go away to Ontario for that. I do want to congratulate you on a lot of the work that you do and that I am a community college graduate.

I do want to thank you, as well, for the ongoing support that you're giving us with the HHR strategy that we're trying to come to terms with, the availability of continuing care assistants, LPNs and the like. I know the initial gasp, as we looked at the actual needs of those individuals, was a great one. I just want to know where we're getting with the expanded CCA programs, what kind of enrolment we have on that side and the success of the medical laboratory program that we do have over there, and where are we going with that? Just more of a general question because I know I don't want to take up too much time of this committee.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm going to let Pam touch on that because she has been very, very involved in the Health and Human Services strategy with your folks.

MS. REID: I'll start with the question about the med lab program. As many of you probably know, the med lab program came back to Nova Scotia after many years of our students needing to go to New Brunswick to get that education. It's going exceptionally well and I must say part of the success of the program is the relationships that we're building with the district health authorities in terms of matching our students with employment opportunities and they're already lined up for work placements, for clinical placements in different parts of the province, so it is a really nice partnership. These students already have jobs.

In terms of our work with the long-term care sector and planning for continuing care and for practical nursing, the dean has been working very diligently with employers and with the department. We have a plan that we've been tracking on with the Department of Health through the HHR department and we're really ready to roll in terms of the CCA plan. We've already started to roll out an expansion of practical nursing, as Joan mentioned earlier, and we call it rotating programming. We are putting a program in the Strait Area Campus where there is an acute need for practical nurses and that's the first of a number of these kinds of opportunities where we will move into the community, deliver the program, and then move out and on to another community where there is an acute need. I think we're tracking really closely to where we need to be.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. d'Entremont. Mr. Parker is returning I take it, so before there is a motion on the floor I would like to wait for him to get back, just in case you put me in any compromising positions that I don't want to be.

MS. WHALEN: Could I ask a question in the meantime?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I think it's time the Chair had a few comments. Most of you have taken up a lot of the time. Usually when people appear before a legislative committee, you are either doing something very wrong or controversial, or very right and people are actually interested in what you're doing and ask a lot of questions. I think you meet that latter category here today.

I just wanted to comment on the work that Marconi Campus does in Cape Breton, which I probably wouldn't do justice to by trying to go over some of the great work that they do there. They have tremendous programs which mean a lot to the people of the area.

I was interested in your stat that said - number one it surprised me - that a very high percentage of the people who graduate from your programs are actually working in Nova Scotia. I would have thought that would have been the opposite in Cape Breton where what

you are actually training people to do would train them for jobs that don't exist either in Cape Breton or Nova Scotia. You're saying that's not the case, Dr. McArthur-Blair?

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: We've actually seen a marginal decline in out-migration from Cape Breton in particular. Cape Breton is probably the biggest place of out-migration to the rest of Nova Scotia currently because of the employment situation in Cape Breton. But it is surprising to us how many people are still in that stat of in the county or the county next door in Cape Breton.

I think there is some out-migration in the pipe trades, welding and so on from Cape Breton to the oil sands, but we're trying everything we can to work with employers doing what we call early engagement. We say to employers, if you want one of our grads, come in September of the first year and find that grad and hang onto them. The employers that are beginning to do that are finding that they're attaching to individuals, that individual is successful and that individual knows them and so they're staying. Some of the work that we're doing with employers is helping that stat.

I don't think that we'll be able to, on behalf of the employers of Nova Scotia, mitigate all out-migration and then I'm not sure that we should either. I think young people should have whatever experiences that are before them in life. But we're doing better than we were a couple of years ago for Cape Breton. Nova Scotia proper, we're doing very well.

One of the things that happens to me is anecdotally, I ask every student who crosses the graduation stage what they are doing next. Last June I really noticed, when I was at the Marconi graduation, how many people told me they were working right there in Sydney, so I was very pleased with that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll just say in closing before we get to the motion that you perhaps have one of the finest staff that you could find in Nova Scotia that works at that campus, and in particular you have a tremendous person at the head of it in Dave MacLean and congratulations to them all. The commercials that you did are so great. I think we should point out too that one of the people featured on those commercials is a young man from Glace Bay by the name of Mickey Doyle, I think that probably helped sell the commercial as a matter of fact. Ms. Whalen, you have a motion.

MS. WHALEN: Yes, I do. The motion really stems from a situation that we all see every day in our offices and that is mature students who can't afford to go back to school and can't get student loans if they're part-time students. I thought, given that has been raised today, it would be a signal. I think that we've heard it a lot and we should send a signal.

So I've got a motion that reads: that the Human Resources Committee write to the minister responsible for the Canada Student Loans Act and request that the necessary changes be made to allow part-time students to qualify for Canada Student Loans and at least send that signal.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our guests for appearing here today in an extended version of what we usually do with presenters here, but I think for good reason, because of the fact that you've seen genuine interest here today on behalf of MLAs who are concerned about the future of this province and who are greatly appreciative of the work that the Nova Scotia Community College is doing in Nova Scotia. We thank you for appearing and taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today.

DR. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Mr. Chairman, I also want to thank you and every person in this room, and every MLA in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia Community College cannot do its work without tremendous support through the politicians of Nova Scotia and it's not just funding support, it's other kinds of support for us to understand what your constituents need and to understand what your communities need and help us respond to that.

Mr. Chairman, I want to record into the minutes the appreciation of the Nova Scotia Community College for the government's work and the work that we're able to do because of that partnership. Thank you.

MR CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. I thought we'd take a short three-minute recess to say goodbye to our guests. We have some business matters to clear up, so nobody go anywhere, please.

[10:30 a.m. The committee recessed.]

[10:36 a.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ready, folks. Let's start up again, please. One issue that we have to deal with is a letter - I was not here at the time - there was a letter from Mr. Dalziel, regarding the Engineering Profession Act and the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia. Mr. Dalziel was asking to appear before this committee and as I understand, the vice-chairman, Mr. Porter, it was the decision of the committee to put that off to deal with at a later date?

MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: And here we are. This is a request to appear before here and I think the clerk has checked into whether or not actually there are other places that Mr. Dalziel could go with his complaint. Basically it's a complaint involving Mr. Dalziel about the Association of Professional Engineers. After reading through it I'm just not certain that it even belongs before this committee and whether or not we can deal with it. Is anyone else familiar with it? Mr. Parker.

MR. PARKER: I guess I've seen the correspondence at some point in the past. It has been kicking around for several months now, I do believe, but is his complaint with the professional group or is it with the fact that he has not been placed on a board or agency or commission by this committee?

MR. CHAIRMAN: His complaint, from what I read in his letter, is with the professional group.

MR. PARKER: Nothing to do with appointments through our committee?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Absolutely nothing to do with appointments through our committee.

MR. PARKER: I just wanted to clarify that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just wanted to get it on record that it's my intention, unless there's any objection, to write to Mr. Dalziel and tell him that this is not the appropriate forum. I don't know where to suggest to him to take it because there's nothing the clerk could find with regard to this. Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Wouldn't APENS be a self-regulating body? They should have their own mechanisms for appeal or to be heard if you have a dispute - I believe that they are.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would think that they are but again, I'm just going to deal with it on the face that it doesn't belong to this committee.

MS. WHALEN: Could it go to the minister that is responsible for APENS? There would be an Act if they're self-administered.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I do believe that he says in his correspondence that he had written in 2004 to the Minister of Environment and Labour who was responding on behalf of the Premier. He has written to at least one member of the House of Commons and the Chief Executive of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. This matter may have been referred to us or suggested to have been referred to us by the MLA for Dartmouth North. I just don't think it's the appropriate forum to be heard, so with the permission of the committee we will write to him and say exactly that. Mr. Parker.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I was wondering if in your letter to him is there a suggestion on perhaps where he can go other than his own self-regulating organization? Is there any government department that might have responsibility?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Not to my knowledge. If someone does have any knowledge of that, I don't know where it would be. I might suggest that perhaps he might make his case to the Ombudsman. Ms. More.

MS. MORE: I don't know anything about this particular situation but I know with the Standing Committee on Community Services, we've adopted a practice of not having individuals appear before us, they have to be representing an organization, association, agency, department or whatever and it seems to be a useful guideline, but I'm not sure what your practice is with this committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That would make two of us who aren't sure. I think just based on the fact that we - I will suggest the Ombudsman, I just don't think this is the appropriate forum to hear this. We will deal with that.

I think Ms. Massey had inquired about looking for statistics from the Executive Council office regarding the last batch of advertising done by our committee, that was looking for a combined count or separate the adjudicative and non-adjudicative board applications. Without going over it, that's available if you want to see the clerk. There were some stats that were provided - whether or not you find them useful, I'll leave that up to you - but there are copies here for each member of the committee, if you so wish, from the clerk.

The next one is to deal with the agenda. As you know, the House has been called back into session for April 24^th. It is a rule of this committee that we do not meet or hear presentations during a sitting of the House, that we only meet and are mandated to meet once a month to deal with agency, board and commission appointments. That next meeting would be April 29^th from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Is everyone okay with that?

MR. PARKER: Did we have anybody booked for that date ahead of time?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, we have no one booked. On our waiting list there is an abnormally large amount of museums for some reason, I'm not sure where they came from, since I've been chairing the committee. They must be from the previous committee before some rearrangements were done and I don't know why we would be meeting with what amounts to about eight different museums that are there. I'm just not sure, I was going to bring that to the committee at another time. But anyway, we don't meet, as a general rule of thumb, with presenters and take presentations during a sitting of the House. I think the only exception we ever made was the Tuition Support Program, which we had to fit in because there were some timing problems or whatever and they wanted an extended meeting. I guess you're asking if there is anything urgent there?

MR. PARKER: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No. Ms. More.

MS. MORE: I just want to clarify, you're saying you are going to meet though on the 29^th to do the ABCs?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, correct.

MS. MORE: Okay, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, once a month and usually at the end of the month we have to meet, so what I'm saying is our next meeting will be April 29^th at 9:00 a.m. Agreed?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there a motion to adjourn?

MR. PARKER: So moved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The meeting is adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 10:44 a.m.]