HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Ms. Becky Kent (Chairman)

Mr. Gordon Gosse

Mr. Mat Whynott

Ms. Pam Birdsall

Mr. Jim Morton

Hon. Michel Samson

Ms. Kelly Regan

Hon. Christopher d'Entremont

Mr. Chuck Porter

In Attendance:

Ms. Jana Hodgson

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2010

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Becky Kent

MADAM CHAIRMAN: It appears that we have all of our members present now so we'll proceed with our meeting. We will begin our meeting as well with some introductions, perhaps if all of our members could introduce themselves, and then I'll introduce our guests today from the Department of Education. We'll leave your introductions for a little bit later in the agenda, if you don't mind.

We'll be proceeding with our agenda with appointments and then we'll be going into our presentation, which is a little bit different than we did the last time.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Today we have Ms. Rosalind Penfound, Darrell Youden and Darrell MacDonald from the Department of Education. Thank you very much for joining us.

At this point we'll do our agencies, boards and commissions, then we'll have our witnesses and very little committee business, and we'll proceed into setting our next meeting agenda.

All right, at this stage we have a number of appointments today, a little more than our usual, so we'll proceed with the Children and Family Services Act Advisory Committee. Mr. Gosse, if you'd like to make a recommendation.

MR. GORDON GOSSE: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that Marilyn V. Booth, Kathy A. Briand, Kate Foster, Heather Kearney, Audrey MacNeil, Gary Newcombe, Amanda Sutherland and Elizabeth Whelton be appointed as members of the Children and Family Services Act Advisory Committee.

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

The motion is carried.

The Department of Economic and Rural Development, we have Film Nova Scotia. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. PAM BIRDSALL: Madam Chairman, I so move that Cheryl L. Hodder and Jeffrey M. Larsen be appointed as directors of Film Nova Scotia.

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

The motion is carried.

The Waterfront Development Corporation Limited Board of Directors. Mr. Whynott.

MR. MAT WHYNOTT: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that Rod F. Burgar, Joyce F. Carter, John E. Holm and S.I. Rustum Southwell be appointed as directors of the Waterfront Development Corporation Limited Board of Directors.

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

The motion is carried.

Under the Department of Finance, the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission. Mr. Porter.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that Wayne Mason be appointed as vice-chair and member of the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission.

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

The motion is carried.

The Department of Health, regional health authorities, we have a number. We have the Annapolis Valley District. Mr. Morton.

MR. JIM MORTON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that Preston Ilsley, John Kinsella and Heather MacLean be appointed as members of the Annapolis Valley District Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

Cape Breton District. Mr. Gosse.

MR. GOSSE: Madam Chairman, I so move that Margaret Herbert and Elizabeth Nearing be appointed as members of the Cape Breton District Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

The Capital District. Mr. Whynott.

MR. WHYNOTT: Madam Chairman, I so move that Patricia Bland, Brian LeBlanc, Darlene MacLaren, Michael Marentette and Rosemarie Sampson be appointed as members of the Capital District Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

Colchester East Hants. Mr. Morton.

MR. MORTON: I so move that Kenneth Curren, Brenda Whittle and Jim Wyatt be appointed as members of the Colchester East Hants Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

Cumberland Health Authority. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. BIRDSALL: Madam Chairman, I so move that Jacqueline Beal, Dora Fuller and Dr. Krystian Szczesny be appointed as members of the Cumberland Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. BIRDSALL: Madam Chairman, I so move that Christopher A. Cook and Theodorus J. Martens be appointed as members of the Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

Mr. Gosse, if you'd like to proceed with the Pictou County Health Authority.

MR. GOSSE: Madam Chairman, I so move that Norman Lord, Linda Muir and Janette Sears be appointed as members of the Pictou County Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

The South Shore District Health Authority. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. BIRDSALL: Madam Chairman, I so move that Richard K. Joyce be appointed as a member of the South Shore District Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

The South West Nova District Health Authority. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. BIRDSALL: Madam Chairman, I so move that Debra Ann Boudreau, Vicky Gagnon and Gerald A. Pottier be appointed as members of the South West Nova District Health Authority.

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

The motion is carried.

The QE II Health Sciences Centre/Nova Scotia Hospital. Mr. Whynott.

MR. WHYNOTT: Madam Chairman, I so move that Patricia Bland, Brian LeBlanc, Darlene MacLaren, Michael Marentette and Rosemarie Sampson be appointed as members of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre/Nova Scotia Hospital.

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

The motion is carried.

Moving on to Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, Certified General Accountants Association of Nova Scotia. Mr. Gosse.

MR. GOSSE: Madam Chairman, I so move that Aun Jaffery be appointed as a member of the Certified General Accountants Association of Nova Scotia.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any 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, Heritage Property Advisory Council. Mr. Morton.

MR. MORTON: Madam Chairman, I so move that Leslie Childs and Brian Cuthbertson be appointed as members of the Heritage Property Advisory Council.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye.

The motion is carried.

Our final one for today's meeting is the Nova Scotia Museum Board of Governors. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. BIRDSALL: Madam Chairman, I so move that Ken MacDonald be appointed as a member of the Nova Scotia Museum Board of Governors.

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

The motion is carried.

Thank you very much, folks. Now we will proceed with our witnesses and, again, thank you all very much for coming in today. These presentations are particularly helpful to us as we move forward, working with our government.

At this stage, Ms. Penfound, I will ask you to introduce you and your colleagues.

MS. ROSALIND PENFOUND: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman and members of the committee. I am Rosalind Penfound, Deputy Minister of Education. With me today, as you noted, I have Darrell Youden, Senior Executive Director of Corporate Services for the department, and Darrell MacDonald, Director of Facilities Management at the department.

First of all, thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee. My staff and I are pleased to provide an overview and answer your questions in regard to school capital construction. Secondly, I would note - and many of you may know - I started my role as Deputy Minister of Education almost exactly a month ago, so I have it all figured out by now, as you can imagine. (Laughter) I've been getting up to speed and will do my best to answer your questions, but I will necessarily have to rely on my colleagues here, especially when we get into any kind of detail, so I hope you'll forgive me for that.

With my opening remarks I will give the committee a brief synopsis of our school infrastructure, our capital procedures and our future plans. First, I would be remiss to keep talking about buildings, bricks and mortar without first talking about the most important part of our school system, the students. Our highest priority is to provide safe, healthy and appropriate learning environments for students. We approach all of our infrastructure decisions and work with that in mind.

There are three challenges that impact our goal of providing this high-quality learning environment. One challenge is that each year there are fewer and fewer students in the system. This year we have about 130,000 students, 20 per cent less than we had 10 years ago. Looking to the future, in 10 years it's estimated we will have a further 20 per cent decline, leaving us with the same school population as we had in 1910.

This leads to a second challenge. Our students can and will still be found in every corner of the province. We must serve these students and families regardless of which community they live in, providing them with a first-rate public education.

Third, most of our schools were built in the wake of the baby boom. These schools are getting older, just like us baby boomers, and we're providing a far different educational program today than we did when they were built 40 or 50 years ago, so they aren't necessarily built to accommodate the kind of learning programs that we have now. That's the eye-opening education I've been receiving in the last few weeks at the department and I'm beginning to understand the challenge ahead.

As our schools age, we're faced with two choices at a certain point in time - renovate or replace, and that's always the debate. In the last 10 years we've built 24 new schools and renovated more than 40. I'm learning the lingo here at Education. Renovations are additions or alterations, or A&As, as you will hear my colleagues refer to them, I'm sure, later on.

We're currently nearing the end of the 2003 capital program and ramping up the 2009 plan. These two plans are named after the years in which they were announced. When both programs have been concluded in 2016, we will have built 27 new schools and completed major renovations in 81 existing schools since 2003 - it's actually quite remarkable when you think of that. In total, we will have invested $0.75 billion into education infrastructure for our young people.

How do we determine which schools to renovate and which schools to replace? School construction and renovation programs involve months of study, consultation and deliberation involving staff and elected officials from the government and school boards. School boards are continuously assessing their infrastructure. Each school board prepares a list of priorities for school construction and renovation. These priorities are submitted to the Department of Education roughly every two years. Due to the magnitude of the approved project list in 2003, government was not able to consider another submission, evaluation and approval process until 2008, which resulted in the other large approval in 2009. As I noted earlier, this will take us to 2016, if we complete the 2003 and 2009 lists.

[9:15 a.m.]

When government is in the position to consider new submissions, a School Capital Construction Committee is convened to evaluate those submissions. The committee is comprised of staff from a number of government departments and a representative of the Nova Scotia School Boards Association. Departments represented are Education, Finance, Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, and Treasury Board.

The committee travels around the province visiting the schools and looking closely at proposed projects. It then assesses each request using a scoring system and provides input to the department. The department then prepares a preliminary list of recommended projects and consults with the school boards regarding the list, prior to submitting it to Cabinet for consideration. This consultation process, and the back and forth with the school boards, is a really valuable part of the process and is well received by boards around the province.

After this consultation phase, a capital construction program recommendation is finalized and forwarded to the Minister of Education and on to the Executive Council for consideration. Cabinet makes the final decision regarding the proposal. Once Cabinet makes that determination it's important to note that it's not carved in stone, if you'll pardon the expression. School construction and renovation is a living list that can change. As time goes by many factors such as enrolment, new board priorities, or unforseen changes in building condition could reduce the requirement for a certain project and instead boost the need for a different one. The most common is the conversion of a previously approved A&A project to new-school construction. Therefore by nature, the capital construction list must be fluid and the department flexible. That's why department officials are in regular contact with boards regarding construction and renovation issues.

Let me talk for a minute about building a new school. Once Cabinet has approved the construction or renovation of a new school, three stages occur. The first phase is site selection. The school board identifies and submits three acceptable potential sites to the Department of Education. Education passes the list of sites on to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal for a technical evaluation and recommendation of the most appropriate site. They look at site lines for entry and exits, all those kinds of things. The Minister of Education considers TIR's recommendations and approves the final choice of site.

The second phase is called planning and design - it's when the design of the building is determined. Construction plans are drawn up and tenders are awarded. It's also when provincial government officials, school board officials, school staff such as principals and teachers, parents, and members of the public get together to form the school steering team. This advisory body, formed right at the beginning of the process, offers input and gets updated on all phases of the project. This community input is crucial to the success of the project. These folks understand the unique needs of their community and their input ensures that all of those involved are well versed in those needs come decision time.

Also at the beginning, the community has an opportunity to propose what we call "enhancements." Each school is built to a provincial standard both in terms of program space included and the technical aspects of the building. This ensures that each community gets a high-quality, modern learning centre. If a community wants the project to include something above and beyond that standard, it can propose enhancements. These enhancements are paid for by the municipality and/or local fundraising efforts. The list of potential enhancements,

as you can imagine, is almost limitless. One example, Oxford Regional Education Centre, our newest school which opened last month, includes a larger cafeteria, a fitness room and a multi-purpose community room. These enhancements benefit both the school and the community.

I should note that the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal is responsible for completing all design and construction phases of the project, in close collaboration, of course, with the Department of Education. The Department of Education is responsible for the broad planning and programming aspects of the school, ensuring that the Public School Program can be effectively and efficiently delivered in these buildings.

The third phase is construction commissioning and turnover. It is exciting for a community to see workers and machinery swarming over a site and their school slowly rising from the ground. All communities like to see that happen. When construction is completed, commissioning activities take place to ensure that it is in good working order, deficiencies are cleaned up and the building is flushed out, to ensure that the air quality is of the highest standard before students come into the building.

During this phase the school's furniture and technologies are moved and the teachers arrive to prepare the new classrooms and the school opens as an educational institution. That is the basic process of bringing a school from the first idea through to fruition as a new building.

You should have before you an information package about school capital construction and renovation. You'll find some details about what I've just talked about. You can see the list of projects approved since 2003 and their status, whether they're completed or pending or underway, as well as some photographs with an example of one photo of an artist's conception, I guess - not an artist's conception - a conceptual version of the new Yarmouth high school and the other couple of pages have some examples of how communities have gotten involved in the design of school features, which make the school very real and personal to the people of the community.

With those comments, my colleagues and I will be happy to respond to any questions that you may have. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, I appreciate that. As per usual, we'll take a speakers list or questions list, if anyone would like to. Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thanks to the three of you for being here this morning and, deputy, I'm sure you're going to have a grand time in Education. As you know, it's a bit overwhelming in the first month and we've had Education before us numerous times over the years. We were always entertained by Mr. Cochrane and

well informed because he certainly knew the role, but I'm sure you'll do just fine there and you have great staff.

MS. PENFOUND: I can't promise I can come up to Dennis' standard.

MR. PORTER: The big question would be, can you talk like Dennis?

I want to start off - you mentioned it as well and I think the minister mentioned it a week or so ago at a luncheon, about this population issue and the decline in the population. You talked about percentages, have you any idea what that means in real numbers? You talked 20 per cent, or one of you, sorry, I'll just direct the question.

MR. DARRELL YOUDEN: I'd be happy to speak to your question. Across the province we're dropping by about 3,500 students a year in a typical year. That is in the area, I think, of about 2 per cent of the population. It's not the same in all areas of the province and there have even been some changing trends, in that historically Cape Breton was the area of highest decline. I think if you were to take, say, a 15-year period, you'd find that is very much the case. In the last number of years Tri-County is a region where we've seen sort of an accelerating trend and a little bit in the South Shore as well, so it is a bit of a changing demographic there.

MR. PORTER: What about the urban population, is it staying constant?

MR. YOUDEN: Well, with respect to the urban population, the first thing is I would be careful that there's no preconception with respect to that it's not in decline with respect to student numbers. Student numbers are in decline and have been in decline historically for many, many years, both in metro and outside of metro but there has been less of a decline in the urban Halifax areas. There are also areas of the province - the New Minas quarter is an example - that have had less of a declining trend and, at the same time, CSAP has probably been stable or slight growth in the CSAP school population.

MR. PORTER: Has the department determined the cause for the constant lag?

MR. YOUDEN: I could ask my . . .

MS. PENFOUND: People aren't having enough babies.

MR. PORTER: No other reason, I guess. What I was getting at there and I appreciate there may have been a bit of humour in that but it's not about people moving away, it is actually the smaller family unit that is creating obviously smaller numbers in the schools. What kind of impact is that going to have on the teaching population in the years ahead? Are we going to be decreasing the number of teachers, or is the need going to be constant?

MS. PENFOUND: Obviously these numbers mean big change. If you could take those 3,500 every year and take them out of one school, two or three schools, you could make a change and you could significantly change how many buildings you had, but that's not how it happens. It happens across the board, a few students here and there and a few classrooms here and there. So it takes quite a significant change before you see actually losing a class here or there.

It would be disingenuous of me to say that I don't think ultimately in the long haul, as this trend continues, that it will, of course, make a difference in the number of classrooms we need and the number of teachers that we have at the front of those classrooms.

MR. PORTER: So I know in the Spring each year, generally speaking, and I could just, I guess, use my own elementary school in Windsor where my kids go, the principal there, Mike Knowles is often preparing in the Spring for what his Fall picture looks like but we know there's always a change there. How much leeway is there with regard to the teachers? Is there any? Or, once he is set, it's almost like it's set in stone - I'm going to use a round figure - 10 teachers, that's it, there's no 11^th if we need it.

MS. PENFOUND: I think there's a date, isn't there a cut-off date?

MR. YOUDEN: Maybe I could speak to the process a little bit, is probably the best way of answering your question, if I may. I would qualify it by saying each board has a slightly different approach but they all would mirror this to some degree.

The school boards go through an intensive planning process around what their school populations look like on a school-by-school basis, in the coming Fall. They have contractual requirements around their teacher contracts that they need to respond to so they start that process in the Spring. They are planning around what the estimated populations are going to be. They would meet typically with their principals. They have a - I don't want to use the word "target" but a guideline that would be typical and then they want to adjust that, based on special needs of the school and the population. There are different situations that demand more intensive or less intensive response, both with respect to the teachers and teaching assistants.

They go through that process and it goes right down to the school and grade level within a school in each of those instances. Typically a board would have a planned approach and they would have a contingency that allows them to deal with needs that are particular.

MR. PORTER: Obviously you have to start somewhere with at least a guideline or a number. Speaking of numbers, I want to jump right to the capital spending forecast released last year for the 2009-10 budget called for a $7.8 million reduction in the community college projects. Are you able to break down for us this morning where the $7.8 million was cut?

MR. YOUDEN: With respect to the community college, I probably wouldn't characterize it as a cut. What I would say is that the community college actually is quite a very positive story of capital investment within the community college. The cash flow that was allocated - each year we allocate cash flow to meet the construction requirements which are being advanced. On that project the cash flow required for the construction that year was less, so if I may, that's how I would characterize it, not as a cut but rather the project that was proceeding.

That project is proceeding on time, on budget, and I think is very much a success story for the community college. So while the cash flow is less, it is proceeding as planned.

MR. PORTER: Thanks for that clarity. The 2009-10 capital budget forecast called for $784,000 less being spent on the Kings County Academy project in Kentville. Can you speak to that and why is that? There were a few examples there. There were some with more, like $40,000 on a new Yarmouth school. Again, how do we get to that $461,000 less on the P to 9 school in Lunenburg, so there are examples of changes?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Every project - these are large and very complex projects. Early in that process we try to project, as best we can, what the costs will be in order to provide the provincial standard that the deputy minister mentioned earlier.

The construction climate in the last two to three years has been very volatile. Predicting what those costs are going to be has proven to be more of an art than a science. There is a natural movement in the cash flow, depending on local conditions and the market in different areas. For example, Yarmouth is an area which we anticipate to have a little higher costs than other areas of the province, so there is a regional difference that some of these numbers reflect.

MR. PORTER: I appreciate that very much. It is the same regardless of what is being built. It is just very hard to determine and stay on task and projected estimates and then, once the tenders are out, it's very difficult to try to stay within. But on that same vein, I appreciate what you're saying, what if the project - and let's just use Yarmouth - comes in a little over? I'm assuming the department is still there to support that, and the government?

MR. YOUDEN: From a process perspective, first understand what we do in each one of these individual projects. We make a commitment in terms of the scope of what the project is going to be and sometimes you simply cannot deliver that during the year. I could give you examples ranging from - I can think of an instance in Sydney where we were awaiting a street to be closed. For that particular year, or virtually for a year, that project was held in abeyance until the municipal approvals, et cetera, could happen. Now that's an historical reference. But what we would do in the meantime is we would advance other projects because we effectively would have that cash-flow allocation, we'd simply look to where we have pressures on other projects and we would advance those.

That's one example and there could be 50 examples like that because what happens is in the nature of any ongoing construction, sometimes there are delays and for every one where you have a delay, you have another one where you have a pressure that is advancing from a cash-flow perspective perhaps faster than you would like.

[9:30 a.m.]

Within our budget allocations for the total projects every year, we offset the pressures against the delays. Overall, I would suggest that we've been fortunate that we've been able to keep the overall projects moving as they should be.

MR. PORTER: Thank you. Just quickly I want to move on to a couple of questions with regard to schools in my area. As you know, Hants West Rural High has been closed this year - the middle school - due to a variety of needs. It's probably the right decision, looking back, to get it done and allow workers to get in there and get this project done. Are we on time with that? I certainly would think that we're well over budget on what was initially put forward, just due to what has transpired there. Are we on time to open this year, do you think we'll be back to school this year there or are we looking at September, in all reality, for the kids back in Hants West?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: I don't have an update from the board recently, but there have been no reports of any further delays.

MR. PORTER: What's the most recent update that you have?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: I would have to ask the board for that.

MR. PORTER: Okay, that's fine.

MR. YOUDEN: I would add, if I may, we're not aware of any particular problems. There's always a risk with construction that things happen, but . . .

MR. PORTER: Yes, absolutely, but nothing out of the ordinary there as planned now after last year's events?

MR. YOUDEN: No, as you know there were some issues of dust and whatnot as our program continued but . . .

MR. PORTER: Yes, there were some air quality issues or whatever.

MR. YOUDEN: . . . we understand it's in pretty good hands currently.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: There were a few other things that they found and those are being dealt with all within the schedule, nothing really out of the ordinary.

MR. PORTER: What I'm being asked the most in my calls and when I'm in meetings is, are we going to be back there this year? I'm saying, I really don't know with construction. But mostly, as you've said, depending on how tenders come in and how quick the work can be done and they're doing the best they can and so on. They're looking forward to getting back there, but we're already into February and it's hard to say with regard to - and I realize even after it's finished there's a window there for testing and all of those things that have to be done.

Last year sometime - I forget, maybe in the Spring - we talked about money for Hantsport School and for the Three Mile Plains Elementary School. Of course, my inquiries from council and members of the community is, is that money still on target to be put forward on the renovations for these two schools, any changes to that budget line there with regard to spending in Hantsport and Three Mile Plains?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Both of those projects are still on the books, they're not scheduled to start this year, but . . .

MR. PORTER: No, I realize we're out a couple of years, I just can't recall right off - maybe even 13 or 14 for Three Mile Plains, I can't recall.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Three Mile Plains is a little further out, but there are no changes to either one.

MR. PORTER: But as of right now there are no changes there and Hantsport being the same, no changes to the plans there?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: No changes.

MR. YOUDEN: Pardon me, if I could just interrupt . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: If I could interrupt just a little bit. Are you nearing an end?

MR. PORTER: I am, if that's fine, Madam Chairman.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Yes, just getting a sense for the other members on the list.

MR. PORTER: Absolutely.

MR. YOUDEN: I'm just sensitive to timing in terms of answering that last question from the perspective that a budget is not that far in the future and we're answering our questions based on the planning information we have before us today and until the government finalizes a budget, it's impossible and I wouldn't want - if there was a change, and I'm not suggesting there would be, but answering those questions on the eve of a budget, who knows how that unfolds?

MR. PORTER: And I appreciate that very much and thank you for that.

MR. YOUDEN: And that would apply with the school.

MR. PORTER: I guess just to date what I'm wondering is, have there been any changes, and I'm being told everything is on target as of right now.

School closures is always something that comes up. I don't know, it just continually seems to be going around. There's a review, it's done - or it seems it's done - and then it's back on again. My last question to you would simply be - talking about all the decline in population, it's real, we know that. We also know that there are a number of schools in some areas - I have eight or nine schools in my area and I have a school where the numbers are low. It's probably reasonable to think some of these discussions are going on, but the families and communities are divided over these issues. There are some saying, yes, close it, it makes sense; there are others saying, oh my God, how could you ever close a school?

We talked about 2010 or 2020 and 1910 - comparisons. Once upon a time in a community where I grew up there was one schoolhouse and we saw many grades and levels and things there. With the declining population and where we're going - 3,500 a year is substantial when we're looking at numbers - do you ever see us going back to that model again whereby you might be in one facility teaching more than - right now we see this P to 6, we see P to 9 in a couple of places, but the numbers are shrinking. Will we ever see a model like that again where we may all gather in a classroom, or a couple of classrooms, and be taught a variety of levels in school?

MS. PENFOUND: Certainly as you'd know, there are some instances now where you have split grades, where you might have a P to 1 split, or Grades 2 and 3, and that's necessitated by just how the numbers are working out in a particular school. I certainly wouldn't say that we have some plan that we're going to that kind of a system, but as the population declines and we deal with things, I guess you take it as it comes along and you deal with those split classes and the numbers as you best can in the facility that you've got.

MR. PORTER: Thank you very much.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Whynott.

MR. WHYNOTT: Thank you for coming today. I think it's important for everyone - everyone being us as MLAs and also the public - to know that changes are taking place when it comes to potential school construction. It's interesting, I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago with the minister and she did use that statistic. It was unbelievable that we'll be at the same population as in 1910, it was shocking for everyone in the room.

We talk about change in population and if we see a decrease in some areas of the province, we're certainly seeing an increase in the area in which I represent. If you split my riding into a couple of different communities, you could see the area of Sackville, which is declining, but then you also see the area of Hammonds Plains that's just booming and houses are going up left, right and centre, and there are population increases all over in the province as well.

In your presentation you talked about partnerships and enhancements for schools. What types of agreements are sought when an enhancement is proposed by a community group or organization where a school is potentially going to be built?

MR. YOUDEN: I'm glad you raised that. If I could just make a comment about community enhancements, attitudinally how we look at these. It's a golden opportunity for a community, when a school is being built, to piggyback on that with whatever the community may be looking for. There's quite a wide variety of projects around the province - I can think of a swimming pool in the Guysborough region, health club-type facilities which are very popular, so those kinds of add-ons.

The window is open for a short period of time and if a community can grab that, they're benefiting from free land, free parking, tying into the heating and cooling systems of the school, just a wealth of savings and opportunity that really can deliver something much more, so we look for those. They're a bit of a challenge, to be practical for a moment, because really your central focus is trying to deliver a school and it's a major project with a lot of challenges to it, and you're adding something that's very different and unique. That can be difficult in the timeline and difficult for the community to respond, but realistically the window is open for a short period of time and you try to grab it.

In the end, those have been very successful. Currently, I think Lakeview is probably the best example of a project on the go that would have that kind of an opportunity being availed.

MR. WHYNOTT: So how often do you work with the municipalities to offset costs?

MR. YOUDEN: What we have tried to do, I guess conceptually, is first and foremost we are there to deliver a school and our mandate has to be delivering the very best school we can, but at the same time what you're trying to do is be very, very open and co-operate to maximize that opportunity for the community.

We look for the municipality to look after the direct costs of the piece that is being added by the municipality. That said, we typically include it within our design. In other cases we've taken sort of what we call hybrid opportunities and Citadel High would be a good example of that, where the community was not at a point in time where it had enough money to complete the entirety of the theatre complex. However, to miss out on our construction and planning effort would have been a shame.

They were successful, through a number of avenues, in getting enough money to build the shell and that's something we've done before as we've proceeded with the construction of the shell. Then the community will respond over time and they'll finish the outfitting of the dressing rooms and stage and those things within it.

We do look for the municipality to look after the direct costs but there's a lot we do that sort of facilitates and supports making it happen.

MR. WHYNOTT: And presumably to include those enhancements in the design would save costs.

MR. YOUDEN: Significantly.

MR. WHYNOTT: For all groups involved, probably.

MR. YOUDEN: It would save for the municipality with their project. We're proceeding with design anyway so we can incorporate it at negligible cost to us.

MR. WHYNOTT: I have a question. An announced opening of a school, how often does the date change?

MR. YOUDEN: It's not uncommon for there to be delays in the opening of a project. Uniquely, or conversely, oftentimes projects will accelerate as well but you're not always ready to move your school populations in. The kinds of problems we would run into, as an example, site selection can be an issue. Probably if you were to look at a project we did, I think la Rive-Sud would be a good example of a situation where originally it was proceeding in the Blockhouse region as an A&A project. Everybody, I think, was on the same page, trying to find a solution for that community and that school population. So it started out as an A&A project - additions and alterations project - and as you work through that it makes more sense for it to be a new school and that was what would emerge.

That, in itself, took time. Then when it moved to the site selection stage, there were difficulties with the sites that were selected. Of course when the board does their selection of the site, they're not looking at the technical side of the site and whether it will, in fact, work for the school. So those things generate time and that is just a reality of construction. On the positive side, there's probably an awful lot more of those challenges that are worked through than actually crop up as delays at the end of the day.

MR. WHYNOTT: I know, Ms. Penfound, you talked a little bit about community involvement in building of new schools. Do you involve the community in the design and the building of a school and can you kind of elaborate a bit on that?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: When the school is approved, shortly thereafter we hire architects and engineers - a design team - and you also have the school board and Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal all on that team.

Immediately there is a school steering team, an SST, that is convened. That team includes people from the school, from the community, sometimes an MLA, sometimes a municipal councillor. That process is continual. There are regular meetings with the SST. We just had one last night in Lunenburg on the new school there. They are involved from square one. A lot of times they are involved in the site selection process, actually, the community members and the school staff, for example. So that goes on.

Their involvement is an advisory role more than a decision-making role. It ramps up early in the project and then as the design gets firmed up and the design team goes into the more detailed aspects and even in construction, their role diminishes. They are still there receiving updates and responding and providing their advice if something is to change, but their role does diminish during construction. They see the designs as they develop and they are part of them.

MR. WHYNOTT: Okay, thank you very much. I'll leave my questions and someone else can go.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The speakers list at this point would be Ms. Birdsall and then Ms. Regan and then Mr. Morton and then Mr. Gosse, and I'm not sure, myself, I'll have a few questions as well. Go ahead.

MS. BIRDSALL: Thank you. We're looking at things now as far as efficiency goes and running schools efficiently and how to cut costs and things. I was wondering, in an era with rising energy costs and environmental concerns, how are we looking at those issues, as far as running our schools efficiently, can you talk about that?

MS. PENFOUND: Yes, I have a little bit of information. With new schools, government decided, a while ago actually, that all public buildings would be designed and constructed to the LEED international standard for energy efficiency, so it is an international standard that is accepted.

[9:45 a.m.]

In November 2008 the standard was set at silver and then in January 2009 the standard was raised to gold level, so that's being built into new construction. We now have one school that has actually attained the silver level and that is Sir John A. Macdonald High School. So we're on side with the general policy in government for all public buildings to move to that new standard.

MS. BIRDSALL: Can you talk a little bit about the difference between silver and gold, what does that actually mean - other than the Olympics?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: The LEED standard is a series of items that you - it's a list that you can check off. You can pick whichever you achieve and you get points for that. I don't know what the actual point number difference is between silver and gold but it's a matter of just raising the number of items that you can actually have in your building which will get you to the gold.

Gold is a very aggressive target. We're going to meet it on all of the new schools that were approved last April and we're pushing to get as close to it as we can on some of the previous ones that were in process already. So it's a very aggressive target but well worth it.

MR. YOUDEN: There's one other piece to this story that I'd like to add as well because what we're talking about now is with respect to new school construction. At the same time, we have a lot of older buildings and, as I think everybody here would appreciate, there's more demand for improvements to our schools than perhaps we have capacity in any given year. It's something that you have to work at.

One of the things we did this year and it is included in our plans for next year is that we have a targeted capital allocation with respect to energy-related projects within the schools and that is something - it is targeted for purposes of making sure that the money goes to that priority.

We started down that road with boards, it has been quite successful. The range of projects is pretty varied and different because some buildings it may, in fact, be that the insulation in the roof is wet and that simply is the best application for that school. The boards are engaging in determining what makes the best sense and proceeding down that road. Then, at the same time, to support what the boards are doing, TIR actually has a consulting review which is looking at all buildings, including schools. That takes a little bit more time and

we're already out of the gate with some projects but it will be supported by a consulting review, what is best sense and what is best bang for the buck in terms of getting some payback on some of these energy projects.

MS. BIRDSALL: So then we're obviously looking at different standards. How could you say, briefly, how construction would be now, compared to 10 years ago? Obviously there are new technologies and there are new ways of approaching things and I'm assuming this silver and gold standard, these weren't in place . . .

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: The standard that we built to 10 years ago was quite a high standard, actually. There's a provincial document, a design requirements manual, that is quite stringent. We want to ensure that the province gets best value. So it has been at a very high level for quite a long time.

LEED and the energy efforts are just raising the bar on that. It was already at a very high standard but we are raising the bar significantly. We're doing things like putting green roofs and it's really almost pilots at the moment. We have one of them at Halifax Citadel and another one going in the new Yarmouth high school, things like that, collecting rain water for flushing of toilets and things of that nature, so it has just ratcheted it up a bit more but it was a good standard, actually a very high standard, before.

MS. BIRDSALL: Is there going to be a green roof in Lunenburg?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: We're at very early stages in Lunenburg, but all of the issues like that will be considered. In Yarmouth, one thing we're trying to do is use that same area as a teaching opportunity for the students, so that's always in our minds as well.

MS. BIRDSALL: So that decision, who decides whether or not there will be a green roof or water collection?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: The entire design team, which includes the Departments of Environment, Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, and the school boards are part of that as well because there's a life cycle costing issue we have to look at also, so it's a collaborative effort, it's not just one group that makes those decisions.

MS. BIRDSALL: It sounds like a great idea. Thank you.

MR. YOUDEN: In closing on that issue, too, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Nova Scotia Community College and the Waterfront Campus on the Dartmouth side. It's really quite a high-end example of the kinds of accomplishments that can happen in that regard and also from a program perspective as well.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Ms. Regan.

MS. KELLY REGAN: I come from one of the few communities that's actually bursting at the seams. Across Bedford-Birch Cove we have a variety of school facilities. We have some really state-of-the-art schools that have had augmentations in gyms, they have art rooms. We have other little schools that are not wheelchair accessible, that don't have gyms, lunchrooms, or adequate washrooms in some cases. So we have some really tiny schools with not a lot of facilities, we have some up-to-date ones, we have a P3 school, we have a huge variety in there. Is there any plan to level the playing field so that kids are going to something similar when they go to school? What we're seeing is some students have fantastic facilities and other students, if they end up in a wheelchair because they've had an accident, they can't go to school at that school.

MS. PENFOUND: I'll start and my colleagues here may jump in. I think you're stating a problem that is well recognized. With well over 400 schools in Nova Scotia, some of them were built before many of us were born, some of them were built two years ago. We're going to have, just by definition given the number of schools, we can't replace them all at once, we're going to have those differences in schools whether we like it or not. Having said that, I guess the approach that we've taken in consultation with school boards is that we ask school boards to identify where the greatest need is to address these issues. The process that goes on with the School Capital Construction Committee considers all manner of things, but under four headings which are the condition of the school, the capacity in the school, the core programs, and how they can be efficiently operated, so those things all go into the equation.

We would love to go out and even the playing field if we could and ultimately the goal is to look at those priorities as they come from school boards, recognizing that there's a time factor here, there's a money factor here and when you're dealing with over 400 schools, by definition you're going to have some that are brand new and you're going to have some of those ones that are 50 years old. We have a few that are almost 100 years old that still have students in them. You look at those and it isn't automatically to replace them all, you look at can we achieve something through the A&A process, can we look at school boundaries, can we figure out where there's capacity that we can move students to places where they are in a better facility.

I guess what I'm learning is that it's very complex, but the issue that you identify is very much on the minds of all of us involved in the process and certainly what boards are struggling with as they come up with their lists that they send forward to the department. I don't know if either of you can add to that.

MR. YOUDEN: I would add that the challenge that we have - and I certainly would support your comments - realistically, if we had a population that did not have a baby boom, school planning and responding to school planning would be a much lesser challenge and I

suspect could probably happen in a smoother way. The reality is there was a huge building stock that was brought on in the 1960s and 1970s. It's interesting, if you look back historically, provincially, at what we've spent on new buildings, with a large input of buildings in that generation, if you look for the next 25 years after that there wasn't really an awful lot spent on new schools because capacity had been met and your population was trailing in the other direction. What really has happened is that large block of buildings has moved out 45 to 50 years and now is putting real demands on the system.

If you look, probably starting about 1996, you'll find that historically the province has responded to that and there has been a much larger input in reinvestment in both new buildings, A&A projects, and renovations and repairs. It's simply the necessity of what we're dealing with on the street, it does represent equity challenges on a school-by-school basis. You have to respond to your highest needs and there's quite an intensive process of trying to make sure that we do that in a fair and reasonable way.

MS. REGAN: In terms of a school in my area, the new Bedford High, or as I like to call it, the new Bedford-Hammonds Plains High because it serves that area as well, that was announced last year around April, I believe. At the time, it was indicated that it would open in September 2012 and now the date is December 2012. I'm concerned and people are starting to say to me they're concerned because we still don't have a site selected yet. Is that a normal time frame? First of all, is it a normal time frame for it to have taken this amount of time to select a site and will that impact what's going to happen in terms of the date?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: I believe the date in April was announced as December 2012.

MS. REGAN: No, it was going to open in September is what we were told in Bedford.

MR. YOUDEN: What I would say is, it is absolutely normal that communities are concerned when a date slides even three months because really what's behind it is a concern that the project is not advancing. One of the problems is, and I think it's just human nature, until people see action happening there's a lack of confidence that the project is happening and is going to be responsive to what we want as a community. That is somewhat normal in an awful lot of projects.

One comment I would make that would be particular to your riding would be that the site selection process is often much easier when there's lots of land available and that often takes you to your rural setting, we can get reasonable sites and oftentimes, even when the project is first identified, an obvious site will be apparent. When you get into an area that's more populated it's a more difficult process and it then creates the time and apprehension. In terms of the project, I would certainly offer comfort that the project is proceeding, it's just

that it's at that stage when it's not very visible. Until the bulldozers are there, that view continues.

MS. REGAN: I think, too, until such time as a site is actually announced, because we do have the three finalists, but it sort of sat at that same place for a while and people are getting a little antsy about that, wondering what's going on. When we look at the lists, we get various lists of board requests, we get School Capital Construction Program, I think with parents, schools identified for major additions, alterations, new schools under construction et cetera, parents get antsy when they look on the list for a School Capital Construction Program and it just says "pending" next to the name of the school that they are really hoping their kids are going to get to go to. Just sort of echoing their concerns, do we have any idea where we are in this process? How much longer is it going to take before we have a site selected?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: TIR is doing the technical evaluation of those three sites that the board submitted, they're in the middle of that process now. I would expect over the next couple of months that they will have that done. In order to meet the December deadline for construction completion we would need to have the architects hired sometime in the late summer in order to follow a comfortable timeline. We do have time still and it's moving along according to meeting that deadline.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Whynott mentioned what kind of agreements you look for in terms of enhancements because that is one of the things that the community is looking at, doing an arts enhancement for this new school. I'm just wondering if you could be a little more specific and outline what kind of agreements you're looking for either from the municipality or from the community itself when they want to do an enhancement.

MR. YOUDEN: Typically - and the term we use is "community use agreement" and it's negotiated between the school board and the municipality. The kinds of things that are contained in that is that first and foremost, obviously, we're building a school and we're wanting to preserve the access of the school population to the school. Perhaps a good example would be where you expand a gymnasium and that's not an uncommon one - we have a standard sizing that we would provide for a gymnasium.

Oftentimes there may be a desire to facilitate tournaments and use the gym in a larger way, so it would be expanded. The school board needs to preserve their usage of that gymnasium, but at the same time the municipality has put money on the table wanting to create something bigger and better and they want certain rights of usage. That has to be ironed out between the school board and the municipality so that it is smooth and seamless. It's much better to do those things up front than try to sort them out later, I guess is the theme, if you will.

They go through that process, they reach an agreement, and it can even get down to hours of access because if your caretaking staff are shutting down at 10 o'clock at night, you don't want to run into issues later on. Cost sharing, depending on the nature of what it is, those things need to be ironed out in advance.

[10:00 a.m.]

The comment I would make is that the municipalities and the school boards work together very well in making that happen. My own experience would say that those things iron themselves out very quickly because there's a common interest and they work together very well.

MS. REGAN: What I was actually looking for was more - do you require some kind of determination of financial commitment from the community up front?

MR. YOUDEN: I can't speak to the exact terms of how that plays out but I can give you some general comments. Typically what we do is we ask for, I'll call them payment terms. I forget the key dates that they're hinged to, so pardon me on that front, but it's something to the effect of 10 per cent when the project starts, et cetera, and timed to the delivery of the project and that's laid down. I'm not sure if Darrell MacDonald would be able to recall those offhand . . .

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: No, I don't recall those offhand.

MR. YOUDEN: . . . but it is a standard arrangement which we use in all cases.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Ms. Regan, are you near completion? We have a few other speakers.

MS. REGAN: Yes, a couple more. Can you tell us what percentage of schools are completed within their estimated time frame from the day they are announced? Is there sort of a ballpark on that?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: I've never calculated the statistic.

MR. YOUDEN: We've never really looked at it in the way that you suggest to calculate it. The difficulty in looking at that is one of - it's really where that question goes, in terms of whether or not they're running slow from a delivery perspective, they should be proceeding faster, or are there unavoidable or controlled delays within the project? It really happens on both fronts, there are situations where projects slow down, construction slows down because of availability of trades. Things happen.

Those things happen at the same time, sometimes there are unavoidable delays that have nothing to do with the project and it could be approvals or whatever the case may be.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Morton.

MR. MORTON: Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you for being here this morning to provide us with a lot of helpful information. I'd just like to ask a question around the area of school maintenance. Over the years there have been, I think, a number of concerns all across the province over the level of deferred maintenance in schools. I think there has been some sense that it may have contributed to, kind of, the longevity of the schools. I guess I'm interested in whether there has been progress made in that area.

MS. PENFOUND: Perhaps I can start there and then these folks can jump in and help me out. The deferred maintenance problem is one that has been recognized for quite a while and obviously given the age of those schools, which we've spoken to already, it just stands to reason that you're going to have maintenance issues. The longer you leave those issues sitting there, the bigger problem it becomes.

The department took some action not long ago by initiating the school capital construction improvement process, which looked at all school buildings as a whole and prioritized them in terms of where the need was and used those same criteria I mentioned before about condition, capacity, core programs, and how that maintenance and those issues were impacting on our delivery of programs in those schools.

We've done some work on that stuff, we've looked at 20 years of significant investment in buildings and dealing with air quality and those types of things. There still are some older buildings, of course, with their own infrastructure needs and we have been assisting boards on a case-by-case basis with annual grants to each board to address significant maintenance issues. I'll leave it at that, unless you have some detail.

MR. YOUDEN: A couple of short comments. There has been a fairly aggressive reinvestment in new projects which, of course, eliminates older stock which has contributed greatly to this problem. Anecdotally, I can remember a number of years ago when our capital construction program was really focused on initially keeping the water out and doing upgrades. We seem to have moved into a more positive point in time when we're beyond the immediacy of those kinds of problems.

I can recall one of our property directors with one of the school boards reflecting, and he said he was driving along the highway on a Sunday and it was very rainy, had been raining for two days. He said it dawned on him his cellphone wasn't ringing. The moral of the story was, we're making progress. So I think it has been a positive story. There's still a very large demand out there, however, it's a lot better than the situation we were in.

MR. MORTON: Is that feedback from the school boards relatively common, or are there still clearly challenges that are being pushed back your way?

MR. YOUDEN: I would suggest there's both. I would suggest that the common theme that we're making progress, I think school boards would acknowledge that. The fact that we also have a lot of older buildings that are approaching the end of their life cycle is the conflicting side of that and the pressures which emerge.

MR. MORTON: Just in another area, I guess this perhaps has something to do with maybe design and management. Over the last couple of decades, we've had a growing concern about school safety, the safety of children. In the wider world where there's a significant amount of violence, sometimes that visits us here in Nova Scotia. What measures are being taken to create schools that provide a higher standard of safety?

MS. PENFOUND: We actually have some interesting stuff going on on that front. The department has enlisted the services of an experienced police officer who is now working with us on safety issues as our safe schools coordinator, and we've found that to be a really positive thing. He's bringing his expertise to the picture regarding crime prevention through environmental design. You might think, what the heck is that? It's stuff like providing appropriate advice on where you should locate your office. Some older schools, you had to come into the building and walk to the back before you actually got to the office. That's not what you want to do now - you want to be sure your office is visible, that everyone entering the school is observed by somebody in the management structure of the school or whatever, so those kinds of things.

Also, looking at the exterior of the school, making sure you're not creating any blind spots, those types of things, that when you hear them you think, well, that's a no-brainer, but somebody like that who has the expertise and the experience can provide appropriate advice. We've found him to be extremely helpful on new-school construction and also on providing advice as we look to renovate older schools to deal with those kinds of safety issues. Darrell, you may have something to add since you work directly with him.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Yes. We involve him from the outside on every new school project and major renovation project; he has given us great input on that. He also chairs a security guidelines working group which is a provincial group of like-minded people from all school boards.

Coming this Thursday, I am sitting with some people from the RCMP who are trying to coordinate efforts - they call it their safe program - and this is a federal initiative. We're collaborating as much as we can with others who are like-minded or have had experience with this. So Mark's input has been quite valuable up to now - I'm sorry, Mark Young is his name.

MR. MORTON: Can I just ask one?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Yes, sure. There's lots of time.

MR. MORTON: Another thing, still maybe on location of schools, one of the things I think we're increasingly concerned about or aware of is that the more exercise kids get, the healthier they are. It certainly occurred to me that that can have something to do with where schools are located. I'm kind of curious about what consideration is given in terms of site selection at this point to things like active transportation or the ability of kids to walk or bike to school when a site is located and the extent to which there are appropriate sidewalks or pathways to help kids get to school.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: It's definitely a factor, there are many factors in the site selection process, of course. There is a connection to the LEED standard actually and if you have addressed some of those issues in terms of location, if you were on a municipal bus route, for example, or if kids can ride their bikes to school and you provide somewhere for them to lock them up and that sort of thing - there are a number of items like that in the LEED standard. The site selection process is so broad that we can't necessarily use that one factor to dictate, but it's always something that is part of the process of consideration of the site.

MR. MORTON: Certainly in the last 10 or 15 years we've built schools, it seems to me in my part of the province, in Kings County, in locations where it says if that hasn't been considered at all in places where it would be very difficult to walk, it would just be almost impossible, but it says if it wasn't considered. So is it getting, do you think, a higher level? Is it a factor that is on the table?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: It is absolutely a factor that is on the table. It's a little tougher to do in a rural situation, of course. In municipal areas schools are typically a little closer together and neighbourhoods are generally congregated around them, so it is easier in the municipal areas. But it's always a factor that we take into account.

MR. MORTON: Thanks.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Samson.

HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Deputy, congratulations on your appointment as the new Deputy Minister of Education. I just want to clarify a few of the capital budget forecasts for new schools. L'École de la Rive-Sud - that's in Lunenburg County, is it?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Just outside of Bridgewater.

MR. SAMSON: And l'École Secondaire du Halifax, that would be the new high school going in Bedford, isn't it?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Yes.

MR. SAMSON: It's going to complement Beaubassin, I take it?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: That's right.

MR. SAMSON: Is that what it's going to be called, l'École Secondaire du Halifax?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: No, it's l'École Sommet.

MR. SAMSON: Okay. Glace Bay Junior High, Kings County Academy, Lakeview - where is Lakeview?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: That's in Porter's Lake.

MR. SAMSON: It's in Porter's Lake, okay. That's the one that was supposed to be a renovation and now is a new school. Northside Elementary, I'm assuming that's in Northside, Cape Breton?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: North Sydney.

MR. SAMSON: Oxford, Waverley, Yarmouth - when you look at this list there's no doubt that it weighs fairly heavily on ridings that were previously held by government members prior to the June 2009 election. I guess the question is, we have a new government that's in place now - have you been given any sort of direction as to the decision-making process as to which schools are going to go forward, especially when it comes to new construction, as to whether there are going to be any changes from the process which would have been used by the previous government?

MS. PENFOUND: The process that we are engaged in, as it has always been - boards do their work, they determine what school projects they desire to go forward, they set priorities. We then go into our School Capital Construction Committee process and determine our priorities on a provincial basis. After a back and forth with the boards and sometimes challenging them and ourselves to be sure we've taken into account existing capacity and demographics, all of those things, we put forward that proposed list to Executive Council for approval.

MR. SAMSON: I think it all sounded great right until the very end there, because I think that's the catch. It is Executive Council that determines what projects are going to go forward, isn't it?

MS. PENFOUND: That's correct.

MR. SAMSON: I guess it goes back to my initial question, under the new administration, the new NDP Government that is in place, have you been given any sort of instructions as to whether there will be any changes to that process? For example, that the Department of Education would have the final say, not Executive Council - have you been given any sort of instructions in that regard?

MS. PENFOUND: No, we have not.

MR. SAMSON: Okay. Porter's Lake, has there been any review on that or is it safe to say that's still proceeding as a new construction?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: That is proceeding as a new school, with a significant enhancement by the Halifax Regional Municipality.

MR. SAMSON: Could you explain what you mean by that, an enhancement by the Halifax Regional Municipality?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: The HRM approached the school board, which is the standard process, where they desired to create a community centre or, I believe, relocate a current community centre and integrate it into the design of the new school.

In their overall planning, which I can't really speak to in detail, they've identified that as a desirable thing to do. So we're in the process now of programming and designing that enhancement, which includes an increase to the size of the gymnasium from our standard elementary to a fairly large junior high-level gym. On top of that, I believe they're increasing the cafeteria and also they have their own spaces that they're adding, not only modifying our spaces but adding their own community spaces also.

MR. SAMSON: I'm curious, are they still going with the site just behind the Superstore, for that new school?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: It's just off Exit 20 and there's a triangular area there.

MR. SAMSON: So that's where it's going to be built. Now, the list that we have here of new schools, these are the ones that are going forward, there's no question that these are moving ahead, is that safe to say?

[10:15 a.m.]

MS. PENFOUND: Well, this is the list that was approved, and they are on the agenda and through the planning process. Of course it's always a question of money. Every year a tangible capital asset budget is approved and what we build and what we do and on what schedule is always determined by the amount of money that is available.

MR. SAMSON: Okay, but at this point you haven't been given any indications that any of these schools are being put on hold or are not proceeding?

MS. PENFOUND: No.

MR. SAMSON: I know from my good colleague, when you talked about some of the frustrations with site selection and everything, I know that Glace Bay Junior High was a prime example of that and the angst in the community and angst in the elected member to the Legislature I think were all reflected in some of the challenges that were faced by that community. I guess just for the record, is it safe to say that Glace Bay Junior High is well underway in construction and proceeding as hoped?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: For sure. Walls are built, floors are built, it's moving forward quite well.

MS. PENFOUND: We're not moving it now. (Laughter)

MR. YOUDEN: For the benefit, too, of the group that wouldn't be as close as you would be to that situation, that was an interesting one from the site selection perspective because if you looked at the mapping of the region, the problem was subsidence. Finding the right spot for the school was quite a trying process for everybody because you couldn't sit it on ground that was going to move.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: There was an evaluation of between 20 and 25 potential sites before we arrived at the current one.

MR. SAMSON: I appreciate that. One of the discussions that you start off with, the numbers that you indicated, certainly the Strait Regional School Board has had its share of significant population decline. I think, if I'm not mistaken, the board has the lowest student population yet the largest geographic area to cover.

One of the challenges, especially in our area, is the programming and the fact that distance education is becoming the norm in many, especially at the Richmond Academy, for a significant number of the courses. I'm curious as to what approach is being used by the department in order to ensure that students, such as those at Richmond Academy, are having

access to the same level of courses and instruction as what would be available in HRM, for example.

MR. YOUDEN: I could offer a few comments but I wouldn't pretend that it would be my area of expertise. The challenge is you can supplement the curriculum with distance education but really it can't be the central offerings. It is something that the Strait board actually has been a leader in trying to roll out and has co-operated with other boards, but it's more in the area of providing broader choices and program offerings so that in rural settings you can be somewhat comparable to an urban setting where that is more readily attainable.

MR. SAMSON: Fortunately the Strait board has been able to do that but talking with students, it is the complaint that because of lack of numbers, specific courses that they would be interested in taking are just not made available because there is not the student population or interest that is there in order to be able to do that.

In the Strait board they have made all the cuts to the schools that they can. There's nothing left, they're down to the bone right now. There's just nowhere left to eliminate schools so I'm just curious, what consideration is being given to an area such as the Strait board, which doesn't have any surplus of schools? They've closed the schools that they had to and yet the numbers are still going down. Is there any special initiative that's being put in place to deal with boards such as the Strait one?

MR. YOUDEN: I think there's probably a two-level response to that. One of the challenges that we have, earlier in the opening remarks the deputy minister referred to the declining population. Of course what goes hand in hand with that is that you are still serving the same geography and the Strait is probably currently the example I would point to where the sparsity of population is probably the biggest challenge in terms of offering educational programs.

It presents itself largely as a cost because what you've got, in effect, is smaller class sizes and it requires funding support. There is funding support provided to the Strait and that allows them to provide the educational side. Where there is a challenge, though - and this is probably more at the high school level than lower grade levels - is broader program offering because you made reference to there may not be enough students to sign up for a program. There is a certain diseconomy. That does not apply, however, to core programming, core programming is offered across the province. It is when you are into the elective areas, if you don't have sufficient numbers it's a real challenge for boards to offer that.

Now, that is a challenge for the Strait but I think they are also doing a pretty good job and some of their results are very, very positive.

MR. SAMSON: You indicated that one of the areas of growth is with the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial. Certainly here in metro there appears to be an increased demand for that. We know there is a new secondary school that is being built in Bedford but what other steps are being taken to address the fact that you actually have a growing demand, especially here in metro, for students to attend CSAP schools?

MS. PENFOUND: The CSAP board goes through the same process as all others in terms of identifying need but I don't know if there is anything you can add.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Just to give you an example, l'École Sommet, the school is being designed for an initial student enrolment of about 450 students but we do recognize the fact that they have the "if you build it they will come" aspect and that has proven to be true in certain areas, especially in Bedford, for example.

That school, we call it the core, meaning gymnasium, library, administration, cafeteria. We're designing the core for 600 students, anticipating the increase that is probably to come within the next 10 years. We're just building the classroom wings, the number of classrooms will support the 450 and, as the population increases, then we can respond by simply adding classrooms and the core of the building has already been designed to accommodate.

MR. SAMSON: One of the programs that the CSAP has been doing, they're offering daycare services at the elementary site. Right now basically you're told if your child is born, sign them up right away. There's that type of a demand that is existing there, which is proof of the success.

I'm curious, my understanding is that with the construction of the new school, that daycare is going to be moved to the new site. Could you indicate what accommodations are being put in place for that program?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: With l'École Sommet and as well l'École de la Rive-Sud in Bridgewater, the federal government, Heritage Canada, is contributing. They are enhancing the school project to include the daycare area and that's quite common that they do that. So I'm not sure that anything will change from the Beaubassin site but we are definitely constructing, with the help of Heritage Canada , the daycare in the high school.

MR. SAMSON: Now, I'm just curious, is that something that's being extended to all high schools, or at the moment is it just with CSAP schools?

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: It's at CSAP because of the involvement of Heritage Canada, generally.

MR. SAMSON: Okay, let me just end, Madam Chairman. A few years ago, when Angus MacIsaac was the Minister of Education, I continued to question him about the student population declining in the Strait Regional School Board. He put up with so many of my questions until finally saying that it was time for the member for Richmond to do his own part to help with student growth. So in light of your comments at the start, deputy, I'm pleased to inform you that in September 2009, we did our part to try to help the student population growth and I'm certainly hoping Mr. Whynott and others of my colleagues - now that I have someone else I can refer to - that he'll do his part to help out too. (Laughter) Thank you very much.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I'm going to take a moment and then we'll go back through the questions list, there's a couple of others.

You did explain a little bit further in some earlier comments around the rationale the school boards use to bring a list to the capital construction committee. I'm a little more curious, specifically about you, Ms. Penfound, in the new role you're in, your understanding and/or satisfaction with the Imagine Our Schools process relative to the Halifax Regional School Board. That's a relatively new process and it came about very quickly as a directive from the department. If you could comment on the effectiveness of that process in the past and what it potentially could be in the future, for this committee?

MS. PENFOUND: I guess I can make some general comments. First off, I guess I would have to admit that my understanding of the whole process isn't detailed. I think it's a positive thing for a board to undertake a comprehensive review of their facilities. Obviously, the Halifax board felt it necessary and desirable to use a consultant, to be sure they had community input and to embark on a fairly detailed process, unlike had been done in the past. I think that's a really positive thing.

No matter what process you use, however, there will be people involved in the process who didn't feel their voice was heard or have a different view and that's normal. My understanding is that they focused on certain areas of their jurisdiction and not the whole thing, so they did the Phase I and Phase II and they've only come through Phase I, so there's still lots more work to be done. I don't think that kind of process is the be-all and end-all. It is a process of information gathering and trying to gain some kind of community consensus around what priorities should be. Ultimately, though, it still rests with the elected school board to say, this is our priority list that we will send through to the province.

Of course, those things are never set in stone, a board will come up with their priorities and recommendations and just as we've noted through our system when things get on the list, information changes, priorities change. I think you can look at that process as a snapshot in time of what was gathered from the community and what the board decision was and they will continue as they always do to review their infrastructure needs on a regular basis. Darrell, you may have something to add.

MR. YOUDEN: No, I think that hits it.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think it will be no surprise to anyone in here that I would be remiss as an elected official for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage not to raise the issue and put on record the words "Eastern Passage High School" - I'll just put it out there right now. I have a couple of things that I'm wondering about.

In your department now, we have a newly elected school board since the Imagine Our Schools process began. We had a one-man school board during that process with some significant decisions that were made associated to the potential for a high school in Eastern Passage. But I want to step away from that for a moment and come back into the House of Assembly and come back into the history that certainly has been with representatives from my area - including myself, currently and my predecessor, Kevin Deveaux, as the MLA. I'm not sure, again, how much history you have on this and I would encourage you to do your homework.

MS. PENFOUND: There's lots of history there.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: There is lots of homework. What I'm getting at here is, clearly there has been lots of talk, consideration, certainly a request from the community. We're not talking in the past 10 years, we're talking as far back as 15, 20 years when Auburn Drive, for instance, was built and there's lots of history associated with that. From that point to now there have been, to my knowledge, discussions in the past with former MLA Kevin Deveaux and the minister at the time, that there was a commitment to have that potential high school for Eastern Passage considered before the construction committee and before Cabinet. Nothing transpired.

Then twice, to my knowledge, the Halifax Regional School Board had it on their short list. I know for a fact it was just before I became the MLA, while I was the municipal councillor. In 2003, I believe, it again was on their list of three, their short list. When I came into the House - and I can't remember which year it was, but with the former government - I had the opportunity to ask the minister at the time where she felt that stood, in light of the fact that it had been on the list and to our understanding and certainly from a community perspective and from mine, that consideration would have been before the capital construction committee. Her words were - and you can look this up in Hansard - to the effect that she admitted it had been presented and her words were: If it was before the committee, it would still be in the hopper. I guess how I interpret that is, it potentially still has the opportunity to be discussed.

[10:30 a.m.]

I'm wondering if you could comment on that, I know without seeing Hansard and knowing the exact wording. From the perspective of the people that I represent, that was the

answer that we got that even though the Imagine Our Schools - and I'm going to go into that in a minute - the Imagine Our Schools process clearly recommended a high school for Eastern Passage, which worked well with the school board's presentation at the time and clearly it was supported by staff. It then sort of died on the table for a little while - it's not completely dead, but it died there. That response - to your understanding, would that make sense from your understanding of how that capital construction committee still works?

MS. PENFOUND: I'm not sure that I totally understand the question, but I'll try to answer it.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Because it was on the list at some point before the capital construction committee and because now it hasn't been in the last year or so recommended as a specific line item from the school board, is it still under consideration at the capital construction committee or has it fallen off?

MS. PENFOUND: It would need to come through the school board and through their process because they would give us their priorities. You gentlemen can add, but that's a key point.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: It was before the capital construction committee in 2004, I believe there was a process there. That process didn't result in a recommendation of approved projects to Cabinet, just because of the magnitude of the 2003 - as the deputy minister said earlier. After that process, the department had suggested to the board that they need to take a more holistic view of their fabric of schools on the Dartmouth side and Eastern Passage was to be part of that entire process, which was the genesis of Imagine Our Schools of course.

The next School Capital Construction Committee process was in 2008, which resulted in the most recent 2009 approval. That is where the board did not actually submit it as a line item for the committee to consider at all. So that's the big picture I can give you on the School Capital Construction Committee connection.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I'm not sure that it didn't actually make the list or if it was - it has been deferred and it's just sitting there. There has been no decision one way or the other, to my knowledge, it's still under consideration, but it hasn't actually been forwarded to the school board for - there have been reports to my knowledge.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: It was part of Imagine Our Schools . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Yes, it most certainly was.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: . . . and it ended up discussed in their 10-year master plan, but they stopped short of including it in their request for new projects in the 2008-09 process.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: To go back to the Imagine Our Schools process, it was clearly recommended by the Imagine Our Schools process through that whole public consultation. When it came forward in front of Mr. Windsor, it was recommended also and endorsed by staff and then it just was deferred right there. No decision - it wasn't taken off, it wasn't added, it was just stopped.

Again, without getting too far into opinions of why it stopped there, there certainly is a perspective from the community of Eastern Passage that there always seems to be a reason not to build and it's not coming forward with good reasons as to why, and clearly that's why it hasn't happened yet. Your comment about if we build it they will come, is a really significantly strong one for a community like ours because as Ms. Regan said, she has one of the communities that is bursting at the seams. Eastern Passage absolutely continues to grow. It has been designated as a growth area for the Halifax regional 25-year plan. There's no question, the sewage treatment plant, for instance, is about to get a $35 million upgrade, which is indicative of growth for communities in the area.

Eastern Passage, although your information would recognize at this point as well that perhaps enrolment is declining, I don't think there are any Party members here, any members here of any Party, who would deny that our goal is for those birthrates to increase. We want Nova Scotians to have babies here, we don't want that raising age in population to continue that growth pattern that it is now. We want young people to stay here and raise their families and grow. So if we don't look to the future with opportunities for growth - I guess I just want you to consider that - then we would be remiss as a government, I think, or as a department - Education - to not consider that.

Again, Eastern Passage, if they build it they will come - they're coming there now. The nature of Eastern Passage is such that it is a place where it's a family-oriented, community-based environment yet it has a huge draw for our military families, which is not going away - Nova Scotia is very proud of that military heritage - with the regional plan being a designated growth area, the planning that's going on there now.

My question is, one of the reasons that has been bounced around - and I've heard this from the former minister, the regional school board, the school board staff, the school members and the former deputy minister - that the size of the school that we have traditionally built, the enrolment number, around the 15,000 mark - I'm not sure, I can't remember the exact numbers - is the projected goal for a high school. Are we now still committed to that?

Are we, as a department, still thinking that the bigger school is the better school? At what point do we consider the nature of the growth in the area, the potential for the growth in the area, the challenges that come with, in this situation, the kids in our community, as well as the Prestons and some very few kids from Cole Harbour go to Cole Harbour High, for instance, and the challenges that we face there, the age of the school, the fact that there are, I think, three mobile units that the kids have to get dressed in the winter to go outdoors. They actually have to go outdoors to go to school, leave their main school and go to a portable. When do all of those challenges become important enough to consider a new school? Are we only looking at that number that we talked about, that large school, are we only looking at super-size schools?

MS. PENFOUND: I can answer very generally that no, I don't think there's ever one factor that decides something. I don't think there's a magic number that you have to reach before it's absolutely one way or the other. All of those things you mentioned are always in the hopper, along with what the existing capacity is, if you build a new school, what happens to the old school and ultimately, what's the best use of public dollars to be sure that we're meeting community needs and providing the best education for students. So all of those things are factors that have to be considered, and ultimately initially considered by the board in terms of saying, from a board perspective, here's what we've looked at and here's what we consider.

I note your comments about Mr. Windsor looking at Imagine Our Schools. He was the board, the official board. I guess I wouldn't be able to attest to exactly at what level the current board has looked at the whole Imagine Our Schools results but I'm certainly sure they're aware of it. It would be in their purview to revisit or consider a recommendation about Eastern Passage. In terms of factors that go into the process, you gentlemen may have something to add to that.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: I think the School Capital Construction Committee process, as it is, is a good one. We do try to take into account as many factors as possible, everything you mentioned. Of course, we have a significant partner in the school board in this so we do have to allow them to take a look at their stock of buildings, which they've done. The Imagine Our Schools process is probably the largest and most complex one I've seen around the province, all boards are doing it, but not necessarily to that level. We do take a lot of advice from the boards because of their local knowledge.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think we have Pam, Jim - Gordie, you have another. Did I miss you completely?

MR. GOSSE: Yes.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I stroked off your name, Gordie.

MR. GOSSE: Story of my life. (Laughter) Thank you very much and my colleague from Eastern Passage is very passionate, as was her former colleague, and she was confused about the time she came to the Legislature. It was in 2007 in a by-election and she sits next to me and continues to sit next to me as of today, so I wanted to clear that up for her.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Touché.

MR. GOSSE: Also, my colleague from Cape Breton, earlier in the questioning, was asking about the Executive Council and government being involved in the site selection and Executive Council having the final say in the school construction phases because I was listening to his questioning. I'm just wondering, for the Executive Council, has that always been the practice of government that the Executive Council has been involved? Back in the 1990s when the P3 school programs came into place, was the Executive Council involved in those decisions with schools and building school construction? I just wanted to clear that up for the member for Cape Breton.

MS. PENFOUND: I think decisions of the magnitude of where you build schools and how much money you spend, whether it's through the current process or the P3 schools, those are always taken by Cabinet. Those are significant decisions about policy and capital expenditure, so yes they are decisions of Cabinet and have been in the past.

MR. GOSSE: And they have always been in the past, that has always been a decision, like in the 1990s when those decisions were made.

MS. PENFOUND: Yes.

MR. GOSSE: Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure I knew that and cleared that up.

MS. REGAN: I'll pass it along. (Laughter)

MS. PENFOUND: All capital projects, whether it's schools or hospitals or whatever.

MR. GOSSE: It all goes through Executive Council. I was just wondering where his line of questioning was going with the new NDP Government and I was just trying to bring it back to the former Liberal Government in the 1990s, that's all. Nothing personal.

Schools are the focal point of our community and we all know that from where they're built, and having access to those schools. We were talking about the declining enrolment in schools. I'm just wondering, I have some P3 schools in my riding and I have another school in my riding that is most widely used by the community because we, as a school board, own that school. So the youth group gets the school, the Air Cadets get the school, other groups get the school, so I'm just wondering with the future decline in enrolment, have we thought about usage for schools along the lines of, say, teen health

centres - I know they're in schools now - community centres, Community Services Departments.

With all of this valuable space that we have in these schools that we own as a province, have we ever thought about going outside of the box and looking at offering something to our communities along those lines of different things within the schools? We have a Youth Strategy involved in five departments, have we ever looked at that involving other government departments, to offer those services in those schools that are already there?

We built a beautiful school in our community back in 1999, it's a P3 school and the enrolment at that time, for example, probably was for 800. I know today as we speak the enrolment is under 400, in that length of time, and it's Harbourside Elementary School. I'm just wondering along those lines, have we ever given any thought to actually having other government agencies and services provided by the schools that we do own ourselves, like health centres, community services, things like that? I just think it would be a valuable use of the resources that we own.

MS. PENFOUND: Absolutely. I think as evidenced by the comments from my colleagues here about the involvement of communities in new construction and figuring out what enhancements you want to have, that's indicative right there that we think community involvement is important. The mindset in the department is very much along those lines, that communities have to be involved in the site selection, the design, all of those various things. Obviously with declining population we're going to have schools that have empty space and those are facilities that have been paid for with taxpayers' dollars. I think it always behooves us to look at how we can best use those facilities so that we're maximizing the investment of the province that people have made in those buildings.

I'm glad you mentioned the Youth Strategy, we have something that sort of has grown out of the Youth Strategy which is the school bus program, where we have ongoing work with the Departments of Community Services and Justice to try to look at having more services available to students and families right in schools. You could have a student-centred approach so that if a student thinks they need mental health services, if they need something from Justice, that we can have a way to coordinate that so that it all happens in the school, so you're not having students transport themselves somewhere else.

If you take a student out of the school and bring them somewhere for treatment or advice, or whatever program they might need, to a certain extent you've got them in an artificial environment - it's not where they're living every day, where they're breathing and where they have to exist. The more of those services that we can provide on site and the more resources we can bring to the school, I think is going to be all the better for students and look at that challenge that we have in government which is dealing with any issue horizontally.

[10:45 a.m.]

I guess the Nunn Report and the youth justice strategy pointed out to us in startling form how we really must get on with being sure that we are bringing all resources to bear on an issue and not looking at it in a siloed effect. I think the SchoolsPlus program is a great example of beginning to do that. Will we move to housing other department offices in schools? Who knows? I guess what I can say to you is that within the department there is certainly a mindset of understanding that schools are public facilities and public resources and that we need to be maximizing how we utilize those facilities. You guys may add to that.

MR. YOUDEN: The only comment I would add is first off, I would echo that the important ingredient here is the openness not only to be willing to look at it, but willing for it to be an added burden to delivering what your core is. There's that, then the challenge is matching up the opportunities that present themselves with where you have space. Frequently what we see is that the opportunity is over here and the space is over here, and bringing them together can be a real practical challenge. Probably an area where we see the best opportunity would be co-sharing of libraries with municipalities, that is something that's probably a really good example that can be made to work. Some of the others can have challenges around the cost side of how you make them happen, but really it comes down to being willing to look at them when they arise.

MR. GOSSE: No, just one more comment. My train of thought is that in Cape Breton when they over-migrated, they kept saying we're not repopulating our Island, and Tri- County, I think you mentioned earlier on the South Shore. Public tax dollars paid for these facilities and I think it's a great idea that you're looking into providing other services in these facilities, it would be cost effective but also for our young people to have those services available for them not just during school hours, but after school hours and those types of things. I think it's important that we now look at that.

I don't know, everybody for many years has talked about the decline in enrolment and everything, but maybe we should start looking at the old saying, something good coming out of something that's not so good. We own them, we pay for the heat, we pay for the lights, we heat those facilities all the time and then we maintain them, so maybe we should look at evolving into actually providing other services. I think it's important that we, as Nova Scotians, look at that. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. In the interest of time I have three more people who would like to offer supplementary questions. I'm going to ask that you keep them fairly brief and we'll cut it off at the three, so we have Pam, Jim and then Kelly. Ms. Birdsall.

MS. BIRDSALL: Mine actually is a very brief question. Recently in the news they've been talking about putting monitors in people's homes to monitor radon and that sort of thing. I understand with health sensitivities, environmental sensitivities with children in our schools, what kind of monitoring is being done? I know public buildings and schools, the province is looking into testing them. Could you talk about where that is right now?

MS. PENFOUND: I can start very briefly and then, Darrell, you can jump in. As you mentioned, the province is embarking on a program of testing all public buildings and we're in what you'd call Phase I. Right now we've gone through about half of the schools, if that's correct, Darrell, with an initial screening process, with an intention to complete all of them within the next two to three years. You may have some more detail on that.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: Three or four years ago we started on this process with a provincial committee, Action Group on Radon. There was an identification of a number of schools around the province that you would say were in areas of high geological risk. We focused on those, tested all of those and that informed us as to where the hot spots were in the province and then we targeted those again. We are moving away from the hot spots and what we're finding is that each year when we do this we have less and less results that are high.

The deputy mentioned Phase I and what happens in the schools is a little different than in a hospital or a residential setting where in those cases people are there 24/7, but in schools you're not. The national standard for the radon testing and mitigation recognizes that. We call it Phase I which is really a screening process, it's a three-month, long-term test that reads the concentrations at night and on weekends. So you get a number there that might be higher than the national recommended guidelines, but it recognizes the fact that we need to do a second test. We're doing that on some of the ones that had early high results. Quite often in the second test you'll see a reduction in the concentration levels and many times it's down to almost nothing.

What we found in one particular school that had very high levels on that three-month average, when we tested it over an entire week continuously, we found that Monday morning the radon level dropped, Monday night it went up, Tuesday morning it dropped and it was closely connected to ventilation of the building. Even opening a window has proven to be very effective, so that's the good news, that it's fairly easy to mitigate. The other good-news story is that during school hours the radon concentrations are not generally as high as you will get on that average that takes into account the non-school hours time.

We're getting good results and the boards are working through them now on that second phase of the ones we did test with the screening process, but we're continuing the screening for the next couple of years to get every school in the province.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Morton.

MR. MORTON: First, a comment. I was pleased with some of the things I was hearing you say related to Mr. Gosse's question about offering services to people in the community other than simply students, particularly to youth and their families. It occurs to me that it's also a design question. One of the important things about offering services other than education in school buildings is there's a need to think about after-school hours access, summer access and sometimes maybe exits and entries that aren't part of the regular school building and those things are complications in the current design of buildings, so I'm pleased to hear you're thinking about those kinds of things.

It has been helpful to sit here and participate in some of this discussion. I'm probably old enough that I can remember some of that wave of development that Darrell Youden talked about. In fact, I like to say that I was in the first graduating class of the Somerset and District Elementary School. It was constructed, I think, in 1962 or 1963, I don't know when the building actually started. I say that in part because our history of educational development in Nova Scotia is in some ways rather recent. We're talking about perhaps another wave of development, following an initial wave that actually moved us out of very small community-owned and operated schools, into kind of an amalgamated school setting and we did that rather rapidly in the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s. As we did that, it appears to me that we looked at designs that were relatively simple, easy to replicate, probably cheap, and recognized that we lived in a small and relatively poor province.

Some of those buildings are still with us, much of that Somerset and District Elementary is still with us and has gone through quite a nice alteration and addition. I bring this up in part because as I hear talk about gold standards and as I look at some of the new buildings that we bought, it seems that maybe we have re-imagined our school buildings. I'm kind of curious about how affordability actually gets in the mix of thinking about the kinds of buildings we are now constructing or thinking of building in the future. I'd just be interested in your comments on that.

MS. PENFOUND: Maybe I can make one comment and then pass it to Darrell. Especially the period of time that we're going into now in government, we all know there's going to be significant fiscal constraints on everything government tries to do. It's one of the significant factors when we look at whether we do an A&A or whether we build a new school. We feel very compelled to urge boards and to work with boards to look at existing capacity.

If we can renovate a school for $2 million or $3 million, as compared to building a new one for $15 million, that means we may be saving money or we may be able to apply that money elsewhere and address some of those deferred maintenance issues or do renovations in other places. Money is always on our mind, as it must be, and particularly so given the fiscal climate that we're into. All these projects that get approved, every year there

has to be approval of the budget to actually move on them, so it's very much part of the process. In terms of what we do with the individual buildings, I don't know if you have anything you can add on that or not, Darrell.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: The Department of Education is in a very advantageous position to be able to look at the value question. In some areas, school boards for example, they're looking at their own individual areas. You get architects and engineers out there who are focused on certain things, but we have to touch it all. We see the money side of it, we're the ones who actually put in the request for the capital approvals. We also deal with program services, how to deliver the PSP most effectively in our buildings, we do that, and we deal with the architects, so we touch it all. It gives us a really good position for us to be able to look at how learning happens in our buildings and how a building can enhance and support student learning and we put our priority there, that's our first priority.

Back when the P3s started you started seeing these concrete, tilt-up buildings. That process is very economical, it's quick, it's a very good system, so there are no quality issues there. We partner also sometimes with the general contracting world and some unique ideas come up when you do that. They have their fingers on the pulse of the construction community and some very nice ideas come up. We're always looking for opportunities to hear new ideas on how to build these and provide value.

Our focus is always on, how does it enhance student learning? If you look at Halifax Citadel, for example, a lot of people think that's a wonderful building and it is very attractive, but really when you come right down to it, it's how you deliver the public school programming. That building is no different than in Musquodoboit or in Glace Bay or in Yarmouth, so we focus on the student learning first and we partner with as many people as we can to ensure everything is economical and we're providing value.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I have to stop you there, Jim. Kelly, very quickly, and then we'll wrap things up.

MS. REGAN: I have two quick questions. L'École Sommet, I'm wondering why it's down under the A&A list as opposed to new construction.

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: I'll take that. That is precisely the issue that we talked about earlier of designing it for 450 students now with more to come later.

MS. REGAN: So you just proceeded in different . . .

MR. DARRELL MACDONALD: That money for the A&A is for a classroom addition several years down the road, looking forward is what we're doing. It's an addition to the brand new school we're building now to accommodate the population increase.

MS. REGAN: Thank you. In terms of the radon tests, when you did the second test on the schools that tested high, did you change the parameters of the test? Were they the same parameters, same hours, that kind of thing?

MR. YOUDEN: One of the things I would comment on the radon testing, there has really been quite an evolution there. It was interesting, when that issue first hit there was not a lot of expertise locally; in fact, I think there was some reaching out to Europe where there was a bit more experience with radon of the day. The testing when it first started out was simply the highest-reading testing - I'll categorize it as - so you put in a sensor and it would be continuous and it would record the highest spike which occurred over the one or two weeks it was left in the building. Of course, what would happen would be when the ventilation was left off for the weekend and it had been off for two days, it would spike and it would cause false readings. There has been an evolution and an improvement in the testing around this, which is really contributing to much lower hit rates than was first experienced.

MS. REGAN: Are you aware of any . . .

MADAM CHAIRMAN: We're going to have to wrap this up, I think, Ms. Regan. Perhaps if staff could stay for a few minutes after and get a question taken care of or perhaps you could contact the department, if that's okay. We need to wrap this up at this point.

Would you like to make a wrap-up statement?

MS. PENFOUND: Yes, very briefly, I would. First off, thank you to the committee for inviting us today, we always welcome the opportunity to come and talk about the work we're doing in the department. We feel we've undertaken a very prudent and responsible program of school construction and renovation. The focus is providing youth with schools and classrooms that will allow them to reach their potential, schools and classrooms that are safe and healthy as a first priority.

We try to respond to the needs of families and communities across Nova Scotia and the continuing success of the program involves the co-operation of a number of partners, as both of my colleagues have mentioned, most significantly, of course, school boards, as well as other government departments - Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal - and others who help us with architectural engineering and construction industries.

[11:00 a.m.]

If you need any more information we would be happy to provide it or to answer any other questions that you have. Thank you very much for your attention.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for coming in, we certainly appreciate it, there were some terrific questions.

If I could ask the committee's indulgence for a few minutes. We're actually supposed to end right at 11:00 a.m., so with your permission to extend a couple of minutes in order to complete our business, that's great. Certainly from a staff perspective you don't have to hang around for this part, but it will be very quick to do it.

We have no committee business. Are there any members who would like to bring forward any committee business before we close? No.

Our next meeting is scheduled for March 30^th. The House of Assembly is sitting again on March 25^th, so during the House sittings we do not do any presentations. Those presentations that we had scheduled will now be postponed and without knowing the duration of the House of Assembly, we won't know when we will get back on schedule. Wherever we end, whatever we have time for between now and the summer we will schedule presentations, but we do not have presentations during the summer, as well. I'm just giving you the insight that the potential for presentations is thrown off a little with the House sitting, so we'll keep you up to date. So March 30^th, here at 9:00 a.m. Again, thank you so much for coming in.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 11:01 a.m.]