HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)

Mr.Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Alfred MacLeod

Mr. Keith Bain

Mr. Graham Steele

Mr. David Wilson (Sackville-Cobequid)

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Stephen McNeil

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Mr. Leo Glavine replaced Mr. Stephen McNeil]

[Mr. William Estabrooks replaced Mr. David Wilson, Sackville-Cobequid]

In Attendance:

Ms. Rhonda Neatt

Legislative Committee Clerk

Ms. Elaine Morash

Assistant Auditor General

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel

Department of Education

Mr. Dennis Cochrane

Deputy Minister

Ms. Ann Blackwood

Director of Curriculum

Mr. Stuart Gourley

Senior Executive Director

Mr. Peter Smith

O2 Program

Mr. John Cochrane

Community Based Learning Consultant

Nova Scotia Community College

Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair

President

Ms. Pam Reid

Chief Learning Officer

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2007

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

9:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Ms. Maureen MacDonald

VICE-CHAIRMAN

Mr. Chuck Porter

MADAM CHAIR: Good morning. Good morning to our guests. I apologize for the delay in getting you seated. There were more of you than we were expecting. So we had to let the Hansard people know and I think we have that sorted out now.

Just for people who haven't been here before, there are a few, most of you have I think, but we have a new sound system. We've been asked, as members, not to touch the microphones. They're very sensitive and, you know, they can modulate the loudness of your speaking. So you don't have to speak into them but speak toward them. When the light is on, that indicates that your microphone is on and if you could wait until the microphone is lit before you speak so that actually what you're saying is recording on the Hansard. That would work and I will try to be an air traffic controller and help Hansard identify who is about to speak. We always ask the members to direct their questions toward a particular witness and that way it also helps Hansard identify which microphones should be on.

At this time, I would have the members introduce themselves as well as the staff from the Auditor General's Office and then we'll have each of the witnesses introduce themselves. Then Mr. Cochrane and Ms. McArthur-Blair will each have a period of four or five minutes for an opening statement and then we will proceed to questions. So without any ado, we'll start with introductions of members.

[The committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Dennis Cochrane, the floor is now yours.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am pleased to be here this morning and if you've noticed, and I know the member for Preston chairs the HR Committee, I'm beginning to bring more people with me. That's really all about exposure for them, to the legislative process and the various committees of the House and also the level of detail that we think you are often looking for and trying to understand. So we have a number of people with us here today who actually are very instrumental in creating this particular program.

As I said, I am pleased to be here. You know it is funny, at the department level when you are invited to the HR Committee or you are invited to Public Accounts, you think well what are they after? I think in this case it is really information because it's a very good story and I'm really pleased to be here with the staff, to talk about what has happened in the education system and what has been able to take place in our schools in a program called O2.

I think that O2 is probably the most significant change we've seen in our high school system in the last 30 years. Certainly semestering was a major change but it's a structural change. This is a program delivery change and I think we're seeing the effects of that coming forward now as we approach our schools in the province.

I think the other interesting aspect of this particular program is that it is a huge partnership. Joan McArthur-Blair of the Nova Scotia Community College is with us here today because they are a major partner. Interestingly enough, in the Department of Education Stu Gorley, from our Skills and Learning Division, and Ann Blackwood from our Public Schools Division are working together to make sure that we deliver to our high school students in such a way that they are going to end up in our community college or in our apprenticeship programs and eventually end up in the work force, well-qualified and well-trained to serve the citizens of Nova Scotia.

The business community has been a significant part and we've gone out and talked to businesses across this province about what they could do to help us, and they're always saying, what could we do to help? The first thing I say is, well it's highly unlikely you're going to jump up and run for the school board, and most of them readily admit that that's not high on their list of things they would like to do, except perhaps the member for Victoria-The Lakes who obviously one day got into that process.

Anyway, we said there is a way you can help, there are things that you can do in business to allow our students to go into your workplace to learn what you have to teach us, not just about the trade and not just about the job but about productivity, about time on task.

All those things that, quite frankly, they can do from an entrepreneurial approach that we sometimes have trouble doing in the system.

What we did was we recognized there was a need in Nova Scotia, and we used to hear from people all the time that kids are falling through the cracks. I know there are a number of educators in the House, and we used to have different kinds of programs and there was always a lot of talk about those programs and what they did and the kind of children they served, but through a whole series of maneouvers that took place probably in the late 80s and 90s, those programs changed and we found that students weren't taking them because unfortunately it wasn't taking them where they thought they wanted to go, and that was fine as we trained people for the resource industries, we trained people for industrial activities and so on, but our workplace has changed. As you know, the statistics show that 70 per cent of all new jobs are going to require some level of post-secondary.

[9:15 a.m.]

We wanted to recognize that yes, some kids have fallen through the cracks and what can we do. So we started a number of years ago and actually had a large group up at the Leeds campus of all the partners and said okay, what are we going to do to create a program that is going to be current, that is going to be motivating, but more importantly it is going to open doors for these students? As a result, we came up with O2. People said, well, why O2? It stands, of course, for Options and Opportunities. It is also the chemical symbol for oxygen and we are anxious to blow a little new life into the system. We also probably abused all the other names - industrial, vocational, technical - they all had stigma attached to them, so we came up with a unique made-in-Nova Scotia program for Nova Scotia students with a huge partnership supporting it. We have 27 schools - and we don't call them pilots, we call them the first wave because it's going to move across the province as we iron out the wrinkles and as we see the acceptance of the program by our students, by our teachers, by out principals and by our parents.

As a result - and John and Peter have been to all the sites across Nova Scotia - we have 27, plus three others that boards themselves funded because they felt it was a significant program. About 461 students in the first year, which is Grade 10, and obviously we have to follow through with Grade 11 and then Grade 12, and a new intake in more locations would be our goal. What we are finding is that students are recognizing that the program is designed for them. It gives classroom opportunities, but the potential of 400 hours over their Grade 10, 11 and 12 as co-op or community-based learning is a significant part of this. They are engaged, they are excited about it, but they also recognize that what they are doing in school is relevant to what they want to do.

Once they finish high school - and that's a great goal, however it's not enough today - what we have done is created a direct opportunity to go into the community college or a direct opportunity to have your high school experience and your work- related experience

count toward you apprenticeship program as well. So it's finish high school, goal one - however that is not enough and there is somewhere else for them to go, and once they go to either one of those opportunities there can be articulation opportunities beyond that.

So with that, we are pleased to be here to answer any questions that you might have and, if you think we are normally excited, we are more excited than ever about this particular program. With that, Madam Chair, I am sure you will recognize the president of the community college.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. McArthur-Blair. Welcome, the floor is yours.

MS. JOAN MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Madam Chair, good morning. I am also very pleased to be here this morning to talk about the Options and Opportunities Program. I agree with Mr. Cochrane that once in a while there is a remarkable innovation that happens in education. The Options and Opportunities Program is one of those, and I think it is one of those for a very simple reason. It does exactly what it says it is going to do - it provides options and opportunities to young people across the entire spectrum.

If you think for a moment about the Nova Scotia Community College, we have 113-plus programs. Every one of those targets a particular industry sector. When you talk to young people and ask them what they want to do next, they often don't know, can't name half of those 113 possible options before them. What the Options and Opportunities Program does is help young people look at what their options are through parents as career coaches, through test drive with us, through workplace assessment, through specialized programming, and because of that young people in the program are beginning to think about there is a reason to stay in school, and there is also a reason to think about what I might want to do next with my career.

I think that it is remarkable because the opportunity for young people to get involved in Grade 10 and already be attached to a possible post-secondary institution, and as Dennis has mentioned the college has committed to the options and opportunities and we will provide access. We stepped forward when the minister asked us to guarantee that we will provide access to successful O2 students and we most certainly step forward. With many of the O2 students, actually, as they go through this process they probably won't end up in either apprenticeship or the college, they end up in university or a whole variety of other post-secondary opportunities.

There are a couple of particular things that I wanted to touch on. When a student enters the O2 experience in Grade 10, they become attached to a lifelong system of learning. One of the things that happens currently in our education system is you have the P-12 system and you have the post-secondary system. Options and Opportunities is allowing the Department of Education, in partnership with the college, to meet young people in Grade 10 - and now even some of the school boards are pushing us to what we are calling junior O2 and

reaching even further back through the gates - to attach with us at a young age, have experiences in the college in Grade 10, have experiences in the college in Grade 11, have experiences with those young people's parents about them as career coaches and what they might possibly help their young people think about next.

We're highly committed to this program. We currently have MOUs with every school board in the province. We're involved with 27 of the first wave, as Dennis calls them. We have college prep coordinators in the college - we've redeployed them to work particularly on O2.

Our career and transition services counsellors have been redeployed to focus on the delivery of a "parents as career coaches"system through the high school. For those who don't know what it is, I know there's a briefing on it in your package. We go out through the high schools and work with parents to help parents understand what the modern workplace looks like. Why is post-secondary education required as an entrance to the workplace? Dennis says 70 per cent of jobs in the next couple of years, that's going to move to 89 per cent of jobs requiring post-secondary education as an entrance standard.

So, O2 provides us with an opportunity to help both young people and their parents understand that landscape and understand what's going to be required of them. When we look at O2, I think this is why it's a particularly successful program. What's interesting for us as a college, we're out there working with young people we have yet to receive. You know, a Grade 10 student who entered O2 isn't going to get to us for another few years yet, so we're going to be measuring the success of this program over a number of years - five, six, and 10 years.

What's interesting for us in the process is that O2 is not vocational. You weren't chosen to go to O2 because of something; O2 is for every student. O2 is not watered down academically. It is not different. It doesn't target students as being different, it targets all possible students who want to be part of it, who want to explore their options and opportunities. I think that's extraordinarily important to young people, to be identified for their talent, whether that talent is easily seen or not. O2 has that opportunity to do that.

I think the strongest piece that O2 provides is a clear pathway - a pathway through high school to post-secondary education. That pathway is laid out in Grade 10, they're guaranteed a seat with the Nova Scotia Community College if they're successful, they come right through that system to us and/or on to youth apprenticeship. The pathway is clear, they can see where they're going and why they're going there.

I've had an opportunity to talk to a couple of young people . . .

MADAM CHAIR: Order. Can I ask the witness to bring it to a conclusion fairly quickly, please.

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: The last comment. I've had an opportunity to talk to at least one young person and several others as well who are participating in the O2 program. Simply put, they said it changed their life and their view of education. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. We'll start with an opening round of 20 minutes per caucus.

Mr. Estabrooks. You have until 9:44 a.m.

MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: You'll find out, past colleagues of mine, that time flies in here when you have one of these microphones in front of you.

Thank you for appearing. I think I see more of Dennis Cochrane than I see of Jerry Springer, but the two have a lot in common. You had to be at Cobequid that day.

First of all, my compliments on the O2 program and breathing life into the system. It was something that we went through a workshop process at CEC - incidentally, the best high school in Nova Scotia, no matter what AIM says - back last year and that O2 session was hugely well attended by all kinds of stakeholders.

I'd like to get to the profile, if I could and I have two Mr. Cochranes I'd like to ask the questions to, but I know who's going to answer them. Dennis, my compliments on hiring or having veteran teachers such as Peter Smith and John Cochrane involved. People in their day - and I'm sure now - in this expertise, much needed as the process proceeds.

I was wondering if you could - I compliment Mr. Cochrane or Mr. Smith, as in John Cochrane and Peter Smith. They've been to 27 of these sites, or 30 of these sites, the first wave, or the pilot. But, I must tell you, as a teacher, pilot sort of set the alarms off at times, so I'll use first wave.

I'd like to look at the profile of the students who are in the Grade 10 class. I don't know whether you have some of this information at hand, but I know you can get it back to me. There are 461 students involved and I was wondering if you could tell me what's the average enrolment in classes across these - I'm going to use that word again - pilots, these sites?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: I've got the enrolments by site and by location. I'll just use one, for example, in Horton High there are 15; Oxford Regional High, 21; Auburn, 20; New Germany Rural, 24. So across the province it does vary but most of the classes are around 15, 17, and so on. So it depends on - this is the first intake, we do understand there's a lot of interest in the second intake obviously - the profile of the student. We tried to say, well, okay, what's this student look like, who are we serving, and we had to make sure that

everyone understood right from the start that this wasn't necessarily a student who wasn't capable. This was a student in some cases that wasn't engaged.

So what we looked for - the profile of the student is basically one that perhaps was discontented with learning for a variety of reasons. They were frustrated and confused with the number of choices on what was out there in high school. They had some sense of separation and alienation from school, maybe a number of bad experiences and so on. In many cases, they saw little connection between what they did in the classroom and what they wanted to do in life. Others wanted some information and some help with education and career planning, not knowing where they were going to go and so on, and there were also the kind though that were prepared to commit and that was a significant part of this. What we found, these students have committed but every bit as importantly, their parents have committed.

So that was the kind of student and we wanted to make sure that nobody thought for a moment that it was an alternate program for those who couldn't. It was an alternate program for those who haven't yet been able to, but not because of any question of their ability or their capability. I think that's where we're seeing perhaps the most positive feedback from the students and their parents.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I have to interrupt him once in awhile, Madam Chair, or I'll never get a question in. (Laughter)

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: There's a deputy's manual of how you do these things, you know. (Laughter)

MR. ESTABROOKS: Yes, well you've got it down to a fine art. (Laughter)

I want to talk about the terminology "at risk students" because, you know, having been in that business and seeing kids who go through some of the issues that you have just brought up - we see them at risk, and this is the opportunity for them to re-engage.

I don't necessarily want the statistic but what I would like to talk about and, again, if it's appropriate, someone else can answer the question, not that Mr. Cochrane can't answer the questions. One of the concerns I always have is about the staffing of these particular institutions - and, you know, Dennis, don't get the Teachers Union on my back here but "a teacher is a teacher is a teacher" is not something I've ever lived by as an administrator who did some timetabling - is it an issue that when a program is put into a school and you're fortunate enough to get this, and the principals are so pleased to have the opportunity that, you know, you just don't have the staff who have the professional training or the resources to be able to be the coordinator, if that's the appropriate term?

[9:30 a.m.]

Having gone through this and I just for a minute clarify this - and perhaps the gentleman who visited the schools would reassure me on this - timetabling availability, making sure that the person running the program is a vice-principal or a guidance counsellor of that particular level of administrative experience, not compensation but, you know, if you're involved in this program and making it tick, I mean there has to be somebody who is ultimately the supervisor, the coordinator.

So I throw a couple things at you there, sort of rambling around particularly, but I'm concerned about the fact - you know, I was so pleased that day, I notice you highlighted the fact that the new shiny high school of Sir John A. Macdonald has one of these programs, great, okay. My concern was a veteran retiring teacher named Art Campbell had just left and my first question was, oh, my God, who's going to run the program. I mean that's the personal example I know. Is staffing a concern that you have? Secondly, the staff who are running these programs, the coordinator or whatever his or her title is - are appropriate measures taken that these people have the time during the day to do all the other administrative things?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: We did have some concern about staffing - and one of the things about the program and where the money goes, we actually assigned 24.8 new staff in the system, funded by school, to actually deliver this program. So it wasn't just existing staff and moving them around, we actually added 24.8 FTEs. The interesting thing is there was no shortage of people who were interested in taking on this particular role. We do provide a community-based learning consultant at each board to deal with the staffing and the program and the program delivery, and then of course into each school we see a number of individuals. We have provided a number of professional development opportunities for them as well. Unfortunately, some of them have to stay in hotels in metro.

I'll pass it on to John Cochrane, if I may.

MR. ESTABROOKS: And do they eat well while they are there?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Oh, $6.00 for breakfast, $7.50 for lunch, and about $12.00 for supper. Anyway, I'll ask John, because John and Peter have both been out and met a number of these teachers. I've met them at some of the workshops, but they're actually in the workplace. My older brother, John.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. John Cochrane.

MR. JOHN COCHRANE: We visited all O2 schools, except one - Cabot, and we tried twice, but were not able to get up there because of bad weather. We'll be going back to Neils Harbour, in May, to visit - and part of the excitement of that was meeting the

teachers who are involved. A relationship has developed between Peter, myself and those staff in the different schools. Some of those schools have been visited twice; some three times. So we've developed a strong connection with them. The connection that the students have made to those teachers is something that we should speak about. I asked the students a number of times, what were the strongest points of what this program has meant to you at this point? A lot of them identified the teacher and the fact that they saw the teacher for more than one course, sometimes two periods a day, and the teacher became an advocate for them, and someone they could go back and talk to - there was that one-on-one contact in a lower class size that meant a great deal to them that was very engaging.

MR. ESTABROOKS. Could you confirm with me though the timetabling possibilities - I want this to be pointed out clearly because of the fact a very motived, on- fire teacher, doing his or her thing, two years later is just exhausted by all the possibilities of having a full teaching load. Is there provision within these schools that the coordinator - again, if I'm using the wrong terminology, my apologies - do they have a different timetable than the teacher who is carrying the "full load", whatever that means?

MR. JOHN COCHRANE: That could vary from school to school. Schools set that up on their own, with advice and suggestions, but you would see in some schools the vice- principal takes the coordinator's role, while in others a teacher may be given a certain percentage, one period to coordinate the program for the entire school, along with their teaching responsibilities. But most O2 teachers are not only teaching O2 classes, they may teach another class of Grade 10, 11, 12, et cetera. One thing that we are finding is that teachers are telling us that the kids are very dependent upon them in the Grade 10 year; in fact some days they have to make their way to the staff room at lunch, otherwise the kids would follow them there too. A strong relationship develops between them - I think that is a factor that you're pointing to. After a few years in this, it could be a little overwhelming for some teachers, but a lot of teachers, they get engaged by that, as we know, you being in it.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I want to just point that when monitoring the success of the program, it's key that we look at that form of consistency when it comes to staffing - and I understand the variables between schools in other parts of the province, and some of the ones that I've perhaps worked in - monitoring the success of the program is going to be dependent on the fact that these provisions are taken care of.

One of the jobs that I once had as a vice-principal in a big high school was that I was in charge of the alternative programs. I agree completely with you, Mr. Dennis Cochrane, the stigma attached to AP's and IIEPs - and my God, teachers are as good at acronyms as probably legislators are - but you know there was a real stigma attached to that particular problem.

One of the things that we always did - this was at Sir John A. Macdonald High School - in April or May is that I went into the vocational school at the time and sat down with a guidance counsellor and said to him or her, listen, we've got these particular students who are coming, and at that time we had students from as far away as Enfield, Sambro, Sackville, they all came to Sir John A. Macdonald High School and were enrolled in that particular program. We had that one-on-one relationship where we went to the vocational school - I know that terminology is long gone and I must admit that the community colleges have done a much better job in terms of all the things about stigma, but that relationship gave us, and I think I can use the term, certain guaranteed seats. We knew that we were going to get some of our graduates when we had said this particular woman or this particular young man is ideal as a candidate for this program or that program because they had been with us for a number of years as they were getting ready to leave high school

So I ask this question either to Joan or to Mr. Cochrane - why am I using your first name and not using his? Anyway, you use the terminology, a direct opportunity. Does that mean that the O2 graduates will have a guaranteed seat at a particular community college?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: I'll speak to that question and ask John to speak to the other one. I think one of the things that's interesting is that by the time these students graduate from Grade 12 they'll be very familiar with the college. One of the anecdotes they gave me was a student who was having trouble with math and he went to Burnside and had a chance to go to the community college and talk about heavy-duty mechanics. He recognized the importance then of the math that he was taking to being able to do that job. He is now, after failing Grade 9 math, accomplishing a 70 per cent in math in this particular program. So it won't be a new experience for them, they'll have been in and out of the community college a number of times. The community college will have been in and out of their school a number of times, so it will be a logical move.

Part of the deal when we started this, and of course these dots do connect, the expansion of the community college system and the creation of O2 do connect very well. The 2,500 new seats at the community college, many of those seats are going to be occupied by these students who never got there before. So they are going to be ready by the time our graduating class is ready to take their seat. So there is a guaranteed seat and as Joan mentioned, if they're successful in O2, there's a place for them in the college. It might not necessarily be in the campus down the street but that doesn't happen for anybody, you know we try to accommodate as best we can but it is a provincial network. So that's the deal, it's a smooth transition right from Grade 10, 11, 12, first year, second year, depending on the program, and then depending on the workplace and the possibilty of an articulation agreement between the college and the university right on. There is no barrier on the way through. We've tried to take a seamless transition to be the goal that we want to achieve.

Maybe I can just let John- or if John wants to respond a little bit to the familiarity of these kids with the system and so on. Peter or John.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Peter Smith.

MR. PETER SMITH: We've worked quite hard with the college in developing a series of milestones, what we're calling milestones, things that the students must arrive at as they make their way through Grades 10 to 12 in preparation for success at the community college. Our assumption was always that we were preparing these kids, perhaps better than the average high school graduate, so that when they arrive at the college they are in the right place and they are well prepared to succeed in a program that they know is right for them. So we made sure that in each of Grades 10, 11 and 12 the students have to arrive at decisions, career decisions, visits to the campus, a pre-application process, a test drive at the college - there are any number of things like this, including a portfolio that they developed which shows the evidence that they have done the homework, they have done the planning, they know themselves and they know that they are making good career decisions.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. McArthur-Blair wants to add something.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Yes, and I wanted her to speak on this. Thank you, Madam Chair.

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: The college is usually committed to the seamless transition piece for Options and Opportunities students. Why we have stepped forward and made that commitment is that a student in Grade 10 - Dennis' example - you can spend some time in a heav- duty shop and you begin to understand the nature of computerization to heavy-duty equipment and the math required to actually fix modern pieces of equipment, you begin to understand that in Grade 10, and you have experiences in the college all the way through Grades 10, 11 and 12, we want to make sure that that student then isn't waiting.

So we are working very hard to work with those milestones all the way through to make sure that when the students made the decision, if it's heavy duty or culinary, or broadcasting, or whatever the student has decided to do, that we are able to help them either into general arts and science, if they need more prerequisites, and/or into the one-year and two-year programs that we have. So we are highly committed to making this as seamless as we possibly can.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I know my time is going quickly, and I want to go to the matter of cost. You said, Mr. Cochrane, that during this, three of the boards had absorbed the costs. I don't expect a line-by-line, as we are doing that later on in the process of this session, but one of the concerns I would have of course - and I remember being in this situation - was the moving of the students around in the work placement, particularly when it comes to costs of transportation, liability for transportation. On certain occasions, in the past, we had difficulty getting these students during their work placement to a place - we actually had teachers provide the transportation. Are all those particular costs covered?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: When we allocated the 24.8 FTEs, we also had three other categories of expenditures that we covered - one was student conveyance, one was the co-op supervision, and one was the materials and supplies. We are often accused at the department of creating programs and only giving a part of the coverage - $88,849.40 is distributed in this particular year for student conveyance. We have been told, and John and Peter have told me, that the message from the system is that is not quite enough, so we have to look this year in our allocation of recognizing that the system is telling us the transportation costs are probably a little more than we anticipated, but our $88,000 was a huge piece of it. We have to enhance that a bit.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. The time has expired for the NDP caucus.

Mr. Colwell for the Liberal caucus. You have until 10:04 a.m.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Thank you, Madam Chair, I am going to make just a couple of comments first. I am not going to come at this as a schoolteacher - I have never been one, although I thought about that at one time - I am coming at this from industry. I have an industrial background and I am a graduate of the dreaded vocational system - and I don't know why it is dreaded, it has done me very well.

The problem I see, as a business person for 18 years - and I get so frustrated with government that I decided to get into politics to see if there could be a change made, and I can hopefully say when I am finished all this that I might have made some very minor changes as the time went on because of the process, but typically you have gone full circle with this, and I give the department credit and the community college credit for the fact that they are reaching back into the schools and bringing young people forward to go into community college.

[9:45 a.m.]

This is not new. This is something that has been done before. It's a little bit of a different approach and I like the approach, quite frankly, as a business person - I manufactured and I exported all over the world, our products made here in Nova Scotia. My biggest problem was getting skilled people. If someone walked in my door and said they were a machinist, I hired them on the spot with no résumé, nothing. I would give them a week's work , and if they could do the work - most of them couldn't - I would pay them top rate and I would keep them. That is how the shortage was, and this was 20 years ago.

The shortage has gotten worse, your training has gotten worse. I mean you can't train - I am going to use a machinist as an example - somebody in a year. It's an eight-year program to train a machinist from the day they walk in the school to the day they produce anything that you give them in the shop. The same goes for sheet metal workers, welders,

welder training is reasonably good, it's not as good as it should be. I think that has to improve.

These are the trades that make the economy move. These are the ones that bring real dollars into the province. You can build all the houses in this province you want, it helps the economy a little bit for a short while and it's important to have those trades - it's very important. But, building a new house doesn't bring any money into this province. It doesn't.

If you just look at what's happening here. In the RBC Report - I have it right here and I'm sure you've seen it too; they do it for Nova Scotia - weak employment growth continues to drag the economy. That's the only province currently making a decline in jobs this year compared to a year ago.

That, to me, tells me we're not turning out the qualified people we need. I can give you a couple of examples - I'm going to ask lots of questions here. In the industry today, as you've indicated, everything's getting computerized, which is great, because we're going to compete with China at $2 a day for wages when we're paying $25 or $30 an hour for skilled tradespeople. Those tradespeople here have to be the best in the world. There's no "ands, ors, ifs" about it. They have to have the best technology to work with and they have to have the best environment.

Quite frankly, Nova Scotia is not a good place to do business. It simply is not a good place to do business. Training isn't good enough. We're overtaxed, we're over regulated - I don't mean safety issues because that's key. If you don't have an employee that goes to work every day, that costs you big money.

These are the things - I personally took my own business from 30 employees to seven and did more work. The people at 30 were very skilled, but I computerized and did a lot of things that I had to do - there was only so much you can do. In the meantime, if you get an employee that's not trained well, it costs you a fortune to train that employee. Usually, typically, if a young person - by the time you train them well, everybody else wants them because they know if they come out of your particular facility, they're going to be a good employee for them. So all of a sudden, bang, you lose an employee and you have to start all over again. It's a long, hard process.

I do give the department a lot of credit for this new program. Although, it's not new, it's just reworked a different type of program. We had Dexter Construction in and they were all excited about the program - and I'm excited about the program too, I think it's exceptionally good - and they said, it's the first time it's ever happened. This is not the first time it's ever happened. They're just reinventing the same old wheel and it's unfortunate that a construction company - although I give them and the department a lot of credit for this program - have really come forward and seen a need. But, that should have been looked after

by the community college, quite frankly, and made sure there were qualified people that went out there.

You go out, and I can give you one more example - I'm going to ask some questions. I can remember hiring a young man, when I first started my business many, many years ago, from one particular now-community college, a two-year program, and I worked with the young man. We worked and worked and we tried really hard to get him to a point where he could actually produce something in the shop. We didn't expect a lot because when he came out of the school, it takes a long time and all of a sudden you're in a real environment, not in five days a week or a day in the classroom, we're 8 to 10 hours a day working and people get used to that. He had no trouble with that, but he didn't know a thing, absolutely nothing, after two years in school. So I started making some inquiries and came to find out - this guy was supposed to be a machinist apprentice, which he was, and he had a millwright teaching a course. Every other application that came in from that school, I simply put them in the garbage, because they were absolutely no good. It's just not me, this was every business out there. You get so frustrated that they wouldn't even try to change the system.

So, I'm going to ask you some questions, I'm going to direct these to Dr. McArthur-Blair, and I'm very pleased to see you're in charge of the schools, we've had discussions before, I think that you've made some very, very significant and positive improvements. The only thing I want to see is I want it better for the economy in Nova Scotia, I want to see young people well trained and to get out and there's a demand for them and that there will be employers lined up to hire them, that they don't have to go to Alberta. We don't want to see our young people going there because our economy is really going to crash if we don't keep these young people here.

When you go through this process, is there any consideration of increasing the duration of some of these critical trades so that when young people come out they can start at a level that is higher than they do now, so they can become productive immediately?

I always thought one thing should be done, there should be a work environment set up in the schools. I know the unions would probably go ballistic when they talk about this stuff but realistically, there should be 40-hour weeks, there should be only two weeks vacation for the students, get them ready for the real workplace. That would give them enough time to get the training in a year, hopefully more than one year, that they need to actually be productive the first day they step on the job.

Now I don't mean the top producer in their business in that shop because they won't, it takes a long time to learn that on the job, but they can actually become productive. They are not productive right away, companies have a really hard time absorbing that cost. Is there any consideration to improving the length of time in the classroom to help that situation?

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm going to start and I'm going to ask Pam Reid, who is the Chief Learning Officer at NSCC, to respond as well. We are experimenting, particularly in some of our trades programs, looking at longer duration programs for exactly this reason. When I sit down and I talk to employers, one of the things they are saying to me is, we don't necessarily have a shortage of apprenticeship apprentices; what we have is a shortage of fully qualified journey people who are ready to step on the shop floor.

So what you're saying to me in terms of the need of industry and that ability for industry now, that an industry like yours has gone from 30 people to seven people - the amount of time it takes now to take an apprentice on and do their third and fourth year with them and the number of hours that takes. So we are experimenting with some employer groups around, students staying with us longer and we're working, of course, with Mr. Gorley through this process.

I want Pam to tell you about a specific pilot not in the machinist area but in the automotive area, that we are working on to examine this exact issue.

MS. PAM REID: This pilot that Joan referred to is a program that we have running out of our Truro campus in collaboration with our Pictou campus, working closely with employers and engaging employers early in the students' learning experience. It is a pilot that started I guess last Fall and what we call collaborative apprenticeship, working in partnership with the Department of Education. We're finding that engaging employers early on attends to the very issue that you're speaking about, Keith.

A number of our programs are looking at co-op experience, strengthening our co-op experience between our first and second year. We're believing that that is going to be the answer to some of the questions that you have. There is just no question, in so many of the careers that we're dealing with there's a huge pressure to extend the programs and it is a constant challenge for us how to manage that. Practical nursing has just gone from a year and a half to a two-year diploma program - again, all based on the fact that the practice is changing so quickly that in order to keep pace with it we need to extend the program. Joan, did you want to add more to that example?

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR; Perhaps you could talk specifically about the automotive program in Truro, the full journey program.

MS. REID: This project that I was referring to in Truro will take the students to full journey, so they will complete the program, then be able to function as a full journey person. So the program is attached to the employer, to the students, it allows a student to complete the full scope of the program.

MR. COLWELL: The point I'm really trying to make here is it is better to turn out 10 highly qualified people than 100 people, of which five of them might get a job in the

industry. You're wasting your time cranking out numbers. You really have to concentrate on people and it takes a highly intelligent person to do a lot of these jobs. If you don't train people properly - and I'm glad to see that the automotive one is going in that direction in one school and hopefully that will work well. I hope there is a lot of practical time in that, not just classroom time. You need both, actually, and both quite intensively to make that happen, but you've got to turn out really qualified people.

The other problem I found was, after we got the qualified people, technology was changing so fast we needed to train people past that and there was no program at that time. There were some programs at NSIT I had some of my staff participate in. They were okay but they really didn't address what we needed in industry at that time and I don't think it still does. We've really got to look, you've got to have closer co-operation, and I worked very closely with the community colleges at that time, both the Halifax and Dartmouth campuses, as an industry representative to work with them in the different areas. It was a good process but, for instance, at that time, and hopefully this has been corrected, the instructors in the machine shop courses were saying we don't have enough material for the guys to do the practical work.

Well, I said I'll give you the material. You make a part for me and I'll give you all the material, I'll give you five times as much because they'll scrap a lot of parts. I don't mind giving that and then when you make my parts, go to the next company like mine, get some material from them and make parts for them, and something that we can come in and test the student on and not that I wanted parts made free, I wanted an opportunity for the students to see something real and then come in and send my quality assurance inspector in, go through those parts, grade each student on it in a real environment. Then get the next company to do the same thing so it's just not my company getting parts from the school because that wasn't my idea because by the time I paid for the material, I probably paid more than if I ran the parts in my own shop.

So those are the things we really have to start looking at, give these kids an opportunity and give them the resources. You've got to have the resources because this is a highly skilled and very difficult trade to learn. It's extremely difficult, the same as the sheet metal trade is and some of the other ones. You start manufacturing things, it's a whole lot different than an automotive business where it is very complicated. There are very few good automotive technicians out there who can really diagnose a problem, repair it and do it in a timely manner, but if you start manufacturing, there are all kinds of things. You've got to get into metallurgy. You've got to get into heat treatments. You've got to do all kinds of things that you can't imagine and you've got to understand those things.

If the training isn't good enough to accelerate not only what happens in the classroom but also the business - if you can turn a student out who has a better background than the people presently in the business, then you're succeeding and you're way behind on that as far as I can see. I know you're taking steps and I appreciate that. So what are you doing? Is

the Department of Education giving you enough money that you can actually increase these times in the classrooms and give these students more time so that they can actually learn a trade better?

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I wanted to touch on a couple of points before I answer your question. The first is about the 10 highly qualified people. The Nova Scotia Community College had a 91 per cent employment rate last year - of that 91 per cent, somewhere between 90 per cent and 94 per cent, are getting their first job in the Province of Nova Scotia or employed in the Province of Nova Scotia. We are proud of that 91 per cent employment rate. We spend an extraordinary amount of time with industry talking about the quality of our programs. I most certainly respect the member's view about the quality of the Nova Scotia Community College. However, we were one of the first institutions in the country to develop benchmark systems to look at the quality of our programs and take this feedback extraordinarily seriously.

[10:00 a.m.]

Is the Department of Education giving the Nova Scotia Community College enough money? Of course not. Do we have an extraordinarily good partnership with the Department of Education? Yes. (Laughter) I think it is a truism that education in the country needs to be a national and provincial priority. We are in a skill shortage as a country. At this moment in history, the community college systems are the economic engines of a country. The work that we do is required at this moment in history more than in any other moment in history and I think that as every community college in the country would say to you, no, we do not have enough money to expand at the rate we need to expand to meet the skill shortage.

That said, I have been in education for 26 years and worked in partnership with Departments of Education across this country and understand that every province lives within a financial box. We have to face the realities of the finances that are there for us and the Department of Education is working extraordinarily hard with the college to help us at the rate we need to expand, some 700 students this year.

I think that in terms of expanding our programs, the number of programs that we move from two years to three years to four years - this is a complicated piece for us. Industry needs to step forward and take students out of the community college - we look at trades - into apprenticeship and be willing to provide that last piece of training. If industry is not willing to do that, then, yes, we need to begin to move to keep them to what we call, full journey, which is four full years of work between the college and industry back and forth to bring them to journeyperson status in the trades.

That's an enormous movement in the country, no other province in the country currently does that. It would change education in this province. Some employers definitely want it. Larger employers find it easier to take on apprentices than smaller employers,

because of the cost ratio in having the apprentices on their sites and so on. This is a complicated question and we are, as Pam told you, piloting some experiments with employers around full journey experiences because of the needs for journeypeople in particular.

If community college education moves from one year, two years to three years and four years, then we are, in fact, stating that it takes 16 years to enter the workforce and I think that is an interesting statement to make - to say that the base skill a young person has is a minimum of either four years in a community college or four years at university and that is the base skill required in the modern world. I would argue that we are not there yet although I do hear from employers, keep them longer, give them more skills so when they walk on my site no training is required on my part. I encourage employers to join us in that training experience. We work collaborative apprenticeships, for example, with employers. I encourage employers to also step forward and I understand that employers have an economic impact when they have to step forward and do that training.

The last thing I wanted to respond to is the need for ongoing and cyclical training. Every manufacturer in particular, every area whether it is health or trades or broadcasting or arts, is changing at such a rapid rate. We are moving quite rapidly within the community college to build flexible systems so that people can attach to us over their career in ways that we are not structured to do currently. That will take us the next couple of years to begin to move in those directions because it is a requirement for people to leave us to go and work, return to us part-time flexibly over a 10-year or 15-year period.

MADAM CHAIR: The time has expired for the Liberal caucus.

Mr. Porter with the PC caucus and you have until 10:24 a.m.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Madam Chair, thank you to our guests this morning for appearing. It is always a pleasure to have Education here in front of us. We always have some very detailed answers and we certainly appreciate that.

I just want to pick up, if I could, where Mr. Colwell left off with a comment or two. I am also someone who attended vocational school back in the years when I went to school. It was an interesting program at that time and I do understand how it is varied and how it is different today but I recall employers coming to the school, seeking out students, maybe the top three or four from each trade. Is that something that we are still seeing going on? I am just kind of curious about that.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. McArthur-Blair.

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Employers are on our campuses all the time. Each program has a program advisory committee designed by employers to help us design the

programs and keep our programs current. One of the things that I am really encouraging and pushing every time I am talking to industry is what I call, early employer engagement. Do not wait until January of the second year to come talk to our best and brightest. Talk to them in October of the first year, engage them in your industry, and begin to recruit them as an employee. We have an enormous number of employers on our site on any given day.

MR. PORTER: I guess, just on that - that was something that always worked very well. It wasn't always the most - in the days of vocational school, it wasn't the top academics that were being sought out by the employers, it was definitely a skilled - watching this go on and there was early interest. So I'm very happy to see that still continues. That meant a lot to the students. It gave them some encouragement to continue on. At that time were two-year programs, for the most part in auto body, mechanics, carpentry, et cetera. It's interesting that that still goes and it sounds like a whole lot more detail that goes on, very early on.

I am interested also - the O2 Program, is that offered at Avon View High School in Windsor?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: No, not Avon View, not yet. Coming to a neighbourhood near you, soon.

MR. PORTER: That would obviously be my next question then, Mr. Cochrane. Any idea when that might take place?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Well, we have 27 and there's three others that were actually paid by the board, which is rather interesting because they recognized how importance it was. It's our intention to have this group of Grade 10s going into Grade 11, and depending on the budgetary consideration, expanding the sites in 2007-08. We have a list of other schools and boards that want to continue to engage. I think the first priority will be for us to make a financial contribution to the three that were really funded by the boards. So they're all provincially funded under this program. Then we would look at number 31, 32, 33 and so on.

MR. PORTER: Would Avon View be one of those top three, by any chance? I'm just curious. I don't know whether you have that information?

MR. JOHN COCHRANE: Very much so. All schools in the Valley have expressed interest. Avon View has expressed an interest. Their community-based learning consultant spoke to us yesterday about Avon View's interest in expanding co-op at that school, which they're doing this semester. But all the schools in the Annapolis Valley area have expressed an interest in getting involved in O2. Not just one.

MR. PORTER: When they expressed their interest, did they by any chance say how many students were potentially interested in this program?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. John Cochrane.

MR. JOHN COCHRANE: Cohorts number 20 students in a particular program. So we found, in the first year, a lot of schools were a little below the 20 cap, but we would expect next year that they would probably go at 20, where they understand the program a little bit more, but I would imagine most of the schools that would enter in Grade 10 next year would be looking at 20 students.

MR. PORTER: Thank you. That's very encouraging. Maybe back to Ms. MacArthur-Blair - you talked about the different employers and industries coming in, what are some of those? I'm just kind of curious. Is there something more? Is there more of one, perhaps, than another type of industry that is coming in, seeking out our kids?

MS. MACARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm not sure that there's more than another. With permission of the Chair, I'd like to go back for a second and make a comment about vocational schools. The Nova Scotia Community College is extraordinarily proud of its history coming out of the vocational school system. Like every other community college in the country, our roots reside in vocational school systems, and the creation of the community college system in Canada came from those roots and it was reflective of the more modern needs required by all of the industries that you see in a community college. The Nova Scotia Community College is extraordinarily proud of those roots and is always pleased to meet people who are our alumni from our previous schools.

To answer your question about more industries than others - our capacity to meet the industry demand - we're short a considerable number of graduates every year in terms of meeting industry demand in Nova Scotia, currently. So we have particular sectors that are in the college a tremendous amount, recruiting; construction trades course, a tremendous shortage in construction trades; health care as well. Interestingly enough, in broadcast and film. Those are particular areas that the sectors are experiencing quite profound shortages and we see people in the college on a regular basis, from a recruiting point of view.

From a support point of view, in terms of the development of our curriculum, we very consciously set out to engage in sectors, always. Whether it's the Nautical Institute or School of Fisheries, or construction, or health or arts and science, we engage employers with looking at what a curriculum should be and then revising our curriculum.

So in terms of the development of our curriculum, no, there is not a particular sector that is more influential than others. In terms of recruiting our graduates, no question that in the trades area the demand is enormous and the recruiting is not just Nova Scotia but right across the country. In health, of course, the demand is enormous. Ms. Reid and I were having a conversation this morning about net new practical nurses and continuing care aides, we think it is close to 1,000 net new over the next few years. What I mean by net new is on top

of the number we're currently graduating. So the demand is enormous and those employers are with us all the time.

MR. PORTER: Interesting, net new, over and above what you currently have. I'll just pick on nursing for a second. My wife also graduated from the old vocational school, which we are both very proud about actually, and in nursing, and you are right, there is somewhat of a shortage, one of many. How many places then - and I guess this might go back to my last question, you do go back, you revise the curriculum, the program, you say okay, we need more of this. Does that mean you offer more in one particular school or does that expand to the different community colleges across the province? So nursing, for example, would be offered, I'll say two today, would that mean three tomorrow, if it was found necessary, or more classrooms in the same school?

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I'm going to let Pam respond because this is her area, as the Chief Learning Officer. Some of our campuses are specialized and some are comprehensive in that they offer everything from every one of the five schools that we have. So in terms of where we would offer something, it depends on the structure of a particular campus, but in terms of how we decide where to expand, I'm going to let Pam respond.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Reid.

MS. REID: The College of Practical Nurses is a group that we work very closely with in terms of planning where our sections are for practical nursing, trying to be sure we align our programming with the actual labour market requirements. So we reserve a number of our sections to be rotational, so we move in and out of communities. For instance, we just ran a program out of Cumberland County which will rotate in another couple of years based on the labour market requirements. Right now we target 150 graduates per year and we are planning for growth up to 180 in the next probably five years. As our President just suggested, we know already that that enrolment is way lower than probably where we're going to need to be.

MR. PORTER: So labour market management, I think it's fair to say in this province that could be in any sector, would that be accurate? Yes, from 150 to 180, that's probably not nearly enough spots. So this would be the same not just for nursing but for any of the industry, then, it could end up at any particular school, but it does appear to me, though, that you are more focused on keeping a specific trade or program at that school and growing that, perhaps. Maybe I've misread that, I'm not sure.

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: There are two ways in which we decide to deliver our programming, but before I answer that I want to go back to O2 for a second. We are kind of moving this conversation into a little conversation about skill shortages. To me this is one of the reasons that this innovation is critical to us, is that we are engaging people in Grade

10 about the possibility of their future and then we engage them again in Grade 11 and Grade 12 and then on through the college.

[9:15 a.m.]

When we look at skill shortage in Nova Scotia, the most profound issue in the skill shortage is whether or not young people go to post-secondary out of high school and the transfer rate from high school to post-secondary is a very hard statistic to measure because people don't always go when they're 18, they may go when they're 17 or 19 or 21, so it is very hard to get a stat, but somewhere between 40 and about 55 or 50 per cent of students don't immediately go to post-secondary and then that drops considerably by the time people are 23 or 24.

What O2 does is help us capture and engage people and ignite their passion about what their dream might possibly be. I think it is one of the profound answers to our skill shortage, to have people engaged in what they might possibly do whether it's heavy duty, or another training, machinist, or nursing, or whatever it is. So I think it makes a huge difference, this kind of program, in that transfer from high school to post-secondary.

In terms of how the college is structured across its 13 campuses, we have at each one of the 13 campuses programs to support that community and that community for the most part is able to absorb those graduates. Then we have a series of programs that are called rotational programs and we do this in health and trades, the two highest skill shortage areas, where we take a trade into a community. We'll pick electrical, for example. We run that program for a couple of years because that community may need, you know, 25 or 30 electricians, they don't need 20 every year, and then we pull that program out and move it to a different campus. We're starting to do that with practical nursing as well and may expand that to some of out other programs because it meets the kind of need across the province where people don't have to relocate to a certain campus and then not necessarily go back to their community to work. So we're trying to, particularly in the more rural areas of the province, we're trying to answer some of the local community needs by doing that.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Cochrane has indicated he would like to get in on this.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: One of the things about O2 that's important to remember, it not only takes a student from where they are, and we may not have called them a student at that time, but makes them a student and makes them hopefully graduate and get a connection to the business community, get a connection to the community college, and get an appreciation of the fact that they're going to need to complete high school and go into an apprenticeship or go into the college and continue to move on.

I think the thing we can't lose sight of is the social value of what we're doing. These children weren't engaged. Their families were in turmoil and now not only are we going to

solve our big corporate problem that we're all talking about, but we're also going to deal with that individual's needs. That's the crucial part and if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and so on, everyone needs to feel comfortable, everyone needs to feel wanted, and everyone needs to feel engaged and valuable.

I think that's the thing that we can't lose sight of and we're all out there trying to deal with the number of students going out to the workforce, but we also have to look at the social value of a program like this that re-engages those students, their families, and education and gives them somewhere to go. I think that's the real exciting thing in addition to accomplishing our corporate obligations and needs and so on out there and O2 has been able to do this. I know John and Peter have heard this story over and over from students in our system and their parents.

MR. PORTER: Just a couple of comments I want to clarify. One, I wasn't totally targeting the labour shortage. But with your answer, Ms. McArthur-Blair especially, you went right into my next question and I thank you for that. For Mr. Cochrane, your recent statement, you're absolutely right. Having a long background in health care, I can tell you that the social piece of this is very important. It has a great impact on the lives of our kids today. There's no question about that. One of the other questions, and it's sort of on that topic, is you talked about going into the homes and working with the parents. How much has that helped or what kind of impact has it had? I'm assuming it has been fairly good.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: We have a whole program that we fund through the community college and its parents as career coaches, actually engaging the parents in the system and making the course selections and working with their students and so on. It has had a significant impact on the engagement of the parents in the education and the career plans for their students. If I could ask John or Peter, because they're out there and obviously meet the parents and meet the students, if they want to make a comment on this particular one.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: One of the eight critical components of the program is connecting the parents, and parents as career coaches, as Mr. Cochrane indicated, is one part of that. It's a struggle because often the disengaged students have parents who've just heard bad news for so many years that they're disengaged as well; but we're finding that it's the little things that make a difference, that the calls home, finding something positive to say, engaging parents in positive activities that celebrate successes and finding those successes and engaging parents in a new sort of constructive dialogue, that it's slowly, slowly making a difference. It's a challenging component of this.

MR. PORTER: What percentage of students would that be, that we would have that kind of interaction with at home , you know? I'll call it a challenge, maybe more challenging than others.

MR. SMITH: Of the students in Options and Opportunities?

MR. PORTER: Yes.

MR. SMITH: I can only speak anecdotally, but from the comments that we have heard from parents, over and over again the answer is we were at our wits' end, you have saved our family. This has made a huge difference to the conversations that go on in our house. That is just anecdotal. I couldn't give you a number.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. McArthur-Blair and then Mr. Gourley.

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: All of the 27 sites that we have been working in partnership with, with the schools, every one of the 27 sites has hosted parents as career coaches. So we also anecdotally don't know the exact number of parents that have engaged in that process and the influence that it has had yet but all 27 sites have hosted parents as career coaches.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Gourley.

MR. STUART GOURLEY: I'll pass.

MR. PORTER: So a student has challenges academically in this program, and it's good that they are starting in the high school level, I think. That's great. Does it allow that student who is a natural mechanic or a natural body man or carpenter, to still excel? That interaction there, I'm kind of curious. Obviously there is more time academically needed. How does that fit in?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Cochrane.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: I think the crucial part of this is- and one thing you must remember about the school system, we have a built-in bias. Every one of our teachers have been to university and therefore there is automatically this belief that- and parents want what they perceive to be the best for their children, and therefore there is a natural gravitation toward that. What we have to recognize is that everybody is not meant to go there and not meant to go there upon graduation.

So the exciting thing about this is that we are able to create a pathway for that student to take the relevant courses that they need and I often hear the complaint that, oh, wow, I need three maths, I need this and so on and I need an upper level math and all those other

programs. Everybody doesn't need that and everybody can't do that, everybody doesn't want to do that. I think the exciting part about this is we try to get a match between that student, they and their parents' goals and aspirations for a career, to the academic qualifications they are going to need to get there. They may not need every level of math, but they make take their math all year long in Grade 10. They can do it, they just can't do it as fast, necessarily, but they still need that level of math to give them a level of success when they get to the college. So this is the balance, this is the maneuvering in the system to make sure that we match that student and their abilities to a program level that will enable them to do what they are going to have to do.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. The times has now expired. We will have a second round of eight minutes per caucus.

Mr. Estabrooks. You have until 10:32 a.m.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. Cochrane, Dennis, could we go to the fact that you had mentioned - perhaps you could just provide me a copy of it - earlier when you said, I was looking at cost breakdown and you said $88,000 for transportation and then you were going to move on to curriculum and materials and stuff. Is it possible for me to have a copy of that?

MR. COCHRANE: We have a full binder like mine for all of you but my teacher nature is that . . .

MR. ESTABROOKS: Ahh, the lesson plan.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, at the end. I do want to say that all of this information and statistics are there plus there is a huge number- and when we were talking about parents and business- there are guides and brochures for an employer, how they get engaged, how they host students, job fairs, we have all that and as you go through the binder, when we give it to you, if you want copies of that for your constituency office, like the brochures for your parents when they come in, or students, just give us a call and we will ship all kinds over to you, because it is to all of our advantages that we distribute this kind of information, that everyone knows about the program.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Good lesson plan. Make them pay attention. Clarify this particular thing for me. When we have a couple of programs here in various schools around the province and they have, I think I heard the number 15 at Oxford High School, I could be wrong, don't quote me on this, under 20, and they are in Grade 10. Through various reasons of attrition, if we can use that terminology, you know a couple of parents move, a student, heaven forbid, drops out of the public school system, the possibility could be that in Grade 12 we could have, heaven forbid, a class of eight. The initial thing, of course, is to make sure that we have a good size class of 20-plus, but there are guarantees that, of course, this program will continue. It is a three-year duration, correct?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: There are no real guarantees except, quite frankly, depending upon budget consideration we're prepared to do almost anything inside our envelope to make sure this program continues.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Ms. McArthur-Blair, I believe I heard you - I could be wrong, although I certainly don't want to mix you up with Mr. Cochrane ( Interruption) That's a compliment for you - use the term "junior O2". Now, those people who are sitting behind you worked with me in a high school environment and, when they arrive at the door in Grade 10, many of them are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, they're on their way, they have plans, whatever else - I know the deputy minister isn't going to know where I'm going to go with this - I spent the final number of years in the public school system in junior high school,"a curriculum wasteland." I've said it many times and along the way received a lot of compliments from junior high teachers for saying we're forgotten. What is junior O2?

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Junior O2 actually does not currently exist, but as we've been getting anecdotal success with young people in O2, the college has been getting requests from school boards and schools to come as parents as career coaches or test drive for younger and younger students.

So, we're seeing that over time there are some opportunities, perhaps not to do the full O2 program, but also engage younger and younger people in looking at what their options are.

MR. ESTABROOKS: That's great.

MADAM CHAIR: I think that Ms. Blackwood would like to comment.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Oh, the Director of Curriculum would like to make a comment.

MR. ESTABROOKS: We've had this discussion before.

MS. ANN BLACKWOOD: Yes, just a comment on the "wasteland" - and I'm a big T. S. Elliott fan - we always struggle with how much curriculum implementation we would like to do in any given time period, but there are tensions around how much change schools can handle at a time, and making those decisions is tough. There's no doubt there are some areas in junior high where we need some curriculum work. There are, however, some areas where we have done a great deal of work, much of it focused on the essential skills that students need to be strong in to succeed in school and beyond. I'm referring particularly to literacy and mathematics. We are also giving a particular focus to increasing opportunities for students to engage in hands-on learning experiences in science, in family studies where we are working now in technology education, where we are just beginning, and in arts education where we shall go in the next fiscal.

Another thing that is particularly important to us in the junior high grades is the introduction of the life work career portfolio, which engages students in recognizing their strengths and in documenting their accomplishments and engaging with others in planning education and career - I think that's a really strong piece.

We would also elect to work with schools to enhance opportunities for junior high students to engage in community-based learning. While they will not do work placements until they are 16, of course, and have the requisite preparation, there are opportunities for them to engage in service learning and job shadowing experiences and other experiences of that sort, and we would like to maximize those opportunities to connect junior high schools to the community.

[10:30 a.m.]

Lastly, while we don't have a junior O2 program, we are working very hard particularly with Grade 9 students, because what makes this program a success, it is becoming evident, is selecting the students who can most benefit from this powerful program we're discussing this morning.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you.

Mr. Estabrooks, you have two minutes remaining.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Grade 8 - I'm quoting teachers here - is a curriculum wasteland. Those are where kids are at the toughest grade in the school system and they're at risk. So I would encourage the deputy minister, and I encourage Mr. John Cochrane and Peter Smith to make sure among all those hotel rooms that are booked when these people come to these sessions, that junior high guidance counsellors are part of the loop.

I do know that when you're recruiting students - and that's what you're doing - in a junior high in a different building, a different facility, not a 7 to 12 high school, but the middle school complex - that guidance counsellors can say to you that this is an at-risk student with an at-risk set of parents, et cetera, and I would like to make sure that junior high guidance counsellors play key roles in this and they are part of the loop. Dennis?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: We agree. It is extremely important that the junior high environment recognizes that there are places for these students to go and to get them ready. One of the things we are excited about in our Learning for Life 2 opportunities, is that we put $500,000 in the budget for 2005, 2006, 2007 to actually hire more junior high school guidance counsellors. One of the things the principals have told me at our annual principals' conference is that we need more guidance counsellors, so we began to add that to the category of core professionals that we're trying to engage, and junior high was definitely an area, including elementary actually, where we do need more guidance counsellors. We want

them well qualified and we want to make sure that they are able to give advice to the elementary and junior high school students and their parents about opportunities. So it is a good point and it is work that has to be done and certainly the professional guidance counsellor is a huge asset in getting that job done.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, the time has expired for the NDP caucus.

Mr. Colwell, you have eight minutes, until 10:40 a.m.

MR. COLWELL: I'm going to share my time with my colleagues. Just a couple of quick things. Dr. McArthur-Blair, you indicated that some of the smaller businesses won't hire students too easily in the program as you were finishing up the comments to my questions and I would suggest that maybe they are not trained well enough for those so they can't become productive as soon as they hit the shop floor. That is something that really has to be addressed.

Just for your information, some states in the U.S., which are competitors- if you are an employer, you go to the Department of Education there, they will train for two years, at no cost to you, students for your business, specifically trained for your business, an intensive training program, and they will guarantee the student at the end of the term and they will continue education with them if they need further for that business, all free of charge to businesses - something we should probably look at.

The last thing I am going to say with this, I have met with some of the business people in our communities, they are not happy yet with the people who are coming out in the trades, they are not to the level they should be and it is something that really has to be addressed. Mr. Cochrane said it the best, we've got to really go back to industry a lot more, and I appreciate that you're going to industry, I think that's very positive. I think, quite honestly, you've made some excellent changes. This is not total criticism, I think you're going in the right direction with your O2 program and other things that you're working on and I know that you're committed to doing these things but you really have to go back to industry more and more.

Academics do not understand how business works unless they've actually run a business themselves. They don't understand how tradespeople work, so you really have to have the combination of both things. We need the expertise of the academic community and the expertise of the business community to go together to really make this work and to make Nova Scotia the place to be trained. I don't care what the rest of the country does, if we don't train our people properly and get industry here and keep them here, we're not going to succeed in this province and we're going to be in a very serious situation very quickly if that doesn't happen. I'll turn the rest of the time over to my colleagues.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the team that is here today. Certainly I notice a couple there on the back benches are getting legislative experience jumping to their feet, so we had better watch out, I guess, is the word.

Just very quickly, however, with limited time, and this is a topic that I could have certainly cornered the 30 minutes alone, but anyway. To Mr. Cochrane first, I'd like a short answer please. During the leadership campaign and in the campaign of this past year, the Premier talked about composite high schools. Are you discouraging that move and saying that O2 will be not just the wave, but the way of the future?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: We think it is not incompatible. We think that part of the aspect of vocational composite high school was the hands-on trades opportunity and we now have a whole manual on what schools we could go to, with a minimum amount of investment, upgrade the facilities they have so that our O2 students would be able to get hands-on trades opportunity in that particular school, as well as other students as they make their course selection of the 24 courses, 18 of which are graduation requirements, so they, too, could take electrical plumbing - we've got four - the metals one and so on. So it is not incompatible. It would be available. We have work to do. We have let some of those facilities, as you know, slide badly. We know the ones we can go to more quickly. So we are trying to do it across the province as opposed to four or five sites, because students don't leave home to go to high school. They leave home to go to community college, if they have to, and they certainly leave home to go to university if it's not located near by.

So long answer, which is always my case, that we are looking at developing that network to complement what we do in O2 but also to make it available for other students in the system.

MR. GLAVINE: Just one more question because I know my colleague does want to get one or two in.

I would have to concur with my colleague, Mr. Estabrooks here, on junior high school. If I were to identify one, two, three educational areas of real weakness in the province: number one, early childhood education; number two, junior high school and what I would call true individualized education, we are still a long way from that and a cornerstone of that could be sounder guidance programs in our school.

On the junior high school area, I am really concerned, because we are still going to have what I would call a significant percentage in looking at some of the dropout rate in junior high school over the last five years. We are not going to get them to the point of engagement in Grades 10, 11 and 12, which I am really excited about. This wasn't there in my last couple of years as an administrator in the school, but I am excited about this program and I just hope that it continues to expand and there is actually a vision of where you would like to be with it in terms of the nature of courses, teacher training, et cetera. Are we really

going to be making some efforts in junior high school with a much more tactile, hands-on education that is so needed?

MR. DENNNIS COCHRANE: Certainly you are right. It is interesting the member for Timberlea-Prospect talked about it, a curriculum wasteland. I think parents call it a bit of a hormonal wasteland. These are students who are coming from home and there are certain things that happened between Grade 7 and Grade 9 and we are trying hard to respond. I was a junior high school teacher. I loved it, 1,100 junior high school kids in on site. So I have been there and have the scars. (Interruption) Exactly, I think that is why we get along, member.

One of the things that we have to do and we went from the shops and the home economics facilities, we have gone to the kind of computer tech lab and then the dirty lab and we have to do more of that and we have to develop that curriculum. One of the things that Ms. Blackwood is really focused on is trying to make sure that we have the tech ed aspect that we need in junior high school so these kids are engaged, they recognize the hands-on opportunity, we satisfy their learning style with our teaching style and then they go on into what we think is a great program in high school.

MADAM CHAIR: There are only 40 seconds remaining.

Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: If I could, a quick question for Joan. I'm just wondering, you are guaranteeing this and I like the idea that it is a transition from high school into NSCC, but you are guaranteeing positions and you said your enrolment is up 700 this year. I'm wondering, if this program expands in the high schools, can you continue to guarantee these placements?

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: Not to be facetious but perhaps it goes back to the question of does the Department of Education give the college enough money. I think that our capacity to expand, of course, is predicated on our partnership with the Department of Education and with the province. We have demand that is currently outstripping our capacity in enrolment and we foresee that is going to continue for a considerable number of years. So we are working very hard with the Department of Education to try to predict the number of students out of O2 who will be in our site in the next two years and then three years and so on. So we are not going to stand down from that commitment, but it will take a considerable amount of partnership between us and the Department of Education to meet that commitment.

MADAM CHAIR: The time has expired. I thank the member from the PC caucus, Mr. Bain, for indulging a little overtime there.

Mr. Bain, you have until 10:48 a.m.

MR. KEITH BAIN: Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with my colleague. I just have three very brief questions and I am going to be more specific to the Cape Breton area, as Dennis would probably be very much aware. (Interruption) Well, that's where I'm going, to Cabot High. I think when you look at Cabot High, the program itself is called Options and Opportunities, and I look, Cabot serves multiple fishing communities in the north area and because of the downturn in the fishing industry and everything else, people are beginning to look at their options and opportunities. So I guess my question is, how is the enrolment for Cabot High School when you consider something like that? Is it on the average, like the 15 to 20?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Yes. Actually Cabot High has 16. So it's really right on the average almost. So it has been fairly engaged in the community and I think the indications are that the second year intake will probably be greater. What you must remember, 16 out of their population is probably a higher proportion than some of the other population. So it is being picked up.

MR. BAIN: Can you tell me how many schools in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board are participating in the O2 program?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Yes. Breton Education Centre, Cabot High and they have one of the ones that are paying for themselves in Glace Bay.

MR. BAIN: So there are three?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Three there.

MR. BAIN: Okay, my final question, in your introductory comments you made reference to 400 hours, I guess over the course you did say 400 hours?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Yes.

MR. BAIN: And I'm assuming that's over the three-year period and I guess I'm going to compare it to Memorial Composite High School with its vocational program. The students who are enrolled in the vocational program get credit towards their trade certification. In the O2 program, this 400 hours, is that credited as well to trade certification?

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: The 400 hours will be out there in the community-based learning. It could be more depending upon the avenue which they pursue. A number of those opportunities are recognized toward the apprenticeship program and Stu Gourley probably can speak more to what kind of recognition we give for what kind of programs these students take.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Gourley, you do get an opportunity to answer that.

MR. STU GOURLEY: The answer to your question is, if the student is in a place where their designated trade is, then they will be recognized under the apprentice program against their apprenticeship hours. So if, for example, they worked in an automotive service technician spot, then their hours will be credited against the 8,000 hours that they would need for their AST certification, up to a certain level.

MR. BAIN: Madam Chair, if I could just expand a bit on that. Mention was made that with the composite high schools that are out there, if there is opportunity, the students will be placed in that setting as an introductory type thing. Would that be hours of credit?

MR. GOURLEY: I need to clarify the question a little bit, but let me answer what I think it was, and then you can tell me.

MR. BAIN: Okay.

MR. GOURLEY: The student has the opportunity to select, with guidance from the teacher, where they want to be placed and there's a menu of places where they can go for each of the high schools. If they go into a designated trade spot, then they will be credited for their hours.

MR. BAIN: It has to be designated, okay.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Cochrane.

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: On that, our investment for youth, the eight navigators across the province have interviewed 5,513 employers and of that group 2,630 are on our database now as places that our students can go for that hands-on job placement, community-based learning co-op opportunity. That's coming from another division of the department which Stu looks after, Skills and Learning, along with federal contributions.

So everything is coming together here for these students and when you see your pamphlets and what you've got, there's a huge amount of information we're giving to employers about what you do with these students, how you host them and so on. So there are a lot of opportunities and one of the criticisms we get, well, there aren't many in rural Nova Scotia. We're not finding that. We're finding that businesses in rural Nova Scotia are quite engaged in this process and happy to take our students because they see them coming through the door, as the member for Preston would like to have seen them, as potential employees in the future.

MR. BAIN: Thank you, Madam Chair, I will turn it over to my colleague.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter, you have until 10:48 a.m.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: I want to go back to sort of an academic question and perhaps Ms.Blackwood or Ms. Blair, a comment that Mr. Cochrane made with regard to math, an example, what may be right for student A may not be adequate for student B. So in that O2 program, would they take like the basic math, English, science - would there be something more there or would they just focus on what their need would be at the next step?

MS. BLACKWOOD: Thank you for the question. One powerful feature of the O2 program is the flexibility. A member earlier asked about scheduling, and at the school they have the capacity to work with teams of teachers to best meet the students' needs and to expand that precious resource of time when that would benefit students.

We have been clear from the outset that we need very carefully to assess the students' capacity - where they are on the learning continuum and also what they might aspire to do to ensure that they have access to the credits they need for the certificate or diploma programs they might choose to pursue later on.

In mathematics we have academic options at Grade 10; we have a graduation option at Grade 10. We also have a new course called Mathematics Essentials, which goes on to Grade 11 and culminates in Grade 12 with Math Trades and Technology. We've been very clear and have provided some high-quality information on how the various courses relate to the various programs that they have opportunities to look at for post-secondary. So while we are talking about a class size, this cohort is not together all the time - they may make different course selections, for mathematics in particular, because there are a number of options.

When it comes to something like science, the teacher would try to provide the context for learning in science in connection with industry, business, with the community, and how the skills they're learning in science relate to the life beyond high school.

MR. PORTER: I guess that's kind of what I was trying to clarify.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, the time has now expired. At this point we would invite our witnesses, Mr. Cochrane, Ms. McArthur-Blair, if you have any brief, brief closing comments because we still have a couple of items on our agenda to deal with.

MS. MCARTHUR-BLAIR: I will be brief. I feel compelled to respond to Mr. Colwell and his comments about the quality of the graduates of the Nova Scotia Community College. The Nova Scotia Community College stands behind its graduates, and our employers are proud of the fact that they hire Nova Scotia Community College graduates. In fact we are so proud of our graduates that we will be the first institution, I think, in the

country to begin to measure employer satisfaction in the coming year with our graduates and we will use that measure to constantly push the quality boundary. We are one of the leading institutions in community college education in the country, and I stand behind every single one of our graduates.

To return to O2 ,and to be brief, I think that the Options and Opportunities Program, as Mr. Colwell states, is not the same old idea - and it is not the same old idea for a very particular reason. Options and Opportunities is about not suggesting to a young person that perhaps you're not doing so well in math and so we will help you pick this occupation - it is about engaging people in the idea of options and opportunities for their next step after high school. That's what makes it different and that's what makes it remarkable. It doesn't take a cohort of students and say we'll push you all into a particular occupation, it looks at the options - what are you interested in, what possibly might ignite you to stay in high school, to understand the need for math, to understand the need for literacy?

Those are my comments. Again, Madam Chair, it is always a pleasure for the Nova Scotia Community College to come and stand before a committee.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Briefly, I'm glad my colleagues are here because I think you see the excitement we all have about what we do and therefore it's very difficult to be brief when we're naturally verbose. In this case we have a good story and I was quite excited about having a chance to come here today, because I think it helps add to the message that we have to send in Nova Scotia that our high schools are open for everybody, and our workforce and our community college is open to everybody. We can't afford - and I notice what the member for Preston said about taking an application and throwing it into the garbage - an employer can't afford to do that and we certainly can't afford to have an individual whose application is thrown into the garbage, so we're working together to make sure that every student has an opportunity.

I do want to emphasize the partnership that is taking place here between the divisions of the Department of Education, the community college, the school boards, our consultants that are out working in the field, the federal government on the funding side and our business out there, the 2,630 people so far that have signed on, but, most importantly, the teachers and principals in our schools are engaging this and recognize that it is something we have needed. It is a different approach, some of the same concepts but, nonetheless, it is one that seems to be working. I guess the most important aspect are the parents and the students who recognize this is a lifeline for them and their family and their social engagement, their growth, their development, and I think that all adds to the social fabric of Nova Scotia which, I think, will enhance the economic fabric of our province.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I want to thank all the members of staff who are here. John and Peter are out there every day, and I am very pleased they were able to come here and share their thoughts and ideas on what we are doing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. We are very appreciative of your being here today, and it was an informative exchange.

We now have a couple of matters. I would like to report that the Subcommittee on Public Accounts met earlier this morning and we are recommending to the committee that we bring before us the Office of Health Promotion and Protection, HRM officials will additionally be invited, the Bid Committee of the Commonwealth Games. We will attempt to have the beginning meeting on March 28^th and we will be asking for all documents related to the Commonwealth Games bid. We will see what we get by noontime on Monday to enable us to move forward. So this is the recommendation, I think, of the subcommittee, and I would ask that Mr. Colwell move that report.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I would move it.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Is there any further discussion on that report?

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

The motion is carried.

I want to make note that there is a reception on Friday, organized by the Speaker, for Ms. Stevens, our former clerk. Darlene Henry, in the Committees Office, is accepting contributions toward a gift.

Is there any other business?

Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Madam Chair, as I had advised you previously, I actually have three items of business. The first one, I would like to make note of the fact that there is a motion regarding Ms. Heather Foley Melvin that technically was deferred. I think it is important that it be dealt with appropriately and not just be left hanging. Therefore, the first item of business is that I would like to indicate to the committee that I wish to withdraw that motion. I think we can all agree that after Ms. Foley Melvin's second appearance that any concerns the committee might have had have been put to rest. So I would like to, for the record, note that I withdraw that motion.

MADAM CHAIR: I think that is in order. Is there any discussion on that?

MR. STEELE: The second item is related to that, Madam Chair, and that is that when Ms. Foley Melvin was here for the second time, she expressed some concern about the motion, some concern about the possible consequences of being found in contempt of the House. In fact, she said she brought a lawyer in that respect because she was under the impression, which I think is a wrong impression, but nevertheless, she had the impression that there were potential criminal consequences to that.

Now that the motion has been withdrawn, I would like to move the following motion: namely that the Public Accounts Committee directs its Chair to write to Ms. Heather Foley Melvin to thank her for her appearances before the Public Accounts Committee and to advise her that the motion recommending that she be found in contempt of the House has been withdrawn. By way of discussion, Madam Chair, I would simply note that given the fact that Ms. Foley Melvin expressed a great deal of personal concern about the consequences of such a motion - and, naturally, the purpose of the motion was certainly to make her sit up and take notice, so it seems to have served its purpose, but now that the motion has been withdrawn, in the circumstances I think it is appropriate that we advise her formally of that so that she understand that that particular matter has been put to rest.

MADAM CHAIR: The motion is in order. Is there any further discussion on the motion?

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

The motion is carried.

MR. STEELE: Thank you. Now, the third item is a completely different matter. This committee has scheduled before it on April 25^th a discussion of ministerial vehicle leases and also the self-insurance program for government fleet vehicles, particularly in relation to those ministerial vehicles. As you know, the committee has already received a great deal of information, a very thick binder from the Department of Transportation and Public Works and another binder almost as thick from the Office of Economic Development, which is responsible for the procurement branch.

My motion relates to a concern I have about the possibility that we have not been provided all the necessary information - in particular, I would like to point out to committee members that in the material dealing with Mr. Fage's vehicle in particular, there is no document from the period December 1, 2006 when the matter was referred to the deputy minister of Transportation until January 5, 2007 - the day after the story broke on the evening news about what had happened to Mr. Fage's vehicle.

I found it difficult to believe that not one person in the Department of Transportation wrote a single word about this particular incident between December 1^st and January 5^th. Not one e-mail, not one note, not one memo, not one anything. There is a complete gap of

information and my concern was, I think, underlined when I looked at the binder from the Office of Economic Development where there were e-mails in that binder from the Department of Transportation relating to Mr. Fage's vehicle. In fact, those e-mails should have been provided by the Department of Transportation itself. They were directly related to the insurance of Mr. Fage's vehicle.

So, with that preamble, I would like to make the following motion:

That the Public Accounts Committee directs its Chair to write to the deputy minister of the Department of Transportation and Public Works asking the deputy minister (a) to review whether his department has produced to the Public Accounts Committee all documents relating to a collision on November 24, 2007 involving former Cabinet Minister Ernie Fage and the insurance of that vehicle; and (b) to produce to the committee any additional documents that are found; and (c) to submit a sworn declaration to the Public Accounts Committee stating that all documents relating to that collision and that insurance have been produced to the Public Accounts Committee.

MADAM CHAIR: So there is a motion on the floor. Can you give the clerk a copy of the motion so we can circulate it to the members? Is that possible?

MR. STEELE: It certainly is possible. I have a handwritten copy of it and it's not the easiest thing in the world to read, but here it is. If the clerk would like to copy it.

MADAM CHAIR: I think it would be helpful for the members to have that. Mr. Colwell, is there discussion?

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I'm going to support the motion, I think it's a good motion. I'd like to make an amendment to the motion, if I could, to add the department the minister was working in also be requested for the same information in case the department paid for the repairs to the vehicle, unbeknownst to the Department of Transportation and Public Works.

They could have written a purchase order to repair the vehicle through the department and actually had the vehicle repaired that way. So, I would like to make that amendment.

MR. STEELE: I'm not sure procedurally if I need to agree to the amendment, although I hasten to say that I support it. If we could vote on the amendment first and then on the full motion, but I'm certainly planning to support the amendment. It seems like a good idea.

Just for clarity, what I understand is, we've asked Economic Development for their material on this matter, we've asked Transportation and Public Works and the motion is that

we ask the Public Service Commission for any information they have relating to this particular incident. I think that's a good idea.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: Thank you. Just on the amendment, in Mr. Steele's original motion, it asks for all and any, basically, documentation to be provided so I just don't know whether it's necessary to add the amendment or not. I'm not opposed, I just need to clarify.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Steele's original motion - we'll be getting a copy of that - is that the Chair write the Department of Transportation and Public Works. What the amendment does is the amendment would say that the Chair would also write the Public Service Commission and ask for any documents pertaining to, if they exist. So that is why there is an amendment, as I understand it.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, that is correct. Maybe we could ask for all the documentation related to that vehicle, not just at that time, but anything they would have paid for - for that vehicle.

MADAM CHAIR: Is that agreeable?

So the amendments are in order. Let's vote first on the amendment, if you feel comfortable with doing that.

Would all those in favour of the amendment, the understanding of what the amendment is, please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The amendment is carried.

Now, back to the original motion. Is there any further discussion? Are you ready for the question?

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

The motion is carried.

Is there any additional business?

Then we stand adjourned until possibly March 28^th with the Commonwealth Games. Thank you.

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