HANSARD

Discussion of Nominee Program documentation

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)

Mr. Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Keith Colwell

[ Mr. Chuck Porter was replaced by Mr. Keith Bain. ]

In Attendance:

Ms. Charlene Rice

Legislative Committee Clerk

Ms. Evangeline Colman-Sadd

Assistant Auditor General

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2005

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

11:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Ms. Maureen MacDonald

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please. I would like to call the subcommittee to order. We essentially have two things that we need to do, one which I hope will be relatively straightforward and won't take too much time. We need to review the proposals for additional witness topics for the Public Accounts Committee and then we need to turn our minds to reviewing some documents from the Nominee Program.

First, the clerk had asked each of the caucuses to bring forward their suggestions for witnesses and topics. I think you have the NDP list, the PC list and the Liberal caucus list, right? What we have is what was left over from the Liberal caucus. Do you have an additional list of topics you'd like to bring forward?

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Yes. As you can see, Madam Chair, we have added two additional topics along with the Nominee Program. We're still very interested in this Nominee Program but again, as we have been discussing, we have to talk about the documentation and decide what we're going to do with that. So we have added two items on to ours here that we can fill in between in case we're held up with this Nominee Program and getting all the information sorted out and decide what we're going to do with that.

MADAM CHAIR: What I would like to propose is that we actually not do anything around immigration until we get the remainder of the documents. I'm being told that we have been told by the Office of Immigration that they are going to provide those to us this week. That would give us an opportunity to see, in fact, what we have gotten before we decide. That's the first thing.

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The other thing is, I would like us to think about how we want to do that, vis-a-vis the fact that the Auditor General will be reporting sometime, we haven't gotten a date but we know that the Auditor General hopes that there will be a report certainly before his next report in June, a special report on this and I think that is correct. Is that right, Evangeline?

MS. EVANGELINE COLMAN-SADD: That is correct. We don't have a specific date but I guess working towards reporting as soon as we can and it is ongoing but yes, Jacques would hope that by June.

MADAM CHAIR: Great. We didn't put on our list any further witnesses from the department, on the NDP list, but I just essentially assumed that we all understand that we haven't finished with the Nominee Program. I know that our caucus would like to bring back the officials from the Office of Immigration, themselves, because when we first had them we didn't have hardly any of the documents that we now have. Perhaps we'll see what we get later this week and then we will have a specific subcommittee meeting to look at how we're going to proceed and wrap up this file. Okay, would that be acceptable?

MR. COLWELL: Yes, and the list I gave you today is really assuming that we might have gone ahead with some of the Nominee Program. What you're talking about now is totally satisfactory. We will change that list actually when we really get into the Nominee Program, probably once we see what documents we have. We just didn't want to get left out and leave anyone off the list in case we were ready to move forward based on the problem that we've had getting our subcommittee together.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Bain is new to this process so, just to bring him up to speed, generally speaking what we do is the three caucuses bring forward their lists, they generally bring them in terms of the order in which they see the topics of having priority. We rotate from caucus to caucus, except where there is overlap. For example, if there is a similar topic shared by a couple of caucuses then that gets bumped up in terms of some priority, right? This is generally the practice that we use.

I see, for example, that the Auditor General's Report is on the Liberal Party list and it's also on the NDP list as well. That would be given some priority attention in terms of getting scheduled. The other thing, just so we are all clear - March 26^th has been scheduled for a meeting with the Auditor General and the committee approved the Department of Environment and Labour but I don't believe they have been scheduled yet and that was with respect to the e-waste program and air quality monitoring. That was on the PC list, I think - it has been recommended by the subcommittee to the full committee, approved by the full committee at one of our meetings, it hasn't been scheduled. I see in addition to that the Department of Environment and Labour around the AG's Report is on the NDP list. I don't know if that is too big a number of topics for one meeting . . .

MR. COLWELL: It is.

MADAM CHAIR: You think it is, Mr. Colwell, okay.

MR. COLWELL: If we could arrange two meetings around that, I would have no problem with that. They both are very topical.

MADAM CHAIR: Then we'll do that, we'll hold to that. In front of us we have the lists and so I think we just need to make sure that everything falls within the mandate of the committee. We're looking at Health Promotion and Protection from the AG's Report. The Liberal caucus had left over the Department of Transportation and Public Works regarding crosswalk safety. Do you want to maintain that on your list?

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay. Do you want it to have your first priority before you go to your next number of items, Department of Justice, correctional facilities?

MR. COLWELL: Probably, the correctional facilities we would like to move to number one on our list and move the crosswalks down.

MADAM CHAIR: Correctional facilities ahead of crosswalks.

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

MADAM CHAIR: Great, just so the clerk will know. I think maybe what we will do is go with the Liberal caucus topic first in terms of priority because we had given you that assurance that we would let you substitute in a topic. Then we will go back to the NDP list and then to the PC list in terms of scheduling things.

We have on our list the Department of Economic Development and Trade Centre Limited, regarding the supplementary pension with Trade Centre Limited and their CEO, Fred MacGillivray; that's a carryover from the list we had in the Fall. We would like to have that go forward as a priority item.

MR. COLWELL: Okay.

MADAM CHAIR: The government caucus is looking at the Department of Economic Development on the broadband initiative - another very important topic - so definitely we should approve this. Then perhaps we could do Health Promotion and Protection because there are two from both of our lists as the next topic. Then we could go to the Department of Energy, tidal power.

[11:15 a.m.]

MR. COLWELL: Probably if you had one more that would be enough, it would put us out quite a way.

MADAM CHAIR: Yes. We could do the Department of Justice, correctional facilities.

MR. COLWELL: Okay.

MADAM CHAIR: Is that agreeable with everyone? We certainly have a number of topics and into that mix at some point probably will come the continuation of the Nominee Program but we'll have to sort of play that by ear. I don't think we need a motion - we know what we're going to recommend. We'll bring our report back to the full committee and these are the topics we will be recommending. Once that happens, the clerk will be able to schedule.

The other thing I would like to say at this stage is around scheduling a regular time for the subcommittee, just because it has been so difficult. I know there are things we couldn't avoid - illness and what have you - but I was speaking with the clerk and it's very frustrating for her. She spends a lot of time chasing us all around, trying to get the subcommittee coordinated. Perhaps if we could agree to put an hour aside for a subcommittee meeting once a month following the first Public Accounts Committee meeting each month. Then, as our Public Accounts Committee is always in our schedule, the subcommittee could always be scheduled at the same time. Some months we may use it and some we may not, depending on the need.

So I would like to propose that is what we do, that the first Wednesday in each month that there be one hour scheduled following the Public Accounts Committee for a subcommittee meeting to make sure we do the regular business of the subcommittee. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

MR. COLWELL: I have no problem with that.

MR. BAIN: I could make Mr. Porter aware and I think if it is set it makes it much easier for planning.

MADAM CHAIR: It makes it a lot easier than trying to figure it out.

MR. BAIN: I'm sure there will be circumstances that might arise, but . . .

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, we will do that. I'm not sure if we need to add this to our operating principles of the committee or not but we'll report back to the Public Accounts Committee and hopefully, that will be fine.

The second thing we have to do here today is we actually have to look at some documents from the Nominee Program. If you will remember, when Economic Development was here, there was a package of documents that the subcommittee was supposed to review to provide direction to the clerk with respect to editing out any private or identifying information that we did not want to have released into the public domain. Those documents have not been looked at by us and nothing has been released and we need to do that. In addition, the clerk has been contacted by a member of the committee, Mr. Steele, with some more documents that have identifying information from the big package for the committee to look at.

If you remember what the Public Accounts Committee agreed to, in terms of handling the big volume of documents, was that members would bring to the clerk's attention what documents they were intending to use around questions in Public Accounts on this program. Then that would come to the subcommittee, so that the subcommittee didn't have to go through and edit out those boxes and boxes, we would be just looking at the small number of documents that are actually being used by members in questioning.

The clerk has copies of these documents and we need to look at those and give her some direction. Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: Madam Chair, are we in camera or not?

MADAM CHAIR: We are not in camera right now. We need to go in camera if we look at the documents, if we are discussing the documents. We'll need a few minutes to let the folks know.

In fact, we will go in camera, Kim is doing that now.

[The committee adjourned at 11:21 a.m.]