HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)

Mr.Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Patrick Dunn

Mr. Keith Bain

Mr. Graham Steele

Mr. David Wilson (Sackville-Cobequid)

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Leo Glavine

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Mr. Keith Colwell was replaced by Mr. David Wilson, Glace Bay]

[Ms. Diana Whalen was replaced by Mr. Harold Theriault]

WITNESSES

Department of Natural Resources

Mr. Peter Underwood, Deputy Minister

Ms. Patricia MacNeil, Executive Director, Planning Secretariat

Office of Health Promotion and Protection

Mr. Duff Montgomerie, Deputy Minister

Mr. Rick Gilbert, Director of Active Healthy Living

In Attendance:

Ms. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Jacques Lapointe

Auditor General

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2008

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

9:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Ms. Maureen MacDonald

VICE-CHAIRMAN

Mr. Chuck Porter

MADAM CHAIR: Order. I'd like to call the committee to order please. Today we have before us witnesses from the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Health Promotion and Protection. Our topic toady is the off-highway vehicle buyback program. We will begin with introductions and opening statements. I have an opening statement from the Department of Health Promotion and Protection and I'm not sure if there will be an opening statement from the Department of Natural Resources. Yes, we will do that and then we'll proceed with questions from the members.

[Committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you and welcome to our witnesses. I just indicate to you, because I know some of our witnesses have not been here before, watch for the microphone. I will try to identify you by name so that Legislative TV will be able to light the appropriate microphone - but watch for that or otherwise you won't be recorded for the Hansard.

Thank you very much for being here today. We will begin with opening remarks.

Mr. Montgomerie.

MR. DUFF MONTGOMERIE: Good morning, Madam Chair. Rick and I both will be pleased to answer any questions you might have related to the Department of Health Promotion and Protection.

Before we begin - and appreciating that we have two departments appearing before you today - I thought it might be helpful to review HPP's involvement with off-highway vehicles to assist you with your questioning. As many of you may be aware, the use of off-highway vehicles is a very strong culture in Nova Scotia - there are about 35,000 registered in this province.

Our job, our core function at HPP is to help all Nova Scotians to be healthier and safer, and that obviously includes off-highway vehicle operators. Around this file, first and foremost, the conversation has always been focused on safe and safety. Additionally, one of the priorities of government is promoting safer, healthier communities - you will hear me use the words "safe" and "safety" quite a bit this morning.

In October 2005, the Off-Highway Vehicle Action Plan was approved and legislation put into place. The next step was to determine the most appropriate way to deliver a safety training program that would ensure the safety of youth operators. Our job in Health Promotion and Protection was to look at ways to provide safety training ever since legislation was enacted that dictated training for those under 14 years of age, and that training was to take place on a closed course.

One of the opportunities we identified early on was the chance to not only train youth - and this is such an important part of this - but also to expose their parents to training regarding safety and appropriate use of those vehicles in the environment. Madam Chair, our thinking was that if one child was saved from being severely injured or killed, our investment would be worth it. If parents came away from those courses making the decision not to allow their children to operate oversized ATVs, the investment would be worth it.

In March 2007, there was a meeting with myself and Minister Barnet where staff formally proposed the go-forward plan as to how best to deliver the safety courses. In government lexicon, this was the go/no-go meeting at the ministerial and deputy ministerial level.

The proposal was based on a great deal of conversation with ATVANS - the All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Nova Scotia, a volunteer organization - and others. The conversation focused on safety and the most appropriate way to deliver on a commitment to ensure the safe operation of those vehicles. It was at that time that I vastly underestimated the reaction Nova Scotians would have to our course of action.

Madam Chair, since 1999 I have prided myself on being able to provide objective advice to ministers and Premiers, based on looking at all sides of an issue. On this file, I was

very much focused on the safety perspective. The best public policy is made when the perspectives of all implicated parties are considered and weighted appropriately. In this instance, I was singularly focused on developing a program which would ensure youth ATV riders would be safe. Our department felt the most appropriate way to achieve this goal was through the purchase of youth-size machines. I did not stand back, as I normally might have with difficult files, in an objective way to consider other ramifications of this decision.

In retrospect, I should have asked others, like Treasury and Policy Board, to examine the go-forward plan from a broader public policy perspective but at the time I believed it was a solid plan and with the best interests and the safety of youth at heart.

In July 2008, the Premier made the decision to move the file to the Department of Natural Resources. I respect his decision, obviously, but I regret that he was placed in a difficult position of having to make such a move. Since that decision was taken, very quickly Deputy Underwood and I met together and we asked Rick and Patricia to meet and to begin to ensure that orderly transition from HPP to DNR of this file and that has been done. Thank you, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Mr. Underwood.

MR. PETER UNDERWOOD: Thank you, Madam Chair, and first let me thank the committee for inviting us here this morning. I'm Peter Underwood, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Natural Resources, and Patricia MacNeil, who is the Executive Director of the department's Planning Secretariat has overseen this file since early 2005.

I'd like to make just a few brief introductory comments this morning. During the week of June 23^rd, the Department of Natural Resources was instructed to recoup the $230,000 that government had spent on 66 youth-size all-terrain vehicles. The department successfully arranged for reimbursement and this was announced on July 10^th.

The province has received the first payment of $80,000 towards the $230,000 reimbursement for youth-size ATVs from the All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Nova Scotia - ATVANS. ATVANS has committed to pay the province $75,000 next year and again in 2010.

On July 3^rd, the Premier announced that responsibilities under the Off-highway Vehicles Act previously assigned to the Minister of Health Promotion and Protection would be transferred to the Minister of Natural Resources. The transfer assigns responsibility for matters relating to safety, equipment, clothing and training, age restrictions, closed courses and safe vehicle operation to the Minister of Natural Resources. The balance of the 2008-09 off-highway vehicle budget has been transferred to the Department of Natural Resources - one full-time equivalent has been transferred from Health Promotion and Protection to Natural Resources to assist with the OHV responsibilities.

Before the transfer of responsibilities from the Department of Health Promotion and Protection, our department already had many responsibilities relating to OHVs including enforcement, Crown land, designated trails, the ministerial advisory committee and off-highway vehicles and the OHV infrastructure fund. The department was the lead on the OHV action plan which was developed in collaboration with nine other government departments.

Madam Chair, I'll stop here, however, I expect there may be moments this morning when members of the committee may be uncertain where to direct their questions. Indeed, there are portions of the OHV file where our two departments have overlapped, where we have shared specific responsibilities but together we will do our best to answer every question as they relate to our departments. Thank you very much.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. The opening round of questions will be 20 minutes. I recognize Mr. Steele for the NDP caucus.

MR. GRAHAM STEELE: Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you to our guests. In the 10 years that I have been around the Legislature carefully observing the operations of government, I do not recall a previous occasion where a program has been announced and then shortly there afterwards denounced by the Premier and reversed. I think it's important to examine what happened here for what it reveals about government decision making.

We have in the last few weeks received a great deal of documentation from the government - these are all the responses to the freedom of information requests that we have filed. We now know a great deal about what actually went on inside government. One of the more curious aspects of this file is the idea that really the Department of Health Promotion and Protection was off on a frolic of its own, when really the documentation reveals very careful planning over the course of almost two years. There are at least 30 people in seven different departments that were hands-on involved with the file before the announcement was made in June of this year. I would like to start by asking you, Mr. Underwood, when were you first personally aware of the plan to purchase youth-sized all-terrain vehicles?

MR. UNDERWOOD: My first awareness of this plan was when it was announced in the newspaper.

MR. STEELE: Ms. MacNeil, when were you first personally aware of it?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: To clarify the difference between the actual purchase being announced and my understanding and knowledge of the need for additional small ATVs - so the committee that may be referenced in that particular documentation, it's called the Off-highway Vehicle Interdepartmental Committee. We were responsible for the various regulations so there would be updates from time to time given by departments. So there would have been a kind of knowledge or awareness that this was something that HPP was working on, but certainly not to the detail or to the actual timing.

MR. STEELE: I'm not asking about the timing. When were you first aware that the Office of Health Promotion . . .

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: In 2006.

MR. STEELE: I'm going to ask the clerk to circulate a document which was tabled in the Legislature yesterday. This document is dated September 25, 2006, it is prepared by Susan Hruszowy, Coordinator of Strategy Development in the Department of Natural Resources. The contact person on it is, in fact, Ms. MacNeil and there is a detailed discussion of the youth purchase program. Mr. Underwood, this document is headed, "Advice to Executive Council" or in other words, advice to Cabinet. How is it that a document could be prepared by your staff, directed to Cabinet, of which you were not aware?

MR. UNDERWOOD: All I can tell you is I have no recollection of reading this document. I get hundreds and hundreds of briefing notes. If I did read it, I don't recall reading it.

MR. STEELE: There are other documents that we have that are advice to minister or that are internal memos. This one stands out for the fact that it is advice to Executive Council. Is it not a fair assumption that a document prepared by your staff, headed Advice to Executive Council was, in fact, forwarded to the Executive Council?

MR. UNDERWOOD: I have no recollection of reading the document. I don't recall seeing the document, so really I can't say anything more than that.

MR. STEELE: So, even though it looks like Cabinet was informed of this program in September 2006, you as Deputy Minister of Natural Resources can't say one way or the other about whether it did or did not go to Cabinet?

MR. UNDERWOOD: That's correct and as I said, the first I ever heard about this purchase program was when it was announced in the newspaper.

MR. STEELE: Even though your staff were fairly intimately involved in the details of the program well in advance?

MR. UNDERWOOD: I don't recall ever seeing anything about this program before it was announced in the newspaper.

[9:15 a.m.]

MR. STEELE: The information we have shows the Department of Transportation was involved in arranging for insurance; the Office of Economic Development was involved with respect to procurement; the Department of Justice was involved for drafting and

reviewing the contract of purchase; and the Department of Natural Resources just was involved from the get-go, so it's a bit odd to us to hear that apparently nobody at senior levels of government knew about it.

Let me move on to another curious aspect of this file and that is the fact that after the program was announced by the minister and then denounced by the Premier, the government said it wanted its money back. Now, the initial response of the ATV Association was that they didn't have the money and that they were not in a position to pay it back. Very shortly after that, a matter of days or at most a week, the association said they had found people willing to put up the money to repay the $230,000 to government. But those donors who essentially rescued the government from a very bad-news story have never been publicly identified. Do you, Mr. Underwood, know who those donors are?

MR. UNDERWOOD: My involvement in this file was upon the instruction of the Premier to do two things, one was to attempt to . . .

MR. STEELE: Mr. Underwood, I have very limited time. I didn't ask you what your instructions were - what I asked you is whether you know who the donors are. That's a yes or no question.

MR. UNDERWOOD: We have that information, perhaps Ms. MacNeil could provide it.

MR. STEELE: Ms MacNeil, do you know who the donors are?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Yes, I do.

MR. STEELE: And who are they?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: The donors are a combination of various manufacturers. I can start with the first four, that was part of HPP's original deal - Bombardier, Suzuki, Yamaha and Arctic Cat; I believe that's public knowledge at this point in time. When the buy back program was being put together and we were talking to the various manufacturers and groups, we added three additional manufacturers - Honda, Kawasaki and Polaris.

MR. STEELE: Okay. How much did each of those companies kick in to reimburse the government?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I can't actually tell you how much. What I can say is that generally the plan was to make it a fairly even distribution. So what I could suggest is that we were talking about - and I didn't confirm this because this wasn't my role, my role was to coordinate for government - having nine each. So with seven manufacturers there would be nine times seven, so at the end of the day it would mean scaling it back a little bit,

but given the urgency and the importance of making this happen, 63 versus 66 didn't seem like a difficult chance to take.

MR. STEELE: Okay, now you've lost me. So the reimbursement is the financial equivalent of 63 machines . . .

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Plus 13 trailers.

MR. STEELE: Plus the 13 trailers and they have agreed to share that equally, but it doesn't quite add up to the total, but it's close enough that it was good enough. Is that fair?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: We wanted $230,000 for the original deal and that's what we are getting back.

MR. STEELE: Let me put it this way, what guarantee or security do you have from those seven companies that the payments in the future are going to be forthcoming?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: We have a letter from ATVANS, the ATV Association of Nova Scotia, to the Minister of Natural Resources and the Off-highway Vehicle Minister's Advisory Committee - that's a mouthful, I might say OHVMAC from now on - and copied to myself, indicating that they are committing to paying the $80,000 that they have already paid, yes.

MR. STEELE: I have that letter but it's from the association, it's not from the people who are actually putting up the money. A promise is being made by an association that's not putting up the money and the people who are putting up the money have put nothing in writing. Doesn't that concern you just a little bit?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I believe this deal will work, I think there's a commitment made and a lot of people signed on to this and it's to their credit that they came to the table. It is also important that they want this program to continue to work.

MR. STEELE: We'd all love to believe that it will work. The problem is you don't have anything in writing from them, do you? You have a letter from ATVANS, but you don't have anything from the people who are actually putting up the money, do you?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I do not.

MR. STEELE: Why are the payments being spread out over three years. If they really wanted to repay the government the money - and these are big companies with access to a lot of capital, $230,000 in the world of Bombardier is not a lot of money - why are they spreading it over three years?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Well I can't comment on what their particular conversations were when we talked about this. All I can say is that they weren't prepared to provide the $230,000 in one sum and the suggestion options were put on the table in terms of what else we could do and over two, three years, seemed to be palatable. So it was acceptable. Again, my role was to make it happen and make it happen quickly and to try to get as best of a guarantee as we could.

MR. STEELE: So you only have some of the money - you have $80,000 out of $230,000. You have nothing in writing from the people who are actually putting up the money. You have payments spread out over three years. What are you going to do if any one of those companies changes its mind between now and 2010?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Well, I would suggest that when that happens, we will re-evaluate the entire procedure as well as the safety program.

MR. STEELE: Can you confirm, or Mr. Underwood, or whoever has the answer, is the province still the owner of the vehicles?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: No.

MR. STEELE: Now, the Ministerial Advisory Committee minutes for July 4^th of this year state, "ATVANS would assume full ownership of the machines once the reimbursement is complete." Now, the reimbursement is not yet complete so is the province still the owner of the machines?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: No. In fact, I don't believe - and I'll ask my colleagues in HPP to come in if that's all right - I do believe that we were never the real owners. They were always registered as not a government asset but I would like HPP to confirm that for me.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Montgomerie.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Patricia is quite correct, Madam Chair. Part of the legal agreement that we drew up provided that ATVANS would become the owners of those vehicles. For a very short time, the province was the owner and then we transferred it over to ATVANS. This would be before, Rick, I think before the announcements.

MR. STEELE: Now, at the time of the vehicle purchase, the government also promised to pay an annual operating grant of $30,000 to ATVANS to pay for operating costs such as insurance and presumably maintenance and repairs. Now, are those $30,000 payments per year still being made?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: There was just one. We had to have a little laugh. It was just the one payment so far and now, as you probably know, Natural Resources passed the budget for this particular program so the $30,000 was already a commitment. What we will do is what we would do with every program at Natural Resources - in the coming budget planning process, we will be evaluating this entire piece.

MR. STEELE: Okay, so the payments could continue into the future?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: They could continue.

MR. STEELE: The Ministerial Advisory Committee minutes for July 4^th - and remember, it's the Ministerial Advisory Committee that essentially brokered the deal and laid out the terms on which the government would get its money back - that committee says, "ATVANS will need 3 years operational funding through a sustainable source to implement the program." So has a three-year commitment been made or do you anticipate that ATVANS will receive an operating grant for three years?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I believe I will evaluate it along with every other program. A commitment, as you know, can't be made beyond one year. So that is how it has to happen.

MR. STEELE: We also have an e-mail from the ATVANS lawyer to the ATVANS president - how we got correspondence between the lawyer and the association president, I don't know but we do - and it's dated June 30, 2008. It says, "Implicit in all that has happened is that the Department feels guilty about what has occurred and anticipates covering the Association's costs to date. . . . The Association should demand that all expenses be covered by the department and I expect that this will receive favourable consideration from the Department . . ." Has any of ATVANS' costs in any way, directly or indirectly, been covered by the government?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: In terms of the current program, there have been monies already committed and forwarded to ATVANS. There has been nothing sent in this regard since Natural Resources took over the file. We will have to look at each individual requirement and request as they come in.

MR. STEELE: The ATVANS lawyer is suggesting that the association has lost money as a result of the government's reversal, that they should demand to be reimbursed for that money from the government and that the government is likely to look upon that request favourably - did that happen?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: No. I was aware of that letter and spoke to the ATVANS President about that letter. That was simply advice, if I could suggest - advice to

his client and I am sure they will attempt, over the course of the next few months, to suggest that they will need additional monies and we will talk to them about that.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Steele, you have five minutes.

MR. STEELE: Yes, thank you. So it's possible that if such a request is made, that the government might, in fact, consider it.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Only if it's a legitimate request.

MR. STEELE: What we have is a situation where the government, although purporting to have reversed this decision, is still out $150,000. The people who have promised to repay that have said they'll do so over the course of another two years. The government has nothing in writing, no guarantee, no security that those payments will be made. The government is essentially, through the operating grant to ATVANS, still covering the operating cost of the program because ATVANS doesn't have any other independent source of funds to pay for this program.

The machines are out there, they are being used and run in the way originally announced. So in essence, would it not be fair to say that when you put all that together, the government is still, in essence, very much paying for this youth training program on youth-size ATVs?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I wonder if I could just step back a bit and suggest that ATVANS does have other sources of funding. So if government has provided some funds for this particular program, a pilot program I would tend to call it, it isn't the sole source of funding. In fact, ATVANS receives a good sum of money through the off-highway vehicle infrastructure fund and they get grants from the industry itself and also through selling various permits and various other things that they do as an association, so this is not the only source of funding for ATVANS.

MR. STEELE: In the two minutes that I have left, I want to put a question to Mr. Montgomerie on a slightly different topic. We have received a great deal of information under the freedom of information - as deputy minister, you are ultimately responsible, Mr. Montgomerie, for what we receive. A great deal of material was deleted from what we got from the Office of Health Promotion and Protection and yet through other means, we have been able to see documents that are unedited.

I want to read to you something that your department, under your direction, cut out from the material that was given to us. My question to you is going to be, what possible justification can you offer for deleting the following paragraph from a document, quote - this is from the Off-Highway Vehicle Ministerial Advisory Committee:

"Recommendation #1: First and foremost, we recommend that NO new decisions concerning the governance of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) in Nova Scotia be made without first consulting with the OHVMAC and receiving our advice and recommendations. That is specifically why this multi-stakeholder committee exists and why its volunteer members give of their valuable time. This is the second major decision concerning ATV use in Nova Scotia where the government has not consulted with the OHVMAC and we recommend in the strongest possible terms, that there not be a third. We feel that had we been given the opportunity to give input, we may have been able to assist government in avoiding the pitfalls it has experienced. We further recommend that all relevant government departments be informed that NO new policy, programs or regulation changes with respect to OHVs be announced or finalized without first bringing it to the OHVMAC for consideration and input."

So pretty strong language from the committee saying, you've done it before, you've done it again, don't do it a third time, we're really upset about the way this whole thing unfolded. What justification can you offer for deleting that paragraph under Freedom of Information.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Very quickly, because I'm conscious of time, I take advice from our FOIPOP officer but in this instance the documentation you referred to was addressed to Minister Morse, so was it HPP? I apologize, but was it us who . . .

MR. STEELE: Yes, the documents we got back from your department deleted that paragraph. The documents we got from Natural Resources did not delete it, which is why we know what the paragraph says.

[9:30 a.m.]

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Then my quick answer is I'm really not sure, other than normally when I deal with a FOIPOP when it gets to my desk, I have conversations with the FOIPOP officer and because we're guided by certain things under the Act and so on, I usually take that advice.

But the other point is that I realize where Laurie was coming from in his comments, and actually the decision to do this program was made before the off-highway vehicle committee was formed. So, I appreciate the point he was making.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. The time has now expired for the NDP caucus. I recognize Mr. Glavine for the Liberal caucus - you have 20 minutes.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to both departments and officials who are here today on what has become, and continues to be, a very controversial file for Nova Scotians. We'll continue to ask questions around it and, hopefully, we'll all become a little bit more enlightened.

I still had some trouble with the move from the Office of Health Promotion and Protection to Natural Resources, knowing however that both departments had a significant role. Other than pure politics - and giving the minister a bit of an out here - why do you see the file having been moved to Natural Resources, Mr. Montgomerie?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: In my opening remarks, I took responsibility for not anticipating the reaction around this file. So when the Premier, after several days of dealing with this situation, made the decision to move the file, I certainly felt badly on several levels and I felt badly for our department, but I also felt badly that I - and I know Minister Barnet felt the same way - hadn't properly made the Premier and others around him aware of what we were considering doing.

The actual decision that the Premier made, what really gratified me though, I must say, is that the program stayed intact, that the safety of young people, the exposure of parents to that program, would continue.

MR. GLAVINE: Well, I don't know, you may want to make some comment here, but I know, Mr. Montgomerie, you worked with the Premier, in the Office of Health Promotion and Protection. This is, without a doubt, since I arrived in 2003, one of the three most controversial files and topics. I was present for all 83 presentations and the amount of media on this file, in fact, is overwhelming.

I'm trying to find people in ATVANS and Nova Scotians who can believe that the Premier didn't know what was going on on this file. This is very controversial; no other jurisdiction in North America did this. So, when did you start talking to the Premier about this?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: After the Premier withdrew the file, I conveyed to the Premier my sincere apologies and regrets for the situation that I had put him in. As deputy minister, I should have recognized - to your point - that this in fact is controversial. And, as you're aware, I was with Premier Hamm, I worked on this file and met with the Opposition as we tried, together, to come to a fair legislative resolution around this very difficult issue.

In retrospect, there are all kinds of things I could have done as deputy minister in my responsibility to the Premier and to my minister. But I was so focused on the safety because of the very tragic situation that happened in Stewiacke, it really just heightened as we worked through the Legislature and I ended up with the file as deputy minister.

My personal focus was safety; my professional focus should have been as deputy minister to stand back. The Premier, in an ensuing conversation, simply said to me, look, I'm very proud of your department, I have tremendous respect for you, let's move on; get on the horse and let's keep going.

MR. GLAVINE: Moving in a different direction here - in terms of ATVANS agreeing to purchase the fleet of vehicles when their initial contract with HPP was only to administer the program, why did they make this turn? I mean, there are a lot of people in ATVANS who didn't agree they should go down this road. They just barely have enough funding to keep going, they haven't grown their membership, why would they now take this on?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Well, to the comment, which I very much appreciate, of the honourable member for Fairview, our staff spent two years on this file in a very diligent way and it was a decision-making process that really started in September 2006 and really at the end of the day what we wanted was a partnership with some ownership from the industry, some ownership from ATVANS, the safety side, and ownership from government.

In that partnership what we felt really good about, with the final result, was in fact ATVANS would offer the safety courses. The industry would help keep those vehicles secure and they would help keep them maintained - that's a huge burden off government and other places - they would do it at cost. So we felt there was ownership from all three major Parties, that we were all focused on the safety side, and what Minister Barnet and I absolutely underestimated - to your point - was the people of Nova Scotia's initial reaction to that announcement.

MR. GLAVINE: You've made some comments on the three-year plan - you know, I still think Nova Scotians aren't happy with that by and large. In terms of the deal that was revealed to taxpayers on July 11^th, the Minister of Natural Resources was quoted as saying that this concludes this issue and the responsibility for the equipment is now with the industry or on a user-pay basis. This is misleading, because it really didn't conclude the issue - otherwise we wouldn't be here today discussing the matter. I mean, how can we be sure now we'll get the remaining monies?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: If I could, Madam Chair, I would refer that to Mr. Underwood.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Underwood.

MR. UNDERWOOD: Well, you know, you have the copy of the letter of commitment from ATVANS that we received which clearly states that they are committed to reimbursing the government for this money. Shortly after that letter was transmitted we got the first cheque, and my perception of the discussions that took place, that there was a

lot of good faith around this and we're going to have to place some degree of stock in the good faith that we have with that letter. If you're asking me, do we have an ironclad, legally binding guarantee that we're going to get the money? No, we don't, but we have a commitment that was made in writing in good faith and so far ATVANS has kept the commitment.

MR. GLAVINE: In that regard, have you seen recent copies of the financial statements of ATVANS, because I'm certainly wondering, as most Nova Scotians are, where the additional $80,000 is actually coming from to provide the three yearly payments?

MR. UNDERWOOD: No, I have not.

MR. GLAVINE: Okay. To go a little further, why is the cheque written by ATVANS to the Minister of Finance routed through the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Distributors Council in Ontario before returning to the provincial government?

MR. UNDERWOOD: Perhaps I could ask Ms. MacNeil to answer that.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. MacNeil.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Could you repeat the question, Mr. Glavine?

MR. GLAVINE: Why is the cheque written by ATVANS to the Minister of Finance routed through the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Distributors Council in Ontario before returning to the provincial government?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I'm not sure if I have a direct answer for that, but I can give you my understanding of why it may be the case. The Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Industry Council, the president of that council had agreed to coordinate this with the manufacturers for us, and that's one of the reasons why we have not said that the entire industry is doing this, it is manufacturers as part of that large industry that have agreed. So I would suggest that the Off-Highway Vehicle Council works with ATVANS on a regular basis and they have agreed to assist them in this regard because that is what they do.

They have safety education committees on a national basis and they would see this as part of their mandate. In fact, Mr. Ramsay, who is the president of that organization, was very helpful to this particular situation. However, what he did ask of me was that he wanted to be a low profile because he didn't have time in the middle of the summer to bring all his members together and to get everybody around the table. People were on vacation, things were happening as they do in the middle of the summer. So he wanted time to discuss this, he wanted time to work it through but he felt he had enough agreement from the manufacturers who agreed, to proceed with this. He had said clearly to me that they understood that this was an important program and one that they would want to be behind.

MR. GLAVINE: In the event of a change of government, we have heard that ATVANS will retain the amount of vehicles for to date. The balance remains with government. We have also been told that the OHV Ministerial Advisory Committee believes the manufacturers are actually paying the government back and that some machines have been returned. Differing stories have presented themselves; either 33 machines have been returned or all machines are still in place. Can we get a full inventory of the assets from this program?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: We can. I don't have it here today but certainly that could be made available to you. What we did in order to make sure that we have the inventory in place before we put the stamp on this particular agreement is to ask the trainer for ATVANS to work with the manufacturers, to get VINs off each of the vehicles that were currently in place and to start that process in terms of redistribution.

So the second statement that you made, in terms of some manufacturers giving machines back, that was part of what I mentioned to Mr. Steele in that there was a redistribution because now we have seven manufacturers involved in this program, as opposed to only four.

MR. GLAVINE: With respect to the trailers that were purchased to transport these vehicles around the province, can you tell us today where these were purchased?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Blair Industries - a local firm but I'll ask HPP to help me with this, if I may, Madam Chair?

MADAM CHAIR: Certainly. Mr. Gilbert.

MR. RICK GILBERT: I believe the company's name was Blair Agencies and I believe that they're actually located in New Brunswick.

MR. GLAVINE: Okay, so you didn't put a tender out to look at getting a Nova Scotia firm in this regard?

MR. GILBERT: We were advised that this was the company that could provide the machinery closest to us and we went through procurement to make sure we were following all of the procurement guidelines and got the go-ahead from them for that purchase.

MR. GLAVINE: Not having a lot of time, I want to come back to the agreement that has been made between the department and ATVANS to pay back government for carelessly spending taxpayer dollars. Where exactly is the money coming from? Nova Scotians really want to know that because it has the appearance that additional grants could go to ATVANS; there could be some way through the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Association to filter

money through since we have the check filtering through them. Where is the money actually coming from?

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. MacNeil.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I'm going to give you my version of how I see the money being provided; someone else may suggest something different but this is how I understand it to be the case. The money that would have been transferred to ATVANS would have come from the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Council but they would have gotten the money from their members, and their members being the seven manufacturers.

How they actually worked out that particular distribution of funds, I don't know and I didn't actually need to know how they were going to do their particular end of the deal. They were working it out and they wanted to ensure that it was fair among their own members. So at the end of the day this Mr. Ramsay coordinated it on behalf of those manufacturers and while I don't know how it actually happened, it should have happened as a transfer from Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Council to ATVANS, as it has happened for other types of grants over the years, as I understood it. It was not an unusual event for the COHB, as we refer to it, to forward grants, to provide grants to ATVANS and other ATV associations or off-road motor vehicles. The council is both for two kinds of OHVs - ATVs and off-road motor bikes. They have a mandate that is national and they try to provide this kind of help for associations.

[9:45 a.m.]

MR. GLAVINE: The other taxpayer area that also many are very disconcerted about is the $10,000 that went to a national study on the health benefits of riding ATVs. Is Nova Scotia the only province to put up money for this study?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: That's correct. What we have is an arrangement of a $250,000 study, that we would contribute $10,000 and have input to ensure that's it's peer reviewed, that it's done properly in normal academic standards.

HPP has a responsibility to provide good evidence to government to help them make good decisions. By being a new department in everything from gaming to alcohol to physical activity, we have instituted major, major surveys and so on that continue to advise government on advice. There is very much a lack of good research around ATVs. So we felt it was a good investment. Sorry - to answer your question directly - yes, we are the only government.

MR. GLAVINE: When can we expect that study to be completed and brought before the House of Assembly?

MR. GILBERT: We expect to have preliminary results from the study in January, 2009 and the full report by the Spring of 2009.

MR. GLAVINE: I guess I can think of a lot of other places around physical fitness where $10,000 would be some help. Very, very controversial area that my colleague will pick up in the final part here.

The other area that has been very difficult around this whole issue is getting full information, as my colleague has referred to this morning. Why was there a directive here - either from the Premier down or the minister or you, the deputy - to blank out these documents? This isn't transparency for Nova Scotians who would just like a simple answer. Big mistakes were made around $250,000.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Is there a specific document the honourable member is referring to?

MR. GLAVINE: Our FOIPOP had numerous areas that were blanked out.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Again, I'm guided by the FOIPOP officer to a certain extent, although sometimes we do have some spirited discussions. Quite frankly, I'm more on open and transparency wherever possible. But again, I've dealt with a lot of FOIPOPs, my guidance usually is the FOIPOP officer's first initial reaction then I try to look at it from the broader government perspective. My inclination usually is, open and transparent where possible. You're asking me for a question on a lot of FOIPOPs and I guess that's my answer.

MR. GLAVINE: In terms of the minister's advisory committee, which I believe has a very balanced group of people associated with the ATV industry and so on, why has the minister not taken the recommendations of that body and also move to fill the position of good health advisement for that committee?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: If I could, Madam Chair, I'll speak to the first part of the question. Regarding this particular file, the off-highway vehicle committee was not in place when we went through the normal government decision-making process. So, basically, by the time they were set up, our staff were informing them of where we were going on this file. In this particular file that you're referring to, they weren't in existence when we made a decision to go down this road.

MR. GLAVINE: In terms of the second part here, why hasn't the government moved to fill the medical position on the advisory board which could be very beneficial in terms of obviously the protection of young people in ATVing?

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. MacNeil.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I'll respond to that. We are actually coming up to the end of terms for a number of people on the committee, so instead of going out on its own as a request, we've decided to make it a full-fledged request for anyone else who may be stepping down from the committee in the next couple of months, so you'll be seeing that very shortly.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. The time has now expired for the Liberal caucus. I recognize Mr. Porter from the PC caucus, you have 20 minutes.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to our guests this morning and thank you for being with us to answer a few questions. I'll start with Deputy Montgomerie, perhaps and maybe work my way around.

Appreciating that the department had to work within current regulations with respect to the off-highway vehicles, what was the intent of this program?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Basically when government enacted the legislation and in that legislation made us responsible for the safety piece, we became the lead department around this file. What then began after that was a series of discussions as to how best for us to meet that mandate. Everything we do in HPP, particularly around the protection side, is around risk assessment. So for example, if Dr. Strang comes to me as the Chief Public Health Officer and says, deputy, we have an issue around listeriosis in Nova Scotia, I don't ask him how much, I don't ask him who he should talk to or who we should talk to. First and foremost, Dr. Strang, his team and I, am and are concerned about Nova Scotians and their safety around that issue. This file was no different.

A risk assessment was done and that risk assessment began in September 2006, when staff first came to Minister Barnet and myself to notionally propose this go forward, that we might want to consider that because there are very few right-sized machines for young people in the province because of the culture in this province, that we should provide them to ensure that those young people get on a training course with instructors. So the minister and I at 50,000 feet said, okay, go away and do your homework. Go do your normal thing that you would do in the risk assessment, as you look at all sides of the program and come back to us.

Again, it wasn't until March 2007 that staff came back and formally proposed the go forward that we're talking about today. At that time, Minister Barnet and I were focused obviously on the safety piece, but we also became very focused on the procurement piece because we saw the complexity if staff continued to go forward, of trying to work with the industry and multi-industry people - that had ramifications and the minister and I were very concerned that those were followed. In April 2008, staff came back and said we now have all our ducks in a row and then from there, ATVANS announced the program in June.

MR. PORTER: I want to ask a question just on that risk piece, since you brought it up. On a grand scale of risk in a program like this, where does such a thing fit? How much goes into that? How much risk in a program like this or in not putting a program like this out?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: The thing that really overwhelmed me was the $230,000. I come from a sport and recreation background where $230,000 is a lot of money, I have a tremendous respect for how tax dollars get used. But since 1999, I've been around the health system - every 24 hours our health system spends $8,766,000 a day. Every hour that system spends $365,000. In 41 minutes - the time that we've been in here, literally - $250,000 will be expended. So from our risk assessment, from our safety mandate, a $230,000 one-time expenditure and a solid plan in place that saw those vehicles being secured, maintained and safe and that Nova Scotians would have an opportunity to be trained, that prevents one death, one injury, or causes a parent to go home and say, you know what, son or daughter, you're not getting on that oversized machine again; $230,000, from that perspective. Again, I absolutely respect why Nova Scotians reacted the way they did. They reacted the way they did because I underestimated and Minister Barnet underestimated and we didn't cause a better scrutiny, a better due diligence around this file. But to your original question, our motives were always around safety.

MR. PORTER: And having said all that, most people in this Chamber would know my background in the health system, I worked for a lot of years on the streets of Nova Scotia and, unfortunately, I had some experiences that were not good. Some of those dealt with the off-highway vehicle accidents and the kinds of things that do happen out there. That's reality, everybody in Nova Scotia who has ever seen or driven or heard about these machines is aware of the kind of prevention that's needed, I guess is probably the best word.

In the early days there didn't appear to be any. The machines came onboard, there were sales - there were big sales, I think for a while. I don't know what the numbers are but it appeared that everybody was getting them through the 1980s and 1990s and so on, and there are certainly a lot of riders - I don't know what those numbers are either but I do know that they weren't trained. They just went out, bought the machine, some decided to buy head gear, some didn't and multiple uses all year-round. That was the reason for buying them, I think, the old skidooing clubs went on to the bikes.

I don't think anyone would ever, or I certainly would never argue that the program was not a worthy program, regardless of the $230,000 but I'm interested to know, I guess in your opinion then and what you've just said, is it clear to say that this was poorly implemented, this program, as it goes for Nova Scotians in getting the message out? I'm kind of curious to hear a little bit about that side of it.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Again, and I do thank Mr. Steele, who has left the room, for his very kind comments about two years of due diligence and I know our staff will

appreciate his comments because again, from Minister Barnet's perspective in wanting - our staff did incredible due diligence. It took two years from the first notional concept of this file until actual implementation. What drives me absolutely crazy, and I know that it does the minister, is that if we just had at one time stepped back and said you know what, maybe we should give this a little bit better vetting or communication-wise or what have you, but we didn't and that's history.

Quite frankly, as the deputy minister, did our staff do their due diligence around the safety theme? The answer is absolutely yes.

MR. PORTER: Deputy, can you put a price on one's life?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: I wouldn't go there.

MR. PORTER: Certainly. I mean we know that the safety of Nova Scotians has got to be first and foremost as we move forward in any program that we put out. I would assume that the risk that was undertaken, the due diligence that was undertaken, obviously those issues I would say many hours of discussion was about those facts, would that be accurate? Obviously the discussions through the risk, through the due diligence, had to deal 100 per cent with safety. Where else would it be?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Well again, the legislative responsibility that this House enacted was, we were to be the lead department around the safety issue of this file and that was our responsibility on behalf of government to carry that out. That's how we focused our efforts and that's what we did.

MR. PORTER: This department deals in many, many areas of health promotion and protection and funding a variety of different programs. Are there examples within your department of other funding programs that may have not gone to Cabinet for approval that went out there?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: We have an $87 million budget. In the run of a year, in that kind of environment, there will be many decisions, countless decisions made around programs that Cabinet or, in some cases, the minister might not be aware of but the major ones the minister certainly is aware of. Again, that's part of my responsibility with the minister.

For our capital grants program, where we have contributed and caused over $100 million of recreation facility development to be created, none of those decisions went to Cabinet. That was our budget, it was approved, the minister was responsible, I was responsible to the minister to make sure all the guidelines were followed and so on.

MR. PORTER: So just as an example, then, there was a $30,000 expenditure for a new playground at the St. Stephen Elementary School. Did that go to Cabinet?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: No, but it did go to the minister. All capital grants do go to the minister.

MR. PORTER: So what about the Mainland Common, for example, the Canada Games Centre that is being proposed for Halifax Clayton Park?

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Well, the Mainland Common, in effect, Cabinet was aware because that was a major initiative after the Commonwealth Games, where the city and ourselves went into a unique partnership to provide a facility that would not only benefit HRM but the province and the region, which caused us to be in intense negotiations with the Government of Canada, and Minister Barnet and I needed the support of Cabinet to carry out those negotiations.

MR. PORTER: So you said $87 million for your budget that comes to this House?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: That's correct.

MR. PORTER: That gets approved, goes back to the department, and they put together programs. Just a simple clarity, is there a dollar value on any given program that you as the deputy or your department say, okay, we need to bring the minister in, we need to bring Cabinet in, or the Premier, to discuss and approve certain expenditures? At what level do we go there? You know we've already verified $30,000 doesn't go to Cabinet. Where are we there?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: My style, for example, when I became deputy, I wanted to see every grant letter myself because I wanted as deputy to, on a daily basis, just track and I had the same relationship with Minister Barnet in the beginning - like, minister, we'll run everything by you, and after awhile we found a level of comfort where the minister said, no, that's your normal stuff, you go do that. This stuff, yes, it should be discussed at my level. So it really became - and if ministers change tomorrow, it would be the same. I would go to the minister and say my preference, minister, is for you to be exposed to all the grant scenarios and it's going to take a little bit of time but it will help you become more acquainted with the department, some of the things we're doing, and certainly give you as our elected official responsible to Cabinet a sense of the money that's going out the door.

MR. PORTER: And that's based on, you feel, your experience as the deputy but also within the health world that you've lived in for many years?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Well, just the world I live in. I mean, to me, if our minister is informed and he reaches a comfort level and says, do you know what, I'm good, from here on, just do this - that helps me, it helps our staff, because we now know he or she has a better understanding of what's coming before him or her.

MR. PORTER: I want to talk a little bit about the procuring of the machines. What was the actual process used for going out and procuring the machines that you did purchase initially?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Gilbert.

MR. GILBERT: The procurement process happened over a good portion of that two-year period that the honourable member mentioned earlier. It was a long and drawn-out process where we made it clear early on that we hoped all of the manufacturers would be part of what evolved into a partnership with us, and all seven manufacturers were invited to be part of the procurement. As Ms. MacNeil said earlier, in the end, four of them stepped forward and said, yes, we do want to be part of that, but that's making a very long story quite short. The three that didn't want to participate had their own reasons for that, but the four that did want to participate were very excited to be part of this program and interested to be a partner with us.

In the process we had numerous conversations with our procurement office to make sure that we were going through all of the appropriate procedures and following policy that we needed to, realizing that this was not a typical procurement within a government context, and they said that to us. They also said to us the deal that you're getting is probably better than our usual tender would get for the government because the manufacturers wanted to see this program go forward. They were interested in the program. They thought it was a good model and they were happy to be involved. So really I'm not quite sure if you want more detail than that. I mean, in general, it was a long, drawn-out process with partners considering whether they were going to be part of it or not. We went through procurement and in the end we had a deal that everybody seemed to be happy with.

MR. PORTER: So that length of time is not typical of procurements and, generally speaking, if you were to procure something else, it would be much quicker than that?

MR. GILBERT: I would say so.

MR. PORTER: If I heard you correctly, was it part of the risk assessment that was done and the due diligence that was done getting these partnerships from the manufacturers?

MR. GILBERT: We take a pretty holistic view to that kind of thing, so we're juggling different parts of the file all at one time. I guess in another world you would call it a fast-track process - it wasn't very fast, but we're juggling a number of things at the same time.

So you have the risk management, the procurement, the administration after the fact through ATVANS, all of that was being considered at the same time.

MR. PORTER: So initially government spends $230,000 and goes out and procures these machines. Now there's a plan that has been moved to DNR to recoup the dollars and manufacturers have agreed. Was that ever discussed, about the manufacturers doing the purchasing early on, or did they ever take part in any of the procurement discussions in purchasing?

MR. GILBERT: I'm not sure I understand the question.

MR. PORTER: I can clarify it. I guess what I'm asking, to be very clear is, were the manufacturers ever asked to take part in funding the machines in the beginning, you know, during that two-year-long discussion and procurement and the length and all the discussion that went into that and the work around it?

MR. GILBERT: So you mean paying for the machines outright?

MR. PORTER: Absolutely.

MR. GILBERT: No, they did give us a very good deal, even with the original purchase of $230,000, we saved approximately $100,000 from what the sort of over-the-counter price would be if we had gone out straight to dealers and purchased those. So they were giving us the best deal that they thought they could. At one point they said yes, we'd like to participate and this is the level of our participation, and we went back to them and said, we'd like you to try to do better and they did.

So that's all part of why it took a long period of time and we were dealing with two representatives of the manufacturers, who were then dealing with the other seven. Things like that take time, but we thought we got the best deal we could from the manufacturers, so that's why we ended up at the price we did.

MR. PORTER: So what exactly was the procurement for? I mean, it took you two years to decide what you wanted, I guess, over the term of working with manufacturers, as you just mentioned two of them, to go back to the seven partnerships that were formed here, what exactly was the hope that you would procure and put on the streets?

MR. GILBERT: Well, 66 youth-sized, all-terrain vehicles in the appropriate sizes - there are three different sizes. We insisted that they be four-stroke engines which are considerably more environmentally friendly. We had a number of criteria and things, by the way, that we weren't willing to give in on, so that too was part of the negotiation. We also purchased the trailers and we wanted to acknowledge the various partners that were part of this thing in the end, so there were decals that needed to be purchased for the trailers, as well,

so we could have an appropriate acknowledgment of the participating partners, so all those kinds of things were part of it.

Of course, as has been brought up, the $30,000 - I think it would not be inappropriate to say - commitment that we made to ATVANS to help them with the administration of the program, realizing, as Deputy Minister Montgomerie has said, that this was our responsibility under the Act and under the regulations, it was Health Promotion and Protection's responsibility to deal with safety and training. ATVANS was working with us to enable that to happen.

MR. PORTER: How many Nova Scotians ride ATVs? I don't know the number, I'm just kind of curious.

MR. GILBERT: I don't think we know that.

MR. PORTER: Does anyone on the panel have any idea?

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. MacNeil.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: We have the most recent registration numbers here from Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. I have it for the calendar year 2007 - 34,981, and that is all classifications of off-highway vehicles according to their files.

MR. PORTER: Is there any breakdown, having said that, how many of them are children or young riders? I don't know how we group them.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: No, I don't have that. I don't know if you know, but Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations has been undergoing major changes in its systems over the last year or two, so we're hoping in the future to have better breakdowns. What we have now would be ATVs versus snowmobiles, versus motorbikes, that kind of thing.

MR. PORTER: Do we know how many of the ATVs that are out there are specific sizes, other than the ones that went through this particular program? Do we know how many are undersized, or child-sized - whatever the right terminology is - or smaller vehicles that are out there?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I wouldn't be able to get that from this particular source.

MR. PORTER: Not being able to get that from that particular source, I guess the question is - and I'll just go back again for clarity - are you saying we don't know how many youth-sized bikes are out there versus adult-sized, or would that be something perhaps that would come from a sales survey?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I think you're right, I couldn't answer that definitively. I could tell you that there are 63 out there right now.

MR. PORTER: Thank you for that. Did ATVANS make any specific requests to the minister directly, or to any member of the staff with regard to the purchase of these machines?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Montgomerie.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Yes, Rick, would you - I'm not sure what you're asking. Would you mind repeating that?

MR. PORTER: Sure. I wanted to know if ATVANS made any specific request to the minister directly, or to any other member of the staff, for the purchase of these machines?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Not to the minister or to myself.

MR. PORTER: How did that all evolve then? I'd like to hear a little bit about that.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Gilbert.

MR. GILBERT: In the summer of 2006, after the training programs had been developed, after the trainers had been trained to develop the courses and the courses were, theoretically, up and running, we heard from the instructors to our staff directly that nobody could take the courses because the parents of the young people do not have the appropriately-sized all-terrain vehicles.

So, we had put in place a system that we thought was going to result in young people being trained, but the restrictions were such that they could not actually take the training. That was the genesis of the idea of the government purchasing youth-sized all-terrain vehicles essentially so we could implement the Act.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. The time has now expired for the first round of questions. The second round will be 15 minutes per caucus, but before we do that, I'd just like to tell the members that today we have in our gallery - because it's bring your child to work day or week - we have children and youth who are the sons and daughters of members of the staff for the Public Service Commission, the Department of Finance and Communications Nova Scotia. I'd like to welcome them here to the House on behalf of all of us. Good morning. (Applause)

Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Thank you. Mr. Montgomerie, I would like to elaborate on something I said in the first round which is precisely that your staff really did a good job of working on this file and moving the file along. When you see all the documents we got under Freedom of Information, you can see that your staff, in particular, Ted Scrutton, moved the file along very carefully and deliberately. There were a lot of people involved within government and outside government and it would be three steps forward, one step back, but Ted would, in a very diplomatic way, would solve any problems that came up. I have had occasion to deal with Ted Scrutton on a completely different matter and that's my experience with him as well. He's good, your staff is good, but here's the problem - that is precisely why it is so difficult for us to swallow the government's explanation when they denounced and reversed the decision that Health Promotion and Protection was off on a frolic of its own, precisely because the file had been taken along in such a step-wise way.

I wanted to make that comment, but my first question is actually for Ms. MacNeil. I was reflecting during my break there of something you said in the first round and that was that the reimbursement amounts to the equivalent of 63 ATVs. Here's what I'm puzzled about, the purchase was 66 ATVs, plus 13 trailers. Exactly how much of that $230,000 or whatever money the government spent on this, what is it exactly then that the government is not going to get back?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I believe we're getting exactly back what we were told to get back.

MR. STEELE: I don't understand then that if seven manufacturers are paying for the equivalent of nine vehicles each, that's 63. But, 66 vehicles plus 13 trailers were purchased, so that implies that they must be kicking in more than the equivalent of nine each. Is that not the case?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Yes. I would suggest that - here's where I can't be absolutely sure because, again, the manufacturers were going to work the really heavy duty details out among themselves. But when we talked about this, in terms of the process for buying it back, there was probably going to be need for some incentive - that's my word - perhaps, to bring the additional three on board. Perhaps the first four would have kicked in a little bit more and the next three a little bit less.

They were working it out among themselves in their own way. What they wanted to be sure of was that they got us the $230,000. There were a sufficient number of ATVs for us to continue the program and we didn't have to worry about the 13 trailers.

MR. STEELE: I have to tell you that I am deeply concerned about this arrangement where an industry that is supposedly competitive have all got together for the purpose of getting the Government of Nova Scotia off the hook and in order to enhance and promote the reputation of their industry. So they've all gotten together, they've all agreed on price and

how many they were getting and then when the whole thing fell apart, they all got together and agreed how to let the government off the hook. That is anti-competitive and I am deeply concerned about that.

[10:15 a.m.]

The government never seems to learn that the procurement system is there for a reason and once again we have in front of us, in front of the Public Accounts Committee, a situation that went to alternative procurement and almost certainly should not have. I don't know when the government is going to learn that lesson. This purchase totalling $230,000 was not put out to tender. If it had been put out to tender, there would have been an early warning to everyone in government and everyone in the public that this was going to happen.

One of the reasons why it appears, or it is claimed that people at senior levels of government didn't know about it, is precisely because it wasn't put out to tender. It's called public tender for a reason.

I've seen the alternative procurement documents and they don't even come close to justifying skirting around the regular procurement process. Under the paragraph for "supporting reasons", is simply a justification for the training program. No reason is given why alternative procurement is more appropriate than regular procurement. The only reference is the citation of a paragraph number in the government procurement policy. The paragraph number that is cited is situations where there is no competition.

Now this is an industry with seven large, highly competitive manufacturers and the only reason, the only substantial reason offered by the government for not going to tender is "where, for technical reasons, there is an absence of competition, and the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no alternative or substitute exists." That paragraph was never intended to justify this kind of purchase. In fact, is it not the case that one of the manufacturers - specifically Kawasaki - bitterly complained that the purchase was not put out to tender?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I'd have to ask HPP to respond to that.

MADAM CHAIR: Certainly. Mr. Montgomerie.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly take the honourable member's point about the procurement piece and probably the most time we spent on this file was with the Procurement Office because what we were trying to deliver was a partnership approach around the safety issue and we engaged the industry early on.

As Rick pointed out earlier, three made the decision not to go forward. At the time I didn't feel that the three objected to our go-forward. Honda wanted to do something else; Polaris opted out and Kawasaki was unable to deliver what we wanted.

The end result was to be that the industry's partnership would flow down to their dealers - think about that - which are different dealers in different parts of Nova Scotia who would secure the vehicles, who would make sure they're safe, make sure they're looked after. So once the volunteers are done with the training course, they just take those vehicles to the dealer and the dealer keeps them in a secure spot, plus we had a deal to maintain them at cost.

So you had four companies coming together around a safety issue to agree - and this was a concern for myself most of all - we have this many vehicles, who looks after them? Who maintains them? Who keeps them secure? Who makes sure they're not in somebody's back yard? So that was the reasoning behind it and I take the honourable member's point because certainly when it comes to that type of procurement, that's where the minister's and our radars go up very quickly. We want to make sure that, in fact, good, detailed discussions occurred at that level and I, as deputy, felt they had.

MR. STEELE: That was a really good answer to a question I didn't ask. The question that I asked, and I should know better than to ask questions - of course you know the answer. Kawasaki bitterly complained in June, 2007, that it had not been put out to tender. They said it should have been put out to tender and, in fact, they withdrew from participation because, in part, it had not been put out to tender.

Now in the alternative procurement document, the only other possible justification offered - it says possibly paragraph 8.10 of the policy which says, the purchase of goods under exceptionally advantageous circumstances, such as bankruptcy or receivership but not for routine purchasers.

Now I would suggest to you that that paragraph was never intended to deal with situations like this, where a civil servant had worked out, behind the scenes, a program of purchase with otherwise competitive purchasers, because let's face it, these manufacturers wanted a piece of the action because getting kids on ATVs is good for their business, okay, and now the justification that Mr. Gilbert offered is that the department didn't believe that a better price could have been obtained.

Now, I remember the same justification being offered with the Nominee Program by the Office of Immigration. We don't know whether a better price could have been offered. We know that one manufacturer was complaining it wasn't being put out to tender, and we also know now in hindsight that, if pushed, the manufacturers would have offered the best price of all - which is to give the vehicles away.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Again, I . . .

MR. STEELE: No, I didn't ask a question.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: I'm sorry, my apologies.

MR. STEELE: I didn't ask a question. When will the government learn that the procurement system is there for a reason and that alternative procurements should not be pursued except in cases that clearly fall within the alternative procurement policy, and this was not such a case?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: My response as deputy is this is a success story, and what I don't understand when I say success story - well let me put context around that. In the two years of dealing with the manufacturers we weren't aware from Kawasaki that they were upset with this process, and if they were, I wasn't aware of it - Rick has indicated he wasn't aware of it and I know the minister wasn't. So with that context, if they had made that aware earlier - to your point - the radar would have gone up. If one of those major companies had come and said, do you know what, we've got an issue with this, to your point, we would have stopped and said, whoa, okay, because we were looking for the industry - and I take your point as well, the industry wants people on ATVs, that's their business, that's their core business, and our core business is safety. So really the better price thing to me is like, yes, it's really important, but what we were negotiating was a complex arrangement with the industry that saw them bring the vehicles in at cost price.

And, by the way, one of the things we insisted upon, four cycles - better for the environment and all that kind of stuff - and that, in fact, they would be looked after by their dealers, different companies in different communities in this province maintain those vehicles, so overall we felt it was a sound investment, but I told you earlier I totally underestimated how the people of Nova Scotia would react to the program.

MR. STEELE: Okay, I have one last comment before I turn things over to my colleague, the member for Sackville-Cobequid, and that is around budgeting.

Mr. Montgomerie, $230,000, you said yourself it's a lot of money and none of us should pretend that it isn't, but when I look back at all of the budget documents presented to the Legislature there is no reference to anything like this. We still have no idea what budget line this item came from, and also when I look at the business plans which are supposed to be the detailed explanation of what the department is going to do with the money, there is no reference in any of the departmental business plans to spending the money in this way.

My comment is this - it's not a question, it's a comment - I don't know how the Legislature is expected to function when the documents we get on budget are essentially

useless and don't tell us what it is the department is really going to do with the money. With that I'll pass it over to my colleague.

MADAM CHAIR: I recognize Mr. Wilson - you have until 10:27 a.m.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for coming forward. This issue on ATVs, of course, has been in front of the Legislature for a number of years - controversy over the age limit and controversy on where they're allowed to utilize these machines in our province. One quick question is how are you going to judge this program and how can you say it's going to be a successful program - what do you have in the program that will identify this was a good thing for government to get into?

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. MacNeil.

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: Now that we have the file and we have the budget to go along with it, we will be, as I mentioned earlier in the morning, reviewing any commitments made in the past and considering how to go forward. Given that, I believe government is definitely in support of safety, and we want to see a successful program so that children will be on the right size ATVs. I would like to give it up to three years before I evaluate it, but I would like to monitor it every year and put in place the proper measurements. So what I can say to you today is that will be part of our budgeting and planning process over the next few months and we will be able to report to you if we feel that there are good, solid, success measures that will tell us to keep going. Right now, I can suggest to you that 25 children have been trained in 2008 and that's with a fairly long downtime, when ATVANS put the program on hold, around June 26^th - I could be a day or two off there. When this was announced, ATVANS agreed to put the program on hold and put the machines away because we needed to get this all cleared away before we did anything else. Natural Resources didn't want anything ongoing while we were trying to get the file straightened away.

We asked the main trainer for ATVANS recently to give us the stats and she has indicated that very recently there have been a good number of children and families - parents, because the parents have to be trained as well - coming forward and getting this training. I saw one very nice comment recently, just in the last few days, that was thanking ATVANS and was suggesting they were very pleased with the training program and were happy that it was back on track, so I'd be looking for things like that.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): I know I only have a few seconds. Are you tracking the injury rate for youth on these machines?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: I believe Health Promotion and Protection is our source for the injury prevention data and we will be working in partnership on that, yes.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Order, the time has expired for the NDP caucus. I recognize Mr. David Wilson for the Liberal caucus. You have until 10:42 a.m.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning everyone. I don't know, I haven't been too involved with this subject matter, but from what I have been hearing and from what I have heard today, it probably rates right up there with electronic toilet seats in my mind. It sounds to me like this has been a case of a government department or departments, or a government itself, that has been bought off by manufacturers of these machines. That's what it sounds like to me.

To have a deputy minister come here and throw himself on the sword for his minister, I guess, is the sign of a good deputy minister but it's also a sign that something went wrong somewhere. To have a minister outside this Chamber yesterday dance around the media and tell them that they only report the bad stories and not the good is an admission, I guess, that this was a bad story and that something went horribly wrong. Was it with the purchase of the machines, was it with the whole idea?

I think the key here, there's no guarantee that when you go out and buy kiddie-sized ATVs that after they are trained on a closed course with supervision, that when kids leave that course, they are going to go home and drive the same sized machines. There's absolutely no way you can guarantee that. In most cases they would go home and drive an oversized machine because their parents or themselves couldn't afford to go out and buy those kiddie-sized ATVs in the first place, because they'd have to be another machine that the family would own. So when the manufacturers got that order it was like, they must have seen you guys coming when they wanted to purchase all of those kiddie ATVs.

I've got something here for you and I want to know, I know that I'm having a hard time trying to connect driving an ATV with healthy, active living, okay, maybe you can do that for me when I get to the question point, but I want to know, I have here a DVD which is called, Adventure Trail. Madam Chair, I would table it but I only have one copy of it. It's put out by the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Distributors Council. It features - are any of you familiar with Rascal Raccoon? You've never heard of Rascal Raccoon? I didn't hear all noes. (Laughter) Rascal is the spokesperson for ATV safety on this DVD and it's a pretty slick little promotional campaign that the manufacturers have put together.

[10:30 a.m.]

What they've done in here, they also feature an animated young girl who is probably around the age of eight or nine years, who takes you on adventure trails and tells you that, whoopie, this is all sorts of fun to drive ATVs. Rascal will tell you that you need a helmet, but he has a fur coat so he doesn't need the other safety gear, okay? That's what Rascal tells you, if you watch.

I brought this for one purpose, I wanted to know, do you think that is a good use, is a good educational tool, for instance? Would you, in your job, let's say, Deputy Minister of Health Promotion and Protection, would you use something like that to instruct children on ATV safety?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: A couple of responses - I would not equate safety of young people to electronic toilet seats. The slick promotional campaign that the honourable member refers to is exactly why government is in the safety business - because we control, with ATVANS, how those courses are delivered. We control with ATVANS, not the industry, how that course is delivered. They provide the vehicles, that's absolutely correct. They did it at cost, they're going to maintain them at cost, they're going to secure them for us. We control the - well, sorry, you two now - control the delivery.

Let's be clear, there is no guarantee - you're absolutely right, that if I, as a parent, take my child or grandchild to that course and I go home - that I won't say go ahead on the oversize machine, but there is a chance that one might. That's the best $230,000 investment we've ever made.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): If you're going to try and convince me that the manufacturers of ATVs sell kiddie-size ATVs for safety purposes, you're going to have a big argument on your hands. They sell them to promote the sale of other vehicles and, as the children get older, they buy bigger vehicles and that's what they want sold.

But back to Rascal Raccoon for a minute, deputy, okay? I asked you, do you think that's a good use, is that a good educational tool?

Let me tell you, first of all, before you answer that, this has been distributed in at least one school that I know of in this province, to a Grade 3 class in their grading day package. Each Grade 3 in their grading day package got a copy of this promotional DVD.

Now what does that say to you, if you're an eight-year-old in Grade 3? You see a really slick, cute piece of promotional advertising that's put out by - and funny, you people have already mentioned these names - Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Polaris, Yamaha. They're all the manufacturers who make up the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Distributors Council - they fund the council, they don't make it up, they fund it, just the same way that you're saying they did some funding in this debacle - is that fair to call it that? I'm not sure, it's a strong word. Anyway, this is distributed to at least - I don't know, maybe it's more, I don't know where it came from. I know who did it but I haven't been able to find out exactly who approved it. A thought crossed my mind that maybe it was part of the Health Promotion and Protection Department's safety aspect, that maybe you had funded this but if you're telling me no, maybe you want to check it out further. But anyway, deputy, is that a good way, if we're training our children at the age of eight years to drive ATVs, and you said - I'll take

back the electronic toilet seat but I wasn't equating it to safety. I'm equating it to the mess at the end.

I'm not questioning whatsoever whether or not you had the safety of our children in mind. What I am questioning is the whole scheme of this file, which is seen almost - deputy, you've been around a long time, I'll bet that you haven't seen a minister taken off a file and a Premier who says, I didn't know about it for two years. I'll bet you that you've never seen that before, deputy.

Anyway, let's get back to this; do you think that's a good way to educate our children? Do you think that manufacturers should be able to distribute this in a classroom in Nova Scotia?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: I thank the honourable member for the question. Back to my personal responsibility, you're absolutely right - no, I haven't and it absolutely kills me inside that I'm a major part, that that had to happen. As talked about here earlier, I think our staff and others and ATVANS and even the industry around this particular issue have been totally ethical and have worked hard to get at the safety of our children. Both the minister and I underestimated and I take your point on that and I accept it.

The other piece is in the Department of Health Promotion and Protection, the wonderful thing that we're involved with causes a lot of tension in various sectors. Let's take nutrition: junk food people don't like our involvement with nutrition, so there's always this tension between the industry and ourselves. Alcohol, they don't like our involvement, tobacco sure as heck doesn't like our involvement. So with the ATV, you're right, their core business is to sell vehicles. Our core business is safety. So respecting the healthy tension that is between the two, we know they're going to continue to sell the vehicles. We wanted to work with them to provide a safety course that was good for our children and good for our parents based upon sound public health and public policy approaches. So both Rick and I are not aware of the program you referred to.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): How much time do I have left, Madam Chair?

MADAM CHAIR: You have until 10:42 a.m.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): If I buy the argument, and we buy the argument as legislators, that this was done based only on safety and the concern of children in this province, it might sound silly, but why hasn't your department gone out and bought little cars so that our kids can drive them and get used to them before they drive big cars, you know? That's the kind of logic that you're asking me to try and believe, that this was a program that was done only for the reasons of safety. This is a program that has influence not only from ATVANS, the association of ATV users in Nova Scotia, but from the manufacturers of these machines. That's where the real influence is coming in off this.

My colleague, the member for Halifax Fairview, made a point that these are large manufacturers that compete with each other on a daily basis, but yet they have agreed to pay the government back money? They agreed that there would be no tendering of the purchase of ATVs? But, as he said, at least one of the companies complained about it. So all of this, when you put the pieces together and, you know - I know, deputy, that you are a very logical man and I know the training that you've had over the many, many years in government and I know that if you did the proper risk assessment on this, that at some point in time there was an alarm bell that rang somewhere and said do not go any further with this program. Don't go there. I know somebody somewhere must have sounded that alarm bell with you.

So let me ask you - and this probably should be directed to Mr. Gilbert - how do you equate active healthy living to driving a very large, dangerous machine through brush, wilderness, streets - you know, in my community I see these ATVs on streets - how do you equate that to active healthy living?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Gilbert.

MR. GILBERT: Thank you for the question. First of all, the department name is Health Promotion and Protection. There are two sides of our mandate and I think Deputy Montgomerie has made it quite clear that our involvement in this file has largely been around the health protection side which he has referred to as safety.

For the most part we have not tried to make a case that this is part of good healthy living. We are of an open mind, and this is where the $10,000 contribution to the research being conducted at York University comes into play. We are of a mind that there may be a physiological benefit to riding machines and anybody who has ridden one would realize that you don't just sit there passively. You do need to exert muscle control to keep those machines under control. So we think that it probably would be a good idea to have a definitive answer to the question, is there a health benefit to riding them, but we do not hang our hats on that. We hang our hats on this file on safety. It's the protection side of our mandate, not the promotion.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I don't have much time, but let me react to that very quickly. I don't know how much muscle control, or control at all, that an 8-year-old would have on an ATV and how that would contribute to that 8-year-old's healthy active living style. As a matter of fact, I would suggest just the opposite. I would suggest that on a large machine that puts that youngster in extreme danger, and that has been the controversy over ATVs in this province from the very beginning, as to who's driving them and how large they are. That's the main thing, I agree with the deputy, that we should be worried about and concerned about and that's what worries me about promotional items like this being distributed in our school system, but thank you, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Are you giving up the two minutes? You have two minutes.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay) I never finished, Madam Chair. I thought it said 10:40 a.m., but I can go for two more minutes - the deputy can tell you that easily. Mr. Gilbert, the $10,000 that you mentioned is part of the national study, but we're the only province in Canada that contributes toward that study. Isn't that unusual that we would be the only province?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Montgomerie.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: We are respected in Canada. We are the first Department of Health Promotion and Protection in Canada, the first. There are now two, B.C. and Ontario, following our lead, following our model. Central to what we do is evidence-based, so we're ahead of many other governments around key issues that are public issues. For example, ATVs - we're recognized, as is DNR, as being proactive and working with our key stakeholders around this issue. One of the things that we wanted to do, to your point, is put at rest, do these things have any health benefit at all and that report may come back and say, no they don't, but it will help this Legislature, it will help my minister, it will help others make better decisions around public policy.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Did any other provinces go out and buy kiddie ATVs?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: I don't know.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I don't think so.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: I doubt it. We didn't.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Well, they certainly won't now.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: You're right, we wouldn't.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): But I doubt if they ever did in the first place because it just doesn't seem - anyway, I won't take up any more of your time. Still, I believe it's an honest belief that you're telling us, that the director is telling us, that this contributes toward some form of healthy active living, but if you took $10,000 and put it into some kind of activity that actually reduces stress or promotes physical activity, I can see you convincing me of that a lot easier than you can that riding a large machine through the woods contributes toward your physical well being. Thank you, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, thank you. The time has now expired for the Liberal caucus. I recognize Mr. Porter for the PC caucus, you have 15 minutes to 10:57 a.m.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Madam Chair. We've heard quite a bit of discussion this morning about partnerships. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit on some of the other safety partnerships that I know you have with the IWK?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Thank you. One of the things that I learned as I first came back to the Public Service in the Office of Health Promotion and Protection, I learned a lot of new jargon. I had been out of the Public Service for a while and one of the new jargons I was hearing was injury prevention. That, to me, is one of the most exciting areas that many of us are getting engaged in.

We have a great partnership with the IWK through Child Safety Link and other programs, where we work collaboratively with them through everything from booster seats to helmets, to all those kinds of things for the protection of children. We have a young staff person who is absolutely passionate, Julian Young, around this issue. Julian often tells me, there's no such thing as an accident. My first meeting with Julian was - these accidents happen, there are no accidents, everything is preventable.

So what excites me about our partnership with the IWK and others - and with the Workers' Compensation Board by the way, as well - we're starting to change the debate around how important injury prevention is to all of us, children and people in the workplace, et cetera.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. I'd ask the members, if they need to have conversations to take them outside the Chamber, thank you. I'd ask the clerk to get water for Mr. Montgomerie, as well, please.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, deputy. So, there are a number of programs. I know Mr. Young from years gone by has done a great job by way of prevention and continues to work on many initiatives and to get his message out there publicly, and certainly his relationship with your department.

The IWK has obviously not agreed all of the time with some of the decisions that have been made by government with regard to youths driving these machines. Where is that relationship right now? I mean there are other programs that we work on, what are some of those?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: I spoke earlier about some of the unique relationships and sometimes tensions we have. A person that I absolutely have total respect for - and it came from the first time I worked with Premier Hamm's office around this file - is Dr. Natalie Yanchar. She has made it clear that she is against ATVs being used by young people - total ban. The government has decided otherwise and I, quite frankly, after many spirited discussions with the doctor, I felt that the government was going in the right place. But on the other side, her leadership and inspiration on the injury prevention side, particularly

around children, is truly inspirational. But public policy is not easily done. It was really interesting for me, it was a minority government as well, there were some great passionate discussions from all sides of the House that I saw and was privileged to be part of when the legislation was being developed. At the end of the day, the House decided, government decided that this program would go forward.

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. PORTER: One of the justifications for the purchase of these vehicles was so that children aged 6 to 15 who wanted to be trained could be trained and have access to the appropriate-sized vehicles. Where does it become the responsibility of the parent to be involved, to say yes or not or where does this all come together?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: My personal philosophy is that the family is the centre of everything - that parents, grandparents, all of us, have a responsibility around our families to help influence decisions. But government has a role too. It's a fine line where government gets in people's faces versus government provides - I would like to think - wise leadership.

From the risk assessment that I was hearing and seeing on being on the file since 2005, there's not a lot of dialogue around the use of the over-sized machines, for one, so government's decision - I thought, around that was once the legislation was enacted for the safety piece - was a thoughtful decision to support those parents. But, in fact, to expose those parents to the training program where they would be exposed to discussions around the dangers of riding on an over-sized machine, they would be exposed to discussions around the environment. That's the trade off.

MR. PORTER: Are we hearing from these parents? Are you hearing from these parents in the department and what are we hearing?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Not since the file has been moved.

MR. PORTER: I'll ask the question then of DNR.

MS. MACNEIL: You asked if we're hearing from the parents?

MR. PORTER: Are we hearing from people in Nova Scotia, from parents of riders? Has this been an effective program? Where are we?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: First, I'll just say again that I've seen one comment recently after the training was resumed and it was a good comment, it was thankful. It indicated the training was clearly appreciated and they were pleased that their kids were being exposed to the law and the understanding of how to proceed on an ATV and what to do and what not to do. That's just one comment.

Again, I will say we're going to have to look at this for a few years. We'll have to monitor it every single year and we'll have to try to evaluate it after three to make sure it is a successful program. We'll have to perhaps have Cabinet keep the Legislature aware of the kinds of measures we're putting in place for this because now this is a very public program right now so Natural Resources is prepared to give it everything it can to make sure that we measure as we go along.

If it turns out not to be a successful program, then we'll have to make another move. I do believe that, having put it in place, we should carry it out and measure it and as Mr. Montgomerie has said, if we are leading in this area, let's see if we should be leading in this area and how well we can lead in this area.

Again, we have to put it in place, we have to stick to it, we have to make sure it works and we have to measure it and report on it and we will report on it.

MR. PORTER: You mentioned very public - you're quite right, it has been very public as of late again and it's fair to say there was a fairly big outcry from the public across the province.

Do you know if that outcry came from across rural Nova Scotia, the urban parts of Nova Scotia, or both? Any idea where the input came from mostly?

MS. PATRICIA MACNEIL: What I'll comment on is when that file was forwarded to our department, we then worked with Health Promotion and Protection to comment on the letters that came in after the program was announced. Naturally, people would simply say, what's the program about? Why are you doing this?

We wrote letters back saying that this is about safety and we're going to evaluate it in time. I don't believe there has been any further raft of letters coming in since that particular period in the summer. So I would suggest we should wait and see if people have experience with the training program and then we'll get the letters, don't worry, we will definitely get the letters. But at the current time it's not at all what it was in the summertime after the announcement took place.

MR. PORTER: Deputy Montgomerie, what are some of the other examples of your department partnering with organizations to purchase equipment for training or other purposes? Does that exist and, if so, who are some of those folks?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Our relationship with a lot of our organizations is to help support them around key infrastructure. For example, in disabled sailing, we've helped them purchase a boat that's fitted specifically to enable them to carry on their activity in a safe manner. It's not unusual, for example, we're dealing with the World Canoe Championship

right now and our centrepiece with the World Canoe Championship is a brand new course that will be a legacy and be able for them to race safer and so on for years and years to come.

The key principle behind that is the same principle we used with ATVs - the World Canoe Association is better off owning that course. The disabled sailors are better off owning that sailboat because of the pride and interest they'll take to maintain it versus the ATVs, it's better off that ATVANS had ownership and control of the safety part of the program because they would take pride in ownership of their members, and that's a centrepiece to what the department does because we know our dollars are limited and the more we maximize with our key stakeholders to deliver better programs to Nova Scotians, the more ownership they take to them, the better the programs are.

MR. PORTER: I know you've sat here this morning and taken responsibility for how this evolved through the minister and through others perhaps not knowing. What has your department done by way of implementation, you know, to other processes that are going to come, to getting the Cabinet better informed and getting their input on decisions?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Certainly the minister and I have had some frank discussions with each other about how we can be better in tune; he on the political side and me on the public policy side. We've had discussions around our communications approach with how we identify issues with the centre and we've absolutely become incredibly more vigilant and you know almost - and I was thinking when Mr. Steele was referring to Ted Scrutton; just an amazing individual. I think we're a victim of our own success - that Ted and his team, two years in the working at the mid-level of government, the mid-level, after they got approval from the minister and I to go forward, basically worked this out.

There were lots of departments that were aware that we were developing this program and we updated the Off-Highway Vehicle Committee once they were formed that they were aware of that program but it was such a good job. There was no violent reaction that I heard or the minister heard which probably lulled us into that little security that if there's no violent reaction going on there - but really I think just that Ted and the team working with procurement and everybody else did such a good job that that didn't come out that way.

MR. PORTER: Do you believe, deputy, at the end of the day that this program that has been put in place will make a difference in the health and safety of Nova Scotians?

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Based on the legislative authority the government needs around safety, specifically around the safety piece, absolutely.

MR. PORTER: Just one other question I have, you know, we've heard a lot today here about safety and about spending money, of course, and about HPP in general. I've heard comments such as careless spending of taxpayers' dollars. I've heard frolicking on its own developing programs and I've heard reference to electronic toilet seats.

I'm curious, deputy, I wonder if the over 34,000 riders, the kids in school that play in playgrounds, if there has been dollars put forward to help support those, the many rinks that have received dollars, just a few examples that come forward, other big projects, that this department has put forward not only in health promotion but the protection piece in this province - I wonder what those people are thinking today when they hear comments like this? Is this a careless spending of taxpayers' dollars to put money into arenas, to curling clubs, to other facilities, to programs with the World canoeists - would they see this as a waste of taxpayers' dollars or simple frolicking of coming up with ideas and developments? I wonder your thoughts on that in the last closing couple of minutes here.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: My regret around this file is that neither Minister Barnet nor I saw the potential danger or the potential huge negative backlash around the expenditure of $230,000. That's what I regret, that we weren't more attentive to that, so we were better prepared when we introduced the program to Nova Scotians, that they would clearly see it all came from a safety perspective. So do I consider the investment a sound one for safety reasons? Absolutely.

MR. PORTER: Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair, that's it for us.

MADAM CHAIR: That concludes our questioning portion of our committee meeting this morning. I would invite our witnesses to make some closing comments, if they wish, beginning with you, Mr. Montgomerie.

MR. MONTGOMERIE: Just a clarification, Madam Chair, for Mr. Steele and somebody else, I think, who raised the FOIPOP scenario. My staff are telling me that the FOIPOP actually went through DNR but I want to be sure, so maybe our staff could talk with your staff, just to be doubly sure how that went.

If it went through us, my answer obviously stands. If it didn't go through us, I just want to be clear. Sorry, again I appreciate this is an emotional issue, I really appreciate the honourable members who talked about our staff in such a positive light, it is appreciated.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Underwood, do you wish to make any closing comments?

MR. UNDERWOOD: No, thank you, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much. Well thank you very much for being here today. I want to just remind you, Ms. MacNeil indicated that there would be information regarding an inventory of assets provided to the committee, in response to one of the questions. So we will ask that you forward that information to the Committees Office, please. Thank you, and we look forward to receiving that information.

With that, there is no other business. We will meet next week when we have the Deputy Minister of Health before us and at this point we stand adjourned. Thank you.

Oh, Mr. Porter.

MR. PORTER: Thank you. I just wanted to touch base on the subcommittee. Just for confirmation, the subcommittee is next week as well, at 11:00 a.m. following?

MADAM CHAIR: The subcommittee was going to meet today but it has been rescheduled for next week because Mr. Colwell wasn't available. I believe notice has gone out.

MR. PORTER: I just wanted to confirm it, thank you.

[The committee adjourned at 10:58 a.m.]