HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2004
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. John MacDonell
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning. I would like to welcome representation from the Department of Transportation and Public Works. I will get the members to introduce themselves, Mr. Delaney, and then you can introduce yourselves. We will start with Mr. Langille, please.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Welcome. We are really pleased that you were able to take time out of your schedule to come and present before the committee. So please, your introductory comments and then there will be some questions from the committee.
MR. MARTIN DELANEY: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning folks. I would like to introduce the group we brought here from Transportation and Public Works. My name is Martin Delaney. I am the Executive Director of Highway Operations and with me on my immediate left is Bruce Fitzner, Director of Highway Operations, and on my right, Phil Corkum, Manager of Highway Planning and Design. We will certainly answer any questions that you have today and try to deal as openly as we can with the answers and if there are specifics that we don't have answers to, we will certainly provide them at a later time.
I would like to provide a short opening statement. This is an opportunity to give you an overview of some of the pressures facing the Highway Operations Division and the steps we are taking as a department to deal with them. The Department of Transportation and Public Works is responsible for about 23,000 kilometres of roadways in Nova Scotia and about 4,100 bridges. We have about 1,900 kilometres of 100-Series Highways, 12,000 kilometres of paved secondary roads and about 9,000 kilometres of gravel roads.
1
In this province, we maintain about 90 per cent of the road system. The municipalities control the other 10 per cent. This compares with situations in provinces such as Ontario and Quebec where the numbers are reversed. In Ontario it is about 90 per cent municipal and 10 per cent provincial. I mentioned this fact to highlight the challenges faced by our province to maintain our important road infrastructure and indeed to build new infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic pressures.
A department-needs study in 2001 determined that provincial roads and bridges required $3.4 billion worth of capital work over the next 10 years. That would equate to $340 million a year. This year the infrastructure gap, if you will, is about $250 million a year, between $340 million that our own needs study showed and the money that is available in our budget for capital work.
Costs keep going up. A modern snowplow can cost anywhere from $200,000 to $250,000. One severe winter storm can cost $3 million before all roads are back to normal. Land costs for new highways are escalating. We also have continued pressure on road networks through increased traffic volumes in heavier traffic which reduces the lifespan of our roads. Our challenge, as a department, is to provide quality service to taxpayers in the most cost-effective manner.
The situation isn't entirely grim, the situation is improving. The department's capital budget has increased by $69 million since 2000, a percentage increase of roughly 250 per cent. The province expects to spend $112 million on capital works for the transportation system in this fiscal year. More money will be spent on secondary roads through the RIM program - indeed, the RIM program this year has been increased from $10 million to $12.5 million. The RIM program, which we consider one of our most successful programs in recent years has been running for four years and has invested $39 million in the secondary road network for the province. By the end of this fiscal year, that number will grow to $51.5 million.
RIM money is spent equally around the province. Money is provided to each area based on kilometrage of non-100-Series Highways. Work is typically tendered and goes towards projects such as small scale asphalt paving, gravelling, ditching and guardrail work. Contracts range in size from $20,000 to $470,000. The average contract last year was about $141,000. Last year there were 65 contracts awarded, about 18 separate contractors participated in the program.
Last year we initiated a single-lane Steel Truss Bridge Replacement Program and a five-year, $50 million program was announced. This year the department plans to spend $9 million for replacing single-lane truss bridges. Overall this year, our expenditure on bridges will be about $34.5 million, that's including replacement and maintenance of bridges and includes the truss bridge program.
RWIS stations - you may know of these through the highway cameras on the department Web sites, they assist motorists in making decisions about driving. They also help staff make informed decisions about salting, thereby saving money. We have 19 RWIS stations at present and we plan to increase that by a dozen stations this year which will pretty well cover our National Highway System. We're negotiating with the federal government for cost sharing on those additional 12. What we've installed so far have been cost shared 50/50 with the federal government.
We are also planning for the future. We are developing a multi-year plan for our roads and bridges. That plan will have to recognize the fact that we have to keep the backbone of our economy, our 100-Series Highways in good shape. They are where most of our traffic flows and it's important that we maintain the continuity and the condition of that network.
We want to continue to strengthen our tourism routes and continue to replace our steel truss bridges so that large commercial trucks can access rural industry. We want to continue to focus on safety of the travelling public.
The department will continue to look to the federal government to provide a more meaningful role in our transportation network. Most westernized, industrialized countries have a national transportation policy. Canada doesn't. Department staff are working on many fronts to build, maintain and manage provincial infrastructure to support economic growth and social well-being. We will continue to focus on safety, cost effectiveness and quality for all Nova Scotians. Thank you. We would be pleased to take any questions.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We actually do have somebody at the top of the list, Mr. Sampson.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Welcome all. First, Mr. Delaney, I'd like to have a copy of what you've read from if that's possible. We're here racing, trying to scratch down notes and you tend to lose a lot of the information in the rush to do that.
MR. DELANEY: We will make a copy available.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I appreciate that. Okay, I'll be a little localized first. From the highway garage in Little Bras d'Or, they have quite a grave concern with the fact that there's a brand new six-wheel drive snowplow which they all figure is a super machine, but it's on the highway, it's been designated to plow the highway over by UCCB, which is the Glace Bay highway. It's basically a level road and there's up to three other plows that plow that area.
What I've been asked to request of you people is could that plow be designated to go up over the Barachois Mountain and out towards Christmas Island and Grand Narrows? The
vehicle that does it now is a smaller, older vehicle. By the time they go out through Georges River, do their run and run out of sand or salt, whatever they're spreading, on the way back, the way the route is designed, that's when they do the Barachois Mountain. Twice this winter that plow has slid down the mountain backwards because it had no salt or sand left to do the run. The vehicle is too small to do 100-some kilometres of a run.
They figured that powerful machine with its larger capacity would be the proper vehicle in the proper place. I suppose on the Glace Bay highway more people would see it and you get the benefit of free advertising, saying look how good the Department of Transportation is. Really, it should be repositioned in a mountainous area in a long, long run, which it's quite capable of doing. That's one request that I'd like to put in on behalf of the area that I serve.
I talked to Mr. Fitzner about lane closures and I hope that your new manual for lane closures will be available this year. What the department is saying they're doing is they're taking two hours and five minutes to do a five-minute pothole. We're talking about the bridge in Bras d'Or or any of the Trans-Canada bridges - they're going out and it takes an hour and they said the most dangerous operation that they do is when they're placing the signs and removing the signs. They're out there with so many barrels and so many pylons and so many signs, they take five minutes to fill the pothole, roll it and then another hour to take the signs down. In the interim, the most dangerous portion of the job is what they're doing. What they invented on their own, they've taken a little cement mixer and hooked it up with a tiger torch under propane and they heat what's been chipped off when they plane the road, they've got a mountain of this down there and they heat this planed-off pavement, add a little bit of tar to it, take it out, put it in the hole, tamp it down and it's there for good - rather than putting cold patch in that lasts a half hour to an hour and then you're back at the same spot.
Like they said, in order to do that, they could go out with a truck with a light bar on it and shut down the traffic with maybe a flag person and a truck with a light bar, but instead of that, in order to do that, they have to go out and close down a lane and take two hours and five minutes to do a five-minute hole. So I hope that will be looked after.
[9:15 a.m.]
I've been requested by the Victoria County Truckers Association - there is some paving going on in Victoria-The-Lakes, but this was a special request from the truckers in Victoria County. They did go down to Inverness in the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage's area to see the paving that's going on down there and apparently the trucking of the asphalt will be done by Inverness truckers and the material to use will be coming from a pit in Inverness. So like this guy said, I was there for 10 minutes at the meeting and left. What's in it for us? They're wondering if there's any actual paving work that will be done that the truckers in Victoria County will be able to get some work for the Summertime, and that's a third one.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Sampson.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Could we let the gentlemen respond?
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Sure, okay, I was on a roll.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It's not my intention to cut you off, I just thought maybe they might want to respond and then you can get a couple more in.
MR. DELANEY: Very briefly then, the first question related to the reassignment of a machine to a different route, certainly I will take that under advisement and as district staff do review the routes on an annual basis, I will take that under advisement and I will make sure that that's looked at before next season.
Your second issue related to lane closures and the manual requirement. Certainly, as a department, we're very cognizant of the safety of our workers and want to ensure that that's paramount and reflected in our procedures. Our current procedures require significant signing and certainly there are incidents where there's an isolated pothole where you could make the argument that you're at higher risk due to the time element of setting up the signs and by doing it another way. It's certainly not permitted at the moment. There is a new manual under development and we hope to have it in place for next year. One of the things that we hope that will deal with is short-term activities. Well, it will deal with short-term activities, but I can't predict the exact outcome of that.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Could I just make one comment on that?
MR. DELANEY: Yes.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: What the workers feel is that with the present system of lane closures, it has taken the onus off the automobile driver and put it on the workers. It is up to the workers to slow the traffic down and the onus is off the driver where the driver should be cognizant of the signage, or whatever is going on, and it's up to the driver to slow down, not the workers to have to slow them down.
MR. DELANEY: No, I understand that and I know it's a concern both from safety and the ability to actually deal with potholes and whatever. So it's certainly an issue that's of broad concern with the department and one that we hope to address over the next year. There isn't a short-term solution to it because we can't just bring in a code of practice on our own. It has to be a code of practice in short term to deal with a code of practice that's vetted through JOSH committees in our department that's then forwarded to the Department of Environment and Labour to be approved by their executive director, and involves some
other consultation as well. So it's not a short-term fix, but we hope to have it for next year, some revisements for our program.
Certainly your issue with the Victoria County Truckers Association, again, we'll take under advisement. There has certainly over the last few years been an increasing amount of trucking available around the province, not always equally between counties as such, but over the last couple of years there have been in some places actually a shortage of trucks. So there have been a lot of trucks going back and forth across county lines. We'll certainly review the Victoria County case as the year goes on.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I would appreciate that. A couple more?
MR. CHAIRMAN: A couple more.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The installation of culverts, I understand there's quite a policy around that and you mentioned the Department of Environment and Labour. There was one area, in particular, going out the Georges River Road that the department dug up and were in the process of doing an installation of a culvert when somebody came along from Fisheries and Oceans - if it's not the Department of Environment and Labour pushing them off the road, it's Fisheries and Oceans - and the chap told them you can't put that pipe in there because minnows come up there sometimes. They had to put a stainless steel culvert in at a cost of around $13,000, and I don't think a minnow ever found its way there before, but the possibility existed.
When is the pendulum going to swing to the middle instead of way out here in left field, with the minimal amount of money that is available? It delayed it, and it was quite a controversial thing. I have one resident who was extremely upset at the fact that I cannot get him an old piece of used culvert or something. He wanted to complete his circular driveway. I talked to the guys and, basically, what comes out is not fit to go back in but, at the same time, they're rather upset that they can't as much as get a piece of culvert pipe.
I understand the new policy is that you put down a $300 deposit, you buy the pipe, you put it in, and then the department inspects it after. If that's the case, and it's approved, then in the future the department will replace it if it's required. Is that what the actual policy is?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Of course he strictly adhered to that. He was in the process of figuring he could put in a circular driveway, put in a second culvert, a used piece of pipe and that would be fine. But that's not permitted anymore, is it?
MR. DELANEY: If I could comment on both issues, there's no doubt that the regulatory burden has increased significantly over the last number of years, and that's evident on various fronts, including the environmental front. Certainly, we do plan and attempt to be as environmentally responsive as we can, so we do plan to carry out all our work in an environmentally-friendly way. However, you're right, the burden in terms of dealing, particularly with smaller structures, is quite severe.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Dooks.
MR. WILLIAM DOOKS: Good morning. I have a couple of little questions. Candy Mountain Road, are you familiar with where that is? Anyway, it's in the riding of Eastern Shore. We had some testing done on the Candy Mountain Road Bridge per se, and it's been restricted to 20 tons. Now it's limiting the opportunity for residents there to bring heavy equipment or machinery across. It's a construction-type of community on the other side, and the people who are building houses or, for instance, want to clean up hurricane damage or whatever, they're unable to get to the community across the river.
I was wondering if you would look at that situation, to see if it's possible to replace the old bridge, which is on the list to be replaced at some time, and put in a Bailey bridge there or come up with some temporary structure that would allow the traffic to flow back and forth, and I speak of heavy trucks and/or excavators, or whatever. Going across the road, there's a community with subdivisions and so on and so forth, and it's causing a lot of stress.
Then, in saying that, do we, as a department, as a government, have a responsibility to put a structure across that stream to allow for development and so on to carry forth? How can we restrict that aspect of development?
MR. DELANEY: I can answer that in a couple of ways. First of all, I don't believe there's a legal responsibility on behalf of government to place a structure of any particular capacity across the river as such. That bridge, I believe it's called Crooks Bridge is posted, I believe, at 20 tons. We recognize that is an issue. I referred before to the steel truss bridge program, the $50 million that's planned over the next five years. My recollection is that Crooks Bridge was probably scheduled for replacement in 2006-07. It's certainly in that ballpark somewhere. We've had a recent request to review that, and we're looking at it now to determine what the options might be to consider moving up the replacement or whether we should consider a temporary panel bridge, to increase the capacity. It's an issue that we haven't come to a conclusion on yet.
MR. DOOKS: I would just like to state the importance of that, and the urgency. I'm receiving quite a few calls. When you attach building the economy through the development, it certainly brings up another aspect of it. So you'll keep me informed on that?
MR. DELANEY: We certainly will.
MR. DOOKS: Thank you very kindly. Another question, subdivision roads. I think you're aware of that in the Eastern Shore, just outside of metro, we have many subdivisions. Since HRM was put in place and with the relationship with the province, there's been a lot of controversy over who's responsible and, most importantly, what we are going to do to resolve the issue of paving subdivision roads.
As you know, many of the roads, the base of the road is not up to standard, but they're increasingly filled with potholes. We are maintaining them to some degree, but it certainly has to come to a point where we're going with subdivision roads in the Eastern Shore riding or our relationship with the HRM on it. Do you have any comment on that?
MR. DELANEY: The comment I can make is, for a number of years we had actually discontinued the subdivision paving program. It was reintroduced a couple of years ago. There's $1 million this year in our program for subdivision paving.
In the province there's about 360 kilometres of subdivision roads that qualify under that program. HRM has about 30 per cent of that. We divide up the money, generally, based on inventory so they would generally get 30 per cent of that allotment, which essentially means about $300,000 doubled because HRM will put up half, or the residents will so it's about a $600,000 program. Over time that has started to deal with the outstanding requirements for paving, but it will take some time to clean up the full backlog.
MR. DOOKS: I understand that, but that's not very much money when you look at so many roads. I guess that's not your point, but it certainly is mine. I think that it's necessary for us to keep in touch with the HRM and to come up with a plan that's suitable for the constituents and also the governments.
I guess we could ask many questions here - you could go down each road in everyone's constituency, but I don't want to do that today. But I do thank you for the attention that's being shown to the Eastern Shore. One quick question, when are we going to get Highway No. 107 extended to Sheet Harbour?
MR. DELANEY: I can't answer that question.
MR. DOOKS: Thank you. I thought you might have a surprise for me this morning.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. McNeil.
MR. STEPHEN MCNEIL: Thanks to the guests for coming in and taking some questions. You mentioned the weather stations. One of the - if not the first, the second - weather stations was put on Highway No. 101 at Bridgetown between Highway No. 101 and the No. 1 interchange. I think it's been broken ever since it's been there. It hasn't been operating properly - it hasn't operated at all really for the last number of years. Before we
move forward and create new weather stations, is there any chance we could get that one fixed? Can that be a priority?
MR. DELANEY: I'm not personally familiar with the weather station at Bridgetown or it may have just been a camera at Bridgetown.
MR. MCNEIL: It was a camera, yes.
MR. DELANEY: Just a camera, not a full RWIS station. It's our plan, subject to signing an appropriate agreement with Transport Canada and the federal Department of Environment our funding partners for ITS initiatives, it's our plan to expand our RWIS stations to cover our National Highway System, which includes Highway No. 101. I'm not sure if one's exactly in the same location, but we'll certainly be putting some more RWIS stations on Highway No. 101 this year.
MR. MCNEIL: It's a great spot. My understanding is that it just needs a sensor in the road and they can just change the camera from there and then move forward to take it from a camera to a weather station.
MR. DELANEY: Okay, I'll certainly take that under advisement.
MR. MCNEIL: Great. Thank you. You had mentioned the RIM program was going up from $10 million to $12.5 million, right?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. MCNEIL: Is that new money or is that money being moved out of operational budget into the RIM program?
MR. DELANEY: No, that's new money.
MR. MCNEIL: Great. I represent the riding of Annapolis and one of the big issues that I hear a lot - not only from people who work for the Department of Transportation, but residents - is the budgeting process and the fact that we seem to get our share of Winter and there's other parts of this province that seem to get their fair share of Winter. They're saying to me, that affects our Summer operation because we're eating up a good chunk of our operation budget to deal with snow removal and the Winter process. I just want your comments on that and if that's fact, and if it is, is there any move afoot to address that?
[9:30 a.m.]
MR. DELANEY: It's certainly true to say that our Winter costs have escalated fairly significantly over the last few years. First of all, perhaps, we've had Winters that have been a little more severe than in the past, and so our Winter costs have gone up. I have a brief summary that I did bring with me, showing that in the early 1990s, we were actually spending about $44 million on Winter. We managed to reduce that through a combination of equipment changes, moving from double-operator plows to single-operator plows and what have you, but it has crept back up from a combination of inflation and, of course, we've had a couple of very severe Winters.
In 2002-03, we spent about $47 million on Winter, and this year we've just passed, about $46 million. In terms of the impact on our budget, we don't have a Winter budget and a Summer budget, we have one operational budget. When we distribute our budget across the various districts, what we do is really set up the Winter budget, take the last five years, fairly simply, drop the high and the low and average the rest, and that's the way we set our Winter budget. So, given that we've had some pretty severe Winters and the costs have been rising, we've had to move, this year, I believe, about $3 million from our Summer budget, if you will, to Winter. So that impacts on the amount of money available in the Summer. There has also been a couple of other pressures such as increased fringe benefits for employees that reduced the money available, for example, to the operational supervisor in your area to carry out Summer work.
MR. MCNEIL: When you say you move it from your Summer budget to your Winter budget, is that the provincial Summer budget or is that broken down in regions? For example, in the Western District, if our Winter budget is out of whack, is that coming out of the western region's Summer budget?
MR. DELANEY: Both. Essentially, the $3 million is on a province-wide basis, but that's pro rated based on the costs right across the province.
MR. MCNEIL: Do you not see an inequity if you're in part of the province that traditionally has a wild Winter, that we're losing on the Summer end?
MR. DELANEY: I know lots of people, and I guess Annapolis probably isn't the only area that suggests that their Winters are worse. I know we've heard the same from Inverness County, for example, and various areas. When we set up our overall budget, we do, in terms of allocating your operational budget to the districts, use a factor for Winter conditions that varies the amount slightly, depending on the area, and it's based on the Winter severity index. We also make some adjustments based on traffic. I wouldn't suggest it's perfect, but we try, as much as we can, to even it out.
You asked what we're doing about it, one thing that we've undertaken, and we launched a couple of months ago, was a complete review of our Winter operations. The costs are continuing to rise, and we want to make sure that we're providing a consistent level of service throughout the province, and that areas like Annapolis or Victoria are appropriately staffed and equipped to carry out the Winter service in their areas. That's something we'll be doing over the next few months. I'm not sure what impact that will have on next year, but it's certainly part of our program review that we're carrying out this year.
MR. MCNEIL: The tendering process that your department undertakes, I'm just wondering, over the course of the year, how many of your tenders are coming in on budget, or are they coming in under, or is there an overrun on some of these?
MR. DELANEY: This year, to date, we have probably tendered about $20 million worth of work I would expect. In general the costs are coming in pretty close to the estimated amounts. I don't personally see every tender that comes in. It's tendered through our Public Works Division, but our general rule of thumb is that if the tender comes in within 10 per cent of the estimate, then it's awarded automatically. If it's higher than that, I will normally find out about it and we've had a couple of spikes that we've had to review and determine whether we would reject the tender which we've done in the past, or whether there was something we missed in terms of pricing it ourselves but, in general, they seem to be within the ballpark of what we had estimated for the jobs.
MR. MCNEIL: Is there a way to find where we're at on that $20 million. Have we spent $22 million, have we spent $18 million, or have we spent $27 million at this point?
MR. DELANEY: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
MR. MCNEIL: You said you awarded $20 million in tenders?
MR. DELANEY: Yes. Is there a way to find out . . .
MR. MCNEIL: What they have actually come in at? Are these tenders coming in at $20 million or are they coming in at $27 million, or are they coming in at $17 million, or are they coming in at $32 million?
MR. DELANEY: I'm just talking about a gross of roughly how much of the program has been awarded so far. All the tenders that come in are closed through the public Web site. So the low tender is actually posted on the public Web site and that information is certainly public. It would be available if you . . .
MR. MCNEIL: I guess my concern is if it's the low tender you're accepting, that's wonderful, but what are you paying out? Are you paying the actual tender that you've awarded or are you paying out the overruns, or whatever it might happen to be? That's the issue.
MR. DELANEY: Okay, I didn't understand your question before. Are you talking about the capital tenders, the major tenders? This year it is too early to tell because our fiscal year starts April 1st. Many of our tenders have just started, but in a typical year, last year we had a capital program of $107 million. So that was based on the tenders that we had let and what have you. At the end of the year we were under our total amount by $3 million or $4 million. I have the exact figure, but not right here with me.
MR. MCNEIL: I just have, in the briefing binder that we had and I will look at the Western District and I'll just give you a couple of numbers, 7.8 kilometres on the Ledna Road, $48,000; 14 kilometres on Morse Road, $18,000. If you look here at Pleasant Street, 0.35 kilometres, $24,000. There seems to be a huge, I guess when I look at that, the first thing I thought is you get more for less. So I'm wondering why we're not paving more in the riding of Annapolis because the larger number seems to be the cheapest one.
MR. DELANEY: Well, you would be referring to the RIM program?
MR. MCNEIL: Yes.
MR. DELANEY: What I had been referring to before was actually our major capital programs.
MR. MCNEIL: Yes, I realize that crossed over but he was going to cut me off so I wanted to get that in.
MR. DELANEY: The RIM program is very much road specific and when you're talking about doing some pavement/patching on a road, one road may be in terrible shape and you may be doing a lot of work on a lot of tonnage. On another road you may be just touching up with a few tons so you can't really compare kilometres on RIM work as such.
MR. MCNEIL: I've driven over every road that I just mentioned to you and I can assure you that they could all use some more paving so more for less would be great for my constituency. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You're quite welcome and you will probably not get back again. Mr. Langille.
MR. WILLIAM LANGILLE: Mr. Chairman, first of all, we know about the rising gas prices this year and I was wondering how that's going to affect your asphalt for spreading, or per ton? Have you factored that in yet?
MR. DELANEY: We haven't specifically factored it in yet. Certainly the way we have called our tenders to date, most of our tenders for paving includes the supply of liquid. So certainly the contractors have to bid in the risk associated with either increased fuel prices or increased asphalt prices. So at this stage it's a little early to tell where it's going to settle out. It's not unusual to have a spike in March or April, but it's staying higher than we would like to see.
MR. LANGILLE: It's unusual to have this high a spike though?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. LANGILLE: And of course we don't know when it's going to level out - hopefully soon. However, you've answered that. The monies that the federal government gives to Nova Scotia for highways, how much was it last year, and do you know what it's going to be this year?
MR. DELANEY: I'll defer to Phil Corkum, perhaps he can answer that question.
MR. PHIL CORKUM: I don't know if I have the figures on me, specifically for this year.
MR. LANGILLE: If you don't have the figures, could you give me a ballpark number?
MR. CORKUM: Last year, I think it was in the order of $10 million.
MR. LANGILLE: Are you talking for all of Nova Scotia?
MR. CORKUM: Yes, this is basically for the 100-Series Highways, the National Highway System. That's really the only federal money that we get, for expansion purposes on the 100-Series Highways.
MR. DELANEY: This year it will be about $4.9 million.
MR. CORKUM: It's less this year.
MR. LANGILLE: It's $4.9 million?
MR. CORKUM: This is sort of an in-between year, between the two agreements.
MR. LANGILLE: I was hoping that with the election it might be more. How much money does the federal government take in in fuel taxes from Nova Scotia?
MR. DELANEY: My understanding is that it's around $135 million a year, that's the ballpark.
MR. LANGILLE: Obviously it's not coming back to Nova Scotia, and I'm not going to dwell too much on the federal government's funding of Nova Scotia. I think everybody in this room knows that it's low, but I didn't realize it was that low. I thought it was higher, I was hoping it would be higher, but I guess it's not.
I just want to touch on your bridge program, which is very important to everybody in this room, I believe. In our book here - do you have a copy of this book?
MR. DELANEY: Yes, I do.
MR. LANGILLE: I just want you to turn to the bridge program. The first four categories sorting on Provincial/ NBI Rating/Ranking. Can you explain the first four - 100 per cent, 50 per cent, 35 per cent and 15 per cent? On Page 1, Provincial Truss Report. The rest of the categories are pretty well explained, but just the first four.
MR. DELANEY: First of all, this is a process that was delivered to more or less rank the steel trusses that we have in terms of replacement need, because as I mentioned before there were roughly 200 of those post-Confederation bridges in the province, all narrow bridges and all really beyond their design life, but still providing yeoman service. The serviceability factor that's calculated by the formula given here is based on similar serviceability factors that are used in bridge management programs in the States and in other jurisdictions, but this one was crafted specifically for a quick hit on our truss bridges, if you will.
The first column is the NBI Rating, that's the National Bridge Institute Rating. As I believe you know, we have a very comprehensive bridge inspection program in the province, which is carried out by our bridge engineers and certified bridge inspectors. They really carry out a complete inspection of bridges on a rotating basis, and assign a national bridge rating to it. The ratings vary, depending on conditions - so the ratings describe a particular condition of the structure.
The serviceability rating as such is garnered from a number of other issues such as whether there's a detour available, the amount of traffic crossing the bridges, the traffic volume, whether there's commercial trucking in the area that is using the bridge, whether school buses use the bridge and what have you, and operational factors are pretty simple when we have just asked our districts and our district people know the bridges better than anyone, know the areas, and we've asked them to rank their bridges in priority order. So
there's an algorithm that considers all those things and applies percentages to them and ends up with the ranking here on the far left which we generally try to follow then in terms of replacement strategy and it may have to bounce around a little bit because a bridge that may be damaged by a truck, or whatever, may move further up the list.
[9:45 a.m.]
We had examples, like the example that MLA Dooks raised today about a bridge being an impediment to development on the Candy Mountain Road, that we may certainly have to look at to determine whether the replacement plan given by this algorithm is appropriate for that or whether two or three years out is appropriate. I don't know if that fully answered your question, Mr. Langille.
MR. LANGILLE: The first category, and I can't see it because the binder, the hole is in the middle of it there, with 100 per cent and then something ranking, I will just go down to the column under the Luther McNutt Bridge and under that it says $3.05 million and that $3.05 million in that first category, just explain exactly what that would be?
MR. DELANEY: How that's made up is what you're asking for?
MR. LANGILLE: Yes.
MR. DELANEY: Okay, just give me a moment to check on that. I haven't done those calculations of late. Where that should come from and, again, I haven't quite done the calculation, but if you take 50 per cent of $3 million, it's $1.5 million; 35 per cent of $4 million, it actually is, which would be about $1.3 million and 15 per cent of $1 million which is $0.2 million. I do a calculation and I come up with $3 million, but I'm doing a rough calculation as well. So that's where you determine the factor. This is obviously a spreadsheet and it just applies those mathematical formulae to come up with an algorithm, $3.05 million really means little except that it allows us a filter to align the bridges in terms of need for replacement.
MR. LANGILLE: And I still don't fully understand it, but that's fine. I won't pursue that any further. Your budget for your RIM, how much is it this year?
MR. DELANEY: It's $12.5 million.
MR. LANGILLE: And you say that's spread throughout the province, that $12.5 million, is it?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. LANGILLE: And that's equally throughout the province based on the amount of roads in the rural ridings or all the roads?
MR. DELANEY: Based on the secondary road system, that's correct.
MR. LANGILLE: And you say that has been one of your best programs so far since it has been introduced?
MR. DELANEY: It has been an excellent program for various reasons. One is that it was brought in as new money so it was above our budget amount. Two, it was, by using RIM, we call contracts every year for it and we find it's the type of work we can carry out with RIM, it's sort of a bridge between the major capital work and the type of single pothole patching that our crews do. We have got exceptionally good prices on RIM over the last couple of years and we've saved anywhere from, we allow for 20 per cent, but in many cases we save more.
I just have here some statistics from last year. For example, asphalt spreader patching for doing short sections here and there, we paid on average $64.67 a ton. Now, I can tell you that in many places our supervisors are now picking up asphalt at the plant for $75 a ton. Then they have to go out and do their pothole patching or whatever with it. The prices for spreader patching and asphalt hand patching $117 a ton, gravel $11.50 a ton in place and on and on. Guardrail $45 a metre, so the prices we are getting are quite good, we are getting a lot of work done through that program, it's certainly been one that's been very popular with department staff.
MR. LANGILLE: I might come back to that one later. I want to touch on the subdivision roads again. I understand that the policy for your subdivision roads, paving gravel roads that are classified as a subdivision, 50 per cent our share and 50 per cent the municipality, those with agreements signed, of course. I have a problem in my area, because of large subdivisions that have been in place for years. Of course the new subdivision roads become municipality roads, they're not our roads, but we own the other roads. What has happened, is that some of these roads are not really paved, but they use the recycled asphalt and they are crumbling.
In the Wintertime you cannot plow them properly, you can't put salt on them, and you look at municipality roads in the Wintertime and they are clear. Our subdivisions are built up with ice, with tracks in them sometimes six to eight or 10 inches deep. You can't even walk up the roads. I believe we have a responsibility for our roads. Where I'm going with this is, they're not gravel roads, so therefore my correspondence to the municipality, they will not enter into a cost-sharing agreement with those roads that are done with recycled asphalt, they say it's our responsibility. The dilemma is, and you could be aware of this, that I believe that we have a responsibility, even if it doesn't fall under the agreement with the municipalities that we have an obligation to bring those roads up to standard. I'm not talking about gravel
roads at all, I'm just talking about recycled asphalt, which were good for a time, but as we know, they break down fairly rapidly. Thank you.
MR. DELANEY: Well, certainly there have been a few subdivision roads in the province that may have been surfaced with recycled asphalt and just with the local staff grading it on the road or levelling it out. It has been sort of a short-term fix and some of those are starting to break up. The obvious solution is twofold, one method would be simply to go in and pulverize the street and turn it back to gravel and chloride it and that's probably the easiest thing to do within budgetary restraints as such, another would be to continue to patch it as it breaks up. I guess the residents would like to have it paved. For that particular class of street, the residents on a road such as that would not have cost shared to date in completing the subdivision street to a paved standard. I think the department's position would be that it would still be incumbent on the municipality to cost share to bring it up to a paved standard as any other gravel street. As I mentioned already, 360 kilometres that are still outstanding in the province.
MR. LANGILLE: I'd like to comment on the answer. I guess that's where the problem arises with me, the owners of the properties are caught in between because the municipality says no, it's not their responsibility, but we say yes, it is, so therefore they are caught. I'm not going to dwell on this anymore, but it is a problem.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We know you're not, thank you Mr. Langille. Mr. Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Chairman, maybe I'll just follow up on that point for a minute before I come to my questions. I know in my riding, also, there are a number of private subdivisions, the roads are privately owned. Those residents find it frustrating, because they can't seem to get their road from a private road to a J-class road, taken over by the municipality, and then with service work by the province. The mechanism that's in place to get a private road to a J-class road is difficult mainly because the municipality doesn't have any great incentive to take over the road, because then it's going to start costing them money, $4,400 a kilometre per year, I think, is the going rate to pay to the province for the maintenance.
Naturally the municipality doesn't have any great interest in taking on further costs. In between are the residents caught in limbo because even though the developer might bring it up to grade, then all of a sudden the bar goes a bit higher, and again, because the municipality really doesn't have any great desire to take on additional costs, it's a problem. Maybe that's something the department could be looking at what mechanism is in place to allow these private roads to be taken over by a municipality.
MR. DELANEY: I guess in terms of a short response to that, the municipal service exchange of 1995 obviously exchanged a grab bag of different services between the municipalities and the province and part of that overall omnibus agreement, if you will, was
that from April 1, 1995 forward, any local roads being developed and being accepted by government in the province would be accepted by the local municipal unit. That's certainly just part of a larger agreement, you're right. We have no mechanism to take them over; all municipalities do have the mechanisms to take over those roads, and we would expect the people on private roads to deal with the municipalities appropriately.
MR. PARKER: I know there is new legislation before the House right now under, I think it's Bill No. 70, that there might be some allowance for area rates, that residents could be levied in order to help pay for maintenance on their private roads. I have about 50 families in my riding on four different private roads that I can think of right off that are caught in that limbo. They would very much like to have it taken over by the municipality or the province, or somebody. The mechanism is not working in this area at the present time.
I want to switch then to bridges. As mentioned by the previous speaker, there's a program that we talked about there, I think it is $50 million over five years?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. PARKER: Where is that $50 million coming from? Is it new money, or is coming from other programs?
MR. DELANEY: My understanding is that it's new money. Last year our capital program if you will, was increased specifically by $4 million for the truss bridge program as such. Because it was just announced last year and we started getting up and running, we were actually a little slow off the mark, we spent just under $2 million last year in truss bridge replacement. This year was scheduled to be a $7 million year, but we've upped that to $9 million to try to get back on schedule and I believe the next two years are $13 million each. The money - after you get out a few years, it's hard to tie it to a particular program, but our capital program has continued to increase every year, and this year increased by $6 million.
MR. PARKER: I don't have it in my book, I think I took those pages out for some reason, but I thought I'd seen in there somewhere where $19 million was new money, and the other $31 million was going to come from other programs. Like I said, I have taken a few pages out so I don't have it right here in front of me, but is that true?
MR. DELANEY: Yes, that's correct. My apologies for my previous answer. When we get out I believe into the third year of the program, and I'd have to look back at our documents when we launched the program, but I believe that it's in the third year of the program that the incremental amount we get from central government is less and we divert some money out of our existing capital programs.
MR. PARKER: So it is coming out of existing programs, as part of it, in the third and fourth and fifth year then?
[10:00 a.m.]
MR. DELANEY: It's $30 million of new money, you're right, and $19.5 million within the department's existing envelope, over the five-year term. So far the money is new money, but it will start to change . . .
MR. PARKER: And other programs will be cut back or diverted in order to pay for the bridge truss program in the third, fourth and fifth years?
MR. DELANEY: There will certainly be reprioritization of the whole program.
MR. PARKER: I want to ask you now a question around Highway No. 101, certainly a major safety concern and an issue that has not gone away. What is the farthest distance down in the Valley that the highway is projected to go? I've heard different - is it Avonport or is it Coldbrook? How much of an agreement do we have in place that's definite at this moment?
MR. DELANEY: Well, we don't have a definite, signed agreement yet, but we have an agreed-upon project for the CCIP funding, if you will. That's as far as Avonport.
MR. PARKER: But that's not confirmed with the federal government at the moment, is it? It's not written as an agreement?
MR. DELANEY: They're currently negotiating the fine points of the agreement.
MR. PARKER: When do you expect all the i's dotted and the t's crossed and so on, when will there be an agreement in place?
MR. CORKUM: We're hoping and expecting that it will be later this year, like this Fall. That's what we're planning towards.
MR. PARKER: It's heavy slugging at the moment then, is it, trying to negotiate . . .
MR. CORKUM: There's a lot of hoops that the feds have to go through, make submissions to Privy Council and that, to get it through. We've got all our information into the feds at this point, for that agreement. So we're hoping it will be this Fall.
MR. PARKER: I wanted to ask particularly about the Ben Jackson Road interchange. That's been a bit of a controversy, and I understand there's three different options on the table, as far as a tunnel or road upgrades or a full diamond interchange. I've heard different discussions on which is the least expensive. As you know, there's a protest group there now that is fighting for a full diamond interchange. Can you give us an update, then, on what you
feel is the most economical? I know there's also a cost-benefit study being done there at the moment.
MR. DELANEY: I'll defer to Phil, and ask him to answer your question.
MR. CORKUM: There is a cost-benefit study going on at the present time. We had gone out, initially, with one proposal, that was the parallel service road, and then we went out to the public with the tunnel, and there was some opposition to that and some more support for the interchange. So we decided to do a cost-benefit study. That study will be completed, probably in June. That's strictly giving us information so that we can make a decision on what options are going to be chosen.
We don't know yet what that's going to be. The least expensive option, obviously, is the parallel service road. That's the least expensive of the three options, if you're talking strictly money. The interchange is the most expensive. The consultant is looking at the implications of all three and the traffic patterns and who's going to be served by each one and doing a lot of interviews with different interest groups around the community. Hopefully we'll get some good information from them, from the consultant, so that we can make the decision in June.
MR. PARKER: Could I just follow up with one little question?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Very little.
MR. PARKER: The group that's there now, they feel the interchange is the least expensive in their opinion, they have some documentation that backs that up, they would be interested in meeting with the department to explain their point of view. Would you be interested in meeting with them to hear what they have to say?
MR. CORKUM: Sure. We've already indicated to the people that we're hoping to meet with anybody, anytime on these issues. We've already met with different people at different times. We don't plan to have another public consultation on the issue but, certainly, if there are individuals who would want to meet with us, we would be more than willing to sit down and meet with them.
MR. PARKER: Okay, great. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Colwell.
MR. COLWELL: I have a couple of quick snappers to start with. Why do you still use steel culverts instead of concrete or plastic ones?
MR. DELANEY: I'm sorry, I didn't catch the question.
MR. COLWELL: Why do you use steel culverts that rot out on the bottom, instead of concrete or plastic ones?
MR. DELANEY: The short answer to that is we will no longer be using steel culverts. We've changed the specs to delist them as an approved culvert material. There may be a few left in inventory that will be used up, but we no longer purchase steel culverts.
MR. COLWELL: That's good news.
MR. DELANEY: Or the galvanized steel culverts. We do purchase aluminized steel, which is a process that gives much longer life.
MR. COLWELL: The only trouble with those is they're corrugated on the inside and they collect gravel, and then they fill up and fill up, where the plastic ones just rinse right through. They're almost an identical price, so I don't see why you just don't eliminate the steel ones, no matter what.
MR. DELANEY: By and large we're using, in most cases, the so-called plastic pipe for driveway culverts now. It's a lot easier to use and it stands up well. We haven't yet approved it for use for cross culverts as such. That's something we're considering, but we did approve it a few years ago for driveway culverts and we've had very good experience with it. For crossroad culverts, for the major highways, we require concrete and for culverts for the secondary highways, it tends to be corrugated steel or steel with a protective coating.
MR. COLWELL: The only reason I raise that is if you have to replace these things because the bottom has rotted out on them, or they're full of gravel because they tend to hold gravel, it ups your maintenance cost long term and it means you can't do the pothole patching and the other stuff that you really have to do as well.
MR. DELANEY: Exactly.
MR. COLWELL: O'Connell Drive in Porters Lake, I raised that in the House, between the No. 7 Highway and it goes to O'Connell Drive Elementary School. What plans do you have for that, because that has to be fixed?
MR. DELANEY: In the House, I think the minister indicated that he would review that issue and, quite frankly, I don't believe we've carried out the review yet. We have a list of all the undertakings that came from the House, and we are going to look at that. My general understanding is that it's probably a J-class street, as such, but I haven't had a report yet, across my desk, to review that. It may be possible that it would be subject to cost-sharing with the municipality, but when we do the review, we'll certainly get back to you on it.
MR. COLWELL: I would appreciate that. This is a question that was brought up earlier, about how long it takes to do a pothole. I understand the reasoning for the occupational health and safety issues that you have to deal with and the need to have a proper set-up at a site so that none of the workers get injured and it doesn't create a car accident - and I have no problem with that, but all the other companies out there, Nova Scotia Power, the telephone companies and others use contracted flaggers that go ahead of the work that goes in place, maybe use two crews, they go ahead and they use the crews to set up the site and get the site ready. They're a lot cheaper than the staff of the department.
Now I'm not suggesting we replace staff at the department, I'm not saying that at all, but what it would do is it would mean you could get more work done in a lesser period of time, maintain the same crew that you do now and let them have the expertise to fix the potholes that they're trained to do and have the equipment to do. The guys who are flagging, it's a pretty mundane, terrible job for someone to have to do all day, especially in the Summertime when it's hot, and put your skilled people to work actually doing the pothole repairs. At the same time, you could get more work done and it would probably cost the department just a little bit more money, but it would be better service to the community.
MR. DELANEY: Indeed, we have done that in a couple of areas in the province, and it's certainly an option that's open to our operational people, subject to union concerns, who may be available, who may be on layoff or whatever, but in areas, particularly where you have peaks and valleys, where you don't have enough men to really get the job done, we've had some standing offers where a crew has come in, set up the signs, done the traffic control, and our crew has just gone in, carried out the work and then they tear down the traffic control. We've found it very cost-effective. It's not widely used yet, but it's certainly a good option that we have used.
MR. COLWELL: It would be good to see that, and let the experienced crews that you have do their work instead of tying them up holding a flag when they could actually be fixing a pothole, maybe working two crews instead of one crew and working with flaggers for a very insignificant cost in comparison, to get the work done.
Just some questions. What has the provincial government done to get infrastructure funds to actually do local paving on streets? Has there been any effort at all put into that?
MR. DELANEY: When you say efforts to get funds, you mean from other sources?
MR. COLWELL: No, from the federal infrastructure program, everything comes down, I know the province has to lobby the federal government for the infrastructure funding. It all goes into sewers and other things like that and in the rural areas there are no sewers, of course, and won't be any sewers for years and years and years. Has there been any effort by the Department of Transportation and Public Works to go and lobby the federal government and say, look, let's put local roads on this that need to be paved, repaired, so that the operating
costs for the department will go down, number one, and also make it better for the residents and it's low cost as compared to sewer systems.
MR. DELANEY: Certainly, to date, the federal funding has been pretty well targeted. Certain amounts of the funding are available for cost-sharing with municipal-provincial-federal dollars. Projects that are simply provincial don't qualify and we've made some of those arguments. Other money has been set aside for transportation infrastructure, but it's pretty well tied tightly to the National Highway System. So it doesn't expand to local roads.
One thing that I believe our department has raised with the federal government is the issue, and it relates to my discussion earlier, on the amount of local roads that we own relative to other provinces because, indeed, in Ontario, for example, where most of the regions maintain all their own roads, they potentially may be able to put some roads forward as an infrastructure project as such whereas Nova Scotia can't just because of the dynamic of such. It's an issue we've raised with the federal government. I raised it as late as yesterday with some federal officials I met with, but so far there is really no program that deals with that.
MR. COLWELL: What's the difference in cost to maintain a gravel road over a paved road?
MR. DELANEY: I can't answer that straight up. It's really more a function of the amount of traffic on the road. A relatively low-volume road, the differential to maintain them isn't very much. The higher the traffic volume gets, you tend to get into more need to grade and you have to gravel it on a more frequent basis and what have you. So you could do a cost analysis and as I said, we simply haven't done one in recent years. Many years ago we used to consider that a road would qualify for paving if the traffic volumes reached ADT of 300 vehicles per day, probably more in the range of 500 vehicles per day, where it may become cost effective if you were doing a cost calculation to pave or surface versus maintaining it as a gravel road.
MR. COLWELL: I've heard some concerns, too, from some of the employees in the department of low morale in the department. Have you addressed that situation?
MR. DELANEY: This is certainly, I guess, an ongoing issue for government and all employers, is morale issues with employees. We certainly have a lot of good employees and a lot of dedicated short and long-term employees, most of them long term. The average age actually of our operators is 52 or 53 years of age. Morale problems stem, obviously, from a number of issues. One issue is, quite frankly, as our system ages and we haven't been able to keep the system in the type of condition that employees would like to see it in, I would say it's always more fun to come to work if you have unlimited resources and if you're dealing with a system that you can be truly proud of and people call to compliment you rather than call to complain. So some of those issues, obviously, revolve around it.
There are always, obviously, management issues and I suppose union-management issues that may lead to that as well. Some of the contracting out, I know the CUPE union has taken an exception with the RIM program and some of the other contracting out initiatives. Some of those things tend to relate to morale issues. We certainly do what we can to counteract that. As I said, in terms of long-term employees, we've had a lot of good in-house health programs that have helped morale. We have an education program that we're extremely proud of. We've put a lot of our employees through a co-operative program who have managed to get their GEDs with assistance from the department in terms of the department providing instructors through the Department of Education and some time on the employees' part and a little bit of time on the department's part to sponsor that. We've had really good feedback from employees on that. I mean when you have a 50-year-old employee who says he really couldn't read and now he can not only read manuals and instructions, he can work with his children on homework and it's a pretty amazing thing.
[10:15 a.m.]
We have other programs that they can be involved in as well, a lot of training. In every area we sponsor employee appreciation days, for example, on a yearly basis and try to essentially give out small awards for most improved operator, for best safety record, whatever, you know, and all those things help, but do we still have morale problems in an organization our size? I would daresay we do and there's no one silver bullet to that, but it's something we do recognize and keep chipping away at.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Colwell, just make this your last.
MR. COLWELL: A last question. When I was a municipal councillor, the municipality went to the province to see if we could exchange some more roads and take over some of the roads in the rural areas that the municipality was doing snow removal on, that I managed to get done when I was councillor, in the Lawrencetown area. HRM was interested in taking those roads over completely and exchanging for some other roads some place else. Has there been any further transactions with that or has that gone any further?
MR. DELANEY: There's nothing active at the moment. Certainly, primarily for winter service, we do tend to juggle responsibility for winter service just to be more cost-effective and that's sort of done on a fairly informal basis, but it's cost-effective to both parties and good for the residents.
MR. COLWELL: And very effective.
MR. DELANEY: So we do that on that basis. We've had some preliminary discussions with HRM relative to primarily the Hammonds Plains area and the first couple of subdivisions on the Highway No. 207 loop. Those discussions aren't ongoing at the moment. Certainly under HRM-01, the 1996 agreement, it did have a mechanism for
exchanging roads. That was sort of put on hold while some discussions were ongoing about the Transportation Authority and I expect it will probably come back on the burner sometime soon.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hines.
MR. GARY HINES: I'm going to carry on in the same direction that Mr. Colwell was going. The Beaver Bank Road, Beaver Bank north to the Hants County line, is the jurisdiction of snow removal HRM's or of the province? It falls in kind of a no-man's land, between an area that's done by DOT which is the Hants County side and the rest of Beaver Bank which is done by HRM. Probably all the calls I had this winter on snow removal was in that specific area because of late service and also some disrespect on the part of the DOT staff - I've dealt with that - to those who were calling in. The problem seems to be mobilization of equipment into that area. Why would it not be better to negotiate with HRM for that short stretch of road or have Hants County side do it as opposed to mobilizing the equipment in there every time there's a snow storm?
MR. DELANEY: That is certainly something that we can take under advisement and review with local staff. When we did have preliminary meetings with HRM that I referred to a moment ago about road exchanges, the primary area of interest was Hammonds Plains and a short section of Highway No. 207 in the first couple of subdivisions, but we also had brief discussions about a couple of, if you will, isolated sections. The Beaver Bank Road was one, there's a section of Trunk 1 in Upper Sackville as well, that the service would probably make more sense for HRM to provide it, or somebody to provide it on a continuous basis. They are sort of orphan sections, if you will.
MR. HINES: It would make more sense, if HRM didn't take it over, for us to do it out of the Hants County side. I know that would be out of another shed. Presently the Burnside shed does it.
I'm going to go to another question. With the off-road vehicle Act being under heavy discussion and having been involved in the ATV industry, one thing is excess material. When you're tearing out the old culverts, sometimes there's some good timber and good culvert pieces left. Is there a provincial policy that deals with whether the clubs could have access to that? At one time we were informed that perhaps we could have it and then were told that we couldn't have it. It seemed there wasn't a standard policy - that might be local decision making. Could you tell me what the decision is?
MR. DELANEY: As a general rule for culverts as such, if we're not going to reuse them, we tend to crunch them up and get rid of them. There's a reason for that, by the time we've taken them out of service, if they're not fit to reuse then they probably ought not to be used anywhere else. Certainly, at times in the past we've perhaps given them away to
someone. In many cases, they just come back in a couple of years to us as a service problem. So for the culverts, we tend to either reuse them or they're junked.
If we have material at our local base that's serviceable and we don't require it, we have the ability to consider a request from a trail group to make it available. The real difficulty is, is it surplus? Is it something that we can use at our own base to carry out work on our roads? It's really a question of whether it's usable to us or to the trail people.
MR. HINES: One thing we found, many times there might be an end section, a 10-foot end section or something, that the bottom hasn't gone out of, and those culverts would be available when they're being taken out. We tried to get some of them and we were unable to get them because those short sections would do us for trail networking.
One of the other questions regarding the same issue is K-class roads. I believe I'm right in saying K-class roads - they're the ones that are decommissioned. What is the policy there regarding implementation to do a trail networking, such as the Trans Canada Trail or a local trail network?
MR. DELANEY: We're actually just reviewing our policy, or will be reviewing shortly, our policy relative to trails. As a general rule regarding K-class roads, or unlisted, unmaintained roads, they're still part of the public highway system and so the minister still has the responsibility to retain the right-of-way for access to adjacent properties. So there certainly can be some conflicts with local trail groups in terms of what can be appropriately built on there and used.
There's another issue which is perhaps more a legislative issue in terms of the Motor Vehicle Act, in theory - probably not in practice - where it's still a public highway, you can't really run an ATV on it unless it's in the ditch line. But that's probably more theory than practice.
MR. HINES: The third piece of that is passage tunnels under No. 1 highways that are being constructed - are they considering areas where there's trail networking that are coming and dead ending at the No. 1 highways - is there consideration now for tunnel passages for pedestrian or all trail usage?
MR. DELANEY: Our general rule of thumb is that if there's an existing trail and we're building a new highway system and it intersects an existing trail, then we'll consider it for structuring. If there's no existing trail there, it's a bit more of an uphill battle. We'd certainly be willing to review a request, we might be looking for cost sharing. It's something we'd have to discuss.
MR. HINES: Just a comment in closing, I want to thank you and your staff. I saw in the paper last week a tender that's near and dear to my heart in my district and that's signalization and repair of the drainage for the Fall River interchange. I'm glad to see that, so you can pass kudos on to your staff.
MR. DELANEY: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Hines, for your brevity. One-stop shopping here, I would like to ask a few questions of you gentlemen. I guess, Mr. Delaney, you said that the department budget had gone up by $69 million since 2000, am I right?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You also said that the RIM money increased from $10 million to $12.5 million?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Did I understand you to say that the RIM money is new money? Did you say that?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So it really was additional money to the department's budget when they implemented the RIM program?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct, sir.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I know a fair bit of work gets done in my constituency under RIM and they're glad to have it. I guess what I'm having a problem understanding is that when I was first elected in 1998, we had three sheds in Hants East - in Rawdon, Noel and Milford. Now we're pretty much down to two. I think the Rawdon shed may contain some equipment for Wintertime and I think last Winter they used it - I might be wrong on that, it may not have been used at all. As far as the complement of men in my area, we have as many men in the Noel and Milford sheds together as we used to have in one shed. So we're down to one-third of the men in Hants East that we used to have.
So I'm curious, like my thought was, well, the department put more money into RIM and less money into the regular budget and that's the reason we've seen this decline, but from what you're saying that shouldn't be the case. So I'm really curious, if I was the area manager and I'm looking at my budget, what am I looking at? Am I looking at two silos of money, or three silos of money, or what exactly does he see?
MR. DELANEY: First of all, and it depends on how far back you go, but are there fewer people working in Hants County now than there were 10 or 15 years ago, undoubtedly there would be fewer, I wouldn't argue that. In terms of the budget that your local area manager would see, he gets a global budget, but we've set out of that budget, if you will, an amount to cover his Winter and that's based on, as I said before, the last five years experience
and throwing out the high and the low and averaging the other. So we've set aside that Winter budget for him already and obviously he'll have to set aside money then for his staff, for his field administration, for his fringe benefits and what have you, and the rest generally goes on the road system as such.
Now, I had mentioned before that obviously across the province we've reallocated about $3 million from Winter to Summer. A Summer budget as such that he spends for his own staff to go out and put up signs, or do a little brush cutting, or replace a culvert, is going to be impacted. His firm budget that goes into the area will be maintained at the $12.5 million province-wide and I can give you the amount for Hants if you wish to have it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would appreciate that actually. I feel like I'm shadow boxing quite often in trying to determine just where my target is. Since 1998, and I appreciate, you know, you're saying in the last 10 or 15 years that the number of people in Hants East may have gone down. I've been the MLA since 1998 and that's when I noticed, but I'm going to work on that 10 to 15 years to the future.
I guess in my experience, it appears to me that over the number of years that I've been there, it seems to be more difficult to get things done and I guess the one that sticks out in my mind is around just the patching of potholes after the Winter. It seems to me that it was a fairly big priority once the weather got decent enough, I think beyond the stage of using cold mix or cold patch. Last year, I think we were in August and we were still patching potholes from the Winter. It was enough that I noticed it, and I don't remember other years being the same. Is it possible that my area manager could have money in his RIM budget but not have money in his other budgets? Could we come into the Spring this year with him with extra money that he would be looking for a way to spend, for RIM, that hadn't been used up but yet have his other budgets exhausted? Is that a possibility?
[10:30 a.m.]
MR. DELANEY: Let me answer that. First of all, the amount of RIM budget allocated to Hants, this would be East and West, is $840,500 to the area known as Hants. I don't have it broken up by riding, my apologies. For the full area it's $840,000. When the RIM program was brought in, it was brought in specifically to deal with asphalt patching, gravel patching, brush cutting and ditching. I believe, afterwards, we added guardrail, because we felt it was necessary to deal with deficiencies in guardrails. That's been pretty well dedicated to those specific areas and, quite frankly, the allotment, and we look every year at whether we change the amount that goes to asphalt or the amount to gravel patching, and we do that somewhat based on our overall assessment of the highway system.
Your area manager has flexibility to reallocate about 10 per cent of that, back and forth, between patching and gravel patching or whatever. But that's as much flexibility as he has. It's sort of a dedicated program to deal with the local roads and, essentially, he defines
the program in terms of the individual projects. I don't second-guess him on that. The overall split that we give, he has to follow, but the individual projects, he picks.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I did ask around the funding - when I have the minister as my partner in my county, I'm always looking over the hill to see what he's doing - I asked my area manager, is the budget for Hants West and the budget for Hants East the same. He said, yes, it's the same and that's all I'll tell you, you will have to find out anything else some other way. So this is my other way.
Something that has come up often is the issue around single operators on snowplows. So I'm curious, I guess, about when we moved to single operators, did we have to move to a different machine?
MR. DELANEY: Can I finish the first question? First, if you wish to know the amount of RIM allocated to Hants East versus Hants West, we'll certainly provide that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, that would be great.
MR. DELANEY: That's not a problem. I just don't have it with me here. But if you wish to know that, you're certainly entitled to know that information and we'll provide it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would be glad to know that. When we went to single operators on snowplows, did we go to another machine, did that require a redesigned machine?
MR. DELANEY: We did. We gradually introduced one-person plows. Essentially, we took advantage of better electronic controls than on the old machines. The machines are designed specifically for one-person operation. The operators who operate them go through very extensive orientation and training to be able to operate the one-person plow. In addition to that, all plowed roads have a hazard assessment to ensure that indeed they're appropriate for one-person plows. Yes, we've done a fair amount of due diligence in introducing that technology.
MR. CHAIRMAN: As our help beside me says, it's no feather duster. (Laughter) The question of having two people was not so much a safety issue as it was a technical issue around the use of the wing or the blade or what?
MR. DELANEY: Well, some of it was historic. It probably goes before my time when there used to actually be two operators in a grader, years ago. Certainly the operation of the wing with the older-type controls and the visibility from the cab and what have you, you pretty well needed a wingman, if you will, on the plow on a fairly regular basis, not all the time. Probably on 100-Series Highways, sometimes the wingman didn't have much to do, whereas on some of the other roads, they may have been busier. We started introduction of the one-person plow probably about the mid-1980s and have gradually, as we've been renewing our
fleet, been introducing the new machines that are designed from the ground up for one-person operation. They've been very successful, and that's part of the reason, in terms of when I talked about our budgets, where the budgets sort of levelled out for a few years, because the number of operators required were less, quite frankly.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So there would be areas that still go with double operators in the province?
MR. DELANEY: We would use two operators in a couple of conditions. One, there's a couple of older pieces of equipment, some of the old four-by-fours, the old heavy plows that haven't been converted for one-person use. They're probably just called out in heavy storms. But there are a few of those still around. On the others, if we get into heavy snow and then we're going back benching or whatever, we'll occasionally put another operator on, just to facilitate that particular operation, where they're pushing heavy snow and benching back. But as a general rule, we use one operator on those machines, and that's fairly consistent in other jurisdictions now as well.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I sometimes wish there were two, only when they clip off mailboxes. I get a few calls on that.
MR. DELANEY: As someone who's worked with the department through the time when they were all two-person plows, we clipped off a lot of mailboxes when there was a wingman as well.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to try to speed it up here, I'm running to the end of my time. I just want to make a note around making a case, on the class K roads, had my area manager out on the Lawrence Road, off Route 236, up above Upper Kennetcook. There's a K-class road there, which had had a bridge or a box culvert or something in a brook. He was reluctant to give them an old culvert to put in there. It did strike me that on a K-class road, which is still basically a public access road, I saw this as a really serious safety issue.
I don't think there's a lot of traffic - Mr. Hines had mentioned about ATVs - but I could see somebody going in there in the night, not knowing that was exposed and winding up in that brook. I just thought the department, certainly if they had an old culvert, it wouldn't have to take the use that it would on more travelled roads. Certainly in those cases, I thought something could be done to accommodate him, and I would appreciate it if you could look into that. It's Lawrence Road, off Route 236.
MR. DELANEY: We will do that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just to touch on the environmental side, I'm curious. It's stated that the department is moving away from the use of salt or trying to. I'm just wondering if
they are and, if so, what's your time line, or what problems you've looked at in terms of doing this?
MR. DELANEY: We don't have any plan to move away from salt, that's perhaps a misconception. The federal government has now placed salt on the list for consideration. It's a requirement that we develop a management plan. Salt is still, in our view, the most cost-effective way to provide safe roads for Nova Scotians. However, there are certainly environmental side effects, not side effects that impact directly on human health but there are side effects in terms of contaminating the groundwater, we've contaminated wells of people with wells adjacent to the roadway.
So what we are doing is certainly developing a salt management plan that has several components. Actually, we have a consultant now working on a detailed salt management plan. We've already started instituting parts of it. Pre-wetting is one part of it, where we essentially find that we can provide the same level of service by using less salt. Handling and storage is another. For the last three or four years, we've tried to build three or four new storage facilities a year, so if we have our salt and sand inside, it's not leaching into the groundwater. Certainly, the RWIS stations I mentioned before, the ability to - all the RWIS stations not only gather weather information and road temperatures and air temperatures, they also transmit all that information to Environment Canada who are then able to tailor our forecast to that specific area. In theory, it allows us to respond perhaps quicker and pre-wetting you can do before the storm whereas before we used to wait until it snowed. You can respond quicker and, hopefully, respond with a more measured response.
So all those form part of a salt management plan and certainly procedures, spread rates, training, are all part of that plan. We're certainly developing that comprehensive plan for this province and it's part of our requirements under the federal legislation around salt use, but we have no intention whatsoever of moving away from salt. I believe in the last year we used about 268,000 tons of salt which is down a little bit from our five-year average, I believe, but we still use a lot of salt and probably will for the foreseeable future.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I will choke off there to give other members a chance for a second round. I guess I will ask them to limit their questions to one or two, if possible. Mr. Sampson, you're first.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I've prioritized, I've got seven there, but anyway, maybe the honourable gentlemen will allow me a bunk in your office for a week or so. I want to begin with a compliment on the Seal Island Bridge. That's something that Bruce and I and Sergeant Hoss MacKenzie were involved in six, seven years ago. We put in a turning lane each and every year and then eventually, through the municipality, put in lights and whatnot, and I understand now the final phase is to put the lighting on the bridge which is designed and ready to go this year. So that will be the culmination of about a six- to a seven-year project and my compliments on that. The MacDonald Road in Scotch Lake, a dirt road with a lot of
houses on it, I understand that that has to be cost-shared between the municipality and the province. So that would be what kind of a road - a J-class, a K-class, or what?
MR. DELANEY: If the cost-sharing is foreseen, then I would expect it's a J-class road.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: It's a J-class.
MR. DELANEY: Most of the gravel roads in the province - there are between 9,000 and 10,000 kilometres of them - are just old gravel roads. There isn't really a program for paving them as such.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: But it would have to be cost-shared between the CBRM and the province?
MR. DELANEY: If it's a J-class road, that's correct.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Just on the lighter side, Mr. Dooks has kind of fulfilled a childhood dream of mine, I only heard about the Big Rock Candy Mountain in a song as a kid, but he has got it in his area and I want to see it. So I hope that the invitation will come from there.
Every time I come through French River - and this is just as an example - a rusty, old, ugly looking guardrail, and every time I go through my wife says, please don't comment on it and I say, look, this is disgusting. A couple of students with a couple gallons of silver paint, clean up those guardrails, and make it look half decent. I know they have a shelf life, but long before that they're rusty and ugly and gross looking. Give the kids some work and make the highways look clean and nice to drive on and I'm just using that as an example.
Whycocomagh to Baddeck, Highway No. 105, absolutely horrible, there's no reason for a gentle guy like me to turn the air blue every time I've slammed, bang, and I did that to the minister the other night, I said when you're coming into Cape Breton, it begins with slam, bang and boom. Your shocks come halfway through your car and you look up and you read the sign that says Welcome to Cape Breton. Well, when I went down - I did that on Wednesday night - on Friday, that area from the bridge, it got through to somebody because that was paved, so if that's what it takes (Interruptions)Well, I guess you don't want to be insulting.
The White Point Road down on the Cabot Trail is designed as a scenic route. When you go down into Neils Harbour, then there's the off-route that goes out around the ocean, the scenic route, and you've got to strap yourself in to keep your head from hitting the roof of the car. You talk about moguls in the Wintertime and that's the road that, when I was warden, we voted to rip that road up and make it back into a dirt road again because it would be easier to
maintain. The fire trucks can't go over it. That's a scenic route on the Cabot Trail and nothing has been done with that. I had been a councillor since 1991 and we've been fighting that since 1991 and nothing done with that. Like I say, I break the law every time I come to and from Halifax because I have to fade in and out of lanes to keep the car in reasonable condition.
Just one final thing, please, call the RCMP or the police when you're shutting down lanes because if I, or anybody else, as a driver, don't want to slow down and you see a police cruiser parked there, that is most effective and I'm sure some of those guys would like the opportunity to write a ticket.
[10:45 a.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Langille.
MR. LANGILLE: I'm not going to bring in a wish list. Anyway, I do have a couple of things. Your calcium chloride contract for this year, your tender, I understand you went in with New Brunswick a couple of years ago and you were late getting the calcium chloride. Are you going alone this year, and when would it be?
MR. DELANEY: A couple of years ago we were indeed late because we were buying through the Maritime Provinces, under one umbrella. As a result we were late. We have a contract now that we awarded last year, and it still runs again this year. The supplies are in place. Last year we had very good success, it's a new supplier actually, it's magnesium chloride rather than the calcium chloride we used previously. My feedback from the districts is that delivery was very good, it was timely, but the year before we had a glitch in contracting, you're quite right.
MR. LANGILLE: Okay. The Department of Transportation and Public Works garages, I'm going to zero in on one in my area, in my own community of Earltown. I just want to say that garage, we are three kilometres from the highest point in mainland Nova Scotia; it has three crosswinds there - Nuttby Mountain. Anyway, Nuttby Mountain, of course, they have their warning posts up year-round and there are three wind currents there. We need that response time from that garage for those because we're in the middle of the Cobequid Hills. Those are a couple of short-snappers.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Dooks.
MR. DOOKS: I'd like to speak about Highway No. 107. I understand it's not part of the National Highway System. Is that correct?
MR. DELANEY: That's correct.
MR. DOOKS: Therefore it's not able to collect any part of that $10 million that the federal government sends down to improve or to extend (Interruption) Or $4.5 million. The point is, we're unable to get federal assistance to improve or to encourage the lengthening of Highway No. 107, and it's a provincial issue. It's quite hard to get money for our rural roads. So it's seen as a 100-Series Highway, but on the other hand it's not enjoying the benefits of a 100-Series Highway. You know I've talked about Highway No. 107 many times. It's important for me to have that listed as a part of the National Highway System. I encourage you to look into that once again in case we put it aside.
Due to economic growth in the riding, as you know the Porters Lake, Lawrencetown, Chezzetcook, Musquodoboit and Jeddore areas are growing in a residential sense, it's important for us to maintain Highway No. 107 because of the tourism industry. On the other hand it's important to push Highway No. 107 eastward for the economic generator that it could become. I just wanted to make sure that it's still a priority for us to lengthen or extend Highway No. 107. It's been evident and the proof has shown that because of the highway to Musquodoboit Harbour that the communities have grown because of their closeness to metro.
MR. DELANEY: I guess just in brief response, certainly there's been pressure to try to add Highway No. 107 and Highway No. 103 specifically to the National Highway System. To date those efforts have been fruitless. I guess the only thing I can remind you is of the $20 million commitment to upgrade Route 7 to all-season classes and to improve some bridges and strengthen the pavement structure on Route 7 over a number of years. That's all we have to offer at the moment, but certainly it's been raised with the federal government and continues to be an issue not only with Nova Scotia, but some other provinces as well would like to expand that network.
MR. DOOKS: I would not want to have an audience with you and not mention Highway No. 107, so thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Dooks.
Mr. Colwell.
MR. COLWELL: I have three short questions here. Sign replacement policy on streets or roads, when they go down what's the timing they're supposed to be replaced, for 911 response?
MR. DELANEY: I can't answer that, but we can provide that for you. I know that we have performance standards that probably aren't as strict as I'd like to see them. It's fairly quick for a stop sign, for example, but gives more time for regulatory signs. Our signs generally aren't in the type of condition that I'd like to see around the province and that's something that we're putting some resources into to try to correct. I don't have a direct answer to your question, but I can provide those performance standards for you Mr. Colwell.
MR. COLWELL: If you would, I'd appreciate that. Does the Department of Transportation and Public Works have immunity from Small Claims Court for people who bust their cars up on potholes? If so, we'd like to see what part of the legislation or regulation that's in.
MR. DELANEY: I'll take that under advisement and get back to you on that.
MR. COLWELL: Okay. One issue I think would stop a lot of complaints in the Winter for service levels is if the different operators were designated particular routes that they work all the time. Is that in place now, province-wide?
MR. DELANEY: That's in place, to the best of my knowledge. Each operator, each vehicle is assigned a specific route and that's the route they do the hazard assessment on, the route they normally work on. Occasionally you get breakdowns or someone is off sick or whatever and you do have to reassign people but, as a general rule, operators are on a specific route and become familiar with the anomalies associated with that route, and it provides a better level of service.
MR. COLWELL: Could you provide that in writing to us, in what section that covers under the regulations, the operating policies?
MR. DELANEY: I can certainly give you a response to that, yes.
MR. COLWELL: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Colwell. Mr. Parker and then Mr. McNeil. I think that'll be it - we have just one item and I'll need the members for a minute, to go over that, before we leave.
MR. PARKER: Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I have a request, as the Chairman had, coming from Pictou County. I'd like to get a breakdown of the RIM money that's being spent in our counties as compared to Pictou East and Pictou West, if that's possible.
MR. DELANEY: I can give you the amount for Pictou County today, but I can break it down by constituencies, but it will take a little longer.
MR. PARKER: Okay, I appreciate that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: That will be good, I think, for all members.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: We should have that for all members. It would be nice to know - if we had a sheet with all the counties, or however you do it, a breakdown by constituencies.
MR. PARKER: Constituency by constituency, over the last three years.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It would be great. I'd like to have that too.
MR. PARKER: I'll leave that with you, sir. The other thing - I asked in the House the other day about the Durham Bridge, which is in my riding, over the West River. I understand there's supposed to be repair work done on that very shortly. The minister had also indicated that it would be replaced in 2005. Can you tell me what type of structure is going to replace what's presently there?
MR. DELANEY: As we speak, I can't answer that, but certainly the Durham Bridge is on that list of bridges that we have prioritized for replacement. I would have said it might have been 2006, but if the minister said 2005, no doubt it's 2005.
MR. PARKER: He said 2005 in the House, so can you confirm that - that is the year, the date?
MR. DELANEY: It's certainly scheduled for replacement. Sometimes the years fluctuate back and forth by year, but it's within the short-term window. Remember, there's 200 on there and it's within the next couple of years.
MR. PARKER: I realize that. I guess I'm particularly interested in knowing what type of structure it's going to be replaced with.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parker, that's it, and Mr. McNeil, you're just going to get to exhale, I think.
MR. MCNEIL: Just one request and a question. There's a road in my riding which has been - Middle Road in Nictaux, the base had been upgraded quite some time ago to be paved. We are spending an unbelievable amount of money to grade it during the Summer because of the traffic volume on it. Could someone in your department have a look at that and see why it was never finished, why it was never paved - it was set to be paved - and do a cost analysis on what we spend just to maintain that road, because of the traffic volume, in comparison to what we're spending if we had paved it.
And before he cuts me off, you talk about the budget increasing - I'll just give you my own riding and the bases. I have two bases in my riding, one in Middleton and one in Lequille. One tells me Summer operations are going to be down by $90,000 out of Middleton, and Lequille is down $56,000 in what we have to operate. So if the budget is increasing, it's going
somewhere besides the roads in my riding, and I assume it's in all ridings, not just in my riding. So I'll leave you with that and I'd like an explanation for those.
MR. DELANEY: Can I respond briefly? First of all, I did indicate that money was reallocated from Summer to Winter. If your operation supervisor is talking to you, he's probably talking to you about the Summer budget, not about the global budget.
MR. MCNEIL: That goes back to my original question, we need to deal with Winter.
MR. DELANEY: The other issue relative to unpaved roads in general - just because of the condition of our paved road system and the need to deal with that, we really have had a moratorium on paving new roads. The only exception to that was the reintroduction of the subdivision street program a couple of years ago. So for the other 9,000-plus kilometres of road in the province, there has really been a moratorium on paving those, and it's more related to the resources to be able to do that.
MR. MCNEIL: Is there any way to do a cost analysis of that road in terms of what we are spending just to maintain it? The base has already been done. The base is there, we are going to grade it and I can tell you my predecessor was cursed by it, of all the roads I hear a lot about it because of the number of people that are on it.
MR. DELANEY: I'll certainly review the road and get back to you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. McNeil, we certainly don't want to be cursed by you. Thank you very much. I want to thank Mr. Delaney, Mr. Fitzner, and Mr. Corkum for coming in today, I do want to make the comment that I have excellent people in Hants East that I work with, my area manager is great to deal with. Thank you. I'm sure that members probably feel quite open to approach you at any time, any way on any issue, and I look forward to getting whatever information back that I can. Thanks very much.
MR. DELANEY: Thank you for the opportunity, and you're quite right, if there are further questions and anyone wishing to contact me directly, certainly may feel free to do so.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen, okay, we have a request from a Mr. Jonathan Levesque, manager, Group Savoie, Westville division. They would like to come before the committee, so I think we all pretty well understand that that can't happen before Fall. I just wanted to get an agreement from the committee that they have no problem with that. So you'll take care of that?
MS. MORA STEVENS: (Legislative Committee Coordinator): I will.
MR. PARKER: They're actually in Pictou East, some of those boys are in my riding.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, gentlemen.
[The committee adjourned at 11:00 a.m.]