HALIFAX, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2005

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

9:30 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. John MacDonell

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The meeting this morning is purely an agenda setting meeting and to deal with something sent back from the Public Accounts Committee - and Bill you haven't had much of a chance to have a look. Anyway, you have before you some suggestions by all three caucuses, so if you want to just take a look at those and try to see if we can help Mora with an order of where we want to go - I mean I'm very pro the New Democrat list.

Mr. Parker.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: I see where the PC caucus is supporting also having the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters come before us, and certainly in my area, and in many areas, the fishing industry is in crisis. It's really low catches and pretty tough, difficult times for fishing families, so I would put a plug in for that group to be before us.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, what's the committee's thought in that regard?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: We have no problem with that. Carry on.

MR. PARKER: They're a national organization right across the country, but it's a group of fishermen themselves.

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: From across Canada, or from here in Nova Scotia?

MR. PARKER: Well, this would be some local representation, but they are a Canadian organization.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I was going to ask also on fisheries - these trust agreements that are coming up, that's very high on the list for one of our caucus members, Junior Theriault, and I was going to ask if the federal Fisheries and Oceans guys could come in at some time down the road?

MR. PARKER: That is certainly very much a concern of theirs and . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Didn't we have them? When was that Mora?

MS. MORA STEVENS (Legislative Committee Coordinator): It was in May. They were waiting for a report on trust agreements, were they not? They were doing some studies around the various areas that had them.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: The issue that they have now is the trust agreements as they are set up and how they are going to restructure and do all these things. Mr. Theriault's problem with it is that the banks do not recognize the fisheries licence as collateral against a fisheries loan, therefore younger people, like your sons or daughters or relatives, cannot enter into the fisheries industry and buy the licence from the parent, because the financial institutions do not recognize the licence as collateral.

MR. GAUDET: Why don't we address your proposal first, then we'll do his.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is the committee fine with Mr. Parker's suggestion?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll ask for comment from the Liberals, because on your list of suggestions, that's not one. I'm just wondering if you guys are fine.

MR. GAUDET: Yes, maybe as backup, once the harvesters have come in and we've heard some concerns they'll raise. Why don't we bring DFO back to back. It will be fresh in our minds.

MR. CHAIRMAN: What does the committee say?

MR. PARKER: That seems reasonable.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to go back to the Progressive Conservative Party's list, since they agreed with one for the New Democrats and we seem to have one from the Liberals. I'm just wondering if the Progressive Conservative members have a preference out of those four?

MR. WILLIAM LANGILLE: We'll delete three and four, and go with one and two.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I definitely like the look of your number two. Do we have a preference for number two, ahead of number one?

MR. LANGILLE: Not really. Let's go with number two. That seems to be a little more important, I think, at this point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, I don't know that we have agreed that both of the NDP suggestions can get on the list.

MR. LANGILLE: I don't have a problem with that. I think number two would be a good one.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I'm wondering, our number two and the PC's number three, is there any possibility both could come in at the same time or is that too much at the same time? There are similarities there.

MR. LANGILLE: Your brother was there at the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owner of the Year, the Ecology Action Centre was there. They are both in sync as far as uneven-aged forest management. I think the Ecology Action Centre, as I said to the chairman, has a broader scope than the one person. That's who you put down. That's why I deleted number three.

MR. PARKER: They're on the same wavelength, there's no question about that.

MR. LANGILLE: Yes, that's what I'm saying. I like their choice. If you didn't have your choice, I would go with the other one.

MR. GAUDET: Are we looking at the Ecology Action Centre or are we looking at the small woodlot owner?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Ecology Action Centre, I think.

MR. PARKER: That's fine.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that approved? Can we say the Ecology Action Centre?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: For the Liberal members, on your list, I just wonder if you have a preference there? I'll tell you, I'm curious about the beef industry after the border opened, but . . .

MR. LANGILLE: That's the reason I had that one on, just to try to find out in the big picture what kind of impacts our beef producers are under. Just locally, how's the industry going? Are the border problems affecting you?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm curious about that myself. What about the members of the committee, are you fine? Liberals members, are you fine with having the beef industry come in? Okay. I'm not sure just who that would be, the Nova Scotia Cattle Producers, the Nova Scotia Cattlemen's Association, the Federation of Agriculture? Who do you want as the spokes-group for that?

MS. STEVENS: We've had beef industry representatives before.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that's the Nova Scotia Cattlemen's Association.

MS. STEVENS: I think it was.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Laurence Nason would be Federation of Agriculture, and they could probably speak to it, but you may want . . .

MS. STEVENS: They brought in actual beef producers. Do you remember the one from Cape Breton who had the herd of beef?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The federation could direct us, if we wanted to just approach them and ask them who.

MR. PARKER: What's the name of the new association, Nova Scotia Cattlemen - they changed their name slightly, didn't they?

MR. CHAIRMAN: They may be the Nova Scotia Cattle Producers now.

MR. PARKER: Maybe that's what it is. It's new within the last year, I think they reorganized.

MR. CHAIRMAN: They are a marketing board now.

MS. STEVENS: I could do a little research on that and then bring it back for specific names if you want to approve it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Maybe at the next meeting, after a witness, we could discuss that. Okay, so I think that gives us at least six to deal with. If we're doing one a month . . .

MR. LANGILLE: Excuse me, which other one of the Liberal's did . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're going to do Mr. Sampson's, I think, back to back with the fish harvesters.

MR. PARKER: DFO.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I kind of promised Finewood Flooring that I would ask if they could be on sometime this year. They're a value-added private company from Middle River but have been struggling for years and years and finally now are doing good international business by hanging tough and getting as high as five to six cuts out of one hardwood tree, just because a value-added product.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You won't get an argument from me. I think if your colleagues are fine with that . . .

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I'm just ready for the general committee to be aware, that's all.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The way we're looking, we're going to be down the road sometime before they could come, if that's okay.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Sure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I know I don't have a problem, if the other members don't have a problem. Mr. Parker?

MR. PARKER: This letter, then, from AgraPoint, is that on the agenda also?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, it is. I want to finish with Finewood Flooring before we get to that.

MR. GAUDET: Maybe, Mr. Chairman, the fact that we have five or six topics identified, why don't we focus on these groups if we can bring them in at all, if we're looking at four or five months down the road, then, at a later day, the committee can look at some future witnesses.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that's fine. I wouldn't mind if you would just make a note on the Finewood Flooring, so if we get four months down the road and we all forget what we've talked about, then at least there will be a note to say this was one Mr. Sampson had flagged.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Just to get back to what Mr. Parker mentioned regarding the Ecology Action Centre and this uneven-aged forests, and conflicts and opportunities. I guess two witnesses would be too many for one meeting. They're in the lumber business, and there's the Ecology Action Centre.

MS. MICHELE RAYMOND: We have six issues . . .

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: We'll have them down in July, May or June, whatever.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. There is an issue that has come to us from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I had - and I think Mr. Colwell, you may as well - written as the Agriculture Critic for the NDP, not as a chairman of this committee, to have AgraPoint International come before our Public Accounts Committee. You can see my comments, with $2.2 million I thought we should have some accounting on the financial side about what's happening with that money. I realized just recently that Mr. Colwell had also made a request to the committee. So, they sent it back to us thinking maybe we should have them come before us. They have come before this committee in the past.

My request was more on the financial side, the accountability side, rather than a much broader scope of the activities of that corporation, Crown agency, whatever you want to call it. So, I think we need some indication from the committee what you want to do with this. My personal thing is that it goes back to the Public Accounts Committee, but I just want to know if the committee's in agreement with that.

MR. COLWELL: If I could make a couple of comments. I'm on the agenda-setting committee for the Public Accounts Committee and the drift of the meeting was to come here first because it was a resources issue. If indeed it was a financial issue that the committee - you already had the committee here. If it's financial issues that, for instance, yourself addressed, and I know a request from our caucus was financial issues as well, it will go back

to the Public Accounts Committee if that's the wish of this committee and they'll look at the financial aspects of it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Langille.

MR. LANGILLE: I personally think it should go directly to the Public Accounts Committee. We're talking about financial commitments for AgraPoint. I truly believe the place for that is the Public Accounts Committee. I mean, they're the watchdog, and if what you're looking at is financial, then I think that's the place, not here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Dooks.

MR. DOOKS: I would think the Public Accounts Committee is the appropriate venue to serve that request. No doubt about it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Can I assume I have an agreement from the committee to send this back to the Public Accounts Committee?

[9:45 a.m.]

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I would also agree because it's financial.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, good. I don't think there's anything else, unless Mora's going to tell me something.

I want to run something by you, only because I'm thinking as chairman of the committee, I'd like to know what your thoughts are. I'm interested in taking the committee to Maine. I'm still doing a little bit of research and I have never really done it formally through this committee, but they have pretty well stopped clear-cutting, as far as I know, or have stopped clear-cutting in Maine. Their forest is very similar to Nova Scotia's forest; their industry, by and large, is similar. So I thought it would be worthwhile for our committee to go to Maine and have a look at what they have done, and what the impacts of that have been, if they stopped clear-cutting, then what that has meant to their industry, jobs and so on. So I'm still working through some of the research side of that, but I just wondered, would the committee be interested in doing that? Probably by the time we meet, I'll maybe have something more formal and I just wondered what your thoughts are.

MR. DOOKS: Mr. Chairman, I would be very interested, of course you know clear-cutting in my riding is an issue and in discussion with the industry and the department, it's manageable, it's okay, we couldn't live unless we did this. I would be very interested to not only get another provincial perspective, but to get another country's perspective. I think it would be a good, clear thought, politics aside, industry aside, to go and visit somewhere else and say, how are you doing it? So I'll be with you and support you on that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, anybody else?

MR. PARKER: I was just simply going to ask, who is it you are discussing it with? Are you talking to foresters or mills? Who would we be visiting?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just read a report on the industry there. As far as who we'll see, that's part of the research and I wasn't sure whether that was my role to do that or if I was to leave that to the committee, but I was going to try to come up with a list of names, departments, somebody who works actually for the government to be our contact person. That's where I was going with this.

MR. PARKER: Secondly, would our expenses be covered for attending a meeting there?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'm hoping. We have to make the request to the Speaker for funding to do the trip, so that's why I need to know what the committee thinks about that.

MR. PARKER: Okay.

MS. RAYMOND: I don't know enough about these sorts of the things, but does one combine objectives in such a trip? Maine has a very innovative policy on recycling electronic wastes, which is something that I'd really like to have a look at, and that could in fact maybe fall into this mandate too.

MR. DOOKS: Mr. Chairman, what's your timeline on this?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Actually, I don't know. My thought is we are getting close to Winter, so I'm thinking we probably can't do it until Spring.

MR. DOOKS: So I say we should move quickly. (Interruptions) I'm really interested in the clear-cutting issue there and I don't want to miss that opportunity.

MR. LANGILLE: Well, we have to wait until the budget passes next Spring of course. (Laughter)

MR. DOOKS: Have you written a letter to the Speaker's Office?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I haven't.

MR. DOOKS: Maybe you should set that here today, if indeed it's possible to get funding for this trip, then you will know that that's a fact and probably you can.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, if the Speaker says no, then I might as well not worry about pursuing it.

MR. PARKER: Is it possible this Fall, like late November sometime?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I don't know if we can move that fast. There are still a couple of things I have to . . .

MR. PARKER: If not, I'm just wondering when it might be.

MR. LANGILLE: If I may. Here we are in October, hitting into November. I don't know, but I would assume that the Speaker doesn't have any money for trips to Maine right now. It would have to come next year, you know. You can ask him, if you must.

On another topic, by the way, as I speak here, I'm cutting a lot now and it's going to be a year to cut, but in certain areas I have to clear-cut and in other areas I use a horse. So in one area I'm using a skidder - and I know you're hung up on clear-cutting, but there are some places you have to.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm not sure if you're familiar with the bill I introduced three times, but that bill was designed so that you actually could clear-cut, but only as a treatment, it is something you had to do in that particular part of the stand.

MR. LANGILLE: That's what I'm saying, I have to.

MR. CHAIRMAN: But you had to get a permit to do that.

MR. LANGILLE: Oh, I see. Was that private property, too?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. LANGILLE: So you're going to tell me how to cut my lot?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Right.

MR. LANGILLE: I don't think so, John. (Laughter)

MR. DOOKS: I'm very excited about the possibility of going to Maine to look at this clear-cutting alternative - or however you want to say it - I would ask you to write the letter immediately to the Speaker's Office and ask if we can afford that, and then quickly have staff

and your researchers identify someone and go as quickly as possible. We shouldn't hesitate on this and, if we can go in November, it would be fine with me. (Interruptions)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Members of the committee, hold it, please.

Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: I sat on this committee before and the committee did travel. We went to New England for aquaculture, and we went to several places actually. So if it's possible to get the funding, I would imagine the Speaker likely still has money in the budget to do that, I think it's important we go because this is a very important issue for all Nova Scotians. Clear-cutting is a problem. Mr. Dooks is absolutely right, it's a big problem in his area; it's a problem in my area.

MR. PARKER: Everywhere.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, it's a problem everywhere and I think it's an issue we should address sooner rather than later. It's a matter of going and seeing how financially it affects both the property owners, the harvesters, and the mills - all that operation - and also how government has regulated that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. COLWELL: So I think it would be very easy to set up and I think they would be quite anxious to show us. I know before we went into Maine for aquaculture, the people who actually owned the aquaculture sites were excited to see us. They showed us what they were doing and what not to do - a lot of really good practices. I found it very informative and I think it helped to direct the policy of the province, too, down the road after that. So I think it's important we do that - and sooner rather than later.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, okay. Well, I'm glad that the committee seems interested in doing it sooner rather than later. We'll draft a letter to the Speaker, a request for the funding, if he'll entertain it, and we'll try to get something put together as quickly as possible.

MS. RAYMOND: Are we going to include electronic waste or not? (Interruptions)

MR. CHAIRMAN: It wasn't really where I was. (Interruptions) Okay, if there's nothing else from the committee, we'll adjourn. So done.

[The committee adjourned at 9:53 a.m.]